Schweinfurt translates as ‘pig ford’ or ‘pig crossing.’ But it is unlikely that many of the 3,000 airmen who clambered into their Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses during the cold, damp morning hours of October 14, 1943, gave much thought to the meaning of the word. For them, Schweinfurt meant only one thing: a killer town that was one of the most savagely defended targets along the aerial high road, above Hitler’s Third Reich.

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Its reputation was well-founded. Before the day was over, more than 600 of those airmen would be killed or captured, the future of the American daylight bomber offensive would be in doubt and Mission 115 to Schweinfurt would be known as ‘Black Thursday’ in Army Air Forces folklore. In mid-1943, using air power to cripple the military and industrial capability of a nation was not the accepted fact that it became later in the war. Thus, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ (USAAF) Eighth Air Force was fighting not just to survive in the lethal skies over Europe, but to prove a concept-that daylight precision bombing could play a decisive, if not the most decisive, role in modern war.

British and American planners had concluded during the 1930s that aerial bombardment would play a key role in future wars, and Great Britain and the United States were the only nations to develop and make extensive use of fourengine bombers in World War 11. But the British, because of their early war experiences and those of the Germans before them, insisted that area night bombing was the only way to fly bombers unescorted into hostile territory without sustaining crippling losses. American airmen stood alone in their faith that B-17 and Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers with their heavy defensive armament could survive in daylight, with or without fighter escort. As a result, there had been argument and sometimes bitter debate before and after the Eighth mounted its first 12- plane B-17 raid on August 17, 1942, against Rouen, France.

The British aimed what seemed to be a constant barrage of criticism at the Americans’ pride and joy, the Fortress. Following an inspection of one of the first B-17s to arrive in England, RAF officers said its defensive fire was ‘too weak’ to afford reasonable protection, the tail gun position was ‘too cramped,’ and the belly turret was’so awkward as to be useless.’ Critic Peter Masefield, writing in the London Times, contended that ‘American heavy bombers-the latest Fortresses and Liberators-are fine flying machines, but not suited for bombing in Europe. Their bomb loads are small, their armour and armament are not up to the standards now found necessary and their speeds are low.’ And although the British had given the Eighth excellent cooperation during its buildup in 1942 and 1943, there were other philosophical differences between the two allies. Britain’s Bomber Command, headed by Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, believed a saturation bombing of major German cities was the best way to cripple the Reich. American planners, including Generals Ira Eaker and Carl ‘Tooey’ Spaatz, countered that precision attacks against selected industrial targets like oil production facilities, aircraft and ball bearing plants were the best use of bomber strength. ‘It is better to cause a high degree of destruction in a few essential industries … than to cause a small degree in many,’ the USAAF Committee of Operations Analysts agreed in March 1943. Harris, however, expressed contempt for this concentration on a limited number of targets, calling them ‘panacea targets.’

The Bavarian city of Schweinfurt, with its heavy concentration of ball bearing factories, was a classic example of one of these so-called panacea targets. It was obvious that anti-friction bearings played a vital role in any industrial economy, but 1940s-era German machinery was believed to be more dependent on ball bearings than most. It was estimated, for example, that the German aviation industry consumed an average of 2.4 million bearings per month. The fact that bearing construction was concentrated in just a few plants, with Schweinfurt accounting for more than 40 percent of production, made the ball bearing industry in general-and Schweinfurt in particularan obvious target. Making Schweinfurt even more attractive was its small size, which would make it easy for bombardiers to locate and hit the bearing plants-a factor that also made it a poor target for Harris’ night bombers. German planners had belatedly realized the vulnerability of the bearing plants and began making plans to disperse them, but to do so would take time as well as disrupt production of the precious bearings.

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