Strana 6
A Freezing Battlefield
I have long been interested in history of aerial
warfare, particularly from the Second World War,
but it wasn’t until this year that I truly grasped
the horrific conditions under which American
bomber crews fought over Europe. Flying at alti-
tudes comparable to the peaks of the Himalayas,
they made their way to their targets and back to
their bases while enduring flak, enemy fighter
attacks, freezing cold, and thin air. Every missi-
on was a freezing equivalent of the Battle of the
Bulge. Unlike ground forces, they couldn’t take
cover in trenches or hope for medical evacua-
tion. They were virtually unprotected, with only
the thin skin of their bombers‘ fuselage standing
between them and the surrounding threats. You
probably guessed correctly—I realized this while
watching the series Masters of the Air.
Bomber crews had to rely primarily on their
gunners and their pilots‘ skills, and strict disci-
pline in maintaining formation. The tight forma-
tions of bombers instilled fear in German fighter
pilots, often causing panic. Fighter escorts were
not commonplace because, with few excepti-
ons, American fighters did not provide direct,
sustained escort to specific bomber groups.
The fighters‘ range did not match that of the fou-
r-engine bombers until early 1944. When a bom-
ber was shot down over enemy territory, its crew
members often had no idea where they were pa-
rachuting, where their aircraft had crash-landed,
or what awaited them on the ground.
Many viewers held their breath while wat-
ching the Masters of the Air series, particular-
ly during the episode depicting the 100th Bomb
Group‘s loss of nine aircraft on August 17, 1943,
during the raid on Regensburg, or during the
scenes of the October 10, 1943, raid on Münster.
The „Bloody Hundredth“ lost twelve aircraft in that
mission, and the only bomber to make it back to
base—despite having two engines knocked out—
was flown by Lt. Robert „Rosie“ Rosenthal, who
would go on to become a legend within the unit.
In the first half of 1944 the Luftwaffe was sys-
tematically weakened by Allied bombing raids
and, most notably, by the determined efforts of
American fighter units to destroy enemy fighter
aircraft anytime, anywhere, and at any altitude.
The fighting over Normandy in the summer of
1944 was a bloodbath for German fighter units.
Yet, on rare occasions, they still managed to in-
flict heavy losses on individual bomber formati-
ons over Germany. Fighter escorts were simply
not omnipresent. In addition, specialized Sturm-
gruppen equipped with heavily armed and armo-
red Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A aircraft joined the fight.
Oil Campaign
The German petrochemical industry was a key
target for Allied bombers. Both the US 8th and
15th Air Forces, along with the British RAF, con-
ducted a similar number of raids on these tar-
gets during the so-called Oil Campaign. Each air
force carried out around 200 raids, collectively
dropping over 200,000 tons of bombs on German
petrochemical plants, with the RAF responsible
for nearly half of that total. Despite the challen-
ges of precision bombing, this campaign created
immense difficulties for the Nazi regime. By the
war’s end, the Luftwaffe did not face a shortage
of aircraft or pilots, although the quality of pilot
training had declined significantly. The main is-
sue for Hitler’s armed forces was the lack of fuel.
One significant event in this campaign occu-
rred on September 11, 1944, when the US 8th Air
Force conducted a major raid. The targets of its
three bomber divisions were ten petrochemical
plants, including those in Ruhland-Schwarzheide,
Böhlen, Chemnitz, and Brüx (now Most), located
in the Sudetenland, a former Czechoslovakian
border region annexed by Germany in 1938 af-
ter the Munich Agreement. Over 1,000 bombers,
escorted by fighter aircraft from nearly every
8th Air Force fighter group, flew deep into enemy
territory. The Luftwaffe scrambled more than 350
fighter aircraft, its largest deployment since the
Normandy invasion, but suffered heavy losses in
the ensuing battles.
On Saturday, September 7, with some friends I attended
an international aviation event , which commemorated the
80th anniversary of the air battle that took place on Sep-
tember 11, 1944, over Kovářská, Czech Republic, in the Ore
Mountains. I have already visited several times Kovářská
and its local museum, dedicated for many years to the air
battle. This article is not only a summary of my impres-
sions of the aviation event but also an outsider’s perspec-
tive on the broader context surrounding Kovářská and the
battle itself.
Photo:
Michael P. Faley,
Jan Zdiarský and
archive of the Museum
of Air Battle over
the Ore Mountains
Some of the honorary guests associated with the 100th Bomb Group after the cere-
mony at the memorial to fallen airmen in front of the school in Kovářská, 7 September
2024.
INFO Eduard6
October 2024