TARGET: SYNTHETIC OIL REFINERIES
CHEMNITZ, GERMANY
3 MARCH, 1945
The synthetic oil refineries at Ruhland were the primary targets. The Group comprised the 94th A Combat Wing, with Major Maguire as Air Commander. The route over England was flown as briefed, in Wing formation.
Division assembly route was flown as briefed, except that the Division Leader started going south of course and the 457th followed in trail. The Division Leader got back on course at the second turn before the IP.
Cloud coverage was five to ten tenths at the target. The Group went in to the target on a visual run, in squadron formation, but a visual run could not be made. The Group turned off short of the target in order to establish an IP for the secondary target, returned to Group formation and bombed the secondary PFF target, the marshalling yards at Chemnitz. Bombs were dropped from 25,200 feet. Only partial bomb results were observed; they were fair.
Flak was light and only one plane was damaged