The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945

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The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 Page 99

by Richard Overy


  67. Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War (London: 2006), 189–90.

  68. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.701, ‘Report on the Activities of the GU MPVO/NKVD over the Period of the War’, 6 Jan 1945; f.37878, o.1, d.722, 3, ‘Growth of the Collective Defence in the Cities’; 17–20, ‘Prospects: Protection of the People from Air Raids in the Future’, Apr 1945; ‘Anti-Chemical Defence during the War’, 3 July 1945. For a good description of basement shelters and the construction programme in Leningrad see Evgenii Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941–1946 (London: 2005), 7–9.

  69. Henry Cassidy, Moscow Dateline, 1941–1943 (London: 1943), 68; Braithwaite, Moscow 1941, 190–91.

  70. Braithwaite, Moscow 1941, 187–90.

  71. PArch, Balfour papers, BAL/1, Moscow Diary, entry for 27 Sept 1941; Cassidy, Moscow Dateline, 66; Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary, 19–20.

  72. Werth, Moscow ’41, 112–13.

  73. Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, 1933–1945 (London: 1983), 168.

  74. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.443, MPVO HQ, Report no. 2, ‘on the consequences of air-raids of the enemy aviation between December 1941 and January 1942’, Feb 1942; Report no. 9, ‘on the consequences of air raids of enemy aviation in April 1942’, May 1942.

  75. Ibid., f.37878, o.1, d.443, 1st dept., MPVO HQ, Col. Baksov, ‘Report on the activity of divisions and groups of the MPVO from the start of the war until February 1942’, [n.d.].

  76. Citrine, In Russia Now, 59–60; John Barber, ‘The Moscow Crisis of October 1941’, in Julian Cooper, Maureen Perrie, E. A. Rees (eds), Soviet History 1917–1953: Essays in Honour of R. W. Davies (London: 1995), 201–18; M. M. Gorinov, ‘Muscovites’ Moods, 22 June 1941 to May 1942’, in Robert Thurston, Bernd Bonwetsch (eds), The People’s War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Chicago, IL: 2000), 123–4.

  77. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.443, ‘Report on the enemy aviation and the work of divisions and groups of the MPVO from the start of the war until February 1942’; Salisbury, The 900 Days, 297.

  78. Reid, Leningrad, 143; Salisbury, The 900 Days, 291, 298. On alarms see Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary, 30.

  79. Svetlana Magaieva, Albert Pleysier, Surviving the Blockade of Leningrad (Lanham, MD: 2006), 39, 42.

  80. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.443, Report no. 5, 10 Apr 1942; Report no. 9, May 1942; Moniushko, From Leningrad to Moscow, 17.

  81. Magaieva, Pleysier, Surviving the Blockade, 66.

  82. Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary, 18–19.

  83. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.443, Report no. 9, May 1942.

  84. Ibid., f.37878, o.1, d.438, 21–3, MPVO, Summative report on the enemy’s air raids over the city of Stalingrad in Apr 1942; 77–82, Summative report, July 1942.

  85. Ibid., 124–5, Summative report, Aug 1942.

  86. Ibid., 126–7.

  87. Ibid., f.37878, o.1, d.722, ‘Prospects: Protection of the People from air Raids’, April 1945; ‘Anti-Chemical Defence during the War’, 3 July 1945; ‘The state of the MPVO in People’s Commissariats of transport and industry’, 24 Aug 1945.

  88. Ibid., f.37878, o.1, d.537, Reports on military messages received by the MPVO HQ on the activity of enemy aviation on the territory of the USSR during Jan 1945; Reports between 16 and 20 Feb 1945; Report on operational and organizational questions from 1 Mar 1943 until 1 Mar 1944; Lt. Gen. Soskin, ‘Analysis of the Consequences of the Air Raids and the Activity of the MPVO in 1944’, 30 Apr 1945.

  89. RGVA, f.37878, 0.1, d.722, ‘The state of the MPVO in People’s Commissariats of transport and industry’, 24 Aug 1945.

  90. Ibid., f.37878, o.1, d.701, ‘Report on the Activities of the GU, MPVO/NKVD over the Period of the War’ 6 Jan 1945.

  91. Alexander Werth, Leningrad (London: 1944), 163.

  92. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.537, Lt. Gen. Osokin, ‘Conclusions on the activity of enemy aviation conducting intelligence works and air raids, 1 January until 31 December 1944’, 30 Apr 1945; f.37878, o.1, d.723, ‘The activity of the MPVO during the Great Patriotic War’, 18 Sept 1945.

  93. Werth, Leningrad, 162.

  94. Ibid., 72.

  95. Magaieva, Pleysier, Surviving the Blockade, 42.

  96. Richard Bidlack, ‘The Political Mood in Leningrad during the First Year of the Soviet-German War’, The Russian Review, 59 (2000), 101–2, 106.

  97. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.722, ‘Participation of the MPVO in the reconstruction of the national economy’, 21–4.

  98. Ernst Heinkel, He 1000 (London: 1956), 232.

  99. IWM, MD, vol LI, 479, Jeschonnek to Milch, 28 Oct 1942.

  100. BA-MA, RL3/16, GL Office, ‘Auszug aus der Führerbesprechung’, 3/4/5 Jan 1943.

  101. Andreas Nielsen, The German Air Force General Staff (New York: 1959), 155. Gerhard Förster, Totaler Krieg und Blitzkrieg (Berlin: 1967), 150.

  102. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 134, Interrogation of Gen. Koller, 25 Sept 1945, 1–2.

  103. For details see Richard Overy, ‘From “Uralbomber” to “Amerikabomber”: The Luftwaffe and Strategic Bombing’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 1 (1978), 166–7.

  104. Heinkel, He 1000, 230.

  105. NARA, Microfilm T321, Roll 10, frames 6778–9, Luftwaffe-Führungsstab, ‘Kurze Studie: Kampf gegen die russische Rüstungsindustrie’, 9 Nov 1943.

  106. IWM, MD, vol XV, GL conference, 19 June 1942, in which the head of air force development complained about Heinkel’s ‘egoistic company interests’; BA-MA, RL3/16, Lucht (Technical Office) to Milch, 9 Sept 1942, ‘Festigkeit der He177’; Heinkel to Air Ministry, 12 Sept 1942. See too Lutz Budrass, Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland 1918–1945 (Düsseldorf: 1998), 847–58, on the competitive situation in the industry in 1942–3.

  107. BA-MA, RL3/16, Kommando der Erprobungsstelle to Göring, 13 Aug 1942; IWM, MD, vol XV, GL conference, 19 June 1942.

  108. Heinkel, He 1000, 233.

  109. Horst Boog, ‘Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa 1943–1944’, in Boog et al., DRZW: Band 7: Das Deutsche Reich in der Defensive (Stuttgart: 2001), 348–9.

  110. Ibid., 350–51, 355; Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London: 1970), 280–83.

  111. NARA, Microfilm T321, Roll 10, frames 6780–82, ‘Kurze Studie’, 9 Nov 1943.

  112. TsAMO, f.500, o.801858, d.218, Operational Staff, ‘Taktische Bemerkungen’, July 1943, 11.

  113. Boog, ‘Strategischer Luftkrieg’, 354, 357–62.

  114. NARA, Microfilm T321, Roll 10, frame 6765, losses, establishment and output, bomber units, Jan 1943–Mar 1944; Frames 6754–6, Luftwaffe Führungsstab, ‘Studie über die Flugzeuglage der Kampfverbände’, 5 May 1944.

  115. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.537, 136, ‘Comparative table of air raids, bombs and losses, Jan–May 1943 and Jan–May 1944’; 169, MPVO, ‘Analysis of the consequences of the air raids and the activity of the MPVO in 1944: Table of material losses of the Soviet Union in 1944’.

  116. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 134, USSBS Interview no. 8, 5–6.

  117. RGAE, f.29, o.1, d.1792/1961, Production of aircraft and engines 1939–1945. There were 43,648 fighter aircraft, 28,947 dive-bombers and 11,397 bombers.

  118. Groehler, Bombenkrieg gegen Deutschland, 166–70.

  119. Carl van Dyke, The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939–40 (London: 1997), 55–6.

  120. Alexsandr Medved, Dmitri Hazonov, ‘Hyökkäyset Helsinkiin helmikuussa 1944’, Sotahistoriallinen Aikakauskirja, 18 (1999), 134–75. On the Soviet claims see Groehler, Bombenkrieg gegen Deutschland, 170.

  121. Birse, Memoirs of an Interpreter, 128–9. The Soviet negotiator in Moscow compared Allied ambitions to conduct operations in the Caucasus campaign with the ‘military intervention’ of the Western powers in 1918–19 against the Bolshevik revolution.

  122. Mark J. Conversino, Fighting with the Soviets: The Failure of Operation Frantic 1944–1945 (Lawrence, KS: 1997), 26–30.

  123. LC, Doolittle papers, Box 19, Col. Old to Doolittle,
6 July 1944, 4.

  124. Conversino, Fighting with the Soviets, 88–90.

  125. RGAE, f.29, o.1, d.1792/1961, Production of aircraft and engines: Bombers. The figures were 1939: 2; 1940: 10; 1941: 23; 1942: 22; 1943: 29; 1944: 5.

  126. Kerber, Stalin’s Aviation Gulag, 255–60.

  127. RGVA, f.37878, o.1, d.722, 17–19, ‘Prospects: Protection of the People from Air Raids’, April 1945.

  5. THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE: BOMBER COMMAND 1939–42

  1. Heinz M. Hanke, Luftkrieg und Zivilbevölkerung (Frankfurt am Main: 1991), 187–90. Charles Webster, Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany, 4 vols (London: 1961), vol 1, 134–5, give the wrong dates for the German pledge and the Anglo-French declaration.

  2. FDRL, President’s Secretary’s Files, Box 47, Ambassador Potocki to Cordell Hull, 1 Sept 1939.

  3. TNA, AIR 9/202, first meeting, Committee on the Humanisation of Aerial Warfare, 8 July 1938; Air Staff memorandum, ‘The Restriction of Air Warfare’, 25 Feb 1938. Uri Bialer, ‘Humanization of Air Warfare in British Foreign Policy on the Eve of the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 13 (1978), 79–96.

  4. TNA, AIR 14/249, ‘Air Ministry Instructions and Notes on the Rules to be Observed by the Royal Air Force in War’, 17 Aug 1939, 5–7; AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air 1939–1945’, supplement to ‘Air Power and War Rights’ by the former Air Ministry legal adviser J. M. Spaight, 7; Joel Hayward, ‘Air Power, Ethics, and Civilian Immunity during the First World War and its Aftermath’, Global War Studies, 7 (2010), 127–9; Peter Gray, ‘The Gloves Will Have to Come Off: A Reappraisal of the Legitimacy of the RAF Bomber Offensive against Germany’, Air Power Review, 13 (2010), 15–16.

  5. TNA, AIR 9/105, Anglo-French staff conversations, ‘Preparation of Joint Plan’, 19 Apr 1939; ‘The Employment of British Bombers in the Event of German Invasion of the Low Countries’, 21 Apr 1939.

  6. TNA, AIR 14/249, Air Ministry to Bomber Command, 22 Aug 1939; AIR 75/8, Newall to Ludlow-Hewitt, 23 Aug 1939. Gray, ‘The Gloves Will Have to Come Off’, 22–3.

  7. TNA, AIR 75/8, Newall to Gen. Gort, 24 Aug 1939; War Cabinet Annex, ‘Air Policy’, 13 Oct 1939; AIR 14/446, Air Ministry minute, 30 Aug 1939.

  8. TNA, FO 371/23093, Sir Hugh Kennard (Warsaw) to Foreign Office, 11 Sept and 12 Sept 1939.

  9. Ibid., AIR 75/8, ‘Air Policy: Brief for the Secretary of State for Supreme War Council’, 15 Nov 1939, 5–8.

  10. Martin Middlebrook, Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book 1939–1945 (Leicester: 2000), 42, 702–3.

  11. FDRL, President’s Secretary’s Files, Box 32, Chamberlain to Roosevelt, 25 Aug 1939; Roosevelt to Chamberlain, 31 Aug 1939.

  12. TNA, AIR 9/131, ‘The Employment of the Air Striking Force on the Outbreak of War’ [n.d. but Aug 1939], 10. W. A. Jacobs, ‘The British Strategic Air Offensive against Germany in World War II’, in R. Cargill Hall (ed), Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment (Washington, DC: 1998), 109–10.

  13. Richard Overy, ‘Air Power, Armies and the War in the West, 1940’, 32nd Harmon Memorial Lecture (Colorado Springs, CO: 1989), 8–12.

  14. Webster, Frankland, Strategic Air Offensive, vol 4, 99–102, App 6; Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ: 2002), 178–80.

  15. TNA, AIR 9/89, Air (Targets) Intelligence: Country: Germany, 21 Jan 1938.

  16. Owen Thetford, Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918 (London: 1988), 138–41, 273–6.

  17. Ibid., 30–34, 313–16, 554–61.

  18. Armaments Design Establishment, Ministry of Supply, ‘The Development of British Incendiary Bombs during the Period of the 1939–1945 World War’, Dec 1946; TNA, AIR 9/92, Air Ministry, ‘Bomb Stocks as at 26 April 1939’. On the poor quality of bombs see NC, Cherwell papers, G189, Cherwell to Ministry of Supply, 28 Jan 1942, memorandum, ‘Bomb Production’; F255, War Cabinet paper, ‘The Possibility of Improving Efficiency of Blast Bombs’, 6 Oct 1943.

  19. TNA, AIR 14/88, Air Ministry to Ludlow-Hewitt, 27 Oct 1939; AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air’, 1.

  20. TNA, AIR 75/5, Slessor to Newall, 29 Mar 1940; Richard Overy, Bomber Command, 1939–1945 (London: 1997), 32–3.

  21. TNA, AIR 9/102, Draft Plan W.A.5(d), 13 Jan 1940; CamUL, Templewood papers, XII, File 2, interviews with officers from Wellington and Whitley squadrons, 29 Apr 1940.

  22. TNA, AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air’, 12–13.

  23. TNA, AIR 14/194, Record of a conference with the Air Staff, 28 Apr 1940, 3.

  24. Martin Gilbert (ed), The Churchill War Papers: Vol II: Never Surrender, May 1940–December 1940 (London: 1994), 17–18, 24–6, 38–43, War Cabinet minutes, 12 May, 13 May, 15 May 1940. Randall Hansen, Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany 1942–1945 (New York: 2009), 20, who also dates the Rotterdam attack incorrectly.

  25. Christopher Harmon, ‘Are We Beasts?’: Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II ‘Area Bombing’ (Newport, RI: 1991), 8–10.

  26. Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1939–1941 (London: 1983), 329–30, 334, 342–7; Gilbert (ed), Churchill War Papers: Vol II, 17–18, 25, 38–41, War Cabinet minutes: Confidential Annex, 13 May 1940; War Cabinet minutes: Confidential Annex, 15 May 1940.

  27. TNA, AIR 14/194, CAS minute, 19 May 1940; DCAS to C-in-C Bomber Command, 30 May 1940.

  28. TNA, AIR 14/249, Air Ministry to all Commands, 4 June 1940; AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air’, 13.

  29. TNA, AIR 14/249, Bottomley (Bomber Command SASO) to all Group HQ, 14 June 1940.

  30. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/56, Portal to Douglas (DCAS), 16 July 1940; TNA, AIR 14/249, Bomber Command War Orders, proposed amendment, 14 July 1940.

  31. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 188–9.

  32. TNA, AIR 14/249, telegram from Air Ministry to Bomber Command HQ, 10 Sept 1940; AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air’, 13. Gray, ‘The Gloves Will Have to Come Off’, 25–6.

  33. Richard Overy, ‘Allied Bombing and the Destruction of German Cities’, in Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, Bernd Greiner (eds), A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction (Cambridge: 2005), 280–84; Hayward, ‘Air Power, Ethics’, 124–5.

  34. TNA, AIR 75/8, War Cabinet Annex, ‘Air Policy’, 14 Oct 1939.

  35. TNA, AIR 9/79, Air Ministry (Plans), ‘Note on the Relative Merit of Oil and Power as Objectives for Air Attack’, 16 Oct 1939; AIR 75/8, ‘Draft Bombing Plans’, 14 Nov 1939.

  36. RAFM, Douglas papers, MFC 78/23/2, Trenchard to Portal, 2 May 1940; TNA, 75/8, Portal to Newall, 8 May 1940.

  37. TNA, 75/8, ‘Draft Bombing Plans’, 14 Nov 1939, 3.

  38. TNA AIR 14/194, Slessor (Director of Plans) to Air Marshal A. Evill, 22 Oct 1939; ‘Note on the Question of Relaxing Bombardment Instructions’, 7 Sept 1939.

  39. TNA, PREM 3/193/6A, FO Report, 30 May 1940; Halifax to Churchill, 2 June 1940, encl. Report, ‘Morale in Germany’.

  40. TNA, AIR 75/8, Air Ministry (Plans), ‘Plans for Attack of Italian War Industry’, 2 June 1940; AIR 20/283, Air Ministry (Bomber Operations), ‘Notes on Bomb Attacks’, 20 Aug 1940.

  41. Martin Hugh-Jones, ‘Wickham Steed and German Biological Warfare Research’, Intelligence and National Security, 7 (1992), 387–90, 393–7; Ulf Schmidt, ‘Justifying Chemical Warfare: The Origins and Ethics of Britain’s Chemical Warfare Programme, 1915–1939’, in Jo Fox, David Welch (eds), Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and the Modern Age (Basingstoke: 2012), 148–50.

  42. TNA, AIR 14/206, TC 2, ‘Notes on German Air Operations in Poland’, 19 Oct 1939.

  43. TNA, AIR 41/5, ‘International Law of the Air’, 9–10.

  44. TNA, AIR 14/194, Bomber Command, ‘Note on the Question of Relaxing the Bombardment Instructions’, 7 Sept 1939; AIR 14/381, Plan W.1, memorandum for C-in-C, Bomber Command, Apr 1938, 1.

  45. H
arold Balfour, Wings over Westminster (London: 1973), 120.

  46. TNA, FO 898/311, MEW memorandum, ‘Bombing of Open Towns’, 19 Apr 1940.

  47. CCO, Denis Richards Archive, File IV/Folder A, Salmond to Trenchard, 11 May 1940.

  48. Gilbert, Churchill War Papers: Vol II, 41, War Cabinet minutes: Confidential Annex, 15 May 1940.

  49. Gilbert, Finest Hour, 81.

  50. Robinson Library, University of Newcastle, Trevelyan papers, draft article, ‘Nazism and Civilisation’, Mar 1943.

  51. National Library of Wales, Jevons papers, I/IV/85, Noel-Baker to H. Stanley Jevons, 6 Nov 1940; Noel-Baker, ‘Reprisals? No’, Daily Herald, 2 Oct 1940. Brett Holman, ‘ “Bomb Back, and Bomb Hard”: Debating Reprisals during the Blitz’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 58 (2012), 395–9.

  52. LSE, Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom papers, 1/16, Executive minutes, 3 July 1940; WILPF 2009/05/04, ‘Report of Deputation of Pacifist Clergy to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 11 June 1940’, 2.

  53. CamUL, Templewood papers, XII, File 2, transcript of broadcast talk, 27 Apr 1940.

  54. Gilbert, Churchill War Papers: Vol II, 42–3, War Cabinet minutes: Confidential Annex, 15 May 1940.

  55. CCO, Portal papers, Folder 1, Portal to Churchill, 27 Oct 1940.

  56. TNA, AIR 9/424, Slessor (DCAS) to Director of Plans, 17 Aug and 24 Aug 1942. The final directive (Joint Planning Staff: Anglo-US Bombing Policy) was produced on 31 August naming ‘industrial centres’ rather than industrial population.

  57. RAFM, Harris papers, H47, Harris to the Under-Secretary of State, Air Ministry, 25 Oct 1943; A. W. Street (Air Ministry) to Harris, 15 Dec 1943. There is an extended discussion of this correspondence in Hansen, Fire and Fury, 159–66.

  58. Webster, Frankland, Strategic Air Offensive, vol 4, 111–24. On forests and game see TNA, AIR 40/1814, MEW note, ‘German Forests’, 7 Aug 1940.

  59. TNA, AIR 20/283, Air Ministry War Room, ‘Tonnage of Bombs Dropped 24 June to 27 Aug 1940’. The objectives were oil and fuel, electric power, chemicals and explosives, aircraft industry, enemy aerodromes, aluminium, shipbuilding and docks, and communications.

 

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