Posted:
By: Clyde L. Mings
On: 03/06/2006
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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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