11 May Weather Berlin
Following Big Week, the next significant target for the 8th Air Force was Berlin. By day. It was a perilous plan. As Donald Miller described, the bombers were bait for the Luftwaffe, to bring them up into the air, to battle. The German capital was powerfully defended, and this would be the Eighth’s toughest target.
Rowdy, whose father also flew on that day, and who has helped me in many aspects of my research, wrote the following about his Dad’s first missions. Can you imagine … a brand new crew, and your first missions are to Berlin!
My father’s 447th BG, together with the other groups of the Eighth, flew their 3 March mission to Berlin-it was Dad’s first combat mission. It was to have been the Eighth’s first daylight mission to that target, but it was scrubbed due to bad weather.
They launched again on 4 March bound once more for Berlin and again the mission was scrubbed due to bad weather. However, this time Dad’s plane lost 2-engines on the same side causing them a forced landing at Eastchurch, an RAF fighter base …
… Dad and his crew flew missions to Berlin on the 8th and the 9th before the target was shifted to Munster the next day. For them, their first 3-missions as a rookie crew were to Berlin. Quite an initiation for a rookie crew… during a 7-day period, the Eighth flew 5-missions to Berlin, Dad’s crew flew 3 of those first Berlin missions, but missed the big one on the 6th through a stroke of good luck caused by two engines out!
As we have learned, the weather in Europe during these winter months was hard to predict and dangerous. In an ideal situation, the crews needed to safely take off, fly deep into Germany, see the target, and return home. It was never ideal.
On the morning of Monday, March 6th, Herman’s crew was up at 3 am, breakfast at 4. During the briefing, the explanation of what the weather would be like that day was of course critical to the crew’s survival. They would have had to take it all in.
I’ve posted an actual weather briefing filmed for a later mission to Berlin. The speaker alludes to previous bombings of Berlin and describes conditions on this day as “ideal” which we know was not true on March 6th. Can you imagine sitting in the audience, knowing where you were headed, and having to concentrate well enough to “take this all in?”
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