Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Are you calling the author a liar?!!!!
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Significant is not the word. The whole point of the problem with jetstream upper winds at that time is that they were not understood or forecast.Well, one simple explanation is that the WX forecast had been for a substantial headwind but it turned out to be a significant tailwind.
Yup, everywhere in Norway is further away from UK than even people in UK think it is.The 8th Mission Summary for VIIIBC FO 75 states that the second 4BW tasked for Bergen encuntered 10/10 over the target and bought their bombs home. Noted a 1900mi round trip - at that time the longest bombing mission of WWII to date
Hi,I presume mission planning involved returning to home base. However there was always a contingency. There were a large number of Coastal Command airfields in Scotland, the Scottish Islands and Northern Ireland capable of taking a B-17, some operated B-17s and Liberators. It is 445 miles from Gt Yarmouth to Wick which is at the northernmost point on the Scottish mainland and had a 6,000ft runway.
I am curious why he was reprimanded for being 'six minutes early'? What was he supposed to do - accurately predict the winds aloft and order changes to actual ground speed? Was the instrumentation associated with GEE accurate enough that the navigator should have known?WRT wind, I suspect the USAAF would have had RAF Meteorological officers attached to their units. This was the case on RCAF 6-Group stations. Originally civilians, they were moved over to the RAF at some point during the war. The vagaries of weather forecasting in the UK would have been a very steep learning curve.
On dad's operation to Bergen Norway, 4-October-1944, they had GEE coverage all the way to Bergen and back. I have the Navigator's form for this and they were early on target by one minute. I find the 2 hour early on target for the raid described above astounding! Dad's navigator had them 6 minutes early on target to Bochum, 9-October-1944 and he was reprimanded for this transgression and told not to let it happen again.
Here is the State of the art of weather forecasting for an operation of my dad's, late war. Lovely penmanship!View attachment 742382
Well, Bomber Command stressed timing to keep the stream together. The ORBs reveal other crews on the Squadron bombed on time, so this was not acceptable. I quizzed Marvin Seale about this and he said:I am curious why he was reprimanded for being 'six minutes early'? What was he supposed to do - accurately predict the winds aloft and order changes to actual ground speed? Was the instrumentation associated with GEE accurate enough that the navigator should have known?
What were consequences to missing waypoint/time by six minutes? Potential Mid Air Collision with other RAF crews experiencing similar navigation issues?
For 8th AF/15th AF R/V and time precision issues were greatest when the R/V was for fighter escort... and there were real consequences for the bombers if the LW was 'on time at the right place'. Being Off Course for fighter escort R/V was the Greater problem on April 29, May 12, June 20, July 7, September 27, 1944, etc.
thanks - made sense, as well as the reliance on GEE.Well, Bomber Command stressed timing to keep the stream together. The ORBs reveal other crews on the Squadron bombed on time, so this was not acceptable. I quizzed Marvin Seale about this and he said:
"Prior to take off the navigation leader "Pop" Thompson gave me a pep talk: ….anymore goof ups like that [in reference to early timing on previous raid to Bochum] and I would be in serious jeopardy of some sort of what sort I don't know. He was a high school teacher from a little school in Alberta and was the navigator for "Strip Tees" (F/O J.F. Tees) and had been removed from that crew to become navigation leader."
Dad recalled: "We also had, for the first time, jamming [of] the Gee and Marv Seale was unable to get any really good fixes until just as we were approaching the "Gap" between Dusseldorf and Cologne. We were obviously attacking the target from the southern part, going through the "Gap" and then turning north for the attack to Bochum. Anyway, just as we were getting to the "Gap", Marv said, "My God. I've got a fix finally and we are very early. We are six and a half minutes early" or eight minutes early I think by that time. "You will have to do 2 360o turns to waste the time". Now this happened just as we were coming into the "Gap". Now if I had made those two 360o turns, I would have been in deep, deep trouble. So I said "Marv, I can't do it! I'm not doing it!" And so I throttled back and put the flaps down and we hovered and went as slowly as we could. But of course we only lost about a minute and a half by this little effort on my part. So we bombed six and a half minutes early."
The jeopardy of doing a 360 orbit in the middle of the Bomber stream was of the greatly increased risk of collision when perpendicular to the aircraft flying in the Stream. In his book, Murray Peden talked about the danger of doing an orbit, as he actually did one. Very frightening!
WRT weather, the forecast for 5/6-March-1945 above, was not accurate. The weather was much worse than forecast. Seven aircraft from RCAF squadrons crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 40 aircrew. Icing was severe. Weather was similarly poor on return over France and England with 4 more aircraft crashing killing another 24 airmen. dad was on this op and I have Seale's navigator log and chart.
Edit: I should add that dad disobeyed the Flight Plan for the return trip over France which called for a height of 3,500'. The Nav log records that dad flew at 15,000', well above cloud to avoid severe icing.
Jim
Thanks for the extra info about the March 1945 raid Met. I see at the top line in the matrix (Synoptic situation), it actually say's "SECRET, please complete at 1930hrs and return". I can understand the raid-related info being Secret and I guess the document was tracked for return after briefing/planning.Well, Bomber Command stressed timing to keep the stream together. The ORBs reveal other crews on the Squadron bombed on time, so this was not acceptable. I quizzed Marvin Seale about this and he said:
"Prior to take off the navigation leader "Pop" Thompson gave me a pep talk: ….anymore goof ups like that [in reference to early timing on previous raid to Bochum] and I would be in serious jeopardy of some sort of what sort I don't know. He was a high school teacher from a little school in Alberta and was the navigator for "Strip Tees" (F/O J.F. Tees) and had been removed from that crew to become navigation leader."
Dad recalled: "We also had, for the first time, jamming [of] the Gee and Marv Seale was unable to get any really good fixes until just as we were approaching the "Gap" between Dusseldorf and Cologne. We were obviously attacking the target from the southern part, going through the "Gap" and then turning north for the attack to Bochum. Anyway, just as we were getting to the "Gap", Marv said, "My God. I've got a fix finally and we are very early. We are six and a half minutes early" or eight minutes early I think by that time. "You will have to do 2 360o turns to waste the time". Now this happened just as we were coming into the "Gap". Now if I had made those two 360o turns, I would have been in deep, deep trouble. So I said "Marv, I can't do it! I'm not doing it!" And so I throttled back and put the flaps down and we hovered and went as slowly as we could. But of course we only lost about a minute and a half by this little effort on my part. So we bombed six and a half minutes early."
The jeopardy of doing a 360 orbit in the middle of the Bomber stream was of the greatly increased risk of collision when perpendicular to the aircraft flying in the Stream. In his book, Murray Peden talked about the danger of doing an orbit, as he actually did one. Very frightening!
WRT weather, the forecast for 5/6-March-1945 above, was not accurate. The weather was much worse than forecast. Seven aircraft from RCAF squadrons crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 40 aircrew. Icing was severe. Weather was similarly poor on return over France and England with 4 more aircraft crashing killing another 24 airmen. dad was on this op and I have Seale's navigator log and chart.
Edit: I should add that dad disobeyed the Flight Plan for the return trip over France which called for a height of 3,500'. The Nav log records that dad flew at 15,000', well above cloud to avoid severe icing.
Jim
Yes. Your understanding is correct. I'll have more later.Thanks for the extra info about the March 1945 raid Met. I see at the top line in the matrix (Synoptic situation), it actually say's "SECRET, please complete at 1930hrs and return". I can understand the raid-related info being Secret and I guess the document was tracked for return after briefing/planning.
Noted that the limited icing warning possibly accounted for the deaths of 64 crew at this late stage of the European War.
As far as timing of TOT. My understanding of later war RAF night bombing tactics is that the aim was to compress the bomber stream to minimise exposure to defences, achieve concentration of force on target and make target marking an achievable technique. However, there were consequences of excessive "crowding" if everyone had the same TOT and so, it became important to make an accurate TOT on a plan, that was as compressed as thought to be effective. Pressuring crews to achieve TOT was possibly fair.
Eng