| About This |
| This page provides a variety of background information about the website which includes the build process, the software technology used, data sources and the data itself.
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| Build Process |
| The work on this website started in January 2005. The following describes the major efforts required.
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Data Collection Most of the data for this site was found in primary documents stored at the National Archives. In particular the formation drawings and aircraft lists contained the sortie data. These documents were copied and brought out for each mission.
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Data Transformation Sortie information has been transfered from hard copies to an Excel spreadsheet. This process transformed the data into a standardardized, organized format that is computer readable. This data is now more easliy manipulated using Excel capabilities such as sorting on columns, finding text etc.
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Database A relational database is used to store the data. The database tables hold the sortie, aircraft, crew, mission and crash data. A simple Java application allows the Excel spreadsheet data to be transfered the database.
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Middleware Middleware software can query the database and dynamically build HTML pages. These HTML pages not only provide data in standard template format but also provide links to related HTML pages.
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Deployment This site is hosted on a commercial server site that provides the storage, database and webserver.
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| Software Technology |
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This site uses state of the art software to provide dynamic web pages generated from a database. The software and applications are open source software that is provided free of charge.
The basic design uses Java to develop HTML pages on the fly from data queried from the database. A template page is created for each page type and only differs by the data supplied by the database.
Language The middleware is written in Java
Database The data is stored in a MySql - an open source relational database
Webserver The webserver is Tomcat - an open source application.
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| Data Sources |
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There are many data sources, primary and secondary, used in this collection. The following list the main sources.
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Mission Folders (National Archives) Mission folders are the folders kept for each mission by the 388th BG during the war. The folders contain the paperwork generated by the 388th in the course of executing each mission.
Generally each mission folder has orders from 45th Combat Wing, detail crew members for each aircraft, formation sheets, bomb loading sheets, post mission reports, fuel consumption report, crew interrogation reports, missing aircraft report, mission maps, and much more.
These folders are available for research at the National Archives II in College Park, MD
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388th at War Ed Huntzinger's book is the definitive account of the 388th. It has been a valuable source and inspiration for this site which has been continuosly consulted during this site's construction. There are a few discrepancies which the mission folders bear out.
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388th BG Archives (Maxwell AFB) Maxwell AFB has 388th information in its archives. As far as this site is concerned, this is an untapped resource
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388th BG Archives (8th Air Force Museum) The 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA has 388th BG information in its archives.As far as this site is concerned, this is an untapped resource
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| Data |
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The data is derived from several sources.
Certain classes of data (aircraft, crews, missions, crashes, crewman etc.) have been identified as entities. Each entity type has its own data elements and its own unique identifier. For aircraft the identifier is its serial number. Where ever these identifiers appear, they are made into an HTML hyper link. It is these hyper links that allow the user to "walk" through the database.
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Sortie Data Sortie data is gleaned from original documents found in the mission folders
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Photos Photos have been collected from a variety of sources. As of yet few photos have been added to the site.
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Aircraft The aircraft data provided is derived from the above mentioned sortie data. Original documents often refer to the aircraft by the last three digits of its serial number. At times confusion is generated when there two planes having the same last three digits. In those cases efforts were made to make sure the correct serial number was identified.
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Maps The mission folders provide several types of maps. A photo of the mission map displayed in the breifing room is the most common. Fragments of actual color maps are available in some cases. As of yet few maps have been added to this site.
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Crews The crew list provided here is derived from the above mentioned sortie data. The crews are named according to the pilot's last name. There are several occasions multiple crews having pilot names that are the same. Where last names conflict, this site uses the convention to add initials to the end of the name to make them unique. In all cases efforts were made to make sure the correct crew is referenced.
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Missions The mission list provided here is derived from the mission folders. There is a wealth of information for each mission that is not displayed at this site.
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