An interactive map of the missions completed by the 345th Bomb Group from June 21, 1943 through August 31, 1945.
The interactive map above displays all of the combat missions, reconnaissance flights, and pathfinder missions flown by the 345th Bomb Group during WW2 for which I have documentation. In all there are 7, 554 lines of data, each one producing a map dot. Most of the map dots represent a single aircraft, but in many cases there are multiple map dots stacked upon each other since there were usually more than one airplane assigned to a mission. Clicking on a map dot will open a popup window displaying the mission data for that dot and scrolling through the popup will show all the airplanes represented by that dot. Missions that were cancelled or turned back due to weather or overwhelming enemy fighter interception are not included on this map.
Weather reconnaissance missions were usually described by the names of the places they were intended to observe. With no knowledge of where the airplanes actually flew during those missions, I assigned a random location along the route to represent the entire flight. For the same reasons, map dots for pathfinder or escort missions were located at their intended destinations.
Search missions that were only described by a set of latitude/longitude coordinates with no reference to a map projection or coordinate system were placed at those coordinates as if they were stated in the WGS-84 geographic coordinate system. This put those map dots in the general area of the search.
I have no doubt that this map will continue to be refined as mission documents are discovered and mission details are examined more closely.
It occurred to me that all of these topics that I write about might have been covered in the various books written about the 345th Bomb Group. I don’t have access to those books anymore, so the topics I cover here are things that I come across while reading through archival documents. Some of the information might be new, some might align with what is already known and some might be at odds with common knowledge. I think this is alright and is essentially just another look at their history.
[Updated 4/17/21 – location of 9/5/1944 missions against Djailolo Airdrome, Halmahera]