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16 December 1944
Hi Steve
Long time.....
A starter for 10
I was interested to see this post. The RAF/ADGB long range escorts to daylight bombing raids were quite well established by this time so why did we need to have help from 9USAAF? I then remembered this was the first day of the Ardennes Offensive.
However it seems that this op had nothing to do with Ardennes, Siegen is well into Germany beyond Cologne. Checking ORBs Eastern England was completely socked in certainly for fighter ops from 13/12 to 22/12 so it seems that the weather was not quite so bad at European bases and 9USAAF was perhaps simply helping out BC.
In the book about the Battle of Bulge "To Win the Winter Sky" by Danny Parker he writes:
"...allied air operations on the 16th had little to do with Ardennes....The experience of 367FG is illustrative. Completely unaware of the chaos in the Ardennes, Capt Chester Slingerland led a swarm of P-38s to escort Lancaster bombers of the RAF to a blitz on the town of Siegen. Some 26 enemy fighters attempted to run the bombers off, but the twin-engined fighters drove them away."
Cheers
Steve
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