And then the sky cleared, December 1944: the largest mission of the 8th Air Force

December 16^th, 1944 marked the day that the German offensive through the Ardennes began. Generally known as the Battle of the Bulge, the offensive took the allied forces by surprise. Moreover, due to the bad weather the Allied forces were unable to put one of its most potent Forces into action. These Forces were the Air-Forces of both the USAAF and RAF. The 8^th Air Force in particular was held on the ground during the first week of the German offensive. This all changed when a weather forecast predicted that the skies would be clear the next day.

It was upon this weather forecast that prompted a maximum effort mission by the 8^th Air Force. December 24^th, 1944 was the day that the largest air armada of strategic bombers ever would take to the skies. The mission: to severely hamper the Luftwaffe operations as well as attacking tactical targets.

Based on primary sources And then the sky cleared, December 1944: the largest mission of the 8^th Air Force describes the planning process and execution of this mission in great detail. It was not only the largest mission ever, but also saw the loss of a General and other tragedies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joost de Raaf (1976) is an aircraft maintenance instructor in the Royal Netherlands Air Force. Born and raised near Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, aviation runs through his veins as long as he can remember. After his study aircraft maintenance he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force in November 1999. For thirteen years he worked in maintenance on the F-16 at Volkel Airbase. Eventually, he was qualified to release an F-16 for flight after critical maintenance.

Deployed twice, he spent around eight months in total in Afghanistan performing maintenance and scheduled inspections on the F-16. In 2014 he left the maintenance organisation to became an Junior Instructor, still based at Volkel Airbase. In 2020 he became a Senior Instructor and was promoted to Sergeant-Major.

Recently he followed and passed, the type rating course on the F-35 and simultaneously supported the military technical school.