The reason so few targets were being hit was that night bombers were coming over only in very small numbers, often even singly. Sophisticated navigational aids significantly helped a bomber get to roughly the right neck of the woods but it was still very difficult to drop bombs accurately. Hajo Herrmann’s bombs meant for the Vickers works were very close – but they were still between 50 and 500 yards off their marker. One of the most effective attacks had been by a lone Junkers 88 on Middle Wallop on 14 August, because it had dropped its bombs from a very low height. Moments later, however, it had been shot down. Therein lay the crux of the problem: accurate bombing was extremely risky.
What all this showed was that precision bombing was not really possible. If the Luftwaffe wanted ‘bombs on England’ to make an impact, it needed to forget its obsession with precision bombing and send over massed formations instead, at night when the fighters were not around, and carpet-bomb whatever target it was going for with as many bombs as it could possibly drop. If it dropped enough, some would inevitably hit their mark. Then Knickebein and X-Gerät would prove their worth.
Of course, had Göring really wanted someone to blame, he could have first pointed the finger at his own General Staff, and then turned on his intelligence men, particularly Oberst Beppo Schmid. Not only had Beppo given him a completely false picture of RAF strength, but he had led the Luftwaffe commanders to expend invaluable numbers of men, aircraft and bombs on targets that made no impact on Fighter Command’s ability to function. On 18 August, the four principal targets had been Croydon, Thorney Island, Ford and Poling. Croydon was justified as it was a fighter airfield in 11 Group, albeit not a sector station. Thorney Island, on the other hand, was Coastal Command, while Ford was Fleet Air Arm. Poling was an RDF station and was knocked out, although emergency mobile radar was installed later that day. Of the twenty-one biggest attacks on airfields and RDF stations since 13 August, nine, or just over 40 per cent, were nothing to do with Fighter Command. It is not entirely clear whether Schmid and the Luftwaffe High Command were aware they were frequently hitting non-fighter airfields, or whether they were consciously going for bomber and naval airfields as well as part of their attempt to destroy the RAF as a whole. However, at Göring’s conference on 21 July, he had made it clear that the RAF’s fighters were to be destroyed first before attacks on ‘bomber formations’ could begin. Whatever the truth, it was still a mistake.
The Reichsmarschall had hoped that a pep talk, combined with the appointment of some younger fighter commanders, and closer cooperation between fighter and bomber units – he demanded more telephones for his commanders – would give his Luftwaffe the impetus to now finish the job. ‘We have reached the decisive period of the air war against England,’ he told his assembled commanders. ‘The vital task is to turn all means at our disposal to the defeat of the enemy Air Force.’ Sadly for the Luftwaffe, however, Göring’s new instructions would not give them that chance. Not yet, at any rate.
One person keenly aware of how effective massed German night bombing might be was Dr Reginald ‘RV’ Jones, the scientific adviser at Air Intelligence. Since his breakthrough with the German Knickebein beams, RV had learned much more about German use of radio technology. Decrypts of Enigma signals had alerted him to an instrument called ‘Wotan’. RV had immediately turned to his friend, Frederick ‘Bimbo’ Norman, a professor of German literature, who told him Wotan was the king of the old German Gods and had only one eye. ‘One eye – one beam!’ Bimbo had suggested excitedly down the telephone to RV. ‘Can you think of a system that would use only one beam?’
He could, and explained how. A plane could fly along a beam pointing over a target, and then something like a radar station could be placed alongside the beam transmitter, so that the distance of the bomber could be continually measured from the starting point of the beam. When it reached the target, the crew could be told. Soon after, RV discovered an apparatus called ‘Freya’. Having bought a book on Norse mythology from Foyle’s bookshop and bringing into the frame what he already knew, RV concluded that ‘Freya’ was most likely a form of mobile radar. Once again, he was bang on the money.
Further documents recovered from downed German bombers suggested that a new Knickebein beam was being installed at Cherbourg and that KG 54 would soon be using it for operations to Liverpool. At the same time, RV had begun bombing surveys to record the pattern of German bombing, and suggested Liverpool and Birmingham for particularly careful observation. Meanwhile, the RAF’s 80 Wing under Wing Commander Addison, working with the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Worth Matravers in Dorset, had begun working on Knickebein counter-measures as suggested by RV. The first solution was to ‘jam’ the beams by transmitting a ‘mush’ of noise on the Knickebein frequencies. A more subtle solution, however, came in the form of transmitted ‘dashes’ that sounded very like the genuine Knickebein dash created when the two beams intersected. The idea was that the bomber crew listening to it would think they had reached the target earlier than was the reality, so would drop their bombs, it was hoped, before they actually got to it. Since Knickebein beams had been coded ‘Headaches’, this new system was given the codename ‘Aspirin’.
By the end of August, both the jamming and Aspirin systems had been tried and tested. RV had always felt it was only a matter of time before the Luftwaffe turned to massed night bombing, but was confident now that in the absence of effective night-fighters the RAF at least had some counter-measures in place.
On the night of 24/25 August, several German bombers, aiming for the aircraft factory at Rochester, mistook the Thames for the Medway, and instead flew over London and dropped their bombs, which exploded in Milwall, Tottenham and Islington. Although completely unintentional, it was still strictly verboten to drop bombs over central London, as decreed by both Hitler and Göring. The bombs were not numerous and did not cause huge amounts of damage, but the following morning Churchill and the War Cabinet were all anxious to retaliate and ordered Bomber Command to send aircraft to attack Berlin the next night.
When Tommy Elmhirst, at Air Intelligence at the Air Ministry, heard of this plan, he immediately thought a terrible mistake was being made. At present, Luftwaffe raids on airfields had not caused any serious problems for Fighter Command and he was inclined to encourage them to continue. Any full-scale attack on Berlin was bound to bring retaliatory raids on London, which he thought might prove disastrous. He told his fears to the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, who, convinced Tommy was right, then put his case to the Prime Minister. Churchill, however, was not to be swayed. The attack was to go ahead.
Bomber Command had sent rather more bombers over Germany at night than the Luftwaffe had sent over Britain over the past couple of months. Bombs had continued to be splayed fairly loose and free but occasionally the crews had had triumphant successes, not least when they managed to block the Dortmund–Ems Canal on the night of 12/13 August. Ten days later the canal was still blocked, a major inconvenience.
The first assault on Berlin, however, was something of a damp squib. Around fifty bombers were sent to the German capital, which was swathed in cloud when they got there. Only a handful of bombs actually fell within the city, destroying a wooden summer-house and wounding one person. On the way back, having encountered heavy winds, the Hampdens, absolutely at the limits of their range, struggled to get back. Three were lost and three more fell into the sea on their return leg.
The bombers were sent there again on the night of 28/29 August, and this time some Wellingtons were included. Amongst those on this epic bombing raid were Andrew Jackson and his crew. ‘Berlin,’ says Andrew, ‘was a hell of a long way.’ At that stage, each bomber was still heading off, independently from the rest of the squadron or other bombers that were flying that night. ‘You could go on your own, in your own times,’ says Andrew. ‘There was no restriction at all – the height you bombed at, for example, you chose that yourself.’
They were given little guidance about how best t
o get there because apart from a few Hampdens, no-one had flown the route yet, and not from their base or in a Wellington. Andrew and the pilot got together beforehand and plotted the route. The only major city on the way was Hanover, so they needed to avoid the flak defences around it, but otherwise they decided to head pretty much due east.
Because of the distance and because Berlin was at the extreme range of the Wellington as well as the Hampden, they flew first from Marham to Norwich, where they refuelled. Andrew always liked to have a last cigarette and a pee against the tail-wheel before clambering aboard; these rituals had quickly become an important part of any mission routine. Once aboard and rolling around the perimeter towards the runway, he felt a tightening in his stomach, but no intense fear, despite the importance of the mission and the distance they needed to cover. They took off again at 9.25 p.m., and once airborne there was much for Andrew to think about – it was his task to get them there and over their target then safely home again. It was a big responsibility and he could not afford to switch off for a minute.
To further conserve fuel, they began a very gentle climb over the North Sea, which that evening was covered with low cloud. Much to their annoyance, however, they were shot at by anti-aircraft fire from their own ships below. Fortunately, they were not hit.
During the long flight, they met both searchlights and flak, but over Berlin they encountered little of either. There was little cloud over the city and they could see it clearly, lying spread out beneath them. ‘It was quite something to think you were flying over the capital of Germany,’ says Andrew. ‘Quite thrilling really.’ They had been given a choice of two targets, either marshalling yards in the centre of the city or the Siemens factory where Hilda Müller worked. Having spotted the former, Andrew made his calculations, they dropped their bombs, and then they turned for home.
They landed back down at five past eight the following morning, having been flying for ten hours and forty minutes. Stiff and tired, they were immediately filmed by Movietone News, who were anxious to capture the first men to properly bomb the centre of Berlin. ‘I suppose it helped destroy the myth of German invincibility,’ says Andrew. ‘And I guess it caused considerable anger to Hitler and Göring.’
Twelve people were killed in the attacks and twenty-nine wounded, and some damage was caused. William Shirer thought that Berliners were more affected by the fact that British planes had penetrated the city centre than they were about the casualties. ‘For the first time,’ he noted, ‘the war has been brought home to them.’ No doubt Dolfo Galland would have thought that no bad thing.
Hilda Müller was one of thousands who went over to Charlottenburg to see the bomb craters near the S-Bahn train station; Andrew and his fellow observers’ bombs had not been so very wide of the mark. ‘Everyone went to see,’ says Hilda, ‘and after that, there were gunners on the Siemens roof.’
Under Goebbels’s direction, the German press denounced the ‘cowardly’ British attack. ‘One paper achieves a nice degree of hysteria,’ added William Shirer, ‘it says the RAF has been ordered “to massacre the population of Berlin.”’ One of the first reactions to the bombs was for Hitler to order the construction of several flak towers – vast concrete and steel buildings housing a formidable array of anti-aircraft guns and with enough room beneath to shelter up to 18,000 people. And Flakturm 1 was to be built by Berlin Zoo, at the very heart of the city.
A number of British bombers flew over again two nights later, and Andrew Jackson was amongst the crews involved. This time they targeted the airfield of Tempelhof. In the big scheme of things, the damage was not great, but it proved an important point. Berlin was far from impregnable, and it reminded Germans that the war was not over after all. The idyll of the victory summer had been shattered, while Hitler and the Nazi elite had received an embarrassing slap in the face. And no-one, either in London or Berlin, expected them to turn the other cheek.
41
Tactics and Technicalities
WHILE THE LARGER bombers continued to fly nightly over Germany and even Italy, the Blenheims continued with their daily missions to hit German airfields and shipping all along the French and Dutch coasts. On 23 August, for example, nineteen Blenheims went over, the usual number employed. They all went off individually, unescorted, doing their own thing. Only one was shot down that day, by flak gunners at Guines near Calais, as it tried to bomb JG 52’s airfield.
As the Blenheim crews were discovering to their great cost, it was hard to get the balance right. With the benefit of daylight it was obviously far easier to find and hit a target, but it was also suicidally dangerous. The losses in the Blenheim squadrons were appalling; it was why Arthur Hughes was occasionally struck by moments of deep despair. Debate about tactics raged endlessly, however. At the beginning of August, some Blenheims of 101 Squadron carried out some high-level raids at 20,000 feet which had reportedly been quite successful. They had also been experimenting with two aircraft. They would take off at the same time, one would climb to 20,000 while the other cruised at fifty feet, so it arrived at the target twenty to thirty minutes earlier. Approaching low, the aircraft would then climb to 700 feet, release its bombs and make off until the excitement had calmed down, then return to assess the damage. In the meantime, the second, high-level Blenheim would come over and ‘lay his eggs’. ‘It sounds all right in theory,’ jotted Arthur, ‘but against the sort of flak defence the Jerries have, and their almost instantaneous response, I doubt whether an aircraft climbing from 50 to 700 feet at relatively low speed would stand an earthly.’
Soon after this debate, a rumour reached 18 Squadron that it would soon be switched to night bombing. This was surely more sensible. ‘Night ops,’ pointed out Arthur, ‘in good weather are seemingly less dangerous than daylight hit-and-run and perhaps more effective. At least it will keep the blighters awake.’ By the third week of August, they had made this switch over to night operations, and on their first trip bombed Cap Gris Nez and the German fighter airfields of Guines, Caffiers and Coquelles amongst others. Arthur, however, was unable to find his targets, first because of low cloud, and then, when that cleared, because of high cloud hiding the moon. At least for a change, no-one was hit.
Such tactical debate underlined just how new this type of warfare was. Both sides were feeling their way. Necessity is the mother of invention and onboard radar and increasingly sophisticated bombsights were being developed, but they were not in widespread use in the summer of 1940. It was perhaps odd, though, that Göring, a former fighter pilot, should have been such a proponent of Douhet and the theory that the bomber is the principal tool in air warfare, especially when he had such a fine fighter force at his disposal.
As it was, by the latter end of August, many of the fighter units were beginning to feel decidedly underappreciated and frustrated at being made to operate with what they instinctively knew were the wrong tactics. At the smaller tactical level, the German fighter pilots had, with the pairs system and finger-four, developed a combat formation that has been used by air forces around the world ever since. Culturally, Luftwaffe pilots were also more open to discussion and debate than their British counterparts, who, after a hard day’s fighting, tended to head to the mess or pub, where talking shop was not really on the agenda. Hajo Herrmann, for example, used to regularly write up papers on his theories of how bombing should be conducted, and, although he would not deny himself the odd glass of wine, spent most of his evenings in contemplative study. In I/JG 52, there was also much tactical discussion amongst the pilots. After supper, usually eaten in and around their bell-tents, they would then sit and talk, albeit with some of the wine retrieved from Calais harbour to loosen the throat. ‘All of the pilots, NCOs and officers would gather,’ noted Ulrich Steinhilper, ‘and lively discussions would usually ensue. These were generally toned by the events of the day; losses would quieten us down and bring a mood of introspection, whereas success would bring with it a surplus of energy and excitement.’
The
y were all angry about the new rules with regard to bomber escort. Ulrich believed, rightly, that the Me 109s should try and destroy the RAF fighters not only in the air but also on the ground. On 19 August, his Staffel had carried out a ground attack on Manston. His heart had been hammering in his chest, but as he had pushed down the nose of his aircraft and sped towards the airfield, he had calmed down. Spotting a fuel bowser refuelling a Spitfire, he opened fire and it exploded destroying two Spitfires in the process. It made him realize how much power he had with his cannons and machine guns and how effective a low-level attack such as that could be, especially when they were streaming across at 300 mph, making themselves very difficult targets for the British flak gunners. He firmly believed that fighters should be used in a ‘free hunt’ mode at all times. ‘I predicted that if we were to continue as we were,’ he wrote, ‘the losses would end up being higher because, slowly but surely, we were losing our pilots in a long drawn-out battle of attrition.’ It was not so very different from the debate between the mobile-armour progressives and the conservatives before the campaign in the west. Guderian and his fellows had been right then as the fighter pilots were right now. An attritional war of any kind, whether on land or in the air, was bad news for Germany, even now with her improved resources. And what must have made these flying restrictions even more frustrating was that in the Me 109E the Luftwaffe had the best fighter in the world in the summer of 1940.
The Battle of Britain Page 61