Martin W. Bowman - Air war D-Day. Volume2, Assaults from the sky

Air War D-Day Assaults From The Sky

Volume 1 The Build-Up

Volume 3 Winged Pegasus and The Rangers

Volume 4 Bloody Beaches

Volume 5 Gold - Juno - Sword

First Published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright Martin W Bowman, 2013

9781783468843

The right of Martin W Bowman to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in 10/12pt Palatino
by GMS Enterprises

Printed and bound in England by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword
Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword
Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe
True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword
Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When,
Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

I am enormously grateful to the following people for their time and effort and kind loan of photos etc, not least to my fellow author, friend and colleague, Graham Simons, for getting the book to press-ready standard and for his detailed work on maps and photographs: My thanks to Ray Alm; Ed Cotton Appleman; James Roland Argo; Peter Arnold; John Avis; Les Barber; Harry Barker; Mike Bailey; Carter Barber; Neil Barber, author of The Day The Devils Dropped In; E. W. D. Beeton; Franklin L. Betz; Bill Bidmead; Rusty Bloxom, Historian, Battleship Texas; Lucille Hoback Boggess; Prudent Boiux; August C. Bolino; Dennis Bowen; Tom Bradley; Eric Broadhead; Stan Bruce; K. D. Budgen; Kazik Budzik KW VM; Les Bulmer; Reginald Punch Burge; Donald Burgett; Chaplain Burkhalter; Lol Buxton; Jan Caesar; R. H. Chad Chadwick; Noel Chaffey; Mrs J. Charlesworth; Chris Clancy; Roy Clark RNVR; Ian Nobby Clark; P. Clough; Johnny Cook DFM; Malcolm Cook; Flight Lieutenant Tony Cooper; Lieutenant-Colonel Eric A. Cooper-Key MC; Cyril Crain; Mike Crooks; Jack Culshaw, Editor, The Kedge Hook; Bill Davey; S. Davies; Brenda French, Dawlish Museum Society; John de S. Winser; Abel L. Dolim; Geoffrey Duncan; Sam Earl; Eighth Air Force News; Eastern Daily Press; Chris Ellis; Les Tubby Edwards; W. Evans; Frank R. Feduik; Ron Field; Wolfgang Fischer; Robert Fitzgerald; Eugene Fletcher; Captain Dan Flunder; John Foreman; Wilf Fortune; H. Foster; Lieutenant-Commander R. D. Franks DSO; Jim Gadd; Leo Gariepy; Patricia Gent; Lieutenant Commander Joseph H. Gibbons USNR; Larry Goldstein; Bill Goodwin; Franz Goekel; Lieutenant Denis J. M. Glover DSC RNZNVR; John Gough; Peter H. Gould; George Jimmy Green RNVR; Albert Gregory; Nevil Griffin; Edgar Gurney BEM; R. S. Haig-Brown; Leo Hall, Parachute Regt Assoc.; Gnter Halm; Roland Ginger A. Hammersley DFM; Madelaine Hardy; Allan Healy; Andre Heintz; Basil Heaton; Mike Henry DFC, author of Air Gunner; Vic Hester; Reverend R. M. Hickey MC; Lenny Hickman; Elizabeth Hillmann; Bill Holden; Mary Hoskins; Ena Howes; Pierre Huet; J. A. C. Hugill; Antonia Hunt; Ben C. Isgrig; Jean Irvine; Orv Iverson; George Jackson; Major R. J. L. Jackson; Robert A. Jacobs; G. E. Jacques; Marjorie Jefferson; Bernard M. Job RAFVR; Wing Commander Johnnie Johnson DSO* DFC*; Percy Shock Kendrick MM; the late Jack Krause; Cyril Larkin; Reg Lilley; John Lincoln, author of Thank God and the Infantry; Lieutenant Brian Lingwood RNVR; Wing Commander A. H. D. Livock; Leonard Lomell; P. McElhinney; Ken McFarlane; Don McKeage; Hugh R. McLaren; John McLaughlin; Nigel McTeer: Ron Mailey; Sara Marcum; Ronald Major; Walt Marshall; Rudolph May; Ken Mayo; Alban Meccia; Claude V. Meconis; Leon E. Mendel; Harold Merritt; Bill Millin for kindly allowing me to quote from his book, Invasion; Bill Mills; John Milton; Alan Mower; Captain Douglas Munroe; A Corpsman Remembers D-Day Navy Medicine 85, No.3 (May-June 1994); Major Tom Normanton; General Gordon E. Ockenden; Raymond Paris; Bill Parker, National Newsletter Editor, Normandy Veterans; Simon Parry; Albert Pattison; Helen Pavlovsky; Charles Pearson; Eric Phil Phillips DFC MiD; T. Platt; Franz Rachmann; Robert J. Rankin; Lee Ratel; Percy Reeve; Jean Lancaster-Rennie; Wilbur Richardson; Helmut Romer; George Rosie; The Royal Norfolk Regiment; Ken Russell; A. W. Sadler; Charles Santarsiero; Erwin Sauer; Frank Scott; Ronald Scott; Jerry Scutts; Major Peter Selerie; Alfred Sewell; Bob Shaffer; Reg Shickle; John R. Slaughter; Ben Smith Jr.; SOLDIER Magazine; Southampton Southern Evening Echo; Southwick House, HMS Dryad, Southwick, Portsmouth; Bill Stafford; Allen W. Stephens; Roy Stevens; Mrs E. Stewart; Henry Tarcza; Henry Buck Taylor; June Telford; E. J. Thompson; Charles Thornton; Robert P. Tibor; Dennis Till; Edward J. Toth; Walt Truax; Jim Tuffell; Russ Tyson; US Combat Art Collection, Navy Yard, Washington DC; Thomas Valence; John Walker; Herbert Walther; Ed Wanner; R. H. G. Weighill; Andrew Whitmarsh, Portsmouth Museum Service; Slim Wileman; Jim Wilkins; E. G. G. Williams; Deryk Wills, author of Put On Your Boots and Parachutes! The US 82nd Airborne Division; Jack Woods; Len Woods; Waverly Woodson.

The 8th Air Force is currently charged with a most solemn obligation in support of the most vital operation ever undertaken by our armed forces.

General Doolittle, in a message read out to the men at all bases.

Dick Johnson a Mickey navigator in the Hundredth Bomb Group, who had been seconded to the 452nd at Deopham Green for the mission, was one who spent all night in briefing with no sleep at all. For the first time to his knowledge there was a password to get to the aircraft. It was Pearl Harbor. When he finally did get to the Fortress one of the guards stuck a Thompson sub-machine gun in his belly and said, Halt, Lieutenant Johnson. Who goes there? He made Johnson give the password too. In the 452nd formation, which had taken off at 03:00 Johnson could see the Channel on the scope of his Mickey set. He was astounded. There were so many ships that it seemed like you could scarcely see the water. They could not see the coast so it was planned to bomb blind but it was 07:28 hours when his ship reached the release point, so they closed their bomb doors and did not drop as the troops were scheduled to go ashore at 07:25 at their location. His pilot had to make all his turns over France to the right, as Allied anti-aircraft gunners had been briefed that any aircraft making a left turn would be considered hostile.