06 Apr Mission 8 – February 20, 1944
February 20th was on a Sunday. This was the 1st day of Operation Argument, Big Week, the Allies’ week-long offensive against the enemy aircraft industry. For the first time, the 8th Air Force sent more than 1,000 bombers deep into Germany.
From Thurleigh to Leipzig, the longest mission yet. And only 80 miles from Berlin.
This was quite a logistical feat … to coordinate bombers from many different airfields along with their fighter escorts. Can you imagine what the families in the English countryside must have thought as they looked out into the predawn sky and saw hundreds of bombers in the sky, in formation, setting out for their respective target areas? Such a sight will never be seen again.
The video is of a B-17 formation as seen from one of the planes. It gives you an idea of what the crews would have seen as they flew toward Germany.
Herman’s crew’s target, along with 416 other B-17’s, was the Leipzig-Mockau Airfield and aircraft assembly plant. Leipzig is where a Junkers Ju 88 assembly plant was located.
This was Herman’s deepest penetration into Germany so far. And the longest – in the air for 10 hours. By now the crew was flying the Liberty Lady, their B-17 which had arrived at Thurleigh on January 18th.
“… the Leipzig mission hardened me … We had good fighter escort, but if a Jerry makes up his mind he is coming through, then it is pretty near impossible to stop him.”
Johnny
Posted at 06:04h, 07 Aprillove seeing the video… really brings it alive
Rowdy
Posted at 19:42h, 22 MayWe are living at a time and with technology our fathers would have relished. With a number of us 2Gens sharing information, it is possible to understand something that was so large and complex that our fathers never really understood it very well.
I recall Dad being elated at finding a picture from a man half way across the country, that showed the plane Dad was aboard when the picture was taken. Although it was a blurry shot, they were able to work it out from a knowledge of where they were flying within the formation that day.
It’s tough for an airman or sailor to get a picture of his craft while he is aboard it…you can’t take it yourself. That leaves the task to some complicated forethought and planning, which is not something that comes naturally to twenty-something kids.
The very best photographs taken during WWII were those taken by the Army photographers…they knew what they were doing with their cameras. You can identify them as being the shots having a line of white identification writing along the lower border. Unfortunately, it seems that most of those pictures were either discarded or reside somewhere in a musty NARA file.
Through the AAF forum, I made a contact with a historian who had a trove of these pictures taken by the photographers assigned to his Group…a different one than my father’s. However, he suggested that since the two groups were geographically close, they often flew together on missions, and asked if I knew the plane numbers my father flew. Happens that Dad kept a detailed log of all the planes he flew and of the missions, dates, etc.
The gentleman looked through his trove and found two pictures, both of them very sharp and of a single B-17 alongside the photo ship, both of them carrying my father on that particular day–this we knew from the data printed along the bottom of the print which gave the date and target information, while the picture clearly showed the plane number on the tail. Dad would have been delighted to have seen these, but he never did. The technology we now use wasn’t available when he was active….a shame.
These kinds of things are possible now. For a great picture file showing a wide variety of well photographed WWII vintage flight and ground subjects, see the 457th Bomb Group site and look for the Zemper Collection on that site. Several of the pictures show Col. Smith very clearly…he was the unfortunate pilot who later flew into the Empire State Building.
Also, make a Google search for WWII Air Force. Switch to the images search, and key in the search term followed by: source:Life
This will take you to the images that have been scanned from the old Life Magazine files…another wonderful source of high quality images on a number of subjects.
Pat
Posted at 04:52h, 23 MayRowdy, I have looked at the photographs both in the Zemper Collection and from the Life Magazines. Excellent resources. Plus, now I want to learn more about Margaret Bourke-White, who took so many of them. And it is amazing that you were able to find photographs of the B-17’s carrying your Dad. Great detective work!