On Mon, 24 May 2004 19:46:05 GMT, David Megginson
wrote:

I read somewhere about bomber squadrons forming up in low vis before a raid.
Often the crews wouldn't see the conflicting plane, but they'd feel the
wake turbulence and then realized that they'd survived another near miss.

I don't think they formed up in the clouds Dave. The British would
take off and basically head for the target in one huge stream. Bomber
Command accepted that some midair collisions would occur but the main
point was to pull the bombers together in a swarm to overwhelm the
fighter defenses by pushing too many targets for them to track
efficiently. There weren't that many German night fighters so if the
entire bomber swarm passed through the sector together, the night
fighter would not get an opportunity to attack multiple targets. They
basically took off, headed for an assembly point and turned for the
target when they reached it.

The Americans formed up during the day, often climbing out through
dense cloud (bomber pilots often said "when heading back to base, head
for the biggest cloud in the sky, England will be below it) and
breaking out on top to circle for an hour before forming up in wings
and groups all the time gaining height before heading towards their
target of the day. Sometimes bad things happened in the clouds,
sometimes bad things happened in the clear. I have a book at home
that has a photo of a group of B-24's headed straight for the nose of
the B-17 from where the photo was taken. Someone was out of place in
the crowded sky and two entire squadrons of heavy bombers passed right
through each other head on. No collisions that time, but there must
have been a few tightly puckered pilots.

Corky Scott