by Dan Hampton
However, Allied strategic planners rightly concluded that without oil and logistical transport capabilities, then the tanks and planes would eventually pile up in depots—and they did. By the spring of 1944 there were other competing priorities: invasion targets and the wonder weapons. Infrastructure, namely bridges, rolling stock, and canals, was pulverized. This made even limited resupply efforts tenuous at best and prevented rapid German counterattacks following the Allied invasion of June 1944. Railways, namely bridges and marshalling yards, were primary objectives and over 100 such targets were identified in the Low Countries and France.
The Germans had made good use of rolling stock from the defeated continental nations since they shared a common narrow gauge (4' 8½") rail, and like the Deutsche Reichsban, all the French, Dutch, and Belgian locomotives ran on coal, which was one resource Germany possessed in abundance.* So much so, that early jet fuel was made from a lignite derivative. Locomotives were especially lucrative targets because without them nothing would move, so hundreds of them were destroyed by roaming Allied fighters. By D-day on June 6, 1944, it was reckoned that the entire French transportation system, essential for German combat operations, was operating at less than 60 percent of capacity, and the risk of effective German counterattack was greatly lessened. Albert Speer, Hitler’s armament’s minister, later wrote that the bombing campaign “meant the end of German armaments production” and he estimated 98 percent of the Reich’s oil production capacity had been lost by July 1944.
Bombing did not have that catastrophic effect on other facets of the Reich economy, but—and this is a vital and oft-overlooked point—the bombings, by necessity, did force a reaction from the Germans. Paralyzed by aerial assaults and now beset on all sides, the remaining realists in the Reich were aware that the war could not be conventionally concluded with satisfactory terms. In light of all this, July saw the Jägernotprogramm, the Emergency Fighter Program, revealed. Aircraft production, and what resources remained, were to be focused on defensive interceptors to stop, or at least slow, the Allied bombing campaign.
Luftwaffe generals, Adolf Galland among them, opposed the program as a waste of what few resources Germany possessed, and as not viable in the presence of such overwhelming Allied air superiority. Overruled by Hermann Göring and Hitler, over forty different ramjet, turbojet, and rocket interceptor designs were created between July 1944 and the spring of 1945, one of these being Bachem’s Natter. Simple, inexpensive construction was normal for most of these programs and, as with the Japanese strategy, these were aircraft that could be flown by minimally trained, fanatical youngsters. Human life, it seemed, was cheap in defense of the Reich. Interestingly, all five of the final designs from Messerschmitt, Heinkel, Blohm &Voss, Junkers, and Focke-Wulf incorporated swept wings, the practical value of which had yet to be fully realized by the British or Americans.
Allied bombings during the winter of 1944 forced nearly thirty primary aircraft plants to disperse into 700 smaller factories, with engine and parts manufacturers doing the same. For a nation dreadfully short of resources this complicated matters considerably. The overtaxed labor pool struggled to keep up, quality suffered from lack of concentrated talent, and the inadequate transportation network buckled under constant Allied attacks. Some aircraft assembly plants relocated to forest factories (waldwerken) and straight sections of autobahn were used as runways.* The forest option was attractive because it was cheap; a waldwerke in Gauting cost less, could contain up to 1,200 workers, and was virtually impossible to locate from the air. In fact, none were bombed nor was their existence even known to Allied intelligence. By comparison the tunnel factory option cost five times as much with half the capacity.
Fortunately for the Allies, German fascination with the unique persisted till the bitter end. The Esche II complex near Sankt Georgen in northern Austria was enormous; six miles of concrete-reinforced tunnels that managed to produce 987 Me 262 fuselages by the end of the war. Another method, popular in the occupied territories, was to pour an immense concrete slab, let it harden, then dig out the earth beneath and reinforce as necessary. Quick, virtually free, and effective, this “earth mould” construction was intended for V-series weapon sites within range of Allied bombers.
But it was too little and far too late.
Believing that a dispersion of critical factories would reduce output, which it would but nothing like being bombed to pieces, Germany committed another fatal strategic blunder. Nazi propagandists were also certain that to suggest the Reich could be badly damaged from the air was a defeatist attitude and, in 1942, this certainly appeared true. The RAF bombings till that point had targeted cities and population centers, not production facilities or infrastructure. This was in part due to the British belief that burning out cities was demoralizing and would strike at Hitler’s base of support—the German people. However, the attacks were also carried out in piecemeal fashion because the RAF lacked the sheer numbers of bombers and fighter escorts to make daylight bombing even remotely feasible. This would have to wait until the fall of 1942, and the arrival of the B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers of the American Eighth Air Force.
To counter the onslaught, the Luftwaffe fought back hard. From 1940 to 1944, across multiple fronts, fighter aircraft of all kinds remained operational with an average monthly attrition of 10 percent or less. Pilots fully trained in peacetime who had gained combat experience in Poland, Scandinavia, and France made up the bulk of the fighter arm, but losses against Britain’s Royal Air Force and the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union took a heavy toll. By 1944 what remained were a very few hardened and nearly unbeatable experten, and many poorly trained replacements. Yet time was running out for them as well, and December 1944 alone would see 452 pilots killed or captured. Adolf Galland, the charismatic and deadly General der Gagdflieger (General of Fighters) for the Luftwaffe, would later write that the bombing was “the most important of the combined factors which brought about the collapse of Germany.”
And it was collapsing.
The average German lived on bread or potatoes and received a single bar of soap each month; an egg per week was wild good fortune. Sugar, coffee, and any type of meat went to the military. Fresh vegetables, fruit, or fish were nonexistent and many government salaries were paid with coupons for coal or milk. What food remained was largely produced by women, children, and nearly one million French prisoners of war. Horses all but disappeared as they were used by the Wehrmacht as draft animals or for food. The situation was desperate on the ground. During the first six months of 1944, while the Americans finalized plans for their X-1 supersonic flight research project, 1.5 million German soldiers went missing, were captured, or were killed trying to slow the Red Army’s advance from the east.
By late summer and early fall of 1944 the Allies had landed at Anzio and were moving through Italy. Fortress Europe had been penetrated by Operation Overlord and the Allied landings in Normandy. The Wehrmacht had been pushed back as far as the Dutch border and, on August 25, 1944, the German garrison in Paris surrendered. Unsurprisingly, despite the tanks, rifles, uniforms, fuel, and transport back into France that had been provided by the Americans—and in direct defiance of orders from the U.S. commander—a French unit slipped into Paris first to “liberate” the city. Somewhat ironically, it was French in name only.* Nevertheless, by mid-September the Germans were falling back everywhere; in the center Patton’s Third Army had fought its way into the Alsace-Lorraine, and in the south the U.S. Seventh Army pushed north from Toulon into the Rhône valley.
The battle for air superiority over the Reich was dire for the Luftwaffe, and by now over three-fourths of all its fighters were engaged directly against the U.S. Army Air Corps or Royal Air Force. Long-range American fighters, particularly the P-51 Mustang, could now escort bombers all the way to Berlin, and after D-day the forward-based RAF Tempests and Spitfires were roaming into Germany itself. In fact, it was over Berlin on March 4, 1944, that Pilot Officer Yeager bagged his first Bf 109 aft
er three weeks of combat flying with the “Yoxford Boys”; the 363rd Fighter Squadron. His luck changed the next day when a Focke-Wulf 190 shot his Mustang to pieces, forcing Chuck to bail out over southern France. Managing to escape and evade, Yeager was taken over the Pyrenees into Spain by the French Resistance and was back in England by the middle of May.
Bob Hoover, who once said “I’d rather dogfight than eat steak!,” had indeed gotten his wish. Based out of Calvi, Corsica, he had downed an Fw 190 before suffering the misfortune of meeting Luftwaffe veteran Siegfried Lemke on February 9, 1944. Hoover was one of four Spitfires the German claimed that day, and he went down twenty miles off the French coast. Numb from the cold and freezing, Bob was captured by a German corvette and eventually ended up in Stalag Luft 1. Gus Lundquist had also finally made it to the war in the summer of 1944, flying P-51s out of England. Ironically, given his test work with the Fw 190, he was shot down over France in July by a Focke-Wulf. Also an inmate of Stalag Luft 1, Lundquist taught Bob Hoover everything he knew about the Fw 190, which would come in very handy later in the war.
Though backed into a corner in the summer of 1944 the Luftwaffe was still a fierce opponent, now made desperate in defense of its own country. Consequently, the German High Command pulled nearly all aviation assets off the Eastern Front to defend the Reich from the western assault; some 1,560 fighters, over 80 percent of the total available aircraft, vainly sought to keep the bombs from falling. It was not enough; and because it was not enough, and because time was needed to field its jet fighters and other wonder weapons, one final aerial gamble, was conceived.
They came in from the east, just above the trees, with the sun rising over their tails. Some two-dozen long-nosed Focke-Wulfs and a handful of sharklike Bf 109 fighters, their roaring engines abruptly shocking the British and Americans on the ground. Anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) crews scrambled to their guns and everyone else in the open ran for cover as the first day of 1945 opened with a shocking, unexpected bang.
There is nothing like a surprise attack to cure a hangover: instantly.
But the Germans flying in Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate), had not welcomed the New Year with parties. At their bases the pilots were not permitted to return to private quarters following the evening mission brief, and they all remained stone cold sober during the evening’s muted festivities. Despite the mauling given his Reich by the U.S. military, Hitler still had nothing but contempt for the American “mongrels,” as he called them. A chaotic nation, he said, always in turmoil. His pilots knew better, and the Führer did not have to fight the Americans. Since his combat pilots did, they had no intention of going into battle with hangovers against a dangerous foe.
That morning the Luftwaffe gave its fighter pilots an unexpectedly robust breakfast of eggs and bacon, with real bread and coffee. Others might view it as a last meal for the condemned, but fighter pilots, even young inexperienced ones, never think like that. They are always going to win, no matter what, and this mission was for the future of Germany. Not the Reich or the Nazis, but for Germany. These pilots had grown up in the turmoil following the Great War and survived desperate years of the fragmented, ineffective Weimar Republic. If Bodenplatte, and the corresponding armored offensive on the ground, could prevent a similar future for their families, then these men would fight and die for it. At the very least, they hoped it would make the Allies consider peace, on some terms, and it would buy time.
For the pilots of JG 11 the mission was rebriefed at 0630, and by 0800 Major Specht rolled down the runway at Biblis with his flight of four Focke-Wulfs. Eight Pathfinder Ju 88s followed, and for the next twenty minutes some sixty fighters from the three component groups of JG 11 got airborne from their bases on the east side of the Rhine. Assembling over Zellhausen, the wing headed northwest for Frankfurt and Koblenz. From there, JG 11 was to cross the Belgian border north of Aachen to make a time-over-target of 0920 hours. Twelve other fighter and ground attack wings were also assembling over Germany before heading northwest into Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.
The surprise was complete in northeastern Belgium that Monday morning near Asch. Ten guns from two AA batteries opened up and fired nearly 800 rounds, but although two Messerschmitts and one Focke-Wulf tumbled out of the sky, it didn’t prevent the others from dropping their 500 kg bombs and strafing anything that moved.
But it was the wrong airfield.
Jagdgeschwader (Fighter Wing) 11 was supposed to hit the airfield at Asch, three miles to the south, but spotted Ophoven, next to the little town of Opglabbeek, and about half of the fighters attacked there. Asch (labeled Y-29), Ophoven (Y-32), and over one hundred little airstrips had been carved out of the woods by the U.S. 820th Engineer Aviation Battalion. Both of these were 5,000 feet long and 120 feet wide, with a pierced steel planking (PSP) runway. They looked identical, especially from the air. It didn’t matter really, as snow had fallen and identification from the air was difficult. Add to it that the Ju 88 Loste, or Pathfinder, assigned to the mission, had attacked an American anti-aircraft unit on the way into the target and been damaged. After it turned back, navigation became more difficult, and as the fighters approached the Belgian border they ran into a blanket of heavy ground fog.
JG 11’s commander, Major Günther Specht, was a thirty-year-old, one-eyed Prussian, and one of the few veteran aces surviving until 1945.* He knew there was no village near Asch so he nudged the stick of his fighter left and brought the remaining attackers around to the south. The strike could have been salvaged somewhat if they had come in from the east as planned—this would have put the sun directly into the defending Americans’ eyes and made the attackers nearly impossible to see, a tremendous edge in the first few seconds of combat—and if over half his pilots had not hit the wrong target because they had less than ten missions’ worth of experience.* And if, as Major Specht turned south, he hadn’t run straight into eight American fighters that had just taken off from Asch.
But he did.
Contrary to a normal New Year’s Eve, the one of December 31, 1944, was very different, at least to those in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). Two weeks earlier, at 0530 on December 16, 1,500 German heavy guns opened up along an eighty-mile stretch of the line from Belgium to France and, as in 1914 and 1940, the Wehrmacht suddenly thrust through the Ardennes. Concealed by heavy snow, the northernmost Sixth Panzer Army began its western assault to capture the bridges over the Meuse River bridges then on, hopefully, to Antwerp. This would bisect the Allies, deny them the huge port, and allow German resupply from Scandinavia. It would also, Hitler hoped, force a negotiation for peace. There was no reason, in his mind, why they would not settle. Then, with the west secure, he could then turn east and decisively deal with the oncoming Red Army. Even if ultimately unsuccessful, the delay meant time to amass enough rockets and jets to challenge the Allies.
It was a pipe dream.
The fantasy was concocted by Hitler’s unbalanced and schizophrenic mind, but one that still held absolute power in the Reich. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, commander of all German forces in the west, protested, as did many general officers, yet to no avail. So when the armored spearhead of Tiger, Panther, and older tanks of the 1st SS Panzer Division rumbled west below the Elsenborn Ridge, the Reich’s last big gamble, Operation Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine), had irrevocably begun.* Safe from Allied air support due to the weather, Wehrmacht and Waffen SS units shattered the thinly held center section of the line, and the 5th Parachute Division made an astounding twelve-mile initial penetration. Hasso von Manteuffel’s Fifth SS Panzer Army was the middle mass of the three-pronged assault, and guarding the far southern flank was Erich Brandenberger’s Seventh Army.
Speed was key.
If the Meuse could be crossed in force before the weather lifted, before the Americans could reinforce, and before the panzers ran out of fuel, then the tactical portion of the plan just might succeed. The hammer stroke initially fell the hardest at Elsenborn Ridge on
the eastern fringe of the Ardennes just a few miles from the German border. This ridge was the high ground parallel to a road that connected the main arteries leading into Liege and Antwerp. American field artillery, logistics personnel, and elements of the U.S. First and Second Divisions were emplaced at Camp Elsenborn. The line infantry units were under strenghth and exhausted after attacking across Belgium, and their replacements were green, untested troops. Nevertheless, they were dug in with plenty of ammunition, had relatively good communications, and were supported by artillery.
So stubborn was their defense that Kampfgruppe (Combat Gruppe) Peiper bypassed Elsenborn, leaving it to the 12th SS Panzer Division and 277th Volksgrenadiers—who failed to dislodge them.* It was the same, albeit on a smaller scale, all down the ridge. Pockets of American soldiers from various units, along with rear echelon clerks, cooks, and anyone else who could hold a rifle, resisted. This allowed defensive positions to be strengthened and rapid reinforcements occurred. Once the weather lifted, this included three squadrons of P-51 Mustangs from the Eighth Air Force’s 352nd Fighter Group, which moved into Chièvres, Belgium. A detachment was forward deployed to Asch, arriving on December 23, 1944, to supplement the 366th Fighter Group’s P-47 Thunderbolts.* Chuck Yeager and the rest of the 357th Fighter Group were also back in action. There had been a massive Eighth Air Force counterattack, some 2,000 bombers and over 800 fighters, deep into the enemy rear. Harassment from the fighters and determined resistance from ground units cost the Germans precious time they did not have to lose.
There were other defensive positions that would not yield. St. Vith was hurriedly reinforced with U.S. 7th Armored units and the 82nd Airborne Division was thrown in to hold Cheneux, just north of town, which blocked Kampfgruppe Peiper. Paratroopers, as always, were lightly armed with no heavy weapons and limited supplies, yet the Bulge held out until December 21 against repeated assaults from the 1st Leibstandarte and 2nd Das Reich SS Panzer Divisions. Suffering 80 percent casualties, the 82nd was pulled back, but the damage had been done and the German timetable was wrecked.