Need help deciphering Dads mission diary "Lone Wolf Missions" Updates

M/Y is a railroad Marshaling Yard
O/R  is an Oil Refinerery
They would not send one plane,  all by itself,  on a raid.  "Lone Raid" may mean that the "element" he was flying  in bombed a target of opportunity (T/O)  i.e. they could not bomb the main target for the day.    It may just mean the the "element" he was flying in bombed one of the alternate targets that day, or if there were many targets for the day, such as the 1 Nov or 7 Nov raids, and he was with one of the "smaller" elements that hit a particular target.   I think "lone raid" refers to the "squadron" on other "small element"  of the formation  his plane was flying in, not necessarily just his plane.
 
 The 26th Oct date  is interesting as only 7 planes made it to Innsbruck, so it was almost an "all alone raid"
 
On the dates you list, here is what was bombed by the 15th:
10/26/44
Fifteenth AF
Weather curtails operations. 7 B-17’s bomb M/Y at Innsbruck.
 
 
11/1/44
Fifteenth AF
320-plus B-17’s and B-24’s, with ftr escorts, bomb diesel works, ordnance works, and M/Y at Vienna.
Also hit are M/Ys at Graz, tank factory at Kapfenberg, T/Os including M/Ys at Gussing, Ljubljana, and
Cakovec, and scattered comm tgts in S Germany, Hungary, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Several ftrs
strafe road and rail transport tgts and troops in Gyor-Parndorf and Neusiedler Lake areas.
 
11/7/44
Fifteenth AF
More than 550 HBs attack Maribor, Alipasin Most, and Brunico M/Ys, Vienna/Floridsdorf oil refinery,
Brenner Pass railroad route, railroad bridges at Pinzano al Tagliamento, Casarsa della Delizia,
Mezzocorona, Ora, and Albes, and troop concentrations at Novi Pazar, Sjenica, Prijepolje, and
Mitrovica. Ftrs escort all operations except the attacks on troop concentrations. 124 P-38’s strafe troop
concentrations at Podgorica and roads and railroads near Raska, between Visegrad-Prijepolje-Sjenica
and from Sjenica to Novi Pazar.
 
 
12/12/44
Fifteenth AF
75 B-17’s and B-24’s bomb Blechhammer S oil refinery, Moravska-Ostrava, and several T/Os. Around
40 P-51’s and P-38’s fly rcn and rcn escort.
 
 

Hello G35Bob,
 
I am way to young to have been there but I am doing research using mission logs of a great Uncle( (1st Lt Charles L. Gempel) 44-10523---MACR(10139) KIA OCT 30, 1944.)  To understand and tell a story ---I would say that the info pre- mission was where he was at when he was getting to his base location.  because of censorship rules he could not divulge in letters stateside exact locations of where he might be encase it fell into enemy hands so  he made a list of place he was at during the run up to his missions.  I would also suspect that none of these were carried on person for the same censorship reasons.  Security was tight.... not even personal cameras were supposed to be in theater(around base of operations etc) although many airmen and crew had them.  

Bob, most interesting find and link.  I was not aware of the type of bombing mission being described.  It would appear these were done only by  the 15th AF and in particular they were "bad weather" missions.  I wonder if the mission to Innsbruck was such a mission as the weather was obviously bad that day.  

I have been searching for information on a different subject, AN/APQ-7, and one of those searches took me to a web site for the 459th Bomb Group, 15th AF;      http://www.459bg.org/Solo_Missions.cfm
In the account, the author indicates they were testing a new radar.  Someone in the Lone Wolf thread referenced above, indicated he was a Mickey operator,  a radar operator and he flew with different crews.  Since I have a document that shows several B-24Ms, some assigned to the 459th BG and some to the 455thBG, were used to test the APQ-7, my thoughts were that this was one reason for specifically requiring crews to fly alone and into bad weather, test the target locating abilities of a radar equipped aircraft.  My initial thoughts were the APQ-7, but the H2S, H2X radars could also have been a reason for testing.  However, 627 seems like too large a number for radar testing, there must have been other reasons.
 

Still looking for any additional information on these "Lone Wolf" missions flown by the 15th AAF 97th BG 342 BS:
Oct. 26, 1944 Innsbruck, Aus  M/Y   
Nov. 1, 1944 Maribon? Yugo  M/Y   
Nov. 7, 1944 Vienna, Aus  O/R   
Dec. 12, 1944 Mopelin? Ger City 


Still trying to determine if lone wolf missions were noted on mission logs as such. Or were they just grouped in with the larger mission that may have been flown that day? Maybe as with the raid listed above on Innsbruck the key is bad weather and the small number of planes? 
I have found this topic very interesting because the idea of a solo or small group flying into enemy territory hard to imagine. The bravery of everyone who served during that time is amazing. The more I find out about my Dad and the others that served, the prouder I am to have known that generation. That's why I keep looking and learning. their sacrifices should never be forgotten.
Bob