Oschersleben Mission, 11 Jan 1944

The Oschersleben mission was the third costliest in VIII Air Force history after the two Schweinfurt missions. It was also the only Medal of Honor mission for a fighter pilot in the European Theater. This video was originally released in Oct 2025    • Oschersleben Mission, 11 Jan 1944   and was updated in Apr 2026 with AI text-to-voice for ten of the characters reading combat reports. Disclaimers: The IL-2 Great Battles flight simulator doesn’t provide a model for the B-17 (or any 4-engine bomber). Can't equip Bf 110 with W.Gr 21 rockets. References: Pilot (and General's) voices generated with ElevenLabs AI Text to Speech, Narrator's voice is human AFHRA (Air Force Historical Research Agency) reel A0783A 356th and 355th Ftr Squadrons, pg 472-479 Commander’s Report, 356th Squadron historian account pg 701-713 Pilot Mission Combat Reports, pg 445-451 Mission Combat Schedules (links pilots to aircraft flown) for Jan 4, 5 and some earlier missions AFHRA reel B0312 354th Group part 2, pg 325-327 Mission Summary Report AFHRA reel B0311 354th Group part 1, pg 1740-43, 1750 Steve Blake, Mission Combat Schedule for 11 Jan 1944, listing 356th Squadron pilots and their aircraft letters. This seems to be missing from current AFHRA 356th Squadron records. Steve Blake, “the Pioneer Mustang Group”, 2007, pg 56-60 (11 Jan 44 mission), pg 393 (pilot and aircraft letters/serial numbers), various aircraft photos, Jim Howard’s summarized combat reports. Emailed photos of AJ-X and an early DING HAO. Can almost read the serial number in the early DING HAO photo. Looks like 43-6315 to me. G. William Potter (91st Bomb Group Navigator) and Lowell Getz (91st Group historian) - https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/items... William Hess & Thomas Ivie, P-51 Mustang Aces”, 1992 – 351st crew account of lone Mustang William Hess, “354th Fighter Group”, 2002, pgs 30-38 – Jim Howard bio, remarking of “DING HAO” 401st Bomb Group Mission report 303rd Bomb Group Mission report https://www.303rdbg.com/missionreport... 351st Bomb Group Mission report http://www.351st.org/351stMissions/Mi... 306th BG mission report “The Luftwaffe over Germany”, Donald Caldwell & Richard Muller, 2007 "The Mighty Eighth", Roger A Freeman, 1986 "Big Friends, Little Friends", Richard Turner, 1969 - combat descriptions by Turner don't match squadron combat reports. Many issues with this autobiography. Unfortunately, a lot of authors cite it. My setup: IL-2 Great Battles, Battle of Bodenplatte (Combat Flight Simulator) version (6.002, Sep 2025). Windows 10, HP Z440 desktop PC with six Intel Xeon 3.5 GHz processor cores, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive. NVidia GTX1660 graphics card. Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, TrackIR Head Tracker, Thrustmaster rudder pedals. 2560 x 1440 pixels/frame x 60 frames/sec, converted by YouTube.