Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - European Theater of Operation: Target Germany - The old One-Two

Achtung, feindliche Flugzeuge! It is probably about 1030 hours on May 14 when the Nazi Jagdführer, or Fighter Controller, of the Holland fighter defense area is given this warning of enemy aircraft approaching.

With half a dozen other Jagdführers, each allotted a coastal sector of Festung Europa, Jagdführer Holland is responsible for the day-fighter defense of Germany and its conquered territory. It is his job, using an intricate communications and radio-locator system, to deploy the fighters grouped at strategic points through-out his defense sector so that air attacks from England can best be met. Jagdführer Holland must have sworn a round Teutonic oath on this particular morning, for the approaching hostiles had crossed the North Sea so low they had eluded his radio-locator screen. Ground observers had picked them up as they neared the coast.

The Jagdführer alerts the Low Countries. Neighboring defense sectors are notified that hostiles are abroad. For a while the defense network's flashes are sporadic. At 1035 the hostiles are reported over the Dutch coast near Scheveningen. Twelve twin-engine aircraft, very low, traveling east. They are spotted at Leyden, then over the outskirts of Amsterdam, at roof-top level. The quarry is flying too low and too fast to permit a planned interception by the fighters in the air. The Jagdfuhrer, following the traced course of the intruders on his map, probably realizes what their target is by this time; it is his business to know what points in his domain may attract the attention of enemy bombers. He knows, too, by now, that the intruders are American, that they are medium bombers, what bomb load they will be carrying, and how fast they are traveling. That, too, is his business. The Jagdfuhrer knows a lot, but he does not know how he can interrupt this operation with the few short minutes at his disposal. Minutes pass. The Jagdfuhrer waits for the blow.

At 1100 hours Jagdführer Holland learns that the generating station at ljmuiden, a town on the coast, has been attacked with delayed-action bombs. By 1103 the hit-and-run raiders are reported across the coast once more. A minute later they have passed out to sea and are away. Then the bombs, having delayed fuses, start to explode.

It is an inauspicious start for May 14. The efficient Nazi warning network is taken by surprise. This can happen in the best regulated of defense systems, as the Jagdfuhrer well knows; his own fighter-bombers sometimes slip in unannounced at wave-top level to bomb the English Channel coast towns. But on this occasion the Ijmuiden raid may be portentous. The day is fine and there are other targets in that area. Jagdfuhrer Holland wonders whether it would not be a good idea to pull in a few of his fighter squadrons from the Belgian sector.

It is 1130 hours when Jagdführer Northwest Germany receives a message from his radio-locator headquarters. The screen has picked up large hostiles, flying east over the North Sea. A minute later the locator stations have pin-pointed the approaching planes on the map. Jagdführer Northwest Germany, on the balcony of his plotting room, watches the enemy-bomber symbol being placed deep in the angle of the North Sea formed by the Danish peninsula and the Frisian Islands. Another flash--the symbol is moved. The general course is southeast. The enemy, moving fast, is still miles at sea. Jagdführer Northwest Germany ponders his plan of battle.

Over his defense sector, comprising Denmark and the northwest corner of the Fatherland, are scattered scores of fighter bases. At each base Focke-Wulfs or Messerschmitts are stationed--in groups of five, ten, or twenty. These are the Jagdführer's pawns in the grim game to be played. With its four cannon firing explosive shells and its two machine guns, each one of these fighters is a potent weapon. But each one, too, has its limitations--a fighter's gas capacity limits its flying time under combat conditions to approximately an hour. The Jagdführer must remember this as he disposes his forces to meet the threat.

Festung Europa. The Nazi coastal defenses bristle with antiaircraft guns, fighter fields, and radio-locator stations.

Marauders and flak. B-26's carry out a medium-altitude attack on Nazi airdromes despite heavy antiaircraft fire.

y 1135 the airfields in the sector are alerted and the first fighters are air-borne. At 1145 the enemy formation has turned southward and is nearing the coast at the base of the Danish peninsula. What is their target? The Jagdführer studies the likely objectives—Flensburg, Kiel, Hamburg, Hanover. Perhaps a swing to the west, which would threaten Wilhelmshaven and Emden—or a turn to the east toward Lübeck and Wismar. This is the decision that must not be wrong.

The moments tick away. The plotters move about silently as they chart the course of the invading force. At 1150 the first of the air-borne fighter groups makes contact with the enemy. Achtung, Dickeautos. Amerikanische. Warning, American heavy bombers. The Jagdfuhrer reaches a decision. The target will be Kiel. The important Germania and Deutsche Werke shipyards, not yet attacked by the Fortresses, are ideal objectives for the Americans and their precision bombing. Orders start pouring out over the telephone. Fighters roar into the air from stations 50 and 100 and 200 miles away. Kiel is their common goal. Five miles above that port they will intercept the bombers—--f the Jagdführer has guessed right.

To the southwest, Jagdführer Holland alerts his stations once again and makes ready, should the need arise, to defend the area left unprotected by his neighbor's moves. He will not have to wait long.

At 1200 the hostiles, in "great force," are reported ten miles southwest of Kiel. Jagdfuhrer Northwest Germany has a bad few moments. Are they going to bypass the target he has chosen and leave the bulk of his fighters waiting over Kiel ? That will mean a chase and waste of precious flying time. At 1201 the hostiles have made a turn and are reported on a northeasterly course, almost over Kiel. The Jagdführer has guessed right. The main body of the fighters is in contact with their quarry now. The battle of Kiel is on.

At 1206 comes word that the Germania yards and the Deutsche Werke have been bombed, with "great destruction." The bombers have swung northwest. Now they have turned back across the peninsula, heading for the safety of the open sea. The fighters are hanging on, attacking the flanks of the retreating formation. Some of them, from the more distant stations are beginning to run low on gas. Requests to land fill the air. Jagdfuhrer Northwest Germany now faces an uncomfortable period of waiting; the bulk of his forces will be immobilized as they are refueled and rearmed on the ground. If there is another attack during that period-his thoughts turn to Jagdfuhrer Holland and the idle squadrons in that sector... .

Jagdführer Holland is having his own troubles. At 1205, while Kiel is being bombed, his radio-locator stations report hostiles high off the English coast, flying southeast. This is a spear pointed at the heart of his defense sector. Jagdführer Holland orders several squadrons into the air. Jagdfuhrer France, covering the sector to the west, does likewise. They wait. At 1214 Jagdführer Northwest Germany inquires about possible assistance while his squadrons are refueling. The answer he receives is short and to the point. At 1218 the hostiles are reported over the coast east of Dunkirk, heading south-east. Multiengined bombers, escorted by fighters, flying very high. Jagdfuhrer Holland and France both vector their airborne squadrons to intercept the interlopers and then try to figure which way the Forts are headed. At 1230 the hostiles are over Ypres. Here they turn east. At 1230 several of Jagdführer's squadrons finally make contact with the intruders. Two minutes later Jagdfuhrer Holland learns that approximately fifty Fortresses have bombed one of his most important stations--his fighter field at Courtrai. Hangars, shops, dispersal areas, and runways have been hit. The raiders have turned north and headed for the coast.

At 1240 the hostiles have left Jagdführer Holland's sector, crossing the coast between Ostend and Dunkirk. At 1242 Jagdführer North-west Germany reports the large body of hostiles which attacked Kiel have now passed out to sea on a westbound course and that his fighters are gradually losing contact. By 1255 most of the squadrons air-borne to meet the Courtrai attack have been landed and are being refueled.

At 1300 Jagdführer Holland's network reports large hostiles approaching the coast near Ostend. He calls on Jagdführer France for help. At 1308 the hostiles cross the coast. It is another force of four-engined bombers with fighter support. The hostiles fly southeastward toward Brussels. Jagdführer Holland vectors his squadrons to-ward Ghent. Some make contact and follow the hostiles as they turn abruptly northeastward at Brussels. The Jagdfuhrer knows now what is coming. He throws his entire available force into combat around the target at Antwerp. The Fortresses bomb the Ford and General Motors plants at 1320. By 1340 they are out across the coast once more and ten minutes later the last fighter relinquishes contact and returns to base.

Jagdführers Northwest Germany, Holland, and France, having been forced to meet four attacks in a morning, now sit down to add up their losses in men and machines. On the ground, other Nazis are totaling the death and destruction at the targets.

The foregoing is a generalized picture of what probably happened among the directors of the Nazi day-fighter defense system on May 14. On that day the VIII Bomber Command dispatched well over 200 planes in four hours, attacking four targets, losing eleven bombers, and claiming sixty-seven Nazi fighters as destroyed. It was the first American multiple attack. It is not an ideal example--early experiments seldom are--but as the first, it deserves commemoration. Later multiple operations perfected the technique of delivering a rapid succession of attacks, confusing the enemy and dispersing his fighter strength.

May 14 was not only the first day on which the American Bomber Command found itself with enough planes to initiate its multiple-attack technique; it was also a day of generally effective bombing. Ijmuiden was fair, Antwerp good, Courtrai good, and Kiel, by far the largest raid, excellent. The 100-plus bombers which hit this latter target achieved a concentration which reminded the bombardment chiefs pleasantly of the assaults on Hamm, Vegesack, and the Renault works. Destruction in the Germania shipyards was so widespread that the German radio stepped out of character long enough to admit the American daylight raid had caused "great damage" to the port. Liberators, accompanying the formations, dropped more than twenty-five tons of incendiaries—the first time this form of bomb had been dropped by American crews.

It was over Kiel that a twenty-three-year-old Cherokee Indian known as "Chief" by his crew-mates proved that the early Americans can still take it. It was after the bomber had left Germany on the return trip that Chief finally broke in on the interphone from his place in the ball turret and confessed that his electric suit had stopped working and that, perhaps, his feet were frost-bitten. Having been busy with enemy fighters, Chief hadn't wanted to bother the crew with his trouble until he thought the plane was out of danger.

Chief was removed from the ball turret and carried to the ship's radio compartment for first aid. The bombardier and the radio operator had removed his shoes and were rubbing his feet to restore the circulation when the warning, Fighters approaching, came over the interphone. Cautioning Chief to remain where he was, the two left to man their guns.

Liberators over Kiel drop incendiaries while Forts blast shipyards with high explosive from higher altitude.

When they returned some minutes later the only sign of the Chief was his leather jacket. Chief, with his feet so painful he couldn't walk had crawled barefooted back into his turret and resumed fighting. Beside his leather jacket Chief had left his earphones—so that he would not be able to hear orders to leave his post. During the ensuing action, Chief fired so many bursts at attacking German fighters that he burned out one of his .50-caliber guns. When the fight was over Chief crawled back to the radio compartment for further treatment.

Later, Chief waved aside tributes to his heroism. I just crawled back there because I got lone-some. My feet feel warmer without shoes, anyway. Shoes, they stop the circulation.

Another "first" was scored on May 14 when the Command's fast, twin-engined medium bombers executed their first mission in the attack on the generating plant at Ijmuiden. Flying over enemy territory at fifty feet and climbing to 200 for their bombing, eleven of these B-26's reported their bombs had fallen fairly within the target area. The bombs were all fused for a delay to allow Dutch workers to escape from the bombed plant.

Later reconnaissance photos showed a disappointing amount of damage--suggesting that either the bombs had bounced out of the target area or that there had been a number of heroes on call to pull them outside the installations before they exploded. But this first roof-top raid could still be accounted an operational success, for the attack had been carried out according to plan. Another notable achievement of that day's activity was the brilliant support given the Antwerp and Courtrai attackers by the RAF Spitfire and the American Thunderbolt fighters. As a result, the enemy fighters "seemed reluctant to attack" though Focke-Wulfs did attempt to bomb the formation attacking Antwerp.

Successes such as those of May 14 do not come by chance. Each step of this four-pronged attack had been planned weeks before. All bombing starts with the selection of targets. In the Anglo-American bombing offensive against Germany the first selection is made by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. This body, knowing what forces will be available in each theater of war, selects the categories of targets to be hit; i.e.,

Death of a Marauder. Shot down over a French airdrome, a B-26 falls in two parts. The fuselage has its bomb-bay doors open. The propellers have stopped.

The war comes to Flensburg. Shipyards, power plant, and harbor installations are blanketed with bursts.

Bomb plot, reconstructed from the photograph on the facing page, showing approximate position of each bomb.

submarine production may be given first priority, synthetic oil second, and perhaps the enemy air-craft industry third place. The Chiefs of Staff also select the industrial areas most worthy of attention from the RAF's night bombers—thus it was decided that heavy industry in the Ruhr should be hit before the transportation and storage facilities of the port of Hamburg.

Then the Target Selection Committee, a group of military and economic experts which meets in London, with a blueprint of the enemy's industrial organization before it, selects the objectives needed to cripple the enemy's war potential in each category and gives each target, in turn, a priority rating.

With this information before him the Bomber Command chief decides what particular targets best suit the capabilities of his force. A Combined Operational Planning Committee—made up of representatives from the Fighter, Air Support, and Bomber Commands and the Intelligence divisions of both the RAF and the American Air Force—after conferring with the C.G. and his staff, translates these decisions into a general plan of action. Given Kiel and Antwerp as the main targets, for example, and knowing the approximate force available, the Planning Committee laid out the routes, times, diversions and decided on the details of the fighter cover to be supplied. Any necessary collaboration between the RAF and the AAF is also worked out at this time.

On a comparatively simple operation such as that of the May 14 attacks, these plans may comprise five or six pages of instructions and charts. Each plan, once it is completed and has been studied, amended, and approved by the various commands involved, is given a code name and put on file--ready for instant use. When the weather is right and his force ready for a particular operation, the Chief of the Bomber Command takes the plan from his file. With the current disposition of the enemy defenses, the weather report, and certain other variables before him, the Bomber Commander adapts the basic plan to that day's operations. The command's Operations Officers then turn the plan into a detailed Combat Order, which is submitted to the Air Divisions for their corrections and suggestions. The amended version is dispatched to the flying units.

With a force of more than 200 operational Forts available for the first time during the early days of May, the multiple attacks already planned and on file could now be launched. Another four-pronged assault, this time on French and Low Country targets, followed the Kiel-Courtrai-Antwerp-Ijmuiden operation. On May 17 well over 100 Fortresses attacked two objectives --the sub-pen installations and the power station serving them--at the Lorient base, while two Groups of Liberators, operating as a separate operational unit for the first time, made a wide sea sweep to attack the submarine facilities at Bordeaux and eleven medium bombers set out for objectives in Holland.

The operation was notable for an outstanding success and an equally outstanding failure : the Liberator flight (the story of which is told in the next chapter) produced some of the most spectacular navigation and bombing of the air war, and the B-26 attack on the Dutch targets resulted in the loss of all the ten planes attacking. Two lessons were learned that day : that (1) the Liberators operated more effectively when they flew by themselves and that (2) the fast medium bombers, flying at low altitudes, could not always depend on the element of surprise in heavily defended areas, but needed fighter support. The two Lorient strikes, one following the other along the same route at a fifteen-minute interval, apparently split the enemy fighter opposition. Losses were moderate --six Forts—the bombing was excellent, and claims of enemy fighters shot down were substantial. The Liberators, attacking a target 250 miles to the south twenty-four minutes later, met little fighter opposition. The multiple attacks were beginning to stretch the Nazi defenses.

The months of May and June settled down to a grim exchange of blow for blow. Flensburg, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Bremen, the synthetic-rubber plant at Hüls, the submarine bases in Occupied France—these were hit and hit hard. The Nazi defense command sought desperately for ways to stop the Fortress formations from reaching their targets. Air-to-air bombing increased; fighters armed with rocket guns were reported by returning crews. The Forts were not stopped.

Here is a sergeant gunner's diary, covering the late June and early July attacks :

June 22--This was the date of our first engagement. Antwerp, where the Germans were building trucks and tanks, was our target. Our part was a minor one, more or less intended to keep their attention divided, while the main force went to Hüls. It was considered successful. We were hit hard by FW 190's and had our share of flak. The two other ships in my flight never returned, taking three of the men in my barracks down with them. Our tail gunner was killed by the only shot to enter our ship. He was a fine fellow.

June 25--Today, Hamburg! Rather a wasted trip. A large formation dropping bombs through a thick layer of clouds which obscured the target. The flak and the 190's were with us. One B-17 went down, taking more of my friends and our operations officer.

June 26--Target, an airport in Paris, France. No. 1 engine cut out over Channel, so we turned back. Others went on in, but weather bad and only, few bombed target.

June 28--Big game, big formation this time. We made the Germans very well aware of our presence in Saint-Nazaire. Our bombs raised the submarine docks to heaven. We encountered clouds of flak and fighters. We left the fighter opposition shortly after bombing. Some time out from the target we picked up two German fighters that made repeated attacks on the tail of our ship. Had the rather unpleasant experience of seeing 20-mm. cannon shells exploding close to our tail. No one was killed or badly injured. We stopped at an RAF base for the night. They treated us wonderfully.

June 29--Flying today with D. L. All enlisted men in his crew are in hospital, with the exception of one man who is dead. The trip is without event. We go well into France looking for our target (an airport) which is hidden by clouds.

July 4--Another Independence Day, quite unlike any other I can remember. A German aircraft factory deep within France got a look at some American fireworks in the form of several hundred 500-pound bombs. Our own crew went today as spares and had to return just short of France. Today we have been heavyhearted because Lt. B's crew did not return.

July 8--No mission today. I received the award of the Air Medal for having successfully completed five combat missions.

The author of this diary did not return from a mission six days later and is listed as Missing in Action.

The VIII Bomber Command celebrated its second July 4 in England by giving the Germans a demonstration of just how a moderate-sized force of heavy day bombers could be used. Weather dictated the choice of three targets in Occupied France-the Gnome and Rhone Aero Engine Factory at Le Mans, an aircraft factory at Nantes, and the U-boat installations at La Pallice. Both factories, of course, were working hard for the Nazis.

Shortly after noon two strong forces of Forts flying parallel courses crossed the French coast, just east of the Cherbourg peninsula. As the German fighter force made hurried preparations to defend this area, a third force of some seventy Fortresses, having made a wide swing out to sea, appeared over the installations at La Pallice 200 miles to the south. This part of the operation bombed effectively and returned, without meeting any effective enemy opposition.

Meanwhile, the two main forces had reached Laval, eighty miles south of the Channel, at 1230. Here the full force of the Nazi fighters converged upon them. At Laval, following the flight plan, one of the bomber forces swung left and hit Le Mans. The other force turned right and attacked Nantes to the southeast. This effectively split the Nazi fighter concentration. The Le Mans force withdrew north, picking up friendly fighter support at Argentan. The Nantes force continued from their target in a south-westerly direction, withdrawing out to sea and flying a great semicircle back to England.

The German fighter force, dispersed to face the several prongs of this operation and held at bay by friendly fighters during the last part of the Le Mans withdrawal, was able to account for less than three per cent of the bombing force despite its persistent and ferocious attacks. Returning crews claimed fifty-two Nazi fighters. The bombing against all three targets-a total of 542 tons being dropped-was exemplary.

On July 4 high-level precision bombing added a third development, tactical deception, to its already-established reputation for accuracy and effective self-defense--it proved that, given sufficient force, the hand that guided the high-level daylight bomber could be quicker than the Nazi eye.