Low level B24 run?

[BigEs18Kids]

What's up with this picture?

Strategic bombing during World War II - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

It's relatively famous, but I've never seen an explanation why B-24's would be conducting a bombing run so dang low. I was under the impression they usually ran at 15,000 ft or above

 

[fubar57]

Ploesti

 

[Greg Boeser]

2nd raid on Ploesti, 1 Aug 1943. Code name Tidal Wave.
They hoped that a low-level attack would increase accuracy and provide surprise.
It didn't quite work out as planned.

 

[Greg Boeser]

I highly recommend Ploesti, the Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943, By James Dugan and Carroll Stewart. Covers the planning, mission execution, and aftermath.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It was as dire as the picture indicates. Five CMsoH awarded, three iirc posthumously.

 

[special ed]

My mother commented once about her cousin whose B-24 was hit and he was last seen by squadron mates floating into the fire.

 

[Greg Boeser]

One more reason to fly high. The horror is not so easily seen.

 

[BobB]

That photo looks like medium altitude. My father said that B-24's(Jolly Rogers) and PB4Y's operating from Mindoro up to the China coast sometimes came back with tree limbs. That is low altitude. They were supposed to be looking for shipping so you wonder if they were just hot dogging over the land.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

That photo looks like medium altitude. My father said that B-24's(Jolly Rogers) and PB4Y's operating from Mindoro up to the China coast sometimes came back with tree limbs. That is low altitude. They were supposed to be looking for shipping so you wonder if they were just hot dogging over the land.

It's not - that photo was from the Ploesti Raid, you can probably guess the altitude based on the height of the smoke stacks. I don't think 200-800 feet is "medium altitude." Some of the returning B-24 came back from Ploesti with wheat stalks in their bomb bays when they were egressing the target area.

 

[mjfur]

Some of the original file/photos.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

In the last photo they look like they can't be more than 100'!

When I first started at Lockheed I had a supervisor that was on the Ploesti mission. I don't remember the squadron he was in (I vaguely remember him mentioning the 389th) but he told me his plane was pretty shot up when they made it back to Benghazi, they had wheat or corn stalks in their bomb bay, and the leading edges of their plane were crushed in several places from running into poles or trees!

 

[BobB]

The aircraft in the first photo is Sandman piloted by Capt. Robert Sternfels. He was quoted as saying that they flew at 250 feet. The photo was taken by an automatic camera in the airplane ahead of him. I'm guessing that they had it set up to trigger after bomb release to record if they hit anything.

 

[BobB]

I got curious and did some googling. In this video from 2010, Mr. Sternfels explained that a camera was mounted using a mirror to look back so that the image needs to be reversed to reflect reality. He died in 2018 at age 97.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

And this today...

The US military is trying to identify dozens of airmen who didn't make it home from a daring bomber raid on 'Hitler's gas station'

US airmen were told that bombing Nazi oil refineries in Ploesti could shorten WWII by six months. They were also told half of them might not survive.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I can't remember where I read it, but I distinctly remember reading that the gunners on the bombers were "dueling" with AAA crews on the ground.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I can't remember where I read it, but I distinctly remember reading that the gunners on the bombers were "dueling" with AAA crews on the ground.

Read the same thing, I think Jablownski mentions this when he covered Ploesti in the series "Air War." IIRC I believe the nose and rear gunners carried extra ammo for this.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Read the same thing, I think Jablownski mentions this when he covered Ploesti in the series "Air War."

Thank you! I'd been thinking it was Walter Boyne, but I'm sure you pegged where I read it.