"The Changing Size and Character of Heavy Bomber Operations" - infographic from a November 1944 8th Air Force report

[wokelly]

I've been going through a Microfilm reel I got from the Air Force Historical Research Agency located in Maxwell Alabama and I stumbled upon this nice info-graphic from a 1944 report prepared by the 8th's Operational Research section on request from James Doolittle entitled "An Evaluation of Defensive Measures Taken to Protect Heavy Bombers from Loss and Damage." The whole report is great to read, but I really liked this section for showing the evolution over 2 years of USAAF bomber operations over Europe. I stitched together the 4 different images into one, unfortunately when the microfilm pictures were taken a little bit got cut off (in the center of the image below), but the vast majority of the info is still visible. Hopefully some of you interested in US heavy bombers will find it interesting.

 

Image is almost 7000 pixels across so you'll need to zoom in to read the small details.

 

Edited August 1, 2022 by wokelly

[[DBS]Tx_Tip]

Great post and thanks for putting it up. Welcome to the forums btw.

 

Excellent overview of how both 8th AFs bomber and fighter tactics evolved and how the Luftwaffe's tactics responded to those changes.

Tip