Bombing Mission
Over the enemy coast the crew don their cumbersome flak suits, worn loke body armor made of overlapping thin steel plates inside canvas sprons. They know the German radar and listening posts will have been tracking them for the last hour and the enemy defense controllers will be trying to guess their mission objectives. The gunners in the B-17 look all around their field of fire re-assured by the sight of the zig-zagging "Little Friends" at 6,000 feet above them; P-47's fitted with long distance drop tanks. then the flak begins to burst in little black clouds around the formation.
The formation reaches the Initial Point: the selected point over which the bomber force will begin its turn to make the bomb run on the target. Flares are fired to give visual confirmation. In this case, the cloud cover (undercast) is too thick,and the leading aircraft from the Pathfinder Force will mark the target using their H2X ground-scanning radar sets. The leading Combat Wing approaches the bombin run. There are four minute intervals between Wings. Flak intensified and squadrons of enemy fighters sweeo through the formations firing at "Purple Heart Corner": the lowest, rear most and therefore most exposed flight in the formation.
The Bombardier opens the bomb doors and flips open the safety lever on the bomb release. In this missions he does not have a bomb sight and is waiting for the lead bombardier is lined up on the smoke markers released by the Pathfinders, a red flare is fired and the bombs are released. The Group hope to bomb a compact area 500 by 250 yards. The ball turret gunner confirms that the bombs have been released and the bomb bay is checked to see that all bombs have gone and then the doors are closed. With the loss of the weight of the bombs the formation speeds up to about 160 IAS (244mph) and heads for the designated rally point.
The rally point is chosen as a known area out of range of enemy flak batteries where the squadrons can be re-form into defensive combat wing formations. The combat wing leader tells the radio operator to send a "target bombed" massage to HQ.
100 miles from home, IFF (a signal Identification Friend or Foe) is switched on by the radio operator to warn friendly bases of the force passing above them. During the mission the B-17 could identify itself to friendly aircraft by firing coloured flares on a pre-set code or by flashing the correct mission code with an Aldis lamp. The plane now drops 500 feet per minute and, once below 10,000 feet,the crew come off oxygen. Home base is informed of their arrival and all activity is based on their ETA.