<text id=00he0803><title>Experiment in Doctrine</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Experiment in Doctrine</hdr><body>
<p>The mission assigned to the Eighth Air Force and its VIII Bomber Command was experimental. The command was told to destroy carefully selected targets. The missions were to determine the bombers' ability to hit pinpoint targets in daylight, to defend against fighter attacks, and to evade anti-aircraft fire. Underneath the boasts, there were some doubts about the doctrine, held by others than Air Marshal Harris.
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<p>The first shock came on 9 October, on a mission against steel, locomotive and freight-car works at Lille, in France. Eighth AF dispatched a mix of 107 B-17s and B-24s, but only 69 of them reached and bombed the primary target. Three B-17s and one B-24 were lost; bomber gunners claimed 56 Luftwaffe fighters shot down. But only nine bombs fell within 500 yd (457 m) of the aiming point, and the Luftwaffe actually lost two planes.
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<p>The cockiness began to fade. Europe's historically bad weather cancelled 11 missions on the 12 days after the Lille raid. The planned invasion of North Africa (Torch) took one-third of Eighth AF strength to another theater. The less-experienced crews left behind were sent on a series of fruitless attacks against the nearly impregnable German U-boat pens. To top it all, the Luftwaffe had analyzed the bomber defenses and found the weak spot: the nose. Now, German fighters slashed into the bombers in head-on attacks, and the losses began to rise.
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<p>By the end of 1942, the Eighth's offensive had slowed to a near halt. Only about two dozen missions had been flown since their first, more than four months earlier, and they had yet to make their first drop on a target within German boundaries.
