Big Week

by James Holland

  Perhaps more crucially, however, night-time area bombing was not, in itself, destroying the Luftwaffe.1 In other words, it was not enabling the Allies to gain and then maintain air superiority over Nazi-occupied Europe. Both winning and keeping air superiority were absolutely vital before any offensive land operations could be undertaken. The invasion of Sicily in July 1943 had been successful because the Allied air forces had very effectively neutralized the German and Italian air forces over the island and specifically the invasion beaches during the landings. Some 702 German aircraft had been destroyed over the Eastern Front between June and August that year, but the figure had been 3,504 in the Mediterranean. In all, in the three months between 30 June and 30 September 1943, the Luftwaffe had lost 4,100 aircraft destroyed and a further 3,078 damaged. Back in 1940, even someone as militarily obtuse as Hitler had understood there could be no invasion of Britain until the Luftwaffe had cleared the RAF from the skies. They had not come close, and so there had been no invasion. Instead, Germany had turned eastwards to the Soviet Union, and far earlier than had ever originally been planned.

  The Allies well understood there could be no cross-Channel invasion until they had control of the skies, not only over the invasion beaches and anticipated immediate bridgehead, but over a large swathe of western Europe as well. It was accepted, quite rightly, that the success or failure of the invasion would depend on the ability of the Germans to launch a massed and concentrated counter-attack within days of the landings and before the Allies had had a chance to successfully reinforce any bridgehead. Therefore, restricting Germany’s ability to counter-attack swiftly was of the most vital importance. Deception was a key part of this plan, but so too was the role of air power. In the nine weeks leading up to D-Day, air power was to carry out a heavy interdiction operation. This meant blowing up bridges, roads and especially railways and marshalling yards. Given the Germans’ dependence on the Reichsbahn to transport the bulk of the war effort, the more lines that were cut, bridges destroyed, cuttings blown in and marshalling yards hammered, the harder it was going to be for the German mobile units – the elite of the army – to move quickly from one part of Nazi-occupied Europe to another. The successful slowing-up of any potential German counter-attack could not possibly have been more important to Allied chances of success.

  Although the strategic heavy bomber forces had a role to play, such an interdiction campaign was largely the preserve of the tactical air forces: two-engine medium bombers and ground-attack fighter aircraft, which would be operating at far lower heights than the heavies and with greater accuracy – the kind of accuracy that was needed to destroy bridges and narrow railway lines rather than sprawling factory complexes. In order to do this successfully, however, the Allies really needed to operate in skies where they held air superiority. That meant ensuring the Luftwaffe was sufficiently contained to offer little interference anywhere over France, the Low Countries or even the western edges of Germany itself. This had to be achieved not by D-Day in May 1944, but nine weeks earlier, by March 1944. That was now just five months away.

  Furthermore, there was a limit to how much strategic bombing could achieve while increasingly skilled and well-directed night-fighters stalked British bombers, or hordes of Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf fighters equally skilfully attacked the daytime fleets of American bombers. In both cases, the German fighters attacking these bombers were faster, more agile and could often pack a bigger punch than their Allied opponents. British heavy bombers, especially, were thin-skinned and under-armed. Once an enemy night-fighter locked on to them the chance of survival was slight.

  In January 1943, at the Casablanca Conference – the meeting of President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the British had questioned the point of America continuing with daylight bombing and voiced their concerns that the losses would soon prove prohibitive. Dropping this policy was unthinkable to General Arnold and all the other senior American air force commanders: their entire pre-war thinking had been built around it, as demonstrated by the B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators with their arsenals of heavy machine guns. Nor did they want to be beholden or play second fiddle to the RAF – after all, the United States and Britain were coalition partners rather than formal allies.

  Tooey Spaatz had been brought to Casablanca to fight the American corner, as had Ira Eaker, then the new commander of the still fledgling Eighth Air Force. Unlike most of the senior US commanders, Eaker had come properly prepared, so determined was he to win over Churchill, who had voiced doubts about daylight bombing more vocally than most. Eaker’s impassioned plea did the trick. He argued that it would bring about ‘round-the-clock’ bombing and give the Germans no rest. It would prevent putting excessive strain on British air space and communications. It would be more accurate. And he also pointed out that daylight bombing would force the Luftwaffe back to the Reich, where the enemy day-fighter force would be compelled to take to the skies to defend their empire.

  Churchill had accepted that the Americans should persevere with daylight bombing, but Eaker’s point about taking on the Luftwaffe day-fighter force was arguably most pertinent, because only by continuing with daylight bombing could there be an effective means of gaining air superiority over mainland Europe. The American bombers could hit targets such as the ball-bearing plant at Schweinfurt, essential for aircraft production; or the Messerschmitt plant at Augsburg and the Heinkel factory at Rostock, for example; and they could bomb other component manufacturers, such as the Bosch factory at Stuttgart, where dynamos, injection pumps and magnetos were manufactured. But at the time of Casablanca, Eaker had also believed his heavily armed bombers, and Flying Fortresses especially, could take on the Luftwaffe in the air, and had argued that they could shoot down two or even three enemy fighters for every bomber that was lost. This had since been tragically disproved.

  At Casablanca the British had accepted that the Americans would stick to daylight bombing and a directive had been issued that demanded 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.’2 Effectively, both the Americans and British were now being given carte blanche and official authorization for all-out strategic bombing campaigns, but each on their own terms.

  By the Washington Conference in May 1943, however, this original directive was no longer sufficient, not least because a firm commitment to make a cross-Channel invasion the following year, in May 1944, had been made; for that to happen, the necessity of clearing the skies of the Luftwaffe suddenly became dramatically more pressing.

  In April 1943, General Eaker had been the main driving force behind the Combined Bomber Offensive from the United Kingdom Plan (CBO), which had then been worked on and approved by the British Air Staff. It became known unofficially as the ‘Eaker Plan’. This acknowledged that German fighter strength appeared to be growing and therefore the success of bombing German industry was dependent on also destroying German fighter strength. In this draft plan, the immediate objective – referred to as the ‘intermediate objective’ in the Eaker Plan – was to neutralize German fighter strength. ‘The German fighter force,’ ran the draft, ‘is taking a toll of our forces both by day and by night, not only in terms of combat losses, but more especially in terms of reduced tactical effectiveness.3 If the German fighters are materially increased in number it is quite conceivable that they could make our daylight bombing unprofitable and perhaps our night bombing too.’

  While many had pointed out that the cost of daylight bombing might well prove too great, this was the first time the growing threat of enemy night-fighters had been acknowledged as potentially decisive. Specifically, the destruction of the Luftwaffe was to take place by targeting airframe, aero-engine, aircraft component and ball-bearing plants. Aircraft repair depots and storage facilities were also to be hit. Finally, both RAF and VIII Fighter Comm
ands were to seek and destroy as many enemy fighters in the air as possible. ‘It is emphasized,’ the draft stressed, ‘that the reduction of the German fighter force is essential to our progression to the attack of other sources of the enemy war potential and any delay in its prosecution will make the task progressively more difficult.’4

  Harris was fully aware that German fighter strength was growing, but believed this latest plan was misguided. His night-bombing force could not hope to destroy enemy night-fighters in the air; nor did he believe the American Flying Fortresses could do much better. Since no Allied fighter was then capable of accompanying the bombers deep into Germany, there was little point in even suggesting such a course of action. It frustrated Harris intensely that others thought there was some easy solution out there that could make bombing more precise and efficient; he despised what he termed ‘panacea mongers’. Technology had come on leaps and bounds, but it was, he argued, important to do the job with the tools in hand, not try to achieve something with tools that did not exist. To his mind, there was only one way to destroy the Luftwaffe – and with it, Nazi Germany – and that was by relentless heavy bombing of cities.

  However, while he certainly had a point, his stubborn refusal to be deviated from his chosen path was somewhat blinkered. It was not impossible to give fighters greater range, for example. Rather, the Air Ministry had simply not yet given it enough time, thought and effort. What’s more, navigational aids and bombing techniques were continuing to improve. At the time Harris had taken over Bomber Command, there really was no alternative to night bombing than area bombing. That did not necessarily need to be the case now. The know-how was emerging to allow a different path.

  That washed very little with Harris, however, and consequently, when he was given the chance to tweak the Eaker Plan, he changed the wording so that Bomber Command would not be hidebound to attack the Luftwaffe as the primary target. In effect, he was safeguarding his right to choose whatever targets he liked and leaving the destruction of the Luftwaffe to the Americans. This amended version of the Eaker Plan was then approved by both Portal and Arnold, rubber-stamped by Roosevelt and Churchill, and issued on 10 June 1943 as a new directive code-named Operation POINTBLANK.

  On the face of it, as the summer wore on, Bomber Command’s successes and the losses suffered by Eighth Air Force twice over Schweinfurt appeared to prove Harris right and the Americans wrong. However, while Bomber Command was certainly causing more damage at proportionally less cost, it was far from achieving its aims: Germany was still in the war and bombers by both day and night were being met by increasing numbers of Focke-Wulfs, Messerschmitts and Junkers.

  On 15 August, two days before the first Schweinfurt mission, Air Chief Marshal Portal told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that since January the German fighter force on the Western Front had doubled. ‘If we do not now strain every nerve to bring enough force to bear to win this battle during the next two or three months,’ he said, ‘we may well miss the opportunity to win a decisive victory against the German Air Force which will have incalculable effects on all future operations and on the length of the war.’5 The ‘future operation’ he was especially referring to was Operation OVERLORD, the planned cross-Channel invasion. Only Harris still believed bombing alone was enough to defeat Germany; all the other senior Allied commanders accepted that the Combined Bomber Offensive was intended to wear down the Germans and make OVERLORD possible.

  By September, concerns were starting to mount that even night-time bombing might soon be seriously affected by the resurgent German fighter force. Air Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley, the RAF’s Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, warned Portal at the end of September that unless something could be done, ‘we may find that either we are unable to maintain the night offensive against Germany, or that the Germans can sustain the intensity of attack which we can develop.’6 Bottomley proposed that Harris be given far less of a free rein to choose his targets and should instead focus directly on the POINTBLANK plan and targeting the German aircraft industry. This would force Harris to abandon plans to attack Berlin, a campaign he was convinced could well prove decisive. Back in 1940, the Luftwaffe had switched from attacking airfields to mounting a sustained offensive against London and other British cities, and this change of tack had achieved little. It certainly hadn’t destroyed the RAF and had done nothing to help preparations for an invasion. Admittedly, Harris was now bombing Germany with a considerably larger force and with far more bombs than the Luftwaffe had had three years earlier, but the comparison was not entirely unfair.

  The truth was, Harris’s conviction that bombing alone could prove decisive was badly misplaced. There was no question it was making the German ability to wage war harder, but that was not the same thing. The nub of the matter was this: winning air superiority was vital both to the chances of success of OVERLORD and to future bombing operations. Air superiority could not be won by bombing alone, but winning air superiority would make bombing considerably more effective. Harris did not accept this, but an equal truth was that night-time bombing was not going to win air superiority either, even if Bomber Command began religiously targeting the German air industry.

  Ultimately, destroying the Luftwaffe could only be achieved by day. It was for this reason, rather than more spurious arguments about greater accuracy, that the Americans had been quite right to persist with daylight bombing.

  The trouble was – and this was the crux of the deep crisis the Allies were now experiencing – they had no real idea of how to defeat the Luftwaffe’s fighter force. Eaker was demanding ever more bombers and bomber crews, but there was no getting round the fact that bombers, even those full to the gunwales with heavy machine guns, were not sufficient to destroy a decisive enough number of German fighter planes in the air. They had neither the speed nor agility to do the fighter’s job.

  However, nor were they particularly effective bombers; armour plating and all those heavy machine guns came at a price. They added both weight and drag, which meant the aircraft could carry fewer bombs than they might otherwise have done. In fact, the payloads of both the B-17 and the B-24 were not large. The Lancaster, for example, designed without much thought to self-defence but with everything to do with payload, generally carried over 6 tons and as much as 10. The B-17, meanwhile, could carry just over 2 tons. This meant one hundred Lancasters could drop the same number of bombs as nearly five hundred Flying Fortresses. That was a big difference. It was one of the reasons why five hundred British heavies over Kassel could destroy much of the old city in one raid, and why 270 American heavies could not completely destroy one factory complex.

  What Black Thursday had proved was that, while B-17s could bomb with a fair degree of ‘precision’, the numbers getting through were still comparatively small, which in turn meant the number of bombs dropped was also nothing like as high as it might be. The task of neutralizing the Luftwaffe over Europe was going to be considerably more difficult and take far longer than had originally been appreciated, and time was not a luxury the strategic air forces had in October 1943, with OVERLORD scheduled to take place the following May.

  What the Allies needed were fighter planes superior to those of the enemy, in greater numbers than those of the enemy, which could escort the bombers deep into Germany and were piloted by men with superior flying skills. Such aircraft would not only defend the bombers but also take on and destroy the enemy fighter force. For the most part, by the autumn of 1943, the Americans had achieved three of those four criteria. Pilots were arriving from the US far better trained than their German equivalents and were then rapidly learning the ropes thanks to an abundance of further practice and training time once in theatre. The P-47 Thunderbolt was robust and could dive faster than any other fighter plane in Europe, and the numbers were increasing all the time.

  This meant that, on paper at any rate, the Allies now had the superior aircraft as well as increasing numbers of better-trained pilots. What was lacking was a modern and superior fighter p
lane with the range to reach far into Germany and back. Finding such a machine seemed to be an unsolvable problem, because the small size of a fighter plane compared with a bomber restricted its ability to carry the large quantities of fuel needed to fly such distances.

  However, at the very moment the Allies were confronting the stark reality of this potentially catastrophic crisis, succour was at hand. The answer lay in the truly remarkable P-51 Mustang.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the Bleak Midwinter

  AFTER BLACK THURSDAY, the rest of October 1943 was quiet for the men of the Eighth Air Force. In part this was because they were licking their wounds, but it was also because the weather was terrible. Lieutenant Bob Johnson called it the ‘North Sea Stratus’. ‘It was really heavy ground fog,’ he said.1 ‘The trees and telephone poles would stick up through it. All of England seemed to be covered.’ As a result, the bombers flew a single mission to Düren, on the German–Dutch border, but otherwise a couple of night-time leaflet-dropping operations was all they managed until November.

  On 29 October, Bob Johnson and the other 56th FG pilots at Halesworth waved goodbye to their chief, Colonel Hub Zemke, who had been sent to Washington as part of a team led by Brigadier-General Curtis LeMay to make a report on progress to their superiors and to Congress; Zemke had agreed to go on the understanding that he would soon be allowed back to the helm of his fighter group. Colonel Robert B. Landry, an old man of thirty-four, had arrived to take charge in his absence.