Museum of the Air Battle over the Ore Mountains

On September 11, 1944, a formation of B-17G Flying Fortress aircraft from the 100th Bombardment Group ("The Bloody Hundredth"), 3rd Bombardment Division, accompanied by P-51 Mustang fighters from the 55th and 339th Fighter Groups of the 8th USAAF, clashed with a formation of German interceptor fighters Me 109 and FW 190 from II.(Sturm) and III. Gruppe Jagdgeschwader 4 over the Ore Mountains, at the Czech-German border. The battles led to the downing of more than 50 aircraft. Due to the intensity of the battle, most of the downed planes crashed over a very small area of the Czech and German Ore Mountains. This sunny September day went down in history as Black Monday over the Ore Mountains.

The 100th Bombardment Group, known as "The Bloody Hundredth," lost more than a third of the aircraft it dispatched on this mission in the battle. JG 4's losses were fifty percent... In the area around Kovářská alone, four B-17Gs and at least five German fighters crashed. Around the nearby German towns of Crottendorf and Neudorf, three more B-17Gs and three fighters from JG 4 went down. Many other planes crashed in nearby regions, with many others returning to bases with combat damage.

The American bombers took off from the Thorpe Abbotts base, and their fighter escorts from the Fowlmere and Wormingford bases in eastern England. The JG 4 aircraft took off from the Welzow and Alteno bases. The target of the 100th Bombardment Group was the refineries in Ruhland, Germany.

The 95th Bombardment Group of the 8th USAAF, which took off from the English base Horham, also engaged in the battles with losses and victories.