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The Mighty Eighth -Thursday, 19 April 1945 |
| THURSDAY, 19 APRIL 1945 EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS (ETO) STRATEGIC OPERATIONS (Eighth Air Force): 2 missions are flown. Mission 961: 605 B-17s and 584 P-51s are dispatched to make visual attacks on rail targets in SE Germany and NW Czechoslovakia; they claim 18-1-5 Luftwaffe aircraft; 5 B-17s and 2 P-51s are lost: 1. 284 B-17s are sent to hit the marshalling yards at Elsterwerda (135) and Falkenberg (143); 27 are damaged. Escorting are 191 of 204 P-51s; they claim 5-0-0 aircraft; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA). 2. 321 B-17s are dispatched to hit the railroad industry and rail bridge at Pirna (115) and Karlsbad (87) and the marshalling yard at Aussig (109); they claim 6-1-2 aircraft; 5 B-17s are lost and 13 damaged; 46 airmen are MIA. The escort is 197 of 206 P-51s; they claim 7-0-3 aircraft. 3. 138 of 154 P-51s fly a freelance mission in support of the B-17s. 4. 14 P-51s fly weather reconnaissance missions. 5. 6 P-51s escort 7 F-5s on photo reconnaissance missions over Germany; 1 P-51 is lost (pilot MIA). During the night of 19/20 Apr, 11 of 16 B-24s fly CARPETBAGGER missions to Norway; 2 B-24s are lost. TACTICAL OPERATIONS (Ninth Air Force): In Germany, the 9th Bombardment Division hits marshalling yards at Ulm, Neu Ulm, and Gunzburg (primary targets), the city of Donauworth and a target of opportunity at Schelklingen; weather prevents 70+ of the 450+ dispatched aircraft from bombing targets; fighters fly escort to the bombers, carry out patrols and armed reconnaissance, bomb a radio station, and cooperate with the US VII Corps in the Halle-Dessau area, the XII Corps attacking SE from S of Bayreuth, the XX Corps in the Bamberg-Nurnberg area, preparing to drive toward Austria, and the XIX Corps along the Elbe River in the Magdeburg area. The 31st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, Ninth AF [attached to 9th Tactical Reconnaissance Group (Provisional)], moves from Maastricht, the Netherlands to Wiesbaden, Germany with F-6s. |