CHAPTER ONE
Target Berlin
Berlin. The Big City. ‘Big B.’ Whatever the Royal Air Force or American Air Force called it during the Second World War, it was an awe-inspiring target. In their minds the mere mention of Berlin conjured up a myriad of thoughts and fears. Some targets did that. Hamburg, the Ruhr Valley, Frankfurt, Hannover – Berlin …
For one thing, it was a long way away, deep inside Germany. So deep that to reach it and get back while it was still dark, attacks could only really be mounted during the winter when the nights were long. The RAF bombers knew from experience for they had been there before. It was the German capital, the very heart of the Nazi Germany they were fighting. As such it was well protected: flak, searchlights, and enemy night-fighters defended it tooth and nail. It was no ‘Milk Run’, no easy trip to add to one’s tour of operations. To have flown to Berlin, and more importantly, to have got back, meant something. Something to tell the folks at home, perhaps to feel good about, it looked impressive in the log book, nice to drop into the conversation with a girl friend. Once done, the tour could continue with other targets, perhaps no less dangerous, but certainly less heart-stopping when the curtain that covered the map of Germany in the briefing room was pulled aside.
Yet in the winter of 1943-44, RAF Bomber Command went to Berlin on no less than sixteen occasions. Between November 1943 and March 1944, the curtains were swept back to reveal the red ribbon reaching out from home base to Berlin sixteen times. Many bomber crews who were just starting, were mid-way, or even nearing the end of their tours had to add Berlin to their log books almost repeatedly. Many others did not. They did not get home. They ‘failed to return’, were ‘missing from air operations over Germany’ or just ‘missing’ – which could mean they were dead, prisoners of war and even wounded, or bobbing about in a rubber dinghy in the deadly cold North Sea awaiting rescue or chilling death.
There were other targets too, of course. It was not Berlin night after night, but it was on sixteen nights. This is the story of those nights when the heart stopped a beat – for it was: Target Berlin.
Berlin was a large target, 339 square miles. Including its suburbs it was 883 square miles. It was the seat of the German government as well as an important industrial city. In 1924, fifteen years before the war, it already had nearly 300,000 business concerns, employing over 700,000 people. Of these 60% were located in the six central districts of Berlin. Nine years later, with a population of 4,242,500, its built-up administration area covered 221,000 acres. Houses, factories and yards covered 43,600 acres, streets and railways another 25,000 acres, while open spaces, gardens, cemeteries and parks accounted for a further 10,500 acres.
It was a sprawling city with wide streets. A chain of lakes with the River Spree running through the city centre helped the flow of industrial output and brought raw materials to the factories, as Hitler’s new regime brought life and work to a Germany crushed by World War One. The largest lake was the Wannsee – a landmark for future air raiders – and this, with the others, was formed by the Havel River on the western outskirts. By the end of the 1930s Berlin had one of the finest subway systems in Europe, consisting of 92 stations and 46.6 miles of track.
Its industries were, in the main, textiles, iron and steelworks, rail cars, sewing machines, chemicals, china, breweries and machine works. After the war began, and Berlin went into top gear, its factories were producing one tenth of the Luftwaffe’s aero engines and precision instruments; one third of Germany’s electrical output, one quarter of the army’s tanks and one half of its field artillery. Berlin was a political target, but nevertheless, an important industrial one too.
Its importance was evident by 1938 when thoughts of a future war were in the air. Wing Commander R.V. Goddard at the Air Ministry, asked the Air Attaché at the British Embassy in Berlin, what the reaction might be of the German people to an air bombardment in the event of war. Unfortunately the answers were not very conclusive but this shows the mode of thinking at that time – that a future air bombardment might be an eventuality.
The two largest concerns were Siemens (they still make a very good radio) and the AEG Company, producing electric cables and submarine motors. Another concern, Lorenz, made vital wireless transmitter equipment, while Alkett was the largest single tank factory in Germany. There were famous aircraft factories too, BMW, Dornier, Heinkel and Focke Wulf. Rheinmetal Borsig produced guns, Argus made aero engines, Deutsche Solvay Werke its chemicals. Most of these were in the outer part of the city, outside the Ringbahn, along the water and railway routes.
Another important target was the communications and traffic. Berlin, like all great cities, imported food stuffs and raw materials and also exported valuable manufacturing goods. This amounted to an annual average of about 30 million tons, of which 80% was inward traffic (coal, lignite, manures and chemicals). Of this two-thirds went by rail, one-third by water on the inward journey, four-fifths rail, one-fifth water on the outward routes.
In addition to its industrial might, Berlin was the entire centre of administrative and economic life. The German Air Ministry, built in 1935-6, was bounded on the north by Leipzigerstrasse and on the east by Wilhelmstrasse and the south by Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. On the western side was the building of the former Prussian House of Representatives, but by 1943 this housed the Aero Club. The site of the ministry covered 400,000 square feet, 250,000 of which was the building itself. It had, 2,800 rooms and offices, 4,000 staff and had extensive bomb and gas proofing.
Four other important buildings were those of the German Foreign Office, the Ministry of Propaganda, The Reich Presidential Chancellery, and the Headquarters building of the Gestapo.
The city’s suburban area lay far outside Berlin, built up between 1923 and 1943, and was not unlike London’s suburbs. There were villas, single family houses either detached, semi-detached or in terraced rows. Like many large cities, blocks of flats were common, either two or three storied, and separated from each other by great areas of forests and lakes.
When war came in 1939, the British and the Germans were very careful not to bomb each other’s towns and cities, although the Germans had no such qualms about Warsaw and other Polish cities. Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, even boasted that no enemy aeroplanes would fly over Reich territory – an unfortunate prediction in the light of future history. The RAF were not only over Germany but over Berlin very early in the war. The first RAF squadron over the city was No 10 Squadron in September and October 1939, though they carried nothing more deadly than propaganda leaflets. Only three of the four that set off actually reached Berlin; the fourth dropped its load over Denmark and then failed to return to base.
Up to August 1940, Berliners suffered many air raid warnings but no bombs were ever dropped. At this time, the German defences were limited, but reserves were being drafted in, including 29 heavy, 14 medium and some light AA batteries, as well as four railway flak units, plus two night fighter staffels.
Finally, on 23/24th August 1940, during the Battle of Britain, Luftwaffe bombs fell on London. After a day of fighting, Luftwaffe aircraft flew a night raid towards the oil storage tanks at Thameshaven – which they missed – but bombs fell in the East End of London. It was nothing of great import but the gauntlet had been thrown down and Churchill took up the challenge. A retaliatory raid was arranged for the night of 24/25th August, but because of cloud, to say nothing of Bomber Command’s lack of sophisticated navigational aids, of the 96 aircraft from 3, 4 and 5 Groups despatched, only 81 got off, and of these only 29 reached Berlin. Of the others, 21 turned back being unable to find Berlin, but eighteen of these bombed secondary targets. In all six aircraft failed to return, three ditched in the sea and two were damaged. The force was all made up of twin-engined aircraft (the later four-engined bombers were still in the design stages) such as Wellington, Whitley and Hampden bombers. It had been a 580 mile trip to Berlin, and in the 20 mph cross wind encountered, a bomber could be thrown off course by as much as 66 miles.
A total of 22 tons of bombs had been dropped, a number of bombs having delay time fuses, and a large part of the German business area and private houses was affected. On their return, the bomber crews reported heavy defences over Berlin, and a need to avoid flak and searchlights.
As the war escalated, further raids took place in September against both London and Berlin, which changed the whole course of the war. Hitler, angry at the bombing of Berlin, ordered a change of emphasis in the air war against England, ordering Göring to bomb London and not RAF Fighter Command’s airfields. In so doing he lost the Battle of Britain. On 7th September the Luftwaffe sent 272 bombers against London. On the 15th, now known as Battle of Britain Day, four RAF bombers, two each from 58 and 77 Squadrons, were over Berlin – but at night. As the Battle of Britain ended and the Blitz began, Londoners began to learn how to ‘take it’ and other cities further north and in the south and south-west were bombed, such as Portsmouth, Exeter and of course Coventry in November.
The RAF raided Berlin 30 times in 1940 but only seventeen raids were sent in 1941. One of the latter, in March, occurred when the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs was visiting Berlin. It was known that he had taken the growing might of the RAF with a grain of salt, so Bomber Command was happy to show him just how strong, hoping the raid would, for him, prove salutary. The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, gave the instructions for the raid to be laid on during the Minister’s visit, which took place on the night of 23/24th March. Sixty-three bombers of 1, 3, and 4 Groups took part.
In October, the American Air Attaché in Berlin sent back reports of the raids on the German capital. Damage had so far been light, casualties amounted to about 1,200, but the bombing had not been indiscriminate. Boldness, courage and determination of the RAF crews had been praised by the population, and the crews were obviously continuing to look for their specific targets and were not letting flak deter them.
In 1942, Air Marshal A.T. Harris, took command of Bomber Command, a post he was to retain until the end of the war. In the autumn of that year, Harris was urged to attack Berlin in strength, but having only 70 to 80 of the relatively new four-engined Avro Lancasters in his command, the task was impossible.
On 17th August, Winston Churchill sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, stating that the Russian leader, Stalin, attached special importance to the bombing of Berlin. Stalin had said that they themselves were going to start bombing the city shortly – they had bombed it twice previously, on 7 th and 8th of August 1941, six weeks after the German invasion of Russia.
In reply to Churchill, the Secretary of State said:
… during the next moon period, attacks could be made but our maximum strength of aircraft [of all types – Author] was 250 and that we consider the minimum number to be 500, necessary to saturate the defences and give a chance of effective damage and an acceptable rate of casualties of about 50 with such a force. If we started a bombing campaign on Berlin with less than 500, and suffered an anticipated rate of casualties of 50, our bombing effort would be crippled for a month. We are of course keen to meet the wishes of the Soviet Government in this project, but unless reasons of major policy necessitate early attacks regardless of cost, we would propose to wait until a larger force can be used.
Churchill replied:
… 250 far exceeds weight and numbers of any previous attacks on Berlin. What date will 500 be possible? … I had always understood darkness was the limiting factor, not numbers. Certainly no attack should be made regardless of cost, but Harris mentioned an attack in the August moon period. Can you do it in September?
To this Portal, as CAS, replied on the 20th:
… number of aircraft and not hours of darkness is the limiting factor. In September we could have 300 aircraft, but neither Harris or myself is in favour of an attack in September.
On the 29th, Harris sent a letter to the CAS in which he said:
… I’m as keen as anybody to bomb Berlin, but I am certain when we do this, we must make a good job of it. The facts are as follows:
Numerous reports indicate that Berlin is well defended by flak and searchlights and there is also in existence a very elaborate system of decoys.
Berlin is a city of four million inhabitants, which is five times as big as Cologne, and 1,000 heavy bombers would not be too many (the number which in fact attacked Cologne in 1942) if we are to inflict serious and impressive damage on it.
The attack should be sustained. One isolated attack would do more harm than good and would, like Dieppe, play into the hands of enemy propaganda.
It was not, therefore, following this exchange, until 16th January 1943 that another attack was mounted on the Big City. It is of interest that this was the first time a war correspondent went on a bombing raid with the RAF. The correspondent was Richard Dimbleby, his pilot Wing Commander Guy Gibson DSO DFC, then CO of 106 Squadron. (Gibson was later to win the Victoria Cross leading 617 Squadron on their famous Dams Raid in May 1943.) Another future VC winner who flew on this Berlin raid was Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire DSO DFC, who had flown on six previous Berlin raids. On the 16th he found it easier, reporting:
… instead of the customary wall of anti-aircraft fire we saw only one small searchlight and flak was negligible. Identification was made difficult by cloud all the way across Germany, but clear patches over the city allowed the moon to combine with the flares in lighting up the place.
The attack lasted about an hour and 8,000 lb bombs were among the bombs dropped. Large fires were seen after the raid and only one aircraft was lost. The attack was resumed the following night, again with large bombs and good results were seen. However, losses were considerably more, 22 in all, but of course, this is the up and down nature of night bombing. It seemed that many more night fighters were to be seen and the flak was much heavier. Many guns seemed to have been rushed in following the previous night’s attack.
Berlin had woken up to the fact that they could be attacked and that the British had not given up. If you awaken a lion it may take a while for him fully to come to, but when he is, take warning – his attack can be formidable!
Following the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, a directive was issued to Harris instructing him that his primary objective should be ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened. Accordingly in order of importance the targets should be German submarine construction yards, the aircraft industry, transportation, oil plants, other targets in war industry.’ With his eyes set firmly on bombing of German cities, this would not have been in accord with Harris’s own thinking, but the directive went on to add ‘moreover other objectives of great importance either from the political or military point of view must be attacked. Examples of this are …’ And the second example was Berlin ‘which should be attacked when conditions are suitable for the attainment of specially valuable results unfavourable to the morale of the enemy or favourable to that of Russia.’
By January 1943, Germany had 4,491 heavy AA guns, 6,456 medium and light guns, 3,330 searchlights and 1,680 balloons, to meet the challenge of the RAF night raids and the growing might of the American 8th Air Force in England flying daylight raids.
Before the next Main Force attack on Berlin was executed, Mosquito aircraft made their first daylight raid on the city. This was on 30th January, and was as much a propaganda effort as anything else, the date being the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s assumption of power as German Chancellor. Also it warned Berliners that they were now no longer safe from daylight attacks.
The Mosquitos returned to Berlin that same afternoon. It was also Luftwaffe Day in Berlin. On the morning raid, three Mosquitos of 105 Squadron from 2 Group, led by Squadron Leader R.W. Reynolds with his navigator Pilot Officer E.B. Sismore, hit Berlin at exactly 11 am just as Göring was about to speak on the radio. They dropped two tons of bombs in a long stick to the north-east and west of the city, and as a result, the speech was delayed by one hour, the radio announcer having to make excuses for the delay. The ‘Mossies’ met no opposition from the AA defences; either their arrival was too much of a surprise or the gunners had been stood down for the celebrations.
At 4 pm Doctor Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister, was about to speak on the radio when three Mosquitos of 139 Squadron, led by Squadron Leader D. Darling, dropped three tons of bombs about a mile south of the city centre. However, the defences were alert this time and Donald Darling, who came from London, aged 24, was shot down and killed.
On 16th February 1943, Arthur Harris received a message from the CAS which read: ‘Recent events on the Russian front have made it most desirable, in the opinion of the Cabinet, that we should rub in the Russian victory by further attacks on Berlin.’ Harris was asked to ‘act accordingly’.
It was, however, two weeks before the next attack could be arranged – 1st March – and was the first time the new H2S (a radar navigation and blind-bombing aid) was used against Berlin. The H2S operators reported that the responses from the built-up areas entirely filled the radar screen, making it impossible to recognise the aiming points. Most of the bombing was centred on the south eastern outskirts, where heavy damage to industrial plants, business and residential properties was revealed by photo reconnaissance.
Wing Commander Hamish Mahaddie DSO DFC AFC, of 7 Squadron, recalled: ‘It was an excellent trip; the marking undershot but despite this, Berlin was suffering a heavy attack.’ In his log book he noted a signal that Harris had sent to all crews:
Tonight you go to the Big City. You have an opportunity to light a fire in the belly of the enemy and burn his Black Heart out.
Mahaddie, soon to be promoted to group captain, became the recruiting officer for the Path Finder Force.
On 3rd March, Stalin sent a message by personal telegram to Churchill:
I welcome the British Air Force, which yesterday so successfully bombed Berlin. I regret that the Soviet Air Force, absorbed in the struggle against the Germans at the front, is not yet in a position to take part in the bombing of Berlin.
In the event, and despite earlier promises to join in, the Russians never did join a campaign against the German capital.
Two further attacks were carried out in March, on the 27th and 29th. On the latter, the H2S aircraft of the Pathfinders achieved a remarkably good grouping around the aiming point. During these March attacks the crews had to contend with hail, rain, electric storms and the dreaded icing, in addition to searchlights, flak, and on the 29th, night fighters. Weather over northern Europe is traditionally bad in the winter months, and often high winds caused major problems. Prior to March 1943, the upper winds were estimated by the London Met Office, given to Bomber Command HQ and passed to each Group HQ.
In the early part of 1943, it was decided that it would be better for all crews to be given the same wind information even if it had an appreciable error, than for some to receive one wind from their group while other groups issued other wind strengths to their squadrons. It was felt better for all aircraft to arrive together, rather than some to arrive at the exact zero hour while others arrived later.
As 1943 progressed, Bomber Command became stronger, and techniques of navigation and target marking were improving all the time. Hamburg was attacked on four occasions by Bomber Command between 24th July and 3rd August, plus two daylight raids by the Americans. The city was virtually destroyed and in one night alone 40,000 people were killed in a terrible firestorm. It was as great a success as the Command was to achieve, and naturally put fear into the hearts of the German leaders, that if it could happen to Hamburg, it could happen to any of their major cities.
By mid-August, Harris was being pressed for a date on which he thought heavy attacks could begin on Berlin, on the lines of the Hamburg raids. Harris’s reply was that he intended to initiate operations as soon as possible, and when the present moon had waned. He estimated a total of 40,000 tons of bombs would be required if the Hamburg scale of attack was to be applied, but that the operation would be of a long term nature since it would be necessary to shift attacks intermittently to other major targets, so as to prevent an undue concentration of enemy defences around Berlin.
As a result of the attack in the spring against the Ruhr, the Luftwaffe defences were being reviewed. The night fighter zone in the west was to be increased in depth and extended to Denmark in the north and to eastern France in the south. Operational control was to be developed whereby two or more night fighters could be brought into action in any one night fighter area at the same time. Also, bombers would have to be attacked over the target which up till now was usually left to the flak gunners. The flak has to be consolidated into large batteries near the targets and concentrated at the most important of these targets. Above all, its accuracy had to be raised by the introduction of a large number of radar range finders. As a result of a suggestion by Major Hajo Herrmann – a former bomber pilot – single-engined day fighters were beginning to be used over Germany. First tried in July, their success in attacking RAF bombers was such that Herrmann was given the task of organizing these operations on a larger scale. Termed Helle Nachtjagd at first, it later became more famous under its later name of Wilde Sau – Wild Sow. It all called for close co-operation by the night fighters and the flak over the target and a dependable control of single-engine fighters over a wide area. For this purpose the flak, in co-operation with the night-fighters, was limited in its range height. Co-operation was achieved by visual signals and by radio. A sort of aerial flarepath to guide the fighters and a system of radio beacons were also established, around which night fighters could orbit until given a radar contact to follow from ground controllers. Once near the RAF bomber, the twin-engined night fighter radar crew member would be able to pick up the raider on his own airborne radar set and guide his pilot to it.
The flak in the Ruhr Valley was approximately doubled by bringing in all the reserves including all railway flak guns. They were consolidated into grossen Batterien (large batteries) – two or three single batteries joined together, which was later increased to six and eventually to eight. In order to nullify the RAF’s flare and marker dropping by the Pathfinders, lighting media (flare rockets) were developed and used in conjunction with searchlights and dummy fires and other decoys were set up on the ground.
The first attack in August on Berlin was on the 23rd and it was by far the biggest assault – 1,700 tons being dropped in 50 minutes. Smoke belched up, sometimes obscuring the fires, then shifted away to reveal burning streets and buildings.
On the arrival of the bombers, German fighters were sent up, which in turn limited the range of the flak to 5,000 meters, above which the fighters operated. In consequence the guns around Berlin seemed comparatively quiet and the defense left mainly to the fighters. The Germans used their new flare rockets, fired off by the gun batteries. The Luftwaffe pilots could see the silhouettes of the bombers moving across the sky. Field Marshal Erhard Mulch, State Secretary of the German Air Ministry and Armaments Chief of the Luftwaffe, described it as in these terms: ‘It is like a fly on a tablecloth.’
Of the 720 bombers dispatched, 625 bombed Berlin, but 56 failed to return, a high loss ratio of 9.1%, too high to be sustained for long.
One pilot remembers that night: an American, Flying Officer Bill Day, flying R-Robert of 90 Squadron. It was the crew’s thirteenth trip and they were happy that cloud most of the way limited the Germans’ defenses against them. Then about 60 miles from Berlin it started to ice up. Day took it down to 7,000 feet and just before they reached the city the sky became completely clear and they were welcomed by hundreds of searchlights but no flak – a sure sign fighters were up.
They made their way to the aiming point, dropped their incendiaries on the Target Indicators (TI’s) dropped by the Pathfinders then put the nose down and headed for home. Just then a master searchlight hit them spot on. Within seconds they were coned by 50 others. Bill Day did his utmost to escape but it was impossible, and if the flak had been used they would not have survived. Suddenly they got a ‘Boozer’ warning – which was a light in the aircraft which came on to warn the crew that a fighter was near them, set off by radar. Moments later a Fokker Wolf 190 attacked from the rear, opened fire from about 500 yards, closing in to 100. By this time, Day had corkscrewed the aircraft, a defensive maneuver whereby the pilot went into a steep diving turn, and at the bottom of the dive he pulled up vertically. It was very unpleasant but in the main very effective.
Sergeant Michelson, the rear gunner, got in a good burst at the fighter which exploded, but then two more 190s were spotted, one on the port and another on the starboard quarter. The bomber was obviously ‘the fly on the tablecloth!’ The fighter on the port side was slightly below them and the mid-upper gunner, Sergeant Jimmy James, was unable to bring his guns to bear. The German pilot then came in very close and fired into the bomber’s port wing, knocking out the inner engine, which put the upper turret out of action, its power coming from that engine.
They were now in a steep dive and a strong smell of burning was coming from the fuselage. To Jimmy James it seemed like the end. His life was flashing before him, he thought of his mother and girlfriend, and then suddenly it was as if he had passed through a barrier, his mind floating away from his body. He thought, if this is death, how wonderful.
Eventually Bill Day managed to pull the aircraft out of the dive, flying now low over the outskirts of Berlin, heading for the Baltic. He checked the crew but only the wireless operator, Jimmy Fen, had stopped a few cannon fragments in his leg, though he was not badly hurt. The aircraft was in a sorry state. Besides the port inner engine and upper turret, most of the cockpit instruments were useless, the bombing compartment was smashed; there were holes in the airframe and fuel several inches deep swilled about in the fuselage. They were lucky they had not caught fire.
By careful economy of the remaining fuel they made landfall in England. Putting out a May-Day call they were told to make for base but knew they could not make it. Just then they saw a row of lights in front of them which turned out to be Boney, Norfolk, the home of an American Thunderbolt unit who had only moved in that day.
The control tower was being manned by a Private First Class, who did not know the system so switched on everything he could find, hence the row of lights Day saw.
His landing was a bad one and the rear gunner Michelson was knocked out. Day had got down, however, and by coincidence the first American that he saw on climbing down from the aircraft was a friend he had last seen before leaving Canada to join the RAF; his friend had joined the USAAF and was now flying P47s. Bill Day received an immediate award of the DFC, Michelson the DFM. Luck remained with the crew, for they all finished their tour, and five went on to complete a second tour. Two of them, Jimmy James and Don Beaton, the bomb aimer, volunteered for a third tour but were turned down and given ground jobs. It was deemed they had done enough.
One Lancaster bomber on that 23rd August raid was attacked by six Messerschmitt 109s in the space of three minutes, during which it was damaged quite badly; but despite loss of fuel, they managed to get back to base, landing with just 80 gallons left. The only real grouse from the crew was that Jerry had upset and ruined their bombing point photograph!
A further raid on Berlin was made on the 25th and again on the 31st. On this, the flarepath type of defensive measure was introduced. It was a great surprise to the bomber crews to find their tracks illuminated by flares. They were described as bright white lights, which slowly descended as if on parachutes. They were dropped in lines of about a dozen and made lanes of light which the bombers had to go through.
On 3rd September came the last attack before what was later called the Battle of Berlin began. The weather on this occasion was on the side of Bomber Command, with cloud up to 21,000 feet which gave uninterrupted cover, dampened the flak and hampered the fighters. On the fringe of the city, the cloud broke up, leaving a clear space and as if arranged, as the attack concluded, the cloud drifted back over the city. Some aircraft had combats with fighters, and one was seen going down in flames with its rear gunner still blazing away.
On this operation, history was being recorded in Lancaster ED586 ‘F’ of 207 Squadron, piloted by Flight Lieutenant Ledford. On board was Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, the famous broadcaster and now war correspondent for the BBC. He, with the help of Mr. Pidsley, also of the BBC, made a recording of the flight, covering the Complete operation from take off to landing. They were engaged by a night fighter too, but the gunners, Warrant Officer Fieldhouse and Sergeant Devenish, shot it down.
The disc made of the sortie was rushed to London and broadcast the same day on the ten o’clock news. In all it was broadcast nine times in English and on numerous European and foreign programmers as well as the American network. It was described as ‘the outstanding broadcast of the war’. Forty years later when Vaughan-Thomas was asked for his most vivid memory of the war while being a correspondent, he said it was this raid on Berlin that he remembered most.
On 3rd November, Arthur Harris sent a memorandum to the Prime Minister saying that the highest priority should be given to Berlin:
… But I would not propose to wait for ever, or for long if the opportunity serves. We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the USA will come in on it. It will cost between us 400-500 aircraft. It will cost Germany the war.
However, he was not given full support by the Americans – they had just been severely mauled in their second assault on Schweinfurt on 14th October, losing 60 four-engined bombers. (They had lost 60 on the first Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid in August.) Nor was Harris supported by his immediate superiors. The final conclusion, approved by the CAS, was that Harris should, when he saw fit and when suitable occasions when weather and other tactical conditions gave the most favourable chance, attack Berlin. He should not plan for a sustained and costly series of assault, or rely on assistance from the 8th Air Force.
On the same 3rd November, Harris also reacted strongly against any information being given to the Russians as to when his bombers had taken off to attack Berlin. His reasons were strictly ones for security as to be successful in any sustained attack, tactics of feints and diversions would have to be made, and any transmissions to the Russians by simple codes, might well imperil the security of subsequent missions.