OpRep 9th AF Fighter Groups

[Horst Weber]

Good afternoon !

The Operation Reports of a USAAF 9th AF Fighter Group are set up for 24 hours, ending midnight of the day in concern.

They are compiled by the statistical officer of the FG and are sent to the 9th AF, the Tactical Air Command and and the reponsible Fighter Wing.

The reports are arranged by the letters A - H. Each of these letters are subdivided by several Arabic or Roman numerals.

In most cases, the meaning of the numerals for the Mission-result are self-explaining.

Does anyone has an idea, where an official legend or directory for this kind of reporting arrangement is available ?. Probaly in the net ??.

Thank you very much

Horst Weber

[KM1957]

I can explain more fully when home from work later tonight--it is a simple format they used and some groups had minor variations but overall most of the lines are the same. In the meantime, if you had an Op Rep you could scan to this site, I would then go line by line from your example versus starting from scratch. If not, I will give it a try using the A, B, etc. Thanks.

Kent

[KM1957]

I will add the following but am open to others making corrections, adding details, etc.
A was usually the mission narrative
B number of aircraft put up, then sub sections would show the number of aborts, number lost or crash-landed, number of damaged and usually at the end the total number of effective planes. Some units used different subsection headings than others for aborts, etc. Some even broke down the n umber of P-47D's and P-47C's or P-51B's and P-51D's on a mission.
C. number of drop tanks carried and usually then a section of those dropped or unaccounted for.
D. number of bombs carried although some used D for total combat hours flown on the mission. Normally with bombs loads units would list, for example, 4 x 500 GP instant fuse dropped at point X, 8 x 500 GP instant fuse dropped at point Y, etc.
E total rounds of ammunition carried with subsections for rounds fired and rounds unaccounted for in MIA aircraft or those which crash-landed away from the home field
F was bomb loads if not using "D" for those.
G. Pilots MIA, usually with name, serial number, sometimes short descriptions of how lost
H. Claims against aircraft and ground targets. For air, it would be, for example, 2-0-2 for 2 destroyed-0 probable-2 damaged and normally with the pilots listed. Many units did the same for strafing against aircraft, though some did not. Lastly would be claims against ground targets such as trucks, railcars, etc. There were two ways of doing this: some used, locomotives 1-0-3 (1 destroyed-0 probable-3 damaged) while others used a unique 9th Air Force numbering system, where the same locomotives would look like this: 3: 1-0-3. In this system, motor transports/trucks were "1", tanks and armored vehicles were "2", locomotives were "3", railcars were "4", the whole list goes from 1-16 or 17 and I can post those if folks want to see them.
Hope this helps, and again, I stand corrected if anyone sees something wrong.

Kent

[Horst Weber]

Good morning Kent !

This is it !

Thank you very much for the information. Letters C and E with subs were uncertain for me.

Horst Weber