Just looking through the summary of USAAF operations for July 1944
here, and was wondering what the definition of "target of opportunity" for a B17 or B24 would be? Were there guidelines issued to crews, were potential targets formulated (and disseminated) in advance, were they mission-specific in any way? Or did it just mean in practice, "unload on anything which looks valuable to the enemy"? What piqued my interest was mentions like this one for 01 July 1944:
Of 78 B-17s, 24 hit Fleury, 24 hit Fressin, 21 hit Blengermont and 1
hits a target of opportunity [my italics]
; 33 B-17s are damaged.
Cheers, Pat