Black Thursday 67 Years Ago Today

[TonyM]

On 14 October 1943 the 8th Air Force lost over 60 Bombers on the mission to Schweinfurt, Germany. In the days leading up to this mission, the 8th AF lost about 100 B-17s on just three missions on Oct 8, Oct 9, and Oct 10. The 8th took three days off and lost 60 B-17s on Oct 14, 1943. A real bad week.

TonyM.

[Holedigger]

Indeed dark days for the Mighty 8th. Proving the point that B-17s could rule the skies alone didn't fare so well. Then again, the Luftwaffe had many well trained and combat hardened veterans up against the "Green" aircrews. Terribly high casualties.

[VaBeachEd]

The Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach hosts a monthly event where an aviator from WWII will speak to our guests about their experiences - followed by a flight demo of the aircraft involved if possible. In Sept, our guest speaker was a B-17 waist gunner, whose aircraft was shot to pieces during the Schweinfurt raid. The plane managed to crashland in Switzerland, where the remaining crew (some bailed out, some KIA) was interned. Our speaker managed to escape from Switzerland and return to his squadron - about a year later. The vet, speaking from his wheelchair, kept our guests absolutely spellbound during his 45 min talk, and received a standing ovation upon it's completion. Considering the rapid rate at which the vets are leaving us, we were privelaged to hear him speak. It was truly a special day.

[Cherrybomber13]

If you use Google chrome for your browser they offer a toggle to translate the pages automatically, great site now that I can understand and read it

[TimAPNY]

Those numbers (x10 for aircrew) are astounding.

Here to the mighty 8th`

Tim

[Bill Greenwood]

Those were tough times for the escort fighters, the P-47s and Spitfires. By 43 the RAF had the Spit Mk IX and the best guys like Johnson thought they could deal with any of the Luftwaffe, but just didn't have the range to go all the way into Germany. I would have been hard to leave the bombers, especaially once it was know how bad their losses were running, but they had no choice. This was sort the reverse, and even worse, of what the 109 pilots faced in 1940 when they could get to England, but only had about 20 minutes before having to head back.

Some years back at Longmont, Co there was a reununion of these bomber guys. I asked one about fighter escort and he said they had fighter escort all they way; but unfortunately it was Spitfires for the first hour then every kind of fighter the Germans had for the rest of the run into the target and half way back until Spitfires could once again pick them up in France.. If I recall lead his section of 20 B-17s, had 18 shot down, one returned shot up with wounded or dead crew, and his was then only one of that part that got back ok.
You can imagine what this did to your nerves, even if you were young and brave.

I have ridden in a bomber, I have flown fighters and it is like a wolf among sheep, except there were a lot of sheep and they had a lot of .50 cals. But you can't run or even really dodge, the whole option is with the fighter.

[SPANNERmkV]

taken in Feb. 1944... fortunately they survived their trip on 14 Oct. 1943

Oct. 14th is a special day for me and my Dad.
He bailed out of Windy City Avenger- Got it back over England barely and he fractured a rib on the way out of the A/C while joing the caterpiller club.

14 Oct. 2009 was the return of TEXAS RAIDERS to flight status. What a year!

To think the 8th AF lost outright more B17s in one day than total surviving airframes at present.