Between 1940 and 1945, Allied forces dropped more than 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe, producing enough energy to leave a mark at the edge of earth's atmosphere.About half of that was dropped on Germany, as the Allies attempted to break the back of the Nazi war machine that sent German troops and tanks to the English Channel and the gates of Moscow.In Germany, the air campaign produced horrors like the February 1945 bombing of Dresden, which killed roughly 25,000 people, many of them civilians and refugees, in the resulting firestorm.It also took a heavy toll on the forces sent to carry out the devastation. The US 8th Air Force, based in England, took about half of the entire US Army Air Force's casualties47,482 out of 115,332, including more than 26,000 killed.Perhaps its most severe losses came during the bombing of ball-bearing plants around Schweinfurt, in south-central Germany, on October 14, 1943, which author Martin Caidin described as the "most violent, savagely fought, and bloodiest of all the battles in the titanic aerial conflict waged in the high arena over Germany." Below, you can see how "Black Thursday" unfolded for the Allies.NOW READ:It's been 78 years since the Battle of Britain ' here are 14 photos of the Nazi onslaught in the skies of EnglandSEE ALSO:74 years ago, US Marines waded into 'the toughest battle in Marine Corps history' ' here are 25 photos of the brutal fight for TarawaUnder the Combined Bomber Offensive, which began in mid-1943, air forces from the US, UK, and Canada aimed to destroy German industry. The primary portion of the offensive was Operation Pointblank, targeting shipyards, vehicle and aircraft factories, oil production, and other manufacturing sites ' including ball-bearing factories.In the early days of the war, the US Army Air Force was not only working to destroy German targets but also to prove that daylight bombing by unescorted bombers was a viable doctrine.Source: US Air ForceOperation Pointblank instructed the US 8th Air Force and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command to go after specific factories, mostly during daylight raids. On August 17, 1943, the first major attack aimed at the German aircraft industry took place over Schweinfurt and Regensburg, both in south-central Germany.1940s-era German machinery was believed to be more dependent on ball bearings than most, which made the ball-bearing factories around Schweinfurt high-value targets.While the British advocated a general bombing campaign against German cities, US commanders pushed for precision attacks against specific industrial targets."It is better to cause a high degree of destruction in a few essential industries ... than to cause a small degree in many," Army Air Force analysts argued, and 8th Air Force's commander Gen. Ira Eaker said such a campaign would make a ground invasion possible sooner than would indiscriminate bombing of cities.The targets of the August 17 raid were damaged but not destroyed. Allied strategists thought a second raid was necessary. While the German factories were able to recover from one attack, Nazi planners saw their vulnerability and started dispersing production and moved fighters from the Russian front to counter the bombers.The first operation against Schweinfurt was a costly one. The US lost 24 B-17s attacking the city and another 36 in the assault on an aircraft factory in the city of Regensburga total of 19%. Nearly 600 US airmen were lost.The ambitious doubled-pronged attack was undermined by poor weather, which delayed the launch of one of the air divisions involved. The three-hour delay gave German aircraft time to attack the first wave and then refuel and rearm before attacking the second.Albert Speer, the Nazi armaments and war-production minister, said after the war that ball-bearing production dropped 38% after the August 17 attack (US intelligence said only 34%) and would have been much worse if the US had not made the "crucial mistake" of dividing its bombers between the two cities.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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