Air Force Museum
Target Berlin
Berlin, Germany’s capital, was selected as a prime target for the USAAF, not only for its industrial importance, but because the Luftwaffe would be forced to defend it, suffering heavy losses in the process. The USAAF conducted its first major raid against Berlin on March 6, 1944—672 heavy bombers struck the city and 69 were shot down.
In depth
History & service
The USAAF conducted its first major raid against Berlin on March 6, 1944—672 heavy bombers struck the city and 69 were shot down. The USAAF returned two days later with 462 bombers escorted by 174 P-51s.
ImageThis pilot was wounded so severely over Berlin that he was treated under his aircraft before being transported to a hospital.
Tragedy occurred when a lower formation drifted under a higher one on a bomb run over Berlin. After losing part of its tail, this aircraft spun out of control—unable to bail out, the entire crew perished.
Bombs burst on the Brandenburg Arado aircraft plant in the Berlin area during an attack on August 4, 1944.
ImagePictured right after a Berlin mission, B-24 waist gunner SSgt Clarence Johnson shows the strain of combat.
Map used by Lt Col Allman Culbertson on the first major USAAF raid on Berlin on March 6, 1944. The red line indicates the course of the bombers and the red circled areas indicated heavy concentrations of antiaircraft guns.
Goggles and RAF flying helmet worn by the Capt William H. Rector, a B-17 pilot in the 447th Bomb Group, on the USAAF’s first major raid against Berlin on March 6, 1944.
Aircraft change the battlefield
In the First World War, aircraft became valuable because they could see beyond the front line. Reconnaissance and artillery observation affected decisions on the ground. Once that information mattered, opposing forces had reason to attack the aircraft gathering it. Fighters, defensive armament, and increasingly specialized missions developed around this contest over observation and freedom of movement.
The aircraft were fragile by later standards, but their crews worked inside a rapidly expanding military system. Training, maintenance, replacement aircraft, photography, communications, and weather reporting supported each sortie. Improvements in engines and armament changed tactics, while the pressures of combat exposed weaknesses that might have taken much longer to discover in peacetime.
Personal stories should be read alongside those systems. A uniform or a named aircraft connects the war to an individual, but the individual depended on many others and operated under constraints that skill could not eliminate. Aircraft from opposing sides show how designers answered similar problems in different ways. The later military collections in Dayton and at Udvar-Hazy reveal what endured: the need to gather information, protect friendly forces, move people and supplies, and coordinate action across distance. The scale changed enormously; the relationship between an aircraft's design and the job it had to perform remained fundamental.
