Iron Men of the 445th
by Randy Green
Original - Not For Sale
Price
Not Specified
Dimensions
58.000 x 24.000 inches
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Title
Iron Men of the 445th
Artist
Randy Green
Medium
Painting - Oils On Portrait Canvas
Description
On Wednesday, 27 September 1944, the 2nd Air Division, Eighth Air Force launched a force of 283 Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers from their bases in Tibenham, England. The 445th Bomb Group was the leading element of the 2nd Combat Wing, along with the 389th and the 453rd bomb groups. The lead ship of the 445th was that of Capt. John Chilton, with Maj. Donald McCoy as command pilot. The Deputy lead was Capt. Web Uebelhoer, with Capt. Jim Graham as deputy command pilot.
The target that day was the engineering works of Henschel & Sohn which built Tiger and Panther tanks for the Nazi war effort in the industrial city of Kassel. The mission progressed normally up to the IP with the group heading in a southeasterly direction. until a navigational error by Chilton’s lead B-24 led the 445th astray from the briefed route. Amidst radio calls alerting to the mistake, the order was given to tighten up and keep formation on Chilton’s Liberator as it continued its turn due east at the Initial Point instead of east-south-east. The following thirty-five bombers kept formation and gradually saw the rest of the division slide off into the distance to their right. They missed Kassel altogether, attacking the town of Göttingen instead (over 30 miles to the northeast) and then turning sharp to the southwest to rejoin the rest of the division. Here the fortunes of war shifted dramatically. The change of direction separated the 445th from the rest of the combat wing by 75-100 nautical miles and without their escorting fighters. In short order, the Luftwaffe ground controllers seized on the opportunity and vectored their Sturm Gruppen’s in on the extended and exposed group. Over 150 FW-190-A8s and BF-109 Luftwaffe fighters attacked and annihilated the group in five successive waves from behind and below. Within a scant six minutes, the 445th experienced the greatest single-day losses suffered by any USAAF group from one airfield in the history of aviation warfare.
The painting captures the moment when Capt. Web Uebelhoer’s B-24J must assume command as Capt. Chilton’s lead B-24J succumbs in flames to the onslaught of the first wave of Focke Wulf’s. Capt. Uebelhoer will lead only three other B-24s to their home base at Tibenham on this day, his own Liberator miraculously sustaining an unexploded cannon round in the wing tanks between engines one and two.
Uploaded
June 29th, 2022
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