On May 15, 1940, 36 Hampdens, 39 Wellingtons and 24 Whitleys from RAF Bomber Command took off on the very first mission to bomb German factories. The initial results were meagre, but at the end of the war, the British bomber offensive would have caused massive devastation – at a terrible cost.
Planning of an air campaign
The first significant change to the pre-war air bombing policy had been
initiated by with a directive issued to C-in-C Bomber Command, Charles Portal,
on April 13, 1940. This directive was more of a reaction to the course of the
war than an actual bombing strategy, and it would affect the bombing campaign
for the next few years. Plan WA 8 was the night attack on Germany, and the
priorities were given as:
1. Identifiable oil plants
2.
Identifiable
electricity plants, coking plants and gas ovens
3.
Self-illuminating
objectives vulnerable to air attack
4. If authorized, main German ports in
the Baltic
If the Low Countries
were attacked, focus would be on “…vital objectives in Germany, starting in the
Ruhr, to cause the maximum dislocation to lines of communication of the German
advance through the Low Countries”. The importance of ‘identifiable’ targets
was stressed at a War Cabinet meeting on May 10, and it was stated that “it is
preferable not to begin bombing ops in the Ruhr until we have definite news
that the Germans have attacked targets… which would cause casualties to
civilians”.
Rotterdam
Up to the end of the so-called Phoney War of 1939-1940, air activity on
both sides had in general been limited to reconnaissance and leaflet dropping.
However, there were bomber attacks on German and British soil before the
opening of the Bomber Offensive against Germany. During a Luftwaffe attack on Scapa
Flow on March 16, 1940, some of the raiders’ bombs fell on the small settlement
of Bridge of Waithe on the island of Hoy. One civilian was killed and seven
were injured. This prompted a retaliatory raid against a German seaplane base
at Hörnum on the southern tip of the island of Sylt. Twenty Hampdens from 5
Group and thirty Whitleys from 4 Group. Only superficial damage was caused, but
the raid was lauded in the press and the commander of No. 10 Squadron, Bill ‘Crack
Em’ Staton, became a national hero.
On May 10, Germany invaded France and the Low Countries. Bomber Command
flew tactical support missions with Fairey Battles and Bristol Blenheims
against the advancing German columns, suffering heavy casualties in the
process. The heavy bombers of Bomber Command undertook missions against German
lines of communication, crossings over the river Meuse, and points of
congestion behind enemy lines. The heavy squadrons conducted twenty-seven raids
between May 11 and May 15. This was considered ‘collaboration’ in the land
battle, and the targets were marshalling yards and communications lines west of
the Rhine. It was thought that the Germans would see this as fully legitimate
and non-provoking.
On May 13, the Luftwaffe launched a heavy attack on Rotterdam as a
result of the tenacious Dutch defense of the city. One hundred Heinkel He 111
bombers took off to bomb Rotterdam, and almost a hundred tons of bombs were
dropped on the city, killing close to a thousand civilians and destroying
around 20,000 buildings. Rotterdam and the Netherlands capitulated that same
day. This was the first air attack on a civilian target in the Western theatre
of operations
The War Cabinet was of the opinion that the “gloves were off” regarding
the air campaign and that the town of the Ruhr valley now were legitimate
targets. On May 15, Prime Minister Chamberlain authorized bombing east of the
Rhine for the night of May 15/16.
Defenses
In June 1938, State Secretary of of Aviation, General Erhard Milch,
ordered the creation of an Air Defense Zone (ADZ) West, which was to be a
secondary line of Flak guns, searchlights and sound detectors integrated into
the West Wall defenses. The idea was not to hinder attackers, but to make enemy
formations disperse and seek higher altitudes, thus exposing them to fighter
attack. The ADZ was between 20 and 50 kilometers wide, and a bomber would need
up towards five minutes to cross the zone. Considering that the RAF envisioned
daylight raids at an altitude of 10,000 feet during the 1930s, the ADZ would
probably been quite effective. As the war broke out, the total Flak and
searchlight forces available included 657 heavy Flak batteries, 560 light Flak
batteries, and 188 searchlight batteries. There were also three railroad Flak
gun battalions, three barrage balloon battalions and seven naval Flak gun
battalions defending especially important parts of the German coast. Finally, the
Luftwaffe also had two squadrons (Staffel)
of Bf 109 aircraft in a night fighter role, 10./(N)JG 26 at Bonn-Hangelar to
cover the Cologne area, and 10./(N)JG 53 at Heilbronn further south, near
Stuttgart. The single-seat Bf 109 was however ill-suited to night-fighting at
that time. A division (Gruppe),
IV./(N) JG 2 of Bf 109s was added during the winter of 1939/40, to defend the
Heligoland Bight, but successes were slow in the coming. In April of 1940, Hauptmann Wolfgang Falck, the commander
of I./ZG 1 in occupied Denmark, began experimenting with night-fighting with
his twin-engine Bf 110 heavy fighters based on an early form of radar
intercept. Although Falck would be instrumental in the creation of an effective
German night-fighter force, no German night fighters were engaged against the Bomber
Command raid of May 15/16, and Hermann Göring did not accelerate the establishment
of a night fighter force until the summer of 1940.
The German defenses were also aided by radar installations, and the
German had eight Freya installations on operation along the North Sea coast in
addition to observers and sound ranging sites. The Freya radar could detect
targets up to 120 kilometers away, but it could not determine the height of a
target.
The Raid
At this early stage of the war, the bombing procedures were little
changed from the RAF Independent Force of the Great War. Commanders were
allowed considerable freedom within the scope of a mission. There was no
attempt to fly in formation, and crews detailed for a night raid could take off
at a time of their choosing within a period of two to three hours. They would
fly to the target and back on their own, and the staggered departures were
intentional and intended to prolong the air raid alarms over Germany, thus depriving
the German worker of sleep. Briefings were given as much as twenty-four hours
in advance, leaving it to the crews to plot the exact route and occasionally
even to have a say in the bomb load. Navigations was done by dead reckoning, as
direction finding by radio waves over the European continent was yet to be
developed. The actual method of attack was often a matter of individual
initiative. Aiming and navigation was aided by moonlight, and May 15 saw a
waxing gibbous moon.
The bombers were sent against sixteen different targets throughout the
Ruhr Valley. Factories in Dortmund, Sterkrade, and Castrop-Rauxel were
designated as targets for nine aircraft each, while the remaining thirteen
targets had fewer aircraft attacking. The raid was unspectacular in its
execution. Eighty-one aircraft reported bombing at their primary targets or at
alternative targets over a wide area with little or no effect. The defenses
were alerted, but without any noticeable effect on the attackers.
A few bombs were recorded falling on Cologne and Munster. More
specifically, a report from Cologne claimed that bombs aimed at the IG-Werk at
Dormagen hit a large farm and killed a dairyman, Franz Romeike, who reportedly was
on his way to the outhouse when he turned on a light that promptly attracted a
stick of bombs. Another five civilians were wounded, but Romeike was the first
of some 20,000 people of Cologne to be killed during the war. In Münster, local
media reported that six bombs were dropped in the town, causing light damage
and wounding two people. Münster was not on the target list, and no bomber crew
reported attacking Münster, but the same local media claimed that “this bombing
created a sensation and, for days on end, thousands of inquisitive people were
attracted to the scene.”
With the addition of operations conducted against targets in Belgium, 111
sorties were conducted that night. This was the first time Bomber Command
exceeded 100 aircraft on night missions. The only loss was Wellington P9229
from No. 115 Squadron that was reportedly blown off course by a heavy wind and
subsequently crashed into high ground at Plainville near Rouen in France.
Flight Lieutenant A. E. Pringle and his crew of four – Corporal R. F. Fallows,
Sergeant T. R. Kirkham, Corporal R. C. J. Pringle and Flying Officer H. P.
Evans - were all killed, making these men the first casualties of the RAF
strategic bombing Campaign.
The difficulties of bombing during the beginning of the war can be
illustrated by an RAF pilot on a mission to bomb a railway target in Düsseldorf.
He explained that when the crew reached the target area, German blackout
procedures prevented them from identifying the railway station, whereupon they
began to conduct a “square search” of the area. After a while, they simply
dropped their bombs into the darkness below. This pilot then went on to
complain that “such objectives were pointless when so many (crews) found
difficulty in even locating the cities in which they were situated.” These
comments do reveal certain things besides the difficulties of navigation,
namely that the German defenses were not of such magnitude that a bomber could
loiter over a major city in search of a target, and that the German blackout worked
well.
Aftermath
Next morning, the announcement that a large force from Bomber Command
had attacked various oil and communications targets in the Ruhr Valley was
overwhelmingly welcomed by the British citizenry. There was finally a bright
spot after weeks of bad news, and the war was carried home to the Boche. The communiqué from the Air Ministry
was encouraging: “Each crew was given specific military objectives and
instructions that bombs were not to be dropped indiscriminately. A few aircraft
failed to locate their objectives and did not drop their bombs, but the
majority found and bombed their targets with great effect causing widespread
damage and many explosions.” In reality, the fifty-three German bombers that
actually bombed Rotterdam caused massive damage. The ninety-nine RAF bombers
did not. The raid was largely ineffective, and no real damage was recorded at
the targets. Of the 78 aircraft given oil installations as their primary
target, only 23 claimed to have found them. For various reasons 16 aircraft
failed to attack any target at all.
Bomber Command
revisited the Ruhr next day, this time with a mere twelve aircraft on a mission
against oil targets. Throughout May approximately 60 bombers per night were
dispatched against industrial targets or targets connected to the Battle of
France, such as lines of communication or troop concentrations. Charles Portal believed
that Bomber Command would be able to do ‘immense damage’ to German oil
production, and on June 4 1940 it was estimated that the German oil production
would be reduced by approximately half a million tons in two or three months’
time. In reality, it took three and a half years to reduce the German oil
production by 150,000 tons. The strategic bombing campaign also cost the lives
of more than 350,000 Germans and tens of thousands of civilians in the
surrounding countries. Bomber Command lost 55,573 men in that very same
Campaign.
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Mark Connelly. Reaching for the
Stars. A New History of Bomber Command in World War II. London & New
York: I. B. Tauris, 2001
Robin Cross. The Bombers. The Illustrated Story of Ofensive Strategy and Tactics in the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1987
Robin Cross. The Bombers. The Illustrated Story of Ofensive Strategy and Tactics in the Twentieth Century. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1987
Ken Delve and Peter Jacobs. The Six-Year Offensive. Bomber Command in World War Two. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1992
Jonathan Falkner, RAF Bomber
Crewman. West Bay: Shire Publications, 2010
Max Hastings. Bomber Command. Churchills Epic Campaign. The Inside Story of the RAF’s Valiant Attempt to End the War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989
Peter Hinchliffe. The Other
Battle. Luftwaffe Aces versus Bomber Command. Shrewsbury: Airlife
Publishing, 1997
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The Story of Bomber Command 1939-42. London: Cassell, 2001
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The Bomber Command War Diaries. An Operational Reference Book 1939-1945. Hirsham:
Midland Publishing, 2011
Denis Richards. The Hardest
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Norton, 1995
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