' + By December, the head-on attack was the preferred method of assailing American heavy bombers by Luftwaffe fighter pilots. return caption; The Me 262A was a difficult foe for the P-47s and P-51s, possessing a distinct speed advantage. if (isMobile()) closeDetails(); '">DETAILS'; 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). The Eighth's brave men earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 442,000 Air Medals. That base assignment lasted until 1 November 1946, when SAC transferred the Eighth to Fort Worth (later renamed Carswell AFB). function getDownloadURL(fbObj) { However, the P-51B was introduced as a tactical fighter, so the first deliveries of the P-51B in November 1943 were assigned to three groups in the tactical Ninth Air Force at the expense of VIII Bomber Command, whose need for a long range escort fighter was critical. At the close of 1946, they shared only a handful of operational bombers, all B-29 Superfortresses. At the same time, aerial refueling techniques were improved to the extent that Eighth Air Force bombers could still reach targets in Europe and Asia even if overseas bases were destroyed by an enemy attack. The Eighth's units played a key role in the 42-day Gulf War in 1991. The 305th Bombardment Group (Heavy), nicknamed "Can Do" was activated 1-March-1942 at Salt Lake City Air Base, Utah which was their primary training base until 11-Jun-1942 when they relocated to Geiger Field, Washington until 29-Jun-1942, then on to Muroc Lake . } if (detailSize === "half") { Men became jumpy and jittery, the Focke-Wulf Jitters, or flak happy, became commonly used terms in the Eighth Air Force. Advanced electro mechanical Norden M series bombsights could accurately deliver bomb loads at extreme altitude. One notable Eighth Air Force casualty was Brigadier General Arthur W. Vanaman, Chief of Intelligence, who was captured by the Germans in northern France on 27 June 1944, becoming the highest-ranked American POW captured in Europe during the war.[11]. The B-17s had been over the target for nearly thirty minutes when the bombs in the lead aircraft finally dropped. It was a last-ditch effort to keep up the momentum of the German forces during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge (Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein). }, 1000); The Luftwaffe owned the skies over Europe and the men of the Eighth Air Force were paying the price. They flew 985 Combat Missions losing 6130 Bombers and Fighters. Europe). 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. Two days later, on 23 January, the 27th FEW participated in the raid on Sinuju Airfield in North Korea and shot down four more MiG-15s. $(".fancy-photo-detail-link").html($(".fancy-photo-detail-link").html().replace("SHOW", "CLOSE")); $currentSlide.find(".fancy-detail-link").on("touchstart", function() { captionToggle(); }); The ALLIED FORCE campaign also marked the Eighth's return to Europe and the participation of U.S. bombers in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) first combat operation. 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. During World War II, Eighth Air Force earned a reputation as a great warfighting organization. The attack required great skill and courage, as the German and American aircraft closed at an astonishing speed. buttons: ['share'], return isMobile; Then in April 1970, SAC moved the Eighth to Andersen AFB, Guam, to take over the direction of all bombing and refueling operations in Southeast Asia. Superior aerodynamic and structural design gave the B-17 and B-24 respective extreme ranges of 800 and 1200 miles. $(".fancybox-caption__body").prepend(prependClosing()); On 1 May, over 1,300 Eighth Air Force heavy bombers made an all-out attack on the enemy's rail network, striking at targets in France and Belgium. Communist victories in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 meant that the United States would have to expand SAC to address these potential threats both in Europe as well as Asia. B-17s flown by the Eighth saw some of the fiercest combat of the war. Altogether, the Eighth's bombers flew 325 sorties to drop over 7 million pounds of ordnance on enemy targets in that campaign. Luckadoo remembered one such attack on the B-17 called Piccadilly Lilly: Out of the corner of my eye I saw this flight of FW-190s barreling into our squadron. Commanding Officers Connections Targets that directly affected the German war machine became priorities. function recalculateImageSize() { The USAAF was finally fully sold on the Mustang, and a letter contract for 2200 P-51Bs was issued. One of the worst days of the war for the B-17 and its crewmen was the second raid on German ball bearing production in Schweinfurt, Germany on October 14, 1943. Vast fleets of B-24s and B-17s escorted by P-51Ds and long-range P-38Ls hit refineries in Germany and Czechoslovakia in late 1944 and early 1945. Allied bomber escort fighters would fly high above the bombers diving from this height gave them extra speed, thus reducing the speed difference. On 8 March, another raid of 600 bombers and 200 fighters hit the Berlin area again, destroying the VKF ball-bearing plant at Erkner. The 308th Bombardment Wing (308th BW) is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Eighth Air Force B-17s bomb the U-boat base at Lorient, France. var dstTop = Math.floor((winHgt - newImgHgt)) / 2; events of the 8th Air Force, European Theater of Operations The treaty that Hitler hated even more than the Treaty of Versailles and one of the most important treaties you have probably never heard of. The engine was to be the Packard V-1650-3, based on the Rolls-Royce Merlin Mk68. A handful remained in service performing non-combat duties through the mid-1950s as air-sea rescue aircraft (SB-17, SB-24); photo-reconnaissance aircraft (RB-17, RB-24), and as unmanned target drones (QB-17) and their controllers (DB-17). The command staff and all personnel of the 58th Bomb wing were eliminated on 1 November 1946 and the organization was reduced to a paper unit. Importantly, the Eighth's bombing effectiveness influenced the North Vietnamese to end hostilities. This dedicated offensive force supported strategic objectives, and an eventual invasion of Europe. [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. Arming wire tag from one of the bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force in its first heavy bomber raid against Nazi-occupied Europe, against the Rouen-Sotteville railway yards in France on August 17, 1942. With each step through 2002, the Eighth continues to add more feats to its growing legacy. From 1946 through 1949, what little money became available was used to buy new planes (Boeing B-50 Superfortress, Convair B-36 Peacemaker) for SAC, and as the newer aircraft became available, the older B-29s were sent to storage depots or sent to Air Force Reserve units for training missions. Under ACC, the Eighth received control over active duty, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard units in the central U.S. and two overseas locations. The wing served in combat with Fifth Air Force from February 1944 to August 1945, operating as a task force with various groups and squadrons that were . 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. $(".fancybox-caption__body").addClass("mobile"); Losses of 30 or more aircraft300 menwere not uncommon throughout the summer. $(".fancybox-content").removeAttr("style"); caption: function (instance, item) { $(".fancybox-caption").removeClass("af3-caption-bg"); Those east of the Mississippi were assigned to SAC's other strategic air force, Eighth Air Force, which moved to Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, where it commanded all SAC bases in the eastern United States. Eighth Air Force trains, tests, exercises and demonstrates combat-ready forces for rapid employment worldwide. Most crews never made it past their fifth. Luckadoo recalled that the enemy fighters attacked the bombers as soon as they crossed the border into France and continued all the way through to the target. John Luckadoo, a pilot in the 100th Bomb Group recalled that he calculated a 400 percent turnover in the first 90 days of combat. The operation was a pyrrhic success for the Luftwaffe as the losses suffered by the German air arm were irreplaceable and over 300 Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down, mostly by Allied anti-aircraft guns. To reduce the risk to its bomber fleet in the United States, Eighth Air Force aircraft stood nuclear alert, providing a deterrent against an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union. Photo Details On this mission, he sat in the co-pilot's seat of the lead B-17, Butcher Shop[8][self-published source] The pilot in command and leader of this historic mission was Paul Tibbets, who on 6 August 1945, dropped the first Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima from the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay. '