AUGUST 17-19, 1942
B-17E “Butcher Shop”
August 17 was a red-letter day in the history of the Eighth Air Force. Eighteen B-17Es from the 97th Bomb Group - six each from the 340th, 341st and 342nd Bomb Squadrons, took off from their bases at Polebrook and Grafton-Underwood in Northamptonshire at 1530 hours, on the first bombing mission mounted by the USAAF in the ETO.
VIII Bomber Command leader General Ira Eaker, had originally ordered the mission be flown August 10, the day after the 97th group was declared operational after training for a month following their arrival in the UK in late June. The general was immediately confronted by an enemy the bombers would contend with to the end of the war: English weather. The field was covered in fog so dense one could not see the runway from the hardstands. The fog hung around for the next six days, only clearing unexpectedly on August 17.
The target for the dozen bombers of the “main force” was the Sotteville-lès-Rouen railroad yards in Rouen, the largest and most active railroad yard in northern France., while six more made a diversionary strike. The lead ship was B-17E 41-2578 “Butcher Shop,” flown by 340th squadron commander Major Paul Tibbets (who would fly a second historically-important mission three years later in the Pacific as commander of the B-29 “Enola Gay”), with 97th group commander Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, Jr. Flying B-17E 41-9023 “Yankee Doodle,” lead ship of the 341st squadron, was Brigadier General Ira C. Eaker. The 340th and 341st squadrons arrived over Rouen at 23,000 feet and dropped 19 tons of bombs on the the target between 1739 to 1746 hours while the six B-17s of the 342nd squadron flew along the French coast as a diversion. Accuracy was good. One of the aim points, the locomotive shops, was destroyed by a direct hit. The overall results were moderate.
General Ira Eaker, VIII Bomber Command leader
First Lieutenant Levon L. Ray aboard “Butcher Shop” was the group lead bombardier. He later recorded the mission in his diary: “Twelve ships with Colonel Anderson and our crew in the lead ship took off from Grafton-Underwood on the first all-American high altitude daylight raid of this war. Target was Rouen marshalling yards, which received a very good pasting. Opposition was very weak. Surprise was apparent and what few fighters did get up caused very little damage, one ship exchanged fire with a fighter and one of our ships was hit with a stray piece of flak.”
“Butcher Shop” crew
Among the German pilots who intercepted this first mission, but did not attack the heavily-armed bombers, were Oberleutnant Egon Mayer and his wingman, Leutnant Georg-Peter Eder of Jagdgeschwader 2 (JG 2). Mayer later recalled that he was surprised by the “great size” of the American bombers, though both he and Eder noticed that the B-17's formidable defenses did not extend to the bomber’s forward quarter. They would both make use of that knowledge in other observations of the early VIII Bomber Command missions that fall to devise what they called the “company-front attack” and American aircrews would remember as the terrifying “Twelve O’Clock High” head-on attack.
Hauptmann Egon Mayer of JG 2
For the Luftwaffe, the advent of the American bombers was different from the threat they had faced with the RAF’s 1941 offensive. Where the RAF had sent Blenheim light bombers, which carried a maximum bomb load of 1,000 pounds, generally in the form of four 250-pound bombs, the American B-17 carried 4,000 pounds of bombs, and the B-24 a load of 5,000 pounds. While the British bombers had been distinguished by an inability to create serious damage to their target and could often be ignored, the American bombers could carry sufficient heavy 500-pound or 1,000-pound bombs to punish their targets. Thus, the Jagdwaffe could not ignore them. The German fighters were forced to confront every raid, losing the tactical initiative they had maintained over Europe since the Battle of Britain. Fortunately for the fighter pilots, American strength was slow to develop, which gave them time to experiment with tactics and equipment with which to oppose the new enemy. Because JG 2 and JG 26 were positioned so close to the Channel coast, they needed more warning than the German controllers had been used to giving, if they were to have time to climb to the bomber’s altitude over 20,000 feet. In several of the early missions, the defenders failed to intercept due to a late warning. This incurred the wrath of both Reichsmarschall Göring and General der Jagdflieger Galland, who was finally promoted to Generalmajor (Major General) on November 1, giving him military authority equal to the responsibility assigned to him for organizing the fighter defenses.
Leutnant Karl Borris, Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 26, later wrote of the psychological impact of the B-17s and B-24s on German pilots: “Pilots were now facing the most formidable challenge of their lives. The size of the heavy bombers and their formations, and their unprecedented defensive firepower, could not be adequately described to the green pilot; they had to be experienced firsthand. The classical stern attack, which at the time was the only approved method, was frequently initiated and broken off too soon to cause damage. Range estimation proved difficult. The Revi gunsight was sized for attacks on fighters; the wings of a typical fighter filled its sighting circle at 100 yards range. The bombers loomed large in the Revi long before reaching effective range.”
Fw-190 being refueled
Two days later, on August 19, the second raid was flown to support the Allied raid on Dieppe. At 1130 hours, the II/JG 26 Abbeville-Drucat airfield was bombed by 24 B-17s from the 97th Bomb Group on their second mission. Bombing from 23,000 feet, the B-17s met no fighters since the Germans were busy elsewhere, but flak holed several of the bombers. The bombers reported a successful drop, and the radio on the airfield went off the air following the attack. The German air operations were not affected, since II/JG 26 was able to operate from the satellite airfields at Cambrai-Epinoy, Liegescourt and Amiens. Lieutenant Ray recorded the mission in his diary that night: “Twenty-four ships attacked Abbeville airdrome in support of the Dieppe Commando Raid. It was very successful, some flak, but few fighters. We hit the radio station and knocked it out and diverted the fighters from Abbeville further inland. Two enemy ships taking off disappeared in the smoke of one bomb. Colonel Anderson flew with us again as lead ship.”
Between August 17, 1942, and May 5, 1945 - the final bombing mission flown by an Eighth Air Force that had grown to send over 1,000 bombers and 850 escorting fighters on the final raid - the Eighth Air Force suffered more casualties, killed and wounded, than the U.S. Marine Corps did between the invasion of Guadalcanal on the 7th of that month the Eighth flew its first mission, through the entire Pacific campaign to the end of June 1945, when Okinawa was declared secure.
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I had the opportunity to crawl around in a B-17 when it visited our local airport, it was called Sentimental Journey. What impressed me most at first was in size of the passageways and crew positions. I would venture the the average sized current American wouldn't fit through the door. Then looking at the controls and electronics I wondered how the thing flew at all. A tin can with guns pointing everywhere. Those guys were nuts. My ex-father-in-law flew in one of those, he's passed away now, nicest guy you could ever meet, the fucking hero that he was.
By the way this weekend the Empire State Aerosciences Museum is hosting a talk by Beverly Weintraub, author of "Wings of Gold: The Story of the First Women Naval Aviators.” In the article in the local newspaper about it she had some interesting things to say about the pushback the female pilots got. Here's an excerpt, “Jane Skiles O’Dea was sent overseas, and when she reported for duty they told her there was one bathroom and she couldn’t use it,” said Weintraub. “Joellen Drag-Oslund was the first woman to fly a helicopter, but they told her she couldn’t land it on board a carrier because women weren’t allowed on ships."
The 97th BG and 92nd BG trained here in Sarasota, when Sarasota-Bradenton Airport was leased to the USAAF. The 97th's contingent included Paul Tibbets, which was prominently noted in the small display about the WW II years inside the SRQ terminal. Both were transferred down from MacDill AFB in Tampa, still active today as the home of Central Command.