High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The second Schweinfurt raid bombed World War II ball bearing factories to reduce production of these vital parts for all manner of war machines. Named Black Thursday because the loss of aircrewmen was the highest for any USAAF mission. The American Official History of the Army Air Forces in the Second World War acknowledged losses had been so heavy that the USAAF would not return to the target for four months; "The fact was that the Eighth Air Force had for the time being lost air superiority over Germany". The film Twelve O`Clock High (1949) dramatized a similar, but fictitious, air raid