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I have just received a couple of photos taken in Brno yesterday where wrecks of a German Hetzer tank destroyer (or Panzerjäger in German) were digged out.
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I was surfing the Internet yesterday when I came across to the link to the list of the airfields that were either captured and re-used or constructed by Allied engineering units in the ETO from June 1944 to May 1945.
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Soviet Air Force flew many strafing and dive-bombing missions to prevent German troops from surrending to U. S. Army in western Bohemia on May 8 and 9, 1945. They also tried to hit roads and communication hubs. Unfortunately, many errors due to various reasons occurred... I estimate that at least 1200 people were killed – most of them Czech and German civilians.
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Referring to updated Czech resources thirteen U. S. pilots were killed in strafing runs.
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On April 1, 1945 passenger train No. 1705 departing from the station of Veseli Nad Luznici (75 miles south of Prague) at 10.45 was strafed by a couple of Mustangs north-west of Jindrichuv Hradec at high noon. The bullet-ridden locomotive No. 354.719 was brought to halt immediately.
While civilians and many Hitlerjugend members were lucky enough to take cover from the machine gun fire in the nearby forrest both the driver and the boilerman were seriously wounded by hot steam coming out of the damaged engine. Even though they were given first aid on the spot and transferred to the hospital in Jindrichuv Hradec the former died later on the same day, the latter on April 6.
The same train was attacked again at 15.50 – the locomotive (of course, a different one from that mentioned above:-) was put out of service as well. Nobody was wounded in this case.
What is really strange about these accidents is the fact all the other strafing passes in Bohemia on April 1, 1945 occurred from 13.55 to 15.05 hrs. (as one can read in local recrods), which is entirely confirmed in U. S. resources saying that only unit dispatched on armed recce mission in this territory (oficially in the Prague-Pilsen area) from 13.50 to 15.00 hrs. was the 52nd Fighter Group of the 15th Air Force...
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This is rather a mysterious case: There is a note in the Summary of the Opperations of the Ninth Air Force saying the 354the Fighter Group reported to strafe various ground targets in the vicinity of "M/Y Roztok" on April 24, 1945. The pilots definitely meant the RR station at Roztoky, a village located a couple of miles north of Prague.
The former village president Mr. Stanislav Bolonsky, who is considered a well-informed local historian, hasn't confirmed whether any attack occured on this day and it wasn't mentioned in the village memory book at all.
On the other hand, twelve Mustangs of the 353rd Squadron flew an armed recconaissance mission in the vicinity of Prague between from approx. 7.30 to 8.30 hrs. dropping 24 fragmentation 260-pound bombs against barges and RR cars and buildings, Steve Blake dealing with the history of the 354th Fighter Group wrote to me recently.
Sources:
Air Force Historical Research Agency, roll B 5653, Ninth Air Force Summary of Operations No. 114 – 24 April 1945
Státní oblastní archiv v Praze, fond Sbírka staničních knih četnictva a Sboru národní bezpečnosti, Středočeský kraj; inv. č. 1063
BLAKE, Steve. E-mail message, March 15, 2007
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Yesterday SMSgt. Scott M. Reuter of the U.S. Embassy to Prague and Jay L. Bevard, director of the US Army Memorial Affairs Activity-Europe, took over remains of 2/Lt Williama L. Kiggins of the 31st Fighter Group, 15th Air Force, who died after his aircraft was lost to flak near the city of Brno on October 11, 1944. This ceremony was organized nine months after the remains were excavated in the area and three months after the memorial was unveiled.
(Photo: courtesy of the History Dept. of the Moravian Museum in Brno)
The remains will be trasferred to Landstuhl, Germany, and later on the Hawaii to conduct further examination. After that it will be decided whether the remains will be buried with the other remains found in 1946 to the Kiggins' grave in Toledo, Ohio.
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Seventeen locomotives of the total number of 375 that have been registered in my database of strafing attacks as "put out of service" were hit twice! The locos are as follows:
264.107
275.013
354.1142
354.123
354.134
354.159
423.014
434.205
434.2150
52 7469
524.0104
524.011
524.017
524.025
524.083
524.128
534.038
Obviously, this statistics refers only to those engines number plates of which are known (i.e. these were mentioned in the relevant report). In other words, there could be more such cases...
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Hopefully this is a complete list of known attacks of airfields in Bohemia and Moravia (or what is now the territory of the Czech Republic) carried out by RCAF and USAAF units (please see the attached sources).
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Set of pictures of scattered buildings as consequences of two raids of the 8th Air Force against the town of Karlovy Vary (Karslbad in German) from the archive of the renown photographer Jaroslav Houf has been made available.
A shot showing a destroyed bus at what is now the public transportation terminal within a short distance of the marshalling yards is also included. I have just received the picture in higher resolution from the site administrator so that many bullet holes are clearly visible. As far as I know at least two strafing attacks were reported in Karlovy Vary: on April 17 and May 4, 1945.
Source: FOUD, Karel, KRÁTKÝ, Vladislav, VLADAŘ Jan. Poslední akce : Operace amerického a britského letectva nad územím Čech v dubnu a květnu 1945. Plzeň : Nava, 1997, s. 146
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When U. S. fighters were approaching a RR station some 35 miles south-west of Prague at 8.45 a.m. on April 21, 1945 no stationary or moving train, a detached locomotive or another kind of rolling stock were present there ta the moment (to be precised: there is no note about them in the relevant report). Therefore it is rather strange the pilots selected this target for strafing... Their pass resulted in very slight damages: two bullet holes were found in a rail on the track from Prague to Pilsen and the phone line was interrupted.
Source: Národní archiv, fond Ministerstvo železnic, karton č. 4767, inv. č. 1380-45
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Yesterday I visited Video Google (for the first time) – what attracted my attention was the one-minute gun camera footage entitled "Allied Fighters Strafe Elite German Me-262 Jets". Well, no doubt these are nice colored images that must have been downloaded from World War 2 Pictures in Color but there is only one Me 262 (see below) as one blog reader pointed out and a number of Ju 87 dive bombers known as Stukas (as far as I can tell but the pleople commenting at Video Google have the same opinion) and even a C-47!!!
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2/Lt Ralph I. Jones of the 308th Squadron, 31st Fighter Group, was another victim of one of the air battles that were fought over this territory in the summer of 1944. His Mustang P-51B (Ser. No. 43-6851, nicknamed "Birmingham Boomerang") was shot down at 11.30 a.m. on August 28, 1944 in a dogfight with three Focke-Wulfs, which had taken off to intercept heavy bombers of the 15th Air Force on the raid against targets in Austria and Hungary.
The aircraft exploded before hitting the ground near the town of Znojmo, Czechoslovakia. The pilot didn't have any chance to bail out...
BTW, 2/Lt Jones was a tent-mate of 2/Lt Kiggins, who was KIA six weeks later near the airfield in Brno...
In 1946 a memorial to 2/Lt Jones was erected near the crash site but until the early 90's no name was mentioned. Later on a small metal sign was added but it has contained a wrong name: James Ralph.
Wrecks of 2/Lt Jones' Mustang
Memorial to 2/Lt Jones in 1983...
... and the current state
In October aviation enthusiasts tried to recover other wrecks but except three fragments nothing was found:
Sources:
RAJLICH Jiří. Mustangy nad protektorátem : Operace britského a amerického letectva nad českými zeměmi a německá obrana. Praha: MBI, 1997, s. 55.
ROUPEC Jiří. Sestřelen, neoslavován, ale nezapomenut. Rovnost, 23. srpna 1990.
Photos: courtesy of Moravian Museum and Jan Brecka
Jan Brecka, Moravian Museum
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I came across a a village history memory book on the Internet saying that on December 28, 1944 U. S. fighters spotted a passenger train north of Prague but eventually didn't strafe it.
What is the most interesting about this story is this the only case in this area I have heard of so far – all archival records I have gone through mention strafing attacks only in the areas of Nymburk (east of Prague) and Pardubice-Ceske Budejovice (east and south-east of Prague)!
The aircraft I am referring to belonged most likely to the fighter escort of the formation of heavy bombers of the 15th Air Force targets of which for this day were the oil refinery in Kralupy nad Vltavou and the oil storage in Roudnice nad Labem.
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On October 13, 2007 the Mayor of the City of Brno Roman Onderka and the Czech ex-RAF pilot Emil Bocek unveiled in the city district of Slatina a memorial desk in the shape of aircraft wing to 2/Lt William L. Kiggins, who crashed near what is now the Brno International Airport on October 11, 1944. His P-51B Mustang was shot down by AA fire while strafing oil cars and a loco in the RR station.
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Soviet ground-assault aircraft harassed German troops that were retreating in Czechoslovakia in a state of chaos to the west even on May 9, 1945. In the morning, for instance, many trucks, passenger cars, artillery prime movers, wagons and other vehicles loaded with ammunition, personal belongings etc. were destroyed in the vicinity of the town of Polna, which is located approx. 70 miles south-east of Prague – some of them at the main square.
Two of the vehicles that were hit at the town square
(Photo: courtesy of Mr. Jan Prchal)
Source: PRCHAL, Jan. Z historického kalendáře. Polenský zpravodaj [online]. 2005, č. 3 [cit. 2007-10-09]. Available at: ‹http://www.mesto-polna.cz/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?u=12549&id_org=12549&id=82124&p1=28689›.
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In April 1945 residents of the village of Ruzyne, which was situated on the outskirts of the city of Prague, were used to frequent U. S. fighters flying over their heads and hearing the noise of fire of the flak defending the aerodrome. They were not that suprised than seeing a Mustang, with the black and white checkerboard nose marking approaching form the west at 4 p.m. on April 16, 1945. But suddenly they found out there must have been something wrong with it: The ship was losing attitude and smoking...
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Whenever I am looking for basic information on fighters of the 8th Air Force I visit Peter Randall's great site Littlefriends.co.uk ("Little Friends" is a nickname of fighters used by bomber crew members).
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Fighters of both the 9th and 8th Air Force attacked the aerodrome in Cheb (Eger in German), Czechoslovakia several times in the last weeks of World War II – on April 16 and April 21, 1945, for instance – and destroyed dozens of enemy aircraft.
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When I was searching for information on the other day I came across to the article that originally appeared in the 357th Fighter Group Association Newsletter in 1997 and was re-published at various web sites. It concerns 1/Lt Irving E. Snedecker, its another member that was shot down by AA fire defending the Ruzyne aerodrome on April 17, 1945 (not on April 11, 1945 as mentioned in the text).
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The book on regional history of the area of the town of Chodova Plana (approx. 25 miles south-east of Cheb) mentiones one event I am really curious about as this is not described in any source on the air war over Bohemia. While strafing against the base of the Reichsarbeitdienst (the German National Work Service) in the soccer field on April 10, 1945 one of the aircraft was brought down by small arms fire and had to belly-landed at unknown spot. Explosions of bombs damaged the field kitchen. Other details were not provided. To be honest, the author may have referred to the crash that occured six days later in the same vicinity...
Source: Chodová Planá na konci války [online]. Last updated March 19, 2007 [cit. 2007-09-17]. Available at WWW: <http://www.hamelika.cz/OSTATNI/chodovapl.HTM>.
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The aviation archaeology group called Prazsky letecky archiv published a unique photo of the burning wreckage of a German Me 262 jet fighter south of the Prague/Ruzyne aerodrome. The pilot, whose identity is not known in the present, might have been brought down by either 1/Lt Vernon O. Fein or 1/Lt Henry A. Yandel of the 368th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force, on April 16, 1945. The point is that each of them was credited with destroyed a Me 262 in the vicinity of Prague on the afternoon armed reconnaissance mission in the Marianske Lazne-Praha (Marienbad-Prague) area.
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Starting on September 23, 2007 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will air The War, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The staff inteviewed many U. S. veterans of army, naval and air foces in World War II to give their personal accounts of their combat service. Quentin C. Aanenson, a pilot whose task was to attack ground targets, was one of them.
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A memorial to the U. S. fighter 2/Lt William L. Kiggins, who perished on October 11, 1944 near what is now the civil airport in a strafing attack against the RR station, will be unveiled in Slatina district of the city of Brno at 2.30 p.m. on October 13, 2007.
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U. S. Army Air Force lost 28 in the years of 1944 and 1945. Referring to the particular MACRs No. 14204 and 14214 and to the German air enthusiast Ulf Podbielski only one Thunderbolt of the 367th Fighter Group (not two as Jiri Rajlich, Czech aviation historian, states) crashed near the town of Tachov on April 16, 1945.
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1/Lt Roland Sheridan of the 404th Fighter Group of the Ninth Air Force poses on the wing of a P-47 Thunderbolt, which is ready for take-off.
(Photo: courtesy of John Levesley)
Armament of this Thunderbolt – besides four 0.50-inch machine guns, a half of the standard firepower of this type which can be seen just next to the pilot – is composed of two 500-pound bombs and four 5-inch HVAR rockets (being carried under wings).
The 404th Fighter Group was dispatched to Czechoslovakia only once – on May 4, 1945 when the last large-scale combat operation of the Ninth Air Force occured in this area.
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This is to present some (hopefully interesting:-) statistics from the database containing basic information on attacks on ground targets in what is now the territory of the Czech Republic. 396 locomotives in total were strafed from October 1944 to May 1945, approx. 80 per cent of which were put out of service (there were seven engines that were shot up, fixed and hit again). Other 23 locomotives were damaged but remain in operational ocnditions or weren't hit at all. In case of 39 accidents, the result was not reported but one can imagine that a majority of those locomotives were also put out of service. The loco depots in Plzen, Tabor and Rakovnik suffered heavy losses but relevant figures concerning the depot in Zdice are missing – If weren't the ranking would look differen, I pressume. On a single day – on April 17, 1945 – fifty locomotives were put out of service.
Referring to this data I estimate the number of locomotives at least temporarily lost to fighters ranged 500 and 600.
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Residents of the village of Jesenice and the surroundings (located south of Prague) could see a very rare object in the afternoon on April 17, 1945: a single-engine aircraft painted in silver with white stars on the fuselage and on the wings lying in the fields...
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A commemorative table in the woods west of Prague, where a P-51D Mustang crashed on April 18, 1945, was unveiled under a common project of the aviation archaeology group called Prazsky letecky archiv (Prague Air Archive) and the local museum in the town of Rakovnik.
Contrary to some of his colleagues on previous days, the pilot 1/Lt Oscar T. Ridley of the 362nd Squadron of the 357th Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force had a lot of good luck. Not only he bailed out, but he also succeeded to avoid captivity thanks to the local citizens who hid him until the end of the hostilities.
357th Fighter Group's task on this mission was to provide cover for heavy bombers attacking the marshalling yards in Kolin and Plzen, Czechoslovakia, and to prevent formidable Me 262 jets taking off from the Ruzyne airdrome to intercept them. They also strafed enemy planes on the ground. 1/Lt Ridley's Mustang was hit by AA fire at 1.20 p.m.
A metal tag of one of the six 0.50 cal. machine guns, fragments of the gun camera, the fuel level indicator and pieces of armored glass of the canopy (please see the pictures).
1/Lt Ridley (at that time in the rank of 2/Lt) shared with Capt. Paul R. Hatala of the 364th Squadron one air-to-ait victory (a Bf 109 fighter) in the vicinity of Leipzig, Germany, on March 2, 1945 (please see the encounter report).
In 2000 BGen. (ret.) Ridley visited the Museum of air battle over the Ore Mountains.
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Unknown number of U. S. fighters dropped three bombs on the RR station of Horazdovice-Babin (approx. 25 miles SE of Pilsen). Any damages on the rail yard, the locomotive depot or the rolling stock as well as any casualties were not reported. Only a pile of ties was set on fire and the wire system used for remote control of crossing gates, signalling etc. was put of service.
The total number of bombs was most likely higher as at least one of them didn't explode – its broken shell (please see the photo kindly provided by Mr. Petr Jezek) is now on display in the restaurant garden opposite the RR station. There is a note in the table that the house No. 448 was destroyed in the attack.
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The article entitled George Preddy: Top-Scoring World War II Mustang Ace, which gives an overview of the military career of this pilot, appeared on the TheHistoryNet server. It also mentiones Preddy's brother William, who was killed in then Czechslovakia.
The author Kelly Bell wrote: "Valor was apparently a family trait. On April 17, 1945, George's 20-year-old brother William, who had logged two victories in a P-51, was killed by anti-aircraft fire over Pilsen, Czechoslovakia." This should be corrected: 1/Lt William R. Preddy was shot down by flak defending the airdrome ner Ceske Budejovice (90 miles south of Prague) and mortally wounded.
According to the official list of aerial victories maintained by AFHRA, 1/L Preddy was credited only with one (Fw 190 fighter on March 2, 1945), on the same mission he also probably destroyed downed a Bf 109 fighter.
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Before heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force struck at the marshalling yards in the city of Usti nad Labem (Aussig in German) in the north-western part of Czechoslovakia on April 17 and 19, 1945 fighter-bombers of the Ninth Air Force appeared on April 14, 1945.
According to U. S. archival sources eight Thunderbolts of a fighter group of the XIXth Tactical Air Command (the group number is not legible in the microfilm copy, unfortunately) dropped sixteen 260-pound bombs on what is believed "M/Y Aussig".
Martin Vesely wrote in his book on the air war over this territory – citing two wittnesses and the local authorities report that about 12 a.m. the chemical plant (Chemische Werke Aussig-Falkenau GmbH) and houses in the vicinity were damaged. Machine gun fire also broke windows at the hospital. Ten people were killed and some others wounded.
Sources:
Air Force Historical Research Agency, roll B 5653, Ninth Air Force Summary of Operations No. 104 — 14 April 1945
VESELÝ, Martin. Hvězdy nad Krušnohořím : Letecká válka nad severozápadními Čechami (1944-1945). Praha: Naše vojsko, 2005, s. 89
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On one of the afternoon missions of the 368th Fighter Group on April 17, 1945, Thunderbolts of its 397th Squadron were searching ground targets of opportunity between Dresden, Germany, and Prague, Czechoslovakia. They also reached the town of Litomerice, located approx. 35 miles north-west of Prague.
M. Vesely wrote on his book that 2/Lt Herbert F. Koenig was killed at 3.15 p.m. while he was strafing a military column in the vicinity of the village of Mlekojedy (south of Litomerice). His remains were excavated by the American Graves Registration Unit on August 8, 1946 and transferred to an unknown cemetery (as 2/Lt Koenig is not registered in the databases of American Battle Monument Commission or Department of Veterans Affairs.
Radovan Helt, another historian involved in research info air war over this territory, confirms that the aircraft crashed at the road connecting villages Mlekojedy and Lukavec on the left bank of the river Labe (Elbe). It was shot down by light flak, started to burn immediately and eventually hit the high-voltage or telephone lines. German soldiers found the dead body in the wreckage.
There is only a brief note in the relevant mission report of the 397th Squadron on 2/Lt Koenig's fate saying that the aircraft was seen to strike a telephone pole in a strafing pass and crash in vicinity of towns of Lovosice and Litomerice.
The list of locations in the Czechoslovakia where remains of U. S. soldiers were recovered after the war includes the village of Mlekojedy. No name was attached...
Sources:
VESELÝ, Martin. Hvězdy nad Krušnohořím : letecká válka nad severozápadními Čechami 1944-1945. Praha : Naše vojsko, 2005, s. 98
HELT, Radovan. A z nebe padaly bílé hvězdy : letecká válka nad Mostem v souvislostech, březen – duben 1945. Cheb : Svět křídel, 2007, s. 388-389
Air Force Historical Research Agency, 368th Fighter Group – 397th Fighter Squadron, Ops. Rep. — Sq. mission 532 — 17 April 1945
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The famous American color documentary entitled Thunderbolt and directed by Academy Award winner William Wyler and John Sturges was broadcast by the Czech Television two years ago. As I didn't watch it and even didn't have chance to record it I was more than pleased when I found out a copy (an illegal one, I guess:) has been posted to YouTube. The stars of the movie, which was released to cinemas in 1947, are pilots of the 57th Fighter Group, 12th USAAF, and their aircraft – P-47 Thunderbolts attacking ground targets in Italy in May 1944, primarily to support Allied troops in the area of Monte Cassino. To achieve maximum effect and authenticity the film was shot with several cameras simultaneously which were installed on board at different points. Don't pay much attention to the narative – it sometimes sound ridiculous, but one should bear in mind the fact it was made for propaganda purposes.
The entire film (duration: 44 mins, size ranges between 47 MB and 1,7 GB), which is placed in the public domain licence, can be now downloaded in various versions of the MPEG format from the Internet Archive. Be sure to check out whether yu have installed the correct codec.
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August 24, 1944 was a remarkable day in the combat history of the 332nd Fighter Group. On the escort mission to the oil refinery and the airdrome in Pardubice, Czechoslovakia, its Mustangs encountered a couple of Fw 190s of III. Gruppe of SG 151 that had just taken off from the field. 1/Lt Charles E. McGee and 1/Lt William H. Thomas of the 302nd Squadron were credited with one aerial victory each. Both enemy aircraft were reported to crash near the runway.
What is even more interesting in connection with this blog is that 1/Lt McGee is considered to carry out the very first strafing attack in then Protectorate Bohemia nd Moravia. In the interview with the editor of the TheHistoryNet server, he recalled: "During that time, I saw a train pulling into a little station, so I dropped my nose and made a firing pass at the engine." The locomotive was not hit, but ten cars were slightly damaged and three people were wounded.
The particular passage of the Narrative Mission Report I received from Daniel L. Haulman Air Force Historical Research Agency include also coordinates that refer to the location approx. 4 miles south of the Pardubice airdrome. On the other hand, the only known (i.e. recorded) such attack occured 15 miles in south-west direction...
1/Lt McGee (b. 1919) flew 54 combat missions from May 5 to November 17, 1944. Besides the victory mentioned above he destroyed an aircraft on the groud in Yugoslavia on September 8, 1944. He was a veteran of wars in Korea and Vietnam and retired as a colonel in 1973.
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Last week I went to the information centre of the village of Mala Upa in the Giant Mountains (Krkonose in Czech) at the border with Poland. There is a permanent miniexhibition commemorating the most tragical flying accident that has ever happened in the area.
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Other marks left by U. S. fighter-bombers in Bohemia – particularly in the RR station of Horovice between Prague and Pilsen, which was attacked several times in the second half of April 1945. I received the following pictures from Mr. Petr Jezek of the local Military History Club.
Machine gun hits on the concrete wall next to the yard
Detail of the damaged iron hand rail above the wall
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The highest-ranking Soviet strafing ace was Alexandr Nikolajevic Jefimov (born on February 6, 1923), member of the 594th, 198th and 62nd Assault Regiments. He was credited 85 enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground and five other in the air. From 1943 until the end of the hostilities he flew 222 combat missions. He was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union. More biographical information can be found in the cyrillic.
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An object identified later by the police expert as an "unexploded air bomb weighing approx. 100 pound" was found by accident in the garden of a house on the western outskirts of the town of Tabor, 60 miles south of Prague. The police expert confirmed yesterday this was a German common fragmentation bomb marked SD-50.
Initially I was thinking only about bombs being dropped by the Ninth Air Force fighters on April 24 or 29, 1945 in a strafing attack on the RR station and the locomotive depot which were located not that far from the garden and some of the bombs may have been used against another target... Unfortunately, there are no dimensions or another relevant information in the only photo which was taken by police on the spot and which is available to public. What is fairly confusing are the screw holes on the left...
Photo: Police Department of the South-Bohemian District
