19 October 1943
HQ, 8th AF
High Wycombe, England
Most post operation analyses were completed by report. For Mission 115, being the first deep penetration raid with round-trip escort, Gen. Eaker called the commanders of VIII Bomber Command and all three Fighter Wings (65th, 66th, and 67th) together with his staff and theirs for an in-depth look at the operation.
The mission plan had unraveled by the time the bombers were leaving their hardstands. Weather delays and mechanical failures reduced the number of bombers able to leave and one bomber from the 3rd Air Division crashed on takeoff (CTO), killing all ten crew. The weather further impacted assembly, delaying the bombers and loosening their formation during the initial penetration. Only two groups of the B-24’s of the 2nd Air Division were able to assemble at all and instead of going on their briefed route to the target they took the route of the planned diversionary force (which failed to materialize) over the North Sea and made an ineffectual attack on the Frisian Islands.
One Group of P-47s met each bomb division for their routes into the Netherlands and Belgium. They met light opposition from fighters identified as elements of the Luftwaffe’s 26th Fighter Wing out of Abbeville. They claimed six destroyed for one loss but a second Thunderbolt crash landed on its return and was written off.
The 1st Air Division had what was, by all considerations, a banner day. In all the 1st, 40th, and 41st Combat Bombardment Wings sent up a combined total of 149 B-17’s. While several aborted, the vast majority of them, 136, were Effective on Target. At the end of day, only nine failed to return (FTR)—two lost to enemy fighters on the way to the target, one lost to Anti-Aircraft over the target, and six lost to fighters on the return. Two of the returning Fortresses of the Division were Damaged Beyond Repair (DBR) and another 29 made it back with moderate to severe damage (RTD). They suffered 90 MIA from the missing aircraft, while on the others 15 were wounded and two KIA.
The 4th, 13th, and 45th Combat Bombardment Wings of the 3rd Air Division had a rougher time. While their way into the Target was only lightly contested with 131 of 142 sent Effective on Target and only a single loss on the way in, they suffered three down to Anti-Aircraft fire over the target. On the return trip they were hit hard by large groups of enemy fighters and with the escort forces badly depleted by that time, many of the enemy were able to get through to the bombers. In all, 13 bombers failed to return and three returned damaged beyond repair—one of which crashed and killed two of its crew. Another 52 of the returning B-17s from the Division suffered moderate to severe damage and these ships carried home nine more wounded and one returned with only three crew aboard, including one KIA. Not including the 10 killed during takeoff, 3rd AD casualties amounted to 137 MIA, 13 WIA, and seven KIA
Combined the 1st and 3rd AD suffered a loss of 21 A/C missing, 1 CTO, 5 DBR, 81 RTD, of the 292 set to fly on the mission, meaning better than 90% would be able to return to the sky. Total casualties were 217 MIA, 28 WIA, and 9 KIA. In exchange, the bomber gunners had submitted claims for 127 E/A Destroyed, 23 Probably Destroyed, and 51 Damaged—likely inflated numbers but they were under review for credit assignment.*
Post raid photography of the target showed that two of the ball bearings factories were completely destroyed and damage was sustained to almost all industrial infrastructure in and near the primary Aim Points. The bomb spreads were incredibly accurate for the 1st AD as they had a clearer target and reported the flak as merely “Moderate” in both intensity and accuracy. The 3rd AD were not quite as effective, but they were faced with bombing through a heavy smoke screen and the smoke from the 1st AD damage while facing what was almost unanimously reported as “Intense-Accurate” flak.
Both Bomb Divisions, but especially the 1st AD, credited their success and relatively low loss-rate to the presence of the P-38’s from the 78th Fighter Group.
Anderson’s work with the 65th Fighter Wing and the command staff of the 78th Fighter Group ensured that all 80 P-38’s were available and operational to sortie. This included the formation of a composite squadron of 78th FG HQ pilots, 82nd Fighter Squadron pilots, as well as four men each from the 338th FS / 55th FG and the 77th FS / 20th FG all flying 55th FG P-38’s. Six of the planes had to abort early and another three aborted before rendezvousing with the bombers but since they had passed into enemy airspace these three pilots were credited with a combat sortie.
As soon as they met the bombers near the German border they were intercepted by Enemy Aircraft, identified by Intelligence as components of the 1st and 26th Fighter Wings. From there almost all the way to the target they were under an heavy weight of enemy aircraft coming in waves never more than 15 minutes apart. These attacks included extensive use of aerial rocket-propelled mortars and even included attempts by the enemy to drop aerial bombs from a variety of aircraft including night fighters and dive bombers.
Their only reprieve was after the 1st AD made their turn south to set up for the I.P. until after the 3rd AD came off the target, about 40 minutes. During this fight into the target several P-38s were lost and more had to abort due to battle damage, mechanical issues, or were simply separated from the Group and returned alone. The 78th reported that 55 A/C were still with the bombers at the Target.
At this time, due to higher than planned fuel consumption, about half of the group returned with the 1st AD while the other half waited to escort the 3rd AD, as originally planned. After leaving the target both groups were hit, in succession, by large masses of enemy fighters—identified as components of the 11th Fighter Wing. Most of the Groups’—both bombers and fighters—losses occurred during these attacks.
Weather interfered again in the closing stages of the mission when it prevented the planned P-47 and Spitfire escorts from meeting the bombers and leading them out of enemy airspace. This left the much depleted force of P-38’s, many now critically low on fuel, as the only escorts available for this part of the journey.
However, after the approximately 20 minutes of repeated enemy fighter attacks off the target, no more enemy air opposition was met. Intelligence analysts estimated that most likely the German fighter defense forces were by that time used up and had been rendered combat ineffective by the P-38’s escorts.
In total, the 78th Fighter Group lost 11 aircraft, had two ditch in the Channel—Royal Navy SAR was able to recover one of the pilots—and another crash-landed on the return, Damaged Beyond Repair. In addition, 17 of the other returning Lightnings were Moderately to Severely damaged. Eight A/C had to land at alternate or emergency Airfields, with five of these making it only as far as Manston. Personnel losses amounted to 11 MIA (including one each from the 77/20 and the 338/55), 2 KIA, and 5 WIA. Among the wounded was Lt.Col. Herbert Johnson, C/O of the 77th FS /20th FG and among the missing was Maj. William May from the 82nd FS / 78th FG.
In exchange for their losses, they racked up an impressive tally of victories in what one pilot described as a “Target Rich Environment”—the Airman’s polite way of saying they were outnumbered.
The pilots of the 78th (including the several from 20th and 55th) submitted the following claims (Type: Destroyed/Probable/Damaged):
FW.190: 17/5/6
Me.109: 14/3/7
Me.110: 11/2/5 (incl. Me.210)
Ju.87: 6/0/1
He.111: 5/2/3
He.177: 5/0/2
Ju.88: 4/1/2
FW.200: 1/0/0
FW.189: 1/1/0
In total, this amounted to claims of 64 E/A Destroyed, another 13 Probably Destroyed, and 26 Damaged. Including the Probables, this put the 78th’s Victory:Loss ratio at 5.5:1. Many of these claims were still under review and being investigated, considering the tendency to over claim, but Intelligence was already estimating at least 40 of the claimed destroyed are accurate. When combined with the total claims from the bombers the 8th AF aircrews were claiming 191 E/A destroyed.
Many pilots submitted claims for multiple kills as well, including a replacement pilot and combat rookie from the 84th FS who claimed 3 destroyed and one damaged. Certainly one of, if not
the, best starts for any combat pilot in the 8AF to date.
The honor of highest tally, however, belonged to an HQ/78 Pilot from the Transition Squadron, Capt. Donald Hilgert, who had seen extensive action over North Africa and the Med with the 27th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group. Capt. Hilgert’s final tally of claims was 6 Destroyed, 1 Probable, and 2 damaged—a tally which earned him a recommendation for a fourth Distinguished Flying Cross.
Two of the claimed kills, and one probable, from the 78th came from a P-38 fighting alone to defend a damaged 91st BG B-17 against as many as seven Messerschmitt Bf.109s and were confirmed by the bomber crew. The After Action Reports of the both the fighter pilot and the Bomber crew agreed on the details, time, location, and order of the action and this prompted VIII Bomber Command to also give two confirmed kills to the bomber crew based on the 78th Pilot’s account.
The pilot, a Captain James A. Heidinger—another one of the 78th FG’s “Transition Pilots” assigned to HQ/78 to share his MTO experience with the group—had an additional 2 1/3 confirmed kills (the 1/3 shared with his flight leader and the top turret of an un-identified B-17), and second probable, and 3 other E/A damaged through the duration of the mission. This tally, combined with his 2.5 victories from his six months with the 82nd FG in North Africa, earned him a second Distinguished Flying Cross.
The consensus of the After Action reports and debriefings was that an early cannon hit on Capt. Heidinger’s A/C had, unknown by the pilot, damaged his Oxygen supply which ran out shortly after leaving the target. This forced him to separate from the group and fly alone at low altitude where he eventually met the damaged B-17, a 323rd Squadron plane with a 401st Squadron crew, being attacked by the E/A. Even though he knew he was running low on fuel and his aircraft was already damaged, he took the initiative and attacked the German fighters, outnumbered 7:1, and saved the bomber. The bomber eventually made it back, all the way to Bassingbourn, on two engines with 2 WIA but incredibly no KIA. Capt. Heidinger’s C/O, Lt.Col. Stone, had submitted a recommendation to award Capt. Heidinger a Silver Star for this selfless action.
The 78th reports indicated several reliability and mechanical issues but the actual failure rates were similar to what was being experienced by other types of the A/C in the theatre, notably the P-47’s. Even with that, the bigger problem for the P-38’s was a lack of fuel. The command staffs of the three Fighter Wings would, in the future, work to better coordinate and disperse the escort duties on each leg of a mission so that the long-range escorts would be able to avoid enemy action until after their droppable tanks had been used. This will require that the penetration escorts accompany the Bombers deeper into enemy airspace before the target escorts take over—easily accomplished by ensuring the penetration escorts are also
always fitted with external fuel tanks.
The final assessment of the mission was that it had been a resounding success for the bombers and had proved that P-38’s were viable long-range escorts. The primary recommendation by the Bomb Divisions and by the 78th Fighter Group was simply to provide more P-38’s on all future deep-penetration missions.
23 October 1943
The Eagle Public House
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
“To the seventy-eighth!”
Hilgert, Gaffney, Heidinger, and few others were toasting their Fighter Group one last time before going their separate ways. With the 78th now fully transitioned to P-38’s and flying full-strength operational sorties there was no longer a need to have such a concentration of experience in an over-staffed HQ for the Group. The USAAF, in all it wisdom, were re-distributing them to other units.
Gaffney was staying with the 78th to take Maj. May’s place in the 82nd Squadron. Hilgert was being re-assigned to the 20th Fighter Group HQ to bring them more institutional experience as they continued to wait for their full allotment of airplanes and gear up for independent operations.
As for Heidinger, all of his long flights providing bomber escort in the Med and now with the 8th had racked up his Combat Time enough that the 65th Fighter Wing HQ had deemed his Combat Tour over. He was being sent back to the States to join one of the P-38 Replacement Training Units. He had not received his final assignment as yet, but he was to board the Queen Elizabeth in one week and would be home in time to have Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Illinois for a 30 day furlough. He was excited to be going home but also sad that his time in combat was over.
At least the Schweinfurt raid would not be his last combat sortie. On the 20th of October he had joined the 78th in providing escort on a raid to Duren, German, just east of Aachen. They ran into more E/A in the Aachen area again, the same group that Greywall had fought on the 14th. This time the Germans were better prepared to face fighters and none of their aircraft carried bombs or rockets. The fight was tough but the 78th gave as good as they got and Hilgert added more to his increasing tally even though Heidinger’s usual bad shooting failed to bag him any more Jerrys.
“The Seventy-Eighth!” The group of American fighter pilots clicked their mugs together and each shared a deep draught of the bitter English dark.
Moments later a group of four other American airmen came over, all wearing the single bars of 1st Lieutenants on their collars. One of the men, a tall man with dark complexion, spoke for the group.
“We’re sorry to interrupt, but did you say the ‘Seventy-eighth?’”
“That’s right.” Gaffney responded.
“You guys are the Lightning pilots, right? Checkerboards?”
“That’s us.”
“I want to…” he looked at his companions, “we all want to buy you guys a round. You saved our asses the other week.”
“Schweinfurt?”
“Yeah,” the four men grabbed chairs and squeezed in around the four fighter pilots, “you guys were everywhere.” He reached his had to Gaffney, “Lieutenant Bob Slane, Pilot. This here is Lieutenant Johnson, my co-pilot, Lieutenant Foster, Navigator, and Lieutenant Runner, my Bombardier. We’re with the 401st Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group.”
After their introductions were complete, the B-17 Pilot continued, “We lost our number-four engine to flak over the target, then we got hit by Focke-Wulfs and lost number three. We ended up alone at eighteen thousand feet and losing altitude when our Tail Gunner comes on and says there are seven one-oh-nines coming at us gear down, then gear up, attack, and come around.”
The description of the attack had Heidinger’s un-divided attention. Gaffney and Hilgert, both of whom had already heard Heidinger’s story, also noticed and each gave Jim a sideways glance as the Fortress driver continued.
“We were running our two good engines to the red line trying to stay up and evade these Jerrys but I figured we were done for. Then our ball gunner is shouting and laughing in the intercom that a P-38 came up alone and clobbered a couple of the Germans from our tail. Our crew saw him knock down two, maybe three, of them and he led them by us and our engineer nailed another. He chased all of them off on his own. It was one helluva bit of flying.”
Gaffney slapped Heidinger on the back, “Well, I think you’ll want to save your drinks for the Captain here.”
Lt. Slane looked at Heidinger, “You mean…?”
The many fights that day were all pretty confused and Heidinger did not want to take credit where none was due so he inquired, “Number seven-fourteen?”
The bomber pilot grinned, “That was us.”
The next few moments were filled with hand-shakes, laughs, and mutual admiration. When the commotion settled down a little, Heidinger felt a strange wave of relief roll through his body. He had not even realized how concerned he had been for the bomber in the time since the mission until that moment, when he knew they were home safe. “You made it back, O.K.?”
“Yes. All the way to Bassingbourn. How about you?”
“No. I took a pretty bad hit from that last one-oh-nine and ended up running out fuel so I put down at Manston.”
“Well, thank you anyway. I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for you we’d all be Goering’s guests right now, or worse. You are one helluva pilot, Captain.”
“Thanks, but it was more luck than anything. Right time, right place.” Wanting to change the subject he went on, “Hell, if you want to see good flying, you ought to watch Captain Hilgert, here. He bagged six of ‘em that day! Speaking of which, Hil, I’ve been meaning to ask you: on the way in, when you went to save the guys from the 20th, how the hell did you reverse so damn fast?”
“Oh, that,” Hilgert shook his head, “I can’t take credit for that one. An old squad-mate from the 27th talked me through it when I was in trouble last spring. I call it a ‘MacKay Turn.’ You just can one throttle, gun the other, and rudder-roll into the slow side. The first time I did it, I had a dead engine and nearly spun out right into the Med. Scary as hell but effective if you can hold on.”
The conversation drifted about for a while, the Fighter pilots sharing their horror for what it must be like to be such sitting ducks in a lumbering bomber while at the same time the Bomber crew expressing how thankful they are not to have to face the long flights and the enemy all alone in the cramped cockpit of a fighter.
As the evening wore on the fighter-jocks and bomber-boys shared a few moments of peace and joy, each man knowing that any one of them may be gone tomorrow.
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OTL Black Thursday
