Second Raid on Schweinfurt

The second Schweinfurt raid^[7] bombed World War II ball bearing factories to reduce production of these vital parts for all manner of war machines. Named Black Thursday because the loss of aircrewmen was the highest for any USAAF mission. The American Official History of the Army Air Forces in the Second World War acknowledged losses had been so heavy that the USAAF would not return to the target for four months; "The fact was that the Eighth Air Force had for the time being lost air superiority over Germany".^[3] The film Twelve O'Clock High (1949) dramatized a similar, but fictitious, air raid

Mission

Factories in and around Schweinfurt accounted for a significant amount of German ball-bearing production. The Kugelfischer plant produced 22 percent, and the Vereinigte Kugellagerfabriken I & II produced 20 percent, and another one percent came from the Fichtel & Sachs factory.

After the German ball bearing "bottleneck" had been identified in 1942 and ball bearings had been named the second-most-vital Pointblank industry for the Combined Bomber Offensive in March 1943, Schweinfurt's ball bearing plants were selected for a second air raid after being bombed during the August Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.

Each of the three bomber wings was to be escorted by fighters from a single group with multiple squadrons of P-47 Thunderbolts. The fighters were inexplicably not employing drop tanks which limited their escort range.^[8] One fighter outfit was sidetracked to escort a squadron of 29 B-24s that switched to a diversion mission to Emden because of the bad weather forecast. Some 229 of 291 B-17s hit the city area and ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt, Germany in two group: the first group bombed at 1439-1445 hours, the second group at 1451-1457 hours. They claim 186-27-89 Luftwaffe aircraft. 60 B-17s are lost, seven damaged beyond repair, and 138 damaged; casualties are five KIA, 40 WIA and 594 MIA. In addition, the bomber formations were spread out and vulnerable because of bad weather. The Luftwaffe military intelligence officers had suspected a deep penetration air raid because of the substantial raids. Jagdgeschwader 3 intercepted the bombers as they crossed the coast, but P-47s succeeded in shooting down seven Bf 109s while losing just one P-47. Over the Netherlands JG 1 and 26 made repeated attacks. The 305th Bomb Group lost 13 of its 16 B-17s in minutes.^[9] The B-17s were attacked after bombing by fighters that had refueled and rearmed (JG 11 downed 18 B-17s).^[10]

Overall 60 bombers were shot down by German fighters and flak and 17 additional bombers were damaged so badly, that they crashed upon return or had to be scrapped afterwards. Another 121 bombers returned with moderate damage.^[5] Of 2,900 crewmen, about 650 men did not return (65 survived as prisoners-of-war),^[11] while five killed-in-action and 43 wounded were in the damaged aircraft that returned (594 were listed as missing-in-action). Among the American losses was the 306th Bomb Group. It lost 100 men: 35 died on the mission or of wounds, and 65 were captured. The 305th Bomb Group lost 130 men (87%), with 36 killed.^[12]

Result

The bombing that day ranged from poor to spectacular, but with the exception of the failure of the 2d Bombardment Division at Danzig and Gdynia, bombing at all targets was of a high order. At Anklam the Arado factory, engaged in manufacturing components for the Fw 190's, suffered damage to virtually all its buildings. Damage to naval units and port facilities at Gdynia was also severe. But it was at Marienburg that the most brilliant bombing was done. There the Focke-Wulf plant was almost completely destroyed by high-explosive and incendiary bombs dropped with unprecedented accuracy. Although at both Marienburg and Anklam the bombing was done at relatively low altitudes (11,000 to 14,000 feet), a tactic permitted by the surprise nature of this unexpectedly long flight, accuracy (especially at the former) was remarkable and was hailed by General Eaker as "the classic example of precision bombing. Of the 598 x 500-pound GP bombs dropped over Marienburg, 286 were identified by aerial reconnaissance as having fallen within the factory area. Of these, at least 35 were direct hits on buildings. In addition to the destruction by high explosives, incendiary bombs caused major damage by fire; but their poor ballistic qualities prevented as fine a concentration of them as with the high explosives.^[13]

This day's work served to raise still higher the general level of bombing accuracy, which had shown distinct improvement since summer. In July 1943 the Eighth as a whole placed only 12.7 per cent of its bombs within 1,000 feet of the aiming point and 36.7 per cent within 2,000 feet. In October these figures had been raised to 27.2 per cent and 53.8per cent, respectively. The change may be explained in part by the fact that the new bomber groups, which arrived in May and June, had become gradually more experienced. Then, too, bombardier training had received special emphasis both in the theater and in the United States during the summer and early fall and had been recognized as the heart of the entire training program.^[13]

Notes

^a 59/1 downed/ditched + 5/12 crashed/scrapped^[14]

References

Bibliography

External links