Air Force Museum
Eighth Air Force in England
In 1942 and early 1943, while the British Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted saturation bombing at night, the USAAF was trying to prove the validity of daytime precision bombing with its small bomber force in England. For the first year, Eighth Air Force heavy bombers attacked submarine bases and production facilities, along with industrial and military targets in German-occupied France.
In depth
History & service
Unfortunately, bombing U-Boat bases and shipyards had little effect in stopping the devastating attacks of German submarines in the Atlantic. Even so, bomber leaders and crews gained valuable experience as they experimented with different tactics and techniques.
Arming wire tag from one of the bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force in its first heavy bomber raid against Nazi-occupied Europe, against the Rouen-Sotteville railway yards in France on August 17, 1942.
A 50-cal bullet tied to a handkerchief dropped by elated pilot Capt Lawrence Dwyer, Eighth Air Force, while "buzzing" his airfield at Bassingbourn, England, on May 14, 1943. He had just completed his 25^{th} and last mission over enemy territory, and he was one of the first pilots in the group to do so.
On March 18, 1943, 21-year-old bombardier 1^{st} Lt Jack W. Mathis used his last dying effort to ensure an important target was struck. That day, Mathis was the squadron lead bombardier for the raid on the submarine yards at Vegesack, Germany—if his aim was off, all of the bombers in his formation would also be off target.
Just before the bomb release, flak exploded near his B-17 The Duchess. Fragments shattered the Plexiglas nose, severely wounding and throwing Mathis into the navigator’s station. Nevertheless, he crawled back to the bombsight and accurately dropped the bombs before collapsing dead.
For his extraordinary act, Mathis received the Medal of Honor, the first awarded to an Eighth Air Force Airman.
Image 1^{st} Lt Mark Mathis, Jack Mathis’ brother. He was at the base visiting when Jack’s aircraft returned. Mark, also a bombardier, requested and received a transfer to his brother Jack’s unit to avenge his loss. Lt Mark Mathis was lost on a mission against Kiel, Germany, on May 14, 1943.
Aircraft change the battlefield
In the First World War, aircraft became valuable because they could see beyond the front line. Reconnaissance and artillery observation affected decisions on the ground. Once that information mattered, opposing forces had reason to attack the aircraft gathering it. Fighters, defensive armament, and increasingly specialized missions developed around this contest over observation and freedom of movement.
The aircraft were fragile by later standards, but their crews worked inside a rapidly expanding military system. Training, maintenance, replacement aircraft, photography, communications, and weather reporting supported each sortie. Improvements in engines and armament changed tactics, while the pressures of combat exposed weaknesses that might have taken much longer to discover in peacetime.
Personal stories should be read alongside those systems. A uniform or a named aircraft connects the war to an individual, but the individual depended on many others and operated under constraints that skill could not eliminate. Aircraft from opposing sides show how designers answered similar problems in different ways. The later military collections in Dayton and at Udvar-Hazy reveal what endured: the need to gather information, protect friendly forces, move people and supplies, and coordinate action across distance. The scale changed enormously; the relationship between an aircraft's design and the job it had to perform remained fundamental.
