Hi Jan, Pat, 1st of all Great Work in decoding the clips and extracting all the information. Some additional (small) observations: In the critical past stills 31 to 36 are showing a farm house complex close to Courseulles-sur-Mer. In the US7 1730 you can see the same complex here (8064). In the critical past the view is southward and the few stills seem to indicate a path approaching Courseulles-sur-Mer. The building can be seen still today. (Link to Google Earth View) The 1st clip from Jan in post #1 one can see in the 1st 6 seconds the Port-en-Bessin. The sequence seem to indicate they are leaving Normandy and heading to Britain. PS The stray horsa was subject of an thread here (link)
Pat, Yes, the concussions of the bombs cracked the Plexiglass Windows of the Marauders and tossed them about like rag dolls at such low altitudes. Bricks and lumber flew up from the target, hitting the aircraft. My dad told me he was really scared when he started flying missions, but "after a while I didn't care anymore." It was a sad statement, not one of bravado. It's hard to wrap your head around how much trauma it takes to reach that point. The thing the ground troops didn't appreciate was how incredibly vulnerable the bomber crews were; they couldn't take evasive action or defend or protect themselves on the bomb run, which could be as long as 2 minutes . It was the moment of truth. Sitting in the bimbardier's compartment was like being suspended on a glass plank protruding from the aircraft. It was a very exposed position. Not everyone could do it. It took what has been described as a rare personality type to be a lead bombardier. Back at base, crews would cuss out the lead bombardiers after rough missions for trying too hard to get the target. I saw part of one German clip of a B-26 formation flying through intense AA fire. I couldn't finish watching it. Jan
Hans and Pat, It does appear the first few seconds of the video in post #1 are of the 323rd exiting Normandy. There appears to be a group of five B-26's flying together. Clecy was flights of six and Caen was flights of four. So, hard to tell which mission it was. I will try to get a still on. A radio call code to see if that helps. The AA guns appear to be deliberately organized along a line. Are either of you familiar with how they were staffed? We're the AA in a specialized unit? The B-26 crews thought they must have all been German Master Sergeants because they were so good. Jan
Most German Flak in Normandy was from the Luftwaffe. These were special Flak battalions with usually 6 batteries. There were both light, heavy and mixed Flak battalions and their level of mobility/motorization also varied. Gun calibers from 2 to 10,5 cm were used and the number of guns per battery varied as well. It was this Luftwaffe Flak that provided overal protection in Normandy, this included targets such as roads, bridges, etc. They specifically were not to get involved in ground fighting although this occasionally happened. Although the Flak was organized in divisions, brigades and/or regiments. This is however incomparable to such ground force units. Flak was of course also available in some Heer and SS formations, but these were primarily concerned with protecting their parent formation. Except for the Panzer (Grenadier) divisions, their Flak usually was no more than a single battery with light Flak. Unfortunately only a few percent of the Luftwaffe records have survived the war. Identifying units and positions is often like solving a puzzle with much of the pieces missing. Niels
Niels, Thank you for your summary. Very helpful. Do you know whether, as a general rule, each flak battalion had its own radar capabilities? I am assuming the radar capability was independent of the flak gun-that is, the radar was used only to alert the battalion about approaching bombers. Targeting spears to have been done through a scope. Correct? Thanks, Jan
I'll have to check to make sure, but I'm pretty sure only the search light battalions had any sort of detecting equipment (sound detectors). No radar in any low level units and I don't think the German had mobile radar stations in Normandy, but like I said sources are very scarce. I think most of the warnings were received shortly before the arrival of bombers, and even then it would depend on the on the means of communication available. In theory the heavy flak could be aimed and directed automatically, but whether or not the infrastructure for that was established at makeshift gun positions is questionable. I would not be surprised if much of the Flak was fired without any direct order from higher headquarters... This is especially true for light Flak which needed to be very flexible by nature.
Very interesting. The B-26 crews thought the Germans had them on radar and were usually waiting for them. Maybe the bomber crews were mistaking semi-automation with radar. If the bombers were not able to take out an important target, like a marshaling yard of bridge, they would get sent back, and the flak was significantly more intense ---perhaps due to the flexibility you note.
I'm assuming radar stations around Le Havre and on the Channel Islands were able to provide some sort of warning, but accurately predicting a target and forwarding that information to the batteries must have been quite a different matter. And of course: if it's worth to bomb, it's worth to defend. So many of the targets were all to obvious to both sides. And if you miss the first time, the other guys will be waiting for the next attempt and quite possibly with more stuff because they're expecting you to come back. And don't forget, fighting planes was THE job of Flak units, so yes, they were always waiting for enemy planes. They had little else to do, so once the alarm is sounded they will be ready in very little time. When you're on the receiving end there's always a feeling that the enemy knows something you don't, and that he knows everything about you as well. Usually they don't but that's hard to believe when you suffer losses.... it's all about perception and in combat it is usually smarter to assume the worst.
If the AA guns did not have radar capabilities, I'm wondering why the 9th AF would use "Window" Aircraft whose purpose was to drop small strips of of metal like confetti as they approached the target. The stated purpose was to disrupt the radar of the AA guns in the target area. It was generally quite helpful. Will do more research.
Good question. To understand just how little is known about the Luftwaffe Flak: we don't even know the TO/Es they used. In some cases we know the numbers, but of only a few of those we know the actual content(!) The range involved is probably K.St.N. 2000 – 2999, Flakartillerie. If radars were present, they probably were the small Würzburg and Mannheim type. Thousands of those were build and considering their size they were at least somewhat mobile. However even with thousands build, it is impossible to know how many were used by battalions in France. It seems fairly safe to say it would have been restricted to heavy battalions/ perhaps batteries. Like I said, we don't even know the TO/Es. I'll go over the accounts I know of Flak crews, but I don't think any I know mention radars in their units. Could be a coincidence of course. I'll keep digging. Might be worth to look into the specifications of these radars. IIRC they were able to detect planes at 25km distance. Considering the speed of the aircraft, that's not too impressive. Probably still enough for a few minutes of coordinated Flak fire though if you have enough batteries around a target.
https://www.fold3.com/image/49502790/?terms=Caen%207%20Jun Pat- Above is the link to a strike photo of Caen following what appears to have been the June 6 323rd attack. (The 9th AF report had the date corrected from June 7 to June 6, but the photo date must not have gotten corrected.) It shows smoke billowing up in an area around Rue Saint Jean (C-2 North of the Orne) and blowing South. This might be the location of the Box I, Flight 1 strikes. The fires look to be near Rue Saint Jean (C-2) a couple of blocks below St. Jean Hospital and a Catholic girls' school. There is a Catholic boys' school about a quarter mile up from the hospital. Perhaps it had a soccer field with a grandstand near some warehouses. The cemetery looks to be Southwest of C-2 at the North bank of the Orne. Unfortunately, this still does not harmonize the three components of the story - French accounts, 9th AF reports and strike photo/CP footage. If there was a map designating street "T" , it would help pinpoint the strikes of Box I, a Flight 1, which hit "1,200 feet North of the target. We could then back out of that point to the target. I found one with about a third of the alphabet assigned, but not "T". -Jan
Hi Niels, Jan, this link points you to the list of radar installation collected and listed from the "Deutsches Atlantikwall-Archiv" including some specification details. One section covers Cotentin and Calvados and might help the discussion here.
Sorry, I should have been clearer: there's no doubt there were plenty of radar installations in Normandy. Most of them were near the coast and overrun or knocked out within days or weeks after the invasion. By then the pre-invasion Flak infrastructure had essentially been wiped out. If radar guided Flak remained an issue for allied bombers in the area, the radars must have come from other sources. Those are nearly impossible to track down.
Just a small update, I'm still working on my histories of German units and I recently got some new information that also sheds some light on these radars. Allied records usually translate types of German equipment but I had missed the fact they usually don't do that for radar equipment. The German abbreviation is Fu.M.G., meaning Funkmessgerät. This basically means something like radio-wave-detection-device. I've been able to find that abbreviation in a number of files, but is difficult to come up with any general rules. At least some heavy Flak batteries had radars though. I'll have to go through all my Flak files to learn more about how widespread they were. If there are specific town/locations Flak was encountered, I can keep that in mind when going through the files. There were a few dozen German Flak battalions in the wider Normandy area with 4 to 10 batteries each. It's looking for a needle in a haystack, even when I have a location. Without out a location it is nearly impossible to find something relevant without deliberately searching through several thousand pages of information. Niels
Hi, all- Sorry I have been out of pocket and on hiatus. We located the lost mission records for the 323rd BG and 9th AF at Naitonal Archives in College Park Maryland and have been busy for the past several weeks procuring and reviewing them. This is a happy development, as the records were presumed to have been burned by overly zelous clerks trying to destroy secret documents as the Germans threated to overtake them at Laon/Athies Airfield when the Battle of the Bulge broke out. Among the records are originals of the June 6 mission to Caen Road Juncitons C-1 and C-2. Hoping to successfully upload them soon. The records for that mission include a navigation map reflecting the coordinates or locations of each of the the turns fron base to the target and back. It confirmed some of the conclusions drawn above from the Critical Past footage and presented a few surprises that I, at least, had failed to consider, but the route explains alot. How some of the flights got so far South of the intended impact points is still difficult to understand. The records for that mission also include the observations of the two box leads that returned to base. Their notes pinpoint the location of the flak guns that shot down the Stach crew leading one of the three boxes as they turned near Mezidon. Interestingly, that was not the turn to the target as Pat and I had assumed. More to follow. Warm regards, Jan
Unfortunately, the files are too large to load. Not sure how to compress them. I will send some of the images to Pat to see if he knows how. If
The mission records for Caen RJ indicate that returning air crew reported moderate to intense fairly accurate [meaning just about as bad as it would get] coming from the marshalling yard at Mezidon. Box I encountered no flak, Box II very little and Box III caught the brunt of the barrage. It looks like eight of the 12 Marauders in Box III sustained Class A battle damage, with the lead aircraft getting shot down. The formation must have caught the Luftwaffe off-guard. The returning aircrew also reported sporadic inaccurate flak from Trourn (?) to the turn away from the target. After crossing the coast, the formation flew just under the clouds at 4,000 feet. Bombing appears to have been from 3,400 feet. Returning aircrews reported the concussions of their bombs tossing the aircraft like rag dolls with lumber and bricks flying up and hitting the aircraft as they broke away from the target. This was the first time any of them had bombed from that altitude. Typically, bombing was from about 13,000 feet where they were most efficient. On D-Day and the days following the invasion, they were ordered to go in at any altitude necessary to bomb visually. If Pat is not able to load the route related images, I will summarize them so you can see how well you did in identifying the point at which they crossed the coast! Jan
Hi Niels, Very interesting. A good location to check would be the Seraing Bridges near Leige, Belgium. On May 25, the 323rd was beaten up badly by heavy flak over that target. When they got sent back on May 28, the 323rd was preceded into the target area by thre "window" aircraft. My dad and Helton were in the lead window aircraft - lucky them. (They had Class A battle damage from that mission.) Window aircraft dropped thin strips of metal to disrupt the radar on the heavy flak guns, thereby creating a safe window for the formation. As a result, they took out the bridge. The 323rd got sent back to the Valbenoit bridge on the same section of the river on the following day, May 29. Don't you know they were excited about that. If it would be helpful, I can go through the mission list to identify the targets that got window aircraft. Then you might identify those you suspect of having radar. I'll also check Moench to see if he sheds light on the subject. Finally, I need to talk with Frank Burgmeier to check in with him. Frank was a lead navigator in the 323rd/456th and my dad's best friend when they shared a tent in France. Frank is very sharp. Thank you for all of the information. More to follow. Warm regards, Jan
Pat, Just a followup note. I'm currently writing the chapter of my manuscript that dramatizes the mission to Caen. Given other writing on the subject, I wanted the historical facts to be accurate, so I've done additional research. I thought you might be interested in the results. Based on records from National Archives, the navigation course for the 323rd Bomb Group's June 6 mission to Caen Road Junction C-2, which was attacked by Box I, was as follows: Ouisterham - 4:10 PM Mezidon - 4:14 PM Grainville-Langammierie (4900 N 0016 W) (Initial Point) - 4:17 PM Target - 4:19 PM Ouisterham - 4:21 1/2 PM The Group encountered light flak from Troarn until it left the coast. They made landfall at 4,000 feet and Box I bombed form 3,900 feet. Stach, as you know, was shot down just west of the marshaling yard a Mezidon. Despite speculation by the returning crews that he had been shot by the Germans for refusing to cooperate, a post-war investigaiton found, based on written statements provided by three of the surviving four on the aircraft, that Stach and the navigator and bombardier on the aircraft died from the crash or in the fired that followed. The bombs would have been armed. From the Initial Point, the point at which the bomb run began, I believe Box I flew straight up the N158, which is the Rue de Falaise (then Rue de Vaucelles) to the the C-2 Road Junction - Choke Point target. I believe the target was located at the intersection of the Rue de Vaucelles, Rue de Arquette, Rue de Augo, the train line from Bayeaux into Caen and the Caen tram line. They all converge at what I believe was Road Junction C-2. [/u][/u] This is supported by the fact that Capt. Sigel, the navigator in Lt. Col. Barker's aircraft leading the Group Lead, noted that Capt. William Wolfendon, the bombardier who was bombing for Box I, Flight 1, reported that the bombs had gone "long". That would place the bombs from Box I, Flight 1 straight up the Rue St. Jean. The bombs from the lead ship would have gone the furthest up the Rue St. Jean than the other three aircraft in the flight - the lead always bombed slightly long to account for the reaction time of the bombardier's bombing on his lead. Based on the strike photo from National Archives, I'd say that point for the Barker crew was around the Cathedral. The bombs from the two wing ships would have fallen shorter and on either side of the Rude St. Jean, if Wolfendon was just long (and not left or right of course). The bombs from The Gremlin II, which was flying as the Deputy Group Lead, would have hit shorter along the Rude St. Jean, closer to the Orne. This is supported by the 9th Air Force bomb damage assessment. I believe the quote I found from one of the gunners ("Tex") in the Box II Lead aircraft to the effect that they were flying "straight down some railroad tracks" could mean that they had a slightly different Initial Point and may have been bombing C-1. Another option is they were flying down the tramline, but it would not have had a sidling. So, my guess is that they. had a different Initial Point. This is supported by how the group attacked bridges --- it was always in flight of 4 (as opposed to the usual six) and each flight came in at a different angle to confuse the defenders and increase the odds of making it through anticipated flak to the target. In the book Normandy in the Time of Darkness, the author seems to have assumed, as did the French, that the targets of the 323rd were the fist two bridges over the Orne. I do not believe this would have been the case. I cannot find a single instance in which the 323rd attacked a bridge with anything less that 1,000 pound or 2,000 pound bombs. On June 6, Road Junctions C-1 and C-2 were attacked with all 500 pound general purpose bombs, probably with impact fees, and one leaflet bomb. The 323rd used 500 pound bombs primarily to attack marshaling yards. Also, the mission list would have listed the targets specifically as bridges. Instead, it listed road juncitons. These were very narrow streets with buildings of multiple stories clustered closely around them. So, this makes these two road junctions considerably smaller and more difficult targets to identify (find) and hit than any of the bridges or other targets any of the Marauder crews had been asked to attack other than the NoBall targets (Operation Crossbow - buzz bomb launch sites). No-Ball targets were in the Pas de Calais area and in wooded settings. In studying the loading lists in the context of my other research, I believe the 323rd deliberately selected this particular line-up of aircrew to hit Caen Road Junction C-2 because it was a particularly difficult target in a "hot" area for anti-aircraft defenses. In the Box I lead flight, there were the 456th Bomb Squadron's top two bombardiers at the time - Wolfendon and Foster. One of the wing flights in Box I, Flight 1 also had a fully trained navigator-bombardier on board. This is also consistent with what my father had told me - that he was sent in for the difficult targets. One of the things that made these targets difficult, in addition to their small size, was their location in a maze of streets with multi-story buildings built up around them. Flying at 3,900 feet above ground, it's not like trying to locate a marshaling yard or a bridge. The verticality of the buildings packed closely around this intersection, which included churches and schools, would have made the intersections hard to see. It's not like locating a pill-box in an open field on a cliff. The buildings might have all "run together" at that altitude making it hard to even see the streets between them. None of this is to make light of or excuses for the tragedy that unfolded. It's to get the facts out, which may help all involved understand how it happened. These were battle-hardened, especially talented bombardiers --- among the best in England. They were not bombing blindly through the clouds. They bombed form 3,900 feet. The lowest any of the crews on this mission had bombed prior to this would have been from about 10,000 feet. Most of the crews probably believed there was a good chance they would be los over the target, like the B-26 crews that went down ve Ijuiden, Holland. I believe this would place C-1 at the major intersection just left and closer to the Orne. The records that I received from National Archives do not include the navigation route for either of the other two boxes. If you're interested and have a few minutes, look up the intersection I am identifying on Google Earth and se what you think. Hope your garden is proceeding nicely. Jan