Some P-38 Lightnings joined in too and Knoke had one in his sights. He fired as tracers hurtled over his canopy. Ducking instinctively, he looked up to see his hits on the Lightning. ‘Good shooting!’ he told himself, then pulled up in a steep corkscrew climb to grab a brief moment’s breathing space. His friend Wenneckers pulled alongside and gestured towards four Lightnings below them. A dip of the left wingtip and then they were both diving down on them, the P-38s glistening in the sunlight. Knoke opened fire but was travelling too fast and overshot, only to discover a Lightning now on his tail in turn. He pushed the stick forward and over to his left and made a spiral dive to safety. His Messerschmitt screamed as he rapidly lost thousands of feet and he could feel the entire aircraft juddering and his ears popped with the rapid shift in air pressure. Rivets sprang free from the airframe and now he was throttling back and slowly but surely levelling out once more. He felt his chin forced into his chest and his vision black out. Then it cleared as a burning Lightning passed him, heading straight for the deck. Behind was Wenneckers.
‘Congratulations,’ said Knoke over the radio as his friend pulled up alongside.
‘The bastard was after your hide,’ Wenneckers replied.
They now headed for home where, much to Knoke’s relief, they saw the others also coming in to land. ‘This is one day we all come back,’ he noted.
Meanwhile, Larry Goldstein and crew were having a fairly easy run. It was amazing how a target could prove to be a mission from hell on one occasion yet be a comparative piece of cake another time. The clear weather made a huge difference, as Hugh McGinty had discovered the previous day, and when the fighters turned up on cue, life was a lot easier on board the bombers. Goldstein and the crew of Worry Wart reached Regensburg without too much trouble, and dropped their bombs with the bombardier, Lieutenant Keith – whose last mission this was – able to see the target clearly and bomb accurately as a result. They all felt they had done a good job – in sharp contrast to the last mission. The flak grew progressively heavier and Goldstein ‘sweated it out a bit’ but once more they emerged unscathed.
Soon after, crews began landing back down at bases all over East Anglia and the English Midlands. And once again Wright’s crew was one of them, making it back to Tibenham in one piece. The lead ship with Jimmy Stewart on board landed, but then broke in two at the nose-wheel compartment at the end of the runway; Wright, following in behind, had to take evasive action to avoid a collision. As soon as they came to a halt, Robinson leaped down from the waist window and ran to the broken plane. ‘The tail of the ship was sticking up in the air and the nose was sticking up in the front,’ he wrote.18 ‘Just in front of the wing at the flight deck the airplane had cracked open like an egg.’
Jimmy Stewart stood by the edge of the left wing looking unperturbed. ‘Sergeant,’ he said as Robinson approached him, ‘somebody sure could get hurt in one of those damned things.’19 Not a man on board had been seriously hurt – a miraculous escape.
Before heading to the debrief, Robinson and the rest of the Wright crew checked over their own ship as others came in to land on the secondary runways. ‘There were flak holes everywhere you looked,’ he noted.20 ‘I didn’t try to count them for I really didn’t care any more. It looked like an axe maniac had been chopping it.’ As he waited for the truck to pick them up, he was thankful to have completed his twelfth mission, then realized he wasn’t even halfway through his tour.
On the other hand, Larry Goldstein was now within touching distance of completing his. Hugely relieved to get back to Knettishall in one piece, he was none the less utterly exhausted. He now had just two missions left, although freedom still seemed a long way off. ‘These past few missions have been long, deep penetrations into the heart of Germany,’ he mused in his diary that evening.21 ‘Certainly could use a day off. As we say here, “23 Missions and no rest home yet!”’
Operation ARGUMENT was not finished yet, however, as that night RAF Bomber Command sent out 594 aircraft to Augsburg, for the first time in almost two years. The previous occasion had seen twelve new Lancasters set out on a low-level daylight operation that had been decimated; just five had made it home from the Augsburg raid of April 1942.
Once again, Ken Handley and his crew were on the list and took off at just after 9 p.m. on what was a refreshingly clear evening. However, no sooner had they got airborne than their intercom began acting up. The noise of the four engines was immense and clear communications between the crew absolutely essential. Flying Sergeant Max Pointon, the wireless operator, did his best to rectify the situation but was unable to get it to work and so, after dropping their bombs in the sea, they had no choice but to return to base. On landing, they discovered an oil leak in the cooler on the inner starboard, which could have caused all sorts of problems had they continued. ‘Perhaps it was just as well we didn’t go,’ noted Handley.22 ‘Better to play safe for the benefit of all concerned.’
Handley and his crew might have never reached Augsburg, but most of the force did, once again split into two separate streams. However ill-fated the last raid had been, this operation on what was to prove the last night of ARGUMENT was an outstanding success. The sky was clear, the markings of the Pathfinders accurate, the exhausted night-fighters few and the flak light. The heart of the old town was utterly ruined. A staggering 2,920 buildings were destroyed, another 5,000 badly damaged and as many as 90,000 people bombed out. There were 246 large and medium-sized fires and over 800 smaller ones. Some 760 people were killed and 2,500 injured. The Messerschmitt component factory was severely damaged, as were a number of buildings belonging to the MAN diesel plant. German news described this attack on the once beautiful medieval town as the latest example of ‘terror’ bombing.
Postscript
ON SATURDAY, 26 February, the weather closed in once more and stayed that way for the rest of the month. Operation ARGUMENT was over. That this mighty week of aerial battle had ever had an official operational name would very soon be forgotten. It would come to be known simply as ‘Big Week’. The week’s effort prompted yet more excitement in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Stars & Stripes pointed out that the Eighth Air Force alone had dropped more bombs in six days than it had over the course of its first year of operations. ‘Since Jan. 1,’ claimed an Eighth Air Force spokesman, ‘strategic bombing of Germany by British and American forces has reduced the German two-engine fighter production by 80 per cent, single-engine fighter production by 60 per cent, and in addition, 25 per cent of bomber production has been destroyed.1 We believe we have fighter production down to the point where the Nazis can’t keep up with the losses,’ the spokesman continued. ‘We can’t help but feel that Germany has lost her last hope of maintaining a successful defense.’
On this last point, the spokesperson was quite right, although he was wrong about the detail, because it was not so much the damage to the aircraft factories that really set the Luftwaffe back but more the catastrophic losses to their existing fighter defence. None the less, the damage caused on the ground through the week’s bombing had been considerable. In all, some 70 per cent of the aircraft factory buildings targeted were destroyed. In Leipzig and the Messerschmitt works in southern Germany, around seven hundred Me109s had to be written off. Feldmarschall Erhard Milch’s own survey showed that all night-fighter production of new types equipped with the latest Lichtenstein SN2 radar had been completely wiped out. Production of Ju88s was also halved by the attacks. Milch reported that production for March could be expected to be only 30–40 per cent of February’s figures. The damage caused at Augsburg, Regensburg and Prüfening set back the entry of the Me262 jet, for which Galland and others had had such high hopes. Göring’s response to this crisis was to head off on leave for three weeks – which actually, considering how useless he had been in recent months, was probably just as well.
And there was no denying the scale of the operation or that it had severely stretched the German defences. In total, some 3,300 bomber
s from the Eighth, over 500 from the Fifteenth Air Force and some 2,750 from Bomber Command had attacked the main German aircraft industry targets outlined in POINTBLANK. Together, they had dropped some 22,000 tons – 4,000 tons more than had been dropped on London by the Luftwaffe during the entire eight-month Blitz. The Americans lost 266 bombers in all, amounting to 2,600 aircrew, while the RAF lost 157 bombers and just over 1,000 aircrew killed, wounded or taken prisoner – a lot, undeniably, but still a small number compared with losses on the ground in Italy already that year and even better when considering that Spaatz and Anderson had been prepared to lose up to 200 bombers per day. Bomber Command’s losses were 6.6 per cent and the Americans’ 6 per cent, which rather put paid to Harris’s arguments that massed bombing by night was the only way to go. The Americans had proved, conclusively, the value of bombing by day, but, more importantly, had demonstrated the ascendancy of the American fighter, and in this clash of arms the real weight of the victory should be judged. During Big Week, the Americans lost just 28 fighters, the Germans lost over 500: a ratio of 18:1.
The press departments of the USAAF and of both the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces did over-egg the damage caused to German industry, and historians ever since have not tired of pointing out that the Luftwaffe’s aircraft production recovered soon enough. Many of the machine tools were salvaged and made to work again. In March, German factories would still produce an impressive 2,672 planes, and by July that had risen to a staggering 4,219. However, the gap between actual and planned production was still wide: there was a discrepancy of 1,103 aircraft in February, of almost 800 in April and still over 1,000 by June. The shortfall in the all-important production of Me109s and FW190s was 38.5 per cent in February. Big Week prompted yet another urgent reorganization of Luftwaffe production. Dispersal continued, often to new factories that had been built at vast cost and resources into the sides of mountains, while actual control was handed over from Milch to the Reich Armaments Minister, Albert Speer. Dispersal also required more manpower and a greater strain on the already bursting-at-the-seams Reichsbahn, the German railway network; it was a colossal inconvenience to the Germans at a time when they were also increasingly under pressure in all departments of their war effort.
The most marked impact of Big Week was unquestionably, however, the Luftwaffe’s loss of aircraft and particularly pilots. The German Air Force had been struggling before Big Week, but the intensity of the air fighting had rammed a number of nails into its coffin. The loss of Heinz Knoke’s wingman over Hamelin was symbolic of the terrible decline in which its fighter pilots found themselves. New pilots were lambs to the slaughter, arriving at their front-line squadrons with, on average, around 110 hours and often only 10–15 hours on front-line aircraft. That was simply nothing like enough before being flung into battle against a vastly superior enemy. Many never even made it that far; the number of accidents in training was extraordinarily high. On the other hand, the attrition on the old hands also took its toll. Somehow, Heinz Knoke seemed to get up again every time he was knocked down, but few had his apparent ability to defy death. In February 1944, total Luftwaffe losses of all types were 2,605 aircraft, of which 1,277 were to enemy action and, incredibly, 1,328 were to accidents and other causes. About 80 per cent of those were in the west. Actual – as opposed to on paper – monthly strength for February was, on average, 1,767, of which 62.7 per cent were lost and damaged. Such losses were utterly unsustainable and, inevitably, the numbers of experienced pilots were to be further chipped away while the number of new pilots, with ever decreasing amounts of training, would grow. In 1941 and 1942, German fighter pilots like Günther Rall and Bibi Hartmann had amassed huge personal scores on the Eastern Front because they were attacking inexperienced pilots of lesser skill who were flying inferior aircraft. By the end of Big Week, American pilots with greater skill and experience, flying superior aircraft, were now starting to slaughter increasing numbers of Luftwaffe pilots. How the tide had turned.
In early March, the Eighth Air Force turned on Berlin, with the 4th Fighter Group, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Don Blakeslee, among the hundred or so Mustangs escorting the bombers. Important aircraft component works were sited in and around the city and the psychological effect of sending fighter planes and bombers all the way to the capital of the Third Reich and back in broad daylight was significant. The raids also aimed to draw the German fighters up in a desperate act of defiance; from now on, bomber raids were no longer plotted to avoid enemy fighters but in the hope of running into them. The first two raids, on 3 and 4 March, were blighted by weather and were failures, but the next two, on 6 and 8 March, were more successful. The Luftwaffe managed only 200 fighters against 801 American fighters on the 6th and lost 66 aircraft and 34 pilots killed. American losses were heavy too – 69 bombers and 11 fighters. On the 8th, only 37 US bombers and 18 of the 861 escorting fighters were lost, while the Luftwaffe suffered 87 destroyed in the air and on the ground.
The weather then closed in once again, but whenever the Americans did strike, they did so with increasing numbers of fighter escorts and also rising numbers of Mustangs, as more and more fighter groups were being converted from Thunderbolts to this powerful new aircraft. An argument can be made that, in terms of decisive impact, the P-51 Mustang was the most important aircraft ever built. For its range, manoeuvrability and all-round performance, it must surely rank as the finest fighter aircraft of the entire war – and in a conflict that has been unrivalled in terms of the importance and scale of air power. The P-51B was excellent, but the next generation, the P-51D, arriving later that spring, was even better, with its bubble canopy, superb all-round vision and six.50-calibre machine guns.
During the crisis in the autumn of 1943, it had become increasingly obvious that fighters held the key to the Allies winning air superiority over western Europe before D-Day – fighters superior to those of the enemy, in larger numbers and with longer range, flown by pilots of greater skill and more experience, with superior tactics than their opponents. Although the Mustang first flew in December 1943, not until Big Week did those six categories of superiority so manifestly prove themselves. ‘In numbers as well as in technical performance,’ wrote General Beppo Schmid after Big Week, ‘the daytime fighter units assigned to German air defence activity are inferior to the American fighter aircraft forces.’2 It was clear, he added, they were now fighting a hopeless battle they could not hope to win.
Over the weeks and months that followed, the German daylight fighter force continued to be worn down. Increasingly, they did not even bother to rise up to meet the enemy formations. When they did, they were hammered. On 16 March, for example, the 4th FG slaughtered the Me110s of ZG 76 – Zerstörergeschwader, or heavy destroyer wing, 76 – shooting down 21 of its 43 aircraft over Arnsberg. The American fighter pilots also increasingly started shooting up anything that moved on the ground, as well as parked aircraft, in part to grind down the Luftwaffe even more but also to remind any German civilian who saw them of their utter superiority and the increasing weakness of the home defence. By 31 May 1944, just a week before D-Day, the combined actual strength of the Luftwaffe’s day- and night-fighter force was 2,686. Against them were 16,956 Allied bombers and 25,416 fighters. The Luftwaffe would limp on, the Me262 would eventually appear over the skies and aerial battles would continue until the war’s end, but air superiority had been emphatically gained.
In April, the formal transfer of control of the strategic air forces to General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander for the planned invasion, took place. The Ninth Air Force had already begun supporting specific pre-invasion tasks by the end of March, although Eisenhower did not send Spaatz a formal directive until 17 April, and even then his priority remained the ‘destruction of German air combat strength’.3
For Harris and Bomber Command, the so-called ‘Battle of Berlin’ finally ended on 30/31 March, not with an attack on the German capital, but with a disastrous raid on Nuremberg in which ninety-five bombers w
ere lost. ‘Wholesale slaughter,’ noted Rusty Waughman in his diary.4 He reckoned he had seen at least sixteen bombers go down as the Lancasters and Halifaxes were mauled by German night-fighters. ‘All of us were pretty tired and shaken!’ he noted, although adding with phlegmatic understatement, ‘Nevertheless, we must press on regardless!!!’ It was Waughman’s twelfth completed mission. Bill Byers had also been on that trip, but had been fortunate enough to develop engine failure early on and so returned home. Ken Handley and crew had, however, endured the entire mission and, despite dodging rockets, fighter stalks and flak, had somehow made it back in one piece. ‘Awe-inspiring at times,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘and most certainly frightening and tense.’5 Nuremberg would prove to be the costliest mission of the entire war for Bomber Command.
Nuremberg confirmed what was already crystal clear: that Harris’s vision of massed bombing was not going to bring about the sudden and wholesale collapse of the Third Reich. A total of 1,047 bombers had been lost since the start of the battle on 18 November and, although his command had more bombers now than he had had then, such losses were unacceptable, particularly since they were not proving as decisive as he had hoped. Rescue was at hand, however, because now Bomber Command could get involved in the preparations for OVERLORD, and specifically the ‘Transportation Plan’.
While Leigh-Mallory’s Ninth and 2nd Tactical Air Forces would carry out an interdiction policy, hitting bridges and railway lines all across France and western Europe, the strategic air forces were to target larger railway centres, marshalling yards and depots. It was estimated that the Germans used as much as two-thirds of western Europe’s railway capacity entirely for military matters; without it and the Reichsbahn the Nazi war effort would largely grind to a halt. Inevitably, Harris was deeply opposed to playing lackey to someone else’s plan or to any diversion from his main stated aim of pulverizing German cities; however, his command was well equipped to support the Transportation Plan, not least because Bomber Command was becoming increasingly accurate. Allied air power was rapidly developing in all areas. Bomber Command had adopted area bombing in the first place because it was unable to attack with precision by night; the Americans had adopted daytime bombing to be more ‘precise’, but now, thanks to improved navigational aids, experience and tactics, the night bombers of Bomber Command were proving more accurate than those operating by day. Churchill also had grave concerns about the Transportation Plan, fearing it would cause huge loss of life of the very people they were about to try to liberate, but in the end Eisenhower held sway and Bomber Command proved more than up to the task, attacking their targets with accuracy, success and surprisingly little loss of life.
Big Week Page 40