"America's Luftwaffe"

[Dar]

Someone had mentioned recently, in an article I can't find (one of the PoW threads?), an American unit being called "America's Luftwaffe" for their habit of bombing friendly units. From what I can find, it appears to be the 9th Air Force.

I found in John Toland's <u>Battle: The Story of the Bulge</u> the following excerpts:

pp. 230-1

<BLOCKQUOTE>

At 3:26 P.M. [23.December.1944] six B-26s of the 322nd Bombardment Group approached a town nestled in hilly forested country. The flight leader...[e]ven on this clear day...hadn't been able to locate his primary target, Zulpich, Germany, a railhead for Brandenberger's Seventh Army, but he concluded he was over Lammersum, only six miles northeast of the target. As his plane swept over the center of town, thirteen 250-pound General Purpose bombs dropped from the bomb bay. The other five planes of the flight dumped their loads.

...

Twelve thousand feet below, dazed American soldiers of the 30th Division and hysterical civilians were crawling from the wreckage of Malmédy, Belgium--39 miles away from Lammersum.

...

Moments later General Hobbs, commander of the 30th Division, was angrily talking by phone to an air force general. Hobbs was bitter. It wasn't the first time he'd been bombed by the 9th Air Force. His men had already dubbed it "the American Luftwaffe".

The air force general was dismayed. "It can't happen again," he promised.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

Later in the book:

pp. 270

<BLOCKQUOTE>

...Christmas [25.December.1944] was drawing to a close in Malmédy. Men of the 30th Division and civilians were digging for survivors of another friendly bombing--for the third day in a row.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

It's only one reference. Has anyone else found a reference to this or other units?

Dar Steckelberg

[tss]

Well, I remember reading an anecdote about different air forces (I can't remember to whom it was attributed, maybe to some German POW taken in Italy):

'When RAF attacks, Germans jump for cower.

When Luftwaffe attacks, Allies jump for cower.

When USAF attacks, everybody takes jumps for cower.'

-Tommi

[Dar]

And that reminds me of a German soldier's take on aircraft identification on the western front after D-Day:

If the plane is brown, it's English.

If the plane is silver, it's American.

If the plane is invisible, it's German.

Dar Steckelberg

[Guest Big Time Software]

Dar, that was me that asked, and thanks for the response. Yes, this all comes back to me now. I also think the 9th did something like this in Normandy as well. They weren't the ones who did the St. Lo disaster (the one that claimed a ton of US troops and a general) did they?

tss and Dar -> funny stuff

Steve

[Dar]

I found a couple more references to Allied air attacks on friendly units in Normany during the hedgerow fighting. I found them in the Time-Life WWII series book <u>Liberation</u>.

The 30th Division had a detachment of eight tanks fired on by friendly tank destroyers and later strafed by fighter-bombers (pp. 30-31), but there aren't too many details beyond that. I assume these may have been 9th Air Force planes, as the 30th had later encounters with them in the Bulge, related earlier in this thread.

The second incident was during Operation Cobra, in which the Americans launched an attack along the Périers-St. Lo road. On 24.July.1944, over 300 bombers dropped their loads on German and Allied lines, killing 25 Allied soldiers and wounding 131. The Germans probably suffered little, as the bombs fell on an area the Allies had recently vacated to create a "safe zone" between the lines, and they had had time only to establish a few outposts there.

German Major General Bayerlein, sensing the attack that would follow the bombardment, moved up more forces and the Allies could not even regain the territory they had vacated. However, due to poor visibility and weather, the bulk of the air attack had not dropped their loads, and the bombardment was re-scheduled in full for the next day.

That day, 25.July, over 1500 heavy bombers, 400 medium bombers, and 550 fighter-bombers were set to attack. Additionally, 125,000 rounds of artillery were to be expended.

The bombers did not come in parallel to their lines as desired, because the air planners felt that would restrict them to the narrow side of the rectangular target area, meaning the planes would be bunched up and make easy targets for Flak. They came in over the heads of the Allied soldiers instead. Unfortunately, this meant that as the smoke from earlier formations' bombing drifted back over the Allied lines, subsequent flights targeting the smoke line would drop their loads closer and closer to the Allied lines until they were falling into the lines.

End result: 111 American men killed, including Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, and 490 wounded. Countless others were dazed and shocked. However, over 1000 German soldiers had also been killed or wounded after Bayerlein had unwittingly packed them into the target area to fend off the attack from the day before.

Eisenhower was so disturbed by the losses that he vowed never to use heavy bombers in support of a ground attack after this.

Dar Steckelberg

[Guest PatB_TGN]

It was pretty universal throughout the allied airforce. Here's some RAF accounts:

Worthington - Not only was his squadron surround and cut off, the the RAF attacked his isolated position with Typhoons!

Operation Totalize - The RAF nailed the Canadians for 315 casualites and 44 poles.

Blue on Blue happened a lot. Most of it dealt with Heavy and Medium bombers. Those aircraft (Strategic) are outside the scope of Combat Mission (Thankfully). But seeing what a flight of B-17's could do to advancing Germans would be interesting

-Patrick

[Guest Big Time Software]

The Operation Cobra incident is probably the worst single one on record. I am nearly positive that a general was killed during that raid. In any case, it is written about in great detail in Closing With the Enemy.

Steve