<text id=00he0817><title>Bombing from Italy</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Bombing from Italy</hdr><body>
<p>There seemed to be no way to increase markedly the number of sorties flown from England. There was a finite number of bases, with little or no room for more. Traffic control was becoming difficult; bomber forces were assembling over the North Sea to clear the skies over the bases. There were persuasive arguments for organizing another heavy bomber force in a less crowded area with better weather, and the planners seized upon Italy and the Foggia area as that locale. The Fifteenth Air Force was established on 1 November 1943, drawing its heavy bomber units from the Twelfth Air Force, which then became a tactical air organization. The plan was to use Fifteenth AF to supplement the attacks by Eighth AF and the RAF, to put more weight of bombs on German targets. The Fifteenth AF bombers would hit from the southeast while Eighth AF crews sortied out of the northwest.
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<p>Beginner's luck still held for the USAAF. On the first mission flown by Fifteenth AF, one day after its establishment, the bombers pounded the Messerschmitt assembly plants at Wiener Neustadt. It was the most damaging of all the strikes against that target; production fell from 218 aircraft in October to 80 in November and 30 in December.
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<p>Unfortunately, Italian weather was not that good, either, and the weather over the targets didn't change because the attack came from a different direction. After that first raid, Fifteenth AF was called away to support the ground war in Italy; its first raid was its last for the year against German industry.
