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Horst Weber
3/3/2006 8:04:25 PM | Hello !
There is a photo of a B-17 s/n visible 42-10...., obviously 401st BG, which carries D-Day identification-stripes. Is this possible ?. Does anyone know, if those stripes were painted to heavy bombers of 401st Bomb Group ?
Thank you very much,
Horst Weber
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Donald Byers
3/4/2006 9:20:07 PM | Found this on the internet by just typing in "Invasion Stripes B17 WWII"
After seeing Eisenhower, Pedone and Crouch got their C-47 back in the
invasion line so they could carry more troops to the invasion beaches.
Prior to their D-Day assault, Eisenhower had told the C-47 aircrews and
grease-painted paratroopers that "the eyes of the world are on you tonight."
Air Force history records show how all Allied aircraft were painted with
"invasion stripes" of alternating black and white bands completely around
fuselages and wings. Pedone said the stripes on his C-47 and other aircraft
would easily identify them as friendly to ships and troops below.
He said both the aircraft markings and the pathfinders lighting the
beaches were important because of lessons learned from previous invasions.
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Clyde L. Mings
3/4/2006 9:46:41 PM | You will probably be swamped with 401sters who flew on D-Day in B-17's and they will confirm that we did NOT have black and white stripes on our B-17 bombers. I flew on Madame Queen IN-Q in the 613th and our target was coastal defenses at Omaha Beach at Ver-sur-mer.The fighters and some B-26's had them to preclude our own troops from firing on friendly aircraft as they did during the war in Italy.
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Horst Weber
3/6/2006 1:29:42 PM | Clyde !
Thank you very much for the information. from the mass of aircraft-photos, shot around D-Day, I never noticed a B-17 or B-24 with Invasion-Stripes. On the other hand, nearly all Fighter Groups of 8th AF had them on their wings and fuselages at least some weeks or month.
Anyway, many Thanks
Horst Weber
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Clyde L. Mings
3/6/2006 11:10:49 PM | TO Horst- The main reason for putting the stripes on was to prevent another massacre of our own aircraft like happened in Italy during an invasion and airdrop. The theory as I understood it was that the Allied 4 engine bombers had distinctive outlines and the Luftwaffe were not using 4 engine bombers, so there was not much risk of misidentification. Somewhere I read how many thousands of gallons of black and white paint and thousands of manhours were expended to paint all those aircraft. The medium bombers did get the paint since the Luftwaffe had a lot of 2 engine bombers that could cause confusion. The weather on D-Day stank and our gunners in the ground and air wouldnt have had time to study outlines before shooting.Luckily, the expected big air battle never took place, and it was a bit of a milk run compared to other missions.
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Donald Byers
3/8/2006 11:33:51 AM | Thanks Clyde for your input it makes a lot of sense. As I was just looking around the net for anything on this invasion stripes and hoped that someone would tell us what went on in the 401st BG.
Don
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