Shuttle bombing

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Shuttle bombing is a tactic where bombers fly from their home base to bomb a first target and continue to a different location where they are refuelled and rearmed. The aircraft may then bomb a second target on the return leg to their home base. [1] [2] [3] Some examples of operations which have used this tactic are:

While shuttle bombing offered several advantages, allowing distant targets to be hit and complicating the Axis defence arrangements, it posed a number of practical difficulties, not least the awkward relations between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. The operations were concluded in September 1944 after a three-month period and not repeated.

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References

  1. Staff. Shuttle bombing Archived 2011-05-18 at the Wayback Machine McGraw-Hill's AccessScience Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Online Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Edward T. Russell (1999). Leaping the Atlantic Wall: Army Air Forces Campaigns in Western Europe, 1942–1945 Archived 2004-06-27 at the Wayback Machine (PDF), United States Air Force History and Museums Program Archived 2006-10-28 at the Wayback Machine pp. 26, 27. (HTML Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine copy on the website of USAAF.net)
  3. Dear, I. C. B.; Foot, M. R. D., eds. (2005). "Shuttle Bombing". The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 778. ISBN   978-0192806703.
  4. Beevor, Antony (1999). Stalingrad. Penguin Books. p. 138. ISBN   0140249850.
  5. Christopher Chant (1986). The Encyclopedia of Codenames of World War II, Routledge, ISBN   0710207182. p. 15
  6. Jon Lake (2002). Lancaster Squadrons 1942–43, Osprey, ISBN   1841763136. p. 66
  7. Bombardiers lourds de la dernière guerre: B-17, forteresse volante, Avro Lancaster, B-24 Liberator. Editions Atlas. 1980. ISBN   2731200316.
  8. Miller, Donald (2006). Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys who Fought the Air War against Nazi Germany . New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN   0743235444.
  9. Charles T. O'Reilly (2001). Forgotten Battles: Italy's War of Liberation, 1943–1945 Lexington Books, ISBN   0739101951. p. 343
  10. Deane, John R. 1947. The Strange Alliance, The Story of our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. The Viking Press. [ ISBN missing ][ page needed ]
  11. Combat Chronology of the US Army Air Forces September 1944: 17, 18, 19 copied from USAF History Publications Archived 18 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine & wwii combat chronology (pdf) Archived 2008-09-10 at the Wayback Machine