In a nutshell, this was also the aim of the planned Operation ARGUMENT, for which Spaatz had been waiting to be given the green light since November. All that was needed now was a gap in the weather.
At the beginning of February, Hugh McGinty and his comrades were given leave. They had had a traumatic trip to Frankfurt on 29 January, under attack by an Me109. Bill Rau, the navigator, had been hit, and their oxygen supply shot out. Ernal Bridwell, the pilot, had put the Fortress into a steep dive of some 22,000 feet. McGinty, who had lost his parachute, felt convinced that his time had come, but Bridwell had managed to level them off and Bill Rau succeeded in plotting a course for home before dying in the arms of Matt Nathan from loss of blood. Nathan too was badly wounded in the back and right shoulder.
Incredibly, they had been sent off again the next day, albeit in another ship and with a new navigator and bombardier. It had once more been a tough trip and, although the weather had then kept them grounded for a few days, they had been scheduled to fly again on the 4th. McGinty was struggling and knew he wasn’t alone. ‘The missions were beginning to wear us down and our morale was starting to deteriorate,’ he wrote, yet this latest mission was only their tenth.13 ‘We were starting to feel like twenty-year-olds going on forty.’ Each group had a medical officer, a flight surgeon whose task was, in part, to look out for signs of combat fatigue and give a crew a rest before nerves became too frayed. On 5 February, McGinty and the others were told they were being sent off base for a few days.
Before they headed off, however, they had to bury Bill Rau. It was raining as they were driven out to the new American servicemen’s cemetery at Madingley, on the edge of the university city of Cambridge, and it was still raining as they stood by the grave. Matty Nathan had been given a pass from hospital and they watched as a procession of some thirty caskets was brought out; Bill Rau was not the only one being buried that day.
The following day, McGinty and the others took a train to Blackpool. It continued to rain while they were there and one evening, after getting soaked, he was picked up by a middle-aged woman who insisted he come back to her house to dry off. Still painfully young and innocent, McGinty didn’t realize he was being seduced. After stripping to his underwear, the woman took his clothes to dry, then returned wearing only a dressing gown. Horrified, he quickly made his excuses, grabbed his still-damp clothes and left. It wasn’t the kind of rest he’d been after.
On the days when the Eighth did fly, they were starting to show their growing superiority. On Thursday, 10 February, the targets were split: the 3rd Division sent off 169 B-17s to Brunswick once again, while 81 B-24s of the 2nd Division were scheduled to attack the Luftwaffe air base at Gilze-Rijen in Holland. Accompanying the bombers to Brunswick were 466 fighters, among them Larry Goldstein and the crew of Worry Wart. That Thursday was Goldstein’s twenty-second birthday. From the moment they crossed the French coast it seemed as though enemy fighters were swarming all over them; Goldstein reckoned he had never seen so many. There were plenty of Little Friends too, but the determination with which the German fighters pressed home their attacks shook up Goldstein.
Among them, once again climbing into the fray, was Heinz Knoke, still struggling with severe headaches and not yet fully recovered. He and his Staffel climbed to 25,000 feet above the Rhine and, while over Lake Dümmer, he saw the bombers of Eighth Air Force heading towards them, surrounded by hundreds of fighters. Knoke found it an awe-inspiring spectacle. ‘Against them,’ he noted later, ‘we are forty aircraft.14 Yet even if we were only two, we should still have to engage the enemy.’
Picking up a group of Fortresses on the left flank, he sped towards them for a frontal attack, exactly as Galland had prescribed. Anticipating this, the leading Fortress altered course at the last moment and, unable to adjust in time, Knoke found himself swinging round with the entire Gruppe for a second attack with the forty Messerschmitts in a tight vic formation of three aircraft flying in an arrowhead. He told his pilots over the radio to keep calm and make every shot count. Looking around, he spotted Thunderbolts hovering above. Knoke glanced across at his old friend, Hans Raddatz, now tight off his wingtip; the two had flown together for over a year. Raddatz waved at him and then they closed in upon the enemy. Just as Knoke was about to fire, he saw a flash of light next to him and Raddatz’s plane plummet downwards. Shocked, he continued towards his target, pressing down on the gun button and firing towards the cabin of the Fortress before pulling up and over at the last moment. His bullets and shells had hit their mark, however, as the Fortress reared up on its tail. Other bombers desperately tried to get out of the way as the stricken bomber’s wing dropped and the Fortress began spiralling downwards.
Suddenly Knoke was alone and set upon by eight Mustangs of the 354th Fighter Group. Making a few sharp turns, he managed to get away and then on to the tail of one, but just as he was about to open fire he found himself surrounded by a pack of snapping Thunderbolts. Breaking away, he climbed in a corkscrew, a manoeuvre that had saved him many times before, then dived down for another attack on the American fighters. Again, he made no headway and for half an hour the cat-and-mouse continued until finally Knoke was able to hurtle down and attack another Fortress. Before he could check whether he had hit the bomber, he was attacked by more Thunderbolts.
One of the Mustang pilots that day was Dick Turner of the 354th FG. They had been bounced by a lone Me109 about fifteen minutes after crossing the coast, and Lieutenant George Barris had been hit in the pass and, rolling over, his plane had dived out of sight. Turner had followed the Messerschmitt, diving vertically and catching him at around 10,000 feet as he pulled out of his dive. Drawing close, he opened fire and saw the tracer hitting the cockpit and wing root. The Messerschmitt was yawing wildly as though the pilot had lost all control. Turner hurtled past and climbed back to rejoin the rest, but he never found them, so he circled the bombers, flying patrol around them until it was time to head for home.
Meanwhile, the bombers had hit Brunswick hard and were now making their way back too. Larry Goldstein had never been more relieved than when he finally touched back down. Miraculously, all the crew were safe, although their Fortress looked badly battered. ‘Believe me,’ Goldstein jotted in his diary that evening, ‘I am not ashamed to say that I was scared today and never prayed harder to come through.’15 At least his nineteenth mission had been chalked up.
In Germany, Heinz Knoke landed back down a little over an hour after taking off and learned that Raddatz had not survived. ‘He was the finest of comrades,’ he wrote later.16 ‘I cannot believe that he is in fact no more.’
The following day, the main target was Frankfurt. Dick Turner led his flight on to a group of Messerschmitt 109s and shot down the leader’s wingman, obliterating the pilot and cockpit with a mass of concentrated .50-calibre slugs. Up there again was Heinz Knoke, who was caught up in yet another wild dogfight.
And then the weather closed in again and no further major raids took place for over a week. But at last, on 19 February, the meteorologists were forecasting better weather on its way. By this time, the American air chiefs were so determined to get on with the fight that they were prepared to take significant casualties. They had nearly a thousand bombers, almost as many fighters and a hundred P-51 long-range Mustangs. It would be tough on the crews, very tough, but the time had come to launch Operation ARGUMENT. What was about to unfold over the next seven days was the biggest, most concentrated air battle yet of the war.
It would become known as Big Week.
CHAPTER 19
Saturday, 19 February 1944
SATURDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 1944 dawned dry but cold, with a biting wind and plenty of cloud. At around 8.30 a.m., Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris turned in to the entrance of Bomber Command Headquarters in his Bentley sports saloon and sped towards No. 1 Site, a series of brick offices built in the 1930s. Pulling up outside, he headed straight to his office, which was on the first floor. He was given a folder of signals and memos tha
t had come in overnight and then, after a quick perusal, he got back into his Bentley and drove to the Headquarters Operations Room in a deep underground bunker. It wasn’t far and was easily walkable, but early during the First World War Harris had served as a soldier in Southern Africa and had walked the best part of 500 miles across the Kalahari Desert to fight the Germans. After that he decided to join the Royal Flying Corps instead and vowed never again to walk anywhere unless he had to. Stubborn, bullish and determined, Harris was someone who always knew his own mind.
He went down the steps into the ‘Hole’, as it was known, for ‘High Mass’ – the daily senior staff meeting at which daily operations were planned. His senior staff officers were all there, including Dr Magnus Spence, his Chief Meteorological Officer. The first item on the agenda, as always, was the weather. Spence reported that there would likely be cloud over central Germany, but patchy and unlikely to be a blanket ten-tenths covering. For some days, Harris had been intending to strike Leipzig, a major target on the ARGUMENT list and one that supported the new directive issued two days earlier. This, then, would be the night’s mission.
The city was home to the large ATG Me109 assembly plant at Leipzig–Mockau, as well as two further assembly plants in the area. At Leipzig, ATG had been completing some 130 Me109s a month, but the Allies knew that expansion was planned and that final assembly of Ju88s and Ju188s had also begun there. The attack was scheduled to launch later that afternoon. It was to be a maximum effort. Harris now had around 900 heavy bombers in his command and over 1,000 aircraft of all types. Not all would be fit for flying, but most would, giving him in excess of 800 for the night’s main operation.
Nor was Leipzig to be the only target. Harris had begun introducing new methods to confuse the enemy’s air defence. Nearly fifty aircraft, mostly largely obsolescent Stirlings, would be sent to Kiel on mining operations as a diversion. Twelve Mosquitoes were to go on a light bombing mission to Berlin, while a further sixteen Oboe-carrying Mossies would attack Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields in Holland. A further dozen Mosquitoes were equipped with Serrate radar-detection devices to catch enemy night-fighters and confuse the Luftwaffe’s radar systems. High Mass over, Harris returned to his office with the chain now in motion and orders being sent to group headquarters then to the bomber stations.
At RAF Bomber Command stations around the country the aircrews had already woken and had breakfast. Rusty Waughman tended to get up at about 7.30 a.m. if he had not been flying the previous night and none of them at 101 Squadron had done so for four days since the last trip to Berlin. Since being given a new engineer, the fortunes of Waughman and his crew had improved dramatically. There had been, inevitably, some hairy moments. Over Berlin on 28 January, for example, they had been attacked five times by night-fighters: three times by a single Ju88, once by a FW190 of Herrmann’s Wilde Sau and then again by an aircraft they had been unable to identify. ‘Office holed just behind head!’ Waughman had scribbled in his diary.1 The mid-upper hatch had been blown off so that freezing air had hurtled through the Lancaster for much of the journey home. They’d all nearly frozen to death, but had survived and such experiences had taught them much and helped forge a strong team spirit and camaraderie.
They had all initially been NCOs and so had been able to mess together for the first couple of months. That had now changed, as in early February a decree had required all pilots and navigators to be commissioned. Waughman and Alec Cowan, his navigator, had been presented with cheques for £90 and told to go and buy themselves a new uniform. Given a few days’ leave, Waughman had headed to London to be kitted out. He wasn’t particularly pleased about it, despite the extra pay, because it meant he and Cowan were now in the officers’ mess, which separated them from the rest of the crew. He was still living in a Nissen hut, however, as Ludford Magna had only ever been built as a temporary airfield. ‘It was very primitive.2 The only thing extra you had was a bit of carpet,’ said Waughman. ‘That was the only difference.’
Having showered – in cold water – shaved and dressed, Waughman walked the half mile to the mess hall for breakfast, then across the road, down Fanny Hands Lane, over a small stream and up to the C Flight Office. A glance at the noticeboard told him that night they were due to go on ops. Briefing for pilots and navigators was at 11 a.m. That gave him a couple of hours to head back to his Nissen hut, change his underwear to warmer silk long-johns for night flying, meet up with the crew and head to his Lancaster. There they met the ground crew. Fuelling the aircraft was already under way. Pre-flight checks were carried out and then he clambered on board and revved up the four Merlin engines with his flight engineer.
Back at the Flight Office, he learned that the pre-briefings for pilots and navigators had been pushed back to 5 p.m. instead. Orders were often chopped and changed. Missions could be scrubbed entirely. Getting oneself mentally prepared was made harder by the frequent changes, but Waughman was a phlegmatic fellow and tried, as far as possible, to take such challenges in his stride.
Some 170 miles away to the south at US Strategic Air Force Headquarters in Bushy Park, General Tooey Spaatz was taking direct control of Operation ARGUMENT. This might have been drawn up the previous November by the Combined Operational Planning Committee, but on his arrival as commander of US Strategic Air Forces Spaatz had picked it up and given it a far greater clarity of purpose. While he still believed air power alone could bring about the defeat of Germany, he had accepted that OVERLORD was going to happen and that, from April, his strategic air forces – and those of the RAF – would come under the direct authority of Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander. For now, POINTBLANK remained the priority, but come the spring it would be OVERLORD.
Yet for OVERLORD to be successful, that all-important criterion – air superiority over much of France and northern Europe – remained unchanged. Since the start of the year, Eighth Air Force had been chipping away at the Luftwaffe. Doolittle’s and Kepner’s new fighter tactics were bearing fruit and, with more long-range Mustangs on their way, the time was right for a much more concentrated and sustained assault on the German Air Force. No longer would bombers simply head to a target, drop their bombs and return; the bomber formations would also be used as bait to entice the German fighters into combat with the Allies’ own increasingly large fighter force. Strategic air power had always been about bombers. Now, six months after the first deep-penetration bombing raids, that belief had been cast aside, because it had become widely agreed that even more important than the bombers were the fighters. Fighters piloted by men of superior skill and training. Fighter aircraft that had greater speed and agility than those of the enemy, and in greater numbers. Fighters that had greater endurance too, so that they could maraud deep into Germany, hammering the beleaguered enemy in the air and on the ground and destroying the enemy fighter force.
Spaatz had been embroiled in lengthy discussions with his subordinates but also with Leigh-Mallory, as commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, over priorities and assets. Against the wishes of General Lewis H. Brereton, the Ninth Air Force commander, Spaatz had successfully ensured that P-51s would go to the Eighth, not the Ninth as had been originally – and illogically – agreed. In all, seven of the planned nine Mustang fighter groups would now go to the Eighth.
His next challenge had been to gain the support of the Ninth for his drive to defeat the Luftwaffe. At this, Leigh-Mallory had baulked, because he did not want his air forces consumed into a bigger strategic air battle over which he no longer had complete control. Until April, however, Spaatz wanted a concentrated and focused effort, and on 4 February, at a joint meeting with his commanders and also Leigh-Mallory and senior staff of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, Spaatz pressed for a resolution. The Ninth, he told them, had a vital role in carrying out diversionary raids and strikes on Luftwaffe airfields in Holland. What’s more, the Ninth’s medium bombers and fighters had a key part to play in confusing the Luftwaffe’s early-warning system. Spaatz also want
ed the medium bombers of the Ninth to push beyond their 350-mile limit. If that meant operating without fighter escorts on occasion, then that was a risk they should be prepared to take. Spaatz was prepared for both Eighth and Ninth Air Forces to suffer casualties – even heavy losses – if that was what it took to grind down the Luftwaffe in bloody attrition. The pain now, he sincerely believed, would be more than worth the gain.
Still Leigh-Mallory prevaricated and appealed to Portal, as did Spaatz. The British Chief of the Air Staff, however, sided – rightly – with Spaatz and Arnold, who had also waded in, and on 15 February Leigh-Mallory had been brought to heel. On direct orders from Portal, both the Ninth and the newly formed Second Tactical Air Force were now instructed to give priority support to the Eighth’s operations above all other. With Leigh-Mallory brought into line, Spaatz only now needed to persuade Brereton, who resented the idea of being subordinate to the Eighth in any way.
Finally, earlier this same day, Saturday, 19 February, Spaatz met with Brereton, Doolittle and Anderson of VIII Bomber Command. And, admittedly under some duress, Brereton reluctantly accepted that the Ninth’s IX Fighter Command would inform Kepner’s headquarters of their daily availability and would accept the Eighth’s daily ‘primary’ field orders. In other words, in all respects the Ninth’s fighter force now had to supply direct support to the Eighth’s efforts. Without the creation of Spaatz’s new command and authority, pushed through with such vigor by Arnold, this level of cooperation would not have happened.
The final settlement of the Ninth’s role had been concluded with serendipitous timing, for at around 3.30 p.m. the weathermen at Spaatz’s headquarters, the central meteorological agency through which all forecasting was coordinated for the American air forces in England, reported that the weather looked to be improving at long last. They thought it likely that the pressure over the Baltic would move south-east across Europe with the resulting winds forcing the cloud to clear or, at worst, leaving scattered cloud. For Spaatz, that was good enough. ARGUMENT was on, and over the next few days, by both night and day, the RAF and USAAF intended to pummel the Luftwaffe with intense round-the-clock air operations the like of which had never yet been seen. Alerts were sent out to the bases of the Eighth and Ninth.
Big Week Page 30