Questions on 8th AF Swinemünde raid on 12 March 1945

[Juha]

Hello again Chris
according to Freeman, 1 AD as well as the other two ADs dropped appr. a half of their loads to Swinemünde and the other half on other targets which were, according to Freeman, all marshalling yards. This makes the situation more complicated because I don’t know if the loads dropped to Swinemünde were more or less identical to those dropped to other targets or not.
There is not necessary conflict with the 1 AD load list that You gave and the info Delmenhorst and Helmut Schnatz have given even if it is little bit odd to me that 1 AD would have dropped almost all of its 1000lb bombs to Swinemünde and all the lighter ones to other targets, but 100lb bombs were used mostly against marshalling yards but I think that some 1000lbs ought to be dropped to those targets as well. But this is pure speculation. When I’ll get some free time I’ll try to obtain Helmut Schnatz’s book Der Luftangriff auf Swinemünde. Dokumentation einr Tragödie, Herbig Verlag, München 2004 and read it.

Juha