My father was involved in the operations against both Bayon and Royan in April 1945 as a crewman on an 8th Air Force B-17. Here are the descriptions from his flight log that he kept:
Mission 24: April 14, 1945. Target: Bayon [-sur-Gironde] France. An 8-hour and 40-minute visual MILK RUN against flak installations and naval guns. This was a Nazi pocket near Bordeaux. No flak over target. Bombed from 22,000 feet. Ship #807 with 38 M1A1's.
[Note: "Mission 948. 1,167 bombers [B-17 and B-24] are dispatched without escort to visually attack enemy pockets on the French Gironde estuary. Other Allied AFs [Air Forces] and French naval units attack similar targets. The air attacks precede a ground assault by a French detachment of the Sixth Army Group on the defense pockets which deny the Allies use of port facilities in the Bordeaux area. 480 of 490 B-17s hit 15 strongpoints and flak batteries in the Bordeaux/Royan, Pointe Coubre and Pointe Grave areas. 338 of 341 B-17s attack 4 strongpoints and flak batteries in the Bordeauz/Royan area." I don't know which sub-mission was my father's.]
Mission 25: April 15, 1945. Target: Royan, Fr. A 9-hour mission against troop concentration in Nazi ppocket near Bordeaux. Formed over Laon, France. Flew over Paris. Bombed visually from 15,000 feet. No flak in our formation. Ship #807 with 6 – 600# gasoline-jelly P-51 tanks (leaked all over hell [in airplane]). Free French Navy shelling town while we bombed.
[Note: "Mission 951. 1,348 unescorted bombers [B-17 and B-24] are dispatched to visually attack strongpoints on the French Atlantic coast; the first two forces [My father's was the first one.] below make the sole operational employment of napalm bombs by Eighth AF against German ground installations (pillboxes, gunpits, tank trenches, and heavy gun emplacements); the results are negligible and HQ recommends its discontinuance against this type of target: 492 of 529 B-17s hit four strongpoints and flak batteries in the Royan area."]
Mission 26: April 16, 1945. Target: Saulac [sic – Soulac-sur-Mer], Fr. An 8-hour and 20-minute mission against tank barriers and defenses on the Gironde estuary near Bordeaux. Bombed visually from 15,000 feet. No flak. Ship #807 with 6 – 1000# G.P.s french Navy and artillery shelled target.
[Note: "Mission 955. During the morning, 485 of 489 B-17s bomb the tank ditch defense line at Pointe de Grave on the S[outh] side of the Gironde estuary in the Bordeaux area in support of the ground assault in that area."
Note: Second mission (#25) was a napalm bomb drop.
Jim
paints up some WWII Soviet aircraft.
