The Valour and the Horror

Schweinfurt raids. Following the POINTBLANK directive of June 1943 (COMBINED BOMBER OFFENSIVE), these raids were mounted by the UK&endash;based Eighth US Army Air Force (USAAF) on 17 August and 14 October 1943, and were repeated by it and by RAF Bomber Command during Big Week in February 1944, and again by the RAF in April 1944.

Schweinfurt contained five ball bearing factories essential to German fighter production and it was believed that their destruction would cause a bottleneck in the process. Air Chief Marshal Harris, C in C British Bomber Command, called these potential bottlenecks 'panacea targets'. He refused to bomb them. so the task fell to the Americans whose daylight Precision bombing methods on German targets were still unproven.

USAF B-17 bombers over Germany, with vapor

trails of escorting P-47 Thunderbolt fighters:

Out of the 376 bombers sent on the first raid (230 to Schweinfurt, 146 to nearby Regensburg), the largest number yet dispatched by the USAAF, 147 were lost. On the second raid 60 were destroyed out of 291, and 142 were damaged, a loss rate of 19%. This was not sustainable and all raids deep into Germany were suspended until Big Week was launched. The raids prompted the Germans to move some of their ball&endash;bearing production elsewhere. Damaged factories were quickly rebuilt, double shifts were introduced, and production returned to normal.

The attack mounted by Bomber Command in April 1944 was also controversial for Harris was forced, against his better judgement, to abandon the general area bombing in which he so fervently believed for more selective targeting. His judgement was vindicated, for little long term damage was done and 9.3% of the force was lost.

Coffey, T., Decision over Schweinfurt (New York, 1978).

Courtesy of The Oxford Companion to World War II