380th Bomb Group Association

 NEWSLETTER #6 -- March 2001

WE WENT TO WAR, PARTS V AND VI

The Aircraft We Flew

A Report on the Status of Our Continuing Project on the
History of the 380th Bomb Group (H) in WWII

In our Quarterly last March we outlined our plans for our continuing work to bring more detail to the History of the 380th Bomb Group in WWII beyond that which the Horton Brothers could do in their magnificent books: KING OF THE HEAVIES and BEST IN THE SOUTHWEST.

You have already received:

PART I: The Group Personnel Roster by Individuals

PART II: The Flight Crews by Individual Crews

PART III: An Extract of PARTS I and II presenting only the Australian and other Commonwealth personnel, for use in Australia

PART IV: A Listing of the Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs) Necessary in an Isolated Group like the 380th. This material also is an extract from PARTS I-III.

Most of you received Parts III and IV bound into Part I although they were available as separate volumes. All of these are available on our website.

As noted last March, we promised to go ahead and develop the following four parts:

PART V: The Aircraft We Flew -- Australia/New Guinea Combat Phase

PART VI: The Aircraft We Flew -- Philippines Combat Phase

PART VII: The Missions of the 380th Bomb Group (H) Out of Australia and New Guinea

PART VIII: The Missions of the 380th Bomb Group (H) Out of The Philippines and Okinawa

Note that this has already expanded to give two volumes for the aircraft. We have already finished the first draft (handwritten) for Part V covering Australia/New Guinea. One hundred and thirty-five separate aircraft were used for these missions. Fifty-four of these went on to The Philippines. The rest were lost (combat or accident) or salvaged while in Australia.

We have no funds to publish this material in book form. The research fund at present is far too small for this purpose. Thus, we will place Parts V and VI on the 380th web page as soon as they are finished, and we hope to have both Parts V and VI done by Reunion time. We hope all of you have access to a computer to retrieve the data on your own plane or all of them that you flew so that you can eventualy reconstruct your own mission history.
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