Without discussing planning too much, take a look at the frame 1 orders and route map again. We were assigned Bremen on the southern route.
Heh.. Just read them again and it isn't hard getting lost describing them here.
You were assigned Bremen, but on what we have been calling the "northern route". The green lines are for the sweep only. There wasn't supposed to be any bombers on them. You had the "short" leg.
The guys going to Hanover had the long flight! You did get the shortest route handed to any P47s.
Having said that, the plan called for us to take the long way round and then go to Bremen first and then on to Hanover. We couldn't achieve that because a couple of other groups mixed up their orders and started out as close escort for bombers that spawned in the wrong place anyway.
We could have made it to both on fuel, but time and task did us in. We ended up back on ground about 10 mins before the end. Guys were a bit surprised that I only loaded 75% fuel but it was plenty for our task.