330th Bombardment Group (VH) - Missions

Missions

The 330th Bomb Group (BG) arrived in the middle of an intensive bombing campaign by the Twentieth Air Force with the strategic objective of knocking the Japanese aircraft industry out of the war. To date, this campaign did not appear to be very successful since several major plants, such as the Nakajima Musashino Aircraft Plant north of Tokyo and the Mitsubishi Plant near Nagoya, seemed to be little damaged as a result of persistent daylight precision raids by B-29s flying in formation. A major reason was the weather which hindered both assembling in formation at a remote point and then flying to the target, which might be covered in clouds or haze making visual bombing difficult or impossible.

On a typical daylight mission, aircraft flew individually, one minute apart, from Guam to a predesignated "rallying" point about 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Japan. There, they would form up on a "lead" aircraft and proceed in smaller formations of 10 aircraft or so over the target. They would then drop when they witnessed the "lead" aircraft drop, then return individually to Guam. The aircraft flew thousands of miles for 12 or more hours, and had to conserve as much fuel as possible in order to make it back to base or to Iwo Jima. Flying individually gave the pilots the ability to allow for particular conditions.

On a daylight mission, squadron visibility was the key to a successful mission – the reason for the large tail letters and individual aircraft numbers on fuselages. For some missions, it was imperative that the aircraft commander (AC) found his designated squadron and proceeded over the target at the briefed time, the briefed altitude, and hit his target. If he could not find his particular formation, he would join another group and bomb their target.

On a typical night mission, several 'Pathfinder' B-29s took off first. The rest of the squadron's aircraft took off 10–15 minutes later. Instead of 'rallying' off the coast of Japan, each aircraft would have its own pre-assigned altitude and heading over the target. Minutes before the rest of the squadron was due over the target, the 'Pathfinders' would drop incendiaries, marking it for the rest to drop on.

Whether on a daylight or nighttime mission, if the primary target was obscured, the bombers would either drop by radar or attempt to bomb a predesignated secondary target.