Hello,
this weekend i talked a bit with my grandma about her experiences in WW2. Something that stood out to me was that she said that the "Tiefflieger" (Strafing planes ) where worse than the bombings. She told me that she witnessed two of this attacks. One on the train she was taking to go to school and one attack targeted at her and some friends when they where watching the highway (?) which forced them to hide in the woods.
The attack against the train seems reasonable but an attack against some childs watching a highway seems unbelievable to me. I tried googling but only found some "questionable" sources
Additional question: Are there documents available where you can see when and where allied planes where flying? This would make it easy to verify this because she remembers the exact date/location of this attacks
Thank you
Allied Air Forces in WW2 had a policy of attacking targets that supported the war effort and being "unconcerned" with civilian casualties. They viewed mass civilian casualties as likely to cause civic unrest and disruption to the war efforts. Euphemisms like "dehousing arms industry workers" thinly disguised deliberate targeting of the civilian population of Germany. In short, air attacks against civilians were in no way prohibited or discouraged if they had any military value whatsoever.
Moreover the transportation networks of Germany were at times specifically targeted for extensive air attack. Either tactically to impede troop movements, or strategically to hinder industry by preventing the movements of workers and goods, anything that could move along roads or railways was considered fair game.
So there is nothing in your grandma's story that is incompatible with what we understand about Allied conduct of the air war in Germany. Attacking a train was common, and strafing vehicles on roads and highways was also completely normal pilot behavior. One area that might be a misunderstanding is the targeting of a group of children. Pilots flying at ~3-400 kmh in enemy territory can't really tell what they are shooting at, and often made mistakes, shooting their own troops or making extravagant claims about what they hit. In addition to pilot error, it's quite common for people near a strafing attack to experience it as being aimed directly at them, even if it's aimed at something 100s of meters away. The psychological impact of strafing is huge in proportion to it's effect, and that's documented in hundreds of war memoirs. So maybe you would take that last bit with a consideration for subjective experience.
Lastly, you can view an Air Force level document about what each USAAF air force size unit did on each day of the war here: WARNING HUGE PDF https://media.defense.gov/2010/May/25/2001330283/-1/-1/0/AFD-100525-035.pdf
An entry that might match your grandmothers accounts could look like:
12/9/44 Eighth AF Nearly 400 B-17’s bomb 2 A/Fs[airfield] and a M/Y in Stuttgart area, along with 5 T/Os [targets of opportunity]. 7 ftr gps[fighter groups - rough guess 350 fighter total] fly escort and strafe transportation tgts [targets].
12/10/44 Ninth AF About 130 B-26’s bomb defended positions at Birkesdorf, and Huchem-Stammeln. Ftrs escort 9th Bomb Div, strafe and dive-bomb numerous tgts in W Germany, and spt US 8th, 9th, 83d, and 104th Inf Divs and 3d and 5th Armd Divs in areas around Bergstein, Duren, and along W bank of the Roer.
Although if you don't find your grandma's date or location it doesn't mean it didn't happen. An air force is a huge unit, and there are probably countless actions of smaller subunits, fighter groups, wings or squadrons, that are glossed over. I don't know of a place that one can look thru the records of each fighter group for each day in WWII, although some records probably do exist. Lastly, not all strafing actions made it into official documentation for various reasons.