Heavy bombers support US Army

16th November 1944: As the US launches another major attack, they take extra steps to guide the heavy bombers onto the Germans ahead of them

USAAF B-17 heavy bombers in formation. On 16 November 1944 between 11:13 and 12:48, the Allied bombers conducted the preliminary bombings of Operation Queen. 1,204 heavy bombers of the U.S. 8th Air Force hit Eschweiler, Weisweiler and Langerwehe with 4,120 bombs.

Avro Lancaster B Mark I, PD228 'GI-A', of No. 622 Squadron RAF, flown by Squadron Leader R G Allen and crew, flying over the smoke-covered target area during a daylight attack by aircraft of No. 3 Group on Heinsburg, Germany, in support of an offensive by the US Army. One of 180 British bombers to hit Heinsberg on 16th November, while 467 Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster heavy bombers attacked Düren and Jülich.

With British in the north completing the capture of Walcheren, and the Canadians rolling up the Scheldt estuary, the US forces further south were impatient to get going again after the supply problems began to ease. Now they would head across the Roer river to the Rhine itself.

From left to right: Major General Leven C. Allen, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, Major General John S. Wood, Lieutenant General George S. Patton and Major General Manton S. Eddy being shown a map by one of Patton's armored battalion commanders during a tour near Metz, France, November 1944.

Omar Bradley¹, commanding US 12th Army Group, was waiting for the beginning of the attack with Courtney H. Hodges, both of them as frustrated with the rain as Patton was becoming. They were both elated to find the sun shining on the morning of the 16th November so that the visibility was good enough for heavy bombers from England to launch the attack:

At 12:45 air thundered in on schedule. Twelve hundred bombers of the Eighth Air Force flying in box-tight formations, an equal number of RAF heavies, flying dispersed in the manner of night bombers.

Lt. General Lesley J. McNair listens as Omar Bradley, then 82nd Infantry Division commander, explains a scenario to McNair at the Louisiana Maneuvers in 1942. In July 1944, the USAAF heavy bomber attack on German forces near St Lo fell short among US troops, killing 100 of them, including McNair.

To prevent a repetition of the short drop at St. Lo [in July], we had posted jeeps with vertical radio beams to mark the front lines by radar. For visual guidance to the target a line of barrage balloons with cerise panels affixed to their backs had been hoisted 1,500 feet into the air. For added insurance the 90-mm. AA guns marked the front with a line of colored flak, 2,000 feet below the bombers.