91st Bomb Group

On 5 January the 91st Group attacked Tours, France, and claimed it was the first bombardment group in the European Theater of Operations to complete 100 missions. Adverse weather conditions, so prevalent throughout most of 1943, continued to hamper operations. Of the 16 missions for which the Group became airborne, only 8 were completed. The outsta... nding mission of the period occurred on 11 January 1944, when the 91st's B-17s hit and extensively damaged the Focke-Wulf plant at Oschersleben, Germany. Enemy fighter action was aggressively persistent; four of the B-17s were shot down on the flight to the target, and one more B-17 was lost over the target. Out of the 210 enemy aircraft destroyed on this strike made by the 1st Bombardment Division, the 91st was officially credited with 38. The Group shared the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the Division for the action. Not until March did weather improve, and with better weather the bombardment groups went into all-out action. The 91st participated in 15 missions, the greatest number yet accomplished during any month of its combat operations. On 3 March the Group set out to strike Berlin for the first time, but the attack had to be abandoned because of the weather, and Wilhelmshaven was bombed with unseen results. On 4 March the weather again caused the cancellation of the scheduled Berlin strike, and bombs were dropped on Cologne. Not until 22 March was Berlin bombed by the 91st Group. Early in June 1944 the 91st Group was assigned tactical targets for the first time. On 2, 3, 4, and 5 June it hit gun emplacements and troop concentrations in the Cherbourg area. On D-Day, 6 June, 36 aircraft of the 91st bombed gun positions at La Riveria, knocking out many of the batteries that otherwise would have concentrated firepower on the troops making the beachhead landings. On 22 June the Eighth and Fifteenth Airforce used all available aircraft--2,000 bombers--in the heaviest daylight assault yet made on Berlin. By the end of the month the 91st Group had completed ...Read More