Regensburg Shuttle Mission

AUGUST 17, 1943 – 11 hours, 20 minutes

Exactly one year after the first 8th USAAF mission over Europe, the 95th BG participated in one of the most legendary air battles during WWII, the planned double strike against Regensburg and Schweinfurt. The 95th Bomb Group target: the German aircraft factories at Regensburg, deep inside Germany. In order to succeed, the 4th Combat Wing (six Groups, including the 95th , 100th , and 390th ) needed to have fighter support before the target, then afterward fly over the Swiss Alps to North Africa to land and refuel before returning to England.

Morning mist and the vagaries of timing threw off some of the planned fighter support, leaving the rear boxes in the formation sitting ducks for German fighters. En route to the target, more than four hours of unrelenting attacks diminished the force of Fortresses as they flew steadily onward. The 95th’s gunners had their hands full for hours until the German fighters pulled back just before the target. Bombing results were excellent, with the raid destroying a significant portion of the Messerschmitt 109 factory. A companion raid that day on Schweinfurt by the 1st Combat Wing contributed to the devastation felt by the German high command. The Luftwaffe chief of staff committed suicide four days later. The 95th had lost four aircraft.

Following the bomb run, the remaining B-17s flew over the Alps and across Italy to skim (almost literally) the Mediterranean Sea on their way to a makeshift base in North Africa. Many craft were lost on this leg of the mission, several ditching in the water as they ran out of fuel. Because of a SNAFU in refueling plans, the crews got an unexpected 10-day holiday in the sun. “We had a wonderful time in North Africa,” pilot Harry Conley wrote his mother. “The greatest treat of all was that we got all the fresh eggs, vegetables, and fruit we could eat . . . . For a week, we just laid around in the nice warm sun and swam and ate and went to town.” At the end of the sojourn, the 95th’s eight flyable B-17s (of 24 that had taken off from Horham) returned to base, one of them bringing along a North African donkey that was used to entertain the British children until it succumbed to an English winter a few months later.