Strana 7
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.
The Americans also experienced significant
losses, with the number of aircraft lost being
double that of previous weeks’ missions. Some
bomber units faced severe trials. The 92nd Bomb
Group was particularly hard-hit when Focke-
-Wulfs from two Sturmgruppen broke through
the fighter escort, destroying eight B-17s over
Germany, with three more crashing in Allied
territory. The 100th Bomb Group endured an even
more brutal fight, making this mission the secon-
d-worst in its history.
Fighting Over Thuringia
and the Ore Mountains
From the British base at Thorpe Abbotts,
a total of 36 bombers from the 349th, 350th,
351st, and 418th Bomb Squadrons flew over ene-
my territory. Aforementioned „Rosie“ Rosenthal,
commander of the 350th Squadron, did not parti-
cipate in this raid, having been wounded the day
before during a combat mission over southwest
Germany. He was in the hospital after an emer-
gency landing in France.
The 100th Bomb Group‘s target was the Brabag
petrochemical plant in Schwarzheide near
Ruhland. Their fighter escort first encountered
German fighters over Oberhof in Thuringia. The
formation of B-17 bombers was soon attacked by
heavily armed Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-8/R2s from
II (Sturm)/JG 4 and Messerschmitt Bf 109 Gs from
III/JG 4. Fourteen B-17s were shot down in suc-
cession, with about half of them crashing in the
town of Schmiedeberg (now Kovářská) or in its
surrounding areas in the Ore Mountains (Czech:
Krušné hory, German: Erzgebirge). Thirteen of
the downed crews were from the „Bloody Hun-
dredth,“ nine of which belonged to Rosenthal‘s
350th Squadron. One bomber‘s rear fuselage lan-
ded on the roof of a local school with an air-raid
shelternestled in the basement. It was midday on
Monday, and the children not only endured the
terror of the battle overhead but also the shock
of the bomber crashing into their school just abo-
ve them. Miraculously, one airman survived the
fuselage‘s impact on the roof.
Shortly after the devastating strike on the
Flying Fortresses, Mustang fighters arrived on
the scene. Along with the bombers‘ gunners,
they managed to bring down many German figh-
ters, resulting in losses for JG 4 exceeding forty
aircraft. Some of the German fighters crashed di-
rectly in the Schmiedeberg area. The Americans
lost four Mustangs while defending the bomber
formation, and dozens of aircraft were dow-
ned over the relatively small mountain terrain.
Fifty-three American airmen were either killed
in combat or died of injuries in German captivi-
ty, while 48 others survived and returned from
captivity after the war. Several bombers limped
back to base with damage and wounded crew
members onboard. Yet, despite these losses, the
100th Bomb Group took off for another raid the
very next day.
JG 4, meanwhile, suffered heavy casualties,
with 21 killed and 10 seriously or critically woun-
ded in the fighting over the Ore Mountains.
Kovářská
For the inhabitants of Schmiedeberg, the air
battle and its aftermath were a complete shock.
Even the following day, wreckage from the planes
continued to burn near their homes. Until then,
the war had not directly touched this mountain
region. However, local families had already suf-
fered losses, with many men either killed or mi-
ssing in action on the Eastern Front—this after
most of the population had initially welcomed the
annexation by the Reich in 1938.
Schmiedeberg was founded in the 14th cen-
tury, its population mainly consisting of Germans
who had migrated to the Bohemian Kingdom from
Western Europe to settle the border regions (so
called Sudetenland). The original German name
Schmiedeberg meant „smithy hill“. After the es-
tablishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Czech
version of name, Šmídeberk, was also used,
though German remained the common and offi-
cial language for the German minority in Czecho-
slovakia. Before World War II, Schmiedeberg was
a prosperous town with over 5,000 inhabitants.
After the war, the Czechoslovak authorities re-
turned to the region, leading to the displacement
of most of the German population of Czechoslo-
vakia to Germany. In 1947, the town was renamed
Kovářská, meaning „smith‘s“.
New inhabitants arrived from other parts of
Czechoslovakia, as well as from Hungary and
Romania, as in other areas of the Sudetenland.
A formation of B-17Gs belonging to the 350th BS, 100th Bomb Group.
Monday, September 9, 2024 - A rainbow over the
school in Kovarska, exactly where the rear of B-17G
42-102657 crashed on September 11, 1944.
INFO Eduard
7
October 2024