2nd Air Division Memorial Library

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445th The Scrapbook Archives - Tibenham, Norfolk The focus of this scrapbbook is the 445th Bombardment Group, stationed at Tibenham, Norfolk 445th Bomb Group "The 445th suffered the highest losses inflicted in a single group of the 8th Air Force on a single mission. In five or six minutes nearly 100 Luftwaffe 'Storm' fighters shot down 25 of the group's 35 Liberators and so badly damaged five more that two of them 'bellied-in' at French airfields; two put down at the Emergency Landing Ground at Manston, England, and another crash-landed near Tibenham." This was the group's 166th mission. It had put up 35 Liberators (two others aborted) as part of a force of 315 B-24s of the 2nd Bombardment Division sent on 27th September 1944 to bomb the Henschel engine and vehicle plant at Kassel. In the three months after D-Day, 6th June 1944, the 445th had the highest accuracy rating for bombing of any B-24 group in the Eighth. After recovering from the massacre of 27th September 1944, it went on to achieve an Above 2nd Bombardment Division average in bombing accuracy rating for the last six months of the war. The 445th stayed at Tibenham until the end of the war, during which it flew 282 missions and lost 108 Liberators in action." All photographs supplied by the Second Air Division Memorial Library and private collectors. There are several good histories of the 445th Bomb Group available for use in the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library, in addition to the standard histories of the 2nd Air Division and the 8th Air Force. Among those histories are: Terrill, Col Robert: 445th Bomb Group O'Donnell, Joseph P: 445th Bomb Group Birsic, Rudolph J: History of the 445th BG (also supplement) Information about the individual bases from George H. Fox's 8th Air Force Remembered: An illustrated guide to the memorials, memorabilia and main airfields of the US 8th Air Force in England in WW2 (London: ISO Publications, 1991). Copyright © 2001-2007 2nd Air Division Memorial Library All rights reserved. Usage Policy. Created 18 August 2007 2nd Air Division Memorial Library Home Page