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Oops. I shoulda taken that left at Albuquerque

By The Armorer on March 4, 2004 | | Comments (10)

Today in 1945 Army Air Force B-24s accidentally bomb Zurich, Switzerland.

They were aiming for Aschaffenburg, Germany. Call it a near miss of, oh, a little under 300 miles. Kinda like, "Your target for today is St. Louis, Missouri", and hitting Lawrence, Kansas. Or Philadelphia, and you hit Boston, or Las Vegas and you hit San Diego, and for our Canadian friends, Ottawa but hitting Quebec.

Hat tip - Strategy Page.

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10 Comments

By John on March 4, 2004 10:25 AM
Good read on bombing in Zurich, save for your "error in transposition". From the reading, I got the impression they were 30.0 miles off not 300. In fact their "..scheduled course would take the group within 14.5 miles of Switzerland." and this information was not explicitly stated at the 0 dark 30 briefing... So instead of bombing St. Louis Missouri, you bomb a St. Charles MO (suburb). Instead of Las Vegas, Hoover Dam. Philadelphia, you hit, Wilmington PA, and for our Canadian friends, instead of the center of Quebec, you hit Quebec Jean Le International Airport John. P.S. Great blog, enjoy reading it daily.
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 4, 2004 11:14 AM
While I understand why you think that - the target was Aschaffenburg, in northern Bavaria, southwest of Frankfurt. The bombs landed in Zurich, Switzerland. My distance swag was off - it's 255 road miles between the two - but the fact is they missed their target by over two hundred miles. For understandable reasons, as the courts martial recognized (with Jimmy Stewart presiding no less) but this wasn't missing the heart of the city ahd hitting a suburb, or dropping bombs intended for KCMO hiting KCKS, this is bombs intended for St Louis hitting Kansas City. Glad you enjoy the blog!
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 4, 2004 4:30 PM
Finally found a website that will let me calculate air miles. 175 from Zurich to Aschaffenburg.
 
By Smug Canadian on March 4, 2004 8:46 PM
Bad example for Canada anyway... Accidentally bombing Quebec can hardly be called "missing the target". It's a best case scenario for a miss!
 
By Indigo on March 4, 2004 9:00 PM
Any info on how many Zurich folks sued?
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 4, 2004 9:33 PM
Well the article does state that there was a multi-million dollar indemnity paid... and that we also managed to bomb Basel that day.
 
By Neutral on March 5, 2004 4:13 AM
Indigo, we Swiss are kind and forgiving. We don't sue people. We know your money will end up in one of our banks anyway :)
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 5, 2004 5:06 AM
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
 
By J.M. Heinrichs on March 5, 2004 8:08 PM
Also, bombing "Ottawa but hitting Quebec", Hull/Gatineau (Que) is about 800m north across the the Ottawa River, easy to accomplish during WW2. Hitting Ville de Quebec vice Ottawa would require some effort by a crew. Cheers JMH
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 5, 2004 8:22 PM
Sigh... my own private nit-picker... Analyst. Feh! It's only okay when I do it to you... but then you don't have a blog to nit-pick, dag nab it!