On 1 June 1942, the Army Air Forces activated the 100th Bombardment Group (Heavy) (100th BG) as an unmanned paper unit assigned to III Bomber Command. On 25 June 1943, the 100 BG flew its first Eighth Air Force combat mission in a bombing of the Bremen U-boat yards -- the beginning of the "Bloody Hundredth"'s legacy. The group inherited the "Bloody Hundredth" nickname from other bomb groups due to the amount of losses it took. In the early summer of 1943, 100 BG became a "marked outfit" by Luftwaffe fighters after a B-17 pilot first lowered his landing gear to surrender to three Messerschmitt Bf 109s, started to descend after the fighters stopped shooting, then changed his mind and the B-17 gunners shot the three fighter aircraft (one Bf 109 pilot bailed out and presumably reported the event). The group experienced several instances where it lost a dozen or more aircraft on a single mission, and for the next six months, the group focused its bombing attacks against German airfields, industries, and naval facilities in France and Germany. One such raid that the 100th BG made on Münster, ended up with the only surviving 100th BG B-17, the Rosie's Riveters (B-17F 42-30758) commanded by Robert Rosenthal, returning safely to Thorpe Abbots.
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Good stuff - thanks for sharing these incredible vids. Our youth would do well to understand our history.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the libs started taking over education (and govt) jobs post Vietnam = how do you fundamentally change a nation?
A: Start with the children and within 3 generations you'll have largely succeeded.
We have arrived.
Us old school folks are being erased. A school named after Abraham Lincoln is being renamed because he wasn't "woke enough" = all whites should be erased.
This is Not a Drill.
These is amazing. Only halfway through and will save the rest for tonight during my leisure time. When men were men. Balls of brass. These were my heros, not some asshole dribbling a basset balls or catching a pig, football, out in a field.
ReplyDeletePretty dang good job for bunch of young men and older teenagers. How far society has fallen.
ReplyDeleteFinally finished it. Just amazing. The America I loved that had real hero's.
ReplyDeleteIt took guts.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt
ReplyDeleteGood stuff.....that spirit lives in every descendant of those folks. Hopefully it will reawaken in time to save whats left of our country. Marxist scum be damned!
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My father (TSgt Rog) flew 25 missions with the 91st BG in 1943 and 35 missions with the 388th in 1944. The 91st actually lost more aircraft than the 100th but losses were comparable 197 vs 177. It wasn't until the 90's that he would actually talk about his feelings about what he experienced. In 1943 if you were crewing bombers out of England you had no real expectation that you would survive. You had to fly 25 missions but average survival in 1943 was 10 missions. Every day you dealt with the knowledge that death would find you, you couldn't hide forever.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in the film, lack of fighter escort increased casualties. The "bomber mafia" which controlled Air Force doctrine was committed to the idea that bombers didn't need fighter escort to complete their missions. To justify the losses, the lie was floated that until the P51 fighter came along there simply weren't fighters available with the range to escort the bombers. In actuality the P47 with wing tanks had sufficient range to perform the same missions as P51's with wing tanks, they could have escorted all the way to berlin and it was arguable that P47's could dog fight the German fighters- because they did and held their own. So, as in every war, many men died to preserve the reputations of the Generals.
Apparently the whole thing was a big accident. The intercom cables on the bomber had been cut, pilot dropped the landing gear to signal surrender, and one of the gunners didn’t get the message and opened up. Which of course, the fighters responded to, and therefore the pilot raised the gear and got out of there.
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