Beneficial Bombing: The Progressive Foundations of American Air Power, 1917-1945

4. Breaching Fortress Europe, 1942–43

103 4• Breaching Fortress europe, 1942–43 war, no matter how it may be glorified, is unspeakably horrible in every form.the bomber simply adds to the extent of the horror, especially if not used with discretion; but when used with the proper degree of understanding, it becomes the most humane of all weapons. • gEn. hEnry h. arnoLd, JunE 1943 I am concerned that you will not appreciate the tremendous damage that is being done to the german morale by these attacks through the overcast, since we cannot show you appreciable damage by photographs. . . . Just imagine for yourself bombs hitting washington and the Pentagon Building through a thick snowstorm. what will it do? the german people cannot take that kind of terror much longer.” • Lt. gEn. ira C. EakEr to arnoLd, novEmBEr 1943 17August1943 Thirteen minutes after the last of 139 b-17s from Eighth Air Force’s Fourth Bomb Wing had crossed the Dutch coast, the first German fighters appeared. Instantly, the bomber crews knew that their misgivings about the mission against the sprawling Messerschmitt factory at Regensburg were justified. The daylight raid would mark the deepest penetration into Germany yet for an American bomber force, and would occur in tandem with an assault by 222 b-17s of the First Bomb Wing against the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt, responsible for almost 50 percent of Germany’s output. Both the Regensburg and Schweinfurt formations would proceed to their targets largely unescorted despite sixteen squadrons of Spitfires and eighteen squadrons of p-47s that accompanied them across the English Channel, because no Allied fighter possessed the range to fly beyond the German frontier. 104 br e ac hin g f o r t r e ss eur o pe Eighth Air Force planners, though, had devised a scheme to get the bombers to their targets and back relatively unscathed. The Fourth Bomb Wing would depart for Regensburg fifteen minutes before the First Wing followed it for Schweinfurt, which would prevent German fighters from attacking both formations on the way to their targets. The Regensburg mission would initially draw the Germans’ attention, and by the time the First Wing’s bombers approached Schweinfurt, the German fighters would have landed to refuel and rearm, which would allow the Schweinfurt force to proceed to its target unhindered. In the meantime, after the Fourth Wing bombed the Messerschmitt complex at Regensburg, it would avoid further combat by flying south across the Mediterranean to land in North Africa. The Schweinfurt bombers would then battle the rearmed German fighters on the trip home to British bases. If everything worked as planned, the Germans would suffer major damage to two of their most important war-making facilities, and the American bombers would inflict that pain at minimal cost to the attacking force.1 Yet the plan that appeared so appealing on paper turned out to be lacking in practice. To succeed, it required near-perfect weather, crisp coordination between multiple layers of command, and zero mishaps as two large formations of heavy bombers took shape in the skies over East Anglia. Those demands were a lot to ask for from a bombing force that had never flown so far across hostile territory. Pre-mission briefers told crews to expect “negligible ” opposition, but the airmen had routinely flown missions that summer that produced loss rates approaching 10 percent, and expected the worst. Their fears increased when dense fog shrouded their British bases that morning. “The mission itself started under a cloud of doubt and we didn’t know until the last minute whether it would be scrubbed or not,” Colonel Curtis LeMay, the Fourth Bomb Wing Commander, said afterward. “Finally, 26 minutes be- 105 br e ac hin g f o r t r e ss eur o pe fore the take off, we received word from Bomber Command that the mission would go on.”2 The delayed notification plus the thick fog produced a corresponding delay in getting the bombers airborne. LeMay had trained his crews extensively in instrument take-offs, but even he called the assembly of his seven groups of b-17s “miraculous” given that they had to climb through two dense layers of overcast .3 The formation finally departed for Regensburg ninety minutes behind the time originally scheduled. Meanwhile, LeMay’s counterpart commanding the First Bomb Wing, Brigadier General Robert Williams, did not receive the take-off order until almost an...