CLUSTERED amid the tall pines of East. Prussia, the gloomy buildings of Hitler’s headquarters at Rastenburg seemed as cheerless and forbidding as ever in the faint sunlight that filtered through the trees. In the conference bunker since noon on that last day of May, 1942, the Fuehrer had listened to the latest situation reports from his naval and military spokesmen. Now Hitler faced the Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe. “The Luftwaffe, General Jeschonnek?” he asked quietly, and sat back to hear the daily report of German air operations in every theatre of war.
Hans Jeschonnek fiddled uneasily with his papers. “Cologne, my Fuehrer,” he said hesitantly, “there was an R.A.F. attack on Cologne last night.”
Hitler said nothing. “A fairly heavy attack,” added Jeschonnek.
“How heavy?” The familiar harsh voice rasped out the question as if it were an insult.
“According to preliminary reports, we estimate that two hundred enemy aircraft penetrated our defences,” replied Jeschonnek, nervously. “The damage is heavy. We are still waiting for final estimates.”
Hitler shook in his seat with sudden fury. “You are still waiting for final estimates?” he shouted. “And the Luftwaffe thinks that there were two hundred enemy aircraft? The Luftwaffe was probably asleep last night! But I have not been asleep. I stay awake when one of my cities is under fire!” Rising to his feet, he screamed, “And I thank the Almighty that I can rely on my Gauleiter, even if the Luftwaffe deceives me! Let me tell you what Gauleiter Grohe has to say! There were a thousand or more English aircraft—do you hear? A thousand, twelve hundred, maybe more!”
Jeschonnek stood unmoving, the storm breaking over him. “Goering is not here; of course not,” went on Hitler, with biting sarcasm. But when the Reichsmarschall, hurriedly summoned by Bodenschatz, did arrive, his pitiable, sweating presence made no difference; indeed, Hitler refused to shake his hand and pointedly ignored him. The Fuehrer knew, and Goering and Jeschonnek knew, that an attack on a German city by two hundred bombers would have been a serious matter. An air raid by a thousand bombers constituted disaster.
The first 1,000-bomber attack by the Royal Air Force on a German city, carried out on the night of 30th–31st May, 1942, and directed against Cologne, rang up the curtain on a new phase of the air war over Europe—systematic area bombing on a large scale. Three possible targets had originally been selected—Cologne, Essen and Hamburg—and it was the misfortune of Cologne that favourable weather over the city on the decisive night marked it for destruction. In order to mount the massive attack, every available aircraft in R.A.F. Bomber Command had been used, together with machines borrowed from Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm; a total of 1,047 aircraft flying from fifty-two different airfields. The raid lasted ninety minutes, and in that time 1,455 tons of bombs were dropped, turning the centre of Cologne into a waste of rubble. Some 450 people were killed and 45,000 rendered homeless, against a Bomber Command loss of thirty-nine aircraft.
The area bombing of Cologne by a thousand aircraft laid down an important milestone on the long, tragic road that had begun with the destruction of Guernica in 1937 and would end when Dresden was burned to ashes in 1945. Blow for blow, wholesale slaughter matched by wholesale slaughter; thus the hard path for R.A.F. Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe. Yet, during the early months of the war—and despite the air bombardment of Warsaw—R.A.F. bombing attacks were confined to military targets. Losses were heavy, particularly in the daylight raids on such heavily defended objectives as Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland, and results seldom of any importance. In comparison to what followed, most of these attacks amounted to little more than pin-pricks, being carried out in the main by twin-engined Blenheim, Wellington or Hampden medium bombers with a negligible bomb load and limited range. The larger Whitley bombers were restricted to so-called “nickelling” operations—the dropping of propaganda leaflets on the Third Reich. With such small achievements Bomber Command had to rest content; Mr. Chamberlain had declared “… His Majesty’s Government will never resort to the deliberate attacking of women and children, and other civilians, for purposes of mere terrorism.”
Then came May, 1940, the end of the Chamberlain government and the swift rise to power of Winston Churchill. Three days of war in the Netherlands ended when the Heinkels of Kampfgeschwader 54 destroyed Rotterdam. The R.A.F. attacks increased in reprisal; German bombs fell on London during the Battle of Britain; and in return Bomber Command struck again and again at Berlin. The German pathfinder technique developed by Kampfgeschwader 100—the lightening of a city by incendiaries to guide the main force of bombers—brought a night of death and devastation to Coventry in November, 1940, when 400 people lost their lives, but Goering’s Blitz on Britain was coming to an end. On 10th May, 1941, London was attacked in what proved to be the last great raid on the capital by the Luftwaffe; some 2,000 fires were started and 3,000 people killed or injured. Soon afterwards, most of Germany’s bomber and fighter aircraft were withdrawn for service on the Russian and Mediterranean fronts.
During 1941, the R.A.F. night attacks on the Third Reich continued, but still with only moderate success. In fact, at that time Bomber Command lacked the technical equipment and the heavy bombers needed to mount a large-scale air offensive against Germany, though steady progress was being made in the right direction. The development of four-engined strategic bombers had been encouraged since 1935, and in due course three types emerged as a result of Air Ministry specification B12/36, which called for a monoplane bomber powered by four 1,500 h.p. radial engines. However, Bomber Command remained sadly neglected while Dowding’s fighters strove for ascendancy in the Battle of Britain, and not until nearly seven years later did the ungainly Short Stirling and the Handley Page Halifax enter operational service. These aircraft, with a bomb load of 18,000 lb. and 14,500 lb. respectively, were later followed—and to some extent superseded—by the remarkable Avro Lancaster, easily the best heavy bomber to appear during the Second World War.
Evolved by way of the unsuccessful twin-engined Avro Manchester, the Lancaster was powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and could carry a bomb load of 14,000 lb. for over 1,000 miles. Fitted with special, bulged bomb doors, it could carry the 12,000 lb. “Tall-boy” bomb, and without doors the amazing 22,000 lb. “Grand Slam” invented by Barnes Neville Wallis. Undoubtedly a magnificent aircraft, the Lancaster symbolised the might of Bomber Command from 1942 to 1945 and more than any other British bomber was responsible for the air bombardment of the Third Reich. It was the epitome of the heavy bomber, ideal for use in major saturation attacks or striking at selected targets of vital importance. Lancasters won the battle of the Ruhr and brought the reality of air war to Berlin; but Lancasters were also used for the memorable Augsburg daylight raid, the breaching of the Mohne and Eder dams, and the sinking of the great battleship Tirpitz in Alten Fjord.
All these successes lay in the future when the first two Lancaster squadrons, Nos. 44 and 97, became operational on 2nd March, 1942. The British War Cabinet had already decided to launch an intensive air offensive against Germany’s industrial towns, and appointed a new Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command to carry out the task. A highly controversial figure even to this day, Air Marshal Arthur T. Harris was not alone in accepting responsibility for the area bombing directive, but he was a dedicated advocate of mass aerial bombardment as a method of waging war. Harris believed that area bombing would break civilian morale and so destroy Germany’s capacity and will to resist. He knew that almost all Germany’s towns were old, with narrow streets and wooden buildings and therefore highly inflammable; incendiary attack seemed to be the solution. Thus it was that Harris became a maker of German destruction, an exponent of total war, but whether he succeeded in breaking the spirit of the German civilian population is, on all the evidence, extremely doubtful.
In April, 1942, the new Lancasters were tested on a precision attack against the M.A.N. Diesel Works at Augsburg, carried out in daylight in the face of murderous heavy and light antiaircraft fire. The twelve Lancasters flew in at low level, so low that the flak batteries were firing at point-blank range and hitting bombers and factory buildings with equal discrimination. The accurate bombing extensively damaged the vital diesel assembly shops, but seven Lancasters were lost to flak and fighter opposition; acceptable casualties for an occasional important attack, or so Churchill and Harris considered. Nevertheless, Bomber Command never attempted a repetition of the Augsburg daylight raid until 1945, when the Luftwaffe had been shot out of the German skies.
Meanwhile, the night area bombing offensive had been launched against the Third Reich with an attack on Lubeck by 234 aircraft. On the night of 28th–29th March, 1942, 144 tons of incendiaries and 160 tons of high explosive were dropped on this old Hanseatic port of doubtful military importance, destroying at least half of the town; over 1,000 houses, the famous cathedral, the art museum and twenty other public buildings were consumed in the sea of flames. Thirteen Bomber Command aircraft were lost, but the Lubeck raid proved conclusively that even a small force of bombers carrying a high proportion of incendiaries could lay waste a city of moderate size.
The immediate reaction of Hitler to the Lubeck attack resulted in the sharp series of reprisal raids on similar British cities—“as listed in Baedeker”—that surprised R.A.F. Fighter Command during 1942. On 23rd–24th April, Exeter was attacked with little success; on succeeding nights Norwich and York were the targets; Norwich again; then Exeter for a second time. This reprisal attack, carried out by some ninety bombers withdrawn from Sicily, gutted the centre of the city, destroyed nine churches and killed or injured over 300 people. Nevertheless, Hitler’s terrorangriffe against Britain petered out in the usual manner, for the simple reason that the Luftwaffe was stretched to the limit by the demands placed upon it elsewhere and lacked the forces to strike in any strength at undefended cities or, for that matter, military objectives.
On 24th–27th April, 1942, Bomber Command devastated the Baltic port of Rostock with 442 tons of high explosives and 305 tons of incendiaries dropped by 468 aircraft. This attack was a mixture of area and precision bombing; the Heinkel and Arado aircraft factories were seriously damaged, but the three main churches of the town and 1,760 houses were destroyed and sixty per cent of the inner town burnt to ashes. Four raids, on successive nights, completed the destruction of Rostock.
In reprisal for the Rostock attacks, the Luftwaffe hit at Bath, and later Norwich, with some success. A few weeks later, Winston Churchill considered and agreed to a plan for a saturation raid by a thousand bombers on a large German city, although the Prime Minister anticipated the loss of a hundred aircraft. Thus total war came to the citizens of Cologne on the night of 30th–31st May; and Harris was able to inform Churchill that 600 acres of the city had been devastated for a loss of only thirty-nine Bomber Command aircraft. “The dominating offensive weapon of the war was at last being used,” wrote Air Marshal Harris in his memoirs.
In December, 1942, President Roosevelt informed Congress that 5,500 aircraft were being produced each month in the United States, an impressive figure dismissed with contempt by the leaders of the Third Reich. In one of his last public speeches, Goering had stated in October at a Harvest Thanksgiving: “Some astronomical figures are expected from the American war industry. Now I am the last to underrate this industry. Obviously the Americans do very well in some technical fields. We know they produce a colossal number of fast cars. And the development of radio is one of their special achievements, and so is razor blades…. But you must not forget there is one word in their language that is written with a capital B, and this word is Bluff.” Unfortunately for the bulky Reichsmarschall, President Roosevelt was not bluffing; by the end of 1942 the United States had produced over 47,000 aircraft, including 2,600 four-engined Fortress and Liberator heavy bombers.
The Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress of 1942 was a far cry from the graceful XB-17 of 1936, no longer a thing of beauty but a powerful air weapon, heavily armed and heavily armoured. A bomb load of three tons; an operational height of 26,000 ft. and a maximum speed of 280 m.p.h.—this was the B-17E heavy daylight bomber. Earlier versions of the B-17, admittedly deficient in fire-power but otherwise an excellent aircraft, had been supplied to the R.A.F. under the Lease-Lend scheme in 1941 and failed disastrously in action. The British theory that daylight bombing brought little success for prohibitive losses was thus apparently confirmed; but the U.S. Army Air Force remained faithful to the Fortress as an ideal air weapon. In fact, the R.A.F. Fortresses had failed only because they had been used at extremely high altitudes and in small, loose formations extremely vulnerable to fighter attack. The Americans assumed that large formations of B-17s, flying at their ideal operational height of 24,000 to 27,000 ft., would be able to precision-bomb a target and remain protected from fighter attacks by the concentrated fire-power of their massed defensive armament. From this British faith in night bombing and the American conception of the B-17 as a daylight heavy bomber originated the famous “round-the-clock bombing” technique that broke the back of the Third Reich and overwhelmed the Luftwaffe.
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator, though an ideal heavy bomber, never achieved the fame of the Flying Fortress. A rather ugly aircraft, with a deep, slab-sided fuselage, the B-24 could carry a bomb load of just over two tons and had a range of 1,600 miles. The defensive armament consisted of ten heavy machine-guns in nose, upper, ball and tail turrets and waist positions—more than enough to ensure a terrific concentration of fire against attacking fighters. Liberators were used in some numbers by R.A.F. Coastal Command, proving highly successful as anti-submarine aircraft, and B-24s of the U.S. 9th Air Force carried out the remarkable, if catastrophic, attacks on the Ploesti oilfields. As a daylight heavy bomber complementary to the B-17 Fortress, the Liberator remained unequalled; indeed, it was produced in greater quantities than any other American aircraft during the Second World War.
The special U.S. strategic bomber arm built up to undertake the daylight air offensive against Germany—the 8th American Air Force—was formed in February, 1942, under the command of General Carl Spaatz, and two months later the first batch of some 1,800 U.S. airmen arrived in England, led by Brigadier-General Ira C. Eaker. On 23rd June, eighteen B-17s of the 8th A.A.F. took off from American bases to fly across the North Atlantic to Britain via Labrador, Greenland, Iceland and Northern Ireland, a distance of nearly 4,000 miles. This small formation of Fortresses proved to be the vanguard of an endless stream of thousands of heavy bombers destined to take the sanie route and find new bases in the airfields hurriedly constructed for them all over southern and eastern England.
In August, 1942, General Spaatz decided that the 8th A.A.F. was ready to take the offensive, and final plans were completed with the R.A.F. for a co-ordinated system of day and night bomber attacks on the Third Reich. On 17th August, less than six months after Spaatz had undertaken to shape an American air weapon, twelve B-17ES, including Yankee Doodle carrying General Eaker, took off on the first bombing mission of the 8th Air Force—an attack on the marshalling yards at Rouen-Sotteville in France. The bombers returned without loss from a fairly successful raid, and only two aircraft were shot down during the next ten missions, although these were admittedly carried out against short-range targets under strong fighter cover. This indication that the cautious General Eaker was allowing his inexperienced crews to feel their way before scheduling the more heavily defended German targets aroused further R.A.F. criticism; over and over again the question emerged: if the Americans had such faith in daylight bombing, why did they seem afraid to put it to the test?
Thus, with uncertainty and even a decided coolness between the Allies, evolved the round-the-clock bombing technique—the sword by day and the axe by night. It was basically a sound policy, but imperfect at birth, and during 1943 the Luftwaffe would have the opportunity to exploit its weaknesses. What then could the German fighter arm offer in defence of the Reich now that the fateful hour was at hand?
“If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr,” Goering had told the German people, “my name is not Hermann Goering; you can call me Meier!” By 1942, the average German civilian was in no mood to call the Reichsmarschall Meier or anything else; he was wearying of the nightly air attacks that mocked Goering and his boastful speeches. The irritating, persistent raids by R.A.F. Bomber Command in 1940 and 1941 had steadily increased in numbers and intensity, culminating with the sledgehammer blows on Lubeck, Rostock and then Cologne. Those who survived in the tortured German cities remained steadfast, strengthened by Goebbels’ surprisingly effective propaganda—“There is much suffering in the bombed areas, but even more determination”—and perhaps resigned to the cross they had to bear, but they could not help wondering what had happened to the Luftwaffe. “Where are our fighters?” was the inevitable question, to which there was no ready answer. Goering had virtually retired into the shadows, only occasionally appearing in public; and Hitler gave only vague promises that a terrible vengeance would be exacted on England, while refusing to visit any of the bombed cities.
Germany, at the outbreak of war, was supposed to possess a first-class air defence organisation. In fact, only a few fighters and a handful of ground defences had been provided, mainly for the protection of industrial and military installations in west and south-west Germany. As Adolf Galland has written, “All one heard was the slogan, ‘The Luftwaffe must attack and not defend”.” Night-fighting was regarded by Goering as an unnecessary luxury for an offensive air force, and Ernst Udet was one of the few high-ranking Luftwaffe officers interested in the air defence of Germany during the hours of darkness. He organised night-fighting exercises, using a single Gruppe of Bf 109s in co-operation with searchlight units, to the amusement of his associates, and persevered until he became disheartened by official opposition. When the R.A.F. began to raid Germany persistently by night during 1940, this system of fighters and searchlights—hitherto dismissed laughingly as “Udet’s fun and games”—was used in action, but it proved so unsatisfactory in bad weather that Goering realised something would have to be pulled out of the hat as an improvement. He therefore ordered a complete reorganisation of Germany’s air defences.
In July, 1940, General Felmay’s former chief of staff, Josef Kammhuber, an outstanding officer and airman who had been dogged by misfortune, was recalled and given command of the first German night-fighter division. Nothing existed at that time for Kammhuber to command except a research Gruppe of modified Do 17s and Bf 110s, but he got to work and by the end of the year had formed the first two night-fighter groups, or Nachtjagdgeschwader. The Bf 110s of NJG 1 were intended primarily for operations over the Reich, while the long-range Do 17s of NJG 2 fulfilled the night intruder role, attacking the R.A.F. Bomber Command bases in East Anglia, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.
During 1941 the highly capable Kammhuber built up his night-fighter force, using Goering’s support to request production of more converted Do 17s and also adapting Ju 88s, equipped with the latest radar devices. The Ju 88C conversions were particularly successful, and in the hands of such outstanding pilots as Streib and Lent were responsible for many kills as the British bomber streams crossed the coast. Kammhuber hoped to form a chain of night-fighter zones from the Kiel across Hamburg, Bremen, Munster, Wesel, Arnhem, Venlo, Liége to Namur, a “Kammhuber Line” to protect the whole of Germany, and to this end he put forward an ambitious programme. He asked Goering for an interview with Hitler, and to his surprise found his plans approved by the Fuehrer and given priority. Above all, Kammhuber needed improved radar tracking devices for his aircraft and a specialised night-fighter; the development of German radar had been seriously neglected, and the Ju 88s were, after all, converted bombers. It was therefore agreed that the German electronics industry would provide more advanced radar devices, and the Ernst Heinkel A.G. was requested to develop the twin-engined He 219 as a night-fighter.
Backed by Hitler and Goering, Kammhuber was thus able to extend his defence zones, and in time these extended from Norway in the north to the Swiss frontier in the south, from Austria to East Prussia, and included the Ploesti oilfields in Rumania and areas of Italy and Tunis. By August, 1941, the original night-fighter division had become a night-fighter corps—Nachtjagdfliegerkorps XII. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe was still desperately short of fighters for the defence of the Reich, and Ernst Heinkel was finding the Reichsluftfahrtministerium unwilling to authorise production of the He 219.
Then, in October, 1941, Hitler suddenly decided to stop Kammhuber’s long-range intruder operations over England, on the grounds that the aircraft were urgently needed in Sicily and North Africa. This was, of course, true, but Hitler’s decision was also affected by his own belief that R.A.F. bombera shot down over Britain were wasted losses because they did nothing to sustain the morale of the German people. Kammhuber asked Goering to intervene for him, but the Reichsmarschall did nothing, and the Do 17s and Ju 88s, together with their highly trained crews, were thrown into the furnace of the Mediterranean theatre of operations. The R.A.F. area bombing offensive was at hand—and the Luftwaffe night-fighter force was restricted to action over Germany without specialised aircraft for the purpose.
For day fighting, the Luftwaffe still possessed in any numbers only the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. The Bf 109 had been subjected to an infinite succession of modifications since the outbreak of war; constant operational demands for increased engine power, heavier armament and additional equipment altering the original clean lines to such an extent that it had become known as “the bulge”. By 1942 the basic Bf 109 design had passed the peak of its development, and the Bf 109G which appeared in the summer of that year was in many respects inferior to its predecessor, but the German aircraft industry had nothing better to offer as a replacement. Much the same situation existed with the Fw 190; it had been adapted as a close-support fighter, fighter-bomber, fighter-dive-bomber and night-fighter, and was in demand everywhere. These two types of single-seater fighter simply could not be produced in sufficient numbers, for they were needed to fulfil a dozen different roles, veritable jacks of all trades and masters of none.
Thus, on the eve of Germany’s battle for survival the fighter arm of the Luftwaffe could only plead earnestly for better aircraft and soldier bravely on with improved versions of the Bf 109 and Fw 190. On 12th September, 1942, Goering commented frankly on the fighter problem—without doing anything to solve it. “By and large we have had a certain superiority… so far as fighters are concerned,” he said, “the Bf 109 in its various developments and then the Fw 190. Both types have been caught up with and to some extent overtaken by the English and American fighters, particularly as regards climbing powers. To my annoyance they also seem to have a greater range… and this is very unpleasant. Above all, the Spitfire is ahead, a thing our fighter pilots don’t like.” As in Udet’s lifetime, the promise of new, remarkable aircraft remained just around the corner; the Focke-Wulf Ta 152, a replacement for the Fw 190; the Me 209 and Me 309, projected replacements for the Bf 109; and the Dornier Do 335, a very fast tandem-engined fighter. Similarly, new types of bomber were under development, but progressing at a snail’s pace, thanks to Erhard Milch’s insistence on maximum production of the older types in a sincere attempt to achieve numerical if not technical superiority over the Allies.
On 27th January, 1943, fighters of the Luftwaffe took off to intercept the first attack on Germany by the United States 8th Air Force. This raid, directed against Wilhelmshaven, was indecisive for both sides, the Fw 190s being surprised by the heavy fire power of the American B-17s, and the twin-boomed P-38 Lightning fighters escorting the bombers proving no match for their more nimble opponents. Nevertheless, the Wilhelmshaven mission indicated that General Eaker had mustered sufficient B-17 squadrons to launch his daylight air offensive on Germany. In fact, he was prepared to sustain that offensive in the face of anticipated heavy losses.
A document signed by the Allied Chiefs of Staff at the Casablanca Conference the same month had sealed the fate of Germany before the sirens wailed over Wilhelmshaven. The Casablanca directive was the hinge that opened the door on the Allied air offensive; it gave Air Marshal Harris and General Eaker the green light to wage indiscriminate bombing war on the Third Reich, though each chose to interpret it in his own way. Expressed in the broadest possible terms, the Casablanca directive stated: “Your primary object will 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.” To Eaker, this meant that the U.S. Air Force would merely extend its policy of daylight precision bombing attacks on selected targets in the German key industries, such as ball-bearing works and aircraft component factories, hitting at them again and again until they ceased production. Air Marshal Harris interpreted the Casablanca directive as an instruction to saturate any and every German town with bombs as he wished; in his book Bomber Offensive he writes: “I was now required to proceed with a joint Anglo-American bombing offensive for the general ‘disorganisation’ of German industry… which gave me a wide range of choice and allowed me to attack pretty well any German industrial city of 100,000 inhabitants and above….”
On the night of 29th–30th May, 1943, the weight of Bomber Command fell upon the twin city of Wuppertal, at the eastern end of the embattled Ruhr. Over 700 bombers, using Wuppertal-Barmen as their aiming point, achieved such a high degree of concentration that the heart of the town was completely devastated and some 2,450 people killed. Wuppertal-Elberfeld escaped with slight damage, more by accident than intention, and Harris remedied this oversight a month later with a second raid that raised the death-roll for the twin city to 5,200. “This kind of aerial terrorism is the product of the sick minds of the plutocratic world-destroyers…” commented Dr. Goebbels at the mass funeral of Wuppertal victims on 18th June, 1943.
Yet Wuppertal was merely the beginning. Two months later Air Marshal Harris and his staff were ready to launch the great air attack code-named Operation Gomorrah—a triple blow calculated to achieve the maximum effect of air bombardment on a large German city. Gomorrah was intended to be a peak in the Bomber Command offensive, an outstanding example of the air weapon in its most fearful form; the Douhet theory put into practice, all the doubts and criticism of night bombing resolved for ever. At least two thousand bombers were scheduled to take part in three main raids, and Air Marshal Harris estimated that over 10,000 tons of bombs would have to be dropped “to complete the process of elimination”. Large numbers of incendiaries were to be used.
The target for this gigantic, so aptly named operation was the city and port of Hamburg.