Hi
 
I am looking for information on what was the standard procedure, if there was one, regarding the paperwork generated by an 8th Air Force Bomb Group based in England during WWII for each combat mission flown.
 
Once the aircraft and crews were chosen for the mission and formation charts and crew load lists were drawn up, where would these go? Would these documents stay with each Bomb Group, or would they go to that Bomb Groups Headquarters, then onto their Combat Wing Headquarters, Bomb Division Headquarters etc. Also if they went up the chain of command, would copies be kept at each level, or just the one set of documents at their final destination?
 
Was the procedure the same for each of the three Bomb Divisions?
 
Finally, when would these documents have been returned to the US and where would they have gone on arrival before ending up at the National Archives, if indeed they made it there at all? Would these documents had to have been returned to the US or perhaps been destroyed before that Bomb Group left England to go home and no copies kept?
 
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
 
Regards
 
Chris.

Chris -
Each Group would keep a Mission Report - The Group would send a Copy up the
Chain of Command - it would be Correlated and the 8th Air Force would File
a Comprehensive Mission Report for each Mission.
After the War , Civilian Contractors were hired to Copy the mass of Paper work
onto Micro Films. Unfortunately , there was a lack of Supervision. The quality was
not always good and some pages were never copied. 
Mike

Hi Mike
 
Thanks for that. Would i be correct in saying then that the 8th AF Mission Report would contain everything that the individual BG Mission Report contained, but obviously would have reports from all the BG's and FG's involved in each mission which would then become a huge Mission Report?
 
After the War when the civilian contractors copied these reports were all the original documents kept or some destroyed? I know that for the 94th BG, the Crew Load Lists have not been found. Surely these would have been part of the documentation for each mission? Could these have been destroyed? If so was this a common thing?
 
Regards
 
Chris.

Chris:
 
I was fortunate that a very good friend went to the National Archives and got most of the 280 mission crew load lists from them.  Another friend who went with him to get the copies said they got a very small portion of the information that was available.  Someone had gone through the trouble of putting each mission's data together into folders - each being some 2-3 inches thick.  They were packed in boxes and were all original documents - not copies.
 
To the best of my knowledge, none of the crew load lists for the 445th Bomb Group have been put to microfilm.  I do know they are not available from AFHRA at Maxwell AFB, AL.

Mike Simpson
Webmaster & Unit Historian
445th Bomb Group (Heavy)
www.445bg.org
VP, 445th BG, Kassel Mission Historical Society
www.Kasselmission.com

Hello Chris,
 
The microfilm of 493rd BG documents I got from the AFHRA did not include crew load lists.  They did contain the Mission Reports and Formation Diagrams for most missions.
 
I sent an inquiry to the National Archives about 493rd BG documents and found out they had over 50 cases (1500 to 2000 pages per case).  That is a lot considering the 493rd BG was the last to join the 8th AF and flew 157 operational missions.  Just think how much paperwork would have been generated by some of the first groups to arrive in the ETO.
 
Hope this helps.
 
 

David Schmitt
d.schmitt@prodigy.net
son of 1st LT Donald J. Schmitt, USAAF, co-pilot
assigned to 493rd BG/863rd BS at Debach, England
from Nov 1944 thru May 1945

Hi Mike
 
One day i hope to be able to visit the National Archives myself and have a look at the information that they have for the 94th BG missions. A few people that i am in contact with have people looking for certain missions, but many others have said that no Crew Load Lists are contained in them.
 
I have also been told that they may have been lost in the St. Louis fire, but my understanding is that only individual records were lost there and not BG records as a whole.
 
I have also been told by AFHRA that they do not hold these Crew Load Lists either, so that says to me 'where on earth did they all go'?
 
Mike (shooshoobaby) raised a good point about the 8th AF mission reports. Could these lists be contained in these reports?
 
Regards
 
Chris.

Hi David
 
That is interesting. I had a letter from the National Archives about two years ago and they told me that they had about 38 boxes of information on the 94th BG. At the same time i asked about the 447th BG as well, and they had far more than the 94th BG. The interesting thing was that the 94th BG started flying combat missions in May 1943, and the 447th BG didn't start till December 24th 1943! I think that says it all when a BG who started over seven months later has more documents. Certainly does raise the question of where all the other documents are for the 94th BG?
 
Going by the number of boxes for the 493rd BG, the 94th BG should have double that as they flew 325 missions.
 
Regards
 
Chris.