Meant to post this yesterday but got caught up with work stuff. The wartime USAAF film Target For Today was released in 1944, but the bulk of the material in the film was shot during the preparation, launch, and attack phases of the 9 October 1943 mission to Marienburg, Anklam, Danzig, and Gdynia - 71 years ago yesterday. This maximum effort mission came one day after a bloody mission to Bremen which saw the loss of 30 heavy bombers; the 9 October mission saw another 28 bombers lost, with the 351st and 91st Bomb Groups sharing the dubious distinction of jointly suffering the heaviest losses with 5 bombers shot down from each group. 58 bombers in 48 hours... and another 30 would be lost the next day on a mission to Münster, a raid which saw the 100th BG lose a staggering TWELVE bombers of the 14 dispatched. And as bad as THIS was, even worse was to come four days later, when no fewer than 60 aircraft were clawed from the sky on the return mission to Schweinfurt. The horrific losses of October 1943 very nearly broke the back of VIII Bomber Command.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:37:40 +0000
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