The tactical notes offered lots of other sound advice. ‘When flying over enemy territory, always fly as fast as you can.13 This makes it easier for you to bounce Huns and harder for the Huns to bounce you.’ Pilots were to practise air gunnery as much as possible, another skill that was largely denied German pilots. ‘Another small but useful point,’ the advice added, ‘is to cover the sun occasionally when turning or weaving and have a good look around towards it.’
Dick Turner had been hugely grateful for the words of wisdom Don Blakeslee had given them, and, recognizing the value of getting tips from the best in the Eighth, General Kepner began a programme whereby leading pilots jotted down their dollar’s worth of top tips, which were then put into a bound publication. David Schilling was one of the top pilots in the 4th FG and, now that Blakeslee was commanding, had become the group’s executive officer, or second-in-command. ‘Never break upwards [if attacked],’ he warned, ‘but on the same level, because breaking upwards causes a loss of speed and affords an easier target.’ Schilling admitted he wasn’t the best marksman. ‘I find that my estimation of angle off is usually always in error on the underside,’ he added. ‘Therefore I am very careful to get a good line of sight and purposely over allow from three-fourths to one-half a ring more deflection [on my gunsight] than I think is necessary. I then decrease my lead to the point when the sight is in the same position as it was just prior to the time I saw strikes.’
Most urged aggression, which was precisely Doolittle’s mantra. ‘A fighter pilot must possess an inner urge to do combat,’ wrote Hub Zemke, the already legendary commander of the 56th FG. ‘The will at all times to be offensive will develop into his own tactics.’ Bob Johnson warned pilots never to get over-confident and never to stop looking around, even with a wingman. ‘Never let a Jerry get his sights on you,’ he wrote. ‘No matter whether he is at 100 yards or at 1000 yards away.’ He also urged practice with those who knew best. So too did Major Walker Mahurin, also of the 56th. ‘I think that my group probably does more training than any other in the ETO,’ he wrote. ‘At least, it seems that way to me. I’ve been doing training ever since I got to the group and I imagine I’ll continue to do so ’til the war is over. It really pays. Every worthwhile hour in the air is the most valuable thing that I know of.’
How it would have pained General Dolfo Galland to have seen a booklet like this. Such words of wisdom flowed easily enough when the pilots had the ability to absorb such advice and the fuel and capacity with which to hone their skills further. All the Luftwaffe had in February 1944 was a rapidly diminishing number of experienced fighter pilots and a reasonable number of fighter aircraft, most of them not as good as those of the enemy. Increasingly, though, and rapidly, the standard of pilots was falling. It says much of the desperate need for half-decent pilots that, just twenty-six days after the horrific injuries he sustained earlier in January, Heinz Knoke was back flying once more.
CHAPTER 18
Waiting for a Gap in the Weather
THE LUFTWAFFE’S BOMBER offensive, ordered in a fury by Hitler the previous summer, finally began on the night of 21/22 January. Oberst Dietrich Peltz, the Angriffsführer England – Assault Leader Against England – planned to attack in two waves of over 200 aircraft, some five hours apart, dropping around 475 tons, of which 60 per cent were incendiaries. The aim was not to target war industry, but to terrorize Londoners and cause a firestorm. Compared with the raids mounted during the Blitz of 1940–41, these were pretty decent numbers; compared with what the RAF and USAAF were sending over, it was less impressive, and it represented a maximum effort. Throughout the Battle of Britain, for example, the Luftwaffe had had between 800 and 1,000 bombers available on any given day. By 20 January 1944, Peltz could call on 462 operational bombers and fighter-bombers, of which only a fifth were modern types. More worrying was the lack of training. Bombers required even more of that most precious resource, fuel, than fighters did, and training was, by this stage of the war, poor.
Since Göring’s failure to deter Hitler from offensive bombing in the wake of Hamburg, the Reichsmarschall had decided to fall in line wholeheartedly with the Führer’s strategy, much to the frustration of Milch and just about anyone else with even the remotest grasp on reality. At the end of September, Hitler had told a planning meeting that, come what may, the Angriffsführer England was to have six hundred new bombers every month. A few days later, on 5 October, Peltz had issued a memo, ‘Bomber Planning’, in which he pointed out that most bombers were essentially slightly upgraded versions of earlier models now obsolescent, and that performance was no longer up to the task. There was still no effective long-range bomber, for example. The He177 was now in production, but it was a dog of a machine and everyone knew that; no other wartime aircraft has been responsible for the deaths of more test pilots than this doomed heavy bomber. Demanding it have dive-bombing capabilities was an early – and insane – requirement that set back development significantly. Coupling two engines to one propeller wasn’t a great idea either. Collapsing wings, engine fires and a host of other difficulties, including instability and endless tweaking and reworking, caused the He177 to evolve painfully into no less than thirty-four different variants. It also ensured that in January 1944 Peltz had only thirty-five He177 heavy bombers for new attacks against England. It could carry up to 6 tons of bombs, which was impressive, but that was still 4 tons less than a Lancaster. The rest of the German bomber fleet could carry only paltry amounts by 1944 standards. In fact, the original Blitz had demonstrated all too clearly that the Luftwaffe’s bomber force had been attacking with nothing like enough aircraft or bombs. Now they were expected to achieve greater results with much less.
A few days after Peltz’s memorandum, at another planning meeting Göring stressed the importance of taking the fight to the enemy. ‘The German people don’t give a damn whether we lose half our fighters, or attack airfields in England.1 What they want to hear, when a hospital or an orphanage is destroyed here, is that the same has been done in England,’ he told those assembled. ‘I am anyway, determined … to now make use of my Luftwaffe, ruthlessly and totally, so it wins back the faith that has been lost in it.’
Actually, most German citizens wanted to feel they were being protected rather than having precious resources thrown away on bombing operations that had absolutely no chance of making a decisive impact. Göring’s ultimatum reflected his desire to get back into the good books of the Führer, not of the German people. In any case, Hitler often vacillated. A week later, Milch learned from Speer that Hitler had said defence of the Reich should take precedence over all other demands. So mixed were the messages that Milch was left trying to build as many fighters as possible while at the same time building bombers – albeit at a ratio of 2:1 – in case Hitler ordered an offensive. Meanwhile, a large amount of resources that would otherwise have gone to Luftwaffe aircraft production were now being directed towards the V1 and V2 programmes, while the Me262 project was being earmarked as a bomber rather than a fighter.
For men like Milch, trying to manage conflicting demands with resources that were continually being stretched further and further, it was frustrating to say the least. The challenge facing fighter pilots like Heinz Knoke, Wim Johnen and Hajo Herrmann was bad enough without having to compete with an inconsistent strategy and pointless insistence on taking the attack to the enemy.
The first raid of Peltz’s bombing offensive was spectacular for its failure, as only half the bombs carried actually hit British soil and of the 475-ton payload a mere 30 tons were dropped on London. A week later, London was hit again, once more in bad weather. Again it was a failure. Not only did most of the bombs land nowhere near their targets, but fifty-seven precious bombers were lost in the two attacks and 101 crews aborted and turned back early. Twelve of the still troubled He177s were destroyed during operations and a further four were lost due to engine fires. The Führer was furious: about the failure to strike a significant blow on the enemy, about Brit
ish reports that only thirty bombers had reached London and about the failure of the Heinkel 177. This aircraft, Hitler railed, was ‘a crap machine – the worst rubbish that was probably ever produced.’2
The causes of the failure of the ‘Baby Blitz’, as the British ridiculed it, were numerous: the low standard of training, especially in poor weather; the weather itself; the lack of reconnaissance aircraft; the shortage of pathfinders. Hitler could not understand why the Luftwaffe didn’t have better information from the networks of agents operating in Britain. In fact, not one agent was then active in the UK; the only agents working for Nazi Germany in Britain were those who had been turned or had always been operating on behalf of the Allies.
On Monday, 24 January, General Doolittle again recalled his bombers as the weather looked sure to close in completely over England; the last thing he wanted was to lose half his forces because they ran out of fuel or crashed in thick fog. American crews trained hard and long, but few pilots were taught blind flying, so when they could no longer see anything, the chances of crashing were high.
Lieutenant Bob Hughes was leading the 100th BG that day on what was his twenty-first mission, to Brunswick. The recall came as they were passing over from Belgium into Germany, but they had progressed far enough for the mission to count, so that was something. However, on the return leg they encountered a strong headwind and ended up slightly off course, flying directly over an airfield at Ostend. Travelling at little more than 100 m.p.h. because of the wind, they were almost sitting ducks and suddenly came under fire. One of the Fortresses had the end of its tail blown off by flak, the tail gunner disappearing from view, although, incredibly, he survived and was able to pull the cord on his parachute. The B-17 managed to make it home, despite having had its elevators shot off.
That same day, Göring was visiting Luftflotte Reich Headquarters in Berlin and, having seen early reports of the American raid, assumed they had been heading to Berlin rather than to Brunswick. With this in mind, he ordered into the sky every available aircraft, including all day- and night-fighters from I Jagdkorps, from 7 Jagddivision in Austria and from the training schools. Some 821 fighter aircraft of varying types rose into the bleak January skies to meet a raid that had already returned home. The following day, Göring wrote to Generals Schmid and Stumpff at Luftflotte Reich: ‘Yesterday’s little manoeuvre may be considered a success except for the fact that April Fool’s Day is still two months away.’
Also on Tuesday, 25 January, Schmid called a meeting with Galland and his division commanders at which it was agreed that from then on German fighters should engage with American fighters in an effort to make them jettison their drop tanks. It was also agreed that Gruppe commanders should give up trying to be everywhere and instead attempt to keep together and fight with local superiority. They all accepted the Americans were growing in number, but none thought the Allies would ever be able to reach Berlin successfully by day; Göring had been fussing about nothing.
What’s more, the Reichsmarschall was still insisting that his fighter force avoid combat with the Americans, even though Schmid, Galland and senior commanders had all agreed they should now engage. The difficulties they faced were made worse by the shortage of pilots. Milch’s handling of production was ensuring enough aircraft were reaching the fighter groups, but, incredibly, the front-line units received no replacement pilots whatsoever in January. The 30th was a particularly chastening day, as Heinz Knoke discovered to his cost.
One of the reasons he had returned to his Gruppe so soon after being so badly injured earlier in the month was because of the chronic pilot shortage; another was because Hitler had reduced the recuperation period allowed for pilots. A further reason, however, was that Knoke could not bear being confined in a large hospital with its pervading stench of disinfectant. He spent the first couple of days back at his base sitting in a deckchair wrapped in rugs. His legs and arms were not working very well, but he gradually started to regain strength and with it increased movement in his limbs. ‘In time,’ he jotted in his diary, ‘I became accustomed to the never-ending headaches.’3
On Sunday, 30 January, the day that Bob Johnson shot down his thirteenth enemy aircraft, orders arrived moving 5/JG11 to Arnhem in Holland. Still on crutches, Knoke hobbled to his Gustav and managed to clamber into the cockpit, then take off, fly and land back down at their new base. At 1.05 p.m. they were scrambled and, having gained height, were bounced by Fighter Command Spitfires, who drove them away from the bombers. ‘We are taken completely by surprise,’ wrote Knoke, ‘and we cannot put up effective opposition against the Tommies.’4 Suddenly, it was every man for himself. Knoke did not even have a chance to fire, but found himself being pursued and hit in the engine. Yet again, his Gustav was in trouble, although on this occasion he was able to crash-land with his wheels up just a mile from Hilversum airfield. Needless to say, he should never have been flying in the first place. ‘No. 4 Staffel has lost five killed, No. 6 has lost three and Headquarters has lost one,’ he noted.5 ‘I have lost from my own Staffel Sergeant Nowotny, who was posted to me only a few weeks ago.’ It had been a slaughter.
The mood of increasing anxiety emanating from USAAF Headquarters in Washington filtered down to US Strategic Air Forces HQ and then on to Eighth Air Force. On 24 January, when Doolittle had recalled his bomber force for a second time, it had prompted a sharp rebuke from Spaatz. ‘I wonder if you’ve got the guts to lead a big air force,’ he told him.6 ‘If you haven’t, I’ll get someone who has.’
Doolittle had struggled to keep his temper, even though he accepted that they were all under a huge amount of pressure to get results and to fulfil the POINTBLANK directive as soon as possible. Calmly, he had explained that he had not wanted to endanger the lives of his men in what he considered an uncalculated risk. If the weather had completely closed in over East Anglia, as had been forecast, the losses could have been truly catastrophic, with bombers low on fuel circling blindly for airfields that were hidden by thick fog. Doolittle and Spaatz had been friends for a long time, but the Eighth Air Force commander was dismissed with a curt, ‘That will be all.’7
A few days later, however, Spaatz invited Doolittle on a tour of bomber units. They would be flying in Boots, Spaatz’s personal B-17. After a visit to several bases on the first day, they stayed overnight and the following morning were assured that the weather would be good enough to continue their trip. As they walked out towards their waiting Fortress, the cloud was low, visibility poor and there was drizzle in the air.
Once airborne, they found the first base on their list, then the second but, as the visibility worsened, the third eluded them. The pilot took the plane lower and lower in his attempt to fly under the cloud base. ‘Hedge-hopping in bad weather has killed hundreds of pilots before and since,’ noted Doolittle, ‘and I had lost many friends who had chosen to stay in visual contact with the ground.’8 Eventually, the pilot was forced to land in a field, side-slipping as he did so and coming to a bumpy halt only yards from a stone wall.
Spaatz clambered down looking slightly shaken by the experience. ‘You were right, Jim,’ he said, turning to Doolittle.9 ‘I see what you mean about uncalculated risks.’
But time was marching on. It was now February. In April, the strategic air forces would be subordinated to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, for operation before D-Day. It was now even more imperative that the threat of the Luftwaffe be removed first. ‘I have reviewed the problem of strategic bombing of our enemies,’ Spaatz wrote to Arnold on 26 January, two days after his dressing down of Doolittle, ‘and the thing that has struck me most is the critical time factor.10 We have very little time in which to finish the job.’
Spaatz’s new position – and his direct access to Eisenhower – outweighed that of both Harris and Trafford Leigh-Mallory. The latter had been, mystifyingly, appointed commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force for OVERLORD. Together with Hap Arnold, Spaatz had been putting pressure on the British for a ne
w directive, which was issued by Air Chief Marshal Portal on 17 February. The overall mission remained the same, but the emphasis was changed for both the USAAF and RAF Bomber Command. ‘Primary objective, the German Air Force,’ it ran.11 ‘Depletion of German Air Force with primary importance upon German fighter force by all means available.’
Portal had agreed to the change mainly because he remained sceptical about the Americans’ ability to achieve the aims of POINTBLANK on their own and because he believed that the time had come for Bomber Command to help in a more comprehensive and direct manner. None the less, this was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Eighth’s growing strength and completely ignored the changes in fighter tactics, the arrival of the long-range Mustangs and the dramatically increasing dominance of the Eighth’s fighter arm. For all Portal’s undoubted skill, intelligence and usually sound judgement, he maintained a big blind spot when it came to long-range fighters.
The net result, though, was his insistence, against Harris’s wishes, that Bomber Command now get directly involved in the ‘depletion’ of the Luftwaffe. On 14 January he had ordered Harris to send his bomber force to Schweinfurt as his first priority target; now, on 17 February, came this new directive. ‘Overall reduction of German air combat strength in its factories, on the ground and in the air’, was the aim, ‘through mutually supporting attacks by both strategic air forces pursued with relentless determination against same target areas or systems so far as tactical conditions allow, in order to create the air situation most propitious for OVERLORD is immediate purpose of Bomber Offensive.’12
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