Double Strike: The Epic Air Raids on Regensburg/Schweinfurt, August 17, 1943
Double Strike: The Epic Air Raids on Regensburg/Schweinfurt, August 17, 1943
Doubleday & Company | 1974 | ISBN: 0385075405 | English | 310 pages | PDF | 39 MB
An Account of the strategies and significance of the two-pronged attack by American bombers on munitions factories deep inside Germany in August, 1943. During the World War 2 era, machinery, including military hardware, ran on ball bearings. The Allied idea was if we can eliminate or cripple the German's production of ball bearings, we can shorten the war. The 8th Air Force, based in England, was assigned the task of destroying the ball bearing factories in the cities of Schweinfurt and Regensburg. The problem was the distance to the targets. London to Schweinfurt is 462 miles. Fully loaded B-17's flew at 150 mph. Thus this was about an 8 hour flight out and back, without friendly fighter cover most of the way. German fighter planes (which flew at 300 mph+) knocked down 60 B-17 bombers that day - each with a 10 man crew. And the factories kept producing. Historical note: The 2nd mission to these same targets on October 14, 1943 yielded the same results: 60 bombers lost; factories kept producing.