24s over bremen jan 1945 pic...what are the smoke trails in the pic?

[bangsbox]

what are the smoke trails in the pic?  I know usually the first bomb had smoke attached but in the pic it doesnt seem to be that. It also looks like it came up from below and exploded. Anyone have opinions?

[colmbo]

Markers dropped by lead aircraft to signal bombs away.

[Ack-Ack]

It's an amazing photograph as it also captures the moment a B-24 explodes from a flak hit.

Flak Greetings Over Bremen, Germany. Bill Washburn took this photo from the right waist gunner position in his Consolidated B-24-J Liberator heavy bomber in January 1945 over Bremen. Flak is seen bursting on the left side of the photo as bombers release their payloads. The two smoke trails on the right are from the special bombs dropped by the lead aircraft so that trailing bomb groups could toggle their bombs on the target area.

ack-ack

[BuckShot]

Funky vertical chemtrails.

[Ack-Ack]

Funky vertical chemtrails.

Not chemtrails, special smoke makers (as Colmbo pointed out) dropped by the lead bombers to let the rest of the group know when to release the bombs.

ack-ack

[colmbo]

I'm not seeing an exploding B-24.  Are you referring to the ball of smoke behind the camera plane?  I'm thinking that is just the initial gout of smoke, it was dropped from the camera plane.

[Rich46yo]

Nope its a B24 hit and the plane on fire is belching smoke OTW down.

[colmbo]

Nope its a B24 hit and the plane on fire is belching smoke OTW down.

Have you seen a caption for the photo?  Airplanes put out black smoke when they burn, not white.  An oil leak can show white if oil sprays on hot exhaust but that doesn't take the airplane down.

[Guppy35]

Not seeing a 24 going down, just target markers?   Where did you find info on a 24 going down AKAK?

While not a 24, the 17 that is going down to a direct flak hit seems to support Colmbo's point on how messy it would look

[Volron]

That may have been something bigger than an 88.  Maybe a 12.8 cm FlaK 40?

[DaveBB]

It's actually a bit of a fallacy that the Germans mainly used 88mm as their primary anti-aircraft guns.  The majority of them were much larger calibers.  I read this in "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose.