ArtKramr wrote:
Subject: Aircrew casualities
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 9/26/03 3:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:
ArtKramr wrote:
snip
If I think back to the
missions I flew with the 344th and had to name a "typical" mission, I
couldn't
do it. We had no typical mssions.. Each one was unique, except of course
for
the milk runs, which in themselves were not typical.
Sure, but we're looking for statistical data on survival rates, and so far
the
only such data presented in the course of this thread is that which I
provided in
that post. Everything else has been perceptual or anecdotal. We now have
some
actual data (limited to a single mission though it is, and only 60 B-17
combat
losses out of the 4,688 B-17s combat losses in the European war as a whole),
which
is more than we've had otherwise.
Guy
You are only saying that because you never had to fly the Schweinfort mission.
If you had there would be no way in hell you would call it typical.
Juvat has already pointed out that I specifically stated that my comments referred
to the mission tactics, techniques, and weapons employment. As he says, the losses
were unheard of _to that time_, but as I pointed out in my reply to one of his
posts, not all that un-representative of subsequent similar missions.
Regensburg/Schweinfurt was the deepest penetration of Germany to date, but the
results were similar on other missions, if not quite so extreme. In the case of
first Schweinfurt, the German fighter controllers guessed right for the wrong
reasons; they'd re-positioned much of their fighter force to hit the Regensburg
force when it returned to England. That force continued on to Africa, but the
Schweinfurt force came in and returned on virtually the same track (neither force
had the range to take anything other than the most direct route to the target), so
the fighters hit them instead, both coming and going. The only reason they were
able to do so in that case was owing to English weather, and the decision by BG
Anderson to delay the takeoff of the Schweinfurt force for several hours as a
consequence. Sometimes things don't break your way.
Find me
one guy who went to Schweinfort and said it was just another mission like all
others. No big deal. Nothing special. Find me just one such guy. Guy you post a
lot of good stuff here, but sometimes you just slip away from reality.
How about several guys who went to Regensburg, who Middlebrook interviewed (and he
interviewed crew from every single U.S. bomb and fighter group that took part in
the mission, as well as German crew from every single fighter gruppe, and RAF
pilots from all the RAF fighter squadrons)? It really all depends on where you
were in the formation, and your perspective.
Middlebrook wrote:
"Two of the groups in the leading combat wing - the 96th and 388th - had never been
under serious attack and had so far suffered no casualties [Guy note: on the way in
to Regensburg; the 388th subsequently lost one a/c that ditched short of Africa
after being damaged by flak over the target). Several men in these groups refer to
the Regensburg mission as 'almost like a milk run'. But the officer observing from
the tail turret of the leading plane had been sending a steady stream of reports
about the action which had been taking place further back in the force and
reporting those losses which he could see. LeMay was well aware that his force had
taken heavy casualties."
So, several of the crews who Middlebrook interviewed considered Regensburg "almost
like a milk run," despite the fact that the percentage losses were actually higher
(16.4% vs. 15.7%) than the Schweinfurt force suffered. There were also units on
the First Schweinfurt mission who suffered no or low casualties, and may not have
even seen a German fighter. For those units and crews it was a milk run _for them
personally_. The 303rd and 306th BGs didn't suffer a single loss on First
Schweinfurt, just because the fighters didn't hit them. Other groups got hammered
- the 91st lost 9 of 24 dispatched, the 381st 11 of 26. Both of these groups were
in the lead wing, which took heavy damage. Wings further back in the stream
received much less attention.
Just the opposite was the case with Regensburg, where the lead wing encountered
little opposition, but the trailing wings got hit. Luck of the draw. The main
reason that crews on first Schweinfurt were aware of the heavy losses as a whole
was because they returned over virtually the same route as the way in, so they
could see all the ground fires from crashed a/c. Second Schweinfurt was another
matter; they expected to get hammered, with the experience of the preceding two
months and especially the preceding week as an indication of just what they were
facing. Even so, some units came through Second Schweinfurt without losing an a/c,
including the "Bloody 100th". Of course, the 100th was only able to put up 8 a/c
for that mission, owing to the heavy losses suffered on the Bremen (7) and Munster
(12 of 13!) raids on the 8th and 10th.
Guy