function getDetailsURL(fbObj) { Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. ABMC Headquarters These operations by light airplanes were small compared with those of World War II, but they did demonstrate the efficacy of the strategic air offensive. The 8th lost 31 bombers, the 15th lost 33. The reorganization transformed the Eighth into the only information operations and bomber NAF in the Air Force. 8th Air Force - Bombardment Group - World War II $(".fancybox-caption__body").removeClass("half"); var $currentSlide = $(".fancybox-slide.fancybox-slide--current.fancybox-slide--image").parent().parent(); } [6] Alerted to the attack, the airfield defences were prepared for the raid when it arrived. Eighth Airforce headquarters was established in England on April 15, 1942 and Spaatz took over in June. From spring 1943 until November 1943 slave labourers of the SS - Baubrigade II from the Neuengamme concentration camp were transferred to Wilhelmshaven to clear up after air raids. Incredible restored footage of WWII bombers carrying out raids German anti-aircraft fire, or flak, was one of those deadly threats. Theory was one thing. The links directly below will take you to January of the [12], On Okinawa, Eighth Air Force derived its headquarters personnel from the inactivated XX Bomber Command, and Lieutenant General James H. Doolittle assumed command, being reassigned from England on 19 July. Some of the German pilots had been flying in combat since 1936. A survivor of the Stuttgart mission recalled, We began to wonder if they were trying to kill all of us. } This is from where the present-day Eighth Air Force's history, lineage and honors derive. 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130info@nationalww2museum.org [12], Eighth Air Force's mission in the Pacific was initially to organize and train new bomber groups for combat against Japan. // device detection In the grisly battle for European air supremacy, the Luftwaffe proveda deadly foe to Allied bombers. Luftwaffe airfields that were identified as jet and rocket bases, such as Parchim and Bad Zwischenahn, were frequently bombed, and Allied fighters patrolled over the fields to attack jets trying to land. Based on British experience, they advocated adding multi-gun power operated turrets to bombers, and expanding air service training programs. Rolls-Royce engineers rapidly realized that equipping the Mustang with a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine with its two speed, two stage supercharger would substantially improve performance. At first, the Eighth deployed its B-52 bomber and KC-135 tanker units from the U.S. to operating bases in Guam, Okinawa and Thailand. Units assigned to Eighth Air Force in the Pacific were: The atomic bombings of Japan led to the Japanese surrender before Eighth Air Force saw action in the Pacific theater. At the same time, a smaller force hit an Fw 190 repair depot at Zwickau. The first escort mission for the bombers was not flown until 5 December. The Wilhelmshaven bombings: A mission of valor - 8th Air Force/J-GSOC if (item.type === 'image') { Americans bomb Germans for first time - History Over 300 German fighters attacked the bomber forces, losing almost half its aircraft, with claims of upwards of 47 Luftwaffe fighters by American fighter pilots. The next day proved to be an even longer day, followed by another, and another. A fatalistic sense of acceptance became prevalent. In the 1980s, the Eighth participated in several key operations such as running the tanker task force for Operation Urgent Fury in 1983 and directing all air refueling operations for Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986 and Operation Just Cause in 1989. The Mighty Eighth's B-52 force consists of 76 bombers assigned to two active duty wings, the 2d Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana and the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, and one reserve wing, the 307th Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The American theory on daylight bombing lay in the aircraft the crewmen flew: the rugged Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the main heavy bomber of the Eighth Air Force. Personnel and equipment from the inactivated 40th and 444th Bomb Groups were reassigned to the 43d Bomb Group. General Electric had introduced turbo-superchargers to maintain performance of the B-24 and B-17 during high altitude missions. Spaatz found 1940 British night bomber forces small and ineffective, but thought it was the beginning of real airpower. He considered Luftwaffe bombing forces large but so oriented to supporting ground forces that they could not perform strategic missions. During World War II, the offensive air forces of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) came to be classified as strategic or tactical. In 1965, Eighth Air Force entered combat again, this time in Southeast Asia. Then in January 1994, ACC reorganized Eighth Air Force as a general purpose Numbered Air Force (NAF) with a warfighting mission to support the U.S. Joint Forces and U.S. Strategic Commands. Constituted as VIII Bomber Command on 19 Jan 1942. Within three years it grew to become the greatest military striking force in history. Because of the thick clouds and rain over the area the Luftwaffe did not attack the American bomber fleet, as the Germans believed that because of the weather the American bombers would be incapable of attacking their targets. The joint American-British Independence Day 1942 air raid was a costly start to the Eighth Air Force's European bombing campaignbut it was a start It was a beautiful sunny day in England on July 11, 1942, as the crew of the Douglas Boston mark III light bomber stood stiffly at attention in their best theater dress uniforms. Eighth Air Force | American Air Museum Eighth Air Force History > 8th Air Force/J-GSOC > Display John Luckadoo, a pilot in the 100th Bomb Group recalled that he calculated a 400 percent turnover in the first 90 days of combat. Back in the United States, American air forces expanded with annual goals for pilot trainingjumping from 300 in 1939 to 30,000 by late 1940. 8th Air Force, 1st Wing, 1st Division . Casualties among bomber crews began to mount steadily as B-17s were being blown out of the sky with growing consistency. In January 1945, the Luftwaffe attempted one last major air offensive against the Allied Air Forces. Importantly, the Eighth's bombing effectiveness influenced the North Vietnamese to end hostilities. The German pilot only had seconds to aim, fire, and peel away before careening into the heavy bombers. The integration process started on 1 February 2001, when the Air Force realigned the Air Intelligence Agency (AIA) under ACC and assigned the 67th Information Operations Wing and the 70th Intelligence Wing to the Eighth. There were fewer and fewer guys returning every day. One of the many who didnt return from Stuttgart added, We felt as if they didnt know what the hell they were doing up there, especially over Stuttgart. In the planned invasion of Japan, the mission of Eighth Air Force would be to conduct B-29 Superfortress raids from Okinawa in coordination with Twentieth Air Force operating from airfields in the Mariana Islands.[12]. $(".fancybox-caption").addClass("af3-caption-bg"); John Keema of the 390th Bomb Group said, No matter the target they were defending, they were balls to the wall. Representing the ferocity of this aerial contest was a mission flown on October 14, 1943. $(".fancy-photo-detail-link").addClass("photo-detail-gradient"); Marking the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, The National WWII Museum connects two instances of remorse for Nazi criminality by leading German politicians. Eighth Air Force trains, tests, exercises and demonstrates combat-ready forces for rapid employment worldwide. Notably, the 1 June 1992 change inactivated SAC and the Tactical Air Command (TAC), and reassigned the Mighty Eighth to the new Air Combat Command (ACC). $(document).ready(function () { Eighth Air Force - Wikipedia $(".fancybox-content").css("transform", Both Davis-Monthan and Fort Worth Army Airfields were B-29 training bases during World War II, and the Eighth Air Force Bomb Groups were simply activated at the same field and on the same day as the original Army Air Force Continental Air Forces training bomb groups were inactivated. afterShow: function (instance, current) { BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La -- On Jan. 27, 1943, 91 B-17 and B-24 bombers from 8th Air Force launched from England to conduct America's first World War II strike against the Nazi fatherland.During this historic attack, 58 bombers reached their targets and dropped 137.5 tons of munitions on the port of Wilhelmshaven to destroy strategic naval construction facilities. However, the Luftwaffe jets were simply too few and too late to have any serious effect on the Allied air armadas now sweeping over the Reich with near-impunity. At all heights, the rate of climb was approximately doubled. The chart features a mission with Ruhland, Germany, as a target. On 8 March, another raid of 600 bombers and 200 fighters hit the Berlin area again, destroying the VKF ball-bearing plant at Erkner. For the Mighty Eighth, that change heralded an interesting future, one that bring further restructuring, different aircraft system purchases, and a new challenging mission to the NAF. The Eighth's weapons inventory also changed to include KC-135 air refuelers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (the Atlas, Titan I and Titan II, and all Minuteman models.) By wars end, the AAF had built the 8th Air Force in England into a major contributor to final victory. Spaatz defined to Gen. George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson the strategy of tactical air forces augmenting and protecting ground forces while strategic air forces bombed industry and infrastructure. In Europe, Eighth Air Force was the first USAAF strategic air force, with a mission to support an invasion of continental Europe from the British Isles. It was famous for bringing crews home, even when three of its four engines failed. function recalculateImageSize() { '