The Kassel mission of 27 September 1944 was one of the most devastating raids of the war – not because of the bombs dropped but because of the aircrew and planes lost.
Some 35 B-24 Liberators from the 445th Bomb Group took from Tibenham airfield in Norfolk to bomb the Henschel tank works in the German city of Kassel. But only four of those planes returned home safely.
It was the greatest single-day loss to a single bomb group from a single airfield in aviation warfare history – all within six minutes.
In this episode, we follow the mission from Norfolk over the skies of occupied Europe to discover what went wrong – and what happened to the aircrew involved.
We visit Ketteringham Hall, the headquarters of the Second Air Division in eastern England; and Tibenham airfield – which is still an active airfield today.
This episode includes edited excerpts of archive interviews with 445th Bomb Group pilot Web Uebelhoer and bombardier George M Collar, courtesy of the Dzenowagis family YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@2nd.Air.Division.8thUSAAF.
The FULL interview with Web Uebelhoer is here: https://youtu.be/SE_Y9AoLhJ0?si=_Lx5UtP4VIrLUii1&t=498
The FULL interview with George M Collar is here: https://youtu.be/Jc8RPBAHlFA?si=PGLr4O9glaPbE4PO&t=559
For copies of Eric Ratcliffe's book The Kassel Raid, please visit Amazon USA or Amazon UK, depending on your location.
For more information about the Kassel Mission, please do visit the Kassel Mission Historical Society website.
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