This week in aviation history

June 12, 2023

Week of June 11 - 17:

June 11, 1942: US Army Air Force B-24s bomb the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti for the first time. The origins of this raid go back to January 1942, one month after the United States entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor. With Axis forces stationed in Europe and Asia, the Allies realized they would need to rely heavily on airpower if they wanted to have success in the battle against the Axis. One plan that came out of this realization was the establishment of the Tenth Air Force in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater of operations. Included in this force was a group of 23 B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, headed by Colonel Harry Halverson.

Halverson's new group of B-24s, which were manned by handpicked crews, became known as the Halverson Project (HALPRO). Halverson, a pilot during the First World War, served in 1924 as a ground support organizer in India for the U.S. Army's Round the World Flight and had also flown with American aviation pioneers Ira Eaker and Carl Spaatz.

HALPRO's original planned assignment was to fly from Florida to Brazil and then on to Africa before making their way to Chekaiang, China, from which they would fly bombing raids on the Japanese Home Islands. However, by mid-May 1942, a Japanese offensive that threatened Chekiang forced the plans to be changed. Instead, in cooperation with the British, HALPRO was diverted to Egypt. The plan now was to attack the strategically vital Axis oil fields in Ploesti, Romania. The hope was that by attacking such key resources the Allies could cripple the Axis's manufacturing and military operations.

With this new plan in place, HALPRO departed the United States on May 22, 1942, for Khartoum, Sedan, and then on to northeast Egypt. While maintenance problems grounded some of the arriving aircraft, 13 of the available B-24s took off on June 11, 1942, at 1030 hours for Ploesti. One crew bombed the Romanian harbor of Constanta, while the remaining bombers approached Ploesti individually at 14,000 feet. Owing to bad weather, the bombing runs were inaccurate and caused negligible damage to the target. In all, 24 tons of bombs were dropped, and a small number of enemy fighters from the Romanian 8th Fighter Group were encountered. One B-24 was claimed shot down by Romanian fighters, but this report is not supported by American records - Halverson’s aircraft and three others landed at Habbaniyah in Iraq, five landed at other fields in Iraq and Syria, and four landed and were then interned in neutral Turkey.

While this first raid inflicted little damage on the target, it did prove that long-range heavy bombers could breach enemy airspace and attack strategic targets. The HALPRO B-24s and their crews became the first American heavy bombers assigned to the Mediterranean theater and would eventually become the 1st Provisional Bombardment Group when they were joined by B-17s from India. Eventually becoming the 376th Heavy Bombardment Group, this force would go on to attack the German Afrika Korps and the Italian Navy. Halverson would be awarded the Silver Star for leading the Ploesti raid.

June 14, 2023

Week of June 11 - 17 (Part 2):

June 12, 1944: the V-1 offensive against Great Britain begins, as 9 V-1s are launched from positions near the Channel coast in the Pas-de-Calais area. None of the V-1s launched on this date reached their targets.

On the following day, June 13, only 4 V-1s reached Great Britain. Of these, two were spotted as they flew over No. 3 Squadron's airfield at Newchurch, and one was possibly spotted during a patrol in the early morning hours. The report for the day from the squadron reads:

"Early this morning approximately 04.00 hours an aircraft identified by a fluctuating jet of flame as either a rocket or jet propelled aircraft flew across the airfield at a height of 1500 - 2000ft steering a steady course of 330deg. at an estimated airspeed of 350 - 400 M.p.h.. The aircraft was coned by searchlights and was clearly visible from the ground. Shortly afterwards a similar aircraft passed over and was engaged by local A.A. batteries without result. A section was scrambled and patrolled to intercept these aircraft but nothing was seen during the period by our section.

S/LDR A.S. DREDGE, P/O G.A. WHITMAN (RCAF), F/SGT POTTINGER and F/SGT ORWIN took off at 05.10 hours to search the PAS de CALAIS area for launching sites of the jet aircraft. While on patrol North and South of GRIS NEZ a light was seen in the air at about 2000' and identified as the flare from a jet or exhaust glow of a S/E aircraft. The light was pursued by our section in an Easterly direction but it eventually moved out of sight."

June 14, 1944: the first "Mistel" is shot down 25 miles southeast of Caen by a Mosquito from No. 410 Squadron RCAF. The Mistel was a late-war project of the Luftwaffe which typically consisted of a Ju 88 packed with explosives in the nose section and a Bf 109 or Fw 190 mounted to the top of the fuselage. The pilot in such a combination would navigate to the target area and then, once lined up with the target, would detach the Ju 88 (with its pair of engines still running).

On this date, the Mistel consisted of a Bf 109 and a Ju 88 A-4 from 2./KG 101, and it was out on a training and familiarization flight prior to the unit's first raids against the Normandy invasion fleet. The victorious pilot, Flight Lieutenant Walter Dinsdale, reported that the crash of the Mistel "lit up the countryside for miles." Oberfeldwebel Heinz Lochmüller, the pilot of the Bf 109, was wounded but survived, while Oberleutnant Albert Rheker, who was in the Ju 88, was killed in the crash. Shortly after midnight, another Mistel would be claimed shot down by a Mosquito from No. 264 Squadron RAF.

June 20, 2023

Week of June 18 - 26:

June 20, 1941: the United States War Department creates the United States Army Air Force (USAAF), with General Henry "Hap" Arnold as its first commander. With the creation of the USAAF, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) ceases to function as the primary combat air arm of the United States Army. The USAAC would now function as the training and logistics element of the USAAF. Additionally, as part of this reorganization, the former General Headquarters Air Force became Air Force Combat Command for frontline combat operations, under which the USAAF would operate.

The USAAC had originally been formed on July 2, 1926, as part of the Air Corps Act. It had been formerly known as the United States Army Air Service, which had been the Army's combat air arm overseas during the First World War in 1918. The strength of the USAAC grew from nearly 10,000 personnel in 1927 to over 150,000 by 1941, and it consisted of five Wings and multiple assorted other formations for much of its existence. After March 9, 1942, the USAAC ceased to have an administrative structure, but as it was the permanent statutory organization of the force's air arm and the principal component of the Army Air Forces (AAF), most of the personnel assigned to the AAF were members of the USAAC.

The USAAC would continue to exist as an organization until September 18, 1947, when as part of the National Defense Act it was disestablished and the USAAF became the United States Air Force.

June 22, 2023

Week of June 18 - 26 (Part 2):

June 22, 1941: the Germans invade the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. As part of this opening salvo in the war on the Eastern Front, hundreds of bomb-laden Luftwaffe aircraft flew eastward across the border shortly before 0300 hours to attack Soviet airfields. The Soviet Air Forces (Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily, or VVS) were caught completely off-guard, with one Luftwaffe fighter pilot remarking that "there was no anti-aircraft fire, no movement, and above all no enemy aircraft in the air to oppose us."

As the VVS (Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily, or VVS) was in a state of transition from older airplane types like the I-16 and I-153 to more modern ones like the MiG-3, LaGG-3, and the Il-2, their airfields were more often than not packed with aircraft parked out in the open or in long rows. Consequently, airfields like the one at Brest saw the destruction of some twenty I-16s and I-153s in multiple attacks on this day.

However, following the shock of these initial Luftwaffe raids, the VVS began to respond, and by the end of the day it had flown approximately 6,000 sorties. Dimitriy Kokorev, a MiG-3 fighter pilot in 124 IAP, performed the first successful taran - an air-to-air ramming - when he brought down a Dornier Do 17 of KG 2 with the propeller of his plane. The impact knocked Kokorev unconscious but he eventually recovered and successfully brought his plane down in a forced landing. For this feat, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Kokorev would fly another 100 sorties and shoot down a total of 5 enemy planes before being shot down and killed in October 1941.

By the end of the day, the total losses inflicted on the VVS were devastating: 1,489 planes were claimed destroyed on the ground by the Luftwaffe. These numbers were initially disbelieved even by the Luftwaffe high command, but as the German forces moved east, it was revealed that the number of planes destroyed was more than 2,000. However, the Luftwaffe did not escape this day unscathed, as it lost 78 planes, to which must be added a further 11 losses suffered by the Romanians.

June 29, 2023

Week of June 25 - July 1:

June 29, 1942: 12 A-20 Boston Mk IIIs of No. 226 Squadron RAF bomb the marshaling yards at Hazebrouck in German-occupied France. Flying in this raid is American pilot Captain Charles Kegelman of El Reno, Oklahoma, and his all-American crew consisting also of Lt. Bell (bombardier), Sergeant Bernie Cunningham (radio operator / dorsal gunner), and Technical Sergeant Golay (ventral gunner). All these men were assigned to the 15th Bombardment Squadron of the 27th Bombardment Group. With this action, Kegelman and his crew are the first airmen from US Eighth Air Force and the US Army Air Force to drop bombs on enemy-occupied Europe.

The combat report from No. 226 Squadron mentions that "all aircraft bombed from 12,500 to 13,000 feet", with two hits "seen on railway lines at eastern end of yard and one or two bursts on railway lines and shed at western end." No antiaircraft was encountered either at the target or at the coast "but there were many dog fights between our Spitfires and enemy fighters." All A-20s safely returned to base at Swanton Morely in East Anglia.

The 15th Bombardment Squadron eventually received its aircraft in August 1942 - former RAF Bostons and new planes delivered from the US. It would then fly several missions with RAF Bomber Command before being transferred to Twelfth Air Force in October in preparation for the Allied Landings in North Africa. The crews of the 15th were eventually absorbed by the 47th Bombardment Group (Light) and the squadron was hence inactivated.

Captain Kegelman would later become the first airman from the Eighth Air Force to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on July 4, 1942, while on a bombing mission over occupied Holland (seen in the image below). After completing a tour of duty in North Africa, he was eventually promoted to Colonel and returned to the US to command an air base in Oklahoma. Kegelman eventually lost his life in a flying accident over the Phillippines on March 9, 1945.

July 6, 2023

Week of July 2 - 8:

July 5, 1943: Operation Citadel, Germany's last major offensive on the Eastern Front, commences. As part of this operation, the Luftwaffe gathers its strongest concentration of forces since the Stalingrad battles of the year prior. 1. Fliegerdivision, with 726 planes, goes into the battle in support of Army Group Center, while Fliegerkorps VIII, with 966 planes, flies in support of Army Group South. Arrayed against this air armada are 5 Air Armies (VAs) of the VVS: 1 VA, 15 VA, and 16 VA against 1. Fliegerdivision, and 2 VA and 17 VA against Fliegerkorps VIII. Added to these numbers on the Soviet side are the approximately 400 night bombers of the Long-Range Aviation (ADD).

The Soviets were well-prepared for the German onslaught, but by the time 2 VA and 17 VA sent up Il-2 formations to attack the Luftwaffe's airfields, the Germans were already airborne to attack the Soviet artillery batteries of the Voronezh Front which had opened up with a preemptive barrage at 0210 hours. Consequently, Fliegerkorps VIII claimed to have shot down 38 Soviet aircraft during their attempt to attack the Luftwaffe's airfields at dawn on this July 5.

Also on this day, the PTAB high-explosive anti-tank cluster bomb was employed in combat for the first time. The Il-2 pilots of 291st Shturmovik Divison claimed to have destroyed 30 German tanks on this day with this new weapon.

The scope of the air fighting on just the southern flank of Operation Citadel on this day is remembered in large part for the intense air activity on both sides: 2387 sorties flown by the Luftwaffe and 220 aircraft claimed shot down (the true number of Soviet planes lost was 186). This came at the cost of 27 planes shot down and another 18 sustaining moderate or severe damage. While these numbers appear lopsided, the ferocity with which the VVS fought on this day surprised the Germans, with the Chief of Staff of Fourth Panzer Army noting that "the Russian air forces pounded on our units much more heavily than we had expected."

Meanwhile, on the northern flank, 16 VA suffered heavily at the hands of the Fw 190s from JG 51 and JG 54: 100 planes lost, including 83 fighters, 16 Il-2s, and 1 A-20. In exchange, 1. Fliegerdivision lost a mere 7 fighters shot down. Even so, 1. Fliegerdivison lost 29 planes in total on this day, and the attrition rate would only get worse as the battle wore on in the coming days.

July 11, 2023

Week of July 9 - 15:

July 9, 1944: while returning from an anti-shipping patrol at night in his No. 854 Naval Air Squadron Avenger Mk I torpedo bomber, Royal Navy pilot Sub Lieutenant D. P. Davies spotted a V-1 flying bomb approaching from astern. As the V-1 overtook the much slower Avenger, Leading Aircraftman Fred Shirmer (Telegraphist Air Gunner) aimed and shot down the V-1 at 700 yards with the plane's rear-firing dorsal turret. It took Shirmer only 20 rounds to down the V-1. For this action, Shirmer was Mentioned in Despatches; he was later awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in January 1945 for his actions during Operation Meridian at Palembang in modern-day Indonesia.

Also on this day in 1944 in Normandy, British I Corps fought its way into the French city of Caen, finally capturing all of the city to the north of the River Orne. In addition, Carpiquet Airfield was at last secured after fierce fighting that inflicted particularly severe casualties on the Canadian infantry. The taking of Carpiquet was greatly aided by Typhoons which had made multiple sorties against 17 dug-in tanks at the east end of the runway in the days prior.

Additionally, No. 453 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force had a very successful day as it undertook a patrol over the Lisieux area. The Australians encountered some 40 Fw 190s and Bf 109s, which resulted in Squadron Leader D.H. Smith claiming a 109 probably destroyed (confirmed in German records) and a 190 damaged. Other pilots of the squadron claimed two more 190s destroyed and three damaged, plus a 109 destroyed and two damaged. All of the Australian Spitfires returned to base unharmed.

July 10 - 12, 1943: the German offensive at Kursk on the northern flank of Operation Citadel grinds to a halt, despite the Luftwaffe dominating the skies. On July 11, 16 VA lost 31 planes to 1. Fliegerdivision's airmen, including an 11.5% loss rate in the fighter units. The fog of war often meant that pilots overestimated their victory counts, but on this day the Luftwaffe's claims matched exactly those losses suffered by the VVS. In exchange, 1. Fliegerdivison lost only 3 planes on this day. Despite this total control of the skies - 16 VA flew less than 100 sorties on the 12th - the ground war was an entirely different picture on the northern flank by this date. The German Ninth Army now dug in for the inevitable Soviet counteroffensive.

July 13, 2023

Week of July 9 - 15 (Part 2):

July 10, 1943: Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, commences. Included in the Allied air support are the British carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Formidable, both carriers of the Illustrious class. In response, the Axis air forces attack the Allied invasion fleet. This force included the Ju 88s of III./KG 54, which sank the destroyer USS Maddox while the latter was on antisubmarine patrol about 16 miles offshore of Gela. One of the bombs detonated the ship's aft magazine, which caused the ship to roll over and sink in about 2 minutes. Of the crew of 284 men, only 74 survive. III./KG 54 would continue to attack the Allied invasion fleet over the next several days.

July 12, 1943: the last of 1,814 Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers leaves the production line at Baginton Aerodrome in Coventry, in the West Midlands region of England. This airframe was a B Mk. V model with serial number LA 951. It was subsequently employed as the towing aircraft for the A.W.52G Flying Wing glider plane. LA 951 survived the Second World War and was ultimately scrapped in June 1949; by that time it was likely the last intact Whitley.

July 18, 2023

Week of July 16 - 22:

July 17, 1939: the first Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter prototype, R2052, flies unarmed on this day for the first time from RAF Filton, just north of Bristol, England. Two weeks before this flight, the British Air Ministry had issued a production contract for 300 planes under Specification F.11/37, ordering the aircraft right off the drawing board.

R2052 had been completed six months after the completion of the first F.11/37 prototype, the latter of which was a partially-completed Bristol Beaufort airframe. After its initial flight, R2052 remained at Filton and continued to be flown by Bristol for testing purposes. Early modifications to the airframe included changes to the elevator control unit, increasing the fin area, and modifying the main oleo struts to better handle increases in weight and hard landings. During pre-delivery flight tests, the aircraft reached 539 km/h at 5120 m while powered by a pair of two-speed Bristol Hercules I-IS engines.

R2052, the first of four prototypes and seven pre-production aircraft, was eventually delivered to the RAF less than a year later on April 2, 1940. The type would go into initial production as the Beaufighter Mk. I, powered by Bristol Hercules XI engines.

July 18, 1942: the prototype Me 262 V3, callsign PC+UC, flies for the first time entirely under jet power at Leipheim, Bavaria. This plane, the third prototype Me 262 built by Messerschmitt, was the first airframe to be fitted with Junkers Jumo 004A engines.

At the controls of PC+UC on this day was Messerschmitt's Chief Test Pilot, Flugkapitän Fritz Wendel. Unlike later airframes, PC+UC was fitted with a tailwheel landing gear configuration. This proved problematic, as turbulence from the wings and reflected jet exhaust blanked out the tail surface as Wendel accelerated for takeoff. Once the plane reached flying speed, Wendel tapped the brakes; this caused the tail to pop up free of the turbulence and permitted Wendel to take off safely at 0840 hours.

July 25, 2023

Week of July 23 - 29:

July 24-25, 1943: 791 Royal Air Force bombers bomb Hamburg in the opening raid of Operation Gomorrah, also known as the Battle of Hamburg. Conceived by RAF Bomber Command chief Air Marshal Arthur Harris, Operation Gomorrah was a systematic effort over eight days to destroy the German city with both daylight raids by the US Army Air Force and night raids by RAF Bomber Command.

This night marked the first time the Royal Air Force used chaff, codenamed "Window" to jam the German early-warning radar network. The idea of using chaff originates in 1937 when British researcher Gerald Touch theorized that lengths of wire suspended from airborne objects like balloons or parachutes could overwhelm a radar system with false echoes. British physicist R.V. Jones expanded on the idea that pieces of metal falling through the air could do the same thing, and this is what was dropped on Hamburg on this night. Small aluminum strips were cut to half of the target radar's wavelength, which would return a signal to the radar station and thus make it impossible to distinguish aircraft from the many echoes radiated by the chaff.

The July 24-25 raid on Hamburg also marked the first time that Mosquito Pathfinder Force aircraft reported on the winds they encountered over the target; this information was processed and relayed to the navigators in the bombing force. Prior to this, the Panther Force would maintain radio silence on their sorties.

All told, 2300 tons of bombs were dropped on Hamburg on this night, which set fires to the city that continued to burn for three days. Twelve RAF bombers were lost on the raid, while 1500 persons in Hamburg were killed.

The RAF would return to Hamburg on the night of July 27-28 and inflict destruction on the city far in excess of the July 24-25 raid.

July 28, 1943: German single-seat fighters employ the 210-centimeter BR (Bordrakete) 21 rocket system for the first time. The BR 21, also known as the Werfer-Granate 21, was based on the 21-centimeter Nebelwerfer 42 multiple rocket launcher system used by German ground forces. While the weapon's accuracy was not stellar (approximately 15%), the idea was that a Staffel of German fighters could launch a barrage of these rockets from beyond the effective firing range of the heavy machine guns employed on the B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers and score about 2 or 3 hits. It was also hoped that the rocket's large blast radius - which could shower a bomber with shrapnel, even if it did not score a direct hit - would physiologically rattle the bomber's crew and cause it to drop out of formation.

On this day, Fw 190 fighters employing this new rocket system claimed several victories over American bombers raiding the Henschel aircraft factories at Kassel and the AGO Flugzeugwerke plant, the latter of which built and refurbished Fw 190s in Oschersleben in modern-day Saxony-Anhalt.

The bombing of Oschersleben set a new distance record for the US 8th Air Force, but the raid itself was a fiasco. "Of 21 Fortresses dispatched by the 96th [Bombardment Group], only 5 bombed the target. Ten planes aborted; but not with impunity because every one of them returned somewhat crippled. Even these aborts gave as well as they got. An analysis of Major Reynolds Benson's "Gunners' Claims" shows that even the ten aborting bombers accounted for 6 E/A destroyed, 7 probable, and another 11 damaged. But the group nightmare came with the realization that 7 planes did not return."

"Even when the Luftwaffe's time-detonating rockets failed to down a Fortress, it did the next best thing - it caused the bombers to spread out. Fortresses lost their defensive firepower. B-17s turned for England in disarray. The Luftwaffe was having a turkey shoot. Many Americans were flying their fourth mission in five days."

(From https://www.rumboogiecrew.com/mission18july281943, a great web page detailing "The history of a brave crew from the greatest generation, a sturdy B-17, and 25 missions to fly during World War 2."

July 27, 2023

Week of July 23 - 29 (Part 2):

July 27, 1942: Sixteen Mustang Mark I aircraft of No. 2 Squadron RAF make a fighter sweep over the Ruhr, marking the first time an Allied fighter flew over Germany during the war. The Mustang Mark I was the first production variant of what eventually became known in American service as the P-51, though these first planes were not employed operationally by the US Army Air Force. Within North American Aviation, the designer of the plane, the new model was designated NA-73 and NA-83.

The NA-73 design was released by the US Army in May 1940 for sale to the United Kingdom but stipulated that the 5th and 10th production aircraft were to be delivered to the USAAF for testing; these two planes were designated XP-51. The first production contract for 320 NA-73s was signed by the British on May 29, 1940, at a cost of $50,000 per plane. Another order by the British followed in September for 300 NA-83 planes.

The first production Mustang Mark I (AG345), was completed on April 16, 1941, and made its first flight nine days later. These first Mustangs were fitted with an 1150-horsepower Allison V-1710-39 engine and armed with four 0.50-cal heavy machine guns and four 0.30-cal machine guns. Two of the heavy machine guns were mounted in the lower fuselage and were synchronized to fire through the propeller arc. The rest of the guns were mounted in the wings and fired clear of the propeller arc.

A year later in April 1942, the Mustang Mark I went into operational service for the first time with No. 2 Squadron of the British Army Cooperation Command at Sawbridgeworth, the northernmost region of the Greater London Urban Area. These early Mustangs were regarded by the RAF as quite capable of tactical reconnaissance and ground-attack work, but above 15,000 feet performance fell off significantly.

The first operational Mustang mission would then take place on May 10, 1942, when No. 2 Squadron raided an airfield in France. This would be followed by further missions until the sweep over the Ruhr was flown on July 27.

August 1, 2023

Week of July 30 - August 5:

August 1, 1944: the Mosquitoes of the RAF's 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF) have a big day. In the evening hours, 24 planes from No. 21 Squadron and No. 487 Squadron, escorted by Mustangs from No. 65 Squadron, conduct a precision attack on the Caserne de Dunes, while aircraft from No. 107 Squadron attacked the Chateau de Fou, and No. 305 (Polish) Squadron hit a saboteur school at Maulny.

These attacks were the result of information passed on to the 2nd TAF two days earlier by the Special Air Service (SAS) that German security forces were about to launch an anti-Resistance sweep against the Maquis and remaining SAS forces in central France. The Germans had assembled some 2,000-3,000 troops of the 158th Security Regiment in Poitiers for this operation, and it was believed by Allied intelligence that most of them were billeted in the Caserne des Dunes. The remaining members of the formation were billeted in the Chateau de Fou, to the south of Chatellerault.

All of the Mosquito attacks proved very successful - a later estimate calculated that the 158th Security Regiment had suffered 80 percent of its personnel killed in the two raids directed against it on this night. The only loss suffered by the attacking force was one Mosquito from No. 21 Squadron; this crew, consisting of Flight Lieutenant Mussett (pilot) and Flying Officer Burrows (navigator), eventually escaped safely. No. 21 Squadron's Summary of Events (R.A.F. Form 540) notes that their aircraft was "last seen some way past the target on one engine."

As part of the attack on the Chateau de Fou, the Mosquitoes were hoping to flush out a German general occupying the castle. However, he survived and escaped by plane the next morning.

The Caserne de Dunes, which had originally been built in 1878, would be rebuilt after the war and served as the American headquarters for western France until 1966 when France announced its intention to withdraw from NATO. The Chateau de Fou, constructed at the end of the 15th century, suffered heavy damage to its north and south wings but was subsequently repaired.

Chateau de Fou:

The first page No. 21 Squadron's Form 541 (Operations Records Book, or Record of Events) for August 1944:

August 8, 2023

Week of August 6-12:

August 11, 1937: the prototype P.82 Defiant, which would become known as the Boulton Paul Defiant in the Royal Air Force (RAF), makes its first flight. The Defiant, along with the Blackburn Roc of the Royal Navy, was unique in being designed as a "turret fighter," that is, it had no forward-firing armament. All of the armament in the Defiant was located in the plane's rear-firing turret.

The idea of a turret fighter arose in response to the new monoplane bomber designs of the 1920s and 1930s that outpaced the contemporary biplane fighters of the day. This led to the idea of the bomber "always getting through" in a future conflict where these new bombers would be able to penetrate enemy defenses with impunity. Additionally, it was believed these bombers would fly their missions without fighter escorts, as the fighter designs of the time did not have the range to escort the bombers to their targets and back.

In response to this, the RAF came up with the idea of a turret fighter. The basic idea was that a formation of such planes would be able to fly alongside or below the enemy bomber stream and the turret gunners would be able to focus all their attention on attacking the enemy bombers. Such an arrangement would also allow the pilots to focus their attention on putting the plane in the best firing position for the rear gunner.

Following tests with 59 Hawker Demons, the British Air Ministry released a new specification in April 1935 that called for a two-seat day and night "turret fighter" capable of reaching 290 miles per hour at 15,000 feet. On April 28, 1937, the Air Ministry placed an initial production order for 87 P.82 Defiants, several months in advance of the first flight. Four months later, on August 11, K8310, the first prototype, flew for the first time; Boulton Paul's chief test pilot Cecil Feather was at the controls. This first flight was made without a turret fitted.

The first flight of a Defiant with a turret, K8620, took place on July 30, 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. In the interim, the production order for the Hawker Hotspur, which had initially been deemed the better of the turret fighter designs, was canceled in 1938 (owing largely to Hawker's commitment to other designs, including the Hurricane).

The P.82 eventually went into production as the Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I. When the Defiant was initially revealed to the public, the RAF sought to confuse the enemy by claiming it had 21 guns: four in the turret, 14 in the wings, and three cannon in the nose (see below illustration). While the design initially saw some success in the battles of 1940 over France and the Low Countries, high losses to enemy fighters eventually forced the RAF to withdraw the plane from daylight combat and reassign it to other roles, including that of night fighter, training, target towing, electronic countermeasures, and air-sea rescue.

Despite the design's limitations, the Defiant did find some success: Flight Sergeants E R Thorn and F J Barker destroyed 12 enemy aircraft over the Dunkirk evacuation beaches and during the Battle of Britain. Both men were awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal on June 14, 1940, for bravery in action. Today, one intact Defiant Mk I, N1671, is on display at the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, England.

The first prototype Defiant: K8310, shown fitted with a turret:

The "Twenty-One Gun Warplane":

August 15, 2023

Week of August 13 - 19:

August 17, 1943: 376 B-17s from 16 bombardment groups of the US Eighth Air Force fly Mission No. 84, which would become known in history as the Schweinfurt-Regengsburg mission.

In the summer of 1943, American and British planners for the Combined Bomber Offensive, which saw the Americans bombing by daylight and the British by night, identified the ball-bearing industry as a critical strategic target. If the German ball-bearing plants could be destroyed, it was surmised, the production of German war material could be crippled and the war could be brought to a swifter conclusion. While RAF Air Marshal Harris dismissed such objectives as "panacea targets", the Americans saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate once and for all the effectiveness of precision daylight bombing.

To split the German fighter defenses, the Third Air Division, led by Colonel Curtis E. LeMay, would take off first and bomb the Messerschmitt aircraft factory at Regensburg, 430 miles inside occupied Europe. Following the raid, they were to land at airfields in North Africa. This force consisted of 146 B-17s. The plan was to then have the First Air Division, commanded by Brigadier General Robert B. Williams, take off nine minutes later and head for the ball-bearing plants at Schweinfurt. This follow-on force consisted of 230 B-17s and was ordered to return to England following the completion of the mission.

However, on the morning of August 17, fog over the bomber airfields in East Anglia delayed the Third Air Division by 90 minutes. Meanwhile, the First Air Division was stuck on the ground and, instead of taking off nine minutes later than the Third Division, it finally took to the skies 4 hours behind the Regensburg attack force. This protracted delay would have dire consequences, especially for the bombers sent to Schweinfurt.

In August 1943, the development of the P-51 Mustang into a long-range escort fighter was still in progress, so the fighter escort assigned to the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission could only remain with the bombers for a limited amount of time. RAF Spitfires could stay with the bombers only as far as Antwerp in Belgium, and the American P-47 Thunderbolts would have to turn back at Eupen, about 10 miles short of the German border. At the time of the mission, the US Army Air Force did not believe this would be an issue, erroneously believing that the Bf 109 and Fw 190 airfields were concentrated along the European coast - well within the range of the Spitfires and P-47s. Beyond this point, it was believed, the only fighters the attackers would have to deal with were the slower and less-maneuverable Bf 110s.

Once the last fighter escorts turned back at Eupen, the intercepting Bf 109s and Fw 190s pounced on the B-17s, sometimes attacking in groups of up to 25. The job of warding off these attacks was made more difficult by the fact that most B-17s were of the F model, which lacked the nose turret that eventually came in the G model. Owing to the large delay between the two air divisions taking off, the Luftwaffe fighters were able to land, rearm, refuel, and then take off again to attack William's Schweinfurt force. Williams's men lost only one bomber in the fighter belt, but the Luftwaffe shot down 23 between Eupen and Schweinfurt, and several more over the target. Williams himself took over a machine gun and fired it until the barrel burned out.

The attack on Regensburg was generally a success. The main factory buildings were hit, and 37 Bf 109s just off the production line were destroyed. Additionally, most of the jigs for the Me 262 jet fighter were destroyed. LeMay's bombers then turned south and landed at their bases in North Africa after some 11 hours in the air.

Schweinfurt proved to be a different story, for varying reasons. The bombing accuracy was not as good as at Regensburg and less than one-third of the bombs carried were of the 1000-lb variety. Consequently, most of the heavy equipment at the factories remained intact, and the damage done was temporary. From the American point of view, this raid was a failure. However, the damage caused an estimated 38 percent drop in ball-bearing production, which left the Germans with stocks that were sufficient to cover only six to eight weeks. However, Eighth Air Force did not possess the means to determine how effective the raid had been, and in any case, there were insufficient planes to mount a follow-on raid.

From the American point of view, the more alarming issue to arise from the Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid was the staggering loss rates. LeMay's Regensburg force lost 24 planes (a 17.26 percent loss rate), while Williams's force lost 36 planes (a 16.21 percent loss rate). Added to this were the many B-17s that had to be written off due to heavy damage. Of the 601 crewmen lost, 102 were killed in action, while 318 were taken prisoner. The remainder either evaded capture, were interned, or were rescued from the sea.

On the German side, Luftwaffe losses amounted to between 25 and 35 fighters - far below the 288 planes claimed by the B-17 gunners and the additional 19 claimed by the escorting fighters. It would not be until October 14 that the Americans would mount another raid on Schweinfurt, and that raid would prove to be even more costly than the first one.

More information about both the August and October raids can be found here: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0210schweinfurt/

(Author's note: I was stationed in Schweinfurt with the U.S. 1st Infantry Division from 2003-2005 and so was able to see the area around the ball-bearing factories first hand ?).

B-17 formation over Schweinfurt on August 17, 1943:

August 23, 2023

Week of August 20 - 26:

August 23, 1942: Luftwaffe bombers destroy three-fourths of Stalingrad as part of Case Blue, the Wehrmacht's strategic summer offensive in the southern sector of the Eastern Front which had begun on June 28. In particular, the attack on Stalingrad was part of Phase II of Case Blue, which consisted of German Sixth Army attacking eastward from Kharkov and moving in parallel with Fourth Panzer Army on its northern flank to reach the Volga at Stalingrad.

August 23 marked the formal day when Generalleutnant Friedrich Paulus, commander of Sixth Army, launched his attack toward Stalingrad with the intent to capture the city within two days. By 0430 hours, armored spearheads from XIV Panzer Corps's 16th Panzer Division had broken out of their bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Don Bend and were advancing eastward against relatively weak Soviet ground forces.

Up in the sky by this time was the bulk of Luftflotte 4, which was tasked with covering the German ground forces as they moved eastward. Owing to the intensity of the attack, Luftwaffe pilots had little respite on the ground. One Ju 87 pilot from StG 77 recalled, "Since early morning we were constantly over the Panzer spearheads, helping them forward with our bombs and machine guns. We landed, refueled, received bombs and ammunition, and immediately took off again." Farther eastward, German reconnaissance planes spotted the movement of Soviet troops and supplies, which resulted in even more effective air strikes.

In response, the Soviet 8th Air Army (8 VA) put in an all-out effort to stop the German advance. As 8 VA had suffered high losses in bombers and Sturmoviks in the past weeks, its fighters were called upon to attack the advancing ground forces. U-2 regiments, which were normally tasked with nighttime sorties, were pressed into daylight attacks which resulted in disastrous losses. One regiment, the 596th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, lost 19 of its 20 planes in an air raid on this day.

The ultimate effect of 8 VA's air operations on August 23rd was to increase the victory counts of the German fighter pilots. Kurt Braendle, commander of II./JG 3, scored 3 planes early on this morning to become the 17th German pilot to score 100 victories. Hermann Graf, leading JG 52's 9. Staffel had added 4 more victories to his ever-growing list by midday. By day's end 30 Soviet aircraft had been shot down in the Don Bend area at the cost of a single Bf 109 downed by antiaircraft fire.

By the afternoon of this day, Sixth Army reached the western bank of the Volga north of Stalingrad, thus splitting the Soviet defenses of the Stalingrad Front via a 5-mile corridor. Owing to the Luftwaffe's total control of the air, the Soviet reconnaissance planes did not spot this development for more than an hour. Il-2 attack planes attempted to attack this new German bridgehead, but owing to the fog of war these planes mistakenly attacked troops of the Soviet 23rd Tank Corps.

In an effort to save German ground troops from the sort of street fighting that had recently taken place at Voronezh and Rostov, Luftflotte 4's commander, Generaloberst Wolfram von Richthofen, ordered his bombers to carry out massive air strikes against the city of Stalingrad itself. When the first wave of 200 bombers, escorted by 50 Bf 109s, flew in over the city at around 1900s hours, the German airmen only encountered sporadic opposition from Soviet fighters operating in small groups. While Soviet pilots reported multiple German planes shot down, only one Ju 87 and He 111 were recorded by Fliegerkorps VIII as shot down by intercepting Soviet fighters during this operation. Furthermore, in spite of Soviet heavy antiaircraft fire (the guns of which were operated by women), only one German plane is known to have been shot down by AAA.

Compounding the disaster which befell Stalingrad on this day was the fact that, at first, the residents of the city did not heed the air raid warnings on this evening. This was due to the many false alarms which had been sounded previously. But, the Luftwaffe kept coming, targeting both industrial sectors and residential areas. The oil storage tanks on the banks of the Volga were hit, resulting in balls of flame rising 1,500 feet into the sky. In the following days, this smoke could be seen from 200 miles away.

By the end of this night, the Luftwaffe had dropped 1,000 tons of bombs on Stalingrad over the course of 1,600 sorties. Furthermore, the records from the Luftwaffe list no more than 8 aircraft lost on August 23. Owing to the tremendous devastation wrought by this raid, the exact casualty total on the Soviet side will likely never be known.

Stalingrad burning after the August 23 raids:

August 29, 2023

Week of August 27 - September 2:

August 27, 1944: 15 Hawker Typhoons from Nos. 263 and 266 Squadrons are led by Wing Commander Baldwin in an attack against six ships that had been spotted off the coast of Étretat, in the Normandy region of northwestern France. Baldwin was unsure these were hostile vessels and so radioed Operations to confirm the identity of the ships; he was assured that no such Allied ships were in the area and therefore must be presumed hostile. Even after the Typhoons made their approach and fired off signal flares to confirm their identity, the orders from higher up were still to attack the ships.

The convoy, which consisted of 4 minesweepers and 2 trawlers, was hit hard; none of the ships escaped being hit or suffering casualties. Three of the minesweepers were sunk and the fourth was so badly damaged it was later scrapped. However, as Baldwin had feared, these were Royal Navy vessels. All told, 78 sailors were killed and 149 were wounded, though these numbers do include those casualties inflicted when German naval guns shelled the survivors.

The cause of the friendly fire lay in the fact that the minesweeping flotilla had failed to notify its higher command of a change in course, and so Royal Navy HQ did not expect any shipping to be in the area in question. Consequently, this is why the attack was authorized, and no blame was leveled at the RAF. The commander of the flotilla later remarked, "It is felt that the fury and ferocity of concerted attacks by a number of Typhoon aircraft with rockets and cannon is an ordeal that has to be endured to be fully appreciated."

The records for 263 Squadron on this date note, "Owing to doubt as to identity, Controller was asked four times whether to attack and was told that the ships fired coloured lights" and after commencing the attack, "There was some light flak." Probably with a hint of irony, the log for 266 Squadron notes, "The squadron had a very successful shipping strike, destroying two destroyers and one mine sweeper, damaging one other, unfortunately, Royal Navy shipping ordered by the mistake of the Admiralty to be attacked and destroyed. Admiralty took full responsibility."

September 4, 2023

Week of September 3 - 9:

September 7, 1942: the Consolidated XB-32 Dominator prototype strategic bomber flies for the first time at Tarrant Field Airdrome just west of Fort Worth, Texas.

Development of the B-32 officially began in June 1940, when the U.S. Army Air Corps requested a similar strategic bomber design from the company in case of development difficulties with Boeing's B-29 Supefortress. Development of the B-29 had been underway since mid-1938. Consolidated's original proposal, known internally as the Model 33, was similar to the company's B-24 design, with a twin-tail and large Davis wing, but with a larger, rounder fuselage and rounded nose. Like the B-29, the Model 33 was powered by Wright Duplex Cyclone radial engines and featured a pressurized cabin. Defensive armament was specified as fourteen M2 .50 caliber heavy machine guns mounted in remote-controlled retractable turrets.

The first contract for two XB-32s was signed on September 6, 1940, the same day as the contract for the XB-29 prototype. One year and one day later the first XB-32, serial number 41-141, made its maiden flight. Problems with the pressurization system, the gun turrets, and the landing gear doors meant that these items were omitted from this first aircraft. Instead, the initial armament consisted of eight M2 .50 caliber heavy machine guns in dorsal and ventral turrets, plus a combination of two .50 caliber machine guns and a 20 mm cannon in each rear engine nacelle, plus two .50 caliber machine guns in the wings outboard of the propellers.

XB-32 41-141 would eventually make a total of 30 test flights before crashing on May 10, 1943. To solve one of many problems, the second prototype was fitted with a B-29-style tail after its 25th test flight in an attempt to solve stability issues. However, the problem still persisted, so the third XB-32 prototype was fitted with a Consolidated-designed vertical stabilizer and first flown in early November 1943.

Ultimately, due to serious program delays and the successful use of the B-29 in the Pacific, the B-32 saw limited combat in the Pacific Theater before the end of the war in August 1945. The first combat evaluation missions were flown by General George Kenney's 386th Bombardment Squadron, 312th Bombardment Group on May 29, 1945, against targets in the Philippines. On August 18, four B-32s (on a photo-reconnaissance mission to observe Japan's compliance with the cease-fire order) became the last American aircraft to engage in combat (which also resulted in the last airborne combat fatalities) when they were attacked by a mixed formation of A6M Zeros and N1K2 Georges. Among the Japanese pilots in this encounter were the aces Saburo Sakai and Sadamu Komachi. The last combat photo reconnaissance missions were flown 11 days later, ending the short-lived combat career of the B-32.

Production contracts for the B-32 were canceled on September 8, 1945, and all production ceased on October 12. The last surviving Dominator, a B-32-1, was written off and destroyed in 1949. No complete B-32s are known to exist today. A wing panel is on display at the Montgomery Memorial in San Diego, California, and a handful of A-17 nose and tail turrets (unique to the B-32) are in the collections of various organizations throughout the United States.

XB-32 Dominator 41-141, the first prototype, taxiing:

September 12, 2023

Week of September 10 - 16:

September 11, 1944: The US Eighth Air Force launches Mission 623. This force, consisting of 1,131 strategic bombers and 440 fighters, carries out a series of raids on synthetic oil plants and refineries in Germany. As part of this raid, a formation of 36 B-17s from the 100th Bombardment Group (BG) - composed of the 349th, 350th, 351st, and 418th Bombardment Squadrons - was assigned to bomb the Schwarzheide Synthesis Factory at Ruhland/Schwarzheide in eastern Germany. What ended up taking place was a furious clash around midday between German Luftwaffe fighters and the Americans over the Ore Mountains, which separate the historical regions of Bohemia in Czechia and Saxony in Germany.

The 100th BG had received two Distinguished Unit Citations by this point in the war for its missions to Regensburg on August 17, 1943, and for missions to Berlin between March 4th and 8th, 1944. As a result of heavy losses sustained in combat (177), it was known by this time both as the "Bloody Hundredth" and the "Hard-Luck Group". While its losses were more or less comparable at that time to other strategic bomber groups, the difference with the 100th's losses was the high number of planes lost on individual missions. This dramatically reduced the strength of the group's Squadrons to dangerously low levels.

The Schwarzheide Synthesis Factory was Target No. 7 (of 10 total) on this date in September 1944. As part of the mission plan, the 100th BG flew unescorted over Germany en route to the target; it was only when reaching the Ore Mountains that it was to rendezvous with its P-51 escort from the 55th and 339th Fighter Groups. However, the Germans had been alerted to the incoming American aircraft and scrambled a formation of some 60 Fw 190s and Bf 109s from JG 4's II. and III. Gruppen, based in Alteno and Welzow.

By 11:40 hours, Bf 109s from III./JG 4 were engaged in heavy dogfights with the P-51 escorts south of Oberhof, which resulted in the deaths of 6 Germans and 2 Americans. One of the two American pilots, Lt. William Lewis, was not recovered until 2002. On the Eastern side of the mountains, the Fw 190s of II./JG 4 joined the battle and struck down on the 100th BG before the rendezvous with the escort fighters took place. In a short amount of time, the Luftwaffe fighters from both JG 4 Gruppen shot down 14 bombers and claimed several more damaged. Eventually, the P-51s reached the combat area and allowed the remaining B-17s to escape. These survivors eventually reached Ruhland and dropped 53 tons of bombs on the synthetic oil plant.

The Air Battle over the Ore Mountains proved to be very costly to both sides. On the German side, JG 4 lost 37 planes (18 Fw 190s and 19 Bf 109s). A total of 29 of its pilots were killed and 11 more were seriously injured; for many of these airmen, this had been their first combat mission. Meanwhile, on the American side, not a single plane from the 350th Bombardment Squadron returned to base. The total American losses in this battle amounted to 50 Americans killed, 54 captured, and 19 planes lost (15 B-17s and 4 P-51s). Owing to the ferocity of the combat, most of the shot-down planes on both sides fell in a very small region over the Ore Mountains.

Among the losses suffered by the 100th BG was B-17G "Boss Lady" from the 350th BS, shot down over Schmiedeberg (modern-day Kovářská). The tail section struck the roof of a girl's school. The ball turret gunner, Sergeant J.C. Kluttz, rode the tail section down and survived (along with 3 other crewmen). After the war, the school was renamed the Kluttz Academy.

Fifty years later, on September 11, 1994, a memorial in Kovářská was unveiled in memory of the airmen who were killed in the air combat over the Ore Mountains. The white cloth covering the memorial was removed at 12 hours and 21 minutes, which was the exact time when the wristwatch of one of the downed airmen stopped 50 years prior.

Further reading:

Museum of Air Battle over the Ore Mountains

Boss Lady's History

The Final Mission is Completed (The story of William Lewis's life and recovery)

B-17G Boss Lady:

Boss Lady's tail embedded in the roof of the girl's school:

September 19, 2023

Week of September 17 - 23:

September 21, 1944: On a black day for the Western Allied Air Forces, 16 C-47 transports and 14 Stirling bombers converted to glider tugs are lost while attempting to resupply and reinforce Allied airborne and glider troops locked in combat with German forces as part of Operation Market Garden.

Operation Market Garden had been launched four days earlier, on the 17th of September, as a combined airborne and ground operation. Its objective was the creation of a salient into German territory, with a bridgehead over the Lower Rhine River, and the establishment of an Allied invasion route into northern Germany.

In response to Market Garden, the Luftwaffe put up relatively strong forces to thwart the airborne component of the operation but initially met with little success. Over Arnhem, on September 17, not a single transport was intercepted by German fighters, although 27 C-47s were still lost to ground fire. Among the losses suffered by the Luftwaffe on this date was Major Klaus Mieutsch, commander of Bf 109-equipped III./JG 26 and holder of the Knight's Cross with 75 victories. He was shot down and killed by a P-51 from the 361st Fighter Group's 376th Fighter Squadron. The 18th brought more high losses to both sides (17 C-47s and claims made for 32 German fighters), but again the C-47s were provided effective protection by Allied fighters, and none were lost to fighter interception.

September 19 finally saw the Luftwaffe gain air superiority over Nijmegen in the late afternoon hours, but still, they were kept away from the Allied transport formations. On the following day, the worsening weather kept the air forces of both sides grounded.

With the weather improving somewhat on September 21, it was decided to airlift the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade to Arnhem in Stirlings to reinforce the hard-pressed British 1st Airborne Division. Along with this, C-47s from both the US Army Air Force and Royal Air Force would fly in and airdrop supplies to the surrounded airborne troops. Among the RAF squadrons taking part in the resupply operation were Nos. 48, 271, and 437 Squadrons. Altogether, this relief force numbered some 114 planes.

As the weather was still far from ideal, only 90 P-47s from the USAAF's 56th and 353rd Fighter Groups were able to escort this force. The 56th FG was subsequently intercepted by a large formation of Fw 190s from JG 26 near Osnabruck. In fierce combat, the 56th FG claimed 15 victories for the loss of a single P-47, but in so doing, other Fw 190s from I./JG 26 struck down on the now-defenseless C-47s over 's-Hertogenbosch. In this combat, the German airmen claimed 17 "Douglas aircraft" shot down, including four by Oberleutnant Alfred Heckmann for his victories 66-69, before escaping unscathed.

Three more C-47s were claimed shot down by II. and III./JG 26 before their attacks were broken up by the 353rd FG. This resulted in three 190s and 109s being shot down. Meanwhile, the Stirlings were intercepted by fighters from JG 4, JG 3, JG 77, and JG 300 from 1525-1550 hours. Major Gerhard Michalski, commander of JG 4, was among the successful pilots in this engagement.

With an overall loss rate of over 25 percent, the losses sustained on September 21, 1944, continued the bloodletting of the Allied transport forces that had not let up since the beginning of Operation Market Garden. In No. 48 Squadron, which had dispatched 13 planes, 5 aircraft were lost and a 6th crash-landed after flak had severed its oil and fuel lines; one of these lost planes was reported to have had its port wing torn off by a pannier dropped from an aircraft overhead. No. 271 Squadron had 3 aircraft totally destroyed and a fourth badly damaged, out of 12 planes sent out. In No. 437 Squadron, which sent out 9 planes, three aircraft did not return, and a fourth made an emergency landing after being damaged by flak.

The squadron reports from this day give a good sense of the ordeal faced by these transport crews. No. 437 Squadron, which had just been formed at the beginning of the month, noted in its Summary of Events that "Altogether it was rather a hard day for the newly-formed Squadron." In No. 48 Squadron, it was noted that "fighter cover was very scarce and very late"; with a hint of irony, it noted after its next resupply mission (flown on September 23rd) that "All crews were very glad and cheered to see good fighter cover."

No. 271 Squadron typed up a very detailed report recounting the experiences of its airmen on September 21, which included testimony from Maj. P.S. Joubert, pilot of Dakota KG.545. Part of his account is as follows:

Quote

At a position S. of Nijmegen I went to see how my despatchers had fared. A few minutes later one of them came up to me and said "Fighters are diving on a Dakota in the Rear". The height at this time was 6000 ft. and I was flying immediately over scattered cumulous. There was another bank of cloud 2000 ft. below me and when observing an attack being made on a Dakota which immediately burst into flames, I dived for this cloud. I then prepared for an attack which seemed imminent as there was several formations of enemy fighters scattered in various directions. The bank of cloud in which I had taken refuge broke into about 6/10ths cumulous and unfortunately enemy fighters were taking up formations of six and I was observed in an open space between the cumulous.

My W/Op. [Wireless Operator] F/Sgt. Butterworth, whom I posted in the astro-hatch I must very highly commend for the actions he took in a very calm manner. He gave me the position of the enemy fighters and warned me to stand by for evasive action. As the first fighter peeled off for attack I was given the picture immediately and was told which way to dive. I then did a sharp turn to the left and a very steep dive towards the fighters and fortunately the fire was observed missing my tail. I continued the turn and went into the opposite direction to their dive and took cover in the cloud which was still broken. When I was a safe distance away from this enemy formation I set course and changed direction on a few occasions when enemy activity was observed until I reached a solid bank of cloud in which I remained.

...

In all 3 Dakotas were observed going down in flames.

Dakota KG.401, of No. 48 Squadron after being shot down and making an emergency landing in British-held territory just north of Kessel. This photograph is referenced in No. 48 Squadron's Summary of Events for September 21:

Combat newsreel footage of C-47s during Market Garden:

September 26, 2023

Week of September 24 - 30:

September 28, 1944: Hauptmann Robert Weiss, commander of III. Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 54 (III./JG 54), becomes the first pilot to score a victory with a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9.

III./JG had been on the Normandy invasion front since June 6, 1944, when it flew its last missions over France on August 15, 1944. On that second mission of the day, an escort of fighter-bombers to the Caen area, Feldwebel Wilhelm Müller scored the 100th victory for III./JG 54 over the invasion front, making it the most successful Luftwaffe fighter Gruppe since June 1944. During that night, the Gruppe received orders to return to Germany for rest and equipment.

The air combat over Normandy had been hard on III./JG 54. By the end of August 15, the unit had lost 37 men killed in action, 22 wounded, and some 62 Fw 190 A-8s destroyed after three months and nine days of action over Normandy. Naturally, then, one of the first orders of business was to refill the ranks with fresh pilots. By the fall of 1944, the Luftwaffe fighter pilot training program had been drastically curtailed, and the results of that can be seen in remarks made by two veteran airmen detailed to select new pilots for the unit - Leutnant Peter Crump and Oberleutnant Hans Dortenmann:

I went up with the pilots who were farthest along in their training one at a time in order to evaluate their comprehension and ability...I observed in all of them a lack of flying experience due to the rapid training. They had no self-confidence. I think I took just four or five pilots with me. - Peter Crump

I didn't find much that was commendable about the replacement training Gruppe at Sagan. The best pilots were introduced to me. I checked out each of them. My God, what have they been learning?!... But at least some of the pilots were talented, though totally inexperienced, and those were the ones I picked. - Hans Dortenmann

The other item of business was equipping the formation with the latest version of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the "Dora-9" model. Unlike the A-series, the D-9 was equipped with an inline engine, the Junkers Jumo 213 A-1; this had been done to better allow the Fw 190 to combat the American heavy bomber formations. The early models could generate 1750 horsepower and reach approximately 686 km/h at 6600 meters. To fit this engine properly, the overall length of the airframe was lengthened by some 1.52 meters (5.0 feet). Initially, the veteran pilots of III./JG 54 were hostile towards this "big bird". However, this skepticism was put to rest when the first test flights were flown by the Gruppe while at Oldenburg on September 20; Weiss and the commanders of 9. and 12. Staffel lauded the excellent turning capabilities of the Dora-9 and the exceptional climb rate made capable by its broad wooden propeller blades (the 10. and 11. Staffeln were stationed at Varrelbusch at this time).

As more D-9s arrived at Oldenburg, training on the D-9 increased, and an anti-reconnaissance Rotte (a two-plane formation) was placed on takeoff readiness. One of these two planes was reserved for Weiss and the other for his wingman. By the fall of 1944, the Allied air forces were constantly sending over photo-reconnaissance aircraft - usually alone - to monitor the airfields in northern Germany. As such, these Rotten were tasked with trying to intercept and shoot down these planes.

At around 1530 hours on September 28, Luftwaffe air control reported a lone reconnaissance plane over the Bremen area. III./JG 54's anti-reconnaissance Rotte was ordered into the air to intercept this plane. This aircraft was a Spitfire PR Mk XI from No. 541 Squadron, based at Benson in southern England. The pilot, RAF Flight Lieutenant Duncan McCuaig, was one of the most experienced pilots in his squadron, having flown since 1942 and a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had taken off from Benson at 1305 hours in Spitfire PL 904 to photograph targets in the Bremen area; by 1600 hours he had completed his mission and was southwest of Bremen on his way back to base.

Near the small village of Apelstedt, Weiss and his wingman caught up with McCuaig's Spitfire from behind at 8,000 meters altitude. After the three aircraft made several turns, the Sptifire was sent plunging to the earth in flames. McCuaig baled out of his stricken plane near the ground but his parachute failed to open in time, and he was killed upon impact with the ground. For Robert Weiss, holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, this was his 120th victory.

For Flight Lieutenant McCuaig, the circumstances surrounding his ultimate fate would remain a mystery for 50 years. Witnesses from the village of Apelstedt were quick to the scene of the crash site, where they noticed among other things bits of black film. McCuaig's body was located some 200 meters from the crash site and was taken to a grocer's nearby barn. However, during the night, the pilot's body disappeared without a trace. As no one in the village knew his identity, the British concluded that he and his plane had simply disappeared.

Then, in 1991, a German MIA investigation team began looking into the fate of McCuaig. Not a single Spitfire had been recorded as being shot down in northwestern Germany on September 28, 1944, but a report of a P-47 crash near Apelstedt caught the team's attention. With help from eyewitnesses to the crash, the team successfully excavated the wreckage of Spitfire PL 904. However, the whereabouts of McCuaig's body remained a mystery, so he remained officially listed as Missing in Action by the British government.

Ultimately, it was determined in 1994 that McCuaig's body had been moved to the British military cemetery at Sage from the nearby graveyard at Ahlhorn, where he had originally been buried under the name "J.L. McCraig (USA)" with no rank, unit, or birthplace. Whether this misspelling was due to weathering of the original wooden cross or human error remains unknown. At Sage, he was reinterred in a grave marked "unknown pilot." With this new evidence presented by the MIA team, the British government agreed that this "unknown pilot" could be none other than Flight Lieutenant McCuaig.

As for Robert Weiss, he would continue to lead III./JG 54 until he was shot down and killed in action on December 29, 1944, after shooting down a Sptifre for his 122nd and final victory. He would posthumously be awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross on March 12, 1945.

Further reading: Flying after ghosts (the story of F/L McCuaig and the efforts to identify his final resting place)

Flight Lieutenant Duncan McCuaig, unknown date:

Robert Weiss, July 1944 (center):

541 Squadron Summary of Events for September 28, 1944:

October 3, 2023

Week of October 1 - 7:

October 1, 1942: The prototype Bell XP-59A, America's first fighter jet, makes its first flight at Muroc Dry Lake, today known as Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.

By the mid-1930s, American propulsion engineers were beginning to seriously consider the possible applications of jet turbines to aircraft. Following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, those efforts were accelerated, and in September 1940 the Tizard Mission, (formally known as the British Technical and Scientific Mission), visited the US in September 1940 to share secret research and development work with military potential. The program was popularly known as the Tizard Mission owing to the program's initiator, Henry Tizard, a British scientist who was behind the development of radar. At this time, the subject of jet propulsion had been mentioned but not discussed in depth.

Some five months later, in late February 1941, Major General Henry "Hap" Arnold, then Deputy Chief of Staff for Air (and later the commander of the Army Air Forces), wrote to Doctor Vannevar Bush, chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), asking him to form a special group to research jet aircraft propulsion. Bush agreed and the following month the Special Committee on Jet Propulsion was formed, which included representatives from the Army Air Corps, the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the National Bureau of Standards, Johns Hopkins University, MIT, as well as three aircraft engine manufacturers - Allis Chalmers, Westinghouse, and General Electric (GE).

In April 1941 Major General Arnold became aware of the United Kingdom's jet program when he was briefed on the British Gloster E.28/39 jet-propelled test plane and watched the aircraft make a test flight in England. A Power Jets W.1, designed in part by British aviation pioneer Frank Whittle, powered the E.28/39. Following Arnold's return to the U.S. in May, members of the Army Air Force Engineering Division at Wright Field, Ohio, and the State Department were briefed on this emerging technology. Negotiations with the British government soon began, and eventually, Arnold arranged for an example of the W.1X turbojet to be flown to the U.S. on October 1, in a B-24 Liberator. Included in this tech transfer were the drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of engineers from Power Jets.

As the Whittle jet engines were not that powerful, it was decided by officials of the U.S. government, the Army Air Forces, and GE to choose a twin-engine configuration for the new jet. GE was chosen to build the new engines as the company was already familiar with the Gloster aircraft and the Whittle jet engines. Bell was chosen to build the new fighter for several reasons. For one, Bell was not as busy developing and producing aircraft as other manufacturers. Additionally, their proximity to the GE plant was regarded as helpful to the vital exchange of information between airframe and engine developers. Bell's founder, Larry Bell, was also known for his enthusiasm and ability to make unorthodox designs flyable. On September 30, 1941, Bell was awarded a contract for 3 XP-59A prototypes. The designation XP-59A was chosen as a way to disguise the true nature of the project, as Bell had previously undertaken work on an unrelated XP-59 project. GE employed a similar method to disguise the nature of its work. At that time, the company made superchargers for aircraft engines with model names 'A' through 'F.' 'I' was considered appropriate within this naming convention. 'A' indicated the first of a series, so the AAF and GE named the first American jet airplane engine the Type I-A.

As with other jet projects of the early 1940s, development work on the XP-59 was slow. Bell's design team initially was guided only by jet propulsion theory, as GE would not finish and begin testing the first jet engines until March 1942. Until the engines were ready, then, Bell could only guess at the performance characteristics. Additionally, owing to extreme secrecy and the desire to get the plane flying as quickly as possible, General Arnold at first forbade the use of wind tunnels to test and optimize the design. Eventually, he relented but only allowed the development team to use the low-speed wind tunnel at Wright Field, Ohio.

The first prototype, XP-59A 42-108784, had been built on the second floor of a disused Pierce-Arrow factory, but the crated components were too big to fit through any elevator and required a hole to be broken in the brick outer wall before it could be loaded onto a train. The plane was shipped to Muroc Dry Lake on September 19 for initial flight trials. To maintain secrecy, a dummy propeller was mounted on the nose and a tarp was thrown over the fuselage to make the plane look like just another piston engine aircraft. This "propeller" would be removed before each flight and reinstalled after the plane landed. On October 1, 1942, Bell test pilot Robert M. Stanley took the XP-59A to the air for the first time; during this first flight, he kept the landing gear extended and flew no higher than 25 feet. Three more flights were flown later in the day, which reached heights of 100 feet. On the following day, the plane was flown four times at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet.

The Type I-A centrifugal flow jet engines propelled the XP-59A to a maximum speed of only 390 miles per hour, a speed that was already exceeded by piston engine fighters in early 1942. So, even before the first prototype was flown, a contract for 13 YP-59A preproduction planes was finalized in March 1942. These were powered by more powerful GE J31 jet engines, which would power all subsequent production Airacomets. The first YP-59As were delivered in June 1943 to Muroc. Although a YP-59A set a new unofficial altitude record for 47,600 feet, performance was still lacking. The J31 engines only provided a top speed increase of 5 miles per hour and had a shorter Time Between Overhaul. Bell wanted the Army Air Forces to purchase 300 P-59 production planes, but the Army elected to only order 100.

Being clearly outclassed by contemporary piston engine fighters like the P-51, P-47, and P38, eventually only 50 production Airacomets were ever built. This was divided between 20 P-59As and 30 P-59Bs. All of these planes were armed with one 37 mm M4 cannon and three .50 caliber machine guns. The P-59Bs were assigned to the 412th Fighter Group in Southern California to familiarize pilots with the handling and performance characteristics of jet aircraft.

Following the first flight of 42-108784, the Army Air Forces recognized the need to have an observer on board to record flight test data. The gun bays forward of the pilot were converted to accommodate the observer, which involved cutting a 20-inch hole in the upper skin and mounting a seat, a small windscreen, and an instrument panel in a very cramped space. Flight tests resumed on October 30, 1942, and for the remainder of its military career, it flew in this configuration. In all, the aircraft amassed 59 hours and 55 minutes of flying time.

With the war still ongoing, in February 1944 an Army Air Forces engineer assigned to the Airacoment project came up with the idea of preserving America's first jet aircraft for museum display. By August, plans were in place to store the airframe at Muroc and the original engines at Wright Field until final disposition for the aircraft was determined. In April 1945, the Smithsonian Institution asked for the aircraft. Before it was put on display at the new National Air and Space Museum in 1976, the plane was restored to its original configuration, without the observer's open cockpit.

Today, there are six known surviving P-59s, all of which are located in the United States. Besides the initial XP-59A prototype, one P-59A and three P-59Bs are on public display. A YP-59A is owned by the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California, which has plans to restore it to flight status.

Further reading:

National Air and Space Museum XP-59A: https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/bell-xp-59a-airacomet/nasm_A19450016000

Planes of Fame YP-59A: https://planesoffame.org/collection/restoration-projects

March Air Field Museum P-59A: https://www.marchfield.org/aircraft/fighter/p-59a-airacomet-bell/

National Museum of the United States Air Force P-59B: https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/195780/bell-p-59b-airacomet/

NASM's XP-59A:

October 10, 2023

Week of October 8 - 14:

October 14, 1943: in what would become known as Black Thursday, the US Army's Air Eighth Force carries out a second raid on the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt, resulting in even higher losses than the previous raid.

Following the first raid on the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt on August 17, 1943, American military intelligence estimated that German ball-bearing production had been reduced by some 38 percent, which left the Germans with stocks that were sufficient to cover only six to eight weeks. However, Eighth Air Force did not possess the means to determine how effective the raid had been, and in any case, there were insufficient planes to mount an immediate follow-on raid.

For this second raid, each of the three bomber wings was to be escorted by P-47s from a single group, or approximately 60 planes escorting each wing. To try to fool the Germans as to the raid's intentions, a formation of B-24s headed out over the North Sea on a diversionary raid to the coastal city of Emden. However, inexplicably, the P-47s were not fitted with drop tanks, so as on the previous raid the escorts would only be able to escort the B-17s to just short of the German border.

In spite of the diversionary attempt, German radar tracked the primary B-17 formation as soon as it was airborne. Jagdgeschwader (JG) 3 intercepted the bombers as they crossed the coast to the Continent, but the escorting P-47s warded off this attack, shooting down seven Bf 109s while losing only one P-47. As the P-47s were forced to turn back, more single-engine German fighters attacked. JG 1 and JG 26 both made repeated attacks with their Bf 109 and Fw 190s. Three Fw 190 pilots from II./JG 26 brought down B-17s between 1330 and 1400 hours, while the 190s from I. Gruppe brought down another two. III./JG 26 was also scrambled to intercept but was not given a vector from which it could locate the bombers. Meanwhile, the 305th Bombardment Group lost 13 of its 16 B-17s in minutes.

Making things worse for the B-17s were the Ju 88 heavy fighters which also attacked around the same time as the second wave of Bf 109s and the Fw 190s. Besides packing a heavy punch with multiple 20 mm cannons, these heavy fighters also carried 21 cm rockets; these were fired from up to 1,000 yards away, well outside the effective range of the bombers' .50 cal machine guns. These rockets not only had a highly destructive effect but also a psychological one; as the rockets began to detonate among the B-17s, their pilots began to conduct evasive action. Such tactics by the Ju 88s consequently ruined the B-17's mutually supporting defensive firepower.

As the American formation approached Schweinfurt, 28 bombers had already been shot down. With the 1st Bomb Division leading the way, the crews of the trailing 3rd Division reported that their path to the target was easily marked by the smoke and fire of downed B-17s from preceding formations. As the B-17s began their bombing runs, the new threat was from the heavy flak guns on the ground. Despite the pounding the formations had taken to that point, the ball-bearing factories were well hit; of the 1,122 high-explosive bombs dropped, 143 landed in the factory area, with 88 direct hits.

Now on the return flight home, the bomber crews once again faced the same dangers from intercepting German fighters, which had been quickly rearmed and refueled after their first sorties. Among the formations sent back up was JG 11, which by the end of the day downed 18 B-17s. The Luftwaffe continued pressing its attacks all the way to the English Channel. Many of the surviving bombers landed at the first airfield they could find while some put down in the first level ground that was spotted.

In spite of the factories being successfully bombed and the Eighth Air Force publicly claiming victory, the second Schweinfurt raid was a disaster for the Americans. Later analysis of the raid determined that German ball bearing production had been reduced by a mere 10 percent and halted production at the factories for only 6 weeks. Even worse were the losses in planes and aircrew: 60 B-17s had been lost, another 17 were no longer airworthy, and an additional 121 received minor damage. More than 600 airmen were killed, wounded, or declared mission in action, totaling almost 20 percent of those crewmen sortied.

The American bomber gunner's claims of German fighters shot down were wildly inflated; 186 planes were claimed shot down, a further 27 as probables, and another 89 were claimed damaged. In reality, the Germans lost 31 fighters shot down, 12 written off and 34 damaged - a far cry from the American claims.

As a result of this raid, the Eighth Air Force suspended strikes against targets beyond the range of fighter escorts, concentrating instead on its attacks on France, the European coast, and the Ruhr Valley. It would not be until February 1944 that long-range raids - now escorted by P-51B Mustangs - would resume as part of Big Week.

Inbound and outbound paths of the American bomber formations:

Schweinfurt in flames while a B-17 heads for home after bombing:

October 18, 2023

Week of October 15 - 21:

October 21, 1944: the Dutch airfield of Grave, just southwest of Nijmegen, is bombed yet again by Me 262 jet fighter-bombers from 3rd Staffel of Kampfgeschwader 51 “Edelweiss.”

In preparation for Operation Market Garden, the Allies had the opportunity to use the small airfield at Grave, near the road to Arnhem, for the major combined land and airborne offensive in the Netherlands. However, the airfield was overlooked in the planning and the airborne troops were landed elsewhere during the operation. On the first day of Market Garden, September 17, the airfield was discovered by an American patrol, and the Allies quickly set to work to put it to use.

Eight days later, on September 25, the first Allied planes landed at Grave. The following day, the Americans flew in a large amount of war material and personnel from England to support Market Garden. In short order, 209 C-47 transports carrying 900 men and 380 tons of cargo landed, but too late to affect the outcome of Market Garden.

Grave then became the scene of a dispute between the Americans and the British over who would control and operate the forces from the small airstrip. The British won, and by the end of the month No. 127 Wing of the Royal Canadian Air Force began moving into the airfield, now known by the code name B.82. This wing consisted of three Canadian Spitfire squadrons: No. 403 Squadron RCAF, No. 416 Squadron RCAF and No. 421 Squadron RCAF. Commonly known as the "Kenley Wing", the formation was commanded by Wing Commander James Edgar "Johnnie" Johnson, the highest-scoring Western fighter ace against the Luftwaffe with 34 victories by October 1944.

Meanwhile, 3./KG 51 had recently become the first staffel within KG 51 to begin flying operational missions with the fighter-bomber variant of the Me 262, known as the Me 262 A-2. During the second half of September 1944, it had focused its attention primarily on troop concentrations, but by October it had begun to target airfields in the Netherlands occupied by both the American and British / Commonwealth air forces. Consequently, B.82 was squarely in the sights of 3./KG 51.

Due to the speed of the Me 262 A-2 and the lack of sophisticated bomb targeting equipment, the fragmentation (SD) and cluster (AB) bombs it dropped often did little or no damage. This led to KG 51 being derisively known as the "crop damage Geschwader." However, when these bombs found their target, they could and did cause serious damage. Archie Robertson, a pilot with No. 421 Squadron, noted that on the evening of 1 October, "a Jerry Kite came over and dropped a couple of bombs, but missed the field. It gave us an indication of what was to come, so out with picks and shovels to dig slit trenches". The next day the Me 262s returned and this time their bombs killed one and wounded another seventeen.

Grave suffered another serious attack on October 12, when three Me 262s with four SD 250s and an AB 500/SD 4 bombed the airfield at 15:38. One of these bombs hit the No. 416 Squadron dispersal, killing five airmen and injuring ten others, one of them seriously. One Spitfire was burned out and 9 others suffered varying degrees of damage.

The bombing raid by a lone Me 262 on October 21 proved to be the last straw for No. 127 Wing. One airman was killed, another eight were wounded and no fewer than 18 Spitfires were damaged (10 of them Category B, meaning they would have to be repaired at a second-line repair facility). One pilot was wounded in the arm by a bomb fragment and had to be evacuated to a hospital. As B.82 had been rendered virtually useless by the incessant rain of the previous weeks, the move to B.58 at Melsbroek could not come soon enough. The rival Spitfire Wing, on the other side of Grave airfield, stayed on for another ten days and noted ironically in its diary that 127 Wing had been offered the option of "re-equipping with Sunderlands or returning to Brussels."

Recon photo of B82 at Keent/Grave surrounded by a dike at the bottom and left:

Spitfires damaged and burning at Grave in the fall of 1944:

October 25, 2023

Week of October 22 - 28:

October 24, 1944: The Typhoon squadrons of No. 146 Wing RAF - Nos. 193, 197, 257, 263, and 266 Squadrons - carry out a precision raid on German XV. Army headquarters in the Dutch city of Dordrecht.

On October 23, unnamed intelligence sources pinpointed the location of German XV. Army headquarters as being in a park in the city of Dordrecht, a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. A plan of attack was swiftly put together, which would see No. 84 Group Captain Denys Gillam, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, and AFC, lead all five squadrons of the Wing against the target the next day.

At this time, No. 146 Wing was based at the Belgian airfield of Deurne, known to the Allies as B.70. The airport, situated about 5.5 kilometers south of Antwerp, had previously been used by the Luftwaffe and also served the nearby Erla aircraft factory. At 1140 hours the first planes in the attack force - from No. 197 Squadron - began to take off in hazy weather conditions. Altogether, 48 planes made up the Dordrecht attack force.

Twenty minutes after the first Typhoons had taken off, the attack on Dordrecht began. Nos. 193, 197, and 263 Squadrons were assigned to flak suppression. While the first two squadrons strafed AAA positions, No. 263 Squadron made a feint attack on a railway bridge to draw away fire from the main attack force. Meanwhile, No. 266 Squadron made a successful rocket attack on two buildings in the park that were part of XV. Army's headquarters. This was followed by Gilliam dropping two 500 lb phosphorus marker bombs on or near the target buildings.

With the target now well-marked, the first four planes from 193 Squadron swept down and dropped eight 1000 lb bombs fused for an 11-second delay. After these bombs exploded the rest of 193 Squdron's Typhoons dive-bombed the target with 500-pounders. To this devastation were added the bombs first from 197 Squadron, followed by 257 and 263 Squadrons dropping their bombs on the buildings in the finale.

Following this massive broadside of rockets and bombs, the target area was swept with 20 mm cannon fire. An hour after takeoff, all the Typhoons had safely returned to Deurne - not a single plane had been lost.

In the eyes of the RAF, the attack on Dordrecht had been a complete success. The Summary of Events for 193 Squadron notes on the 24th, "the HQ building [was] very nearly wiped off the face of the earth in the face of desperate anti-aircraft fire." The entry goes on to state that, according to Intelligence, over 300 German HQ personnel were killed, including a pair of generals."

How successful the raid actually was would not be known until the 30th of October. According to the Dutch Resistance, two Generals indeed were killed, along with 17 staff officers, 36 other officers, and over 200 other ranks. These crippling losses would have a notable effect on the performance of XV. Army for some time. When an elaborate funeral was planned for the victims of the raid, 146 Wing's leaders were keen to attack that as well, but the idea was apparently nixed on orders from higher authority.

Group Captain Denys Gilliam and his wife Nancye:

November 2, 2023

Week of October 29 - November 4:

October 31, 1944: the Mosquito FB VIs of No. 140 Wing carry out a precision raid in Denmark.

As the month of October 1944 came to an end, it was finally the turn of No. 2 Group’s Mosquitoes to carry out a special operation. While No. 138 Wing attacked Walcheren Island, which was due to be invaded soon, No. 140 Wing was assigned to attack the Gestapo Barracks in Aarhus. Specifically, the target was located in two of the buildings of Aarhus University.

For this attack, Wing Commander Reg Reynolds, DSO, DFC, with his navigator, Squadron Leader Edward Sismore, DSO, DFC, led four ‘boxes’ of aircraft to the target, accompanied in the lead box by three planes from No. 487 Squadron. The second box was led by Wing Commander I.G. Dale and consisted of six aircraft from No. 21 Squadron; the third box comprised six planes from No. 464 Squadron and was headed by Wing Commander Arthur Langton, AFC; the fourth box comprised six more planes from No. 487 Squadron and was led by Wing Commander Porteous.

The lead planes in the attack took off from Thorney Island just after 0700 hours, with escort being provided by eight No. 315 Squadron Mustangs of Fighter Command (the name to which Air Defence of Great Britain had now reverted). En route to the target, cannon attacks were made on 2 trains, 1 engine, 1 rail tank car, a hut, and running troops, with numerous hits recorded in most of these attacks.

The target at Aarhus was considered a difficult one, with the two buildings being closely surrounded by others. Once at the target, the Mosquitoes began their attack run at “at deck level” with 35 x 500 lb. bombs armed with 11-second fuses, and a cannon attack was made. So low was the attack carried out that one pilot from No. 487 Squadron “left part of his plane on the roof of the building.” In No. 21 Squadron, two aircraft were damaged by bird strikes.

The attack on Aarhus was regarded as a “complete success and was a perfect example of low level precision bombing.” The last crews over the target reported only the southeast and northwest corners of the target buildings were left standing. Only one plane failed to return to base – the plane of Wing Commander W.L. Thomas (pilot) and Flight Lieutenant P.R. Humphrey-Baker was damaged by bomb bursts and was forced to make an emergency landing in Sweden, presumably on one engine. After landing safely in Sweden, the plane was destroyed by the crew before being detained by Swedish authorities.

Altogether, the round trip to Aarhus and back totaled 1,235 miles, more than 700 of them over the sea, and it took 5.5 hours to accomplish. According to No. 487 Squadron’s records, the Mustang fighter escort “was subsequently made much of in the Press.”

In the aftermath of the attack, the Danish underground press estimated that 150-200 Gestapo members and some 30 Danes were killed in the attack. While Dorms 4 and 5 of the university were destroyed and considerable damage was done to the Langelandsgade Barracks, some bombs missed their target. The university's main building, under construction at the time, was accidentally struck by a bomb that had somehow managed to skip down the halls of the building, killing about ten construction workers and injuring the chief architect.

Besides those of the Gestapo who were killed, the Aarhus attack destroyed most of the Gestapo archives on site, including many of the files on the Danish resistance. To make up for the loss of personnel, the Gestapo reinforced their numbers after the attack, to the point where the number of agents was almost doubled.

Dorms 4 and 5 are already in ruins as more Mosquitoes make their way over the target:

November 8, 2023

Week of November 5 - 11:

November 6, 1935: the Hawker Hurricane prototype fighter flies for the first time.

The origins of the Hawker Hurricane date to the late 1920s, when the British Air Ministry issued Specification F.20/27 for an ‘interception single-seat fighter.’ Hawker’s entry was a single-seat biplane powered by a 520-horsepower Mercury radial that would eventually first fly in August 1928. At the same time, this plane was redesigned to accommodate a new V12 inline engine that would eventually be known as the Kestrel. This new fighter was called the Hornet; when it was re-engined again with a Kestrel IS engine it became known as the Fury. This plane would be purchased by the Air Ministry and a production order was placed in 1930 for 21 planes. The Fury Mk I was well-received by RAF pilots and was the service’s first plane to exceed 200 mph.

In the spring of 1931, a new specification, F.7/30, was issued that called for a fighter capable of no less than 250 mph at 10,000 feet, armed with four machine guns, and capable of operating day or night. The Fury was effectively ruled out of this competition, but Hawker’s chief designer Sydney Camm was undeterred and began work on a fine-tuned version of the Fury as part of the F.7/30 competition. The improved design, powered by a 695-horsepower Goshawk steam-cooled engine, first flew on June 15, 1934, and was accepted into service in 1936 as the Fury Mk II.

Yet another specification was issued in May 1934 – F.5/34 – which called for a monoplane fighter capable of at least 300 mph with an armament of six to eight machine guns. What resulted from this from Hawker was a one-tenth scale model which showed in wind tunnel tests very satisfactory aerodynamic qualities up to 350 mph. The Air Ministry, pleased with these results, issued a revised specification, F.6/34, in late August 1934.

Mock-up work on Hawker’s F.6/34 began in November 1934, and the company was awarded a contract on February 18, 1935, to produce a single fighter, which was to be registered as K5083. As the RAF was still in the process of transitioning from Vickers to license-produced Browning machine guns, this prototype was to be fitted with equivalent ballast to represent two fuselage-mounted Vickers and a Browning fitted in each wing. Power was to be supplied by a 1,025-horsepower Rolls-Royce PV.12 engine (which was renamed the Merlin around this time).

K5083 was structurally complete by August 1935; following this, skinning of the plane took another six weeks. Once skinning and fitting of the engine was completed, it was moved to Brooklands Aerodrome on October 23, where final assembling of the wings and testing of the landing gear and engine were undertaken.

Taxi tests with K5083 were undertaken with George Bulman, Hawker’s chief test pilot, on November 3. Three days later, on November 6, Bulman took the plane to the sky for the first time in front of about 80 onlookers – but no press were present, such was the secrecy surrounding this project. Bulman was impressed with the fighter, reaching 300 mph with ease in a gentle dive. With the landing gear and flaps extended, Bulman stalled the plane at 80 mph and recovered from this quickly by applying slight forward pressure on the stick.

K5083 underwent further modifications after this first flight and eventually was delivered to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment in early March 1936 for further testing. The ultimate fate of K5083 is not clear, but it had logged 153 hours and 25 minutes of flight time before becoming an instructional airframe in May 1939. Now carrying the serial number 1112M, it apparently remained in airworthy condition until 1942. Its status after that is not known.

Hawker Monoplane F.36/34, K5083, photographed prior to its first flight:

November 15, 2023

Week of November 12 - 18:

November 12, 1944: Operation Catechism, the Royal Air Force’s third and final attempt to sink the German battleship Tirpitz while at anchor in Norway, is a success.

Two weeks prior, on October 29, the elite Lancaster squadrons, Nos. 9 and 617 (the latter of Dambusters fame), had failed to sink the Tirpitz as it sat an anchor off the Norwegian island of Håkøya. Heavy cloud cover over the battleship prevented the bombers from accurately aiming their 12,000-pound Tallboy bombs. Tirpitz was only slightly damaged by a near miss, and one Lancaster made a forced landing in Sweden after being damaged by AA fire.

In the aftermath of Operation Obviate, RAF Bomber Command remained committed to sinking Tirpitz as soon as weather conditions allowed, as it was believed the ship could be repaired and made fully operational if it could reach a major report. This attack would have to take place by the end of November, since by the 27^th the sun would be below the horizon even at midday and there would be insufficient light to see the target (a phenomenon known as “polar night”).

Poor weather delayed Operation Catechism twice until sufficiently good weather was reported by a Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft over northern Norway on the night of November 11 (patches of cloud were reported over the region, but it was hoped the Lancasters would encounter clear weather over Tromsø, which was in the vicinity of Håkøya).

The plan for Operation Catechism was the same as Operation Obviate, with the attack force using the same routes. Thirty-two Lancasters (thirteen from No. 9 Squadron and eighteen from No. 617 Squadron, plus a film aircraft from No. 463 Squadron) were dispatched. Seven more planes from No. 9 Squadron, including that of Wing Commander James Bazin, were unable to participate, owing to snow and ice that had formed on them overnight. To extend their range these planes were modified to carry an overloaded amount of fuel, and no mid-upper gunners were carried.

The Lancasters began taking off at 0300 hours early on the morning of November 12, flying individually to the target. By 0935 the bombers had reached the rendezvous point at Torneträsk, a lake 160 kilometers southeast of Tromsø. Two of the Lancasters from No. 9 Squadron arrived late at the rendezvous point and as no other aircraft were seen returned to base.

Guided by radio-homing signals transmitted by the Norwegian resistance, the attack force gained altitude to clear the mountains as they approached the target area. The German forces in the area, which included a detachment of fighters from JG 5 at Bardufoss, were slow to respond to the reports of the incoming fighters. Consequently, the first fighters did not take off until less than 10 minutes before the first Tallboy bomb was dropped at 0941 hours. Additionally, the smoke generators which had previously protected the Tirpitz during prior raids were still being installed on November 12 and were not yet operational.

Despite heavy AA fire, the Tirpitz was rapidly destroyed by numerous direct hits and near misses. By 0952, three minutes after the last bomb was dropped, the battleship had capsized. Between 940 and 1204 men aboard the Tirpitz, including the commanding officer Robert Weber, were lost in the attack. The only loss to the RAF was a single Lancaster that had to make an emergency landing in Sweden after sustaining heavy damage from AA fire.

For the attack on the Tirpitz, three pilots were awarded the Distinguished Service Order, including a third bar for 617 Squadron commander James Tait. Six other airmen were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Heinrich Ehrler, commander of the JG 5 detachment, was court-martialed and sentenced to three years in prison, but he was released after a month and returned to frontline service. He would eventually be shot down and killed while flying an Me 262 with JG 7 in April 1945.

Diagram of the attack on Tirpitz on November 12, 1944:

Low-level oblique photographic-reconnaissance aerial taken from Mosquito PR Mark XVI (NS637) of No. 544 Squadron RAF, showing the capsized Tirpitz, attended by salvage vessels, March 1945:

November 22, 2023

Week of November 19 - 25:

November 25, 1940: the prototype de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito flies for the first time.

Throughout the 1930s, de Havilland Aircraft Company had developed a reputation for developing high-speed aircraft using new and more efficient design techniques. These included the DH.88 Comet racer (1934) and the 22-seat DH.91 Albatross airliner (1937). Around the same time, in May 1937, designers at Handley Page began discussing the idea of a fast, unarmed bomber in response to Air Ministry Specification P.13/36, which called for a twin-engine medium bomber capable of 275 mph at 15,000 feet.

Geoffrey de Havilland believed that, based on his experience with the Albatross, he could design a bomber that would exceed the requirements of the P.13/36. After much correspondence with the Air Ministry, and after examining further concepts based on the Albatross and the DH.95 Flamingo, de Havilland settled on a clean aerodynamic design, built of wood and powered by the Merlin engine, which promised considerable future potential. However, at a meeting in October 1938, the Air Ministry showed little interest in the design and instead asked de Havilland to build wings for other bombers as a subcontractor.

After the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Air Ministry slowly but surely came around to the idea of a fast, unarmed aircraft, but initially only as a reconnaissance aircraft, not as a bomber. Finally, after representatives of de Havilland, the Air Ministry, and the RAF operational commands had examined a full-scale model at Hatfield on December 29, a single prototype was ordered by Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman. This called for a light bomber/reconnaissance aircraft powered by Merlin 21 engines, capable of carrying a 1,000-pound bomb load and a top speed of 400 mph at 24,000 feet.

Another contract was issued in early March 1940 for 50 bomber-reconnaissance variants of the DH.98, including the E-0234 factory prototype. This was followed in May by a specification for a long-range fighter armed with four 20 mm cannons and four .303 machine guns in the nose. It was also decided at this time that this prototype, now registered under military serial number W4052, would carry radar as a day and night fighter. Finally, in June 1940, the DH.98 was given the name "Mosquito."

Work on the Mosquito project came to a halt after the evacuation of the British Army from France at the end of May 1940. This was due to the decision of Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production, to concentrate production on aircraft types for the imminent defense of Great Britain. Design work on the Mosquito resumed in July 1940, after de Havilland had promised Lord Beaverbrook 50 Mosquitos by December 1941, and the latter was satisfied that Mosquito production would not interfere with the company's other work on other projects.

Prototype E-0234 was disassembled and shipped by road to Hatfield on November 3, 1940. There it underwent final assembly, with engine runs on November 19 and taxiing trials on November 24. The following day, Geoffrey de Havilland, accompanied by John E. Walker, the chief designer of the engine installation, took the plane into the air for the first time. The aircraft reached 220 mph, with the only problems being the landing gear doors not closing fully and the port wing dragging slightly to port. A slight change in the angle of the wing after this first flight solved the problem.

E-0234 was assigned the RAF serial number W4050 in December 1940. Its fuselage was damaged while taxiing at Boscombe Down in February 1941 and had to be replaced with the one intended for prototype W4051. It remained at de Havilland as a testbed aircraft until it became an instructional airframe in December 1943. In September 1958, it was handed over to the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre and today is on display at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in London Colney.

E-0234, now marked W4050, in the field behind Salisbury Hall (where it was designed and built) just before its first flight, on November 25, 1940:

W4050 takes off on its first flight at Hatfield, November 25, 1940:

W4050 as it appears today in London Colney:

November 29, 2023

Week of November 26 - December 2:

November 30, 1941: the Radar, Air-to-Surface Vessel, Mark II, or ASV Mk. II, scores its first success with RAF Coastal Command against a Type VIIC U-boat in the Bay of Biscay.

The development of the ASV radar dates back to the mid-1930s, when Henry Tizard became concerned about the possibility that the Chain Home radar system would become so effective that it would force the Luftwaffe to resort to night bombing. While the Chain Home system could accurately detect a bomber formation at 5 miles, the maximum range a fighter pilot could expect to visually detect a bomber at night was about 1,000 yards.

A group of researchers concluded that the best solution to fight bombers at night was to develop a small radar that could be mounted on a night fighter. The general idea was that the Chain Home would be tasked with getting the night fighter into the general area of the bombers, and then the fighter's own radar could take over and guide the pilot to the target until it could be seen visually.

The Airborne Group's first major problem was wavelength. The Chain Home system operated at wavelengths of 10 meters, which required antennas about 5 meters long; these were far too large to mount on an aircraft. Finally, in early 1937, the Airborne Group began working with Western Electric Type 316A doorknob vacuum tubes, which could operate at a wavelength of 1.25 meters.

In March 1937, this 1.25-meter radar was installed on a Handley Page Heyford biplane bomber for test purposes. On the first test flight, this radar showed very limited range against aircraft, but the operators also noticed strange returns on the display. It was eventually determined that these were wharves and cranes at the Harwich docks. Shipping also appeared on the display, but the test team was unable to test this very well as the Heyford was prohibited from flying over water.

Following this accidental discovery of ship detection, the development team received a pair of Avro Anson maritime patrol aircraft. Subsequent tests, beginning on August 17, 1937, showed that ships could be detected at a range of 2-3 miles. This was considered very impressive as the transmitter power was only 100 watts per pulse. During Royal Navy fleet exercises in early September, an aircraft carrier and a light cruiser were detected at a range of 5 to 6 miles.

Development work on the ASV continued over the next two years, and in December 1939 the first production ASV Mk. I radars began to be fitted first to Coastal Command Hudsons and then to Sunderlands and Catalinas. Crews initially found these radar sets relatively useless for anti-submarine attacks, as the maximum detection range on a surfaced submarine was about 5.5 miles; in bad sea conditions this range was reduced to about 4.5 miles, leaving little room for detection.

Based on field experience with the ASV Mk. I, the Mk. II unit was developed. This unit offered no increase in power but was a streamlined design that was more reliable and easier to repair in the field. The first Mk. II units began arriving in the summer of 1940, and by March 1941, 2,000 transmitters and 1,000 receivers had been delivered.

The ASV Mark II scored its first success in the early afternoon hours of November 30, 1941, with a Whitley Mark V of No. 502 Squadron, Coastal Command. The squadron report states that at 1215 hours a U-boat was picked up on radar at a distance of 5 miles. The U-boat, U-71, was sighted at a range of 3 miles and crash-dived when the Whitley was 1.5 miles away. The Whitley eventually dropped 6 depth charges along the U-boat's predicted course; after the first three were dropped, the crew reported that the water "turned a dirty brown colour", but ultimately nothing more was seen.

This attack was initially believed to have been made against U-206, but postwar research concluded this U-boat was likely sunk in a British air-laid minefield. U-71, the recipient of the Whitley attack, escaped undamaged.

L-Scope for an RAAF ASV Mark II radar set:

A crew of No. 502 Squadron RAF walk to their aircraft past Handley Page Halifax Mark IIIs at Stornoway, Outer Hebrides:

The crew of a Whitley Mk VII of No. 502 Squadron on an anti-submarine patrol, August 1942:

December 6, 2023

Week of December 3 - December 9:

December 6, 1944: the Heinkel He 162 jet fighter flies for the first time.

The design of the He 162 came about as a result of the American daylight bomber campaign which had ramped up in intensity, starting with the Big Week offensive from February 20 – 25. The heavy bomber formations were now escorted by P-51s, which could escort the heavies deep into Germany and fend off German fighter attacks. After the Luftwaffe changed its tactics to frontal assaults – where the attacking fighters flew through the bomber formations from the front, giving the escorts little time to react – the U.S. Eighth Air Force escorts changed their tactics as well. Under orders from Major General Jimmy Doolittle, the P-51s now roamed out ahead of the bomber formations to seek out and destroy the German fighters wherever they could be found.

The consequences of this change were catastrophic for the Germans. Not only were the German fighters not getting through to the bombers like they were before, but their pilots were being killed at a far faster rate than they could be replaced.

In response to this, the Luftwaffe initiated the Emergency Fighter Program. Under this plan, the Luftwaffe believed it could still regain the upper hand against the American heavy bombers by mass-producing fighters with inexpensive, easily-sourced materials like wood. General Adolf Galland, the Inspector of Fighters opposed the plan, believing it was better to counter the superior numbers of bombers and fighters with superior technology, like that found in the Me 262.

In the end, Armaments Minister Albert Speer and Reich Marshall Hermann Goering won the argument for a cheaply-built fighter powered by a turbojet engine. Under this emergency program, about 1,000 machines per month were promised, and Max Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth, told Goering he’d supply teenage boys and girls to fly this new plane, which became known as the “People’s Fighter” (Ernst Heinkel after the war would dismiss this idea as a fantasy).

Around September 8, 1944, the German Air Ministry’s Technical Department issued a demand to the German aircraft industry for “a single engine fighter to be regarded as a piece of consumable goods, to be ready for the Front by 1 January 1945.” This plane was to be powered by the BMW 003E turbojet engine. Additionally, the maximum weight was to be 2,000 kg, the maximum speed was to be 750 km/h at sea level, and the operational endurance was to be at least 30 minutes. Most importantly, it was to be built out of non-strategic materials like wood and assembled by semi-skilled workers (prisoners of war and slave laborers).

In October 1944, only three weeks after the design specs were issued, Heinkel’s submission for the People’s Fighter project was selected. Key design features included the turbojet being mounted high on the fuselage and the tail section being constructed with two small vertical stabilizers positioned on either side of the engine’s exhaust path. To save time, some of the landing gear components from the Bf 109 K were reused.

Less than 90 days after the design had been finalized, He 162 V1 flew on December 6, 1944, with Heinkel AG test pilot Gotthold Peter at the controls. This flight, flown from the Heinkel assembly plant at Schwechat, Austria, lasted twenty minutes and reportedly went well; however, during a high-speed run at 840 km/h, the highly acidic plywood glue attached to the nose gear strut door failed and Peter was forced to land. Peter also reported that the plane tended to turn to port.

Just four days later, Peter would be killed in He 162 V1 when another failure with the glue caused an aileron to separate from the wing, causing the plane to roll over and crash. Ultimately, despite the Luftwaffe’s grand designs, only a handful of the approximately 320 He 162s ever saw combat in the last weeks of the war in April 1945 with JG 1 in the West.

He 162 V1:

He 162 A-1, Werk Nummer 120077, on display at the Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, California:

December 13, 2023

Week of December 10 - 16:

December 15, 1944: Glenn Miller, an American big band conductor, composer, trombone player, and recording artist before and during World War II, dies when the plane in which he is traveling crashes over the English Channel.

From 1939 to 1942, Miller’s swing dance band, known as Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, was the best-selling recording band, and it was also a touring band that played multiple radio broadcasts nearly every day. In 1942, Miller volunteered to join the US Armed Forces to entertain troops during the war and ended up in the US Army Air Force.

After the Allies retook Paris from the Germans in August 1944, General Eisenhower asked Miller to lead a joint British-American radio production team to perform for the troops and record for broadcast in the United States. After his band finished recording and broadcasting on December 12, Miller was booked on a scheduled Air Transport Command passenger flight from London-Bovingdon to Paris-Orly on December 14.

Miller had been on standby to fly on December 13, but bad weather on both days forced the cancellation of those flights. Frustrated and impatient, Miller learned through his executive officer, Lieutenant Donald Haynes, that a mutual acquaintance, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Baessell, was flying to France on December 15. This flight was to be aboard a Noorduyn UC-64A Norseman assigned to Baessell and piloted by Flight Officer John Stuart Morgan.

At Baessell's invitation, the two men boarded the UC-64A at Twinwood Field in the East of England at 1345 on the afternoon of December 15. With Morgan at the controls, the plane took off at 1355 and was never seen again.

Because Miller was not authorized to board a "casual" flight and did not report his intentions to his chain of command, Allied commanders were in the dark as to Miller's whereabouts. Complicating matters was the start of the Battle of the Bulge the following morning. The U.S. Eighth Air Force and SHAEF did not realize that the UC-64A Miller had boarded was missing until three days later, on Monday, December 18. Five days later, on December 23, Miller's wife was notified of her husband's disappearance, and the following day his appearance was announced to the press.

After Miller's disappearance, several conspiracy theories were put forward to explain Miller's death. The three most prominent over the years were as follows:

Miller never boarded the plane but was assassinated after General Eisenhower sent him on a secret mission a few days earlier to negotiate a surrender with Germany.
He made it to Paris but died of a heart attack in a brothel.
The UC-64A was destroyed by bombs jettisoned by a group of bombers returning to England from an aborted mission over Germany.

But in 2014, Dennis Spragg, a music historian at the University of Colorado-Boulder, made the case that icing doomed the small plane Miller was flying. The UC-64A had been recalled for faulty carburetor heaters, but it was at the end of the repair line behind fighters and bombers. Heavy clouds in the sky on the 15th meant the pilot was flying close to the water under visual flight rules, and the temperature was below freezing.

In those weather conditions, Spragg said, ice accumulated in the fuel tanks and fuel lines. Once the engine stopped, the pilot had about eight seconds to react before the plane plunged into the water. Because the UC-64A was constructed of lightweight materials, Spragg believes the plane likely disintegrated on impact, killing everyone on board instantly.

Ironically, Spragg has noted that the same not-so-mysterious conclusion was also reached by Eighth Air Force investigators just days after the crash, but the documents from the investigation were boxed up after the war, sent to the United States, and locked away.

For more reading:

Revealed: What really happened when Glenn Miller disappeared in 1944

70 years later, mystery of Glenn Miller’s disappearance may be solved

Glenn Miller as a Captain in the US Army Air Force:

December 20, 2023

Week of December 17 - 23:

December 17, 1935: the Douglas Sleeper Transport (DST), the first variant of the DC-3, flies for the first time.

The DC-3 (Douglas Commerical-3) was developed from the DC-2, which had been introduced into commercial service in May 1934 with Trans World Airlines (TWA). The DC-2 itself had been developed as a result of concerns about the safety of wooden aircraft structures. The design was a success and was the first commercial airliner to prove that passenger air travel could be affordable, safe, and reliable. The 130 civil DC-2s plus another built under license by Nakajima in Japan flew with airlines across the globe.

Development of the DST began after a marathon telephone call between American Airlines CEO C.R. Smith and Donald Douglas, founder and head of Douglas Aircraft Company. AA wanted a new sleeper aircraft to replace its Curtiss Condor II biplanes, but the DC-2 design was considered too narrow for side-by-side-berths. Douglas agreed to go ahead with development after Smith stated his intention to purchase 20 aircraft.

Development of the DST took approximately two years and was headed by Douglas chief engineer Arthur E. Raymond. As initially designed, the DST could accommodate 14-16 sleeper berths. DSTs and early production DC-3s were powered by Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial engines rated at 800 horsepower at 2100 rpm for takeoff; later versions were powered by Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines rated for 1050 horsepower at 2700 rpm. Three-blade Hamilton Standard constant-speed propellers with 16:11 gear reduction were fitted as standard.

The initial DST, with registration number NX14988, was flown on December 17, 1935, from Clover Field in Santa Monica, California with Douglas vice president and chief test pilot Carl Cover at the controls. Also aboard were engineers Fred Stineman and Frank Coleman.

In the development of the DST, there were no prototypes built. NX14988 was a production airplane and went to AA, where it flew more than 17,000 hours. At the beginning of World War II, it was placed into military service as a C-49E Skytrooper with the serial number 42-43619. It crashed on October 15, 1942, 2 miles from its destination at Chicago Illinois; the 2 pilots and 7 passengers were all killed.

Meanwhile, the first DC-3 rolled off the production line after seven DSTs were built. As designed, it could seat 21 passengers. DSTs and DC-3s would popularize air travel in the United States – eastbound transcontinental flights could cross the U.S. in about 15 hours with three refueling stops, while westbound trips against the wind took 17.5 hours. Trips just a few years earlier entailed much shorter flights and were coupled with train travel overnight. Outside the U.S., DC-3s would fly in commercial service around the globe.

Ultimately, 16,079 DC-3s of all variants, including military models, were built between 1935 and 1950. This includes 607 civilian variants, over 10,000 C-47 and C-53 military models, and over 5,000 built under license in the Soviet Union and Japan as the Lisunov Li-2 and L2D, respectively.

Today, several hundred DC-3s remain in commercial service in a variety of roles, from hauling freight to spraying pesticides for mosquito control. The oldest surviving example is the sixth DST built, originally registered as NC16005. It is currently on display at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California.

NX14988, the first production plane:

NC16005, the oldest-surviving model:

December 28, 2023

Week of December 24 -30:

December 29, 1939: The prototype XB-24 heavy bomber flies for the first time.

The design and development of the B-24 originated from a United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) request in 1938 for Consolidated Aircraft, based in San Diego, California, to set up a second production line to produce the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress under license. After company executives, including President Reuben Fleet, visited the Boeing factory in Seattle, Washington, Consolidated told the Air Corps they could build a better, more modern bomber.

The Model 32 – Consolidated’s company name for its design – used highly efficient wings designed by David R. Davis which had been originally used on the Model 31, a prototype flying boat also known as the XP4Y Corregidor. These were fitted to a new fuselage design and a twin tail section that was originally designed also for the XP4Y. The fuselage was designed around twin bomb bays, each one being the same size and capacity as those fitted to the B-17.

The Davis wings – as they came to be known – allowed for a relatively high airspeed and long range. With a wingspan of 110 feet, the Davis wings were 6 feet larger than those on the B-17 but featured a lower wing area of 1048 square feet. This gave the XB-24 a 35-percent higher wing loading. The drawbacks of the Davis wing – as combat would later prove – were increased susceptibility to battle damage and icing.

The XB-24 was powered by four Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp R-1830-33 radial engines, each rated at 1200 horsepower at 2700 rpm during takeoff and up to 5,000 feet. Each of these engines was driven by three-bladed Curtiss Electric variable pitch propellers. As designed, the XB-24 was meant to be operated by a seven-man crew.

In January 1939, the USAAC, under Specification C-212, formally invited Consolidated to submit a design study for a bomber with a longer range, higher speed, and greater ceiling than the B-17. The specs were written so that the Model 32 would automatically be the winning design. Subsequently, the program was run under the umbrella group “Project A”, an Air Corps requirement for an intercontinental bomber that had been conceived in the mid-1930s.

On December 29, 1939, XB-24, serial number 39-556, was flown for the first time from Lindbergh Field – known today as San Diego International Airport – with Consolidated chief test pilot William Wheatley at the controls. Also on board were George Newman, co-pilot, and flight engineers Jack Kline and Bob Keith. This flight lasted just 17 minutes.

The XB-24 attained a cruise speed of 186 miles per hour and a maximum speed of 273 miles per hour at 15,000 feet. The service ceiling was 31,500 feet and the maximum range was 4,700 miles empty or 3,000 miles with 2,500 pounds of bombs. These speeds were 38 miles per hour slower than the Air Corps requirements, so several changes were made after the first flight. This included replacing the supercharged R-1830-33s with turbocharged R-1830-41 engines. The round engine cowlings were also changed to an elliptical shape that became characteristic of the B-24. The modified prototype was redesignated XB-24B and was able to reach 310 miles per hour, just 1 mile per hour under the Army’s requirement.

The XB-24B was retained by Consolidated (which became the Consolidated-Vultee in 1943) and in 1944 it was further modified into a company transport. It was eventually scrapped at Brookley Field, Mobile, Alabama, on June 20, 1946.

Consolidated XB-24 39-556, December 26, 1939:

The XB-24 takes off for the first time:

January 4, 2024

Week of December 31 - January 6:

January 1, 1945: The Germans launch Operation Bodenplatte, its last major attempt to cripple Allied air power in the West and regain control of the skies during the Battle of the Bulge.

By early October 1944, the front lines in the West were relatively stable. Contributing to this was the fact that the advance across Western Europe was slowly losing momentum as the supply lines of the Allied armies were stretched to the limit. At the same time, as the Allies reached the borders of the Third Reich, the German ground defenses stiffened.

By the fall of 1944, however, the Luftwaffe's fighter units in the West were in very poor shape, most having suffered heavy losses in the summer of 1944. As a result, many fighter units in the west were withdrawn from the front to be rebuilt, and others were created by equipping former destroyer units with Bf 109s and Fw 190s. At the same time, the idea of a "Great Blow" was being discussed by Adolf Galland, the inspector of the fighter force. This plan would have involved a massive attack on the U.S. Eighth Air Force with some 2,500 single-engine aircraft, but this plan was shelved after it was concluded that the rebuilt fighter force would be needed elsewhere.

New plans for a major Luftwaffe offensive began to take shape on October 21, 1944, when Luftflotte Reich was ordered to prepare for the transfer of six to seven fighter wings and one attack wing to Luftwaffenkommando West. This was followed the following month by an order from Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Göring, which outlined an attack by Luftwaffe fighters against enemy fighter-bomber airfields near the front and to provide fighter cover for the Army.

The points outlined by Göring were directly related to the upcoming German offensive in the Ardennes, known as the Battle of the Bulge. When this offensive began on December 16, 1944, the Luftwaffe's fighter forces gave maximum effort to support the armored formations, despite bad weather. However, the Ardennes and Eifel became a graveyard for German fighters, as 644 fighters were destroyed and some 322 pilots were killed, 23 captured and 133 wounded between the 17th and 27th.

With these heavy losses and the German ground offensive slowing down, not to mention the continuing bad weather, the fighter commanders assumed that the planned attack on the Allied airfields would be called off. In the early afternoon of the 31st, however, a coded message went out warning the forces to prepare for the next day's attack, January 1. Time over target was scheduled for 0920 hours.

Operation Bodenplatte did not get off to a good start for the Germans as some 15 planes were shot down by friendly anti-aircraft batteries as the planes made their way westward in the early morning light. Others, such as JG 11, were intercepted by Allied fighters on their own missions and otherwise unaware that a major attack was underway. In the end, Allied fighters and AAA were responsible for no less than 75 percent of all German losses during the attack.

The material damage inflicted by the Luftwaffe on Allied airfields was uneven. Some airfields, such as Eindhoven, Brussels-Evere, Brussels-Melsbroek, and Metz-Frescaty, were heavily damaged, while other target airfields were either misidentified and not attacked or only slightly damaged.

The Luftwaffe destroyed some 305 planes and damaged about 190 more during Bodenplatte, but the Allied material superiority meant that these losses could be easily replaced. The Luftwaffe's losses, however, left the fighter force completely exhausted. Of the approximately 850 fighters or fighter-bombers that participated, 32 percent were destroyed and another 8 percent were damaged. No less than 213 pilots were lost, including 22 unit commanders and about 45 other experienced pilots. Such losses were unsustainable for the Luftwaffe at this stage of the war, and many never recovered from the damage they suffered on January 1, 1945.

Destroyed P-47s at Metz-Frescaty:

Uffz. Herbert Maxis' IV./ JG 53 Bf 109 G-14

JG 53 had orders to attack the airfield at Frescaty near Metz. Before reaching the target Uffz. Herbert Maxis took hits from an American anti-aircraft position (the 455th AAA Bn., 'A' Battery) stationed at Oberfelsberg. Maxis force landed only 200 yards from the American positions and was shot and killed climbing down from the cockpit. This image shows the 109 after the souvenir hunters had removed many pieces:

January 11, 2024

Week of January 7-13:

January 11, 1944: Major James Howard, commander of the 356th Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group, becomes the only fighter pilot to earn the Medal of Honor in the European Theater of Operations.

Howard was born in April 1913 in Canton (Guangzhou), China, the second of three children of Dr. Harvey Howard, an ophthalmologist at a medical school in Canton. When James was 11, he and his father were kidnapped by Manchurian bandits and held for ten weeks before they were able to escape. The Howard family eventually returned to the United States in August 1923.

After graduating from Pomona College in Southern California in 1937, Howard enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an aviation cadet, thus turning away from an earlier decision to enter medical school like his father. Howard completed his flight training in February 1939 and was commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Throughout 1939 he served with VF-6 aboard the USS Enterprise (CV-6) which was equipped with F3F biplane fighters at the time. In 1940 he was assigned to the naval air station at San Diego, California.

Ensign Howard resigned his commission from the Navy in June 1941 and went to Burma as an employee of the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, a cover name for the 1st American Volunteer Group, better known as the “Flying Tigers.” Howard was placed in command of the Group’s 2nd Pursuit Squadron and shot down 6 Japanese Ki-27 planes over 56 missions.

After the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, Howard was commissioned as a Captain in the Army Air Corps on January 31, 1943, and assigned to the 354th FG, where he was then placed in command of its 356th FS and promoted to Major.

On January 11, 1944, Howard led the three squadrons of the 354th FG – the first to fly the P-51B in combat – on an escort mission to support B-17s sent to bomb aircraft factories at Oschersleben, Germany. The bombers had already completed their bombing run when Luftwaffe heavy fighters began their attack. Howard directed the other two squadrons to protect the middle and rearward bomber formations, while Howard’s squadron flew toward the lead bomber formation and broke up into flights.

Howard went immediately on the attack and shot down a Bf 110. During this engagement, he became separated from his flight but climbed back to rejoin the bombers. By this point, more than thirty German fighters were attacking the bombers, and Howard went single-handedly after them. For more than 30 minutes, he repeatedly attacked this large group of enemy fighters, shooting down two planes, probably shot down two more, and damaged at least another two.

Even after three of his four machine guns were out of ammo and he was running low on fuel, Major Howard continued to make attacks on the German fighters. After returning to base at Boxted, his P-51 had been hit by just a single bullet. The commander of the bomber formation from the 401st Bombardment Group later reported, “For sheer determination and guts, it was the greatest exhibition I've ever seen. It was a case of one lone American against what seemed to be the entire Luftwaffe. He was all over the wing, across and around it. They can't give that boy a big enough award.”

The following month, Major Howard was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and in June 1944 he was awarded the Medal of Honor by General Carl Spaatz, commander of U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe.

Howard was promoted to Colonel in 1945 and placed in command of Pinellas Army Airfield, Florida. He remained in the military after the war’s end and was promoted to Brigadier General in March 1948 and commanded the Air Force Reserve’s 96th Bombardment Group. He is credited by the American Fighter Aces Association with 8.33 aerial victories.

Howard with the Flying Tigers, at right:

Howard after being awarded the Medal of Honor in June 1944:

January 17, 2024

Week of January 14 - 20:

January 20, 1941: the air arms of the Brazilian Army and Navy are merged to form an independent air force, called the National Air Forces.

The history of Brazilian military aviation dates back to September 1914 during the Contestado War, a guerrilla war over land between settlers and landowners, the latter supported by the Brazilian state police and military forces. The war lasted from October 1912 to August 1916. On September 19, 1914, a military troop train was used to transport a Morane-Saulnier biplane, a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, and a Blitzer ST biplane to the conflict zone at União da Vitória.

During the transport of these planes, a fire broke out on board the train, destroying two of the three disassembled planes and leaving only one of the Morane-Saulnier planes in airworthy condition. Subsequently, two more Morane-Saulnier aircraft and a mechanic were brought from Rio de Janeiro. Runways and hangars were also built in the União da Vitória, Canoinhas and Rio Negro regions.

The first flight of these aircraft took place on January 4, 1915, a training flight, and the first combat mission took place just over two weeks later on January 19. A major attack on the rebels was planned for March 1 - including bombing of rebel positions and aerial observation of artillery fire and infantry advance - but bad weather forced the cancellation of the mission. One pilot was killed in a crash.

Almost two decades later, during the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, both warring sides had few aircraft, but they played a significant role in the conflict. The Brazilian Army and Navy had a total of about 58 aircraft, while the rebel Paulistas had less than a dozen. The Army's planes were used not only along the front lines, but also for bombing missions against cities such as São Paulo and for leafleting. Meanwhile, naval aircraft operated in support of the surface fleet to help enforce a naval blockade of the port of Santos. They were also used alongside Army aircraft in escort and observation missions.

The idea of an independent air force gained momentum after a group of Brazilian airmen returned from Italy in 1934 and explained the advantages of a unified air arm. The Spanish Revolution is also credited with playing a role in highlighting the importance of air power in military strategy.

The structure of the Ministry of Aeronautics was established at the end of 1940, and on January 20, 1941, the National Air Force was created. With this action, the aviation branches of the Army and the Navy were dissolved and all personnel, aircraft, installations and other related equipment were transferred to the new branch, which was renamed the Força Aérea Brasileira (Brazilian Air Force, or FAB) on May 22.

From mid-1942 until the end of World War II in Europe, the FAB made important contributions to the Allied war effort. FAB Catalinas patrolled the Atlantic and sank the German U-boat U-199 on July 31, 1943. As part of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, pilots of the 1st Fighter Aviation Group (GAVCA) - attached to the U.S. 350th Fighter Group - flew P-47s on the Italian front from October 31, 1944 to May 1945. By the end of the war, the 1st GAVCA had flown approximately 445 missions, 2550 individual sorties, and nearly 5500 combat flying hours.

Although the 1st GAVCA flew only 5% of the total missions flown by the XXII Tactical Air Command during the last months of the war, it was responsible for a proportionately higher percentage of the total destruction inflicted on the enemy, including 85% of the ammunition dumps, 36% of the fuel depots, and 28% of the bridges destroyed.

P-47s of the 1st GAVCA, including one that collided with a chimney but safely returned to base:

January 25, 2024

Week of January 21 - 27:

January 27, 1939: the Lockheed XP-38 prototype flies for the first time from March Field, California.

The design and development of the P-38 by the Lockheed Corporation was in response to a February 1937 U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) specification known as Circular Proposal X-608. This document, authored by First Lieutenants Benjamin Kelsey and Gordon Saville, laid out a series of performance objectives for a twin-engine, high-altitude "interceptor" with the tactical mission of intercepting and attacking enemy aircraft at high altitude. In the 1970s, Kelsey explained that he and Saville deliberately chose the word "interceptor" to circumvent USAAC requirements that pursuit aircraft carry no more than 500 pounds of armament and that single-seat aircraft be limited to one engine.

Other requirements specified in Circular Proposal X-608 were a maximum airspeed of at least 360 miles per hour at altitude and a climb rate to 20,000 feet in 6 minutes - the toughest set of specifications the USAAC had ever required. The specifications also called for the plane to be powered by the new Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled, turbo-supercharged engines, and extra points would be awarded for tricycle landing gear.

To maintain the utmost secrecy, Lockheed formed a secret engineering team to work on the project away from the main factory in Burbank, California. This group of engineers worked on the new design in a walled-off section of a building that was inaccessible to all but those directly involved in the project. In later years, this approach to design would become known as the "Skunk Works."

Lockheed was declared the winner of Circular Proposal X-608 on June 23, 1937, with its Model 22 design, and was contracted to build a prototype XP-38 for $163,000, although Lockheed's costs would total $761,000. Construction began in July 1938 at an old bourbon distillery purchased by Lockheed. The site would later be identified by Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson as the first location of the Skunk Works.

The XP-38 was powered by a pair of experimental C-Series V-1710 engines, with the port V-1710-C8 engine in a normal right-hand tractor configuration and the starboard V-1710-C9 engine in a left-hand tractor configuration. These engines produced 1150 horsepower at 2950 rpm at takeoff and could maintain their rated power to an altitude of 25,000 feet due to the combination of a gear-driven turbocharger and an exhaust-driven General Electric turbosupercharger. With this arrangement, the XP-38 could reach 413 miles per hour at 20,000 feet and had a service ceiling of 38,000 feet. No armament was carried on this prototype.

The XP-38 was disassembled and transported to March Field (later March Air Force Base) on the night of December 31, 1938 / January 1, 1939, aboard a convoy of three trucks. Upon arrival, it was reassembled by Lockheed technicians under tight security.

On January 27, 1939, Kelsey made the first flight in the XP-38, which now bore the serial number 37-457. The flight was short because he felt severe vibrations in the airframe. Three of the four flap support rods had failed, rendering the flaps unusable. Returning to March Field, Kelsey landed at a very high speed with an 18-degree nose-up angle, causing the tail to hit the runway. However, the damage was minor, and the problem was quickly resolved.

Less than a month later, the XP-38 was damaged beyond repair when, on approach to Mitchel Field, New York, on February 11, both engines failed to accelerate from idle due to carburetor icing. Unable to maintain altitude, Kelsey crashed into a golf course ravine just short of the runway. While the plane was a total write-off, Kelsey escaped with only minor injuries. Further testing would continue with 13 pre-production YP-38s.

Prototype XP-38 37-457, circa January 1939 and after its crash in February 1939:

February 2, 2024

Week of January 28 - February 3:

February 3, 1945: the U.S. Eighth Air Force flies its largest raid of the war against Berlin as part of Mission 817.

In early February 1945, Allied intelligence concluded that the Germans planned to move the Sixth Panzer Army through the Tempelhof rail yards on its way to the Eastern Front. As this would be one of the few occasions on which the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) would launch a mass attack on a city center, Lieutenant General James Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force, objected to the plan. However, he was overruled by both USAAF Commander General Carl Spaatz and Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower. Both Spaatz and Eisenhower believed that an attack on Berlin as planned was of great political importance – the objective was to support the Red Army's offensive on the Oder River east of Berlin and thus essential to Allied unity.

For Mission 817, 1003 B-17s from the 94th A Combat Wing were sent to the Tempelhof marshaling yards, with the targets of opportunity being Bad Zwischenahn, Bromsche, Gatow, Luneburg, and Sogel. Escort would be provided by 575 of 613 P-51s (the remainder were P-47s). Meanwhile, 434 B-24s were dispatched to hit the Rothensee oil plant at Magdeburg; the target of last resort was the marshaling yards at Magdeburg and the opportunity targets were Wesermunde, Mockern, Cuxhaven, and Vechta Airfield. The escort for this target was provided by 210 of 232 P-51s (the remainder also being P-47s).

The raiding force against Berlin was comprised of the First Air Division’s entire bomber force, with Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal’s H2X radar-equipped pathfinder B-17 from the 100^th Bombardment Group in the lead. H2X radar was an American ground scanning radar system used for blind bombing. Colonel Lewis Lyle, Commanding Officer of the 379^th Bombardment Group, was the Air Commander for the mission.

Per the 457^th Bombardment Group’s records, the antiaircraft fire over the target was “moderate but accurate” and visibility was excellent, with the bombing carried out visually from 25,000 feet with the squadrons in trail formation. The results of the bombing “were observed to be very good, with some direct hits.” After bombing the target and beginning the return trip to England, Lyle stated: “There was a bomber stream three to five hundred miles long…heading back to England, there were bombers heading for Berlin, practically all the way back to England.”

The area of Berlin that suffered the heaviest damage did not include the main railway lines, which were further north and south of the area hit by the B-17s (Stadtbahn and Ringbahn). Instead, the areas hardest hit included the newspaper district (Freidrichstadt), Luisenstadt, and other areas including Friedrichshain. The bombing (conducted mostly with high-explosive ordnance) was so dense that it caused a fire in the former two areas that lasted for four days until it had burnt everything combustible to ashes and after it had reached waterways, large thoroughfares, and parks that the fire could not jump over.

Other areas hit during this raid included the Reich Chancellery, the Party Chancellery, the Gestapo HQ, and the People’s Court. Among the dead was Roland Freisler, the infamous head justice of the People’s Court. All told, the death toll was just under 2900, with a further 20,000 wounded and 120,000 left homeless.

Owing to a severe shortage of ammunition and weapons, the overworked German antiaircraft defenses managed to shoot down just 23 B-17s and 7 P-51s. Among those shot down was Rosenthal, who was eventually rescued by Soviet troops and returned to England. On the Allied side, the P-51 escort claimed 13 aircraft in the air and 28 destroyed and damaged on the ground.

B-17s over Berlin, circa February 1945:

B-17s from the 457th Bombardment Group over the marshaling yards at Salzwedel, Germany, February 22, 1945:

February 9, 2024

Week of February 4 - 10:

February 4, 1939: the prototype XB-15 bomber flies emergency supplies to Chile, following an earthquake on January 24.

The XB-15 (known internally at Boeing as the Model 294) was designed in response to a specification by the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) to see if it would be possible to build a “Super Bomber” with a 5,000-mile range. The specification, known as “Project A” and released in mid-1933, also called for the proposed design to carry a payload of 2000 pounds at 200 miles per hour. Martin, the one competitor to Boeing for this project, designed a plane known as the XB-16 but its design was judged inferior by the USAAC before a prototype was built and thus was canceled.

The XB-15 was initially intended to be powered by 2600-horsepower Allison V-3420 liquid-cooled engines, but as these were not ready, four 850-horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830s were fitted instead. For a time, beginning in 1935, the XB-15 was renamed the XLBR-1 in response to a new USAAC specification called Project D, also known as “Bomber, Long Range.” However, the following year, the XLBR designation was dropped, and the plane was again renamed XB-15.

The XB-15 design relied on dual-wheel main landing gear legs, borrowing a design dating back to World War I to spread the load of its 35-ton gross weight. Pioneering features in the XB-15 included an autopilot, deicing equipment, and two gasoline generators used as auxiliary power units to power the 100-volt electrical system. The plane was also equipped with a galley, bunk beds, and a lavatory, given that the plane could stay aloft for as long as 24 hours. The engines could also be serviced in flight using an access tunnel inside the wing.

Construction of the XB-15 was completed in September 1937, and it made its first flight the following month on October 15. It was flown on December 2 to Wright Field, Ohio to be accepted by the USAAC for testing.

Following the January 24, 1939, Chillan earthquake in Chile, the XB-17, now assigned to the 2^nd Bombardment Group at Langley Field, Virginia, was tasked to fly 3250 pounds of American Red Cross emergency supplies to Santiago, Chile. Commanded by Major Caleb Haynes, the plane arrived in Santiago only 30 hours later, making only two stops along the way – at France Field in the Panama Canal Zone and Lima, Peru. For this feat, Haynes was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Order of Merit of Chile, and the whole crew was awarded the MacKay Trophy for 1939. This award, instituted in 1912 and first awarded to Henry “Hap” Arnold, is still awarded yearly by the United States Air Force for the “most meritorious flight of the year” by an Air Force airman, airmen, or organization.

Shortly after the Chilean relief flight, Haynes went on to set new records with the XB-15. On July 30, 1939, he and copilot Captain William Old took off from Patterson Field, Ohio with a payload of 15.5 tons to 6500 feet, besting the previous payload record set by a Soviet pilot three years earlier by more than a ton. Three days later, Haynes set another record in the XB-15, by carrying a 2,000-kilogram load over a closed course at a speed averaging more than 166 miles per hour over 5,000 kilometers.

Ultimately, the XB-15 was the victim of a lag in engine development – there were simply no engines available that were powerful enough to give it the performance it needed. Numerous test projects were carried out with the plane (including classified bombing tests of canal lock protections in Panama), and in 1943 it was relegated to the role of a cargo airplane and redesignated XC-105. It was retired on December 18, 1944, in Panama and scrapped in June 1945 at Albrook Field. Eventually, the remains of the airframe were deposited in a swampy landfill where it slowly sank from sight.

The upholstered crew rest area:

The Boeing XB-15’s wings stretched about 45 feet greater than the span of a B-17. The tremendous size of the prototype bomber drew a large crowd when it flew to Felts Field in Spokane in 1939:

February 16, 2024

Week of February 11 - 17:

February 14, 1942: the Douglas C-54 Skymaster prototype flies for the first time.

The story of the C-54 began in 1935 when United Air Lines requested a new airliner that would be larger and more sophisticated than the DC-3, which at the time had not yet been flown. The interest was high enough that other airlines – American Airlines, Eastern Air Lines, Pan Am, and TWA – joined United and each provided $100,000 toward the cost of developing the new aircraft. Eventually, Pan Am and TWA withdrew their funds in favor of the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, which was expected to be less costly.

The prototype DC-4E first flew without incident on June 7, 1938, but the design was judged to be too inefficient and economically unreliable for commercial operations. Douglas took the lengthy list of recommended changes submitted by American, Eastern, Pan Am, and TWA and created a newer, smaller design, the DC-4A. This new design was to be powered by Pratt & Whitney R-2000 radial engines and a single fin and rudder.

However, with America’s entry into the war looming in June 1941, the War Department took over the provisional orders airlines had placed for the DC-4A and instead allocated them to the United States Army Air Forces until the designation C-54 Skymaster. Under this new designation, the C-54 prototype flew for the first time on February 14, 1942, from Clover Field in Santa Monica, California.

The first production C-54s were fitted with four auxiliary fuel tanks in the main cabin to meet military requirements, which reduced the passenger seats to 26. The next model, the C-54A, was the first built entirely to military specifications and was designated the C-54A; it was built with a stronger floor and a cargo door with a hoist and winch. This variant was first delivered in February 1943.

Following the introduction of the C-54B model in March 1944, a single VC-54C was built for presidential use and is considered to be the first official presidential transport aircraft – today known as Air Force One. Known as the “Sacred Cow”, this plane was a hybrid, featuring the fuselage from the A model with four cabin fuel tanks and the wings from the B model with built-in tanks for maximum range.

The C-54D was the common variant and entered service in August 1944. It was essentially a C-54B with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2000-11 engines. The final variant, the C-54E, saw the last two cabin fuel tanks moved to the wings, which allowed more freight to be carried or the installation of 44 passenger seats.

Ultimately, 1163 C-54s (known as the R5D in US Navy service) were built between 1942 and 1946, along with another 79 civilian DC-4s built after the war. A later variant, fitted with Merlin engines allowing it to fly over 40% faster, was built in Canada as the Canadair North Star.

The C-54 proved to be a popular and reliable design. Between 1942 and 1945, C-54s flew more than 20 round trips a day over the North Atlantic. The type gained fame after the war as the principal transport used during the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift. During that operation, every C-54 in the US Air Force’s inventory was pressed into service to deliver supplies to the city. At the height of the airlift, one transport plane reached West Berlin every thirty seconds.

A handful of C-54s and DC-4s remain airworthy today, both as museum planes and for commercial use. Two of these are based out of South Africa, while a third is fitted with spray bars on the top of its wings and is currently based in Florida for oil pollution control. The single VC-54C is also now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

VC-54 "Sacred Cow":

A Douglas C-54 Skymaster approaches the end of the pierced-steel mat runway at Berlin, circa 1949:

C-54 on approach to land at Flughafen Berlin-Templehof:

This week in aviation history

Recommended Posts

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

LukeFF

Browse All

Activity