Target Schweinfurt

The Eighth Air Force's Darkest Days

De: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

A vivid account of the US Eighth Air Force’s raid on Schweinfurt in October 1943, their most difficult and costliest mission of World War II.

Based on the first-hand accounts of those who survived, renowned aviation historian Tom Cleaver tells the story of the Eighth Air Force’s Mission 115, when 291 bombers were sent to Schweinfurt to destroy the ball bearing factories on which the Wehrmacht depended.

In the face of an unrelenting German anti-aircraft defence, the mission became a bitter fight as the B-17 bomber crews of the Eighth found themselves under attack from nearly every Luftwaffe fighter unit in Western Europe. Sixty B-17s were lost and 600 men died or became prisoners of war. October 14, known forever after as “Black Thursday,” was the day the Luftwaffe won.

This dramatic narrative takes us through the build-up to the mission before focussing on the desperate struggle for survival in the skies above Germany. The raid was to have profound implications as the Luftwaffe regained air superiority over Germany and the US Air Force conducted no more missions until long-range fighter escorts were available. A new air war had begun.