Airwar (Terror From the Sky, Tragic Victories) [vol.1]

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AIRWAR

AIRWAR •

••

TERROR FROM THE SKY TRAGIC VICTORIES

EDWARD JABLONSKI

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY,

INC.,

GARDEN

CITY,

NEW YORK

Copyright

©

1971 by Edward Jablonski

All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America

For

my

friends,

CLAIRE

and

PETER CLAY

once of the hospitable "George H," Luton, Bedfordshire, and of the

now

"Coach and Horses," Rickmansworth,

Hertfordshire, England.

Man, have

pity

on man.

Rain from the outraged sky drowned the innocent earth yet the seed did not die.

Flowering from that rebirth, man, have pity on man as you hold the fire in your hand

can destroy mankind and desolate every land. If the power and the glory that

is

this,

a flame that burns to the bone, what shall be left to grow when you and your fires have gone?

What maimed and

desolate

shall recover life's full

from among

Man, have

few

span

the ashes of time?

pity

on man.

Ursula Vaughan Williams

TERROR FROM THE SKY

Contents

Book Prologue: Pax Germanica 1.

Book

I:

A

Nation of Fliers

Blitzkrieg

II:

The Battle of Britain

1

5.

Adlerangriff

3

6.

Target:

7.

Hell's

19

79 81

RAF

96

Comer

107

8.

"The Greatest Day"

121

The

137

2.

Schrecklichkeit

21

9.

3.

"Sitzkrieg"

33

10.

4.

Was Nun?

47

Blitz

"Give

it

'em back!"

149

Preface

T

HIS

the

is

first

of four volumes collectively en-

Airwar. Originally the intention was to pro-

titled

duce a reasonably comprehensive one-volume tory of aerial warfare as

it

his-

evolved during the his-

Second World

torically brief but crucial period of the

during

1939-45.

Certain

men endured

many

too

least

(at

—

died. It

was a time of unquestioning

prevalently)

valor and great deeds that

War. The finished work, despite certain omissions

contributed to the accomplishment of a

and some short

greater

shrifting,

proved to be a rather large

practical

break

down

it

into

what seemed

book

sions and to issue the

was

to

to be natural divi-

as a

multivolumed

set

over a period of time. Each book would be com-

and yet a part of a continuing larger

plete in itself narrative.

A

decided advantage of

that the illustrations could

this solution

was

be larger and the individ-

ual volumes easier to handle and, hopefully even

only because of a generous type If

there

is

a major

olution of air

Men

which

is

not

So

of

had im-

make war, men

generally done).

the

terror,

the

was with

the

development of airwar

blitz."

These begin-

more tentative than they appeared to be time. The Stuka dive bomber, that winged

seemed

same time more than

urgency has passed are recognized as fashioned

narra-

nings were

It tle

to be the ultimate air

the early fighting in

— and

was not

at the little

equally decisive (which was prac-

until the Luftwaffe's rebuff in the Bat-

of Britain and

cities

weapon;

France was

a sequel to the aerial jousting of the First

tically nil).

once

The

understood) Batde of Britain and what belea-

World War

But

war

story through the decisive (though

guered Londoners called "the

stress with a

weapons under

expediencies.

it

Germany more than little

(a

the sickness inside Nazi

to

is

Luftwaffe,

War

that can be attributed

tive carries the

devoted to

is

German

with the eruption of the Second World

at

that ev-

weapons cannot be forgotten nor wished out of existence.

beginnings: with the rise of the

(taken for granted at the time)

also fashion

after the

it

power already mentioned against the

fiendish ingenuity

appalling

if

size, to read.

theme of Airwar

human background. War does do.

This volume, Terror from the Sky,

(achieved with a nimble

solution

brain and a deft editorial hand)

editorial

weapon

potency than anyone concerned

agined.

tome indeed.

The

oc-

terri-

and pain, and many

ble stresses, suffered misgivings

—

advances

technical

curred during these years, while

its

ineffectual

bombing

of British

which followed that a certain pattern began to

emerge. For one thing, despite the old dictum, the

— PREFACE bomber did not always get through. Also, when it did, great numbers of non-combatant civilians were injured or died

—and

their

lead to pleas for peace.

dying did not inevitably

Humankind, while capable

methods of extinguishing (one

of devising infinite

tempted to use "extincting" )

is

upon

reserves

inexhaustible

tragically

and a capacity for

can also draw

itself,

courage

of

This was equally true,

sacrifice.

during 1939-45, of airmen, foot soldiers, seamen,

and enemy.

civilians, of friend this

first

volume

closes, but

must thread through the

on

It is it

entire

is

note that

this

subtheme that

a

Victories,

is

an ac-

count of groping, of a search for a method of wielding a

weapon not

fully understood.

tale of loss, of great

at

all.

The Flying

telhng

Its

is

a

triumphs that were not triumphs

Tigers were abused and sacrificed

for a nation only half-concerned with the ethics of

the

accomplished

war; the famous Doolitde raid

litde militarily

and Midway was, we know now, one

The

early at-

tempts at reaching the industrial heart of

Germany

most poignant

of America's

victories.

with British and American bombers are sorrowing in terms of great dedication

all,

Outraged

was an

who

until they

Thus

men

is

devoted enPacific.

how

to

in

make

It

was not

official

pohcy to

of necessities, of course, but the it

just as well

might have

who fought beheved it was. were no mean accomplishments.

human enemy whose psychology and

eventually turned the tide of battle. times,

fought in the Pacific

wondered of

just

who

whom seemed

against natural enemies

—

the sea and

—

there were

when

who

all

Allies as well as Japanese

enemies were, not the

their

to

Still

moments,

darker

their

in

be some angry

least

who

aerial deity

implacably and without favoritism sought to destroy

them

all.

Finally,

Wirjgs of Fire, the last volume, relates

the air

months of War,

weapon came the

especially

traditional

much

of age in those last hectic

Although the Second World

war.

Europe,

in

ground (primarily because

its

was decided on

the

high commanders were

ground men), the ultimate victory owed unleashed

to air power. If

the decisive

weapon

—but

the fiery endings in both

devastating enough.

it

could have been

at a cost to

might have been too frightful

mankind

that

As

was,

to consider.

it

Germany and Japan were

would be best

It

be repeated; nor should

that they never

be forgotten that those

it

weapons, now refined but yet the same weapons, are poised

A

—hopefully

last

in

limbo.

general word:

My

But they are poised.

appreciation to

contributed to the preparation of this

all

those

work and

a long bibliography appear in the concluding volume,

number 4, of Air^'or. It might be noted, too, that the word "airwar" was not coined by me; it was a term used widely during the Second World War, although as two words. Eliminating the space took no great ingenuity, but the single word,

I feel,

a concept, a type of warfare that

capable of strik-

ing anywhere, anytime,

of those

feats

They fought

volume,

a

they persevered, despite dispiriting handicaps, and

who

searing destruction.

could be supplied with needed equip-

And some their

tragic

secondhand kind of war

ultimate effect was that

been.

most

the

fought had to learn

ment, materiel, and men. deprive these

scant

orphaned theater of war, the

infuriating

which those do

own

Skies, the third

tirely to that

—and

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, which

inexorably led to Japan's

It

sacrifice

The volume opens with

fulfillment.

victory of

and

—and

philosophy of death were incredible to them. But

how

work.

The second volume, Tragic

jungle

is

capsulizes

and everyone.

Edward Jablonski New

York, N.Y.

June 1970

—

Foreword

M,

JLITARY aviation attained dreadful maturity

during the Second World

War

—

of truly world-wide dimension.

coming of age

in

a blessing

fact

first

war

Whether or not

this

actually the

technology and strategy was in

(read:

or a scourge

"deterrent")

remains for history to determine. Or rather, for

men

more deadly transiweapon was scarcely noticed. and intimations. The Germans

conclusive "dogfights" that the tion of the toy turned

There were inklings

with their abortive Zeppelin depreda-

introduced, tions,

the

bombings upon

terror

advent of the giant bombers

—

—

German war

to determine in the course of history. This history

and others

from the club

the edge of the idea of strategic

sile

air

—

is

to the intercontinental ballistic mis-

a long one, but the major innovation, the

weapon,

As we

all

peculiar to

is

know, the

twentieth century.

the

"flying

machine" or "aero-

plane" was metamorphosed from a sportsman's plaything into a

weapon

of the Great

War

fatuities,

war during the

early

months

of 1914-18. Despite an exception-

ally favorable press,

matic

of

a flood of pulp literature, cine-

and a latter-day

cult

young innocents who never suffered

(nurtured by

a single experi-

ence of war), the "aeroplane" contributed very to the

outcome of

The embryo the myth of the

air

little

that war.

weapon, however, gave birth

to

"ace," the high-scoring pursuit, later

fighter, pilot, the

twentieth-century equivalent of the

medieval knight in a curiously anachronistic reversion.

So much attention was focused upon these

gentlemen jousters, their dainty

craft,

and

their in-

the

elimination of an far

from the

bombardment:

battle fronts.

But

this

were

more

assiduously

was not systemat-

like

employed

Germany was spared by

Trenchard

and

the Zeppelins, at

destroying

industries.

the Armistice the horrors

of mass bombings in the Great War. thing, actually.

the

enemy's means of making war

pursued and the Giants,

war

With the

leaders skirted along

ically

civilians than

cities.

the Gothas, Staaken,

Two

It

was

a near

astute airmen, England's

America's

William

Mitchell,

Hugh had

grasped the potential of aircraft as a weapon and

how it might be used in terms of that potential. Had Germany not surrendered, its cities would have been bombed by huge fleets of large aircraft and its industries laid waste. It very well may have changed the course of history.

Between the wars,

especially because of a general

revulsion to things military in the democracies, the

—

— FOREWORD

development of

power was minimal. However, his RAF out from un-

air

Trenchard managed to keep

der the thumbs of the established services and thus

Boeing

encouraged the doctrine of the independent

air force.

the

own

country,

dishonored prophet in his

Mitchell, also

campaigned for an

air force free of

Army and

Navy control with especial emphasis upon the heavy bomber designed to strike at the enemy behind the lines. About the same time also, Giulio Douhet, in Italy,

expounded

Air," which

his

"Command

concept of

was based upon

among

Douhet nor Mitchell were popular

more conservative

who

military peers,

of the

bomber. Neither

the big

their

continued to

view war through nineteenth-century eyes. Mitchell,

propheted himself into a court-martial be-

in fact,

cause of his outspoken views on the U.

Navy's

realistic theories of

and Douhet. For centuries the

Mitchell

had been

civilian

permitted to "enjoy" war at a distance. Unless, of course, he if

happened

to live in the path of armies;

he were swept aside, his home and

stroyed, himself even killed,

"fortunes of war."

It

The

introduction

kill

of

bombardment changed harmless about.

It

it

de-

as the

no one

luck;

him.

the all

fields

was accepted

was merely bad

deliberately set out to

Over

doctrine

of

proof of the

first flying

Germany,

in

World War evolved

but they were invaria-

air forces,

command. This was

bly subordinate to ground

es-

Germany. Japan depended upon

of

a formidable navy with

major force being the

its

equipped with an outstanding

carriers

was no

or Japan

Italy,

for that matter. All three of the ag-

mighty and potent

true

a

bomber.

gressor nations of the Second

pecially

in fact

period, interestingly, there

development

—nor France,

was not

it

combat, but that was

in

unknown Zero. Germany plunged into war with

the

aircraft,

bloom during

apologists claim

it

was not

much

like the carrier-based

was

was

overesti-

Germans them-

sweeping impact could be

its

attributed to shock as

But

strength

its

Allies (and even the

and some of

selves)

Modern-day was imag-

as powerful as

ined at the time. Perhaps

mated by the

the most power-

at the time.

as to superior tactics.

Japanese naval

air forces,

a fearful instrument of destruction.

Because these great forces were subservient to

flimsy,

thinking predominated by surface tactics, they were

the between-the-wars period, and

World War. bombardment was

and

As

wasted.

ultimately

and France

Italy

for

—such

Germany and Japan thinking lost

them the

war.

The Second World War opened and

the Second

Curiously, the idea of strategic

world

ful air force in the

strategic

The once

that.

flying machine brought this change was suggested during the Great War, lay

to full

same

this

parallel

That

was the

it

efficacy of the strategic

it

little

dormant through

came

beside the point;

self-

1935 and became celebrated as

in

Fortress.

was proved

flying fortress

not very subtle change in military thinking was

obvious in the generally

Company

B-17 Flying

powerful high-flying,

in

This plane was produced by the

aircraft.

then

toward aviation.

attitude

A

S.

bombsights

accurate

defending

Dirschau Bridge

attacks:

aerial

in

closed with

Poland by

a

nurtured in the peace-loving democracies, England

Kette of Stukas and Nagasaki in the Pacific by a

and, to a greater extent, the United States. Mitchell's

lone B-29.

ideas, for all their unpopularity,

were sustained and

understood by his young disciples Henry H. Arnold, Carl A. Spaatz, and Ira C. Eaker,

These men were not devoted the thought

was

came

others.

to be called "high-altitude, daylight, precision

bombing." Their argument lay

in

the truth that

if

you eradicate the enemy's means of making war, he will stop fighting. This could be done, they contended, only

if

targets could actually

was before the advent struck:

that

is,

of

radar)

be seen

and

virtually erased off the

bombing could be done

(this

efficiently

map. Such

in daylight with extremely

to

tied

war was not a pure air war. some extent, and especially in

yet the

to

(and often

tied

down by) ground

strategy.

The

—

And

was throughout,

Europe,

to killing civilians

them but to the idea enemy war industries by what

repellent to

of the destruction of

among

It

role

of air power,

1939^5:

but minor in

it

however, was anything

was

decisive. It

is

a dan-

gerous delusion to pretend that the bombings of

Germany

not contribute heavily to the Nazi

did

all was not perfection in the stratebombardment program is true; how could it have been otherwise? The Germans were not cooperating in its prosecution. But without air power

collapse.

That

gic

it

is

have

unlikely set foot

that

upon

ground

Allied

the beaches of

they did, or quite so firmly.

It

forces

would

Normandy when

would have been pos-

FOREWORD bombed Germany

have

to

sible

without an invasion at

men

believed

this

some months longer

lasted

would have been

whose

aircraft

were defeated. Germany, operational

first

upon

fect

the

war

is

came too

but fortunately they

philosopher,

it

into stagnation)

developed the

true,

and rocket-powered

jet-

—thanks and

Hitler,

Those

to

late to

have an

ef-

great military

that

to

fighters,

bombardment.

Allied

There was a wide range of development

the

in

P-40 to the P-51. There

is

an even greater one

from the early general-purpose bombs to such

re-

finements as the missile and the atomic bomb. Aircraft, their

uted

the

to

compared

weaponry and ordnance, contrib-

when

outcome; immeasurably

war's

World

to their contribution in the First

War. This can be attributed partly

mere

to

techni-

improvement, but even more to application, to

cal

how

the air

weapon was employed. The war opened

as a kind of sequel to the Great

the innovational doctrine of the (the tank plus aircraft team),

War and, German

The Second World War was war out of which

As

The

last

war of the

the

fighter

was when

air

explosives pilot

complex did not But

aircraft

had

has an

war

in

is

it

of

it

the otherworldly element in which they perform:

And when

the cloud-laden, cerulean, vasty skies.

airman "bought

truly

was another matter.

to re-

falling

miles

five

it

ramming

before

that

been able to communicate

combined to destroy Ger-

modern

tragic realization.

The Japanese,

the lesson

Pearl Harbor,

Midway. The though few

civilian

non-

combatant was over. The cozy concept of leaving to "guilty" soldiers

and sparing "innocent"

was dead. That millions of innocent

ci-

civilians

earth

the

into

and

his thoughts, feelings,

Nor would

interior of a stricken air-

which managed to return from a rough mis-

sion forget the experience: flak and flame produced

anything but purity and cleanliness.

There seemed something impersonal, loosing

bombs

certainly

mans those

it.

Still,

but no one has ever

in a splash of flame. Perhaps,

anyone who had seen the

revolutionized war,

the

going was spectacular to

his

it,"

craft

lesson themselves at

and draw

when they must. What makes the heroism airmen so much more romantically fascinating

upon

all

at

capacity

not a rare or

people have

all

of

sacrifice,

infinite

the British and Americans, for

all

Air war meant that the day of the

vilians

man

pain during that remarkable final plunge.

were anxious to acknowledge

war

Courage

commodity:

wasteful

of

for such deeds.

for

all

initiated full

—

—

is

fighter

wartime was a time of heroes,

sacrifice

pointless sacrifice

exclusive

The lone

last.

as always, alas,

incredible

of

target.

combat with a "daredevil aces"

into

re-

war became a

learned the

a specified

to

who went

there seemed something so clean and pure about

industry that the fuller implications of

though they

a team whose

of

function was not to joust but to escort a load of

and

their doctrinal wrangling,

man

rugged individualist,

last

became part

theory was

German bombardment

was the

It

witness; experiencing

but ineffectual in a strategic sense. It

That

aces.

pilot,

were

exploits

emphasis upon "formations."

blitzkrieg

seemed fated

Battle of Britain changed

vealed that

the last large-scale

individuals, personalities, emerged.

war progressed, individual

the

lost in the

the

in

sank the battleship forever.

excepting

peating the inconclusive dogfighting of the previous

war.

on

war during 1939-

In effect, the evolution of air

45 also marked the end of land warfare

progression from the B-17 to the B-29 and from the

practically every pin point

the globe vulnerable to attack.

the beginning of the

quite different.

bombed

make

refined since)

future. It also

development stagnated (par-

because they were

tially

in

inevitable.

The aircraft in operation at war and those at its close were nations

submission

Given the B-29 and the atomic

this.

bomb, had the war Europe,

into

several responsible air-

all;

into

what appeared

was inconceivable

it

lived

there.

bombed

war becomes

cities

to

that

too,

about

be a toy

city;

fuU-sized

hu-

But the horror and misery of have been

less objective,

it

set

down

and,

when

becomes more ques-

tionable.

The Second World War was

man

inevitable.

The Ger-

leaders rationalized sufficiently for themselves

were slaughtered cannot be denied, but war being

and

now what it is, neither can it be avoided. Remember that. And it should not be forgotten that the air weapons developed during the Second World War (and

Japanese

their

Once

people good reasons for going to war. felt

the

justified

stunned

Allies

broiled, the only recourse

they had

—

attacking Pearl

in

found

was

themselves

to fight

The

Harbor.

em-

back with

and, as time went by, they had

all

more

— FOREWORD Warsaw,

craft:

anese had planned on a long war; they had hoped

Hamburg, Dresden,

and timorous opponents.

for short, swift victories It

The man who maintains

that there

is

such a thing

no matter who he

is,

a fool. In the abstract, as a game, where there

is

as a science, or art, of

true control

war

is,

and when blood

perhaps there

murder and now

weapon

so shrunk

the

not the argument,

war has placed

that air at

form of international

earth,

all

wars are

the nearly

aircraft

have

virtually

civil

man's disposal and

It

Word

all,

an

atrocity.

man

is

capable of such

I

hope, too, that

and

all its

.

.

between enemies. The Second World

vided an overwhelming

number

no matter how

just or

it

aircraft contributing to

it.

air

But

serves as a warning and a re-

must not forget the deeds of courage

aircraft,

jet

the

missile,

and the atomic

products of the Second World future world

war with few

deeds of car-

time be utterly lost

acts,

any more than the deeds of carnage. The develop-

—

What

War

war unthinkable. Imagine

survivors, without heroes, without

consolation

lies in

knowing

that

when

.

"we"

There must be, as the poet pleads, a reconciliation

We

minder.

a in

itself

This history attempts to trace the evolution of

war and the men and

victors.

nage must

warring nations; war

not a matter of which nation

evil his cause.

beautiful as the sky,

Beautiful that war

all

It is

perpetrated this or that outrage, but the fact that

bomb all make any

was Walt Whitman who chanted: over

is

ment of

wars of extinction.

Coventry,

Tokyo, Hiroshima. Such

deeds were not exclusive to either side; atrocities

But not

a kind of science or art.

is

in real war. It is ultimately a

ultimate

is

Berlin,

were committed by

did not go, simply, according to plan.

London,

Rotterdam,

than the enemy. Neither the Germans nor the Jap-

War

pro-

of "deeds of car-

go, "they" will

There

is

scant

in the knowledge that World War IV. What we all

comfort

there will never be a

know now can

go too?

prevent the third.

nage" which should be forgiven but never forgotten.

Many in

of these

deeds,

excepting those committed

Nazi extermination camps, were done by

air-

E.J.

New

York. N.Y.

TERROR FROM THE SKY

Prologue PAX GERMANICA To

posterity

it

will

appear

like

a fairy

—ADOLF

tale!

HITLER

A NATION OF

FLIERS

T

XhHE Battle of Britain, and perhaps the outcome of the European phase of the Second World

[Wever]

was transferred

to

that

branch

of

the

,

War, was predetermined on June

1936, in the

3,

smoldering wreckage of a single aircraft near DresIn later years Dresden would

den, Germany.

quire immortality as the

site

tragedy than the deaths of one

of a

ac-

more dreadful

German

general and

But the smaller tragedy and

his sergeant-mechanic.

would one day be linked by the

the greater one

inexorable, blind dynamics of history.

The accident tively at

summer day

that

world headlines. The

deep inside the paper, on page

rela-

bases,

Generalleutnant

fifteen.

Walther Wever,

Staff of the Luftwaffe,

had crashed

piloting his personal

plane,

sleek Blitz ("Lightning").

concept of

reported It

it

air

it

his

in

forces of foreign powers.

was on

It

his

latest

as-

signment as Chief of Air Staff that he was pro-

moted

to the

rank of lieutenant general."

name of Adolf Hitler meant little most Americans and the name of Walther Wever even less. Wever had served in the infantry during In 1936 the

to

the First

World War and

man Armed

Forces)

in the

until

Reichswehr (Ger-

Hitler

had come into

power. Youthful, dynamic, Wever was an advocate of very

Had

the

there to disconcert him,

although the

eventual impact of those events were to alter his greatly within a

life

were devoted

few years.

to a study of

Two

columns

full

"war rumors"

in

China

which the leaders of that country stigmatized as "a

A subhead was terse: "Tokyo Doubtful of War." Another more compact article announced:

plot."

Royal Air Force.

came

charge of

in

little

up

in

own Depres-

sion-inspired anxieties and eager to shun Europe's

cycUc paroxysms,

Ministry

the

death

With Wever perished

postwar isolation, involved with his

in

found

a Heinkel He-70, the

reader wrapped

2

with the special task of studying the air

of

might have spelled victory for his Luftwaffe

struggle with the

of Section

statistics,

while

Chief

in a takeoff

He became

with the rank of major general.

modern application of air power. American scanned the page on which the of Wever was reported, he would have

noted

power, a concept which, four years

To many an American

as a surprising revelation

Germany had an air force at all. The Times noted that when "the German Air Ministry was created under the Hitler regime he that

chief

during an inspection tour of military

that,

its

world

New York Times

briefly

later,

in a

peace was not impressive enough to make

Army

"Peace Aims Snag on Reich Arming." to

frame an

had

air

pact between

An

Germany and

attempt Britain

With one wary eye focused upon Moscow, Hitler boasted that his Luftwaffe was superior in

failed.

quality

Force.

as

well

as

quantity

to

the

Royal Air

— PAX GERMANICA He

referred to aircraft and numbers, not

was unaware of the

much

of the quality

had already been

Obviously the new Republic needed help

men; he

fact that with the loss of

Wever,

Ebert,

survival.

lost.

and

Army it might have a chance of who had known Groener during

with the aid of the

war and

the

trusted

him despite

military

his

cre-

was moved to tears by this generously offered hand from an unexpected quarter. The Redentials,

Groener then

public, in turn,

Army from

ter the

In 1936 not even Hitler, for

would have predicted three

A

years.

all

another

his saber rattling,

bluff,

he was

to blunder into

fated, like the Kaiser before him,

There are not any simple causes for war, but the variables.

But

if

one single

element was required to ignite the Second World

War

was Adolf

that element

East, but without Hitler's

In

Germany

it

1936 Imin the is

Far

unlikely

Japan would have attacked Pearl Harbor. With-

that

out

Hitler.

Japan was already on the march

perial

its

Nazi

Japan would not have been able

ally

challenge the United States the

Pacific.

A

Second World

Germany,

lerian

and Great Britain

therefore,

is

War

to in

without Hit-

easy rationalization for what occurred in Ger-

many

during the two fateful decades 1919-39 has

been the hard peace imposed upon Germany by

The terms

of the treaty,

however malevolent, did not create the mood and

war

setting for the

to

come, they merely supplied

The implementation for the November 9, 1918 Armistice was signed, ending

four of the most wasteful years in man's history.

This implementation was a secret mutual protec-

General

Staff.

telephone

between the newly proclaimed Ger-

It

call.

German

was brought about by a simple

On

November

that

virulent

the

grimy cloud

days ahead

in the parlous

Bolshevism rose

of

specter

like

and vengeance-bent

in the east

9 the call

came

a

Allies

from the west. This binding of the German

rolled in

government to the military doomed the Reich to a second dance of death

—and

was not

the old dance

yet over.

The Allies, hoping to maim Germany's ability to make war again, made the German General Staff one of its chief victims at Versailles. As the reeral

was

Staff

along with

Kriegsakademie

the

head,

dissolved,

(War

its

Gen-

fountain-

The

College).

Army was reduced to a mere hundred thousand men and its instruments of war were seized by the were con-

Allies or destroyed. All military aircraft

and the German Air Force disbanded. How,

fiscated

to

Republic and the newly discredited

anti-

especially the General Staff,

each other, they agreed,

—

with

man

Army,

military and the

next war was set in motion on

tion agreement

democratic Republic was avowedly

the

the later justifications.

two days before the

se-

was an anomalous mariage de convenance,

It

for

pository of Teutonic military philosophy the

inconceivable.

An

the Treaty of Versailles.

shel-

was agreed,

was equally anti-democratic. But they would need

catastrophe, taking millions of victims with him.

summation of countless

It

cretly of course.

war within

great

master of the big

must

stipulated,

the Allies.

such restrictions, was Hitler

all

boast

The

an

of

force

air

chief architect,

strictions

was the Seeckt.

the

to

Germany

of the Versailles Treaty

vision of the

1936 able

in

none?

to

guiding genius, behind

the

the military resurgence of

second

Inter-Allied

despite the re-

and the super-

Commission

of Control

unknown Generaloberst Hans von His very anonymity made him acceptable all

but

Allies

to

head Germany's token military

it

force; his reputation as a brilliant military thinker

with the Supreme Headquarters at the Hotel Britan-

delighted the remnants of the General Staff which

nique

still

to Berlin over the secret wire

at

German found

Spa

in southeast

border.

himself

which connected

Belgium adjacent to the

The new

President, Friedrich Ebert,

speaking

with

Lieutenant

General

Wilhelm Groener (not the wily Hindenburg, who wished to disown any responsibility for dealing with either the eral,

enemy or

speaking for the

proposition.

new Republic). The genHigh Command, offered a

the

remained

What later.

German Army. know then

first

of a series

But Germany would

them

hurt

Seeckt regarded the so-called Great

merely the lose.

in the

the Allies did not

War

rise

again,

fight

again,

and ultimately win. Within the limitations of small

army

Seeckt began

credited General

Staff

as

which Germany might

resuscitating

the

and building a new,

his dis-

elite.

Hans von Seeckt (1866-1936), brilliant architect of the resurgence of Germany's war machine. Despite the strictures of the Versailles treaty, and with the co-

of the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, Seeckt created the antecedents of the panzers and the

operation

Luftwafje even before Hitler

came

to

power.

(NATIONAL archives)

PAX GERMANICA more modern Reichswehr under the very noses of New, unwarhke names were devised for certain departments of the Reichswehr. The "Min-

the Alhes.

Army

"retired"

actually under the direction of

was

civilian control,

example, ostensibly under

for

of Pensions,"

istry

The

officers.

function of the

Min-

formed, contributed immeasurably to the

newly militarized Germany. as

GEFU,

the

Known more

company was formed by

rise

of a

familiarly

a joint Ger-

man-Russian group, the German members being

The

trusted friends of Seeckt.

GEFU

tion of

was known

and func-

existence

also to

Reich Chancellor

on Ger-

Dr. Joseph Wirth and Foreign Minister Walter Ra-

many's manpower potential for the next war. In

thenau. Wirth was especially essential to the project,

was

istry

in

the collection of data

fact

was

same time Reich Finance Minister,

staff

for he

kept

and Seeckt required additional financing which was

abreast of the latest military developments in the

not forthcoming from his stringent military budget.

of

guise

the

such)

as

designated

not

(although

officers

Seeckt's

research,"

"historical

Among

world.

Seeckt was no conservative; he fully appreciated

opposed to

the importance of mobility in warfare (as

war of 1914-18). As

the attritional trench craft,

blind to

its

airmen

only

with

Beginning

three

the air branch of the Reichswehr quickly

officers,

expanded

Hugo

potential. Seeckt brought several

Reichswehr.

the

into

for air-

nearly everyone in the previous war had been

to fifteen.

Among

Hans-JUrgen

Kesselring,

Albert

Sperrle,

the younger officers were

Stumpf, and Wolfram von Richthofen,

former

a

engineer and cousin of the celebrated

civil

Knight

of

Germany."

It

was

"Red

good name

a

Seeckt's growing circle; in a few years

all

the

for

names

But names only meant

1920,

httle in

German

With a monocled eye on

army out Germany. His

the

objective,

greater

the

his

burgeoning

of the internal strife that erupted in military elite

was thus nurtured even

while Germany's government and

and

when Seeckt

military renaissance.

he managed to keep himself and Uttle

festered.

Thanks

to

the

economy boiled

agreement between

government and the Army, Seeckt was able to

side-step

those

official

have interfered with If

inconveniences

that

might

he was able to dominate or hoodwink his own

more ingen-

problem of how to revive the Ger-

man

Air Force and replenish the supply of

craft

which Allies so wastefully destroyed.

could co-operate with his

If

air-

he

own government, which

he detested, then why not take aid from a govern-

ment he

truly hated

—

the Bolshevik Soviet Russia?

Soviet Russia from about the

when an

summer

of

1922,

organization called Gesellschaft zur Ford-

erung gewerblicher Unternehmungen (Company for the

Advancement

of

"industrial

was a Junkers

not far from

Moscow

established

enterprises"

aircraft factory

at

Fill,

Germans were forbidden in Germany). Another en-

(for

to manufacture aircraft

—

was named Bersol-Aktien-Gesellschaft, a

terprise

Soviet-German operation

at Trotsk, in the

province

of Samara. Bersol was to produce poison gas. Sevfactories

eral

projected, and sia.

Finally, in

producing

for

were

shells

artillery

some built, in other sections of Rusthe same spirit of dedication to the

welfare of the proletariat, the Russians granted to

Krupp, the German industrial empire, a large

Don,

tract

on the Manych River, a tributary of the

of land

for use as an "experimental farm." This

Industrial

tors

and other farm equipment.

tor,"

Enterprises)

was

A

was

"large-size trac-

might be noted, produced at

it

this

mounted a 7.5-centimeter gun. At the same time training schools were in Soviet Russia

saintly

Lenin

—

all

—where

exchange the

latest

"farm"

established

of this with the blessing of the

Germans and Russians could developments

in

the

"art

of

war."

By 1923 an

ground and tank

excellent training

school was established at tactics

his plans.

Minister of Defense, Seeckt was even ious in solving the

the

GEFU

by

ostensibly for the testing and demonstration of trac-

would stand for something. sought to improvise a

at the

Kazan on

the Volga; there

were devised, vehicles developed, and leaders

new army. The seeds of Kazan when German panzers smashed across the Polish frontier to open the Second World War and, later, Lenin's legacy to his workers came home too as Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. The "air weapon," the other element essential to

trained for Seeckt's

reached

full

flower

Seeckt's mobility concept,

man about

Air

Force

250

called "4th

miles

was reforged

Center at Vivupal, southeast

of

at the

Ger-

near Lipesk

Moscow. The

so-

Squadron" stationed there was supplied

from Germany through the where German customs

free

officials

port

of

Stettin,

winked when neces-

—

— A NATION OF FLIERS slipped across the Baltic under cover of night. Ger-

The central hotbed of German reactionary movements was Bavaria, where the disgruntled gath-

man

ered to voice their disgust with their government

Military materials of embarrassing bulk were

sary.

were

sent to Russia for training

officers

first

discharged from the Army. Should anything happen

them while

to

German

not a

civilian,

Among

training,

in

would happen to a

it

was Hans Jeschonnek, who

would one day serve as Chief of

Staff of the future

Thus were hundreds of airmen trained

Luftwaffe.

Russia during the late twenties

in

an incipient

air

—

the nucleus of

weapon. At the same time new

according to the treaty, prohibited

and,

were developed and tested

in

—

aircraft

Russia and other coun-

Inevitable training accidents posed special prob-

lems, for there

was no simple explanation

for the

shipment of German bodies from Soviet Russia. The

Commission of Control could not be

Inter-Allied

But the solution was

blind to everything.

The bodies

simple.

young airmen

were returned

training at Lipesk

Germany

of

in crates

efficiently

killed

families

their

to

while

stamped: "Machinery

—Spare

Parts."

To

Seeckt none

peared

illicit,

this

it

sub rosa

cross his

Germany. He

disloyal to

so-called

of

nor did

mind

Weimar Republic with

all

was merely temporary one he was certain

a

ambition

fashion

to

a

istration,

.

.

free of internal

Army

added, the

image of the war.

its

democratic,

the instrument

—

for

own German

his

"should become a

which, under his adminits

own

laws and aims

"should be merged

state."

To

was

and international law. "But," Seeckt

through service; in fact

art of

."

said,

certainly was, with

it

ap-

that he

formidable

truly

Army. "The Army," he state within a state

activity

did, of course, scorn the

anti-military avowals. It

—

it

in

the state

should become the purest

Thus a

was

treaty. It

state dedicated to the

Seeckt the excuse of the Versailles

man

army, the Sturmabteilungen, to his

occupying armies of the

Allies.

natical, ranting leader,

who seemed capable

the criminality of the Versailles Treaty, the

Weimar Republic, and

ineptitude of the

of course, Adolf Hitler.

"We

soon as we have power, we

Meanwhile, cesspool

—

civil

will naturally take

lost."

different."

had no intention of placing

Hitler

Troopers

at Seeckt's disposal

Germany had become

a political

some of them quasi-military, proGermany itself sank into economic de-

Political factions,

liferated as

—

misled to believe

—

bully boys. This

was revealed

as Seeckt

had been

had other plans

for he

Storm

his

for his

in the abortive Biir-

gerbrau Keller fiasco in a Munich beer hall the following

November when

Hitler unleashed his elite

band prematurely

ruffian

Among them was no

a

in

misguided Putsch.

than

less

war hero Field

Marshal Erich Ludendorff, with dreams of glory of own. Hoping

his

to

ride into the role of military

Germany on

dictator of

Hitler's

coattails,

Luden-

dorff merely strode through the police firing line

miraculously unhurt

party

ace

—and

members

Sixteen party

out of history forever.

lay

member, second only

dead in the

street;

one

to Hitler, the ex-fighter

Goring, was seriously wounded, and

Hermann

Hitler fled the scene in a thoroughly unmilitary style.

With

his rivals out of the

way

—

for Hitler

was

imprisoned for a while: long enough to dictate Mein

—

self

sia

Seeckt could turn his attention to his

would

building his

also attributed to the Treaty of Versailles.

were one in our aims,"

Seeckt later said of Hitler, "only our paths were

tary dictatorship.

back everything we have

the eventual

emergence of a mighty Reich. The party leader was,

needed was a

as

of ha-

ranguing for hours on a subject dear to the general's

plans for a Putsch and his

powerful," he declared, "and,

should

Seeckt was most impressed with the party's fa-

Kampj

war.

private

he require additional hands to rid the Ruhr of the

plans long before there was such a treaty. All he lost

own own use

the time hoping to put the party's

at

Ger-

political groups, the

National Socialist Workers' Party. Seeckt was

Treaty was not necessary; he had begun making his

"We must become

in Bavaria's capital,

Munich, that Seeckt met with the young leader of

heart:

tries.

in

and to curse the

one of the more clamorous

soldier.

the early trainees graduated from the avi-

ation school at Lipesk

pression.

all

—

own

of a mili-

But within three years Seeckt himNot, ironically, for his remarkable

fall.

up of

own dream

a

new German

military structure or

but inexplicable dealings with Soviet Rus-

instead

indiscretions

Seeckt provided comparatively

which served as

trivial

well.

For example, he issued an order

entitled

"The

Proper Conduct of Duels Between Officers," which

PAX GERMANICA

8

Such arrant

resulted in a small flurry in the press.

Prussianism at a time

when

Germans were con-

the

cerned with diminishing that wart in the profile of

With

the national stereotype.

characteristic disdain,

ary,

had within a decade worked

Hindenburg government

his

way

Chancellor.

as

into the

Although

Hindenburg detested the lowly "Bo-

the senilescent

hemian corporal," he was forced eventually

to rec-

—by

Seeckt chose to ignore the criticisms.

ognize the power of the Nazis. Hitler

committed another

of verbose spellbinding, blackmail, threat, cajolery,

Whereupon he During the autumn 1926

gaffe.

virtue

and the aid from German big business,

maneuvers of the 9th Infantry Regiment Seeckt

murder,

gave permission to Prince Wilhelm, son of the for-

bankers, poHtical conservatives, industriaUsts, Jun-

mer Crown Prince, to participate in the exercises. The Prince, as one of the deposed Hohenzollerns, was anathema to the sincere democrats and especially to the vociferous Left. The Socialist paper,

kers landowners, and an enormous majority of the

Vorwdrts, declared that Prince Wilhelm's presence,

evitable.

in

resplendent

full

was "not simply a

uniform,

question of whether parliament or the military shall

be the predominant factor tion of

in

Germany;

a ques-

it is

democracy or militarism!"

it

was obvious

that Seeckt

But what few realized

go.

would have to

time was that by

at the

then Seeckt had already succeeded in making Ger-

many

And

safe for militarism.

accomplishments were known to tary genius," as historian written,

was

some extent

to

insiders.

his

His "mili-

John Wheeler-Bennett has

a unique combination:

"the precision

and accuracy of the soldier" and "the vision and imagination of the creative

an

artist in

For such he was,

artist.

making bricks without straw,

in beating

ploughshares into swords, in fashioning a military

machine which, though nominally within the

By

listening)

So

it

—had

made

himself politically in-

that when Adolf Hitler became ChanGermany on Monday, January 30, 1933,

was

cellor of

he was placed in a position to take over the gov-

denburg.

And

to Field

Marshal Hin-

thanks to General Seeckt he had the

superb beginnings of a great war machine. Never

owed

before had a mere corporal

so

much

marshal and a general, particularly to the

field

to

a

lat-

with his dream of the next war. "The whole future of warfare," Seeckt had observed, "appears to me to be in the employment ter

of mobile armies, relatively small but of high quality,

and rendered

distinctly

addition of aircraft.

.

.

more

effective

by the

Although the term had

."

not yet been coined, Seeckt in the early twenties

had akeady visualized the concept of

blitzkrieg.

restric-

Peace Treaty, struck admiration and

tions of the

awe

good

Hitler's anti-Semitism,

anti- Versailles spoutings very

anti-communism, and

ernment of Germany, thanks

With the world only recently made safe for democracy,

German people (who found

into every General Staff in

the time Seeckt

made

Europe."

his

exit,

in

October

1926, the presidency of the Republic had been

filled

World War, Field a finger

There was no Luftwaffe as such when Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich. Significantly, his first important address, made on the very next day,

to help him, Seeckt permitted the formation of yet

January 31, 1933, was to the troops of the Berlin

another political party around him, the Deutsche

garrison.

by the great hero of the

First

Marshal Paul von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg.

Hindenburg had not

Bitter because

When

Volkspartei.

lifted

he realized, after

little

that his future did not lay in politics,

verted whatever believed had

power

the

his party

Seeckt di-

had to the party he

most promising future:

resuscitated Nazis. Seeckt died

know what he had done

success,

in

Hitler's

1936, never to

for that party's ultimate

destiny. Hitler,

As well

by

to resign

more than

a

in

1923 appeared

to

be

little

loudmouthed incompetent revolution-

Hitler.

—

the

In 1926

all.

and others had done

—when

Seeckt was forced

German Air Force

fighter squadrons,

a single

consisted of two

bomber squadron, and

an auxihary bomber squadron. By 1931 there were four fighter squadrons, three bombardment squadrons,

who had

He charmed them

for the Air Force, Seeckt

figures

and eight observation squadrons. While the might not have been impressive and they

were not supposed to be

—

—

they

contained within

A NATION OF FLIERS them hundreds

most of them

of future air leaders,

There were other even

obvious developments.

less

In 1926 also the Deutsche Lufthansa Aktiengesell-

was created

schaft

tal enterprise.

Lufthansa combined two of Germany's unstable

financially

and

Aero-Lloyd

Deutsche

Junkers

airlines,

Luftverkehr.

This consolidation came about under pressure from

German

the a

Ministry of Air Transport, supposedly

by

headed

agency,

civil

a

Seecktian,

trusted

Captain Ernst von Brandenburg. The captain had attained wartime immortality as the leader of the

Bomber Squadron No.

famed

England-

the

3,

geschwader, which had flown the giant Gotha bombers to attack

London from

burg's functions

was

Force. Milch

the

air.

der Dicke ("the Fat One") very seriously; and he

One

of Branden-

to arrange for the training of

bomber)

make any

did not

When

and governmen-

as a joint private

though

successful

new German Air

role to play in the

with his shrewd practical mind could hardly take

trained in Soviet Russia.

effort to join the party.

come

the Nazis did

power Milch was

into

asked by Hitler himself to serve as Goring's deputy Air Reichskommissar. Milch accepted on the con-

he remain

By

chairman.

Lufthansa's

dition

that

April

1933 Goring was Air Minister and Milch

Secretary of State for Air; in effect this signified the

convergence of German

Milch was viously

would

into

fit

and military

civil

efficient, ruthless,

scheme of things very

the

There was, however, one sUght

well.

had the

father

taint of

aviation.

and ambitious; he ob-

hitch.

His

"Jewish blood" and an im-

portant platform of the Nazi party was a virulent

was

anti-Semitism. This

easily

remedied considering

pilots in special

Milch's aspirations and abilities: his mother simply

sections of Lufthansa's Deutsche Luftverkehrschule.

signed a statement in which she swore she had com-

In time there were four of these flying schools turn-

mitted adultery. Milch was,

future military (obviously

who

ing out civil pilots

could double as bomber

Aryan

The advent

pilots.

Board chairman of Lufthansa was Erhard Milch, an ex-German Air Force

who had been

pilot

a

salesman for Junkers. Milch was an astute, sharpwell-organized

dealing,

World War of

Hermann

Goring,

As an

administrator.

aviator he naturally

came

who had found

profitable than postwar aviation in

ex-

into the sphere

more

politics

Germany. The

gregarious, blufT, gross, and well-liked Goring loved to

meet with other ex-war days

beautiful

of

fliers

and

relive

the

Those were the best

war.

the

when men were men and

a

in

1928

to talk about the splendid days of the

War.

No

more

practical

was

Milch

romantic.

matters.

concerned

Lufthansa was

in

it

Great with

trouble

and needed government backing to survive. Goring reputation

with

his

most

likely

proach on a

warm

as

an

advocate

was

the

representative in the Reichstag to apthis matter.

friendship

The two old

the fortunes of Lufthansa.

one day the it

fliers

struck up

and Goring, though he repre-

sented a minor party, did

and when

air

all

he could to advance

He

boasted to Milch that

as

machine for him and Hindenburg put

military

Germany beyond a determination to "call to account the November Criminals of 1918" and his own illdefined power

Nor, unlike Seeckt, did he have

lust.

a military program. fact.

had

Hitler,

the

eternal

Corps remained aloof from

insisted,

man, had

enlisted

On

respect for the Officer Corps.

Officer

But when Milch sought out Goring

well

as

him in power. In truth, however, when Hitler became Chancellor, he had no real social program for

In

was not

which had been unrav-

The masses

big business were behind him. Seeckt had prepared

little

above the trenches.

society

the Armistice.

eling since

they

air miles

turned out, a pure

of Hitler began to entwine the various

German

strands of

fought like knights in single combat in the clean

years of their lives,

it

bastard.

smugly content with

its

part, the

politics as Seeckt

privileged lot.

its

Their only concern with Hitler was

how

they might

use him to further their fortunes. Militarily Hitler, the leader of a rabble

Storm Troopers and the Schutzstaffel,

great

war

lord.

and such roisterers as the

his

guard,

private protective

was an amateur; he would be no

An

intuitionist. Hitler

was no

practi-

tioner of classic strategies.

But he proved more than the match of the Officer Corps as a ful

tactician.

He wooed them

references to their honored

little

Nazi party would run Germany

their

did,

Milch would have an important

as the officers preened,

important role in the

state.

with respect-

traditions

He

and to

bided his time,

and then he ravaged

all

of

PAX GERMANICA

10

Hitler, leader of the New Germany, and HerGoring, leader of the newly spawned Luftwaffe, in an early happy hour greeting their admirers, the

Adolf

executing an aerial war could not be imagined: Hitler

mann

neither trusted nor liked aircraft

German

people.

Two men

less

capable of planning and

them: Hitler transformed the famed German General Staff into

an ensemble of lackeys. They were

masters of nothing.

and Goring did not understand them as a weapon of military strategy. This was their major combined contribution to the outcome of the Second World War. (national ARCHIVES)

privilege

for Hitler

to contend

with,

as

with the

Army. And there too was the proficient Milch, to set a new air force on a sound organizational and administrative basis.

The new Air was formed from

Ministry, under Milch's direction, the old Commissariat for Air and

the Transport Ministry.

This

last

would naturally

The Luftwaffe was Hitler's pet; its leader was Hermann Goring, a good friend and number two Nazi. Beyond the Open Cockpit and Flames in the

include

Captain

bomber

pilots.

Sky mystique which Goring advocated, there was no long history, no accumulation of tradition and

had been transferred from the Defense Ministry, Albert Kesselring, and Hans-Jurgen Stumpf. Go-

the

new

Brandenburg's flying schools for

Among

those holding high office in

Ministry were Oberst Walther Wever,

who

A NATION OF FLIERS faithful

ring,

11

old comrades and to the glorious

to

days of the Great War, saw to

found for two of

were

that posts

it

German spirit among

out

"My

Bruno

his friends of the old days:

We

comrades!

dissolution of the old

sonnel were available in limited numbers from the

possible to carry

and

Russia

in

greater

in

numbers from

Deutscher Luftsportsverband, where siasts

enthu-

flying

learned the art of gliding under Kurt Student,

member of the Reichswehr Air Technical Branch. The most promising of these sporting pilots were a

on powered

sent to Lufthansa's schools for training

Among

aircraft.

those trained in the schools was

Galland

aviation

civil

and other young German

combat

pilots received training also in

the beginning of

1934 Milch had projected

air service

longing

terrible

in all of

for

spirit of

other than sport and

civil flying

—

—even

youth of the new Reich

they, the

having passed

—would

contribute.

known then

the planning stage; though litde aircraft

were

become notorious during

to

and

the Battle

Geschwader was comprised of from ninety hundred 1931

In

Staff els

compared

aircraft as

the

six

Geschwader. The

reconnaissance

six

these

bomber,

of Britain. Milch's plans called for six fighter,

in

to

to the StaffeFs nine.

German Air Force was reckoned

(roughly

equivalent

a

squadrons

to

American Air Force); three years

later

in

in

the

become

He

"air-mindedness"

of

among Ger-

many's youth of both sexes. Goring fostered enthusiasm

by

civil pilots.

On March

initiating

and

Hitler's

not resist

competitions

for

1934, following a cross-

awards with char-

He was aware

of Milch's planning

dreams for the

invoking the past

future, in

but he could

speaking of "the

ahve,"

in the greatest strug-

have the right to honor our

man

youth. In no treaty

is

there a clause

demanding

have made our people unhappy for the

who

and a half have

break

tried to

decade

last

this spirit."

Goring could not close without a tribute Fiihrer,

from

whom

aviators

all

to the

The

these blessings came.

had dropped roses on

Hitler's

Haus Wachenfeld, near Berchtesgaden,

re-

at the

close of the competition. In this luxurious villa Hit-

too was able to enjoy some of his blessings among the magnificent vistas of the Bavarian Alps. From his terrace he could observe the young Gerler

man

fliers

dropping roses, of which Goring

"This compliment

the natural thanks.

is

.

.

said,

.

"For without Adolf Hider, where would German

and German

pilots

air transport

would have gone our dream

be today? Where

—our

longing

—

if

he

was a curious point

had not created the new Germany? Therefore, com-

make: that the individual should become sub-

rades," Goring concluded on a hushed note, "before

spirit

to

made

annual

the

country contest, he acteristic verve.

8,

this

We

German

spirit of

this spirit

the destruction of this spirit, but the cowards

treat,

was the growth, under governmental

a

heroes and to hold them up as models to our Ger-

such work was of necessity accomplished in secret. secret

in

nation

duty to the sacrifices

this

your comrades have made

young

Not so

"You have

gle of all times.

cause Hider was not yet ready to show his hand,

encouragement,

your duty to keep

is

he told them. that

German

a nation of fliers!"

returned to the subject of the

aviation. "It

year

"The young Germany,"

Goring promised them, "shall be brought up

Milch quite

thought in terms of Geschwader. Be-

realistically

—one

Thousand Year

in Hitler's projected

shall

and the Dornier 17 were

forms

in

shall rise again!"

This stirred the audience and Goring told them

how

four thousand planes. During 1933 the prototypes

111

re-

"The new Reich," Goring

man

of the Heinkel

comradeship

nevertheless

passion for flying in order that the

more than

was im-

remained only a dream. flying

an expansion of the aircraft industry and the GerAir Force which would require

the

after it

you." His next statement revealed

a hint of the future.

Reich

and gunnery.

batics,

By

aero-

flying,

air service

shouted, "has ordained that flying

Although ostensibly prepared for

Adolf Galland.

team

the

must admit that

German

on the old

our work and the

mained

—

form. Most of us were uprooted from

in disciplined

The

war

the

the crews.

Loerzer and Karl Bodenschatz. Youthful flying per-

school

during

aviation

of

servient

German to the

aviation." It

state,

pilot of the First

considering that

the

fighter

World War was an archindivid-

award the

Goring spoke glowingly of "the life

spirit that in

four

proved so successful and singled

—our

A

prizes,

we

will stand

in silent respect for

leader

ualist.

years of heroic

I

ment

year

moned

and think a mo-

our leader

—our

beloved

people's chancellor!"

later,

almost to the day that Goring sum-

a "nation of fliers," the Fiihrer officially an-

PAX GERMANICA

12

nounced

to

existence

world

the

—on

Luftwaffe.

of the

named Commander

1935 —

^the March 9, Hermann Goring was

Erhard Milch was

Chief,

in

Wever was

Secretary of State for Air, and Walther

Chief of

Within a week Hitler repudiated

Staff.

Treaty

Versailles

the

with

a

of

declaration

the

German Army (this

of no less than thirty-six divisions would require some 550,000 men) and the

reintroduction of conscription.

The Reichswehr,

and the underground General

Officer Corps,

were elated. At

last

the

Staff

German

the

man

Constitution, nor to protect the Ger-

government.

to the Reich.

did not even swear allegiance

It

Instead,

was a personal oath

it

of

loyalty to the corporal himself: /

God

swear before

my

to give

unconditional obe-

dience to Adolf Hitler, Fiihrer of the Reich and of the

German

Supreme Commander of my word as a brave

People,

Wehrmacht, and

the

I pledge

sol-

dier to observe this oath always, even at peril of

my

life.

they could operate in the open,

Germany would once

again take her place in the

The Reichswehr was no more, supplanted by the of which Hitler assumed command.

Wehrmacht,

sun.

That the oath neglected both patriotism and did not concern the

ity

too

The "Bohemian corporal" was not such a bad fellow,

after

all.

He

had, in fact, behaved himself

commendably so far as the mihtary was concerned. Even the grisly Blood Purge of June 30, 1934 had certain points to the Army's advantage. The slaughter of Ernst Rohm and some of his unwholesome associates eradicated a serious threat to thority

by curbing the Storm Troopers.

two of

lost

was but

its

own

If

Army authe Army

in the contrived conspiracy,

the fortunes of war.

it

But neither General

von Schleicher, who had been

Hitler's

German

nation from serious danger."

and

Goring's

private

not true, but victory

for

France.

It

Churchill,

Even

Geheime

had already

Force

Air

his

it

had

Hitler also

its

in

effect.

It

dealing

confirmed

the

was a diplomatic England

with

of

fears

whose lone voice had been raised

and

Winston in

warn-

ing against the rise of the Luftwaffe. Hitler's vain

centrate

so, the

the

StaatspoHzei

(the "Gestapo"). Estimates of the murders,

many

upon the

single-seater

fighter

aircraft

the aircraft this inspired

were the Hawker Hurri-

cane and the Supermarine

Having come out

Spitfire.

into the

plans, Hitler could proudly

of the Air Warfare

November

1,

1935.

as

Among

outlined in Air Ministry Specification F5/34.

having "saved the

Storm Troopers were merely superseded by SS

that

reached parity with the Royal Air Force. This was

boast roused the British government enough to be-

Rohm. The power of was smashed, however, and the military could make allowance for zeal. Hindenburg even sent congratulatory telegrams to Hitler and for

John Simon, the English Foreign Minister, and

Anthony Eden

gin expansion of the Royal Air Force and to con-

seriously with

commending them

considerably.

Hitler boasted to

Bredow

the Storm Troopers

Goring,

Sir

March 1935

the end of

thirty-six-division

grown

had

Luftwaffe

the

up a

building

legal-

generals; they were

immediate

predecessor as Chancellor, nor Kurt von

was involved

preoccupied

Army. Even Toward

German

open with

his

mihtary

announce the opening

Academy at Berlin-Gatow on The principal address of the

day was given by the Chief of

Staff,

Generalleut-

high as a

nant Walther Wever, already widely respected and

thousand, although Hitler admitted to only seventy-

recognized as a leading exponent of the strategic

seven.

concept of aerial

of

them

settling intraparty feuds, ran as

That he

and

Goring succeeded

Army

slaughter without internal

such

in

mass

interference attested to the

impotence of the Reichswehr.

Irresolute,

Italian

military

warfare

theorist

and a

General

of

disciple

Giulio

the

Douhet.

Greatly influenced, as were other military thinkers in

Europe, England, and the United States, by Douof the Air (1921),

expounded in The ComWever was a proponent of

trapped by Hitler. This snare was further strength-

the independent air force

and of the heavy bomber.

ened when he required them to take the new oath

As such he was

self-centered,

own

small

and

world,

he had devised.

It

indifferent

the

to

all

Army had

except

their

het's

already

been

mand

contained no pledge to sustain

ideas,

especially as

not in tune with Goring's

Cockpit romanticism. Wever was a

realist

Open and a

A NATION OF FLIERS regarded

highly

powerful,

13

upon the growing German

whose

officer air

impact

weapon was bound

remarks with an allusion to 1918

his

and the Versailles Treaty when "a leaderless nation collapsed

internally

and dashed the weapons

from the hands of the gallant Army." old refrain,

The Legend

"How weapon

will

—

of the

German

It

be

it

the

still

in

now

the future

Luftwaffe

—has

new Wever

that a

appeared?"

reach

it

development. The Air Force, which came into

existence

glorious traditions have been

Air Force of today. for

us;

proudest name.

handed down

Its greatest

Manfred

found

its

War, from which

great military origin in the Great

examples

ago,

years

twenty-five

hardly

to the

heroes are shining

von

Richthofen

—

its

." .

War

air

heroes

"... a

Force with independent status in the

strong Air

Wever, however, not wanting

services."

the

Army, was quick

to

slight

to indicate that an independent

Air Force could co-operate with the ground forces

where necessary, but he visualized a time when

it

to avoid "the positional warfare

massed armies," meaning, of course, the wasteful

of

trench warfare of the Great War.

Wever then made the bomber is

major point: "Never forget

his

that

decisive

the

at its disposal

in

aerial

bomber

forces

factor

warfare. Only the nation with strong

can expect decisive action by

its

Air

Force."

Under Wever's

were drawn

direction specifications

up for long-range, four-engined bombers. The sult

.

of the

strove for something which only Hitler's

would be possible

asked. "Only in a war of the future will full

was the

Defeat,

1935.

alive late in

Great

the

National Socialism was making possible:

to be an important one.

He opened

Wever emphasized,

But,

was

re-

and the Junkers 89, proto-

the Dornier 19

types of which were ready for flight

late in

trials

1936.

Before

Wever him

took place, however, Walther

this

summer

died at Dresden in the

of 1936. With

died the development of the heavy bombers. His successor,

Albert

and Ju-89

to concentrate

Kesselring,

canceled

Do- 19

the

on medium bombers and

the dive bomber, such aircraft as the Heinkel 111, the Dornier 17, and the Junkers 88 in the former

category,

and

the

in

latter,

the

Junkers

87,

the

"Stuka." In the foflowing

reshuffling

Wever's

the

of

death

fighter pilot, Ernst Udet,

was placed

the Air Ministry's Technical

command War

Luftwaffe's

Great

another old

at the

head of

Branch. The likable,

good-humored, dashing Udet was a

fine

not gifted with organizational or political

flier

skills.

but

With

his

sunny personality Udet was too wholesome for

the

company he

living

Great

War

kept.

As Germany's number one

ace (with sixty-two "kiUs" to his

credit), Udet's voice

meant something

to the

ama-

teurs in charge of the Luftwaffe after the death of

Wever. Unwittingly Udet did them a disservice with his enthusiastic expertise.

Popular First stunt

filer,

Ernst

Udet.

A

dashing,

ebullient

per-

Udet was a superb pilot but had little conception of the meaning of air power In war. He was

sonality,

the advocate In

In 1933 Udet visited the United States, one of his

World War ace and between-the-wars

Germany

of the dive

bomber (an

stops being the

impressed

with

Qeveland Air Races. He was most the

performance

picked up In the United States), which resulted in the Stuka concept, (national ARCHrvEs)

of

the

Curtiss-

Wright BFC-2, the "Hawk." As the Curtiss

Idea II,

the

dive

bomber was

Hawk

released for export and

Udet, with Goring's help, was able to purchase two

a

PAX GERMANICA

The Junkers 52, all-metal commercial transport which was converted into a troop transport and bomber. As a military plane it first was used in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. (Lufthansa photo)

them

of

in

Hawk

Udet demonstrated the center at Rechlin.

He

a pin-point target

December

at the Luftwaffe's test

delighted in kicking the plane

into a screaming dive and pointing

vertically

it

and then whipping

it

Command was

ance.

not

awed by

at

out of the

and

especially unimpressed

Richthofen later

Udet did not advance

summer

1934 he

of

commanded

a

cause any

lost the tail of

The Heinkel

1 1 1

for passengers

at

tests

MesserRechlin.

had already been displayed

Tempelhof as a "commercial"

bomb

fighter, the

at

aircraft with ten seats

and a smoking compartment in the was the

bay. Less susceptible of simulation

taken over by the Air Ministry as a bomber and

resisted Udet's proposals

his

same time a new

Dornier 17, which was rejected as a mail carrier and

development of such a plane (a curious side-

light, for

this

Bf-109, was undergoing

so,

Even

Major Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen was

for the

Around schmitt

the perform-

trajectory dangerously close to the ground.

High

Junkers 87B Stuka of the Condor Legion over Spain. The Ju-87 proved most effective against ill-defended Spanish installations and received more credit than (national archives) it actually deserved,

October 1933. The German government

authorized payment of $11,500 each. In

the

A

nicknamed "the Flying Pencil." The took off on too was a

its test flight

first

Junkers 88

on December 21, 1936;

medium bomber. Thus was

Stuka unit).

of the Luftwaffe established by the close of 1936

when

character

one of the

in the

Hawks

Wever

much

different

speech

in his

from

at the

that

it

the character

—

envisioned by

Air Warfare Academy.

while stunting over Tempelhof and had to take to his parachute.

by January

But despite Richthofen's objections,

1935 development contracts for dive

bombers were placed with Arado, Blohm and Voss, Heinkel, and Junkers. of aircraft was the

The

designation for this class

"Sturzkampfflugzeug," from which

popular term "Stuka" was derived. Although

bombers,

this referred to all dive

it

was

the Junkers

In the its

young

summer pilots

of

and

1936 the new Luftwaffe and aircraft

were supplied with a

testing arena for their theories in Spain.

That hapless

87 which became widely known as the Stuka. The

country soon became an ideological battleground for

Ju-87 was selected over

the forces of the Left and the Right. Russia sent

118, which Udet had test

its

competitor, the Heinkel

managed

to crash during a

because of his unfamiliarity with a small techni-

cal detail.

Now

was able

to

head of the Technical Branch, Udet

proceed with his Stuka campaign.

advisers, technicians, ists,"

the

of President

surgents,"

and equipment to the "Loyal-

Popular Front Republican Government

Manuel Azaiia y Diaz. When the "In-

led

by General Jose Sanjurjo Sacanell

A NATION OF FLIERS (who was

15

fascist nations, in

his

from the

call for aid

New

Goring

intervene

ful

communism;

fel

urged

Hitler

prevent the further spread of

my young

secondly, to test

to

Luftwaffe in

this or that

Within a week to

men and equipment were en

Morocco, where the

Among

fighting

route

had begun, and

to

the aircraft were the Junkers 52, the

Lufthansa transport converted to a bomber trans-

flexibility.

three

Schwarms

The too,

"civil" pilot

Adolf Galland.

forces.

early plans

lack of radio communications between

was found

to be a serious handicap.

The Rotte technique was air

forces

during the

eventually used by most

Second World

wingman combination. Richthofen, in time commander

War

in

the

leader and

of the

Condor

was developed. Thus was Germany's

not approved originally, was a most terrifying and

That

this

the

technique

was a violation of Wever's

went unnoticed

tactics in Spain.

By

the

in

summer

useful

weapon

in his close-support tactics.

The

ugly,

bent-winged dive bomber, with the shrieking sirens

of the

attached to the landing gear, was hailed as a scourge

more mod-

of the battlefield. Only a few Stukas were sent to

the success of 1937

ern aircraft were dispatched to the

Condor Legion.

Heinkel Ills approaching a Spanish town. When the first introduced in 1936 it was passed off

He-Ill was

that in

good deal

Legion, found that the Stuka Ju-87, of which he had

direction

supposedly independent Air Force wedded to the

ground

was learned

of

Under Richthofen's close support

It

unit of great

Schwann and

of time avoiding collision and not enough scanning

aircraft,

the

a Staffel.)

a

the old close formations the pilots spent a

the sky.

By November 1936

V-formations were abandoned

(Two Rotte made up

"Condor Legion" under command of Hugo Sperrle and with Wolfram von Richthofen as his Chief of Staff was formed. One of the fighter Staffels was commanded by the young

and Heinkel 52s, obsolescent biplane

War

old Great

favor of the Rotte, a two-plane

fighters.

port,

developed by the youth-

tactics, particularly as

Werner Molders (who replaced Galland as Stafleader in the Jasta 88), proved most effective.

The in

technical aspect."

Cadiz.

The Messerschmitt 109B-2 began to replace the HeIt marked the end of the biplane fighter era.

51s.

both Mussolini and Hitler responded

favor.

"firstly, to

and General

killed in the early fighting)

Francisco Franco, sent out a

Spain, but these were widely used by

By late 1937 Kampfgruppe 88

as a ten-passenger commercial aircraft.

was functioning as a bomber Spain. (NATIONAL archives)

in

alternating

it

in

— PAX GERMANICA

16

/ f

releasing bombs upon a The success of the missions without escort convinced the Germans that the bomber was

A Condor

Legion He-Ill

town.

Spanish

Guernica: April 26, 1937.

The

bells

in

this

burning

church rang out to warn of the approach of bombers, a warning which was ignored by the people in the

unaccustomed

By

more

impervious to fighter opposition. As with the Stuka, this misconception would come to roost during the Battle of Britain, (national archives)

than sixteen hundred lay dead in Guernica's burning

crews and proved most effective in attacks on sucli

arrived in Spain did the Ratas ("Rats")

port

and Tarragona.

as Valencia, Barcelona,

cities

The Stukas

disrupted

also

stroyed bridges,

bombed

communications,

had by

late

1937 achieved

air

thanks to the Germans and Italians

superiority

also

with the

to

most of the

Republican forces, the German planes

opponent

The most forby the Condor

reality.

encountered

Legion was the Russian Polikarpov 1-16, the stubby, rugged early

little

fighter

—

Condor Legion

no match

the

fastest

(national archives)

meet a bet-

ter contender.

The Spanish experience taught vanced

fighter tactics,

communications cibility of the

in

the Luftwaffe ad-

as well as the use of radio

combat, but the seeming invin-

bomber formations encouraged over-

of

its

time.

The

the

as toll

major Luftwaffe function would take

its

in the future.

Still

another tradition was established in Spain.

On Monday

—market day—April

thirty in the afternoon

church

26, 1937, at four-

bells

rang out a warn-

ing of approaching aircraft in the vicinity of the

NestUng among the gen-

Basque

village of Guernica.

tle hills

of the Vizcaya province nearly twenty miles

Heinkel 51s, were

behind the front

lines,

for the 1-16; not until the Messerschmitts

bombed although

there

fighters, the

nightfall

over England. Also the tradition of ground support

Do- 17s. Because they were superior

midable

raids.

confidence, for which a dear price would be paid

medium bombers which had

gained a reputation beyond

air

was the

preceded the Stuka to Spain, the He-Ills and the

aircraft of the

to

—which enabled

the Stukas to perform most successfully. It

same

streets,

de-

roads, and harassed troops

with frightening invulnerability. Franco's Nationalists

village,

Guernica had never been had been raids in the area

— A NATION OF

17

FLffiRS

Guernica burns after bombing by German aircraft. first senseless terror bombing. (national archives)

History's

refugees attempting to flee the village.

continued,

hours

three before.

The alarm conveyed by

and the farmers gathered

meant

little

in the

market place. Ten minutes

the

bells

to the villagers

a formation

of

the church bells

after the peal of

Heinkel

Ills appeared

over Guernica. Small, longish objects began to drop

from the

bellies of the aircraft; within

plosions erupted in the

crowded

Their bombs disgorged,

low

level

and strafed the

the

seconds ex-

streets of

planes

streets.

Guernica.

descended to

In another twenty

in

flaming, until

dust-embroiled

Guernica

Guernica was only the

don.

A

nation of

symbolized

Only

its

too

came down

to

machine-gun

the

wounded

name

in history to air;

others

fliers

had found

icance.

its

wings. Guernica

potent invincibility.

history,

in

the

would endow

planes

and

would follow: Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, Lon-

of events,"

ing

first

stand for the fiery desolation from the

These lumber-

terror of Guernica.

it

for

of a population of 7000.

its

smoking

shattered

lay

houses, there were 1654 dead and 889

Bennett in

the

so

scorched. In the streets, in the broken cottages and

minutes Junkers 52s flew over to pour incendiaries

upon

And waves,

phrase of John Wheeler-

"incalculable variations in the it

tempo

with fuller tragic signif-

BOOK

I

Blitzkrieg

m ^

Whoever

lights the torch of

war

in

Europe can wish

for nothing

but chaos.

-ADOLF HITLER

..

iL

:

SCHRECKLICHKEIT

n

.ARDLY

thirty

above the fog-enshrouded

feet

could be properly identified. At least the river was

ground the Kette of three Junkers 87B Stukas roared

in

through the slumbrous countryside. Their engines

indistinct

resonating through the river valley, they looked like

mist.

Snapping

that

the

predatory

ugly

three

birds

with

radiators, contorted, splayed wings,

gaping

jawlike

and taloned un-

Dangerously close to the earth be-

dercarriages.

For an instant Dilley saw the

the right place.

forms of the bridges emerging from the

head from

his

others

had

left to right,

kicked the rudder and leveled ment.

would be a low-level

It

bridges

the

seen

he noted also.

at the left

attack, not the classic

cause of the fog, the Kette. led by Oberleutnant

Stuka peel-off and screeching dive, as Dilley,

Bruno

lowed by the other two

Geschwader

Dilley of Stuka

1,

sought out

its

Only minutes before they had taken advance base

at

off

from

their

Elbing to find the bridges over the

Vistula River at Dirschau.

They were

in Spain, to destroy the bridges.

Army

in

Army moving Corridor.

The

transportation

been mined by the Poles attack.

Once

the alarm

be blown and the

it

was known, they had

in the event of a

German

was given the bridges would

fine timetable of

conquest would

be upset. Dilley's

problem was to sever the wires which lay

embankment of the Vistula at Dirschau. The fog and the darkness, for it was barely dawn of Friday, September 1, 1939, did not make the misin the left

sion

an easy one. There were trees to

skirt

landmarks to seek which disconcertingly

and

slipped

past or disappeared in a patch of fog before they

The engine whined

near pro-

in

sound was coupled with the explosions.

rear gunners in the Stukas watched as the earth

The

from the west through the Polish and,

that

shook and erupted

bridges were a crucial supply and link

and

not, as they

East Prussia to join with the Fourth in

a climb as possible. test

Instead they

were to keep them open to enable the German Third

fol-

plunged at the river-

bank, released his bombs, and pulled up in as steep

target.

had

pilots,

He

embank-

glanced

Dilley

gush of smoke and dust.

in a at

his

wristwatch:

four

thirty-

four.

They had begun things

come. Further:

to

their target

World War eleven

the Second

minutes ahead of schedule.

was a portent they had

It

of

although

hit

and had, indeed, snapped the wires lead-

ing to the explosive charges on the bridges, the Poles

had succeeded, by six-thirty, spans which sagged into the

war had

The

officially

in

blowing one of the

Vistula.

By

then the

begun.

"incident" which had justified the unleashing

of Fall

Weiss ("Case White," the code term for

the attack

on Poland) had already been staged.

August 3 1 Hitler issued

Conduct of War." read (in part)

his "Directive

Classified

as

No.

"Most

1

On

for the

Secret,"

it

— 22 1.

BLITZKRIEG Now

that

all

political

possibilities

The date of attack: 1 September 1939. Time of attack: 04:45 [written in red

of disposing

by peaceful means of a situation on the Eastern which is intolerable for Germany are exhausted, I have determined on a solution by Frontier

force. 2.

The

.

attack on

Poland

is

to

be carried out in

for the opening of hostilities should rest unequivocally with England and France. At first, purely

accordance with the preparations made for Fall IVeiss, with the alterations which result, where the

local

Army

frontier violations.

is

concerned, from the fact that

it

has,

in

pencil].

This time also applies to the operation at Gdynia, Bay of Danzig, and the Dirschau Bridge. In the west it is important that the responsibility

action should be taken against insignificant

meantime, almost completed its dispositions. Allotment of tasks and the operational target remain unchanged.

the

'

—Adolf

Hitler

•M'

rr Harbinger of war: three— a Kette Stukas such as began the Second World War in the early morning of September 1, 1939. (u. s. air force)

Terror of the battlefield: with engine whining and propeller screeching, the very sound of the Stuka was frightening as it dived to release its bombs. (u.

s.

AIR force)

i

SCHRECKLICHKEIT

23

In his proclamation to the

Armed Forces

issued

frontier violation,

great power,

which cannot be tolerated by a

show

that

Poland

pared to respect the Reich's

end to

this

madness,

I

is

no longer pre-

frontiers.

excited

voice

shouted over the

the

German

example, PoUsh troops attacked

the radio station in the early evening of

An

put an

can see no other way but from

now on to meet force with force." He was right about the madness. At city of Gleiwitz, for

To

interrupted air

the

that the time

August 31.

broadcast

and

had come for

war between Poland and Germany. The sound of shots could be heard also.

members were taken

When

the foreign press

to Gleiwitz the next

morning

they saw about a dozen bodies strewn about the area of the radio station

—

all

in Polish

Army

They were,

on

the following day, Hitler stated that "Several acts of

uni-

if

they

participated in the "incident" and escaped. But even that possibility

had been considered:

mans had been

of the Ger-

all

on

fatally injected before the attack

The SS Alfred Naujocks, saw to it the radio station.

leader of the operation,

men who

that those

fell

unconscious from the lethal drug rather than to gunfire were properly inflicted with gunshot

newsmen. The

for the visiting

wounds

entire operation

had

under the direction of Hitler and

been planned

Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS.

Polish

uni-

forms and small arms had been supplied through

Wilhelm

the efforts of General

Keitel, Chief of the

Armed Forces, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German Intelligence. While neither approved, neither did they object to Hitler's plans

known

forms.

condemned

of course, dead Germans,

who had been promised freedom

criminals

them

to

was not

It

—which were

early in August.

professional

to the

minds of Keitel

and Canaris an honorable means of making war, but

all this

of the of

was overlooked

German

in the spectacular thrust

blitzkrieg into Poland. It

war which neither understood

—

just

was a kind as

neither

understood Hitler. Canaris, however, was not the

toady that Keitel was

sycophancy

subservient

(a

earned him the nickname

among

his fellow officers

of Lakaitel, "Lackey"). In fact, Canaris the earliest of the to rid the tually

cost

September

German

Reich of

him 1

his

conspirators

Hitler. life;

Canaris

was one

of

who hoped

His conspiracies even-

but on the morning of

visualized

an even

greater

price when, with tears in his eyes, he said, "This

means the end of Germany." It was a characteristic exclamation, for the professional soldiers had little faith in the war that Hitler

had unleashed against

judgment.

their

better

military

But when Hitler ignited "the torch of

in Europe" the stunning advance of the Wehrmacht behind the Panzer divisions and the Luft-

war

waffe's seemingly Hitler's Keitel,

chief

military

aide.

Field Marshal

whose major function was

Wilhelm

to agree with Hitler's

contributions to the military art. His

own

final contri-

bution to the war was being present at the surrender ceremonies when the war was over; later he was

hanged for

S.

OFFICE OF

less

tion.

WAR INFORMATION)

ubiquitous Stukas heartened

generals as

much

as they

the

shocked a breath-

world. All along the German-Polish frontier the

wheels of the

German

juggernaut ground into ac-

Laughing young, blond

wooden

his role in the war.

(U.

German

frontier barrier gates

soldiers

—

snapped the

or smashed through

BLITZKRIEG

24 in tanks.

The Luftwaffe

railroads,

and communications

struck at Polish airfields,

the

movements

but impossible.

all

lines, crippling aerial

beginning and rendering troop

defenses from

In Berlin, Hitler watched the blitzkrieg on a massive battle

the plan, he knew,

map:

Two Army Groups plains toward

was foolproof.

were smashing across the Polish

Warsaw. Army Group North, com-

posed of two armies

—

Fourth,

the

which flowed

eastward from Pomerania across the Polish Corridor

and then would turn south for Warsaw; and the Third,

which struck westward from East Prussia

toward the Polish Corridor, where, the Fourth

on meeting with

southward to the Polish

Army,

capital.

it

was hoped,

it

would race

Attached to

Army

Group North, under command of General Feder von Bock, was Luftflotte 1, (Air Fleet 1) under Albert

Kesselring,

who had

served

as

Luftwaffe

Chief of Staff immediately after the death of Walther

Wever.

Army Group

South (Gerd von Rundstedt) was

also to push toward tion

through

Warsaw

Slovakia

and

in a northwesterly direc-

Silesia

with

its

three

Hans Jeschonnek, Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe when the Second World War began. Like many of the Luftwaffe's top echelon,

the secret

Jeschonnek had been trained at

German Air Force

center in Russia.

A

de-

voted admirer of Hitler, Jeschonnek {who once even

begged Hitler to assume command of the Luftwaffe) was unpopular with his immediate chief. Goring. (national archives) armies, the Eighth, Tenth, and Fourteenth. These units

were supported by Luftflotte 4 under Alexan-

der Loehr, former

commander

of the Austrian Air

Force, which had been absorbed into the Luftwaffe via Hitler's infamous Anschluss in 1938. Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe

old

—

able

Hans

was the youthful

Jeschonnek,

—

forty years

"graduate"

of

the

school at Lipesk in Soviet Russia, an ardent admirer of Goring, a devotee of Hitler, and an advocate of

medium bomber and

the high-speed

The two Air self-sufficient

made up

Fleets

air

(Luftflotten)

forces

the Stuka.

were vutually

whose components were

of assorted aircraft types for various as-

signments as well as antiaircraft batteries {Flugab-

wehrkanone=a\i defense gun, or more simply Flak). commander of Luftflotte blitzkrieg, (h. j. nowarra)

Albert Kesselring, the Polish

1

during

The Geschwader, the basic tactical waffe, took its name from the type

unit of the Luft-

of aircraft which

SCHRECKLICHKEIT

The Polish

fighter,

25

PZL-11

Lotnicze-5/are

Aircraft

comprised

The

(for

Panstwowe Zaklady Designed

Factory).

by Zyg-

munt Pulawski in 1939.

it.

bombers, mainly Heinkel

level

Ills and Dornier 17s, and later Junkers 88s, were designated

Kampfflugzeug: the

fighters,

the

Mes-

ference.

serschmitt zeug.

110

fighter,

The Junkers

which included,

87,

twin-engined Mes-

were termed Zerstorerfiug-

and other dive bombers,

in the initial

days of the war, the

PZL-11

the

war

Hitler

had

in

rep-

mind; he was hoping

to settle "the Polish question" as they

assigned to Jagdflugzeug Geschwader (JG); the sothe

1930s,

fighter against the Luftwaffe

too that the French and English would permit

other

aircraft,

early

first line

(national archives)

the short

serschmitt 109 (later the Focke-Wulf 190s), were

called "destroyer"

the

in

resented Poland's

demands

Compared

had

all

him the

since the Anschluss, with httle inter-

to the less than second-rate Polish Air

Force, the Luftwaffe was indeed a powerful Goliath.

The

total

number

Force was

of planes in the entire

PoUsh Air

over five hundred, of which less

slightly

Henschel 123, were assigned to Sturzkampfflugzeug

than half could be called modern. Even that figure

Geschwader (StG). When the war erupted Kesselring's Air Fleet 1 had roughly 800 aircraft with which to support

thirty-six first-rank

Army Group North (500

ber

bombers, and 120 Air Fleet 4 had

level

bombers, 180 dive

fighters).

In the south Loehr's

slightly less

than 600 planes (310

bombers, 160 dive bombers, and 120 Luftflotten total in the east

fighters).

The

was about 1390 planes

(excluding reconnaissance and transport aircraft),

which

is

considerably less than the

number

generally

given as the Luftwaffe strength at the time. In brief, the Luftwaffe

was a good close-support

air force for

tended toward excessive optimism. There were only

bombers, the PZL-37, the Los

("Elk"), available to combat squadrons on Septem1,

1939. These were used to

German armored

divisions.

bomb advancing

The Elk was

effective,

and the Poles attacked with ferocious courage, but the

small band

was

easily

overwhelmed by both

numbers and the superior performance of the Ger-

man

fighters.

The backbone was

of the Polish aerial defense force

the attractive gull-winged

astka

(the

"Eleventh").

A

PZL-llc

—

the Jeden-

product of the State

whence gear,

(Panstwowe

Factory

Aircraft

the

high

Zaklady

PZL),

the P-11, with

wing,

struts,

and

its

Lotnicze,

fixed landing

inferior

top

speed

(about 240 miles per hour as compared with the all but obsolete when the war Nor could the little fighters climb to the German bomber altitudes to intercept. In all there were

Me-109's 300), was began.

about 158

planes in the Polish Air

first-line fighter

Force when the Germans struck. Of these there were 128 P-lls and 30 of the more outdated P-7s. Even if

The Messerschmitt 109E, formidable opponent of the Polish Air Force in 1939. This plane was that of Adolf Gotland, one of Germany's outstanding fighter pilots and air commanders, (h. J. nowarra)

the Luftwaffe did not contain multitudes,

easily

outnumber

did

it

the Polish Air Force around ten

to one.

Contrary to the widely held

Air

belief, the Polish

Force was not wiped out on the ground. Long before the tanks began to roll and the Stukas began swooping down on the airfields, the Polish planes were moved to well-camouflaged emergency airstrips. While serious damage was done to the runways,

and the planes left behind, what there was of the Polish Air Force was generally untouched by the strafing attacks and dive-bombing. The first German plane to fall in the Second World

hangars,

War was

down by

Lieutenant

later serve in the

Royal Air

a Ju-87 Stuka brought

W. Gnys (who would

Force's No. 302, "Pohsh," Squadron in the Battle of Britain)

Contrary

to

legend,

the

destroyed on the ground in war.

PZLs were

camouflaged;

Air Force was not the opening days of the

Polish

dispersed to emergency airfields

Polish

pilots

succeeded

in

and

destroying

about sixty German aircraft before the Polish Air Force was wiped out, most of it in air fighting with the superior Me-109s. (embassy of the polish people's republic)

of the Second Air Regi-

piloting a P-11

ment, based at Krakow. Despite the victories

it

was

a hopeless battle and typical of the Polish defense.

On

German The when the

the ground Polish horse cavalry charged

tanks and armored cars with sword and lances. cavalry was decimated from the air also

Stukas attacked

men and

horses in the vicinity of

Wielun, leaving behind an unreal devastation of

dead and dying, smoke, flame, and were delaying

tactics

—

futility.

These

for the blitzkrieg did not al-

—

ways plunge ahead inexorably and they were disturbing. Heinz Guderian, commanding a Panzer tells of how a section of his advance was held up by a Polish bicycle company. But these were

corps,

fugitive

map,

and

safe

tragic

in

efforts.

On

Hitler's

BerUn, the bUtzkrieg

large-scale

moved ahead

with breath-taking speed.

As they

the Poles were pushed back from the frontier retreated

inward

toward

Warsaw,

creating

pockets of potential resistance in the vicinity

A

had finished with it. (embassy of the polish people's republic)

Polish road after the Stukas

of

Krakow, and Przemysl. The roads were choked with retreating soldiers and fleeing refugees. Swarms of Stukas screamed down to bomb Posen, Lodz,

Stuka fodder: a Polish

girl

weeps over her dead

sister after the

Ju-87s have swept by.

(embassy of the polish people's republic)

and

strafe the

highways

in

another Teutonic con-

tribution to "the art of war," Schrecklichkeit (fright-

The roads

fulness).

chaos of

before

all it

terror.

had

it,

really

The

disintegrated

Polish mobilization

massive

was stopped before

With no reserves

to call

in encircled

upon

the Polish

was overrun by the panzers, motorized the booted

a

begun, and resistance was dissipated

haphazardly along the frontier or ets.

into

great Nazi steam roller crushed

pock-

Army

infantry,

and

led

to

Warsaw, which was the

for

September

1,

because of the

fog which interfered with the aerial operations in the

Army Group North area. The Warsaw-Okiecie home of PZL factories, was bombed by a He-llls despite the early morning mist. By the

airfield,

few

afternoon the weather had cleared enough for more intensive attacks by He-llls and Stukas. Kampjgeschwader 27, named for the World War I late

hero Oswald Boelcke, flew nearly

five

hundred miles

from northern German bases for the

German Wehrmacht.

All roads

Warsaw scheduled

last

stronghold and the prime target. Goring had had to cancel Operation Seaside, the full-scale attack on

first

really

bombardment of Warsaw. Escorting the bombers were the Zerstorer, the Messerschmitt 110, the so-called "strategic fighter" or "destroyer." It was

heavy

mQ»^;-'

Veteran of the Spanish Civil

War and

erstwhile passenger plane, the

He-Ill looses bombs on Warsaw.

(embassy of the polish people's republic)

1

Destruction on the Bzura River. Luftwaffe bombers spared Warsaw momentarily to smash a counteroffensive

by

the

Polish

Posen Army, delaying the

blitz-

krieg. Luftwaffe close support sive,

with

the

Stukas

broke the Polish offenthe havoc in this

wreaking

photograph.

(embassy of the polish people's republic)

Warsaw, September 25, 1939, bombed out of the war the Luftwaffe. An He-Ill sweeps in to add its

by

bombs

to the already

burning

city.

(embassy of the polish people's republic)

BLITZKRIEG

30 during these attacks

on Warsaw

that the

first air

bat-

of any size occurred between the Luftwaffe and

tles

The

the Polish Air Force.

Polish P-lls climbed in

vain to reach the bombers; the

Me- 110s

intercept, the Polish fighters darted

minutes

ter of

dived to

away. In a mat-

the P-lls had tumbled to the

five of

ground. In the few short weeks of fighting a total

116 Polish

of

were destroyed

fighters

in

combat

German as well Polish). Some PZLs were lost when their pilots, desperation, rammed the German aircraft to bring

(of these as in

to antiaircraft fire,

fell

1 1

But nothing held up the German advance. Within

week

panzers of Walther von Reichenau's

the

Army

Tenth

(of

the outskirts of

Army Group Warsaw. By all

most of the

aircraft

first-fine

South) approached time the Polish

this

but completely expended;

Air Force had been

had been

lost in the

savage, one-sided dogfights. Almost as devastating

was the supply problem, for without replacement parts and fuel the planes could not

fly;

communica-

had been so disrupted that all military command broke down. Only a few of the Elk bombtoo,

tions,

few days and then

ers continued to operate for a

remaining

those

and

war

On

PZLs were

military

was indescribable." The

major

first

World War was

the Second

worthy of those high standards which they

ards, very

to

The bombing timetable went awry and various units came in over Warsaw haphazardly. With more than 180 aircraft a stunned and frightened world.

and confusion. But sky

respite

this

from the

Warsaw was given some when the bombers were called German Eighth and Tenth Armies attack,

under pressure of an offensive suddenly launched

by the Polish Posen Army, which had been bypassed during the

first

week

of the war. While the Stukas

and He-Ills and Me- 110s were dealing with the Poles

in

Bzura River

the

fluttering

down upon

German envelopments

heeded and

won undisputed mastery

over the whole

all

But Warsaw remained, crowded with refugees and oflScers rallied to a last-ditch

encircled city

became a honeycomb

of

trenches and improvised barricades as civilians and troops alike prepared for the

German

government had already

to Lublin,

fled

internment.

attack.

The

and then

By September

13

the

They chose

propaganda promises were delusion.

to fight to the end.

Wehrmacht

came Dr. Robert Ley, exGerman Labor that "Germans can never live

into Poland

chemist, alcoholic, and chief of the

Front, in the

who

believed

same condition

as Poles

conscripted slaves for

good as

On

the

his

day

that the Russians

man

troops, the Luftwaffe

air-

sizable air raid occurred

on September

And

industry, he

as

he

was

as

word.

Warsaw was canceled when

up temporary

and Jews."

German

reinstated.

set

Those who survived Behind the

in store for them.

was

had

Germans to propaWarsaw "to pre-

The Poles had already witnessed sufGerman frightfulness along their highways, in villages and towns, and in some Warsaw suburbs

Poland, September 17, the

within easy striking distance of the capital.

surrendered

vent useless bloodshed and the destruction of the

Operation Seaside, the aerial devastation of Warsaw, In the train of the onrushing Ger-

who

those

attempts by the

had worse than death

of Poland."

—and

dropping

gandize the Poles into surrendering

to realize the

Rumania

the

Nazi-encircled Warsaw. Posters

promising

outskirts

air force, Poland was finished as a fighting power. "The German Luftwaffe," the Wehrmacht report

The

fighting,

of leaflets pleading for the Poles to surrender began

saw's

an

whose

it

air

off to assist the

ficent

fleeing soldiers

below

with aircraft dropping bombs.

filled

Following

city" failed.

stated, "has

to the terrorized Poles

was not confusion of command and timing, but a

captured by the Russians. With neither an army nor

first

aerial attack of

by German stand-

not,

had been demonstrating for the past two weeks

were pushed back into the Nazi pincers or were

The

Later

city.

food and good treatment. But the pleas went un-

Poles that had escaped the

strips

the

Richthofen was to say that the "chaos over the target

Army marched from the Poland. The Red Army met

even weaker resistance than the Germans had; the

into

within

at-

utilities,

soon appeared upon buildings and trees in War-

day the Soviet

east to seal the fate of

defense.

public

rail centers,

1939, the

17,

Poland was over.

in

that

operational

the

By September

ordered to Rumania. air

— establishments —

tack on military targets

converging on the target area there were collisions

them down. a

when Wolfram von Richthofen ordered an

13

first it

began moving upon real

mass attack on

appeared that the

Poles were willing to negotiate for the evacuation of civilians

did

not

and foreigners. The Polish representative appear

to

negotiate.

With the Russians

Warsaw

after the air blitzkrieg by Richihofen's bombers. ".

swarming portant

in

to

from the

east,

Germans

the

the next several days, until

of leaflets rained

it

that

was even more imWarsaw fall. For

September 24, millions

down upon

the beleaguered city

promising honorable surrender terms

—

officers

would

even be permitted to keep their swords!

At

eight o'clock in the morning,

September 25,

his disposal

were 8 Gruppen (240

the Ju-87 Stukas, the

usual accepted

of

some He-Ills, and a Gruppe of

clumsy Junkers 52 transports. In

had about 400

aircraft)

aircraft to deal with

all

Richthofen

Warsaw

(the

number has been 800), not an im-

Warsaw was a dead city." (embassy of the polish people's republic)

everything was quiet.

pressive

number once

the world's history city.

Here was

refined,

day,

But never before

again.

had 400 planes attacked a

in

single

the sequel to Guernica modernized,

and revised according to the concept of

Schrecklichkeit. Flying the

Richthofen unleashed the Luftwaffe upon Warsaw.

At

.

two or three

sorties

through

were magnified into

Richthofen's forces

a massive destructive weapon.

The Stukas began with

their familiar shriek,

un-

bomb loads into the city. Thirty Julow over Warsaw to deliver the incendiaries

leashing their

52s flew into

the churning clouds of flame,

dust,

and smoke. These clumsy

suited for their assignment;

craft

debris,

mortar

were not ideally

the incendiary

bombs

,

BLITZKRIEG

32

immediate demand was made by Eighth

Army

head-

quarters for the cessation of the bombing, but Hitler,

who had

flown to the battle zone in his

own

Ju-52,

instructed Richthofen to continue over the protests

of Brauchitsch.

By

And

morning Warsaw lay under a

late

smoke

still

smoke and

of incendiaries

By

destruction.

nightfall five

hundred

bombs and seventy-two

tons of high-explosive

had been dropped

was added the massed

this

of

impossible to find specific targets because of

tically

the

pillar

up thousands of feet into the air. the bombers came, although it was prac-

that coiled

the city. After the planes

into

which encircled

artillery

had

left

tons

Warsaw. To

the artillery con-

tinued.

The red

glare of

Warsaw's flames could be seen

German and

for miles around, as in

awe

On

cousin of the intrepid

War and Stuka

of the First World Second. Although orig-

Red Baron

specialist of the

inally cool to the idea of dive bombers, Richthofen learned to use them in Spain and then employed the

Stukas with devastating

skill in

Poland. To his

left

what

the bloody

the next day

had General Wolfram von Richthofen (center foreground)

of

Warsaw agreed

but run out, the water supply was ruptured,

all

and ammunition had been expended. The defenders of

Warsaw

capitulated on September 27,

officially

1939. In less than a month Hitler's blitzkrieg had erased Poland, with the help of the accommodating Soviet

Army, from

the

map.

Walter Schellenberg, a young SS intelligence officer,

entered what remained of

shocked I

at

shoveled out of their large side en-

trances (these were specifically for paratrooper use).

The lumbering trimotored least

two

method of

fell

aircraft

were slow and

to Polish antiaircraft

delivering the

bombs

fire.

did not

at

had known

—ruined

and burnt-out houses,

fell

among German

The

nights were already

unpleasantly chiUy and a pall of dust and

hung over

the city,

city

starv-

smoke

and everywhere there was the

sweetish smell of burnt flesh. There

was no running

Also, the

water anywhere. In one or two streets isolated re-

make for some

sistance

accuracy, for thanks to a strong eastern wind, of the incendiaries

Warsaw and "was

what had become of the beautiful

ing and grieving people. literally

signified.

to surrender; food

is

General Richard Ruoff, whose V Corps troops Richthofen's dive bombers supported in the conquest of France which came later, (heinz j. nowarra)

were

Pole alike stood

glow in the sky

troops.

An

was being continued. Elsewhere everything

Warsaw was a dead Tomorrow the world.

was

quiet.

city."

"SITZKRIEG"

X

ORTY-EIGHT HOURS

had launched

after Hitler

his

Great Britain and France submitted their

blitzkrieg,

ultimatums to Berlin. Hitler

had hopes for a

still

German-Polish war to be followed by a

swift, tidy

breathing spell before he

made

move. But

his next

the determined British and the reluctant French

appeasement had come September

afternoon,

to

3,

Poles and the campaign had gone

the

reasonably small cost. This

may

have been small comfort to the families of the

13,-

smoothly and

at a

981 Germans

import to the 30,322 maimed and

httle

policy of

wounded. The Polish casualty

figures

savage

and

Neville Chamberlain informed the world that Britain fight

against

"brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and per-

and of

killed in the Polish invasion

Germany

1939, the tired voice of

to

war upon

if

an end and on Sunday

had declared war upon Germany

prescience Hitler had turned this double-front

his

The

decided to honor their promise to fight violated the independence of Poland.

had

Zweijrontenkrieg (war on two fronts). Thanks to

strategic

confusion,

fighting,

As

never be known.

734 men and 285 were bombers.

because of the

may

destruction

for the Luftwaffe,

it

had

lost

over a hundred of which

aircraft,

Germany and

After the partition of Poland by

Russia the period followed which Neville Chamber-

secution."

When Goring

learned of the British ultimatum,

war" and which many

lain called fittingly a "twlight

"phony war"

delivered at nine in the morning by Nevile Hender-

Americans referred

son, he exclaimed

(a phrase attributed to the isolationist Senator Wil-

"If

we

(echoing the view of Canaris),

lose this war,

then

God

become

the

had now

Second World War. His partner

"Pact of Steel," Mussolini, backed

moment and informed

liam E. Borah). Following the devastation of Poland

help us!"

Hitler's solution to "the Polish question"

down

in the

at the last

Hitler that he could not take

part in military operations "in view of the present state If

of

Itahan

Hitler

had found a worthy

to count

ally in

upon Mussolini, he

Stalin,

there

came a

strange pause in the blitzkrieg, a

war, or "sitzkrieg,"

ting

Western Front

Germans nor the

first

it

with

whom

he

State

was quiet indeed. Neither the

move. The mood

Sumner

appeared to

sit-

Along the

the press.

in

the Allies seemed

America was observed,

war preparations."

was unable

to cruelly as the

Welles,

feel, like

in

sadly,

a

anxious to still

make

invulnerable

by Undersecretary of

who found

that

"many people

Senator Borah, that the failure

had had the audacious foresight to make a Treaty

of Great Britain and France to undertake the of-

Non- Aggression (Nazi-Soviet Pact) before embarking upon the Pohsh adventure. Thus had Hitler spared his nervous High Command the terrors of

fensive

of

was somehow reprehensible. This

feeling

was

almost sadistic."

Nor were

the

Germans eager

to

go on the of-

Army. At no time and

in

no place have

contrary to British interests."

statement of his

He

I ever acted

continued with a

aims by saying that his

"chief

endeavor has been to rid our relations with France of

all

trace of

ill

will

..." and

he fervently

that

believed "even today that there can only be real

peace

in

Europe and throughout the world

many came

to an understanding

But when he came

.

war

in the

restoration of

Soviet

Russia.

"Why

should

west be fought?" he asked. "For the

Poland?

Treaty wiU never teners that this

Ger-

to the crux of their misunder-

standing, Hitler took another stance. this

if

."

.

Poland

rise again."

of

the

Versailles

He reminded

his lis-

was assured by Nazi Germany and Despite what

German newspapers

called "Hitler's Peace Offer," the speech contained

nothing upon which negotiations could be initiated. Hitler closed with a veiled warning.

who

"And

let

those

consider war to be the better solution reject

my

outstretched hand." It

was, as usual, the iron

for ten days previously Hitler

and Luftwaffe chief Coring

ber 1939,

to survey

the

in

in the velvet glove,

Poland, Septem-

of the blitzkrieg.

results

fist

he had already instructed

It

was a high moment for both, for Hitler's Fall Weiss had succeeded in answering "the Polish question" and the Luftwaffe had contributed to the bloody solution. (h. j.

fensive.

nowarra)

two days before he unleashed Fall

Just

Weiss Hitler had said, "In two months Poland will

be finished and then we shall have a great peace conference with the Western powers." But not turned out that

Command offensive.

mander

in

way

—and

besides,

it

the

had High

did not feel ready to launch a western

Most seemed Chief of

agree with

to

Army Group C

Com-

the

(which faced

French opposite the Rhine and the Maginot

the

Line), Wilhelm Fitter von Leeb,

who

wrote,

"The

sword does not have the edge which the Fiihrer seems assume." Leeb had

to

in

mind the great number

of less than first-rate (older men,

ill

trained) troops

under his command, some of

whom

muttering, "It

who push

is

the generals

were already the war."

But the generals were not pushing the war; even Hitler, speaking

day

after

is

— Warsaw—

Berlin on October 6, 1939

he had entered a wasted

peared to be pushing peace. "Every dier,"

the

the

ap-

German

sol-

he told the Reichstag and the world, "has

greatest

respect

for

the

feats

of

the

French

A

French poilu in the spring of 1940, dug in on the Western Front, during the period described as the "phony war." Writing home, the soldier evokes the

stagnation of trench warfare of the First

That he does not bother to wear a

steel

World War. helmet

is

an

indication of the general air of non-belligerence of the time. (U. S. INFORMATION AGENCY)

"SITZKRIEG"

35

Wehrmacht High Command

the

through neutral Belgium and Holland. The

strike

were

generals

They argued affect the

as

it

to formulate plans

an attack that would

for an early attack in the west,

thrown

alarmed

into

that the steel shortage

concerned the production of

tain fog,

would

outcome of a prolonged war

the approaching winter, with

would

ment went on

Command on

opposition. seriously

— —and

especially

aircraft

that

short days and cer-

its

interfere with air support. This argu-

months between the

for

Army High

one side and the Fiihrer on the other

during the so-called phony war.

Also during the period of crisis," his

the

Baltic

"command

Hitler's

partner in war Stalin began activities in regions

close

to

off

the

northern

ap-

proaches to the Soviet Union. "Treaties" were forced

upon Estonia,

and Lithuania which agreed

Latvia,

to

the establishment of Russian garrisons, as well as

naval and air bases in the Baltic

Russians demanded a connecting

which

it

strip of the

and

Finland

addition, there

treaty.

The

Karelian Isthmus,

Soviet

the

would be possible

Finland,

states.

however, refused to be bullied into a

Union,

from

to shell Leningrad.

was the port

of

In

Hango, which the

Russians had wanted for thirty years as a naval base.

In

exchange

the

Russians

would

happily

cede more than two thousand square miles to Finland along their

During

war

at sea,

merchant ship

this period,

however, there was no phony

where the German U-boats sank British

ships, or

Graf Spee,

where the German pocket

after

a

successful

career

battie-

as

the

scourge of the south Atlantic, was found by the British

Navy and

video, Uruguay, his ship

driven into the port of Monte-

where the German captain scuttled

and committed

common

frontier.

Finland found

such demands incompatible with their definition of national sovereignty and neutrality.

The

predictable

ensued: attacks in Pravda, broken-off negotiations,

and border incidents as villains.

which the Finns were cast

in

On November

30, 1939, Russian

bombers

attacked Viipuri and Helsinki.

The Winter War

of

1939-40 was no

blitzkrieg.

Although greatly outnumbered, the Finns fought

suicide.

^^JS^. The Graf Spee, one of the most formidable of Germany's small battleships which operated in the south Atlantic in the winter of 1939.

A

float

ness on a catapult aft of the stack.

plane

Damaged

with British cruisers off South escape, the ship was scuttled by

readi-

tain,

in a battle

tion,

is in

Hans Langsdorff, committed

America and unable to its own crew. The cap-

after writing a letter of explana-

suicide,

(national archives)

BLITZKRIEG

36 grimly and imaginatively in the cold, heavily forested

Russian divisions were wiped out in

terrain. Entire

masses,

and

tanks,

made

leadership,

landscapes.

white

ghostly,

the

Moscow was secured

cost:

least

at

Union were

Soviet

the

to

200,000 Russian

dead and nearly 25,000 Finnish dead.

move

other deadly

was an-

It

game

the massive chess

in

of

The

1940.

12,

in-

advertendy flicked the wrong switch and turned

off

the engine.

There was nothing to do but crash-land the Tai-

better

time,

in

March

on

Russian

the

The Treaty

difference.

signed

great

at

and

aircraft,

the

approaches

northern

But

way Hoenmanns

course. In attempting to find his

be-

Hoenmanns found

fun near the Rhine River, which

below the clouds. Except that

was the Meuse,

it

not the Rhine, and they were not in Germany, but in

neutral

When

Belgium near Mechelen-sur-Meuse.

Belgian soldiers arrived at the crash scene

they found Reinberger attempting to burn the con-

The

was stamped out and

tween the two master dictators. Hitler, despite Ger-

tents of his briefcase.

man

sympathies for Finland and Mussolini's out-

Reinberger and the hapless Hoenmanns, as well as

spoken criticism of the German-Soviet Pact, needed

what remained of the papers, were taken to a nearby

Russian aid to circumvent the British blockade.

was

a one-front war

still

—even though Russian

It

na-

army camp. There,

fire

Reinberger attempted to

too,

destroy the papers, which had been placed

upon a

bases in the Baltic could only have an

convenient table, by tossing them into an equally

eventual, and obvious, function. Stalin trusted Hitler

convenient stove. But again the incriminating docu-

no more than Hitler trusted

ments were retrieved from

and

val

air

Stalin.

Hitler, in fact, during these uncertain

the

anyone whether

bad weather as

the

postpone the attack

ally,

much

that

Using

the size of the

he continued to

west while goading his

in the

generals to prepare a blueprint for such an attack

and

to agree to carry

it

out.

By

early January

it

that

all

palm of my hand." He would,

But how much of the papers actually remained?

One

thing

was

tion in all camps.

was

that Reinberger

his

January 17.

set (for at least the sixth time) for

But then, for even the gods of war have been known to

another hitch in plans came about.

laugh,

commander was summoned

Luftwaffe Major Helmut Reinberger, of the paratrooper school at Stendal,

to assist in the planning of air-borne operations in

He was on

Holland and Belgium. with Kurt Student's

staff

up by the congestion

in the

way

his

Ruhr area

railways. In

Miinster he met a Luftwaffe major, Erich

manns, lem.

in the officers' club

Hoenmanns, eager

offered to

morning

fly

fly

and explained

to visit his wife in

his

Hoenprob-

Cologne,

Reinberger to his conference the next

—January

posed to

meet

to

Cologne but was held

in

10.

Although he was not sup-

while carrying highly secret documents,

Reinberger was anxious to be on his way.

They took

off the

next morning in a Messerschmitt

converted into a courier and personal transport.

major was familiar with neither the parently, the route.

For

The

On

sure

in destroying

the other hand,

had the deliber-

hands of the Bel-

ately let the papers fall into the

The

gians?

man

Allies tended to overestimate the

Ger-

penchant for adroit skulduggery and leaned

toward the

Even

latter interpretation.

who would be among materialized,

the

not

did

take

celerated, but there British

was no attempt

the plans seriously

Army was

ac-

to unite with the

to face the inevitable.

meanwhile were des-

in Berlin

perate, clouded with

if

papers

the

and French, however,

The conferences

the Belgians,

to suffer

first

enough. Mobilization of the Belgian

doubt and clamorous. Hitler

affected an icy calm, always a dangerous sign.

Go-

embarrassed by his Luftwaffe, ranted and swore

dire retribution.

General

tel to

much

However,

Alfred

Operations

mono-

plane with the two passengers became lost and off

succeeded

really

Germans, wise war makers that they were,

craft nor, ap-

in the clouds the little

fragments

the

The Germans could not be

had

enough of the evidence.

ring,

108, the Taifun ("Typhoon"), a prewar sportplane

of

and French. There was consterna-

sent to the British

would have

copies

certain:

which escaped Reinberger's frenetic pyromania were

way. With clear

that he

nat-

have been most anxious to make that point.

urally,

weather forecast by midmonth, the day of attack

seemed

Rein-

remained were "insignificant fragments,

felt

justification

total destruction.

berger was certain, as he later reported to Goring,

friend, or foe.

war," could hardly have

"twilight

trust in

months of

Staff,

Jodl,

and

it

devolved upon Colonel

Chief

of

determine the next

—had

Wehrmacht's

move depending upon how

they thought the Belgians

and British

the

Hitler's military "adviser" Kei-

learned.

The

—and

situation

the French

was char-

"SITZKRIEG"

37

One

manic-depressive.

acteristically

moment

all

agreed that Reinberger had burned the plans and the next

moment

they were not so certain.

Word

had reached Berlin of Belgian troop movements along the frontier. Three days after the

incident

Jodl noted that a decision had been made: "Order

General Haider

to

by telephone

Staff]

The

FiJhrer

[Chief

—

of

the

Army

movements

All

General

to stop."

was unperturbed (he now had an ex-

cuse for another postponement which he could blame

on others) as Goring unleashed his vendetta. General Helmuth Felmy, commander of Luftflotte 2, to which

Reinberger

Kammhuber, relieved. tired

to

belonged,

Felmy, never a Goring favorite, was recivil

(though he would

life

Bavaria to

to

time

the

command

later

be

re-

and Kammhuber was sent

called to serve in Russia)

at

and Oberst Josef were immediately

his Chief of Staff,

bomber

a

commanding

unit. Kesselring,

Luftflotte

replaced

1,

Felmy.

With the attack spring the

the

(for

west postponed until the

in the

weather,

too,

Germans), Hitler turned

The Russians had moved that inevitably the Allies

had turned against his

eyes northward.

into Finland;

it

Norway and Denmark from such

"save"

to

There was the matter,

too, of

supply of iron ore, upon which the

economy quential the

depended

was

so

heavily.

the point raised

Wehrmacht

the

Erich Raeder insisted

make something

of

a

Sweden's

German war

Equally

conse-

by that stepchild of

German Navy. Grossadmiral that the Imperial Navy could

itself

bases in Norway, say at instead of being bottled

up

if

it

could operate from

Trondheim and Narvik, in the

North Sea by the

brought up the proposal for a Scan-

dinavian campaign Hitler was in a receptive mood. If

he had any fleeting doubts, these were quickly

resolved by the doughty and resourceful British.

The

auxiliary

supply ship Altmark, which had

been attached to the scuttled Graj Spee, had made its

way up from

The

British

knew

that the

Altmark carried captured

British seamen, survivors of the encounters with the

Graj Spee. Agents

in

Norway

reported the presence

Altmark and a Lockheed Hudson of the RAF's Coastal Command Squadron No. 220 was of the

dispatched to confirm. The Altmark was located and

soon a British destroyer

German the the

ship.

A

flotilla

converged on the

Norwegian boarding party inspected

Altmark and assured the skeptical

German

prisoners.

miralty,

unarmed and Winston Churchill, First Lord was

ship

ordered

Captain

Philip

British that

carried of the

the south Atlantic and

had slipped

through the British blockade into Norwegian waters.

board the German It

was

night,

16, 1940,

in losing Fiord.

blazing, the Cossack, with

the narrow first

inlet.

flotilla,

to

vessel.

February

had taken refuge

no Ad-

Vian of H.M.S.

Cossack and commander of the British

Royal Navy.

When Raeder

—

seemed

would also invade Scandi-

navia to cut off that line of approach. Hitler resolved

drastic fate.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, in a prewar portrait. Anxious to make a name for the German Navy, Raeder pressed for an invasion of Norway and Denmark a move which nearly cost him his fleet. He was later succeeded by Karl Donitz. (u. s. information agency)

and the Altmark

With searchlights

Vian aboard, lanced

The Norwegian gunboat

Kjell

into

was

encountered and, with a nod to international

law. Captain

Vian invited

its

captain to join him in

a search of the Altmark; pointedly the British cap-

BLITZKRIEG

38

made German ship and

tain

it

clear that he

intended to board the

release the prisoners he

knew were

find.

There was no further intervention on the

part of the Norwegians.

Three days

which had grounded

itself in

ships were grappled,

and a boarding party swarmed

over the side.

It

was

of Francis Drake.

bats

in

like a

British

page out of the career

There were hand-to-hand com-

which four Germans were

wounded, and a number cries of

an escape attempt, the

fled

killed,

over the side.

several

To

rooms and empty

oil tanks.

In addition to the pris-

oners Vian also noted several guns, overlooked by

Hitler,

who

could not remain

plans for the "occupation" of

Norway. "This operation," he dated March

croachment it

1940, "should prevent British en-

1,

in

Denmark and

stated in a directive

Scandinavia and the Baltic. Further

should guarantee our ore bases in Sweden and

give our

Navy and Air Force

a wider starting line

against Britain."

Meanwhile the

the

"The Navy's here!" the 299 "non-existent" seamen were released from locked store-

later

passive in view of the British resolution, ordered final

pulled alongside the Altmark,

The Cossack then

remained, in the words of

Churchill, "passive observers throughout."

aboard but which the Norwegians apparently could not

who

Norwegians,

the

Allies

had also been giving

seri-

ous thought to the strategic importance of Norway

and

its

northern port, Narvik.

Swedish ore was sent via

was there

It

rail for

that

shipment through

the

North Sea when the Baltic was closed by winter

ice.

There had even been a plan during the Russo-

Finnish

War

to send troops to help the Finns through

Narvik and across Sweden. This raised the question of transit rights across these two neutral countries

which the Allies did not actually need to face; the surrender of Finland in

academic.

Rumors

March

of 1940

made

it

all

of Allied intentions had already

reached Hitler, some through the Norwegian Nazi

Vidkun

Quisling. Clearly aid to Finland

off the

Swedish ore, for the English and French

would cut

would occupy Narvik and the railroad from Narvik Lulea,

to

Sweden.

But the collapse of Finland

spoiled Hitler's rationale as well as that of the Allies.

Each

side,

however, continued with some course

of action. Finally, on the morning of April 8, the

English began laying mines in Norwegian waters

by German ore ships. What they did not know was that already German warships were under way up the Norwegian coast and troops were ready to move across the border of Denmark. On April 9 Denmark had become a German province and the used

Luftwaffe had, as Goring insisted, fighter bases

sites for

advance

and air-warning systems. Because the

Scandinavian occupation had been prepared in secrecy Goring for possibly the

first

time had not

been informed of Weseriibung (the code name for the

operation)

until

it

had been

all

but in

form. Goring, whose relations with the other

Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian fascist leader, whose name became a synonym for traitor. Quisling assisted the Germans in their invasion of Norway in 1940. Under Nazi occupation Quisling served as premier; after the war he was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason, (national archives)

macht

services

had never been good, did not endear

himself further by dominating the

attended on Weseriibung.

most of

final

Wehr-

The

first

meeting he

Field Marshal spent

his time criticizing the already

formulated

plans, venting "his spleen" as one attendant noted,

A German

soldier examines the wreckage of a Norwegian plane, destroyed by Luftwaffe attacks, at Sola. Bombed, strafed, invaded by German paratroops fol-

lowed by air-borne infantry, the great air base fell into German hands the first day of Hitler's invasion of Scandinavia, April 9, 1940. (national archives)

Hans-JUrgen Stumpf, whose Luftflotte 5, operating from Norwegian bases, effectively harassed the British fleet in the North Sea and British ground and air forces that attempted to aid the

Norwegians. (national archives)

and generally disrupting the conference. As a result

some changes were made in the plans, putting responsibilitites on the Army and Navy,

heavier

Denmark

as well as ascertaining the bases. All of

was conquered in about five hours. The determinant was the vaunted Luftwaffe, although most of the

country was overrun by ground troops.

The

bombardment in the style of Guernica and Warsaw of Copenhagen ended all Danish re-

threatened

sistance.

Norway, also invaded on April 9, was not so The tiny Norwegian Army fought

readily overcome. gallantly, but the

Erhard Milch, former board chairman of Lufthansa Airlines, and one of the architects of the Luftwaffe. A shrewd administrator. Milch was a greater asset to the German Air Force than Goring. He was also ruthless in dealing with his rivals; at the close of the war he was a field marshal, (national archives)

Germans

in

a carefully

operation succeeded in landing troops

dozen important coastal

cities,

prepared

in

from Narvik

a

halfin the

north to Christiansand in the south. Within hours the great airfield at Sola, a few miles to the east of the

fishing

village

Stavanger on the southwest

BLITZKRIEG

40

The Focke-Wulf 200 "Condor" as a Lufthansa airliner the late 1930s and as converted into a Luftwaffe reconnaissance bomber. The Condor was the only longrange aircraft available to the Luftwaffe when war came, and although not designed as a warplane, it was made into one by adding various gun positions and a in

ventral gondola under the fuselage, which served as a

gun position, and eventually a bombardier's position. Though ill suited to its wartime role, with structural weaknesses, and vulnerable to fighter attack, the Condor proved to be surprisingly effective and earned the

name

of

the

"Scourge

of

Atlantic"

the

after

its

introduction in the Norwegian campaign.

(LUFTHANSA PHOTO-IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON)

coast of Norway, was in the hands of the Luftwaffe.

Early in the morning a half-dozen

machine-gun

the

emplacements

Me- 110s bombed at

Sola

(there

were no antiaircraft guns). Paratroopers were then

dropped ports

to invest the field to

be followed by trans-

(Ju-52s) carrying infantry battalions and a

regimental

staff.

Meanwhile ships disembarked more

troops and supplies in the harbor nearby.

afternoon Sola was a

To

German

By

the

airfield.

assure Luftwaffe prestige Goring sent Milch

to

command the newly formed Luftflotte 5, a temcommand which Milch held for three weeks

porary

when he returned

to

Germany

ministrative details. Milch eral

near

Hans-Jiirgen Stumpf. Oslo,

Christiansand,

to turn again to ad-

was succeeded by Gen-

From

bases established

and Stavanger

(Sola),

the Luftwaffe operated most effectively against Nor-

wegian and Allied troops as well as Allied shipping.

The Focke-Wulf 200, of Lufthansa's

fleet,

the Condor, once the pride

was pressed

into active service

41

"SITZKRIEG"

Junkers

the

88,

all-purpose

Luftwaffe's

functions ranged from that of

its

aircraft.

lis

original conception

medium bomber through reconnaissance and

as a fast

Designed in 1936 by a German, W. H. and an American, Alfred Gassner, the Ju-88

fighter plane.

Evers,

served in the Luftwaffe through the entire war. (U.

armed long-range reconnaissance

as an

important use of the Junkers

first

S.

AIR force)

The

aircraft.

flown by

88,

Kampfgeschwader 30, occurred during the Scandinavian campaign. The He- 111 also was employed

was the now infamous Stuka.

as

The

Allies sent small, ill-equipped reinforcements

engage

to

ings were

in

courageous but doomed ventures. Land-

made

command

der

The

British

waffe

Namsos, in central Norway, unMajor General Carton de Wiart.

at

of

soon came under heavy Luft-

forces

and within days

attack

Namsos was bombed

into an

after

the

landings

"unforgettable spec-

tacle" of flame. General de Wiart informed

he "could see

that

or indeed, any

decisive, air

little

activity

is

enemy

operations unless

considerably restricted."

waffe continued to

London

chance of carrying out

command

The

Luft-

the skies, just as their

propaganda vaunted.

The

aircraft carriers Glorious

called in

and Ark Royal were

from the Mediterranean to

delivery of aircraft, particularly fighters

would not permit Britain. Since

man own snow

assist

in

the

whose range

being flown direcdy from

their

most of the best

airfields

were

in

Ger-

hands, the Allies were forced to construct their

airdromes under in

less

one Norwegian

than ideal conditions.

airfield

The

was packed down by

a herd of several thousand reindeer. Bribed by the

an He-Ill about to set off on a homhing The Heinkel 111, a descendant of the singleengined He-70, was designed by Walter and Siegfried Gunther and first saw service in Spain and continued to be operational beyond its time, (national archives)

The

crciv of

mission.

BLITZKRIEG

42 medical

pure alcohol, the keeper of the

ofl5cer's

snow a

herd, a Laplander, drove the herd over the

few times to produce a perfect landing ground.

The

was located on Lake Lesjaskog,

British field

near Aandalsnes in central Norway, where two hun-

dred Norwegian civilians appeared to

runway under two

ing a

assist in scrap-

snow. Once pre-

feet of

RAF: No. 263

pared, the field was ready for the

Squadron dispatched eighteen Gloster Gladiators, the last of the biplane fighters,

the deck of the Glorious.

which took

from

off

Led by a Blackburn Skua,

an early Fleet dive bomber, the Gladiators flew through a snow flurry for nearly two hundred miles

unknown

over icy

and actually found the

terrain

on Lake Lesjaskog. Not long

strip

Luftwaffe

ubiquitous

—Ju-88s

and

Uttle

the

after,

He-Ills

—ap-

peared. Before the day ended ten of the eighteen

Gladiators were out of operation.

The planes had

landed on April 24; by April 27 their effort was

and the

over, the Gladiators burned, ated.

The wreckage

some

of

pilots

evacu-

of the Gladiators

may

Two

Gladiators of No. 263 Squadron,

flaged against

German

RAF, camou-

air attack at Aandalsnes,

Nor-

way, in the spring of 1940.

(imperial

be found in the vicinity of Lake Lesjaskog even

war museum, LONDON)

today.

In the north, at critical Narvik, the Allies were able to hold out longer because porarily

range.

and

A

out of the

least,

at

most impressive of which was

the

forests,

Once again

the

fifty

runways were created by

Under the snow lay a under that frozen

six-inch coating of ice

some of which turned

soil,

under the direct rays of the feeble sun.

May

May 21a

4 and by

network of landing

strips,

was ready for occupancy. Squadron with

Norwe-

and Royal Air Force technicians.

engineers

gan on

lo-

miles northeast of

civiUans under the direction of British and

gian

effective

few airdromes were hacked out of the ice

cated at Bardufoss, about

Narvik.

they were, tem-

Luftwaffe's

its

new

—and

to

Work

mud be-

great hand-carved

taxiways,

and

shelters

Once again No. 263

Gladiators aUghted in Nor-

way. They were later joined by No. 46 Squadron,

equipped with the modern Hawker Hurricane, based at

another

field

near Skaanland, which lay closer

to Narvik.

The

Not only had

the

Germans enlarged

their

holdings in Norway, which included bases closer to

Narvik, but Hitler had brought the "twilight war"

on the Western Front

way

—

rest

Allied forces were, by this time, under dou-

ble stress.

Flight Lieutenant Caesar B. Hull of the ill-fated No. 263 Squadron, which lost all of its Gladiators in and around Norway although only two in combat; the

at great cost

to

an end.

Was

holding Nor-

worth the risk of losing France?

were destroyed

attack

while

on

German when the

in operational mishaps, to

the

ground,

aircraft carrier Glorious,

way, was sunk by the

or,

finally,

evacuating them from Nor-

German Navy.

Hull,

wounded

in

Norway, had not been aboard the Glorious. He returned to England and was killed while serving with No. 43 Squadron during the Battle of Britain, (imperial war museum, London) the

fighting

in

43

"SITZKRIEG" Besides which, the tide of battle had turned severely against the Allies

The

troops.

ish

—

quality of epic tragedy with

mance

French, and Pol-

British,

war was characterized by

air

a

overtones of the ro-

of air fighting in the First

World War. In

was a clash of the past and the present with the outcome preordained. On May 26 three Gladiators of No. 263 Squadron

objective fact

it

took oS from the south

biplanes,

a couple of

the English

The

Bod0.

at

field

three

by Flight Lieutenant Caesar Hull,

led

came upon

Bardufoss and flew

at

airfield

temporary

a

to

He-1

which

Is

1

fired shots at

planes but without inflicting damage.

The Gladiators put down

the

in

muddy

strip

at

Bod0. While refueling was going on another He- 111 appeared over the

field.

dekker immediately took

Lieutenant Anthony Lyoff

and engaged the Hein-

while Hull and the other pilot.

kel

Pilot

Officer

Jack Falkson, were briefed on their mission.

The AUies were retreating northward up a valley Bod0 in an attempt to get to the sea and back to England. As Hull explained, the troops "were being strafed by the Huns all day." The

Norway 1940: Norwegian skiers watch a Luftwaffe crew bomb-up a Stuka. The pilot waits upon one of the wheel pants, (national archives)

to the east of

three Gladiators were to interfere with the strafing.

The Heinkel having been chased

Lydekker

off,

landed to refuel and the three British planes pre-

pared to take

mud

for

This in

off.

was a major chore,

itself

gripped at the wheels of the planes the

down. The

instant they touched

covered with

boards. In his report later Hull

flat

did not say that they took

unstuck about

were

stickier spots

yards from the end

fifty

"came

instead they

off;

and

just

were cheered by the report," Hull wrote, "and

took a good deal of persuasion to convince the

It

charge of the strip to permit another take-

officer in

off

from the viscous

field.

more planks were

vincing,

off again.

But Hull was most conlaid

the only thing I could

do was amuse the troops by all cheered and waved

doing some aerobatics. They

madly every time

went down low

I

we had

imagined that

tunate and his plane crashed in the takeoff. Feeling

worries were over. Vain hope!"

Lydekker

was a doomed mission, Hull ordered and continued on alone.

to land

"Saw some smoke vestigated, feet.

Attacked

smoke pouring from

with

Broke

off

attack

to

crashed in flames.

and

two Junkers 52s

in

six

clouds,

it

fuselage

at

in-

about 600

failed.

1 1 1

Number one went

number two crashed

in

flames

after

attacking

another

Heinkel

which

raced

German lines) with smoke in its wake, Hull returned to Bod0 to rearm. "The troops south (toward the

think they

and

their

two Glad-

ships carrying the

nately there were

troops

out of Norway.

no enemy

however,

Fortu-

aircraft aloft at

mid-

Hull once again amused the troops by

it

was

agreed

that

By morning, Bod0 runway

left.

the

could no longer be safely used even with planks covering practically

all

of

it.

Also, at eight in the morn-

ing a jetty near the airdrome

came under

attack

by Messerschmitt 110s and the Stukas. Only Lydekker succeeded in taking off immediately to save the

people had baled out."

After

night, alternating in the remaining

"beating up" the vessels as they

south,

I

the three pilots furnished air cover for the

and engines. flying

—

air control

night so

Returned and attacked

formation.

at last

turned south

engage a Junkers 52, which

Saw Heinkel

tried to intercept,

into

and

three times,

it

1 1 1

That iators,

he reported, "so

rising,"

and found a Heinkel

down, and he took

"This time the valley was deserted, and

staggered over the trees." Falkson was not so for-

certain theirs

I

thought another patrol might produce more fun."

Gladiator, but by the time he arrived at Bardufoss

he was wounded and the plane a write-off. Hull meanwhile had taken shelter in a barn and

BLITZKRffiG

44

Messerschinitt 109E-3 of Jagdgeschwader 77, based at

Nordholz, near Cuxhaven,

in

northern Germany.

JG 77

played an active role in the Scandinavian campaign, during which it was moved northward to Westerland at

on the North Sea.

Sylt

mies,

whom

was not being attacked. He plane and took off, climbed and

fore,

sent

dive.

He may

land.

Within

off slowly

over the

jetty,

airstrip,

watched the dive-bombing for a while before noting the

that

field

itself

climbed into his

attacked a Stuka at the bottom of

have

hit

At

sea.

it,

for the

Ju-87 made

that instant Hull

its

was attacked by another

Stuka, the shots shattering his windscreen. of impact had stunned Hull and he

—

my

lucky stars" as he came to

The

force

was "thanking

only to hear the

sound of guns from behind and the thudding of hits in his aircraft.

hand

dive,

The Gladiator turned

which Hull

to get out of,

plane pulled

when itself

at

felt

into a right-

he would not be able

about two hundred feet the

out.

Hull quickly gunned the

of machine guns from the rear again

... so gave up

hope and decided to get her down." The glutinous mud of Bod0 would have been

welcome the

as

the screaming,

Gladiator into the

strained engine pulled

ground.

The landing

legs

snapped and with a crashing roar and a ripping of fabric Hull's plane

bounced along the frozen rocky

ground

in a spray of

a

of oily smoke.

trail

snow, crunching of

trees,

and

With an injured head and

knee, Hull crawled away from the wreck.

The Tom-

nowarra)

he had served so well

him

later

hours

evacuated by

nothing

hours be-

in the

to the nearest British

from which he was

remained

aid station, air to

Eng-

Bod0:

of

town, and forest blazed after a con-

centrated Luftwaffe attack.

As Hull had observed, it had all been a vain hope. By June 3 evacuation from Narvik was under way.

A

merciful stratum of mist and low cloud screened

the frantic waffe,

movement

to the seaport

from the Luft-

whose planes thronged over the

at will,

stroying

entire area

dive-bombing and strafing the troops, de-

communications

and

generally

creating

havoc.

The few

engine to clear an outcropping of rocks in his path.

This achieved, he was "discouraged to hear the sound

(H. j.

surviving Gladiators of No. 263 Squad-

ron were flown back to the Glorious. The ten re-

maining Hurricanes

of

No.

46 Squadron would

have to be burned because the planes were not supposed to be capable of landing on a carrier deck.

Unable

to bring himself to destroy the Hurricanes,

Squadron Leader K. B. Cross hterally pleaded permission to attempt the impossible.

moment was 7,

At

every aircraft was priceless and the

finally decided,

was worth

it.

for

this crucial risk,

it

At midnight, June

Cross led a formation of ten Hurricanes out of

beleaguered Bardufoss and, after an hour's

flight.

— "SITZKRIEG" all

45

ten landed safely on the Glorious. Tragically this,

too,

was a vain hope.

It

The German Imperial Navy, which had Hitler's

Scandinavian adventure, had a

The two

deliver.

Gneisenau,

in

battle

final

inspired

blow

Scharnhorst

cruisers

to

and

Norwegian waters and cruising north-

ward, learned from

air

reconnaissance and

cepted radio messages of

much

shipping

inter-

activity

between northern Norway and Scotland. The plane

had and

its

German warships

On

airmen were ten

lost in the icy sea

Gladiators

splendidly evacuated

and

the

time.

In

—

as

ten

the

battle

hit

Both German ships were under

repair,

and there-

fore out of action, for close to six months, a critical

In addition the cruisers Konigsberg

the

destroyed

former by Fleet Air

latter tles

were

Arm

10 and

of April

counted for no

13

bombers and

And

by a British submarine.

therefore,

Royal Navy ships ac-

than ten of the destroyers which

less

Navy's

Imperial

its

German

fleet

ricane squadron. For hours, as they waited for res-

Scandinavian campaign. It

was

destroyer

half of

strength,

was eliminated within four days, and

about a third of

countrymen, even

the

during the bat-

the

German

and

Norwegian waters,

in

had brought German troops to Narvik. One

so

the

by a torpedo from the British submarine Clyde.

among them Squadron Leader Cross and one other member of his Hurtheir

Glorious,

Hurricanes,

from Bardufoss. There were

saw twenty-five of

the

were the twenty

only forty-three survivors,

cue, they

with

Within two weeks the Gneisenau was

destroyers.

Karlsruhe

Outgunned by the German cruisers, all three British ships were sent to the bottom within two hours. Over fifteen hundred British seamen and

surface fleet

Scharnhorst took a torpedo from one of the British

half year.

two escort destroyers, the Acasta and the

German

for the

but with portentous qualifications not apparent at

the afternoon

Ardent.

planes,

of their squadron mates, die in the Arctic cold.

was a triumph

sighted the Glorious

also spotted a British carrier.

of June 8 the

some

surface

cruisers.

true, in the

As

a force at sea the

counted for

little

short view. Hitler

after

the

had once

- -" --..^»^--^-=--'^3ce-

The British carrier Glorious, wliich served in the Norwegian campaign, delivering aircraft and evacuating the

wounded.

It

was sunk on June

8,

1940, during the

withdrawal from Narvili with heavy loss of

life.

(navy DEPT., national ARCHrVES)

BLITZKRffiG

46 again

proved himself the supreme war lord, the

blitzkrieg concept

had proved insuperable, the Luft-

waffe incomparable, but at what a price. In order to invade Britain Hitler

which lay

in

coastal waters of

Many

would need

all

those ships

dry dock or rusting in the fiords and

Norway.

missed the

full

a ground soldier as Jodl had glimpsed this truth. His final report to the Fiihrer

happy

in his

"The Luft-

Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, how-

spoke the ultimate

movement and operations of the most powerful Navy on earth. It was a lesson that

many by

would have to be painfully relearned before

now

in disrupting the

fully understood.

of hollow victory.

factor in the success of the operation."

significance of the Scandi-

ever,

were

moment

waffe," Jodl submitted, "proved to be the decisive

navian adventure: that the Luftwaffe had succeeded

plications

on the Scandinavian cam-

paign must have been the ultimate shock to Raeder,

Even

its

im-

so confirmed

its

in cant

when he

said,

"Ger-

action has saved the countries and the

peoples of Scandinavia from annihilation, and will

guarantee true neutrality in the north until the

war's end."

4 WAS NUN?

L

/IVE and

Bernard

let live

was

Fergusson

still

the policy in the Saar,"

from

reported

Front, "and anybody

who

Western

the

loosed off a

rifle

was

thought to be thoroughly anti-social." In the posi-

where the British and French faced the Ger-

tions

mans

in the Siegfried

Line the Germans twice

in

bombardment

was considered

flank; this

and not This

some French

posts

to be extremely

on our

bad form,

warfare abruptly ended on

May

10,

1940, when the Nazi legions struck the Netherlands,

Belgium, and Luxembourg. Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow"), the assault along the Western Front, erupted at

dawn

in

offing, it

accepted

was

that

lute military targets:

land

at sea, therefore,

The ganda war,

no bombs were

upon

to fall

civiUans be placed in danger. Only ships

lest

RAF

targets.

also to dropping propa-

beginning with the

leaflets,

when

were legitimate

was devoted

first

night of the

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley twin-

ten

engined bombers of Nos. 51 and 58 Squadrons de-

be imitated."

to

idyllic

the

in

both sides confined bombing attacks only to abso-

April "went through the motions of an attack, and the second time overran

Warsaw

of

Roosevelt's request on September 18. So

Holland as the Wehrmacht smashed

across the borders, parachutists dropped from the

livered "Nickles," as the leaflets

were called

in

code,

Hamburg. Bremen, and the industrial Ruhr. Although there was no interception by German fighter planes, the Whitleys did encounter bad weather, to

severe

electrical

and

storms,

icing.

One

plane

crashed in France.

defense points, and

Nickle raids were not popular with crews, a view

the cry of the Stuka again shattered the peace of

shared with them by Arthur Harris, commanding

the countryside.

No. 5 Group of Bomber

on

skies

airfields

and other

vital

This had been preceded by a curious series of

and inconclusive actions during the "twi-

tentative light

war." As word of the attack on Poland flashed

began

(by

bomber

war's

thing achieved

was

requirements of

appealed

of war."

all

belligerents

to

refrain

restricted aerial warfare; in short, cities.

The

tember

1,

British accepted

on the

from un-

bombing of same day, Sep-

the

1939; the French followed on the next

By

in the early

was

Command when

little

would

he

forces of Britain),

around the world. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to

end

who

felt

the

war

command

the

"that the only

largely to supply the Continent's

toilet

paper for the

five

long years

virtue of the irrational sapience

rampant

weeks of the war, and of which there

dearth throughout the war, the leaflets

were marked "Secret" and carefully watched

day, and the Germans, having already devastated

any of the British

Polish towns and villages and with plans for the

the eyes of the

pilots read

enemy

only,

lest

them. They were for it

seems. Harris,

who

— BLITZKRIEG

48

—

The Armstrong Whitworth "Whitley" the "Flying Barn Door" to its crews was one of Bomber Command's first modern bombers. Employed during the "phony war" in dropping propaganda leaflets, the Whitley accumulated impressive "firsts" during its tenure: it was the first British aircraft to drop bombs on

—

German and

Italian soil

and the

over Berlin

first to fly

resented the additional complexity of handling the as

leaflets

secret

typical acuity.

documents, regarded them with

"Many

"were patently so perhaps

of the pamphlets," he said,

idiotic

just as well to

and childish that

edge of the British public, even waste

crews

and

it

was

keep them from the knowl-

aircraft

if

we

did risk and

dropping them on

the

While hazardous, the propaganda raids were usethey provided the air crews with training

and reconnaissance

flights

over enemy territory

of which

would serve a more destructive purpose once the gloves came off. Also it became ob-

all

vious that, against the "gloves off" day, tional techniques

new

opera-

were required particularly as ap-

plied to navigation; the conditions under

which the

crews were expected to operate required attention.

A

typical raid of this type

late in five

raids

in

leaflets

on October

1,

what the crews called "bumphlet" 1939. Earlier "marks" were pow-

ered by radial engines; beginning with the stallation of in-line

1942 mand;

off

the its

Whitley

hail,

and

day was over. (imperial

The weather

war museum, LONDON)

forecast

at Villeneuve,

was deadly:

and period took place

October 1939, when four Whitleys (originally

but one turned back) of No. 51 Squadron took

"rain,

showers, risk of thunder; cloud 7 to

sleet

9/10, low base 1(XX)

1500

freezing level

in-

Merlin engines. By the spring of was retired from Bomber Com-

around dusk from a forward base

France.

Mark IV

was improved with the

Whitley's performance

the

feet,

feet;

but 500 feet in showers;

heavy icing anticipated in

shower clouds up to 12,000 single turnback

feet."

Except for the

because of the weather,

proceeded to their assigned target areas

enemy."

ful in that

drop

to

all

planes

in the Diis-

seldorf-Frankfurt region and dropped their Nickles

under truly impossible conditions.

The Whidey, thousand

feet

at best,

could reach about seventeen

—and through most

dropping the chute

in

the

leaflets

snow

of the route

clouds jutted up to eighteen thousand

While

feet.

from the "dustbin," (a

underside

of

not possible to use oxygen.

the

fuselage),

flare

it

was

The "droppers" were

forced to walk around, cut the strings binding the bundles,

and force them through the dustbin,

without oxygen

and with

little

protection

all

against

the freezing temperatures. In one of the Whitleys

WAS NUN?

49

droppers

the

operator

—

—

otherwise

way home, however, when

the icing

up heavily and

abandon ship by para-

chute," one of the crew later related; "as no reply

began

was forthcoming from the front and rear gunners,

plane

Controls became

but useless and great lumps of ice were flung

all

to

They revived on the

lost altitude.

"The order was given

and radio

navigator

the

collapsed from anoxia.

the order

was immediately

cancelled.

scious due to a blow on the head tion magazine,

lems and others, the pilot brought the plane safely

from a blow on the head from the

back to Villeneuve.

dive and subsequent recovery.

Another Whitley had similar the drop zone the front

on the controls lowered,

transferred

froze.

too

that

gun

And

froze.

from one

turret

On

to

and the trim tabs

was being

had

leaflets

to

be

side of the plane to the other

because of the

jammed

operation,

crew discovered that

the

way

the

as the dustbin

The

turret.

During

this painful

had taken

it

along only a single charged oxygen bottle

—

others

all

were empty. As the Whitley lumbered toward the the front gunner passed out from the cold

target,

and lack of oxygen. The navigator and copilot lieved the pain of the cold

re-

by voluntarily butting

When

their

heads against convenient hard surfaces.

they

descended to a lower altitude their aircraft

came under despite

antiaircraft

But they pressed on,

fire.

the pilot's sickness

from the

cold,

and bucking of the plane. More freezing

gun turrent as well

the rear dicator.

gator

as

But the radio operator

somehow managed

to

anoxia afilicted

the air-speed

in-

tripling also as navi-

find his

way back

to

with the other two aircraft, the third Whitley

experienced trouble with frozen dustbins, but with variations

tered

and augmentation. The

leaflets

were

aircraft then

We

and the second opened the

to see

we

dropped

flat

200

feet

above the

we were head-

the aircraft over the

through their tops, and the aircraft

into a field, travelled through a wire

on and came

fence, skidded broadside

wing against the

the port

emerged from

could see was a black forest with a

the second pilot pulled

trees brushing

controls,

the

at

aircraft

grey patch in the middle, for which ing;

windows were

[all

who was

pilot,

the clouds in heavy rain at about

ground. All

to the

where we were going,

window. The

side

due

turret

assumed a shallow high-speed

opened the top hatch

solidly frozen over]

to rest with

on the further

trees

side of

the clearing."

and

All climbed safely out of the Whitley

tempted, with ing engine.

little

The

at-

success, to extinguish the burn-

pilot

climbed into the cabin to get

an extinguisher, only to find that the crash had caused

it

Finally the radio operator

to discharge.

found another extinguisher and mounting the wing put out the flames. All were safe and unhurt and

raised the dustbin out of the slipstream.

The

and a half hours of exhausting

the controls over to the copilot

navigator in a loss of consciousness.

recovered

it

was to

A

The to

fourth Whitley had

navi-

blanket of hoary

after

underfoot in the front

flight,

turned

When

the pilot

six-inch coating of ice

little

on the way

trouble

was Munich, despite the on the windows and snow gunner's compartment. It was

the drop area, which

The

the sight of flames shooting out

of his starboard engine.

are you taking off?"

pilot,

and then joined the

"What time

of the local farmers asked, in French,

scat-

but only the combined efforts of the crew

gator passed out from the exertion. five

dive.

and the rear gunner was unconscious

even managed a laugh when, the next morning, one

base.

As

"The

even be-

troubles,

after-

from an ammuni-

back from the propellers and thudded alarmingly against the sides of the plane. Despite these prob-

fore reaching Dusseldorf-Frankfurt.

was

It

wards ascertained that the front gunner was uncon-

ice

a cheerful crew, singing

— "Roll —with

Out

the Barrel"

on the way

Germany

to

was an especial

favorite

particular and brilliant solo efforts praised

over the intercom system. Whitley.

Over Munich

It

was

a noisy

the Nickling

if

frigid

was properly

had formed on the wing. In a cloud, the distressed

accomplished (with the usual freezing of the dust-

Whitley staggered into a dive. With the

bin, the raising of

frozen soUd,

it

tail

took the strength of both pilot and

copilot to pull the plane out of the plunge.

leveled

out,

controls

the

Though

Whitley continued dropping; the

of the crew).

As

which eventually exhausted most

the plane neared the French border

a cylinder head in the starboard engine blew

With the

loss of

power

port engine, the one which wasn't burning, simply

and lower into the thick clouds,

stopped under a thick coating of

other engine began to sputter.

ice.

off.

the Whitley descended lower after

which the

BLITZKRIEG

50

"Abandon

aircraft," the pilot

two thousand

plane, fljing at

some

bore

feet,

jump was

down on

who

the front gunner,

entan-

and dangled

outside the aircraft, imable to get free,

the

until

him a push. The opening of his knocked him out and when he next

navigator gave

awakened he was enormous brown

startled

at

being ringed in by

He had dropped

eyes.

into a pas-

and became the center of curiosity of a herd

ture

The radio

operator,

who had been

forced to

jump

with an oxygen bottle in his hand because his fingers

had frozen

to the metal,

He

field.

cumbered by

apparently landed in an

proved that

also

hundred yards

to cover a

and

McPher-

Officer A.

off

on

the

According

British aerial mission of the

first

to the Operations

Record Book

war.

of

No.

139 Squadron, the duty was "Photo. Reco." and

Time Up 1200 and Time Down 1650. The Remarks read tersely: "Duty successfiil. 75 photos the

taken of

German

tence

The

fleet.

German

Royal Air Force

first

The was a small concession to merited

aircraft to cross the

last sen-

frontier."

pride.

It

hardly suggested any of the hardships of the four-

of cows.

adjoining

war a Blenheim, with Flying

of

son piloting and carrying a naval observer, took

gled himself in the intercom wiring

parachute

Forty-eight minutes after the official declaration

as the

the near distance.

hills in

First to

announced

in

it

was possible

record time while en-

regaha, complete to boots,

full flying

to hurtle a four-foot

hedge while being pursued

and-a-half-hour mission.

The Blenheim (a Mark IV, serial number 6215) came in from the North Sea over Wilhelmshaven at twenty-four thousand feet. The men aboard saw several German ships coming out of Wilhelmshaven and entering the SchiUig Roads, among them the Admiral Scheer and the Emden. But they were unable to wire back the information,

by a buU.

The navigator jumped, with ankle; the pUot,

plane in a

the

jumped and landed gently

also

trajectory,

meadow. The

setting

after

a resultant sprained

WTiitley, ostensibly crewless,

flat

in

a

remained

few more minutes, plowed into the

in flight for a

ground, and burst into flames. In the rear turret

were

the leaflet-dropping aircraft, they the cold.

as with

for,

afflicted

with

Their radio frozen, McPherson and the

naval observer

Commander Thompson)

(a

could

relay the intelligence only after they

had returned

RAF

target of the

to England.

Thus was

Second World

War

the

first

decided upon.

crew members.

The major enemy was the weather, with minor from High Command uncertainty. "The war was only 24 hours old," deplored Flight Lieutenant K. C. Doran, "but already the bomb-

Extremely puzzled to find the crew gone. Sergeant

load had been changed four times. Lunch-time on

Sergeant A. Griffin, whose intercom had gone de-

and who had not heard the order

fective

snatched a

fire

extinguisher and

limped to the nearest

the rest of the

jump,

dashed into the

front of the plane to save his fellow

Griflin

to

village,

where he found

crew and learned that he had actually

walked away from the crash of the Whitley. They

contributions

4th September found us standing by readiness,

Blenheims

the

at

an hour's

bombed up with 500-

were taken from the cafe in which they met, after

pound S.A.P." McPherson's ffight having located some German shipping in the region of the Heli-

being presented with bouquets, to a French hospital

goland Bight,

By

for treatment.

the evening aU had retimied to

No. 51 Squadron.

Bomber Command more war"s

hostile first

the

it

now devolved upon Doran

to lead

bombers carrying Semi Armor Piercing bombs.

But these too were changed for five-hundred-pound was,

however,

engaged

in

operations during the period of the

General Purpose fuses.

This

was

(GP) with eleven-second delay a

concession

to

the

weather,

days and through the twihght war. These

which, as Doran noted, was reported as "bloody,

were confined primarily to the North

and the only attack possible would be a low-level

incipient efforts

Sea approaches to Germany

where the German

one."

was concentrated. As with the Germans, the British began with good intentions: "The greatest

(five

care

ron) took off for Wilhelmshaven. Another five from

fleet

is

to be taken not to injure the civihan

lation [the original order stated explicitiy].

tention

is

to destroy the

alternative target"

German

fleet.

popu-

The

There

is

With Doran

in the lead

aircraft,

from No. 107 Squadron and

ten Blenheims

five of

110 Squad-

in-

No.

no

cause of the weather never located their target and

139 Squadron were also dispatched but be-

returned to base without bombing.

WAS NUN?

51

Blenheims of No. 139 Squadron over France, 1940. Although hailed in the summer of 1936 as the

Bristol

last

word

in

modern

fast

bomber

design,

Blen-

the

heim proved vulnerable to the Messerschmitt 109 in France; it was also lacking in armament and protective armor for its crew. "XD" was the code for No. 139

"Soon ran

after crossing out over the

North Sea," Do-

110 Squadron noted, "we ran

No.

of

bad weather ... a

into

seemed

solid wall of cloud

formation thereupon dropped

down

to

The

extend from sea-level to about 17,000 feet."

to nearly sea

and flew through the clouds. They flew on

level

instruments and dead reckoning.

When

they

esti-

mated they were over HeUgoland, they turned and headed for what should have been Wilhelmshaven.

They were barely

fifty

feet

when

over the water

suddenly "a couple of barges appeared out of the

murk and vanished." line also

A

dim suggestion of a

emerged from the

coast-

fog. "After a bit of fe-

we decided we were in the approach to the Schillig Roads. By an incredible combination and judgement we were bang on our track." The Germans were not expecting any action in

verish map-reading,

such dismal weather, and

if

anyone heard approach-

Squadron, whose Flying Officer A. McPherson, in a Blenheim, was the first Briton to cross the German

when he photographed the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven on September 3, 1939. The following day, Blenheims of No. 110 Squadron made the first bombing raid of the war on Wilhelmshaven. (imperial war museum, LONDON) frontier

away from the shore, protected from the side by barrage balloons. Gaining as

anchor,

landward

much

altitude as possible

—without

—about

left to

to

loons.

Doran

recalled

man seamen

seeing the laundry of the Ger-

fluttering

on

watching with

mans

realize

Blenheims were under heavy antiaircraft

dropped by the

first

—bounced

plane,

crew under heavy

each, the cloud base lifted to around five hundred

the

Doran saw

beyond

it,

—and

a large merchant ship

the Admiral Scheer.

The Scheer

just

lay in

its

its

delayed fusing

harmlessly into the water.

bombs exploded pilot

from

bombs

Blenheim struck the Scheer and

divided into two sections of two and three planes

feet.

fire

both the ships and shore-based batteries. The

fell

110 Squadron into the attack,

British

its

deck and

of No.

ap-

bomber flashed bomb, did the Gerwhat was happening. From then on the first

over the Scheer, dropping

now

flights

As Doran

he

as

concern the approach of the

Uttie

Blenheims. Not until the

to the

given.

stern

the

proached. The sailors seemed to be idling about,

—thanks

no alarms were

turn to the

avoid hitting the cables of the barrage bal-

led the

ing aircraft

feet

Doran led the bombs went it

Once the make a sharp

attack against the Scheer.

would be necessary

hundred

five

losing sight of the target,

fire,

into the forecastle of the

the

dropped short and

in the water.

misjudging his height or

off

The second

hit

Emden.

One Blenheim, by It

flak,

crashed

was the only

BLITZKRffiG

52

damage done

serious

any German ship

to

some Germans and more. No. 107 Squadron lost four

attack and also killed several

and No. 110 Squadron one;

in the attack

cosdy raid for small

results.

ing force was lost in this

Royal Air Force

forting.

aircraft

the

was a

it

half of the attack-

bombing attack by Second World War.

the

Later in the same day, September

4,

Against the

hundred Bridsh bombers,

five

Germans, when ready to discard the

gauntlet,

could muster three times the number.

Nor were

the Germans, certainly not the Luft-

waffe at least, anxious to violate the restricted-bomb-

The

agreement.

ing

1939, four-

com-

operations, as already described, were hardly

injured

first

the

in

One

the

in

Germans,

were most active mining

the

like

British,

respective

their

enemy warships. was in force when the

coastal

teen Vickers Wellingtons, six from No. 9 Squadron

waters or bombing

and eight from No. 149 Squadron, made an attempt upon the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. Their

bombers, Heinkel Ills and Junkers 88s of Kampf-

presence at Brunsbiittel had been noted by the enter-

geschwader 30, appeared over

McPherson on

prising

again took their

craft fire

reconnaissance

historic

Bad weather and

day before.

the

flight

his

antiair-

and two of No. 9

toll

Squadron's planes did not return.

One

bomb-

of the

was attacked by Sergeant Alfred Held

ers lost

a Messerschmitt 109 of Jagdgeschwader 77. the

British

first

German

credited to a

tack

bomber

of the Second

It

World War

Unlike the

fighter pilot.

in

was at-

Wilhelmshaven by Doran and the Blen-

at

This policy

ers

had been dispatched

On

of Forth.

man

the

morning of October

and the

approach of the German bombers

the other hand, the

Germans

were no

that there

There were two additional

of

off'ensive

warfare.

aerial

much

in

what

British

it

could

aircrews

naturally kept

The

day

been

not

terms of civilian morale and

difficult conditions.

target:

had

It

RAF— although

"wizard" day for the

first

a

did

mean

did

show

it

do under extremely

"restricted

bombing" policy

Glasgow)

and

force of nine targets as they

sand

dif-

too

engaged

tions."

was

The expression

that

all

leash

its

vogue

restric-

Air Ministry

in the

were waiting for the hated "Hun to

take off the gloves."

Command,

in

all

too,

When

this

occurred

Bomber

would remove the gloves and un-

force against

more important

targets than

German Imperial Fleet. But, in Bomber Command's bared fist consisted than five hundred aircraft, many of which

the ships

of the

The small

some

tardiness

in

the

reactions

in the area, so that the

in

One

a practice

planes coming over.

dummy ammunition

drill

British

when

The gun crew for five,

from

bomb

antiaircraft

run was rea-

gun battery was they saw

and began

By

this

the ships.

Southampton and careened out the

side before ex-

age was done to the Edinburgh and the

the Blenheim,

and

its

early

at

time bombs had begun raining down on One bomb cut through three decks of the

of less

bomber was

firing

the bombers.

ploding against an admiral's barge, sinking

effective

German

hurriedly changed

truth, the

were the out-of-date Battles and the hardly better WeUingtons, Whitleys, and Hampdens. The most

at

and conse-

land,

picked the Southampton for his attack. There was

sonably unmolested.

from

to

at twelve thou-

legal

Allies

close

approached Rosyth

from actions

a limited period at most,

of

Edinburgh),

of

Captain Helmut Pohle, piloting a Ju-88,

feet.

more than

would force the

No. 602 (City

(City

to select other

gunners

that

units.

bombers was forced

problem may well be solved for us by the Germans, who are perhaps unlikely to refrain for ficult

603

No.

quently civilians, to serve as a target.

Staff,

however, waited, feeling that "this delicate and

fighters in the vicinity of Rosyth.

therefore

likely

the Ruhr.

sur-

intelligence

Kampfgeschwader 30 found the Hood docked Rosyth,

The Air

in

until late.

within striking range of the Firth of Forth.

them from attacking the more

the factories

home

some

suffered

had been informed by

for they

time for an alarm to be given and a few aircraft

on the

its

broke down and No. 607 Squadron was not alerted to the

to be dispatched to intercept. lost

on the port was noted.

possibility of a raid

base closer to Rosyth. But the early-warning system

prise,

seven bombers were

Ger-

16, 1939,

No. 607 Squadron was sent north from

distance from the United

all,

The bombHood, sup-

Britain.

to attack the

reconnaissance aircraft had passed over Rosyth

On

In

German

posedly in the neighborhood of Rosyth in the Firth

heims, the Brunsbiittel attack, which was at a greater

Kingdom, afforded more

first

it.

Dam-

Mohawk.

Pohle, leading the attack on the Southampton, found

himself in a good deal of trouble. His Ju-88 was struck by flak and the top housing of the pilot's

WAS NUN?

53

compartment blew away headed out to sea

home he came un-

der attack by a trio of Spitfires ever seen. ing,

The German

Worse, as he

in the dive.

in a race for

—

the

he had

first

aircraft, crippled

and yaw-

staggered under the heavy gunning of the Brit-

ish fighters, which swarmed in three times. Pouring smoke and carrying two dead crewmen, the Junkers

—

splashed into the sea near Dalkeith, Scotland

German

first

brought

aircraft

down over

World War. Captain Pohle survived

since the First

and was taken prisoner. Another German plane, ported as

a Heinkel,

credit

bringing

for

the

Britain

also

down

fell

the

the

into first

The

sea.

German

re-

plane

of the Wellingtons gave the

but the bomb-laden

ble,

Me- 109s, were

pared to the

Me- 109s,

of the

blind

spots

the

in

battle.

Wellington's

Home

were

Fleet

tentative,

meager,

almost hap-

hazard skirmishes. They did not lead to great aerial

had been visualized

as

battles,

zines the

young

took their

fliers

had read

and the

toll

losses

in

were

less

defense,

at

a cost of

The

hit of the British units

favor

of

it

self-sealing

craft,

but the lessons were always tragic and costly.

if

not

It

was learned

got through," so did the

and 149

out on an "armed reconnaissance" of

the Heligoland Bight, specifically the vicinity of the

Roads and Wilhelmshaven. (Armed recon-

naissance eliminated the process of sending out one

bombthem. The Wellingtons were bombed

plane to spot targets and then sending out the ers to strike

up and ready

in the

event that worthwhile targets

modem

It

was

bomber always

fighter get

mand gave

serious

night operations,

consideration

when

through

after this battle over

High Com-

the Heligoland Bight that the British to

switching

fighter attacks could

to

be ex-

pected to be almost negligible.

Bomber Command's crews endured

the worst of

the Luftwaffe's effectiveness; but the fighter pilots, too,

were subjected

new kind

were found.) It

the bomber's defenses.

all air-

bombers were susceptible

also that

finally

Schillig

time

In

But they

to aggressive fighter attacks. If "the

set

tanks.

would become standard equipment on

The missing element of drama was provided on December 18, 1939, when two

Squadrons,

fuel

these

bitter

9, 37,

of the

was a memorable

spectacular.

dozen British Wellingtons, of Nos.

many

had crashed, burning and with

in

was

lost five of its six aircraft

streaming from their tanks;

argument

for thirty-

(British gunners

surviving crews reported that

Wellingtons

is,

Mes-

than twelve of the

two Me- 109s

claimed twelve). Worst

that

traverse, the

bombers (the claim was, however,

British

four)

Me- 1 10s which

maga-

the pulp

in school.

no

serschmitts accounted for

naval ports, the

and other havens for the

were

Taking advantage of the

where the guns were unable to

dispatched.

attacks on Rosyth

mauled. For

until they

as well as those of

had also joined the

Leader E. E. Stevens.

German

most trouslow com-

well out to sea the Wellingtons suffered the attacks

No. 37 Squadron, which

German

the

terribly

about eighty miles from Heligoland

was given to No. 603 Squadron, led by Squadron Like the British raids on

Germans

Wellingtons,

to the lessons to

be learned in a

of warfare.

was a perfect day, cloudless and sunny, with

superb

visibility.

Two

of

the

Wellingtons

turned

back because of mechanical trouble and the remaining

twenty-two approached from the north, hav-

away from the flak guns stationed on ships along the way. The four formations, at twelve thousand feet, then came in over Heligoland. It was ing kept

about at of

this

moment

that the Messerschmitt 109s

Jagdgeschwader 77 intercepted the British bomb-

Contemporaneously with the attack on Poland, the

northern

and Nickling to fight the

As

in

invasions, raids,

RAF

the

halfhearted bombings

units

were sent to France

Germans.

1914, British aircraft crossed the English

Channel shortly

after the official declaration of hos-

their

reconnaissance, unable to drop their

Ten squadrons of Fairey Battles of what was termed the Advanced Air Striking Force left for

bombs upon

the warships below because they were

France

in the

harbors and thus not to be attacked.

Battles

fell

ble;

was the only incident of the

ers.

Doggedly pressing on, the Wellingtons con-

tinued

docked or

in

The gunners could to to be

in

the Wellingtons did the best they

Me- 109s, which seemed directions. The tail guns

fight off the darting

coming

in

from

all

tilities.

it

afternoon of September

into the

2.

One

of the

Channel because of engine troucrossing.

The

crew was saved and so the transfer was unremarkable and uncontested.

The bomber squadrons were

BLITZKRffiG

54 reinforced by four Hurricane squadrons of the Air

the French Air Force. Before the

Component

one of the greatest

attached

to

the British

Expeditionary

air forces in the

Force.

de I'Air was in reality antiquated,

The Air Component, as its name implied, was to work with the BEF, as had, in a sense, the

effete, defeatist

young

pilots

command

—

war regarded world, the

as

Armee

with an

afflicted

in short, ineffectual.

The

were able and eager, but they had been

Royal Flying Corps a quarter of a century before,

betrayed. Neither their aircraft nor the policy un-

and protective element for

der which they were expected to operate was any-

as cover for the troops

and photo squadrons (Blenheims

the reconnaissance

where equal

The Advanced Air Striking Force was to be employed in the more or less strategic bombardment of targets inside Germany with its Battles and Blenheims; the French,

it

had been agreed, would sup-

ply the fighter protection.

new form hindered

The

war

facts of

the mission of the

in

its

AASF. The

to the task before them.

Burdensome

and Lysanders), also a part of the Air Component.

rules,

were

also

the

Allies.

bombing

Neither side wished to unleash a bomber

war on the

The French were

cities.

sensitive to the possibilities of

and did It

kid-glove

observed equally by the Germans and the

encourage strategic bombardment.

to

little

was a policy

particularly

an aroused Luftwaffe

of

kill

and

let kill just

so long as

^^ Fairey "Battles" of No. 218 Squadron, Advanced Air Striking Force in France, 1939-40. The Battle, al-

though obsolete by 1939, was used

It

this

the

as tactical

in front-line service

the British Expeditionary Forces in France. Slow, with

bomber during the "phony war" photograph was taken), and as a bomber war in the west erupted in May 1940.

a top speed of barely two hundred miles an hour (the Me-109 could do well over three hundred), the

as a reconnaissance

(when when

five squadrons of which operated reconnaissance and photo-survey aircraft for

Westland "Lysander,"

was shortly

after used as a trainer.

(imperial

war museum, London)

Lysander was maneuverable but vulnerable and not suited to modern air combat. (imperial war museum, LONDON)

war remained remotely

impact of the blitzkrieg, especially after the twilight

the

war expired, necessitated the diverting of the bomb-

a war of boredom.

ers

to

attack

the

advancing

German

armored vehicles rather than "strategic" lines. The modern war.

hind the for

troops

Battles proved less than suitable

of No.

battle

five

Bat-

150 Squadron were dispatched to rec-

onnoiter ten miles inside the

encountered a

flight

and decimated Poland and then order, the French and

German

frontier.

They

of Messerschmitts and in the

that followed four of the

stroyed and the surviving aircraft

Battles

was a

were de-

write-off

on

also

instituted

the British

dug

in,

a

new

hoping

into the

The

tragic, equivocal

months of the first

British

days which stretched

twilight war.

fighter

squadrons

land

to

in

France, and which endured both the boredom of the

"phony war" and the

frantic

humiliation

of

being pushed out of France, were Nos. 85 and 87

Squadrons of the Air Component and Nos.

1

and 73

Squadrons of the AASF. These Hurricane squad-

returning to base.

Another handicap was France's Armee de

was

for the best.

These were

Late in September 1939, for example, tles

and

targets be-

"civilized." It

While the Germans reduced

I'Air,

rons were

among

the

first

to engage the Luftwaffe,

WAS NUN? the

first

55

British

since 1918.

airmen to face the German

Thanks

World War,

ing of the Second

was but a sequel

in part to the press, the

fliers

open-

at least in the air,

to the earlier war.

Some

of the

more romantic epic were revived newsmen sought out aces, colorful characters, human interest stories. The lone fighter pilot en-

into the equally "impassable"

mere four- or five-minute

pilots

in aerial

—

ish attitude

combat high

this

heavens furnished

in the

despite the official negative Brit-

toward the glorification of the individ-

the

proximity

of

found

little

also of

No.

to

south of Verdun

the

pot), the eager fighter

action in their sector. This

Squadron, nesting some

1

at

was

true

thirty miles

Vassincourt airdrome

near Bar-le-Duc.

At both

bases, primitive by

RAF

standards, the

Hurricanes proved their sturdiness, thanks to their

ual.

Among husky,

Edgar

the

tall,

J.

celebrities

first

young

New

Among

of

war was a

the

Zealander, Flying Officer

Kain, of No. 73 Squadron.

sportive twenty-one-year-old

The

friendly,

was best known by

his

rugged construction.

hazardous, often

As

strips.

nickname "Cobber,"

voted

of

an

Australian-New Zealand

term for "pal" or "chum." With

his

ready grin, his

itself chiefly to

could intercept.

almost madcap flair for fighting and flying. Cobber Kain seemed a reincarnation of the spirit

months old

of Albert Ball or Billy Bishop of the Great

and was the squadron's

War

By October No. 73 Squadron was

stationed

at

Etain-Rouvres airdrome near Verdun. The base lay

behind the famed "impregnable" complex of

fortresses, the

Wall.

Maginot Line, facing Germany's West

The Maginot Line

at this

Not first

until

point petered out

reconnaissance and dived into

17s,

October 30

—

German

Squadron's

star performer.

condition of the landing

cloud cover and ran for

tousled hair, his crumpled uniform, and his fearless,

muddy

for action, apparently the Luftwaffe de-

"phony war" they fought furiously after May 1940. the No. 73 Squadron members grouped around the antique vehicle is Cobber Kain (on right without hat), (imperial war museum, LONDON)

Among

first

Also the wide-track landing

gear of the plane was capable of coping with the

to arrive in France were the HurriNo. 1 Squadron (left) and No. 73 Squadron. Although they endured the boredom of the

the

cane pilots

just

Despite

Germans or a chamber

the

as

gaged

A

carried the British

"Jerry" (a term which served the British for either

traditions of that

good copy

Germany.

over

pilots

Ardennes Forest.

flight

did

an

plane.

field

were seen

home

—

the

RAF

war was nearly two

fighter

Almost

three

before the British

bring

directly

German

at high altitude.

down

aircraft,

Officer

P.

W.

LI 842) overtook the pilot, the

1

Dornier

The airdrome de-

fense section took off immediately in pursuit Pilot

its

No.

over

and

Mould (in Hurricane Dornier. The twenty-year-old O.

squadron's youngest

—

a distinction

which

BLITZKRIEG

56

King George VI on a visit to an Air Component base in France. The three Hurricanes in foreground belong to No. 85 Squadron (VY), the others to No. 87

-\

Squadron (LK), which like Nos. 1 and 73 Squadrons were the first of the fighter units to serve in France. In the left background are a Blenheim and two Gladiators, (imperial war museum, London)

,

A

Hurricane

aircraft,

equipped Destroyed German bomber in France. At left is the tail section (possibly of an He-Ill). French soldiers have begun to gather souvenirs from the scattered wreckage. (French embassy)

I

landing at

belonging with

a

Vassincourt,

No. wooden to

1

France.

Squadron,

propeller.

was

Pilot

The then

Officer

Mould

of this squadron, flying one of these early Hurricanes, scored the first RAF victory when he

destroyed a Dornier on October 30, 1939.

(imperial

war museum, LONDON)

WAS NUN?

57

him

earned

Germans and

Two

days

scored the

nickname

the

"Boy"

shot the Dernier

November

later,

—

down

2,

surprised

without a

the fight.

1939, Cobber Kain

The

victory for No. 73 Squadron.

first

young giant had been

on the ground

lying sprawled

scanning the skies through

when he

glasses

field

suddenly leaped up shouting, "I've spotted a Jerry!"

He

ran for his Hurricane, which was in readiness,

leaped

and gunned the

in,

Within

minutes

nine

twenty-seven thousand

As Kain

closed in

past the

upon

German plane

the

One sudden

mind: he hoped that

forgotten

arm

to

Dornier

a lone

A

few tracers

the

flash of fear

machine guns

eight

The wing

— and

it

was

the

eight guns burst

as the

Kain dipped onto one

over.

watch the Dornier plunge

to

strike near

earth

to

and

from Rouvres.

a small village not far

The German plane had,

as described by Charles Gardner of the BBC, "dug a trench four feet deep

across a village street, and a

all

was

that

left

Gruesome

flaming heap of rubble.

crew dangled from nearby

trees,

of

bits

it

was

of the

and the French

children were running round with bits of fingers

and

hands which they had found lying around." into a vehicle as soon as he

and back-pattings. Kain had

On

had landed

arriving

to be reassured that

the

at

no one

to cheers

crash

site

in the village

had been injured by the Dornier. Kain walked over

smoking tangle of metal. Three fellow

to the twisted,

new year 1940,

—not

aircraft

The

of

the

French children playing

with bits of Boche or the head of one of the crew, lying at his feet, intact in the helmet

Kain stood

at

the

and eyes wide

edge of the smoldering

drawn and grimy. Turning away

he was heard to say softly, "Well,

it

was

either

them or me." It

after

apparent

And in

were some-

about twenty

RAF

German

an impressive number.

Among

the

to

first

experience

on

flight

patrol,

With

Kain spotted a

characteristic

he announced to the other two

pilots,

dash,

"Get going,

chaps," and dived into the middle of the

German

In the

first

minute or so of the attack, Kain blasted

one of the Messerschmitts out of the melee. But he also

watched one of the by then crippled Hurri-

canes racing for the ground and a forced landing.

The

other Hurricane, Kain noted, was the center of

attention of five Messerschmitts.

He

pulled back on

came up under one of the squeezing the gun button. Another

the control stick and

German

planes,

Messerschmitt

out of the battle, streaming black

fell

smoke.

was now Cobber Kain's

turn:

rushing toward

him was a Messerschmitt with guns twinkling. In his rear-view mirror, Kain saw another German plane pouring shells into the Hurricane. the rear plane for an instant, eight

guns against the oncoming

happened ply.

—Kain had

Ignoring

Kain activated the fighter.

Nothing

used up his ammunition sup-

Luckily his companion knocked the Messeroff

Kain's

tail

—but

not

before

was a burst of flame and thick black smoke

—

cockpit

the air filled with colorful

profanities. In desperation

German

fighter

thick smoke.

a

of Kain's aircraft.

into the engine

New

Kain attempted

filled

his engine

the

Zealand to

which loomed ahead of him

But

shell

There

ram in

a

the

was rapidly dying and

the Messerschmitt whisked away.

was not to be a cinematic, all.

they

end of 1939 the

to the

Messerschmitts.

rammed

trench, his face

was

was the doughty Cobber Kain. While leading a

worse:

open.

there

off,

in destroying

changing.

ceptibly, this

of the

tenor of the air war was, however imper-

schmitt

sight

Up

thing in the wind.

had succeeded

first

clearly

thought

Allies

ready had not yet come

humans had been horribly mangled in the wreckage. It was difficult for Kain to determine which was the

had once been. By the

despite the fact that the invasion of

France for which the

It

home and jumped

meanwhile, dived for

Kain,

French and British squadrons, proved to be more aggressive than they

dozen

in

free

formation.

entire plane jolted

into action

The Messerschmitt 109 squadrons,

three-Hurricane

Hurricane's wings.

permutated

of the Polish campaign, and soon outnumbering the

Kain

armorer had not

his

Fall Gelb.

postponed and

frequently

Hitler's

came

Hurricane's cockpit before

"squeezed the teat." into his

field.

about

to

on a reconnaissance mis-

the rear gunner began firing at him.

flashed

the

climbed

above

feet,

17, the "Flying Pencil," sion.

down

fighter

had

he

for

it

the

pulp-fiction

war

would become grimmer. This was build-up

of

the

German

squadrons along the Western Front

fighter

in preparation

Cobber Kain was

at

twenty thousand

feet,

his

plane aflame and he himself choking in the oily

smoke. the nose

He

jerked

the

stick

forward and pushed

down. The flames spread and Kain rammed

— BLITZKRIEG

58

Squadron scramble by No. 87 Squadron, France 1940. Second plane in the foreground is a Hurricane fitted

with the de Havilland three-bladed propeller, an im-

hood open and was about to bail out. Then he remembered, when he had taken off he

Brian

the cockpit

hadn't bothered to fasten his chute properly.

He

sank back into the smoky cockpit hoping to correct the

oversight.

He

then

noted that the dive

had

smothered the flames, although the cockpit leaked oil

And

and effused smoke.

back

to

life.

Hoping

then the engine came

to save the precious Hurricane,

provement over the old wooden prop. (imperial war museum, LONDON)

lin

Knox would from

known

time to time vent his Dub-

on the young

Irish

as

New

The

strip tearing

dress.

this carried his identification disks

sissy

on

my

bloody

face.

Passed right out, like a

boy."

Kain's

cavalier

the

Kain affected uncreased trousers

He

fell flat

—

RAF

tiki,

Around

his

in

neck he generally wore a

a small chain dangled outside his jacket

the

and a small green

image of a Maori god, as a good luck

charm. Like other

pilots,

Kain liked

to

wear

turtle-

neck sweaters. Another shared characteristic was attitude

toward regulations

(he

the dashingly

wind-blown

mop

of hair.

Members

the Senior Service, the Royal Navy, frowned

ever leaving the ground) had nearly cost him his

this

He

pilots

stuffed into

should have properly adjusted his parachute before

life.

slight-

had already begun to fashion curious variations

scarf;

then hopped out

and

might be earned for some

flying boots.

down and

was

ing of military courtesy or bearing

a spot just at the edge of an airdrome near Metz.

brought the plane

this

metaphorically, of flesh).

Kain sought out a place to land and quickly found

of the tattered Hurricane and, as he himself said, "I

—

(presumably,

Zealander

"tearing off a strip"

might easily have been court-martialed for

his breach of discipline.

As

it

was. Squadron Leader

unkempt noncomformity with some

of

upon

disdain, re-

ferring to the bulk of pilots as "the Brylcreem boys."

The

raffish,

tradition-free fighter pilots further dis-

WAS NUN?

A

trio

59

of Hurricanes in attack formation

—German-eye

view. These aircraft are in a neater formation, however,

was possible fighter and bomber than

combat. But several German pilots undoubtedly had a glimpse

in

turbed the "naval types" ferring to the

bow

when aboard

as "the pointy

ship by re-

end of the boat."

Drinking became an off-duty pastime, as

it

had

during the First World War, for the young fighter pilots.

Every squadron had

nearby French pubs,

local

board

villages.

It

its

favorite "boozer" in

was quite unlike

their

back home, with the traditional dart

and the pints of

easily obtained in the

bitters.

boozers and

Champagne was it

was

a reason-

able substitute for the delectable English beers.

It

Victories were celebrated either in the local boozer

or in the squadron mess. And, since victories were in the early

weeks, the officer pilots were fre-

quently invited to the sergeant's mess for a blow.

Or

else a

group of

another squadron.

men from one squadron After much imbibing of

visited

giggle

may have

in a formation that for an instant looked as it does here.

(IMPERUL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON)

became

water such blows lacking

quested

squadron

rather

destructive

decorum. Visiting dignitaries were

in

to

on

stand

initiation.

heads,

their

Or

as

a

kind

a playful wrestling

and re-

of

match

resulted in a battle royal and the eradication of the

supply of chinaware, chairs, and even tables. It

was following one of these parties that four of No. 1 Squadron poured themselves into

members

Two, in the The other two, the was and a pilot,

their car to return to their squadron.

rear seat, were completely out.

squadron leader

was, of course, dubbed "giggle water."

few

of Cobber Kain leading a couple of his chaps into a fight

—whose

car

it

Paul Richey, manned the forward

Soon they were

racing

—

seat.

through

the

darkened

French countryside. The following (authentic) conversation took place:

"Not leader.

so

fast,

Paul,"

cautioned

the

squadron

60

BLITZKRffiG he heard the sounds of the battle over the radio to

and

his discomfiture

On March

frustration.

26, 1940, after completing a full day

in the operations tent,

On

limit.

activity over the fron-

he sprinted out of the tent and pulled away

tier,

Hurricane

his

Kain had reached the

much enemy

hearing of

in

company with two other No. 73

in

Squadron men. "In the Luxembourg corner," Kain later reported,

saw

"I

a

number

R/T Sgt.

and proceeded

aircraft

gave a message on

I

[radio telephone] to Flying Officer Perry

who were

Pilot Pyne,

craft ahead'

the

enemy

of

2:30 p.m.

to investigate at

—and proceeded

enemy which had

back and spun away

more M.E.

and air-

to attack. I turned into

and gave a

started to climb

who

burst at the leader

—'Enemy

me

with

pulled up, turned on his flames.

in

then noticed 5

I

109's working round behind me, so I

turned hard right and took a sight on the near machine.

I

fired a burst at

him, he dived away and

took three deflection shots at another M.E.

which was slowly turning ahead of me. this aircraft

and gave

it

He

a burst.

got behind

I

turned on his

down towards

starboard side and dived right

Suddenly the sky was clear of

I

109

earth."

except

aircraft,

for Kain's, so he searched for the other Hurricanes.

Edgar J. "Cobber" Kain of Christchurch, New Zealand, and No. 73 Squadron, RAF. The first official British ace of the Second World War with seventeen victories, Kain was killed while "beating up" his airdome in France just before he was to have returned to England to become a flying instructor. (imperial war museum, LONDON)

"OK."

A

few minutes

later

the squadron leader spoke

again, "Ease off a bit, old boy."

"OK," Richey

hazily agreed.

Three minutes

later

cane was struck by two

and the other the

me

shells,

one hitting the cockpit

fuel tank.

"The explosion of dered

the

hood

of

my

I

managed

out of the dive and tried to bend

down and

the petrol, but the flames burnt

my

face. I

much ground

towards France to gain as

and when the flames got too intense

Richey addressed the squad-

cockpit ren-

unconscious," Kain reported, "but

to diving steeply. After a while

abandon

ron leader.

my

I

fool,

you are!"

I?" said the squadron leader. "Oh, so I am."

The Brylcreem boys were forming

their

own

tra-

and Cobber Kain represented them in the months of the war. The subject of discipline

he found that

was

in

it

"was

all

very

still

and

I

fully struck the

ground near Ritzing

only in-

wardly) when Squadron Leader strip,

but rebelled

and grounded him. to put

Kain

Knox tore off a when Knox went a step beyond

A

really drastic

punishment was

in charge of the operations tent,

where

ten

thought

I

heaven." Afraid that he would land in Ger-

and hastening the descent.

(if

At

thousand feet he emerged from the clouds where

many, Kain yanked

smiled

headed

Heaving himself out of the burning plane, Kain

slipping the air

He

turn off

decided to

first

seriously.

came

to pull

aircraft."

ditions

was not taken too

I

as possible

pulled the ripcord at twelve thousand feet.

"Hey, I'm not driving, you bloody

"Am

Seeing nothing, he turned south just as his Hurri-

of a woods.

He

at the strings of the parachute,

pain-

gathered up his chute, ran for the

woods, hid the chute, and direction hoping he

He was soon

He

in the vicinity

would

set

out in a southerly

find himself in France.

challenged by a French captain and

WAS NUN?

61

being properly identified, Kain was

after

EvendorflF for

The

He had been burned and was

finally

The

No

had dropped into

Man's Land, between the

French and German positions.

A

French

staff

car returned Kain to

Rouves where

M. Out-

spent two hours cleaning up the burns. Kain's

uniform was

and had to be abandoned. As

in tatters

he stood up to leave, Kain winced.

"What's wrong with your

leg,

Cobber?" Outfin

know, doc," Kain

"I don't

went

and

in

I

replied.

"Some

things

came out." WhereThe doctor proceeded

don't think they

upon Cobber Kain collapsed. to remove over twenty pieces

of shrapnel

from

his

Two

hours

to the sergeant's

and

when

later,

mess as guests for an evening of

Germans crossing over the Albert Canal in Belgium. Once secured these would serve as bridgeheads for pouring German troops into northern France. The desperate Belgians had failed to blow the bridges and appealed to the Allies for aid. Counter-

by ground troops did not drive the Ger-

mans away from

village.

in

Europe.

It

comrades' good health. They returned the

to his billet through the village.

11,

in France.

first

On

Kain seemed

bestowed upon a British

rejoining his squadron

to

have changed

good-humored and

as

was more

He was he

in

London and was

to

June. Soon he was back in action

sives,

in

These were towed by Ju-52s from

official victories.

What was

Jerry

up

to?

fort out of action with explo-

and

grenades,

flame

throwers.

Reinforce-

ments arrived by parachute and by the afternoon

May 11, with additional help from the Stukas and ground troops, the Germans had taken Fort of

Eben Emael. Simultaneously with this, air-borne troops also dropped upon the bridge sites to the north of the the Belgians,

The

weather.

by air-borne troops flown

above,

glider.

proceeded to put the

hoven,

in the

by

Meuse

Cologne and released over Aachen, about twenty from the fortress. Nine gliders gracefully

Even

provement

to be the most modern, strongest fort was situated a few miles south of

miles

days were short on combat despite the im-

and had scored about twelve so, the

on April

slightly.

even neater. Cobber Kain

had become engaged while in

air-

as eager to fly as ever, but

businesslike,

be married

this bril-

landed atop the fort and specially trained troops

recovery Kain was given a ten days' leave

London, where he was awarded the Distinguished

man

car-

Maastricht overlooking the juncture of the

compliment and the happy Kain was carried back

Flying Cross, the

1 1

River and the canal. This formidable position was

not be muzzled until

silently

in

May

Cobber Kain's shouts echoed

taken from

Upon

by

troops, supphes,

coups of the war: the capture of Fort Eben

Emael, reputed

medical orderly to the sergeant's mess. Kain drank his

vehicles,

and ammunition across the Albert Canal. On same day the Germans carried out one of the

he was taken in a stretcher by the doctor and a

to

the bridges, which

armored

ried streams of

He would

games,"

through the

the officers prepared to go

such as were not experienced during the

months of the war. Typical was the tragic epic of the Maastricht bridges, which furnished the eight

liant

leg.

"fun

come.

attacks

asked.

and Stuka: Fall Gelb had

extent of this nightmare was soon obvious in

air battles first

the squadron medic, Flight Lieutenant R. fin,

a nightmare of panzer

captain informed Kain that he

first aid.

limping badly.

to

sent

to the

fell

One,

fort.

at

Canne, was destroyed by

but two, at Veldwezelt and Vroen-

into

German

hands.

task of denying the use of these two bridges

Germans

fell

to

No. 12 Squadron, known as

the "Dirty Dozen." Air Vice-Marshal P. H. L. Playfair,

commanding

although

the

realizing

Advanced Air Striking Force, mission was undoubtedly

the

foredoomed, asked for volunteers. Characteristically, the entire squadron stepped forward, but only six

At dawn. May

10, 1940, they

found out. Massive

Fairey Battles were scheduled for the attack, three

Nazi columns surged over Dutch, Belgian, and Lux-

for each bridge.

embourg's frontiers as Luftwaffe assaults smashed

Norman M. Thomas was

and scorched the the

third,

and

to

airfields

behind the

lines.

The

twilight

was

demonwar erupted into

date the most effective,

stration of blitzkrieg.

It

Leading one section. Flying Officer to strike at the concrete

Vroenhoven while Flying Officer Donald E. Garland led the other section against the metal bridge at

bridge

at

Veldwezelt.

That

their

four 250-pound

— BLITZKRIEG

62

bombs could do much damage, concrete

especially

was questionable.

bridge,

breaking through a Luftwaffe-infested sky,

would

the flak. But they

"You

one of the Battle

told

their

alone

let

pilots,

I.

dropped

A. Mcintosh.

"We

from so low

give us

all

Friday and Saturday to get our flak guns up

in

Veldwezelt] early Friday morning.

circles

all

craft

and

You

around the bridge and then on Sunday,

all

when

the

instance

this

[in

ready, you

is

try

come along with

three air-

and blow the thing up."

But they did

although "at

try,

all

costs," as the

Then

Amifontaine.

at

was

it

dis-

covered that one of the planes in Thomas's section

had

a defective radio; the

other Battle, which,

it

Only

in the hydraulic system.

for the bridges.

crew switched

to an-

developed, had a malfunction

Thomas

five aircraft

took

off

led his section, consisting

Almost

blasts.

When Thomas

pulled his Battle out of the dive he

plane was too battered to remain

realized

the

the

air.

The engine quickly sputtered out and he

had

to

Thomas found an open

land.

Thomas and

Davy

But he hoped to return

aircraft.

ficer

I.

of the crew

in the vicinity of Liege,

was captured (mistakenly

and manhandled by Belgian

proach should be from a high

level while

was determined,"

as

Thomas

out a low-level attack, thinking

upon the "Garland

Davy, even with the

at

him were 'it will be inand may we both be

Thomas and Davy a

from No.

from

air of

1

Squadron

German

fight-

flew at six thousand feet

thousand feet seven-tenths cloud cover obthe

flak

ground and afforded some protection batteries.

While the Hurricanes tackled

Thomas Vroenhoven bridge. Enemy

the Messerschmitts

on the bore in upon

led the attack fighters

Davy's plane, however, and a brief exchange of ensued

one

fire

which the gunner of the Battle shot down

in

Messerschmitt.

down

in

were

lost.

from low

on the bombs

to

Amifontaine.

bombs, and

just

Garland ordered the

level,

be

to

eleven-second de-

set at

Thus Garland planned

Other

German

planes

went

the battle, but five of the six Hurricanes

roared

fire

swoop down, drop

to

have time to get away.

into

Battles ran into a wall

fire.

Diving through

this

a

was the

tosh's plane

As

the

The

crescendo. Mcin-

frightful

first

pilot

be

to

kept

and the Battle

hit

on

it

its

bomb

run

as long as possible until the observer released the

bombs (although with

scant

if

any accuracy). The

burning plane crashed shortly after and the crew pulled

near-unconscious

the

wreck. The three in

men found

Mcintosh from

the

refuge, momentarily,

a ditch.

The

over

air

sioned section,

a

flying

now

bridge

the

twenty-one-year-old

Garland,

officer,

was

was an just

inferno.

The

newly commis-

resolute.

He

led

his

consisting only of his plane and Ser-

geant Marland's, into the fury over Veldwezelt. carefully lined

accelerated

Over Vroenhoven the two of flak and machine-gun

flak

burst into flame.

escort of six Hurricanes

scured

fuses

the

see the result,

had been supplied to clear the ers.

surprise attack

not only the best

lucky enough to return.'"

An

way

three Battles approached the bridge the screen of

parting words to to

lighter load, could not

the

all

Determined to carry out a

the Veldwezelt bridge.

lay.

form, but the safest.

teresting

German)

as a

civilians until the police

crash-landed inside Belgium.

explained, "to carry it

to

where one

Garland's section, meanwhile, had proceeded to

believed that the ap-

"My

He

it

air

men

any moment, he ordered the other two

at

jump. This was

A. Mcintosh and Sergeant F. Marland.

Thomas and Garland had tactics of the mission. Thomas

disagreed

When

to base.

appeared that the Battle might drop out of the

keep the Battle air-borne

other two planes of which were flown by Pilot Of-

crew were taken prisoner.

his

arrived.

the

and

too had engine trouble and a badly sieved

T. D. H. Davy. Garland led his

section,

field

in

brought the Battle in for a wheels-up landing. Within

only of one other Battle, piloted by Flying Officer full

damage

negligible

resulted to the bridge.

warmed up

Early on Sunday morning six Battles

were endangered by

that the Battles

own bomb

their

minutes

orders had read.

on the tarmac

hammered at them. The determined British their bombs on the bridge, some of them

later

at

bridge

the

Fragments of

raced for the concrete bridge.

tles

both planes whipped back into the slipstream as the

officer

one

capture

murderous barrage, through the clouds, the two Bat-

flak

try.

mad," a German

are

British

the

to

So was

the

up the

Battle

slender

on

bomber

a suicide run

into

Just as coolly, his observer, Sergeant

took meticulous aim before releasing

the

He and

barrage.

Thomas Gray, the smaU bomb

WAS NUN?

63

Whether or not these men saw

load.

that

bombs scored direct hits upon their target known. The terrific flak onslaught ripped the

their

Mcintosh and

his

crew survived. For

their efforts

the bridge but possibly neither he nor anyone else

Gray received the Victoria Cross, posthumously, Britain's supreme award and the first given to RAF personnel. But the third crew member. Leading Aircraftman L. R. Reynolds,

ever knew.

radio-gunner, inexplicably received no award at

to

Marland

pieces.

From

ditch

the

also

which

in

Mcintosh saw one Battle the relentless flak guns. get tail,

away," he

said.

may have

still

it

was

sheltered,

this Battle trying to

suddenly stood on

climbed vertically for about a hundred

stalled,

and nose-dived

whose plane Battles

it

was.

It

Battle

scored hits on

in the air, the focus of

"We saw

"Then

he

not

is

to earth."

its

feet,

They did not know

hardly mattered, for

all

three

had been knocked out of the sky and only

A camouflaged

the attack Garland and

in

Davy, who

tried to bring

all.

plane back to base,

his

was given a Distinguished Flying Cross. All five aircraft had been

men each had been capti;red,

lost,

killed,

and one had made

two crews of three

two crews had been it

back to Allied

lines.

This expensive, almost quixotic, show of valor had achieved only slight damage to the bridge and cratering of the approaches at

Vroenhoven. The Veld-

to help hold up the German advance at Sedan were destroyed on May 14 in a futile attempt. Despite losses of more than half the RAF bombers which participated in the attack at Sedan and despite the concerted

Battle of No. 218 Squadron, Advanced Air Striking Force, in France, 1940. The ground crew prepares the aircraft for combat which, during the "Phony War" never materialized but which, following the unleashing of Fall Gelb (Plan Yellow) on May 10,

sent

effort

by both French and British Air Forces, the Ger-

1940, became devastatingly sufficient. Ten out of the eleven Battles of No. 218 Squadron which had been

mans

rolled

on

into France.

(imperial

war museum, LONDON)

— BLITZKRIEG

64 wezelt Bridge suffered serious

ern truss and was out of use

damage

—

to

its

Now, on

west-

was made

temporarily.

morning of

the

May

14, 1940, an attempt

to stop the flood of Hitler's troops pass-

ing over pontoon bridges at Sedan.

The Maastricht carnage was but seemingly invincible

a prelude.

German armored

As

forces over-

ran the Netherlands and Belgium, the French south

the

—were of

terialization

of

Ewald von

a

the

—

to

shocked by the unexpected maGerman vanguard in the form Panzer group thrusting through Ardennes Forest. Soon German

Kleist's

the "impassable"

armored cars and tanks had crossed the Meuse at Sedan. Even earlier, on May 13, General Erwin

dispatched from Nos.

Advanced Air

the

103 and

Ten

They attacked

Force.

Striking

Battles were

150 Squadrons of

no

their targets and, encountering

fighters or flak,

planes returned safely. Air Marshal A.

all

command

ratt, in

of

then planned to send

Rommel's panzers

Bar-

S.

British air forces in France,

all

bomber

at Dinant.

forces to deal with

He was

requested by

the French to lend all-out effort to a counterattack

Because of the

Sedan.

at

command

situation

in

r

^ A

Battle of

No. 150 Squadron shot down during

the

Battle of Sedan, during which forty (mostly obsolete) aircraft vainly

attempted

to stop the

crossing the Meuse. (h. j.

Rommel,

Wehrmacht from

A

Ju-52 drops

paratroopers Hitler

men

—upon

of Fallschirmjdger-Regiment 1

Waalhaven,

began the blitzkrieg into the

nowarra)

leading his 7th Panzer Division (attached

Rotterdam,

near

Countries.

(h. j.

nowarra)

France, Barratt was forced to comply. Instead of

Hans von Kluge's Fourth Army), had breached the Meuse at Dinant. The stunned French

Dinant, they would attack at Sedan.

called for aerial interference of the establishment of

days since the blitzkrieg had reignited.

German bridgeheads at Montherme and Sedan. The latter town had particularly tragic overtones

there

French

history. It

had been

at

Sedan, in 1870,

His bomber force had dwindled

had been 135 operational

hand; by the evening of

Around noon

well.

Mahon's army, captured Napoleon

bombers was

and brought

May

in

second

the

wave

sent in; this consisted of a

which

were

badly

so

beginning at three in the afternoon,

Meuse on

RAF

miles

from the Belgian

occupied by the Germans.

frontier,

had been

French

air

for

the

medium bombers

were hurled

By

effort

this

at

—

of

Allied

few French

mauled

sand people, situated on the north bank of the

five

10

bombers on

12 only 72 remained.

aircraft,

the edge of the Ardennes Forest about

few

On May

AASF

to the Second Empire. During the First World War, Sedan, a town of about thirteen thou-

an end

just the

But the early morning bombing of Sedan boded

where the Germans defeated Marshal Patrice MacIII,

as

Low

to Giinther

in

—

that

the

day was ended. Then,

Battles

all

available

and Blenheims

Sedan.

time of the day, which the

Germans

at

WAS NUN?

65

the time called "the day of the fighters," the air over

Sedan was

schmitt Bf-109Es), to the Hurricane.

so

many

sitting

ill-fated British

wader

2, the

German

with

alive

(Messer-

fighters

which were superior

The

speed

in

Battles and Blenheims

ducks.

Among

were

the elite units the

planes encountered were Jagdgesch-

"Richthofen" unit named for the First

tide: Ernst Udet, Adolf Galland, and Werner Molders. During the Battle of France Udet was head of the Luftwaffe's Technical Office, Galland the op-

Flood

World War

ace,

third Griippe

and Jagdgeschwader 53,

(i.e.,

in

whose

III/JG 53) was the famed Haupt-

mann Werner Molders. On May

14 Molders added

another victory mark to the

of his

was

As

tail

Me- 109:

relentlessly as the

In

all,

on the mission). More than

half the Battles did not return to their bases:

British

came

in to

attack

eight Battle squadrons

its

were dispatched

along with two Blenheim squadrons (which

lost five

No.

12 Squadron lost four out of five planes; No. 88

one out of

ten;

No. 103 three out of

out of eleven; No.

six

150

all

four of

its

planes; No.

of eleven; and No.

erations

officer

226

No. 105

eight;

142 four out of

eight;

three out of six.

of Jagdgeschwader 27,

A

ace

thirty-five Battles

sent.

{"Richt-

of

were destroyed of the sixty-three

Counting the Blenheims, the British

aircraft out of the seventy-one they to

total of

and Molders

Jagdgeschwader S3 hofen"). (national archives) top-scoring

the

No.

218 Squadron ten out

lost forty

had been able

muster for the attack on Sedan.

There was but a momentary pause

his tenth.

Sedan, just so relentlessly did the Luftwaffe take toll.

it

of the eight planes sent

thrust across the rian's

Meuse; by

in the

nightfall

German

Heinz Gude-

panzers crossed the bridgehead and seized the

bridges over the Ardennes Canal. for a drive

The way was open

toward the north and the English Chan-

BLITZKRIEG

66 nel;

would outflank

it

the

British

Expeditionary

Forces and the French armies backing up the Dutch

haze and flame of the battle below. At best,

and the Belgians. The beaten, demoralized French

Army

Ninth

back from an ever widening Ger-

fell

man front. By this same morning

May

14 the fate of the

bombing of Rotterdam. Within

German attack it was clear that the Dutch were beaten. Queen Wilhelmina and the government had fled to England. Some pockets of four days after the

and they were troublesome, but ob-

resistance held,

was no

viously the small, "neutral" country

match

Germans.

for the

with

terfered

the

Still

military

their stubborn fight in-

German advance toward

rapid

France through Belgium, also neutral.

commanding the small but potent Eighteenth Army, that resistance in and around Rotterdam must

ler,

By

be broken "by every means."

May

question of time reveals the

crucial

It

split-

had been

air-borne

troops

eight o'clock in

14 surrender negotiations had

in

Holland,

radioed

Schmidt's

XXXIX

Corps headquarters that "bombing attack Rotterdam postponed owing to surrender negotiations."

utes

The

was

attack

before,

min-

set for 3 p.m. Just five

2:55 p.m.. General Schmidt sent

at

communique

yet another

to Scharroo outlining sur-

commander

render terms, giving the Dutch

hours in which to come to a decision

—

that

three

un-

is,

six o'clock.

til

Obviously conrniunications between the German

ground and

Orders had come from General Georg von Kiich-

the morning of

The

second development of the calamity.

around noon that General Kurt Student, leading the of

Netherlands had already been decided and reached a grim climax in the

was

it

a halfhearted precaution.

air forces

had become

The

inefficient.

Dutch courier hastened across the Willems Bridge.

He had

when

barely reached the other side

dred Heinkels appeared over the Recall

had

orders

obviously

Luftflotte 2, but as the planes

a hun-

city.

been

were on

from

sent their

bomb-

begun although not without hairsphtting demands

ing run, and their receiving antennas having been

on the part of the Dutch commander

retracted,

He

Colonel P. Scharroo. civilians

by

sent

Choltitz,

in

refused to deal with Dutch

Oberstleutnant

Dietrich

whose forces were attempting

bridges into Rotterdam.

Rotterdam,

von

to cross the

A stickler for form, Scharroo

rejected another, this time

more

were not

messages

the

bomber radio

made

counts, desperate attempts were

bombers by discharging Very Dutch

signals for

proposal from General Rudolf Schmidt

(command-

ing into the heart of Rotterdam.

XXXIX

Corps) because

it

did not carry the

proper "rank, name, and signature." This same ultimatum, however, carried the threat of an aerial attack

upon Rotterdam unless Schar-

roo surrendered. The plans for

this

Just

as

his

attack had al-

54,

fire.

bomb

plane's

Bombs began

load

the fall-

was dropped,

commander

Oberstleutnant Otto Hohne,

ac-

to divert the

them or mistook

capitulation

antiaircraft

by the

German

pistols into the air, but

either the crews did not see

official,

ing the

heard

operators. According to

of III /KG

spotted two red flares ascending through the

smoke below. He shouted the recall order code word to his radio operator, who wired to the rest

ready been formulated: one hundred Heinkel Ills

of the formation and prevented the dropping of

Kampfgeschwader 54 would bomb the center of Rotterdam. The first bombs fell at around three

but a few

o'clock in the afternoon even while surrender ne-

Just

of

gotiations

were under way.

to the

over

Immediately before the German bombers took

off

came about before they reached Very pistols were to be ground and the bombers were to re-

bombs

all

loads. It did not matter a great deal

Dutch by

dropped

they had been informed of the possibility of a EhJtch

bomb

however.

this time,

half

of

the

hundred-pound

hundred and

had pound

Heinkels

five-hundred

into the center of the old city:

a total of

ninety-seven tons. Within hours Rotterdam was in

surrender. If this

the target in Rotterdam red fired

from the

turn without dropping their high-explosive bombs.

While

this

may seem

part of the

how

it

Germans,

was expected

discern from

bombing

a

humane precaution on

the

Rotterdam

progress, it

is

difficult

that the

to understand

bomber crews might

altitude the red lights in the

after the

May

14,

1940, "error" bombing

by the Luftwaffe. Although the bombing mission had been called off because surrender negotiations were in

more than

fifty aircraft

tons of explosives into the

city,

dropped ninety-seven which burned uncon-

trollably.

(press & INFORMATION SERVICES, ROTTERDAM)

y^* I

'

If

BLITZKRffiG

68 flames: the small

because a

less

Burning

department was

fire

bomb had

but help-

all

a margarine factory.

hit

spread to the timbered buildings and the

oil

A

heart of Rotterdam disintegrated in smoke.

year-old boy wrote that "There

meat and a funny yellow

the air like burned

light

over the country from the incendiary bombs.

all

[This I

twelve-

a funny smell in

is

an

is

error.

went out

No

incendiaries were used.]

bombed

their

do much. They just walk around and them and look sad and tired."

don't

look at

Rotterdam on that

May

became a symof German Kultur hke Guernica and Warsaw.

bol

The

casualties, turned

Allies,

14, 1940,

propaganda uses by the

to

were exaggerated. The

at the time

ror

.

... It is awful to bombed houses.

houses.

watch the people standing by

They

.

and they were taking dead

for a while

people out of the

.

—and

—reached

thirty

Dutch

official

may have been an

it

figure

honest er-

thousand dead.

There were two miracles

The German "miracle" came to pass in the eveMay 24 when from the headquarters of Von Rundstedt's Army Group A an order was issued ning of

—

had

stedt

convinced

after the surprising

breakthrough

major

Fiihrer

the

that

tanks,

swing through France from the

France to come. With the Fiihrer's

Commander in Chief Walwho waxed manicwas one moment decisive and the next

despite the objections of

the seven and

ther

the ensuing fires;

seventy-

A

were rendered homeless.

square mile of the city smoldered for days.

Dutch had

By

six

capitulated.

had crushed the Netherlands

blitzkrieg

the

Sedan, should be rested for the

at

battle of

von Brauchitsch.

cautious.

The

Rund-

southeasterly through Saint-Omer to Bethune.

depressive,

o'clock in the evening the

19th

ning from GraveUnes on the Channel coast and

to a thousand

twenty thousand buildings were de-

eight thousand people

and Guderian's

Corps pulled up roughly on the Une of canals run-

a half minutes the Heinkels remained over Rotter-

bombs and

from the south and the

thrust

Panzer Group Kleist

dam. In

stroyed by

armored

halting the west.

backing there was no questioning the stop order,

The actual figure would be closer men, women, and children killed in all,

Dunkirk, one British,

at

German.

the other

in five

days.

The

success of the Lowlands campaign

and the breach similate.

fleeing

Why

And

Hitler,

in the

Ardennes was

on the Channel with

allies

and deplete

exhaust

the

the Air Force could do the job?

not

sideration,

difficult to as-

then Goring promised to destroy the

the

fatuous

Luftwaffe.

his

Panzer It

one

was

that

forces

if

this

con-

Hitler

had

elected to spare the British, which resulted in the

Belgium was next on the Nazi timetable. The King Leopold and reinforced by

Belgians, led by

French and British troops, fought tern

May

bitterly.

The

pat-

—

was repeated and within eighteen days on 27, 1940 Leopold asked for a German peace.

—

This action, however inevitable, was taken without

proper consultation with his

French and British forces possible annihilation.

German

forces

left

Abeady under

AlUes,

with their

left

falling

the

Stukas, to the

jeopardy and

pressure by the

and

the

at

Sedan,

back into France,

flank exposed.

armies were rapidly encircled in

closer

and placed the

which had broken through

the beleaguered

were

allies,

in serious

The exhausted

steel,

Wehrmacht,

sea at their backs,

the panzers,

drawing until

them

the entire

Army

British Expeditionary Force, the

French First

as well as units of the Seventh

and Ninth Armies,

along with Belgian and Polish troops converged upon the

French port of Dunkirk.

stop order.

Goring's vanity prompted him to offer more than the Luftwaffe could deliver.

Geschwader were area,

and

which little

fact

still

Many

of the

bomber

based far from the Dunkirk

would require long-distance

time over the target. But the

flying

Wehrmacht

and the panzers had been snatchmg most of the glory in the

Lowlands, while the Luftwaffe con-

tinued in a subservient role. Goring longed for a

Luftwaffe coup, pure and simple, with no portion of the credit to the

That the tion

British

Dynamo,

Army

or Navy.

had already begun

to plan

Opera-

was not known to the would attempt to evacu-

the evacuation,

Germans. That the British ate from such ports as Calais, La Panne, and Dunkirk seemed likely, but to the land-loving Ger-

mans and sense at thinkable.

to Hitler especially, all,

for he

had no sea

any large-scale withdrawal was un-

WAS NUN?

69

••^^^^^'^itlMWt

I

^i^

r:P--

r/ie

beach at Dunkirk: troops of the British Expedition-

ary Forces awaiting deliverance by

and

the

Royal Navy

"the

little

boats"

after being driven into a pocket

by the Wehrmacht. During the nine days of Dunkirk more than 300,000 men were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk despite the efforts of the Luftwaffe, (national archives)

— BLITZKRIEG

70

An RAF

Command Lockheed Hudson

Coastal

flies

over the beaches of Dunkirk. Oil storage tanks have been set aflame by Luftwaffe bombers.

(LOCKHEED PHOTO)

Army."

kirk and the beloved

liverance,"

ships,

the rest

Belgian, and Dutch. Nearly British miracle (without qualifying quotation

marks) was a stunning accomplishment of

total of

Churchill called

as

were British

The

A

860

vessels

of every description took part in the "Dunkirk de-

Seven hundred

it.

were French, Polish,

250

ships of the

armada

were sunk, most of them by the Luftwaffe.

As

flexible

the

men

of the British Expeditionary Force

planning, courage, civilian participation, imaginative

limped or were carried ashore, their eyes revealed

and sheer British doggedness. His-

the harrowing experience they had undergone. Their

improvisation, tory's

most heterogeneous armada gathered along

the southeast coast of England.

miral Sir Bertram tion

Ramsay took charge

Dynamo. Besides

the Admiralty service.

"At

of Opera-

the craft of the Royal Navy,

had pressed

the

At Dover Vice-Ad-

civilian

motorboats into

same time," Winston Churchill has from liners in the London docks,

written, "lifeboats

tugs from the

Thames, yachts,

—anything beaches — were

barges, and pleasure-boats of use along the

By

fishing-craft, lighters,

the night of the

that could

be

called into service.

27th a great tide of small ves-

began to flow towards the sea, first to our Channel ports, and thence to the beaches of Dunsels

hollow-cheeked faces were begrimed by the smoke of

oil

burning

fire,

vehicles,

and

shells.

These

wearied men, returned with only what they wore for their at

weapons were abandoned on

Dunkirk

—

the beaches

grateful for their deliverance, brought

a bitter question with them.

"Where was the bloody RAF?" The infantryman, whose concern fined to the

few

feet of

conception of the airman's war.

beaches the infantryman was

bombing and

is

generally con-

ground he occupies, has

On

only

little

the Dunkirk

aware of the

strafing of the Luftwaffe.

Rarely did

he see or recognize a British aircraft overhead.

He

— WAS NUN?

71

107 Squadron bombing the advancing German columns on May 27 the day the evacuation officially began. Coin-

On

did not see the Blenheims of No.

—

cidentally,

was

it

also the

stedt-Hitler stop order

day on which the Rund-

was withdrawn,

two-

after a

and-a-half-day pause.

May

At dawn on Monday, gan

bombardment

the

of

27, the Heinkels be-

the

defense

perimeter

around Dunkirk; then came Richthofen's Stukas to

The Dorniers

pin-point the targets. last

No. 74 Squadron this

followed. These

were surprised on being attacked by

new

fighter.

—

the

Spitfires of

major encounter with

first

Hurricanes of No. 145 Squadron

also joined the battle, but the British

were always

...

was soon obvious

it

a match for the

Me- 109 and

that the Spitfire

was

superior to the Hur-

so, great

numbers

German bombers broke

of

all

a lurid study in red

and black. ...

place.

There was no escape from

of air

was blowing on the sand,

lying

We

some cases

in

the beaches and the ships in the Channel.

Dun-

Oil storage tanks on the western outskirts of kirk were set afire and the black

smoke

curhng beacon to friend and foe

same

this

smoke from

damp and

rose as a alike.

But

the ceiling de-

smoke combined with town and mist to

oily

it.

Not

a breath

odour

for several days.

house on a hot day. The darkness, which hid some of the sights of horror from our eyes, seemed to

thicken this dreadful stench. sion that death

created the impres-

It

was hovering around, very near

at

."

hand.

.

.

The

aerial battles generally occurred out of sight

of the besieged ground troops.

Although German

planes did attack mercilessly, the Luftwaffe did not

defense

afforded

by

the

Hurricane

Group under

Air Vice-Marshal Keith R. Park.

scended

horrible

might have been walking through a slaughter-

bombed

the weather turned

A

from the dead bodies that had been

arose

that

squadrons of No.

when

British

to dissipate the appalling

through the Spitfire and Hurricane formations and

thick,

A

was a horror.

sensed "a deadly evil atmosphere

gain mastery of the air over Dunkirk because of the

ricane as a high-altitude fighter.

Even

oflficer

stench of blood and mutilated flesh pervaded the

outnumbered by the Messerschmitt 109s and 110s. However,

the beach itself

gunnery

the fires in the

the af-

the

massive

1 1

formations

of

the

and

Spitfire

command

of

To contend with German fighters and

bombers Park had only sixteen squadrons available

—

that

is,

about two hundred

fighters.

From

their

bases in southern England the fighters would have to

be flown

at least fifty miles to the battle area

without the advantage of radar to pin-point the

ford cover for the evacuation.

A

pilot of

saw

as he

kirk

seemed

from the

oil

No. 43 Squadron described the scene from above: "All the harbour

it

to

be on

dumps," he

Dunsmoke moved

at

fire

with the black

said.

"The destroyers

out of the pall of smoke in a most uncanny way,

deep

was

in the

water and heavily laden with troops.

flying at

the sea.

And

there

I

could see the Brighton Belle,

and the paddle steamers, and the little

boats you see calling

day.

Hundreds

boats,

I

about 1000 feet above the beach and

sort of cheerful

at coastal

towns on Sun-

of boats! Fishing boats and

and Thames

river craft

and

motor

strings of dinghies,

being towed by bigger boats. All packed with troops,

bomb men and groups of people sitting down. Waiting, I suppose. And 1 could see rifles—stacked in threes. And destroyers going back into the black smoke. And wrecked ships on and people standing craters in the beach,

the beach: the water. I

saw

it!"

in the

and

wrecked ships of

And

water and awful

lines of

all sizes,

sticking out of

a destroyer cut in halves by a

bomb.

"Where was

the bloody

RAF?" The

Hurricanes (and

the Spitfires) operated above the clouds in fighting the

Luftwaffe and so were rarely seen by the beleaguered ground troops at Dunkirk. Although RAF fighters intercepted

bomb

German bombers, some broke through

the beaches, (u.

s.

air force)

to

— BLITZKRIEG

72

German

This meant that fuel limitations

attacks.

enforced about a forty-minute stay over Dunkirk

and

for the Hurricanes

To send

all

first

—Stukas by

ships but also figures

Spitfires.

came

in

low to

—

that

water

the

in

the dozen not only attacked the strafe the struggling

Ramsay

realized

that

sixteen squadrons to cover the entire

the evacuation could be continued only at night.

was attempted

The German ground forces had also begun to press in on the perimeter and the sands of Dunkirk

evacuation area was impossible

on the

vicious

May

day,

consumption rendered such

England open

(it

but the wasteful fuel

27,

tactics infeasible;

also

it

German

erupted with the shelling from

The

artillery.

had become desperate;

to air attack,

and the defense of

the home islands was the major Command). Beginning on May

function of Fighter

the initiative belonged to the Luftwaffe, which could

29, Park devised a

muster great numbers of bombers with escorts. As

left

patrol system over Dunkirk, using four squadrons

Consequently there were stretches of

a time.

at

when no

time

RAF

over

fighters patrolled directly

Dunkirk. Also, while attempting to attack the bomb-

were

they

ers,

serschmitts.

in

Two

by

attacked

turn

Mes-

the

very large formations of

German

fighting in the air too

closed

But from time to time, such

and June Dunkirk.

88,

days.

no

were present. Three other forma-

British fighters

beaches while

however, had been mauled by the British

tions,

In the turmoil as much, possibly more, shipping

was

lost

through collision as to

owing to the confusion of craft recognition, especially

Navy

1,

—

men

the

German bombs. Also

battle

—and

faulty

on the part of the Royal

Dunkirk perimeter

in the

air-

fired in-

And

so

it

"Well, another day

is

gone," wrote Flight Lieuten-

it

a

of grand blokes.

lot

waffe seems to leap on us

numbered.

I

—we were

the sixth day of the evacuation. Spitfires flying low

over the beaches received the same attention from

—even

the British guns as did a Messerschmitt

Wake-Walker

middle of a dog

fight

the aircraft, one of

after

of the R.A.F.

them

filled

I

believe

B.E.F. troops were

the

—

that

is,

in

our best, and that's

fifty

times better than

witnessed a similar piece of action as he stood talk-

the

most advantageous conditions."

ing with Captain

the senior naval

charge of shore operations, when "a Ly-

oflBcer in

sander

W. G. Tennant,

Army Co-op

plane

was

came over very low and

flew over the pier.

It

guns and Tennant

said, 'I'm sure that

is

a

Hun

—he has been

fired at

by several Bofors

damn

flying over here all day.' I

then realized," Wake-Walker reported,

plane flying over at

was being

shelled,

my

and

fellow

request to see

I felt

Not

the

though they are fighting under

morning of June

was

officially closed.

About

just as they

Dynamo

thousand French

hold off the

Germans

had during the nine days

at Calais

troops remained behind

—

forty

Germans

to

and Cassel. Theirs had been an enormous con-

—

tribution to the miracle of

the pier

frequently slighted in view of the performance of

sorry for the poor chap;

the "little boats"

and

their

Dunkirk

own

a contribution

polidcal and military

leaders subsequently.

the clouds also.

Dunkirk was no military

1

had been so

victory.

The Germans

had permitted practically the entire British to escape. True, they

on June

with the

if

the errors were made on the ground, for and Hurricanes attacked each other above

attacks

4,

within two miles of the beaches. Operation

was the

all

The Luftwaffe

On

best,

"it

though he seemed none the worse."

Spitfires

anyone says

Dover the other day tell them from me we only wish we could do more. But without aircraft we can do no more than we have done

booing the R.A.F.

German

flag.

If

about the inefficiency

the

fire

in

the office with smoke,

in the future

—

in the

and got a couple of holes

Later he

hoisted the cease

hopelessly out-

was caught napping by a 109

anything to you

sea. Rear Admiral William WakeWalker recalled several such incidents on June 1,

Got

another brace of 109's today, but the whole Luft-

but the Jerry overshot and he's dead.

crowding into the

inter-

May 29

ant R. D. G. Wight of No. 213 Squadron to his

discriminately at friend and foe alike. All aircraft

be hostile by the harassed troops

RAF on

went, intermittently for the nine

were taken

to

as

the sun broke through and cleared the

mother, "and with

fighters.

infantry

and the Germans concentrated with fury on

mist,

bombers, including the vulnerable Stuka and the the

German

Only the weather and the

battle site. fered.

as the

the Luftwaffe gained airdromes closer to

in,

vaunted Junkers

assaulted

and

the battle progressed,

their

Army

were weaponless and most of

equipment lay abandoned along the beaches

73

WAS NUN? taking

over from

Chamberlain,

in the early

ment,

—

ailing

and

evening of

May

the

morning the Germans had struck

that

Revehng

Countries.

tottering

1940

10,

in the

Low and

in crisis, defying adversity,

spoiling for a fight, the once discredited Churchill,

whose warnings of a burgeoning military Nazi Germany had not contributed to his popularity, was the

embodiment of fighting in

the British spirit.

hope so evident

loss of

He watched

the

France with concern, but never with the

French government

in the

and High Command.

When

the

Germans attacked

Hurricane squadrons

nent's Nos. 3, 85, 87, 607,

German

troops haul in

Channel, the

down during

a

trophy from

section of an

tail

RAF

English

the

Hurricane shot

the desperate fighting of the last

weeks of

(national archives)

the Battle of France,

the

AASF's Nos.

May

1,

were eight

there

France,

in

the

Compo-

Air

and 615 Squadrons and

and 501 Squadrons. By

73,

12 these were joined by Nos.

79 and 504

Squadrons sent to the dwindling Air Component

BEF. Under

taxed with the support of the

the on-

slaught of the blitzkrieg in the north of France the

seven squadrons of the Air Component had been at

Dunkirk, but

was a tough, experienced army.

it

The Luftwaffe had not been

achievements

they were

indeed,

able to

—

achieve

Warsaw

a

—

or

if,

reduced to about three on

May

The

a

who had complained about

fighter pilots

Rotterdam. This despite the ease with which the

"phony war" and the scanty

smoking, water-outlined target could be found even

cause for gripes after

bad weather.

in

The

cost of

sweepers, tugboats,

RAF

The

in shipping

was high: 6 de-

personnel

8

mine-

5

ships,

17 trawlers, a hospital ship, a sloop, 3 3 yachts, lost

Dunkirk

the

Dunkirk

were sunk,

stroyers

and 182 other assorted

craft.

over 100 aircraft and 80 pilots in

battles.

The Luftwaffe were made

about 150

lost

for twice

planes, although claims

that

Churchill reminded the British that

which should be noted.

gained by the Air Force. If

it

was not

negligible one, to

the

"Wars

are not

evacuations. But there was a victory inside

deliverance,

this

coming

It

was

.

a spectacular victory, even an almost it

was, on a small scale, a prologue

battle

over Britain.

Dunkirk had not been a victory

It

might have

although 338,000

men had been

for the British,

snatched out of the

jaws of the devouring blitzkrieg. But

it

was a

tri-

of the British spirit, best expressed by Chur-

when he said, "Of course, whatever happens at Dunkirk, we shall fight on." Churchill had been handed the reins of govemchill

little

Their

10.

fields

were

bombed and strafed and they were air-borne from dawn till dusk. The bombers of AASF were spent bombing the advancing Nazi columns while the Hurricanes furnished fighter cover. There was plenty

in

of action for eager fighter pilots, British

German

as well as

and French.

On May

12 Adolf Galland, one of Germany's out-

standing airmen, scored his

first

"kill,"

a Belgian

wingman in an Me-109E, Galland had stolen some time away from his desk job. The two Germans spotted a formation of eight

during the nine days

Hurricanes flying

at

nine thousand feet near Liege.

Diving from above, Galland opened on an unsuspect-

." .

served as portent to the Luftwaffe of things to come.

umph

May

the

had

activity

air

Hurricane. Flying with a

number.

won by

17; four days later

the remnants were ordered back to England.

ing Belgian. startled

scattered.

now

The

burst from

first

Galland's

formation

The German concentrated on

his victim,

Hurricane

pilots

and

clumsily trying to evade the guns of the

serschmitt.

guns

the

the

The poorly

Mes-

trained pilot in the antiquated

Hurricane had no chance. Galland's second burst shot away the Hurricane's rudder and the plane

spun away. Before striking the ground the shed parts of

its

aircraft

wings. Galland then turned to the

remaining Belgian planes. Finding one Hurricane attempting to dive away from the battle, Galland

:

BLITZKRIEG

74

Me- 109 The it.

in his superior

dred yards of half roll

up to within a hunplane whipped away in a pulled

and through an opening

in the clouds.

But

experienced Galland remained locked to the

the

Hurricane's

A

tail.

burst of gunfire and the Belgian

plane pulled up for a moment, stalled, and dived straight

accounted

In the afternoon of the

the ground.

into

same day, while on

a routine patrol flight,

Hurricane

another

for

—

GaUand

third

his

vic-

tory of the day.

On

the day after the

Werner Molders,

Dunkirk evacuation, June

German

leading

the

ace

5,

with

twenty-five "kills" to his credit, joined a battle in

the vicinity of Amiens.

The contenders were French

Dewoitine 520s, the best of

inefficiency

Armee de

the

—and

rarest,

Production

because of the

Office

—

fighter

the

Only one group had

I'Air could muster.

been supplied with the D-520s before the Germans

opened

their attack

on France.

planes which Molders

He

Messerschmitts. planes and lost

it

was the group's

It

came upon

fired

fighting off the

one

at

of

the

French

in the general melee: there

were

more than two

nine French aircraft standing off

dozen Messerschmitts. Molders turned back to the center

of battle.

Suddenly

cockpit burst into

his

flame and smoke, his throttle was shot out of his

Me- 109 flipped into a vertical dive. smoky cockpit, Molders found

hand, and the

Struggling inside the

the release catch and sent the cockpit the

slipstream.

Unexpectedly

leveled for a second from

its

the

dive,

hood

off into

Messerschmitt

which had pressed

Werner Molders, who was shot down over France Dunkirk evacuation and taken prisoner; with the fall of France he was released and served later in the war as commander of Jagdgeschwader 51 on the Eastern Front. Molders official victory score for the Second World War was sixty-eight (and fourteen in Spain); he was killed in an air crash later in the after the

war. (h. j.

nowarra)

Molders into the cockpit, and he jumped. Molders, floating

down

into France,

into the ground.

Thus

it

watched

was

that

When

ace was taken prisoner of war.

surrendered all

the other

subsequendy,

German

pilots

his plane crash

Germany's hero-

however,

the French

Molders

and

taken prisoner in France

were released.

On

June 5 also the Germans opened

their

new

Rot ("Case Red"), across the Somme and the Seine. Before long their armor had crossed the Marne the familiar names of an earlier war echoed the sound of disaster. Refugees filled offensive. Fall

—

the roads, fleeing from northern France to the south these too were familiar scenes. tributed innovations

by

the clogged highways.

The Luftwaffe con-

strafing

By

this

and dive-bombing

time there were too

few targets to keep them occupied.

The

British pilots remaining in France, the

rem-

The French Dewoitine 520, the best of the few French fighters operational during the Battle of France. The German ace Molders was shot down by a French pilot in a D-520. (musee de l'ahi)

WAS NUN?

75

nants of Nos.

73, and 501 Squadrons, later joined

1,

by Nos. 17 and 242 Squadrons, gency landing

flying

took

strain,

exhaustion,

and high-altitude

German

toU along with the

its

emer-

to

fighters.

Individual pilots flew patrol after patrol until fa-

them

tigue caused

to fall

asleep in their cockpits

When

while they were refueling and being rearmed. their

Hurricanes were ready, the ground crew had to

punch the had

Ger-

territory.

Another

asleep in the cockpit.

plane and

when

landed and

pilot

He was

lifted

from the

attempts to awaken him failed,

all

He awakened fortywondering how he had ever got

he was shipped to England. eight hours later

Meanwhile, France lay broken and without hope

overwhelming German armies,

in the path of the

The French

Stukas working with the panzers.

manded more

British fighter

squadrons

with

battle

was

But the outcome of the

Stukas.

de-

to deal

and sent no more. Of the necessity

of this decision he had been forcefully convinced

by

Fighter

Command

Dowding. The fighter

ain

Hugh

Air Marshal

leader

had estimated that fifty-two squadrons would be required to defend Britlatter

from the attack

must come once France

that

On hand

was defeated.

were a mere twenty-five;

if

and

As

fall.

early as

May

15,

1940,

had warned the Air Ministry that Defense Force to

remedy the

will

involve

is

"if

Dowding

drained away in desperate attempts

situation in France, defeat in

the

Home

the

final,

France

complete and irremediable

Churchill,

who was

romantically

could not leave a friend or an ally seriously

inclined

in trouble,

and

The French were calling for no less than twenty. The dispatch of ten squadrons was being seriously considered when ricane squadrons to France.

Chief of the

Air

Staff

Air

Chief Marshal

Newall learned from Air Marshal A. the

two British

air

S.

Cyril

Barratt,

forces in France,

squadrons

six

Soon

after,

in

the chaos

France

himself,

desperation

hopeless

them

relieve

upon witnessing in

rons were sent to France.

The

extent of the disorder and near paralysis of

Command was

French High

the

when German col-

revealed

Benito Mussolini, concerned that his

league had so brilliantly outdistanced him in the race

war upon France and Great With the German Army within thirty miles

for conquest, declared Britain.

of Paris

was

it

safe

no doubt

them both

had

10, 1940, Hitler

would, in time, cost

it

dearly.

had been agreed

It

for the Duce's legions

On May

himself a partner in war:

in

French and British

the

Supreme War Council tion of war by Italy

that in the event of a declara-

bombed-up

industrial targets in northern

to attack

British

were to be

aircraft

Italy.

So 11

it

No.

was 99

that

in

Genoa.

May

afternoon of

the early

Squadron

landed

(Wellingtons)

France, near Salon, to refuel on the

way

to

in

bomb

The longer-ranged Armstrong Whitworth

10, 51, 58, and 102 Squadrons accompanying the Wellingtons were to refuel in ad-

Whitleys of Nos.

vance bases

in

the

Channel Islands

(instead

of

France) and proceed to targets in Genoa and Turin.

The Wellingtons had Captain R. M. Field, at

Salon,

in

barely landed

was informed by

ing what this

when Group

charge of the bomber force the

planes were not to take off for

was about.

French that the

Italy. Still

wonder-

Field received an order

from the Air Ministry

The phone

rang;

Italian targets

From

was

tempted to send an additional ten Hur-

commanding

morning and three to

again reiterating

defeat of this country."

suggestion,

Churchill concurred and no further fighter squad-

an additional ten squadrons were sent to France, only to be destroyed in the French holocaust, Britain too must

Newall's

at

the afternoon.

obvious and Churchill, after sending additional Hurricanes, relented

would

the south of England rotated to France:

in

three each

being lent close support by the Luftwaffe. Even

small pockets of resistance were crushed under the

the

Instead,

based

to attack the Riviera.

back home.

now

ten squadrons were sent there

if

be bases for no more than three.

he

pilot reported that

fallen asleep three times while flying over

man-occupied fell

awake. One

pilots

that even

southwest of Paris. The con-

strips

nervous

stant

back

fell

was involved

counterorder;

to

were forbidden.

three-thirty in the afternoon

night Field

ringing.

to send the bombers to Italy. was the French commander that bombing operations against it

it

seemed

in his

till

almost mid-

a whirl of order

and

phone never stopped

The French High Command had even gone

Barratt, at British Air Forces in

quarters.

Churchill.

Barratt called

He

France head-

London attempting

to get

learned that the Prime Minister

in France. Churchill was, in fact, just sitting

was

down

^••i^-^fey^.:--:-

it'^'x'if^ to dinner with

French Premier Paul Reynaud, Su-

preme Allied Commander General Maxime Weygand, General Charles de Gaulle, and members of Churchill's party including

It

Churchill was reached through General Hastings

Weygand's headquarters, and the Chur-

Ismay,

at

chillian

view was constant: "All our [that

ing

is,

Eng-

minds ran much more on bombing Milan and

Turin the

moment MussoHni

how he

declared war, and see-

was able

an

in

air battle with

to judge, after sifting the

but

found the

The

target.

situation in

Henri

The

this

out point.

must dispatch the Wellingtons to bomb

On

into

France had deteriorated so thor-

time that such missions seemed with-

14 the triumphant Germans

June

On

Paris.

Petain,

On

asked for an armistice.

the Channel Islands.

Hitler appeared for less

the distracted French trucks, lorries, field

and

and

stalled

added the

carts

strategically

British bombers.

Thus

wanting to

it

fight

final touch.

French

were driven onto the the

in

path of the

effectively blocked,

out with his

celed the mission to Italy.

air-

allies.

and not

Field can-

The Whitleys, however,

Paris,

left

the

conditions

and

storms over the Alps greatly curtailed the mission.

Premier,

than a half hour in the

danced

technicalities

were driven

German

of

at

the

surrender of

Compiegne and then signing

of

the

off the

Continent again. Cobber Kain's after covering the final

evacua-

from Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, was the

On

thundered

new

France was finished and the British

No. 73 Squadron,

to leave.

icing

literally

treaty to others.

bombed

Bad

as

the afternoon of June 21

the site of the hated

1918. Hider

tions

targets.

Reynaud

Forest of Compiegne, some forty-five miles north of

continued on and of the thirty-six sent only thirteen their

1940, Marshal

June 17,

succeeding

Whitleys in the meantime had already taken off from

the WeUingtons taxied for the takeoff at Salon,

bomb Genoa

and only one plane

storms interfered

again

marched

Italy.

was cleared of the French ob-

structions. Eight Wellingtons took off to

various orders, views, and opinions, Captain Field

As

an Me-109. (national archives)

required four additional days of discussion be-

fore the field at Salon

oughly by

liked that."

Insofar as he

destroyed

Anthony Eden and Chief

of the Imperial Staff Sir John Dill.

lish]

Symbol of the French Air Force during the Battle of France, May-July 1940. This French bomber was

June 18, as the surviving

down

the

runway,

all

six

last

Hurricanes

non-operational

A representative selection of aircraft that foughit in the War— from the blitzkrelg in Poland to the Battle of Britain.

opening phases

of

the Second World

From top to bottom, left: Junkers Ju 87B (9th Staffel, Stukageschwader 1); P.Z.L. P11 (1st Air Regiment, No. 112 Sguadron, "Swallows"); Hawker Hurncane (No. 1. Squadron, markings of I

Pilot Officer

He

III

P.W.O. Mould); Center: Junkers Ju

(Kampfgeschwader

100);

Flight Lieutenant A. C. Deere); (III

Gruppe. Jagdeschwader

26.

88A

(3rd. Staffle,

Right Supermarine

Dormer Do markings

of

17

Spitfire

A

Kampfgeschwader

51),

Heinkel

(No. 54 Squadron, markings of

(Kampfgeschwader

77);

Captain Adolpf Galland).

Messerschmitt Bf 109E

I

I

I

I

I

I

Joseph A. Phelan

Where right)

do and

across the

aircraft,

we go from

Goring {fifth from from the coast of France English Channel at Dover, England. Havhere?

his staff gazing

supplies,

and equipment were

ablaze.

set

France had become a vast funeral pyre.

Looking down upon

his

six miles up, author-pilot

stricken

how many

villages

country from

"But

burning.

have we seen burnt down," he

speculated, "only that like

futile

war may be made

war? Burnt down exactly as

to look

trees are cut

down,

crews flung into the holocaust, infantry sent against tanks,

merely to make war look like war. Small

wonder that an unutterable disquiet hangs over the land. For nothing does any good." Hitler

was

jubilant; Versailles

was

truly avenged.

In an outburst of largess he created a flowering of field

marshals:

Brauchitsch,

Bock,

—

Kluge,

Leeb,

Rundstedt, Reichenau, Witzleben, and Keitel.

The

the great

German

Fiihrer

asked

The

in the

Ger-

forces of National Socialism,

achieved

as

they

—and

the

cross

that

incredible

the question

stood

their glasses across the English

the

all

peering through

Channel.

Was nun?

they wondered as they studied the stark chalk

cliffs

of Dover.

Was nun?

Victory had

twenty-six days;

mark:

come

so quickly. Poland:

Norway: twenty-eight days; Den-

twenty-four

hours;

the

Netherlands:

five

days; Belgium: eighteen days; and France, with

Maginot Line,

its

great

Army and

Air Force:

its

thirty-

five days.

As

they stood arrogantly, assured but questioning

the next

move, the invincible

tering British

too.

had

Was nun? "What now?" was conquerers

and Milch were given

But there was an unutterable disquiet

to

heights.

that, in truth, not

man camp

Luftwaffe plans

Reich, the Wehrmacht, the im-

himself

Luftwaffe too was honored as Kesselring, Sperrle, their batons.

the real

Channel, (national archives)

mortal

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

saw the devastation and the

won a quick victory Wehrmacht had made no

ing

table. All

had no idea tot-

must be added to the victory time-

agreed to that.

But how?

victors

even the Fiihrer knew. The

BOOK The

II

Battle of Britain Men AN

like these

AIR MINISTRY

saved England.

ACCOUNT OF THE

GREAT DAYS FROM AUGUST 8-OCTOBER

31,

1940

—

ADLERANGRIFF

TX

now

H iNKiNG

of those days," an English flight

lieutenant said in recollection of July-October 1940,

what remains most

"I find that is

clearly in

my memory

not the sweating strain of the actual fighting, not

from bed

the hurried meals, the creeping

dawn,

at

for a big blitz.

We

were

against the sky, looking strong and confident, the

darkness hiding their patched-up paintwork. In the

morning whilst

odd stolen moments of peace

being tested

the

the

—

pandemonium the heat haze airfield while we sat munching

waiting to take

off;

middle of

all

lying lazily over a piece of grass,

that curiously

moment

lovely

of twilight after the last Spitfire had landed, after

had been switched

the last engine the

first

night fighter took the

air,

darkness and the

first

light split the

was heard again

night

that

first

search-

wail of the siren

moment when

mocking glimpse of fell

the

and before

the evening

out against the sky, giving for an in-

lay spread

stant a

—

off,

and peace before

stillness

suddenly like a curtain and the whole

hideous cacophony of war broke out afresh. "But,

above

then existed

—

the

all,

on

clearly imprinted

same

the

thing

that

my memory spirit

which inspired every-

body from the Station Commander craft-hand. first

.

.

.

pilot

and

it

remembers:

at

readiness,

there

first

trial,

the

beautiful curving

when some when

were

moments

of

great

beauty; the colours in the fields seemed brightest

and the sky the deepest blue

just before taking off

work."

exciting days," a

vapour

trails

aircraft left

high in the sky, days

others

came back maimed and

came burnt,

never to fight again." It

was, despite the pervading ubiquity of death,

an exhilarating time. The warriors were young the average age

and they

felt

querers.

was twenty

hold back Hitler's con-

the despised "soft English," the

pilots,"

the

unprofessional,

and

must soon be overwhelmed by the un-

beatable Luftwaffe. fires

they were vigorous,

band of men, Winston

a small

who must

They were

comic "weekend surely they

—

they would never die, at least, perhaps,

They were

not today.

tle,

sun wait-

dark, the roar of engines

of our friends took off and never

back,

And

in the

still

for another day's

squadron leader recalled. "Days when

"We

always had a devil-

was

"They were wonderful, weird,

was a great hour."

may-care sort of happiness. Lying ing

to the lowest air-

For that was the

flush of battle,

Another

most

remains

it

woke us

Churchill's "few,"

the spirit which

is

peaceful.

thought of another day

at the

accomplished, our Hurricanes standing silhouetted

not even the loss of one's friends; but rather those in the

At dusk everything became

happy

all

In

their

Hurricanes and Spit-

they took off from airfields in Kent and Sussex.

here lay some of the root of the trim English countryside

—was

the last thing they

spirit:

—home

for

the gen-

so

many

saw before climbing

five

miles up to do battle.

The people

of Britain too exhibited a spirit of

mordant defiance, a quality of tough

fatalism,

of

—

—

Command, Members ranged from wicked

war frain

to

the defense

of Parliament.

—

The

often impractical

of

London. The

—

subjects

devices of

common

re-

was one of challenging preparation. To Mr.

Wedgwood, M.P., Churchill wrote that "You we should fight every street London and its suburbs. It would devour an in-

Josiah

must of

rest assured that

vading army, assuming one ever got that

far.

We

hope, however, to drown the bulk of them in the salt sea."

Finally in the

German camp on

July 2, 1940

eleven days after the signing of the armistice with

RAF men

Fighter

types:

Britain.

Standing {right), wearing a

typical

who on February

Peter Townsend, the

German

first

Battle

the

of

"Mae

West,"

on England

aircraft that fell

is

down

1940, shot

3,

of

—long

Townsend went to France to command No. 85 Squadron and returned to fly in the Battle of Britain, during which he became an ace. (imperial war museum, London) before

the

Battle

Later

began.

recognizing that they would soon be fighting for their very survival

the thought.

—and

finding a fearful elation in

In their small island

land and they intended to keep

this

of the Briton

mood and was

whom

Hitler

small

is-

mood

arose a

Winston Churchill

of Shakespearean poetry-drama.

gave voice to

their

—

it

the living paragon

must defeat before he

could win the war in the west.

With the defeat of France came an easy temper of complete victory in the

made

German Army;

for a victory parade in Paris

drawn up But the

days of June slipped away and there

was no indication

that

London was

sidering the peace feelers Hitler neutrals.

This

was

puzzling,

seriously con-

had sent through

for

thought, the British were beaten.

now

were

lists

home.

of divisions to be dispersed final

plans were

and

Hitler

surely.

The

ex-corporal,

the greatest living field marshal, looked with a

wistful corporal's heart at the cold, treacherous lish

Eng-

Channel. Certainly the British must come to Waiting: pilots of No.

terms.

Instead the contentious Prime Minister dictated

reams of warlike minutes, pithy

bits

of

advice,

Spitfire

611

gestive

comments

to

his

War

Cabinet,

and sugthe

High

with

a ready

war's characteristic experiences, tedium. During the Bat-

No. 611 Squadron, then based numerous casualties.

tle

questions, assurances, demands, criticisms,

Squadron,

{note parachute on wingtip), enduring one of

(imperial

at Digby,

suffered

war museum, LONDON)

i

Channel from thirty-five thoulower left and Dover's white above. Only the Ditch and the RAF stood be-

The Ditch, sand cliffs

feet.

France

—

ices

to

did

not

the English

Calais

is

at

—

Keitel issued instructions to

all

three serv-

prepare for an invasion of Britain. Hitler

make

his

own

Conduct of the War, two weeks words:

—

later.

directive

official

No.

16 for the

with his signature until

Directive No. 16 opened with these

"As England,

in

spite of the

of her military position, has so far not

hopelessness

shown

her-

tween Hitler and,

the phrase of

in

of Staff Jodl. "The final

German

Wehrmacht Chief

England which he believed to be "only a question of time." (ROBERT c. chapin) .

.

victory over

."

self willing to

come

to

any compromise,

cided to begin to prepare for, and

if

I

have de-

necessary to

carry out, an invasion of England.

"This operation

is

dictated

by the necessity of

eliminating Great Britain as a base from which the

war against Germany can be fought, and if neceswas to be

sary the island will be occupied." This

:

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

84

own

Operation Seelowe ("Sealion"), and Hitler's posture

equivocal

revealed

is

ment of mine by saying

phrases closing each paragraph.

Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the

Wehrmacht, was more

"The

German

final

definite

on a large

scale are

correct

the

in

Germans were

upon the

knew

relieved

England

now

come."

Enemy

And

in

it

the

he

first

was time which

but deliberately bestowing

all

wax happy,

could

British. Jodl too

army would be spared

his

is

for he

the initial phases

The major burden must fall upon the Imperial Navy and the Luftwaffe. Admiral Raeder, as early as November 15, 1939,

of dealing with the British.

War

had instructed the Naval

Staff to look into the

my

it is

.

.

.

merely born of fear and

In that case

victory.

final

have

shall

I

conscience in regard to the things to

who had drawn up an

Goring,

offensive operations

but

sentence,

raised "the question of time."

the

that

no longer possible." He was

last

doubt of

when he wrote

victory over

only a question of time.

intention to destroy or even to harm.

"Possibly Mr. Churchill will brush aside this state-

conditional

the

in

my

never

ambitious plan for

enemy air own indus-

dealing with the British "by attacking the force,

ground organizations, and

its

its

on June 30, hoped too that the stubborn

try"

would took

British

realize the precariousness of their position.

little

by the

Army

He

staffs.

found

little

He

made

interest in the invasion studies being

comfort, as the

days passed and no word of surrender came from

watching the emphasis of "the things to

Britain, in

come" devolving upon

But then

the Luftwaffe.

bravado prevailed and he was

his

certain, after the suc-

chances of invading England. At that time he had

cesses of the Luftwaffe since the beginning of the

not expected to pay so heavily for the conquest

war, that England could very well be blasted out of

Norway. The

of

of half his cruisers and de-

loss

Raeder

stroyers placed

the British in the

no position

in

Channel

—

the

German Navy had

not even been able to interfere very effectively with the

Dunkirk evacuation. Operation Sealion would

war by

the

From

to deal with

air

power

alone.

headquarters on August

Fiihrer's

the

1,

1940, was issued the "Top Secret" Directive No. 17 for the

Conduct of Air and Naval Warfare Against

England

be spread over a sea front of more than two hun-

Lyme Bay

dred miles, from

German Navy could so large an area

was

How

Ramsgate.

to

clear, protect,

the

and convoy over

Raeder knew

a serious and,

July

1940

19,

Hurricane took

off

—

Therefore,

month

a full

the last

after

from France and three days

had signed the Seelowe directive

after he

—

Hitler

appeared before the Reichstag. The German press

was

to hail the speech

offer," Britain's last

made

that day as a "peace

my own conscience and common sense

it

to

to appeal once

to reason

in

elsewhere.

I

am

I

not the vanquished

can see no reason why

I

more

Great Britain as

begging favors, but the victor speaking in the of reason.

my

consider myself in a position

appeal since

name

war must

this

go on.

me

pain to think that

have been selected by Fate to deal the

tottering.

.

.

.

Mr.

once, to believe will

I

should

blow

final

which these men have already

to the structure

Empire

air

as

flying formations, their

Churchill

me when

be destroyed

I

ought

perhaps,

set

for

prophesy that a great

—an Empire which

ground organizations, and

their

supply organizations; secondly, against the aircraft proindustry

and the industries engaged

pro-

in

duction of antiaircraft equipment.

After

2.

war

air

it

was

is

we

gain local temporary air superiority the

to

be directed against harbors, especially

those important to the food supplies, and also against

inland

food

against

the

storage

south

operations

future

facilities.

coast

Attacks

harbors must

we may wish

to

out

carried

bear carry

mind

in

out

and

must therefore be restricted to the minimum. 3. The war against enemy warships and merchant ships

"It almost causes

order the following:

fell.

be

duty before

this

I

The German Air Force is to overcome the English forces with all means at its disposal and as soon possible. The attacks must at first be directed at

1.

duction

chance before the blow

"In this hour," Hitler said, "I feel

much as to make

conquest of England I intend to continue the air and sea war against the English homeland more inten-

sively than before.

inwardly, an impossible question.

On

In order to establish the conditions necessary for the final

air

must,

war

however, take secondary position

in

the

unless such ships present attractive opportunity

or is an additionaf bonus to attacks carried under paragraph 2 above, or where it may be used for training of crews for specialized tasks.

targets,

out

4.

The increased

that

the Air Force

war is to be carried out so can support naval operations on satisfactory opportunity targets with sufficient forces air

ADLERANGRIFF

85

as and when necessary. In addition, the Air Force must remain battieworthy for Operation Sealion.

Terror

5.

raids

as

reprisal

I

reserve

the

right

6. The intensified air war may begin on August 5. The opening date may be selected by the Air Force upon completion of preparations and taking itself weather conditions into account. The Navy is authorized to begin intensified operations on the same date.

Finally, with the help of Milch,

Karinhall,

2, 3,

postponed

The armourers

.

.

.

— "Eagle

Attack."

No

date

Give dreadful note of preparation:

while Hitler offered Britain his truculent "peace offer"

and Goring wished that Britain might sink into the

was

for the

set

first

day of the

sea,

attack.

intensified

High-level, and argumentative, meetings were held at

Goring's Karinhall to determine general policy

and

set

an Adler Tag ("Eagle Day"). There was

disagreement

between Sperrle

(Luftflotte

3)

and

Kesselring (Luftflotte 2), the former advocating the

operations against the

RAF,

the ports,

and supply

until

were deployed

flotte 3,

in

RAF

light

wanted

to

vincibility.

over England).

He was

soon shown

and reluctandy agreed, though he had maintain the legend of the Luftwaffe's in-

A

direct attack

upon

the British

home-

Luftflotte

the Luftwaffe got ready for

thrusts

from bases

FUegerkorps

in

its

would make

5

its

next objective. Lehrge-

Norway and Denmark. Two

(air corps),

2 and

were assigned

8,

to establish air superiority over the English

and

to disrupt,

Britain.

with

if

possible to stop,

Fliegerkorps 2

Roman

all

Channel

shipping into

(more correctly designated

numeral), based on the Pas de Calais

within Stuka strike of the Straits of Dover, was un-

First

the

upon Luft-

schwader 1 (left) ground crews check their Ju-88s and armorers of Jagdgeschwader 51 load the guns of the Me-109. (h. j. nowarra)

command

on the

fell

northern Germany, Holland,

in

France.

old

than take

13.

of the attack

with headquarters in Paris and units based

western

toward a concentration on a few targets (he had earlier suggested attacking Gibraltar rather

August

Belgium, and France north of the Seine, and Luft-

der

Hitler

also present at

Adler Tag would take

with headquarters in Brussels and whose

2,

had outlined. Kesselring leaned

as

centers,

that

weather permitting. But the

10,

The main burden flotte

and 5 was issued. They were to begin prepa-

rations for Adlerangriff

and then,

weather turned for the worse and Adler Tag was

Hitler

the following day an order alerting Luftflotten

was decided

it

place on August

units

On

RAF

the

perhaps, the legend would fade.

to

order myself.

—Adolf

land would surely bring out

of General

World War

Bruno Loerzer, Goring's

best

friend.

Loerzer's

units

would operate within the boundaries assigned to Luftflotte

2

— an

imaginary

served, which ran across the

line,

not

always

ob-

Channel northerly from

Le Havre, cut the English coast near Portsmouth, and continued upward passing

slightly to the

west

"

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

86 Oxford and, farther north, to the west of Bir-

of

mingham' up through Manchester. All

targets to the

of this line, theoretically, were the responsibility

left

of Luftflotte 2; those to the right belonged to Luftflotte 3.

The other FUegerkorps, number

based just

8,

south of the Luftftotten boundary at Deauville, was

commanded by Generalmajor Wolfram von Once the chief critic of the Stuka,

Richt-

Richt-

hofen.

hofen was celebrated as the master of close support

and a Stuka virtuoso. His FUegerkorps consisted mainly of Ju-87s.

Ringing the British

and poised for Adler

Isles

Tag, therefore, were three massive

—bombers, engined

Normally about two

strength might be

however. flotten

air fleets

As

—about

3500

of the

total

reconnaissance craft

fighters,

aircraft.

German

dive bombers, single-engined and twin-

thirds

any given day,

serviceable for

of August 10, 1940, for example, Luft-

2 and

major units participating

the

3,

had

Adlerangriff,

in

1232 long-range

at their disposal

bombers (875 serviceable), 406 dive bombers (316 serviceable), 813 single-engined fighters (702 serv-

282

iceable),

twin-engined

and

fighter-

as about

50 long-

fighters

bombers (227 serviceable), as well range reconnaissance planes.

Across the Channel Air Marshal

slaught he

Sir

Command

ding prepared his Fighter

Hugh Dowfor

the

knew was coming. The presence

and

ding, like that of Churchill, at this time

place,

was

sound

strategist,

providential.

A

of

on-

Dow-

at this

Air Chief Marshal Sir to

his

diffidence

and a shrewd

with his

own

fighter pilots,

who

little

called

Command common

in

ding, as

of Churchill

he took

full

him

"Stuffy,"

must have spurred Dow-

advantage of the seven weeks

between the end of the Battle of France and the opening of the Battle of Britain. "The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned

on

us," Churchill

will If

have to break us

we can

free

had

said.

"Hitler

and the

life

knows

that he

in this island or lose the war.

stand up to him, of the world

into broad, sunlit uplands.

But

all

Europe may be

may move forward we fail, then the

if

a brilliant

—

"Stuffy"

For all his strategist and proved pilots.

Command during the Battle. war museum, LONDON)

States, including

we have known and cared for, will sink into abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister,

that

the

and perhaps more protracted, by the

lights of per-

verted science.

a term of rakish affection rather than scorn.

The words

Dowding was

Dowding

whole world, including the United all

in Chief, Fighter

C. T.

affectionate

(imperial

of his opponent Goring. For that matter, the aloof

Commander

Hugh

Dowding

tactician,

(to use his correct title), shared

but

as leader of Fighter

it

brilliant administrator, a

was, in personality as well as a leader, the opposite

Air Officer

irreverent

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties," Churchill concluded, "and so bear ourselves that, the British

if

Empire and

for a thousand years,

men

its

Commonwealth

will say, 'This

was

last

their

finest hour.'

Dowding had sixty squadrons on hand Adler Tag with 704 operational aircraft

for

in

time

at their

(and 289 in reserve). Of these aircraft 620 were Hurricanes and Spitfires (about 400 of the former and 200 of the latter). The rest were Bristol Blenheims, two-engined light bombers emdisposal

— ADLERANGRIFF

87

German bombers, which were neuverable than the

and the twin-engined 110s, to the

schmitts, the 109s faster, ter

more nimble

Spitfires.

and the German

Spitfire

was a

bet-

fighters

too

fought

above

well

feet.

Dowding's major concern

was not

The

performer than the Hurricane

high-altitude

twenty thousand

slower and less ma-

and leave the Messer-

fighters,

at the Battle's inception

but pilots. Churchill had appointed

aircraft,

newspaper publisher Lord Beaverbrook (William Maxwell Aitken) to head the Ministry of Aircraft Production

in

May

1940. Beaverbrook's disdain for

red tape, his dynamism and highly charged personcontributed to the rise in aircraft production.

ality

In this he was, of course, helped by the urgency of the time, the robust defiance that vitalized aU Brit-

ons after Dunkirk. Beaverbrook's son, John William Aitken, had served in France with No. 601 Squad-

ron and was flying a Hurricane with the same unit based

in

Tangmere near

the coast of southern

Eng-

land.

The

France had taken a heavy

air fighting in

— 320 RAF

prisoners of war.

Of

the

toll

and 115 taken

pilots killed or missing

959 planes

France,

lost in

229 had been fighters. British workers could replace the planes. The young men, "the effete, pleasure-

mad The backbone of Fighter

Command

during the Battle

of Britain: the Hurricane. The Hurricane's performance

was limited and was no match for the Me- 109 altitudes, (hawker siddeley aviation, ltd.)

at high

youth of Britain," as Hitler called them, had

and

to be trained,

A

this

took time.

fraction of the deficiency

was

alleviated

by the

"loan" of fifty-eight pilots from the Fleet Air Arm. In time No.

1

Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force

joined in the battle and refugee pilots from Poland

and Czechoslovakia were formed ployed as

fighters,

and the Boulton Paul Defiant,

The

latter

into

two proved especially savage

squadrons. fighters.

a two-seat fighter which resembled the Hurricane.

Over Dunkirk, where for the

man

first

pilots,

realizing a

time,

it

the Defiant

went into action

had proved most successful. Ger-

mistaking

it

for the Hurricane

and not

machine guns, attacked from the rear and were shot down. This advantage lasted briefly, for

firing

soon the Germans realized the Defiant was a ferent plane

match less

and dealt with

for the

the

When

second crew member manned the rear-

it

harshly, for

Me- 109. Nor was

Gladiator,

of

it

dif-

was no

the Blenheim; even

which a single

flight

(six

planes) remained operational in one squadron.

The Hurricane was obsolescent by August 1940, fighter and a good aircraft. It was

though a sturdy

Dowding's plan

to

have the Hurricanes attack the

call

Adler Tag

upon 1253

finally

pilots

dawned Dowding could

—almost

200 short

of his au-

thorized establishment. These pilots were deployed

throughout the main island of the British

Isles,

in

England, Wales, and Scotland. The greater concentration of squadrons

—

were based

in

in the counties of Sussex, Surrey,

reach

London from

the bases

the Luftwaffe fighters and

in

south England

and Kent. To

northern France

bombers would have

to

cross this area, most of which lay in the province of

No. 11 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, Air

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Lord Bcavcrhrook, William M. Aitken. who as head of

Spitfires.

the Ministry of Aircraft Production during the Battle certain

a fighter pilot with No. 601 Squadron. At war's end Aitken' s victory score stood at sixteen.

Hurricanes or

(Daily Express, London)

of Britain slashed through red tape that

Fighter

Officer

Command

not

did

Commanding. To

and made

lack

topher Brand,

AOC. To

Suflfolk counties.

the northern tip of of No. 13

Sir Chris-

the north, into Essex and

Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-

Mallory commanded No.

To contend

the west of this area lay

No. 10 Group's domain, Air Vice-Marshal

12 Group. Scotland and

England were the responsibility

Group under Air Vice-Marshal Richard

Saul.

established

mand First

of the heavy air fighting was to take

with

his son,

is

its

so-called

Chain

Home

and No. 12 Group of ricane,

ant).

five

Spitfire,

fifteen

squadrons (seven Hur-

two Blenheim, and one Defi-

Comof the

a network of

Radio Di-

Stations operating

RDF

came

be called "radio detecting and ranging," which

by mid-war the Americans had abbreviated to "ra-

was a decisive factor

and one Blenheim)

Command,

rection Finding equipment. In time this

No. 11 Group consisted of twenty-two squadrons Spitfire,

a Balloon

World War), an Observer Corps, and,

dar."

Hurricane, six

divisions,

barrage balloons (a throwback to the

place over the domains of Nos. 11 and 12 Groups.

(fifteen

John ("Max") Aitken,

with the attack the Air Ministry also

antiaircraft

greatest import to Fighter

to

The bulk

With him

The

brain child of Robert Watson-Watt, radar in the

outcome of the Battle

of Britain. In the

stood

summer

along

coasts of the

of

the

main

1940 a system of radar

northern, island.

eastern,

The

and

stations

southern

spindly masts of the

ADLERANGRIFF

89

With radar detecting the Luftwaffe forming up while it was still over France, the RAF was able to send

fighters

its

Radar would

meet the German formations.

to

German formations and

locate the

en-

abled the British to ignore diversionary sweeps and

concentrate on the main point of attack.

RAF

saved the

from wasteful

scrambled only when necessary situation.

rapidly

patrols.

—

also

It

were

Pilots

at least in the ideal

could also keep informed of the

Pilots

shifting

by radio

situation

air

from

the

ground radar stations tracking and plotting the on-

coming Germans. Furthermore, each other in the

pilots

could talk with

The German communications well developed. There was no

air.

system was not as

ground control with radar and while

was no intercommunication

in

pilots

own

talk with each other within their

could

units there

formations except by

the fighters had no radio connection with

signal:

the bombers. In general this

meant operations were

dependent upon the orders issued before they had taken

to

battle,

was

leeway for the unexpected.

litde

when

the situation stood

girded for Adler

patiently

up

there

off;

Thus

what was

be the world's

to

Germans im-

the

Goring, warming

Tag.

great air

first

expected that the defenses of southern Eng-

land would be shattered in four days and that the

Luftwaffe would take four weeks to eliminate the

Royal Air Force.

After

Operation

this.

Sealion

could be launched and a triumphant Third Reich

Radar towers on the English

coast,

an early detection

system that contributed greatly to the outcome of the

would be

free

for

more important conquests

(es-

which Hitler now

pecially that of the Soviet Union,

Battle of Britain.

war museum, LONDON)

(imperial

seriously considered).

Although the

was

all-out assault

set for the

Au-

gust "Eagle Day," the Luftwaffe ventured over the transmitting and receiving towers were concentrated in the

southeastern counties opposite France. Addi-

were erected inland. At the time of

tional stations

the Battle's opening there tional

CH

Low)

stations.

up objects

stations

at

and

the

CH

CHL

thirty

stations

CHL

stations

on low-flying

By no means

the

Home

of picking

120 miles but missed supplemented

aircraft

up

to

fifty

absolutely perfect or fool-

proof, the English radar system thing

(Chain

The former were capable a distance of

low-flying aircraft; the

miles distant.

were twenty-one opera-

was superior

to any-

Germans had developed. And because

they had not been able to devise a good system the

Germans

characteristically

had also been as unsuccessful.

assumed

the British

English Channel before

this.

On

the night of June

German bombers flew over the dropping bombs on airfields and upon

5/6 about

thirty

east coast

the vicinity

of airfields.

Nighttime accuracy, even

beam (code-named Knickejammed by the British), left much

with the help of a radio bein, to

and quickly

be desired. Such harassment raids were of

military

value

except

to

provide

the

little

crews with

night-flying practice. Also, the raids kept the British

on

their

toes,

although they

interfered

somewhat

with production as the workers sought shelter

upon

the sounding of air raid sirens.

The

no great condamage was done, and

scattered raids of June were of

sequence,

although some

there were a

number

of casualties, as well as small

— THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

90

Before the curtain rose on the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe began scattered raids against various port cities

on the southeast coast of England and upon

British

shipping in the English Channel.

German

losses. July

On

vital

the left

saw the beginning of more

in-

upon the port Portland, Falmouth, Plymouth, Dover and

tensified daylight attacks, particularly cities

—

—

upon shipping

in

the Channel.

By

the end of July

daylight passage through the English Channel, even for convoys,

became hazardous under

the

attacks

of the Stukas, the Messerschmitt 110s, the Dornier 17s,

and escorting Me- 109s. (Channel Battle Leader)

to

lead

a

small battle group, Kampfgesch wader 2, to attend to

shipping through the Straits of Dover; Richt-

hofen's Stukas did the to his

same

own Geschwader's Domiers, Fink

upon two Gruppen

of

Geschwader,

JG

fighter

and

to the west. In addition

JG

51,

led

Stukas

(Ju-87s)

could

call

and two

26, led by Adolf Galland,

by Werner

Molders.

The two

first

on Portland, which was attacked

fall

time on July 11

,

On

1940.

the right, a view

from the nose of an He-Ill of English ships under attack in the Channel, (national archives)

Jagdgeschwader, commanded by the stars of the Luftwaffe,

were equipped with the Molders,

latest

Messer-

schmitt

109Es.

tactician

and

teacher,

was then the high-scoring Luftwaffe

ace.

He

a

great

was, interestingly, an ardent anti-Nazi, an aber-

ration for which

he was tolerated because of his

achievements as a fighter If

Loerzer had selected Johannes Fink as Kanalkampffiihrer

German bombs for the

the

early July

pilot.

Channel encounters were not

conclusive, they were no less deadly for the participants.

Flight

Flight of No.

Lieutenant

the fourth scramble of the

coast at Deal. that

is,

at

the

At

this

Straits

miles wide. Deere, a ing since he

with

Alan Deere, day

B

leading

54 Squadron on a convoy

patrol

—

crossed the English

point the English Channel, of Dover,

New

is

barely twenty

Zealander, had been

was nineteen and was

five official victories to his

fly-

a confirmed ace

credit.

Shot down

ADLERANGRIFF

91

over Dunkirk, Deere had joined the "brown jobs"

(Army men) and was evacuated by

ship back to

England.

Leading

Me- 109s

I it

Deere had spot-

his flight of six Spitfires,

ted a silvery plane flying low, escorted

about a thousand feet and another

at

serving as

by a dozen

The

top cover.

silver

five

seaplane was

a

my

enter

head

would have was

tried to avoid

action.

was a blurred oudine the next

ahead as

of course by the

viously

it

was searching

for

German

Ob-

who had

pilots

crash-landed in the Channel in the day's early fighting.

The

RAF

had orders to attack the He-59s,

red cross or not, for while they rescued the pilots

"But

seat,

Ordering half of

his flight to attack the seaplane,

Spitfires to deal with the

Messerschmitts.

The German

formed into a defensive circle

immediately

Diving through the

Deere shot down one of the German planes

and then, from

fighters

circle.

top-cover

my

turn, I

as he tells

favorite

found

my

it

himself,

defensive

self

"straightening out

maneuver

of

a

tight

head-on to another [Me-109].

realized

avoiding a

by a last-minute alteration

German pilot. we did; propeller

collide

hit

me

propeller, the

forward in

board by the restraining cockpit harness which cruelly into

my

blur

as

my now

bit

shoulders.

"The next few moments over

my

saved only from being crushed on the dash-

stricken

Deere led two

I

my reflector sight and me blotting out the sky

shock of the impact throwing

they also reported the British convoys in the Channel.

— and when

passed marginaOy above,

it

black crosses of the Luftwaffe, but also with a red as an Air-Sea rescue plane.

have no doubt

filling

was on top of

it

direct collision perhaps

it

it

I

outcome it was too late At one moment the Me-109

Heinkel 59 decorated not only with the traditional

cross identifying

done so

it

to be the inevitable

evasion

for

—had

I

I

recall

as

panic-

a

fought to regain some control

vibrating,

pitching

Spitfire

already

gushing ominous black smoke into the cockpit. Gain control in

I

did, but sufficient only to

keep the

aircraft

a too-fast-for-comfort dive towards the English

coast, with throttle

jammed open

but a happily un-

responsive engine seized solid by a propeller which

under the impact had bent double and dug

itself

progressively into the engine housing before finally

"As we sped towards each other at a combined mph there was little time to think. For my part, the thought of a collision did not

in Deere's cockpit

The Heinkel 59. which, despite the red crosses painted on its sides (not on this one, however) because of its function as an Air-Sea Rescue plane, was con-

waffe fighter during the Battle of Britain. Superior to the Hurricane, it was an even match for the Spitfire.

speed of over 500

sistently

shot

down by

the RAF. Churchill believed make reconnaissance observaoperations. (H. J. nowarra)

they were used also to tions during rescue

ceasing to turn."

But now

fire

had begun licking out of the smoke

and he knew he had

The Messerschmitt 109, the standard

to jump.

single-seater Luft-

Air battles between the Me-109 and the decided either by pilot skill or luck. (u.

Spitfire

s.

were

AIR force)

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

92 Heaving

the cockpit

at

learn that the collision

could he jettison

hood he was dismayed had jammed

to

Nor

shut.

There was no

mechanically.

it

it

choice; Deere had to stay with the burning Spitfire,

bring

down, and hope to

it

get

somehow on

out

the ground.

"Half-choked by the smoke, licked

somehow

I

der a measure of control.

ahead and only a

rectly

now burning smoke and "I I

craft

.

hit the

launched

as

the side

to

di-

my

.

.

must have prayed, but

do remember

could see nothing

barely discernible through the

fields,

flame.

I

little

plunged towards a resting place

fighter

Kentish

in the

by flames

at

kept the Spitfire heading inland and un-

I

don't remember.

What

ground, fortunately in open country, the air again, returned to earth and

itself in

^'m

the crunching sensation as the air-

is

ploughed a skidding and erratic passage through a

Zerstorer (deThe Messerschmitt 110, which was supposed to operate in the dual role of fighter and bomber and proved to be neither. (h. j. nowarra) the

ill-fated

stroyer),

studded with wooden posts, put there as a de-

field

an enemy airborne glider force, shedding

terrent to

bits of fuselage

When came

the

finally

Spitfire

Deere desperately hammered

perspex of the canopy, broke the side, and ran Spitfire

ers

bouncing

shuddering,

to a stop

had come

it

at the

open, dived over

from the burning wreckage. The to rest in a cornfield

now

resound-

ing to the firing of the plane's guns, which

come heated by the flames. By some miracle, except for

had be-

—

plane,

Deere was not seriously

in the battle the

named Kiwi, was

shared Deere's luck. The

the plane

fell

tail

collided

On

to

be character-

the evening of

August

9,

with the Channel socked in with cloud and with Britain under cloud and rain. Goring canceled the large-scale attack of the following day. Adler Tag,

On

of the

German

fighter

into the Channel.

August brought a quickening of the tempo of

week the

first

bombing became heavier and more

fierce.

Goring

waited for an improvement in the weather, how-

Channel and the and radar

was moving

in

the

ports, the Luftwaffe attacked airinstallations.

The expanding

battle

inland.

the

assault

was an Erprobungs-

of fighters, Messerschmitt 109s and 110s, converted to fighter-bombers.

The

formation, led by Haupt-

Mesome carrying five-hundred- or thousandpound bombs under their bellies, and a dozen Rubensdorffer, consisted of eight

109s,

Me- 110s,

similarly

armed. Their targets were the

radar antennas along the Kent and Sussex coast.

August

10.

The

not

the marshes

wishing to waste pilots and aircraft in the prelimi-

Tag took

gruppe (Experimental Group) 210, a mixed unit

his fighters in check,

ever, to launch the all-out attack, set for

to Adler

While continuing to harass shipping

mann Walter

Luftwaffe attacks; by the end of the

the prelude

the twelfth

Spearheading

had not

off and, trailing bits of fuselage,

Dowding, meanwhile, held

unreasonable.

in-

next day. His

a total loss, however.

The Me- 109 with which he had been sheared

as possible with fight-

But the English weather proved istically

fields

was back

much

weather permitting, then was set for August 13. slighdy burned hands,

singed eyebrows, bruised knees, and the cuts from the shoulder harness,

as

get the bombers; they carried the lethal burden.

place.

jured and

Avoid combat

tioned.

en route."

steel structures,

350

feet taU,

rose up out of

and apple orchards of Kent

like strange

devices from another world.

nary phases of the big batUe that must inevitably

These spindly antennas were Fighter Command's

come. Fighting over the Channel was a risky busi-

ace in the hole. Their existence eliminated the Luft-

come farther inland Dowding wisely cau-

ness; wait for the Luftwaffe to to

the limit of their range,

waffe's element of surprise.

On

this

day the Messerschmitts

split

up and sped

—

—

ADLERANGRIFF

93

Communications Chief General Wolfgang Martini learned through detection devices that the radar stations continued to operate despite the on-target at-

tacks by the fighter-bombers.

There was an exception. Just before noon, while more than sixty Ju-88s attacked Portsmouth Harbor, veered off and dived toward the radar

fifteen aircraft

Ventnor on the

installation at

bomb

heavy

The

of Wight.

Isle

concentration destroyed most of the

buildings, caused fires

which could not be put out because of a lack of water, and seriously damaged the

Ventnor was out of action for eleven days.

site.

While the radar stations were recovering from the morning attacks the afternoon opened with assaults

upon

Me- J 10s

According to the original conception, these planes were supposed to be able to fight off attackers while on bombing missions, or to serve as escort for heavier bombers. They proved to be sitting ducks for the guns of the RAF. (musee de l'air) in flight.

the Dorniers

for

their

bombed. The

fleeing Ju-88s

workshops

cratered. Five people

English coast. Except for patches of mist the weather

craft

was good and the Messerschmitts dropped down out

airfield

of the sun and raced toward the masts at Pevensey,

emergency landing

on the south

latter

Thames near Canterbury). Although

the

the radar stations had picked

up the approaching

more than watching. Almost at the same moment all of the radar stations came under attack and all bombers loosed their bombs on target. The earth shook, buildings collapsed, smoke rose

gust

into

the

air

—

but,

the

as

Messerschmitts wheeled

around for home, the men saw that the masts

re-

At Dunkirk two huts had been destroyed but station

continued operating.

had gone up station electric

hours. the

At Rye

the explosions,

in

was back

in

action.

Bombs

the aerials took slight

to

operate.

huts

main

cut the it

working quarters were smashed

Dover continued

the

but by noon the

cable at Pevensey, putting

At Dover

all

the

The

aircraft.

12 was

aircraft,

RAF

was

it

22

fighters

and the Luftwaffe

RAF

fighters

this

Au-

and 286 German

and bombers.

And

the

had not yet begun.

—

whose friends him Kanalarbeiter ("Sewer worker") 13

By

Adler Tag,

seven in the at

last

—

his

Dornier 17s of Kampfgeschwader 2 were air-borne. Fifty-five

aircraft

roared toward the

airdrome

at

Eastchurch on the south bank of the Thames estuary. All along the coasts of France, Belgium,

and Norway

flotten

These stations were

unimportant

from July 10 through

did not take his position lightly.

damage and

—but

an

Kanalkampffiihrer Johannes Fink

—

air-

in the day, the

was bombed. Manston was

including fighters

lightly called

strips

and four

by the following day. Adler Tag

toll

150

Battle proper

land,

bits

killed

although like the other stations

hit,

in operation

out for two

to

two hangars de-

left

(actually

field)

morning of August

mained standing.

No. 65

bombs from

and the landing

had been

Lympne

at

eve had cost the

31

afire,

damaged. For the second time

hardest

back

bombers, the formations appeared small enough to require litde

the

upon Manston, an advance base airfield, Hawkinge, was also

fell

toward their individual targets upon reaching the

bank of

as the pilots of

Spitfires,

near the coast. Another

stroyed, the

Rye, Dover, and Dunlcirk (the

Even

British airfields.

Squadron ran

Hol-

aircraft of the three great Liijt-

would converge upon the stubborn

British

for the Attack of the Eagles.

As was

wont, the weather had

its

—

turned bad

"manned," so to speak, by young women of the

overnight

Women's Auxiliary Air Force who endured

mist and drizzling over the target. Eastchurch, Fink

the

bombings with exemplary calm.

Though triumphant on returning

there were clouds over the Channel and

did not know,

base

was a Coastal Command station The target of the Luftwaffe was

not a fighter

field.

Denain, the pilots and crews of Experimental Group

RAF

Command.

210 found

of the morning.

their

jubilance

to their

premature.

at

Luftwaffe

Fighter

This was not the only

slip

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

94

When

he arrived

fighter escort, the

at the

rendezvous point with the

Messerschmitt 110s of Oberstleut-

men

died in the rubble and

injured.

A

When

fire

and forty were

direct hit destroyed the operations build-

Fink ducked

nant Joachim Huth's Zerstorergeschwader 26, Fink

ing.

was annoyed with

and raced for France, great black clouds of smoke

Messerschmitt

the behavior of the fighters. Huth's

bore

dived, turned, and

down upon Fink's Dornier, came back at him. Fink good-

naturedly attributed

high

spirits

it

to the typical fighter pilofs

in celebration of

Adler Tag. The per-

Fink proceeded toward Eastchurch.

But some of the smoke may have been

own

aircraft.

Furious because he had had no fighter protection.

Fink called Kesselring

at Luftflotte

2 headquarters

soon as he had landed. The tone and language

as

piqued to note that no Messerschmitts were visible

of the

anywhere. They had

Kesselring,

one another in the clouds.

that of his

planes, for during the fighting Fink lost four

After cutting through a cloud bank, Fink was further

lost

into the clouds

rose up from Eastchurch.

formance of the Destroyers was ridiculous but understandable.

his plane

usually mild

Fink prompted a

who brought

visit

from

a personal explanation.

There was nothing before him except the forbidding coast of England and scattered clouds. In their stations the radar operators had begun tracking Fink as soon as his planes formed up over Calais.

The

still

inexperienced operators could not

predict the Domiers' destination.

The cloud had thickened

so Fink

ordered the

planes to loosen the formation in order to lessen the chance of collision.

When

Domiers broke

the

through the mist Fink was delighted to see East-

church about three miles ahead feet below.

—and

ten thousand

Anxiously peering out of the cockpit.

Fink ascertained an unfortunate truth: no cort.

The

cautious,

fift\- -year-old

fighter es-

leader found

some

consolation in the sight of the aircraft on the

below neatly lined up. wingtip

to

field

£»

wingtip. waiting

for them.

Fink led the Dorniers to the attack. At about the

same moment some

Spitfires

of

No. 74 Squadron,

A

Spitfire harries a Dornier-17, the "Flying Pencil,' over England. (n.\tion'al .VRCHrvEs)

the only imit dispatched to deal with "a few aircraft,"

pounced upon the rear of the formation.

Oberleutnant Heinz Schlegel's Dornier bucked under the scattered

The ing,

right engine

fire

from the

ground

Spitfire's eight guns.

to a stop

and began smok-

and Schlegel had trouble keeping the plane

from pulling to the

left.

Another burst from a

ing Spitfire solved that problem:

was damaged and, because two wounded. Schlegel crash-landed

div-

the other engine of his crew were the Dornier in an

Adler Tag had been postponed because of the

poor weather. Fink's mission had been canceled

The

had been informed, which explained

fighters

of Huth's Messerschmitt

110. Fink learned that as

he was attacking Eastchurch other uninformed craft, the

110

Establishment

at

from No.

Group prevented the Me- 110s, Goring's

the

his

bombs upon Eastchurch. The men on

base below reacted with astonishment as ex-

escort,

11

bomb

the

Royal Aircraft

Farnborough. Fighter interception

went down under the

Spitfire

guns.

attack

and

at

pet Destroyer,

The

rest

fled

home. The same occurred with a formation of

for

heims of No. 35 Squadron went up

more than

smoke. Twelve

attempted to

least five of the

plosions erupted in the early morning. Five Blenin

air-

Ju-88s of Kampfgeschwader 54. with Me-

prisoner.

Fink, unaware of the attack going on behind him,

oflf.

not only their absence, but also the odd behavior

English meadow. Schlegel and his crew were taken

dropped

al-

though word had come only after he had taken

eighty Stukas

—

only they fled before

at-

ADLERANGRIFF

95

tacking and thus were spared, temporarily, a scale encounter with the British fighters.

Only Fink's

and vulnerable, formation had succeeded

resolute,

morning of Eagle Day.

in the

An

(Me- 110s) was sent to Portland to draw off the English

formation

cinity of

While these engaged the Hurricanes and

pounded craft

vi-

within

fighters.

and bomb the docks and warehouses

Southampton. Most of the bombers got through,

at

bombs over

drove

off

Me- 110s

fell.

The

which the Messerschmitts had

the defensive circle

formed under

fighters.

and twisted through

In

attack.

savage fighting,

the

five

Clearly, the escort required an escort.

During the afternoon attacks also Richthofen's Ju-87s had succeeded while

Detling, British

aimed find

by

it

fighters.

at

and

Spitfires

jettisoned

bombing escort

Another

fighter

because

the

mans

a

in

fighter

its

base

of

cloud

of

No.

their

the

formation at

airfield

dueled of

with

Ju-87s,

Rochford, could

cover.

65

bombs

When

Squadron, across

at

the

not

attacked the

Ger-

Canterbury

fled.

Farther west and south, more Stukas, crossing the

Spitfire

and

Pilot Officer

fired

at

D. M. Crook

an Me- 109, which

ground. The fleeing Stukas spread

fiery dive to the

the

sprightly Spitfires dived

the

burst into flame and joined the hapless Stukas in a

Aroused

more

for

them lay smashed on the

of

609 Squadron

front

mistaken for bombers, engaged the

five

same encounter

In the

of No.

The Ju-87 Stuka, once the scourge of the air, reached the end of the road over England in the summer of 1940. (u. s. AIR force)

Me- 110s,

the

"dreaded" Stuka. The slow,

countryside below.

their

damage while

at the

was no match

minutes

possibly

causing serious

escort formation, scattering them, the

Spitfires

Spitfires

609 Squadron. Diving through

so did No.

Me- 109

clumsy

that the Ju-88s might break through

was expected

the defenses

the

to find airfields in

the Portland area. But cloud cover again interfered

—and

A

made

afternoon despite the worsening weather.

fighter

Channel near Cherbourg, hoped

the

attempt to save the glory of the day was

in the

it

full-

three counties.

Spitfires of

No. 65 Squadron take

On

"Eagle Day"

As evening

fell

this

the Attack of the Eagles subsided

into the scattered detonations of wasted

the

off to con-

squadron an attack by the Stukas. (imperial war museum, LONDON) Luftwaffe.

desperate

scream of the Stuka,

bombs and

the

onetime

Scourge of the Blitzkrieg, running for home. Small night attacks by

bombers did not add to the ac-

complishment of the day. The eagle's wings had been clipped. The German

pilots

had not lacked

courage, only that required efficiency in the High

Command

which makes sense of complex, large-

scale operations.

When Adler Tag had

fighters

—and

thirteen It

officially

lost forty-five aircraft

the

planes,

RAF

—

closed, the Luftwaffe

thirty-nine to the British

Fighter

Command

had

lost

but only seven pilots in combat.

was not an auspicious beginning.

TARGET: RAF

T

HE Fat One was in a sour mood. His Eagle Day had not gone off as planned, what with the breakdown in command which set it off piecemeal. It was that damned English weather, unpredictable, now bright and sunny, then obstinate, capricious moody and threatening: like the English them-

—

Goring was not

selves.

batde.

of the

at all

pleased with the course

The weather on

day following

the

Eagle Day, August 14, had proved too poor for large-scale operations,

although the Luftwaffe flew

489 sorties with the concentration upon the airdromes in southeastern England. On that morning Goring called a conference at Karinhall with his staff and the Luftflotten commanders

for the next day,

August

ously not in a joyous temper.

He was

15.

He was

obvi-

concerned with

the vulnerability of the Stuka and ordered increased fighter escorts

Gruppen

three

As

his pet

comments

suggested that they attend

and "not the

industries

He waxed .

.

Gruppe

serious:

to

of the period.

the

"We must

dustry

allocated

to

the

different

"For the moment other nored.

.

"Our

.

targets

air

attacks

so that

are

German Air Force would

Having committed of the

RAF, Goring

his air force to the extinction

then proceeded to do the same

to the Luftwaffe with a series of blunders in

Command. there

is

sites, in

"It

is

any point

High

doubtful," he concluded, "whether

continuing the attacks on radar

in

view of the fact that not one of those

at-

tacked has so far been put out of action." Even as

he said

repairmen were working against time

this

Ventnor

to put the

station

back into operation and

not succeeding very rapidly. Goring, however, had

no comprehension of radar's another

one

of

significance. It

which

decisions

his

was

yet

would

cost

others their lives. the

same moment Goring spoke and de-

absence of Loerzer,

who was

with Goring and the

others at Karinhall, his chief of

our

forces

Luftflotten.

essentially

the great

erase the British Air Force.

be

.

.

.

ig-

dislocation

enemy defenses and population

staff,

Oberst Paul

Deichmann, upon personally viewing the weather

— —

some cloud over

the

initiated the day's operations. Picking

up

conditions

Channel

bright, sunny, with

the field phone, he dispatched the Stukas for

Eng-

land.

For the

night

air

That was the heart of Goring's

missions because of weather had gone astray. In the

.

made

master plan:

."

.

Goring aircraft

aircraft in-

should

.

creed, once again the order to postpone the day's

concentrate

enemy

wherever possible be directed against

force targets.

in-

lightship off Dover."

including the targets of the

raids,

British

be allowed no respite; even these, however,

should

At almost

of Stukas.

on the destruction of the enemy

efforts .

bombers: as many as

of fighters per

heavy bombers, he sarcastically

for the

voked one of

for the dive

shall

Norway gaged

first

in

time

all

three Luftflotten, based from

the north to Brittany in the south, en-

in co-ordinated daylight attacks. In

terms of

TARGET: RAF

97 numbers

was a more impressive German showing

it

Day itself. The day began serenely enough with

than Eagle

RAF.

connaissance patrols by the shal to

a few re-

Air Vice-Mar-

Park dispatched a squadron from No.

keep an eye upon two convoys

Group Thames

1 1

just off the

estuary, but without incident.

That something big was

on the radar screens when formations

large

Stukas, with

were

Me- 109

to

be expected was noted

just before eleven o'clock

These were

detected.

escort,

the twenty-minute flight across the Straits of to attack the

man

RAF

airfields in

Spitfires.

Of

the nearly

pating in the attack, only four

The

fighters.

On

the

left

is

the

Chief of Air Intelligence,

Josef

"Beppo" Schmid, whose appraisal of the enemy's air power was frequently inaccurate; in the center. Chief of the Technical Branch of the Luftwaffe, Ernst Udet, who preferred flying airplanes to theorizing about them. Goring, however, betrayed both of them and the Luftwaffe as well by virtue of simple incompetence. (h.

j.

nowarra)

rest

fifty

Stukas partici-

fell

to the British

pushed through the defenses

to

bomb

the airfields at

latter,

a fighter base, was not seriously damaged, but

Lympne, him down.

Dover

the Ger-

they were met by a squadron each of Hurri-

canes and

let

When

Kent.

formations reached the English coast at eleven-

thirty,

Goring with two aides who unconsciously

the

meeting over Calais for

actually

a

Lympne and Hawkinge. The secondary

field,

was knocked

out for two days. Clearly the Luftwaffe was out to

Royal Air Force Fighter Command.

get the

While

this

blipped with

fighting continued,

German

air

and radar screens

activity

—

in

the

Channel

and, more often than doom. (embassy of the polish people's republic)

Stukas en route to their targets not, their

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

98 another development to the north was un-

area,

folding

on the screens

No. 13 Group. Shortly aircraft"

"thirty

the Operations

after

Room

of

noon "twenty or more

were reported approaching from the North

was increased soon

Sea. This estimate distinct

in

aimed

formations plus,"

was the new

at

after to three

Northumberland:

figure.

In reality,

the

radar operators were plotting a Griippe of seaplanes

on a diversionary

toward the Firth of Forth,

flight

cort planes with adequate range for the flight the

Stavanger, Norway. In his high-flying Messerschmitt,

Restemeyer planned

to direct the battle against the

British fighters.

The forewarned

No. 72 Squadron had

Spitfires of

From out German formacome under attack

climbed above the approaching Germans. of the sun they

Among

tions.

pounced upon

the

first

the

planes to

to the north of the true path of the other aircraft

was Restemeyer's Messerschmitt. With

groups.

firing,

Unfortunately

for

the

attacking

Luftwaffe,

the

second group, the bombers of Kampfgeschwader 26,

Spitfire takeoff with

wheels beginning to tuck into the

wing. Early Spitfires required the pilot to crank

the

from

Luftwaffe base, four-hundred miles distant, at

man

its

eight guns

the mottled, graceful Spitfire struck the Ger-

fighter.

The Messerschmitt staggered momen-

tarily in mid-flight,

shedding

bits of metal,

and then

wheels up (and down) manually: later models were equipped with automatic wheel gear.

(IMPERUL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON)

sixty-three

Me-1

He- Ills with an escort of twenty-one

10s of Zerstorergeschwader 76, were off course.

Instead of approaching their targets, British

Command the

Bomber

bases at Dishforth and Linton-on-Ouse,

German bombers converged upon

the English

same point as the seaplane feint. Having been stirred up by the seaplanes. No. 72

coast at almost the

Squadron's

formation

of

Heinkels and Messerschmitts about thirty miles

off

Spitfires

the English coast.

about

fifteen

intercepted

The bombers droned along

thousand

feet.

Me- 110s, Restemeyer. The heavy them flew

the

the

led

A

at

thousand feet above

by Hauptmann Werner

fighters

were the only

es-

The mangled

with an orange flash exploded. craft

While some of the

circle, the

others

engaged the Me-1

Spitfires

which quickly formed into

tion.

air-

spun burning into the North Sea. 10s,

customary defensive

through the bomber forma-

flitted

The suddenness

their

of the

attack,

and perhaps

the sight of Restemeyer's stricken plane descending,

unnerved many of the crews were

jettisoned

Heinkels

harmlessly

lightened

Many ducked been safely After the

the

in the Heinkels.

into

loads

for

the

bank over which moments before.

first

shock of the

Spitfire

Bombs as

evasive

into cloud

flying just

sea

the

action.

they had

attack

had

TARGET: RAF worn

German The

the

off,

99 planes pushed on toward their

assigned targets. yet

had

fighters

to

contend with

another squadron (No. 79) of Spitfires which

had

been

vectored

ground. The

Once again

no match for the darting scored

the

Spitfire in

Although

air-

maneu-

proved

Zerstorer

Spitfire.

hits

itself

were

by the German fighters and many claims for "kills," British records

losses of battle.

battle-

lofty

although handicapped by their

none of which equaled the

\crability.

made

heaving,

the

Germans were outnumbered and fought

with courage, craft,

to

do not reveal any

any of No. 13 Group's aircraft

in the day's

Besides Restemeyer's plane, another eighteen

He-Ills over a German

base,

also

under

the

attack,

pressed on for England. Spitfires

now

Heinkels

harassing the

bombers were joined by Hurricanes of No. Squadron. More bombs

smoking

Heinkels.

fell

Those

605

by

into the sea, joined that

passed

over

the

beaches and flew inland were then put upon by antiaircraft

torment.

guns,

Bombs

coastal villages

no military

further

adding to the Heinkel's

scattered

willy-nilly

across

the

—Seaham Harbour, Portland—but

point.

The most

Portland, destroyed by the loosed

in

bombs.

The for

German

surviving

planes turned and scuttled

home. Eight bombers did not

return.

The

"sur-

prise" flank attack by Luftflotte 5 cost twenty-seven aircraft

for

and

little

their crews.

The expenditure was high

return.

The other formation contributed by unescorted Junkers

Luftflotte 5,

88s from Aalborg, Denmark,

had been detected almost simultaneously with the and Messerschmitts farther north. This

Heinkels

made landfall at Flamborough Head, north Humber River. These were fifty aircraft

flight

of

the

of

(national .archives)

Me-llOs were shot down and others returned to their bases in Norway badly shot up, with wounded aboard and crews demoralized. Meanwhile,

some homes

serious

damage was

—

Kampfgeschwader 30 Driffield,

home

their

of No. 4

target:

Group

of

the airfield at

Bomber Com-

mand. This attack lory's

No.

fell

into the province of Leigh-Mal-

12 Group.

Around one

the battle raged to the north fires,

Defiants,

—No.

o'clock

—while

12 Group's Spit-

and Hurricanes were ordered up.

No. 13 Groups, though heavily engaged, dispatched a squadron of Blenheims to this battle also.

It

might

be noted that the Defiants were specifically patched to patrol a convoy

in the

Humber

dis-

River.

to

Neither the Defiants nor the Blenheims could have

to

been expected to

fight

on equal terms with German

— THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

100 fighters;

however,

as

if,

was hoped,

it

German

the

formation contained only bombers the obsolescent

might fare reasonably

aircraft

Even

well.

so, the Ju-

88s were more capable of dealing with Blenheims.

The

Spitfires

616 Squadron intercepted

of No.

Flamborough Head.

the Ju-88s just offshore at

stead of breaking

up

In-

combat, the German

for

for-

mations dived into the clouds and eluded the Britplanes

ish

—

Then

temporarily.

least

at

a

flight

of

Hurricanes joined the battle as the Junkers crossed the coast line.

The

Head was

over Flamborough

air

crisscrossed with machine-gun

and from time

fire

to

time the sky became smudged with oily smoke and

flame as a Junkers

(H. J.

nowarra)

fell

under the eight-gun

fighters.

Despite the heavy opposition about thirty Ger-

Heinkel bombers /leading out for targets in Britain.

man bombers broke

through and found their

targets.

With amazing accuracy, considering the harassment,

bombs

their

upon

fell

Driffield.

Four

hangars

erupted under the onslaught, three blocks of build-

open and

ings burst

heavy bombers

burning, and ten Whitley

fell

were destroyed

bomb concentration. One of the Junkers was craft.

one bombed

bombs on Then

An an

He-Ill disintegrates under the eight-gun

RAF

Driffield

the

another dropped

its

some houses, and a nearby ammunition dump. Junkers turned and ran for Denmark,

the

by the Hurricanes and

a

Spitfires

hun-

dred miles out to sea. The Blenheims joined the assault of

up

pursuit but could not catch

fighter attack.

(imperial

antiair-

up and while

split

Bridlington, destroying

hitting also

pursued

down by

shot

But the formation had

larger

under the heavy

war museum, London)

Ten

to the swifter Junkers.

of the Ju-88s, however, remained

smoking and

tangled on the Yorkshire countryside or at the bot-

tom of

the sea.

Luftflotte 5

had

in its first

lost,

scale daylight attack almost

force

and one

fifth

of

its

—and

one eighth of heavy

last

—

full-

bomber Nor had

its

fighters.

the feint succeeded in drawing the British fighters

away from southeast England. Dowding had not permitted that and as the German bombers of Luftflotten 2 and 3 launched their attacks upon Kent, Essex, and Suffolk, the Spitfires and Hurricanes of No. 11 and No. 10 Groups rose up to meet them. Even so, Me- 110s of Erprobungsgruppe 210, accompanied by swarms of Me- 109s and Stukas about a hundred aircraft

in all

—

Channel northeast of London to Ju-88, Britain,

the Luftwaffe's best (u.

S.

AIR force)

bomber of

the

Battle of

at

Martlesham Heath

in Suffolk.

slipped across the strike the airfield

While the Messer-

schmitt 109s held off those few British fighters which

,

^^^^^'' Mk

in

Germany, would have been placed

priorities

To

list,

Harris Ploesti represented

panacea

target. Besides,

Bomber Command upon

centrate

first

on the

not fourth.

in

it

England.

the Ruhr.

another despised

was not within reach of

He

continued to con-

Eaker complied with the

Combined Bomber Offensive whenever

spirit of the

he could muster enough planes to

strike at the

1

sub

pens or other high-priority targets within reach of the Eighth Air Force.

But

much because

dled so

his resources

had dwin-

of the diversion of several

of his heavy-bomber groups to Africa.

of

These purloined groups came into the province Major General Lewis H. Brereton, a cocky ban-

tam

of a

Brereton,

man who commanded the Ninth Air Force. who had been in command of the Far East

Air Force

in

the

when

Philippines

the

struck,

had moved out of the PhiHppines

When

Java

fell

Burma and

Japanese into Java.

way

Brereton worked his

across

India until he arrived in Egypt late in

June 1942. His nine battered Flying Fortresses became the United States Army Middle East Air Force.

Lewis H. Brereton (here a lieutenant general), commander of the Ninth Air Force at the time it made its attack on Ploesti. (u. s. air force)

In

close

co-operation

Middle East Air Force

Rommel by bombing and convoys

with the

assisted

in

the

RAF,

the

war upon

Mediterranean supply ports

at sea. Prior to the

breakthrough

at

El

(Major General Carl Spaatz) Middle East. The missions of

to

work with RAF,

all

these air forces

were co-ordinated by Mediterranean Air under Air Chief Marshal

was

a

complex

Sir

Command

Arthur W. Tedder.

international

co-operative

It

effort

which, despite differences, worked very well.

This was because ultimate actually continued under

Americans British

served

under

under

British;

command

of

normal national

American

all

units

division.

leaders

no attempt was made to

and in-

Alamein, the force attacked the harbors of Tobruk and Benghazi, among others, and when Rommel

there

was driven out of Africa,

ness to co-operate, and mutual respect, so that de-

Benghazi

—although by

this

up bases around time the unit was called it

set

the Ninth Air Force. Brereton's forces

by then had

been joined by the Northwest African Air Forces

termix the units. At the high levels of

spite

was the

political well.

a

command

good deal of give-and-take, a

command needs

—

complexities

operations

—

came

willing-

a concession off

to

remarkably

TIDAL So a

it

WAVE

was

157

on June

that

Tedder

from

message

SOAPSUDS.

more heavy groups

East, and three

join the Ninth Air Force."

are en route to

Soapsuds was the

code name for the Ploesti bombing, to "Tidal

before to

Operation

"concerning

be mounted from the Middle

will

It

11, 1943, Brereton received

initial

changed

later

Wave." Coincidentally, exactly one year the day of Brereton's diary entry Ameri-

can bombers had taken

off to

bomb

This

Ploesti.

the "Halverson Detachment," led by

was done by

antiaircraft concentrations ringing the city

der the efficient control of Oberst Alfred Gerstenberg, a former faculty

Luftwaffe

with the fighters,

adier General Uzal G.

Taking

service there.

on June

off

at

One

fields

oil

plane was forced to turn back and a

dozen succeeded over-water

crit-

1943, Hal-

11,

verson led thirteen Liberators toward the of Ploesti.

a

in reaching the target after a

long

crossing over neutral Turkey. Al-

flight,

though accomplishing

damage, the Halverson

Httle

Detachment planes had struck

the

No American

blow against the Axis.

American

first

was

life

fighter

group

Although some were given Messerschmitts, most

ment was to have been sent to Chinese bases for bombing missions against Japan. However, delays were pressed into

three fighter groups

Me- 110. The Rumanians too could supply but the Germans did not count upon them.

Rumanian

his Liberators

—

equipped with the Me- 109 and a night

manian and Bulgarian

moment, and

of the Russian-based

stenberg's guns, several Luftwaffe units were within calling distance of the oil fields

with twenty-three B-24Ds, the Halverson Detach-

ical

member

center at Lipesk. In addition to Ger-

air

Colonel Harry A. Halverson. Originally equipped

en route found Halverson in north Africa

were un-

pilots

As commander

were saddled with

Ru-

inferior

fighters.

of 9th

Bomber Command,

Brig-

Ent was entrusted with the

detailed planning of the mission. Like Brereton,

had

his

serious reservations

about a low-level

Ent at-

commanders leadconference was held

tack; likewise, so did the group

ing the mission.

by Brereton

in

But when a

Benghazi on July

discussion whatsoever

among

the

6, he "invited no commanders" and

"stressed the necessity for absolute ruthlessness in the

immediate rehef of any Commander

who

at

any time during the training period showed lack of

lost,

although one aircraft crash-landed and four, short of fuel, landed in Turkey,

where

their crews

in-

news from

sion were lost in the excitement of the

Midway, which

still

dominated newspaper space.

Those planes which returned from

Ploesti

remained

Middle East and were absorbed into Brere-

in the

ton's

were

But the implications of the remarkable mis-

terned.

Ninth Air Force.

Colonel Jacob E. Smart, of Arnold's

staff,

had

conceived the idea of a low-level mission against Ploesti.

Surprise,

it

would

was hoped,

thus

be

achieved despite the fact that the Liberator was not designed for low-level performance. it

was assumed, coming

damage

to the oil

assumption: tacks

upon

that Ploesti,

in

A

large force,

low could deal much

complexes. There was another

except for sporadic Russian at-

no

large-scale attempt

made since the Halverson mission, and the German defenders might be caught

had been therefore off

guard

and unprepared. Although

it

was soon proved by aircrews

that the

Liberator could indeed operate at zero altitude, the

assumption that the Luftwaffe was unprepared Ploesti

was

ill

founded.

best defended targets in

It

fact,

one of the

of Europe.

The heavy

was, in

all

E. Smart, who believed that Ploesti by a surprise low-level bombing to throw what was also believed to be weak defenses. (U. S. AIR force)

Colonel Jacob at

could he off

hit

THE BIG LEAGUE

158

caught up in the grandeur of the conception. Per-

haps he was conscious of the historic impact of such an undertaking when he told the crews, should consider yourself lucky to be on sion."

More than

three

hundred of

"You mis-

this

auditors

his

would not have agreed; they were dead the following day.

The

cast for this historical

drama included a num-

ber of iron men. The leading one was undoubtedly the unpopular, but tough. Colonel

Bomb Group

leading the 98th

John R. Kane,

("Pyramiders").

hard-driving professional warrior out of Texas, carried the

nickname of

men

whom

Command, and upon

the

planning

Bomber of

the

Ent did not care for Smart's concept of the low-level mission, (u. s. air force)

Ploesti mission devolved.

—

Whether

this

ap-

toward the Germans or his own

plied to his attitude

Brigadier General Uzal G. Ent, chief of 9th

"Killer."

A

Kane

—

is disputable. That he was obmaking war upon the Germans could

or himself

sessed with

not be denied. activated

When

the

Kane rescinded

have enabled

men

in the

mission to Ploesti was the orders

98th

which would

who had completed

their tour of duty to return to the

United

This did not endear him further to his men,

States.

who had

leadership, of aggressiveness, or of complete confidence." It

had been Brereton's decision, selected from two

suggested plans, a high-level attack launched from Syria or the low-level attack from Benghazi, to at-

tempt the low attack. Once he had decided he adhered to the decision whatever his personal feeUngs

and those of the men actually given the job of it out. Even a petition signed by the group commanders and by Ent made no difference. Late

carrying

in July

Tedder had suggested postponing the attack

or canceling factories at

in

it

upon

favor of attacks

aircraft

Wiener Neustadt near Vienna. But now

Brereton opposed Tedder on the grounds that "the Ploesti refineries

war

effort

are

more important

to

the Axis

than the Messerschmitt factory and be-

cause training had almost been completed for Tidal

Wave and

now would seriously impair Bomber Command." Would a cancellation have been as bad for morale as much as knowing your commander (Ent) believed the to call

it

off

the morale of the entire

mission

would

be

a

success

"even

if

none

re-

turned"? Despite

his

misgivings

Brereton

was

certainly

John R. "Killer'' Kane (here seen as an air cadet), who would lead his "Pyramiders" {98th Bomb Group) to Ploesti despite a number of hitches, (u. s. Am force)

TIDAL

WAVE

159

never loved him. Kane was as courageous as coldly ruthless.

He was

one commander Brereton

would have never replaced.

Kane would have

he was

It

fulfilled the

cer and gentleman," but he

was

also unlikely that

requirements of

"offi-

was an amazing war

leader.

Another leading

fine

the

leader was Colonel

Leon Johnson,

Bomb Group (nicknamed

44th

"Eight Balls"), a businesslike, quietly

Lieutenant Colonel Addison Baker

eran;

93rd

Bomb

the

efficient vet-

led

the

Group, known as the "Traveling Cir-

cus," originally "Ted's Traveling Circus." This

was

honor of the commander. Colonel Edward J. Timberlake, who had preceded Baker as group

in

leader.

Timberlake was involved with the Ploesti

raid as an operational planner because of his ex-

perience with B-24 operations, most of

it

earned in

the north

African campaign. In turning over his

Traveling

Circus

to

Baker,

Timberlake

was ac-

knowledging Baker's capabilities as a superb leader.

Compton ("K.K."), a Missou376th Bomb Group ("Liberandos").

Colonel Keith K. rian,

led the

Keith K. Compton, "a real gung ho type," the

of

"Liberandos"

leader Ent

—and

would

back. (u.

commander

Bomb Group);

Compton's air force)

fly

s.

{376th in

mission

aircraft to Ploesti

Described by a former squadron mate as "a real

gung ho type," Compton had served with Timberlake and was placed by the latter in the Liberandos. This group

and General Ent would

The

Bomb

fifth

group,

fly

the

command

of

would lead the mission in

Compton's plane.

recendy

389th

activated

Group, was led by Colonel Jack Wood. These

unseasoned

men had

taken

name

the

had arrived

in

"Sky

of

Scorpions." Although a detachment of the

389th

men

Libya as early as July, most

participating in the raid

combat experience. Major Ramsay D.

would not have had any

Potts, Jr., a Tennessean,

who

was a twenty-six-year-old deputy commander in Addison Baker's 93rd. A brilliant young leader, Potts had "wanted

to fly

and wanted

to fight Hitler,"

guessed long before he was for

told

which they trained would be

this period.

that

target

During

Potts recalls that the weather at Ben-

ghazi

"was absolutely

filled

with

fine

sand

frightful."

(which

other parts of aircraft)

that

The

ruined at

air

was so

engines

times

possible to see five feet ahead. Aircraft

Leon Johnson, commanding officer of the "Eight Balls" (44th Bomb Group), a superb battle leader. (v. s. AIR force)

the

Ploesti.

it

and

was im-

became so

hot that touching them resulted in serious burns.

Dysentery sergeant.

afflicted

one and

all,

from colonel

to

THE BIG LEAGUE

160 sional

map

navigators,

of Ploesti which was studied by pilots,

and

bombardiers.

Special

were

films

made based upon the most recent, though outdated, intelligence. The smooth, confident voice of John "Tex" McCrary, an ex-newspaperman turned Air Force public relations expert, assured the crews of the weaknesses of Ploesti's defenses.

defenses are fighters will

not

strong

be flown by Rumanian pilots

thoroughly bored with the war." it

"The

fighter

and the majority of the

As

who

are

for antiaircraft,

was estimated that there were a mere "eighty AA guns and 160 light AA guns," but these

heavy

were "largely disposed for a night attack" and the "heavy ack-ack should not trouble you titude." Besides, all "the antiaircraft

by Rumanians, so there

is

at

low

al-

guns are manned

a pretty good chance

there might be incidents like there were in Italy at

the

beginning

the

of

war

—when

civilians

not get into shelters because they were

filled

could with

antiaircraft gunners."

But there were forty

(88-mm.

rifles

and ships as well besides the smaller

Scale

by

map

RAF

wicked 88s

—

as aircraft) 240 guns in all, 37-mm. and 20-mm. guns: hun-

(1:5000) of Ploesti built for the Air Force and flown

technicians in England in a week

to Africa. It

study

batteries of the

which were employed against tanks

a

in

Concordia

was transported from group truck.

Vega,

Top

(just

largest

left

of

production

group for

to

center unit

counterclockwise, in wedge-shaped area,

is

at

line)

is

Ploesti;

Xenia, one

of the smaller installations; almost directly below, near bottom, Columbia Aquila; to immediate right below is

Astra

Romana;

east of Ploesti)

to far right near center is

(i.e.,

Romana Americana, owned

directly

by Ameri-

can Standard Oil; although a target, it would not be hit during the mission. (U. s. AIR force)

But training continued despite the hardships.

dummy

target

area,

dupUcating in

full

scale

A the

dispersed installations at Ploesti, was built by engineers. Practice missions at zero altitude

upon the

target.

One

mission,

out the desert Ploesti in two minutes.

provided a beautifully

made

were made

on July 28, wiped

The

RAF

table-top, three-dimen-

Edward Timberlake, former commander ing Circus" (93rd

Bomb Group),

of the "Travel-

assisted in the plan-

ning of the Ploesti mission. The photograph was taken while the group was still stationed in England. (U.

S.

AIR force)

f

TIDAL

WAVE

161

dreds of guns ringing Ploesti and

It

many

of

them

crews, not Rumanians.

manned by Luftwaffe gun

was not deception, merely wishful thinking based best and latest intelligence reports. But it

on the

was the

basis for

tions to be five

met

one of the more horrible realiza-

in the target area

by the

men

in the

groups of Liberators.

At dawn on Sunday, August 1, the first of 178 Wingo-Wango, piloted by First Lieuten-

Liberators,

ant Brian Flavelle and carrying the mission navi-

gator Lieutenant Robert Wilson, lifted out of the

Libyan dust and pointed for the island of Corfu, a three-hour

flight

across the Mediterranean.

At

this

point the mission would bear northeast across the

mountains of Albania and Yugoslavia and eventually the

Danube

River. This led into the Wallachian

The

plain and Ploesti.

who made

it

both

trip

would cover, a distance

ways,

for those

roughly

of

men who would fly Group. (RAYMOND

Aircrew:

Bomb

93rd

the mission

to

Ploesti;

wier)

c.

twenty-seven hundred miles.

The cumbrous, len

were installed

seemed the

slab-sided "pregnant cows," swol-

with fuel for the long trip in

the

bomb bay

(additional of

to struggle to rise off the ground.

extra fuel

meant

sacrificing

tanks

each plane),

Although

pay load

— 1000-

pound and 500-pound bombs as well as incendiaries each Liberator carried more than 4000 pounds of

—

explosives:

a total of 311

the

striking

entire

tons of destruction in

were over-

planes

All

force.

them made heavier by extra nose guns (in formation lead planes which were to attack flak-gun installations on their bomb runs) and

some

loaded,

of

armored crew ground

stations

protecting

men from

the

fire.

The bombs

carried delayed fuzes; the

first

two

waves would thus drop bombs timed to detonate after a period of from one to six hours. This would

make

it

safe for the planes

bombs,

their

theoretically,

which followed to drop without flying into the

bursts of the preceding aircraft or through the fires the early

bombs might have

set.

There were seven

major target areas. Five were situated

at

Ploesti;

another was at Brazi, which was almost adjacent to Ploesti

was

at

and

just to the south; the seventh target

Campina, about

eight

northwest of

miles

Ploesti.

Aboard

1725 Americans

RAF

Flight

Lieutenant George C. Barwell, a gunnery expert,

Pre-mission pep talk: General Brereton addresses the

376th

the 178 Liberators were

and one stowaway, an Englishman.

ry Bomb Group

before

its

men boarded

their Lib-

Curious portent: as he spoke a sudden wind came up and Brereton was blown off the platform, (u. s. air force) erators for

had been given turret

gunner

Ploesti.

Appold, leading the

unofficial permission to fly as top-

in

Liberandos

the

B

plane of Major

Section

(376th).

of

the

Norman C.

leading group,

Led by Compton,

the

162

Bomb Group

376th

put up twenty-nine B-24s; at

head of the formation flew Flavelle's Wingo-

the

Wango, leading

the

bombers

Tucked

to Ploesti.

into

was Compton's plane, Teggie

the 376th formation

Ann, carrying the mission command

General

pilot,

Ent.

Following the Liberandos came Baker's Traveling

(93rd)

Circus

with

thirty-nine

Pyramiders

Killer Kane's

(98th)

tawny (almost moth-eaten

appearance)

in

Bomb

the Eight Balls, Johnson's 44th

up with the

thirty-seven bombers; behind

Sky Scorpions

twenty-six

two

into

(389th),

had

and

B-24s;

Group, came

Johnson were

by Wood, with

led

Each group, some divided

Liberators. forces,

aircraft

with forty-seven

assigned targets;

its

were

all

scheduled to approach their targets in the order in

which they had taken

off.

A

maintained in order not to stations.

the off

Unknown

to the

radio silence was

strict

alert

German

men aboard

Germans were aware

detection

the Liberators,

of a large force taking

from Libya, although the destination was not

known.

"The very

first

news of the

Ploesti operation

was

bad," Brereton noted in his diary. Kickapoo, which

had taken

with Kane's Pyramiders, developed

off

trouble shortly after pilot First Lieutenant Robert

Nespor had

it

air-borne.

With flame shooting out

of an engine, Nespor turned around

back for the

field.

and headed

In coming in he was forced to

attempt a landing upon

Wingo-Wango, Brian

has

Flavelle's Liberator,

into the Mediterranean,

fallen

lead navigator Robert Wilson with

silently

"Tidal Wave's"

taking it.

(RAYMOND

C.

WIER)

runway still obscured by clouds of red desert dust. Kickapoo came in, settled onto the runway, roughly bounced along, and

rammed into men survived

a concrete telephone pole.

way.

its

Only two

the burning wreck.

But the armada,

on

a

From

led by

time

Wingo-Wango, continued to

time over

the

Medi-

terranean a Liberator here and there feathered a propeller

—

a sign of engine

malfunction

out of the formation, jettisoned

—wheeled

bombs and

fuel into

rurred

in

smoke

rose

lost plane. Only a tall column of from the Mediterranean marking the

the

The formation way and it did, wingman. First Lieutenant Guy

spot where the aircraft had plunged.

was supposed

to continue

except for Flavelle's lovine.

dipped

Unable his

on

leave

to

the

B-24 down and

the sea, and headed back for Africa. Before they

hoping to find survivors to

came

rafts.

within

sight

of

Corfu,

ten

Liberators

had

gone; six of these came from Kane's Pyramiders.

The remaining 167 planes were bearing down on Corfu when the lead plane began peculiarly.

As

the other craft in

A

to

behave

of

harm's way,

stricken

whom

ship,

he

over the spot

circled

he might drop

But there was no one, and then

to his

dismay

lovine found that he was unable to get the heavy

plane

back up

to

formation

altitude.

There was

nothing to do but head back to Benghazi.

The mission navigator was

Section scattered

Wingo-Wango swooped and dived, climbed and dived directly into the sea. Even during these shocking moments radio silence was not violated and no one could know what had ocout

—

its

the deputy navigator in

was

Brewery Wagon, moved

navigator,

lost in Flavelle's plane;

in

lovine's.

John Palm,

into the lead spot; his

young William Wright, was now

navigator of the mission to Ploesti.

chief

WAVE

TIDAL

Now

163

165 of the original 178 planes turned north-

east over Corfu. Spotters,

uncertain of the for-

still

Compton and

son, as copilot to

way

mation's destination, kept close watch on the B-24s

over Targoviste on the

and telephoned various Luftwaffe stations in the area. But there was some suspicion in Bucharest

Mistaking Targoviste for Floresti,

that the target might be Ploesti.

Thompson

The formation had hugged leg,

but as

would

tains

peaked

necessitate

first

The mountains

climb.

a

nine thousand

to

the sea for the

approached Albania the Pindus Moun-

it

but a build-up of

feet,

cloud massed up to seventeen thousand

feet.

Comp-

ton led the 376th through at sixteen thousand feet,

by

followed

through

Baker's

93rd.

Kane

elected

go

to

twelve thousand feet leading his 98th,

at

which had spread out according

carrying mission

leader Ent as a passenger. Brewery

Wagon

passed

to the final IP, Floresti;

here the most fatal incident of the mission occurred.

to

make

Compton ordered

the southeast turn for the final

Wagon continued

run on the target. Palm's Brewery

on the correct

flight

path, but

all

planes following

saw the command ship turn and turned in train. Brewery Wagon wavered, seemed about to join in

wrong

turn, but convinced that Wright was corPalm continued directly on to the target alone. But Teggie Ann, meanwhile, pointed both the 376th

the

rect,

and 93rd

at

Bucharest instead of Ploesti.

procedure for

to

passing through cloud, and was followed by John-

and Wood's 389th Groups. At sixteen

son's 44th

thousand

a

feet

wind hurried the two lead

tail

groups toward Ploesti while at twelve thousand the three other groups

Thus when the

the

sight of

Radio

Liberators.

force

this

time also

to

Kane, Johnson, and Wood's

silence

men

emerged from

finally

and Baker's formations

made

reassemble for the

the

seen

groups

Compton's

cumulus,

were out of

bucked winds through the soup.

five

in the

it

impossible

for

attack.

By

final

American bombers had

enemy planes hovering below them, unable

to

climb to the height at which the bombers flew without proper oxygen equipment. These were Bulgarian pilots in antiquated fighters. realized

that

all

And

nothing.

with

two lead groups, attack

upon

Leon Johnson then

hopes for surprise had come to

all

the

three

groups

trailing

the

chances of making a concerted

the seven target areas were likewise

lost.

About

sixty-five

miles

west of Ploesti lay the It

was

here that the formations were to assume attack

alti-

first

IP

Point), the city of Pitesti.

(Initial

hundred

tude, about five

feet,

and the 389th would

leave the other groups to attack the gets.

The

final

thirteen miles northwest of Ploesti.

east

at

groups

Floresti in

Campina

tar-

IP was the town of Floresti, about

Turning south-

would bring the four remaining

over Ploesti for their low-level bombing

runs.

Brewery Wagon, the lead plane of the 376th Group, carrying William Wright, the new mission

Ramsay

among the first to realize that the lead Compton and Ent had made a wrong turn,

Potts,

plane with

broke radio silence

navigator, continued on past Pitesti. Slightly behind

Potts

was Teggie Ann, flown by Captain Ralph Thomp-

in

was forced

to

warn oj the

error.

But too

to turn also because of being

by the formation, (u.

s.

air force)

late;

boxed

THE BIG LEAGUE

164

Major Ramsay

leading

Potts,

B

Section of the

come too

93rd, realized instantly that the turn had

Major Norman Appold

soon. So did

was too much

It

radio

silence

—

it

of the 376th.

men and

for

both

no

longer

they broke

mattered

—

shouting,

"Not here!" (Appold) and "Mistake!" (Potts). The latter hoped to break away from the formation, but was "boxed in and had no choice but to turn."

The two

lead groups were

now heading

into Ger-

—and

stenberg's most potent flak-gun concentration

Rumania, a

for the capital city of

steeples of Bucharest

came

in the racing Liberators,

the ground, for

which they had been

To

into view.

now around

did not at

it

mili-

Within minutes the spires and

consequence.

tary

no

city of

men

the

fifty feet

above

look like the target

all

briefed. Alerted

gun crews

ran to their 88s and alarms rang in fighter bases

Why

around.

for miles

tack Bucharest

and German

was

,

Americans should

waiting fighter aircraft.

The

at-

Rumanian

ran to his gun station

alike

been prematurely

the

a total mystery, but

or

Battle of Ploesti

to

of

wrong

the

and Compton

turn.

fol-

Ploesti

But

who

reacted

rest

ahead instead of the stacks of

stood

first.

his

to

—

shell.

until

struck

(RAYMOND

C.

in

the

nose

by

a

German

.88

WIER)

So was, by then, Ent

Teggie Ann.

in

—

thanks to the navigation of William Wright, whom Ent overruled and which continued "as briefed" for

lowed the 376th on the wrong course, was aware also

Ploesti begins: the antiaircraft guns,

had

ignited.

Addison Baker, leading the 93rd, which had

The payment for

having been forewarned by the wrong turn, are ready for Brewery Wagon, which had not made the error

was Baker

it

Seeing the church spires of Bucha-

left,

Ploesti,

without breaking radio

which silence

Baker executed an almost right-angle turn toward With near miraculous skill and remark-

the target.

able discipline the rest of the Traveling Circus fol-

lowed: Lieutenant Colonel George ing

A

Potts, with

Now

S.

Brown leadRamsay

Section swinging to Baker's right, and

in

B

Section,

wheeling to Brown's

right.

a broad frontal formation the 93rd ap-

proached Ploesti from the south instead of from the west as to

the

it

had been

navigators

loomed up out of

briefed. Ploesti looked strange

and bombardiers

as

its

stacks

the ground.

The one plane on the correct course, John Palm's Brewery Wagon, all but embraced the earth as it charged for the target. Almost on Ploesti Brewery

Wagon took

a direct .88 hit in the nose, killing

young William Wright, who had led the formations

The 93rd, having swung back on course because of Potts's realization of the navigational error of Teggie

Ann, passes by a burning Liberator.

(RAYMOND

C.

WIER)

TIDAL

WAVE

165 SO

and bombardier Second Lieutenant

brilliantly,

Robert W. Merrell. Palm too had been

was

right leg

gone

—two

Half

of them gushing flame

—

was noth-

there

do but salvo the bombs and

ing to

his

hit;

but blown away. With three engines

all

try

land.

to

shock upon learning that his leg remained

in

Palm had

attached to him by the merest shred,

been unaware of the attack of a Messerschmitt on

Wagon

Brewery

as

came crunching

it

the

into

ground. Copilot William F. Love foamed the engines

and the distressed plane came

who

Palm,

burning.

without further

in

had

later

right

his

leg

am-

putated below the knee, and the seven other sur-

A

view

from the cockpit of Kenneth O. Dessert's from an oil tank. To the

Rumanians and

vivors were taken prisoner by the

Liberator; flame billows up right, in the

lower left-hand corner of the windscreen

be seen Hell's Wench, carrying Group Commander Addison Baker and mission planning assistant John J. Jerstad. Struck by an .88 shell and burning, the plane continued on its run over the target and crashed; no one survived, not even the two men who parachuted from the burning plane. (Raymond c. wier)

Germans.

may

Having turned

376th

for Ploesti, leaving the

on the wrong course

to

still

93rd

Baker's

Bucharest,

ran into the muzzles of flak guns awaiting them.

The alarms which had

alerted the capital's defenses

around the true

also quickened the rings of guns target

Baker flew

area.

directly

the planes were so low that

an inferno:

into

gun crews simply bore-

sighted and used instantaneous fuzes. So

John

bore

pilot,

flew

was

that

Jerstad, one of the important assistants to

J.

Timberlake

first

it

Wench, Baker's plane, with young Major

Hell's

in the

obstacles into

planning of the mission, as co-

down upon

the target area.

was the balloon barrage.

One

Hell's

of the

Wench

which luckily snapped, freeing

a cable,

the balloon. But then an .88

shell

smashed

the nose of the Liberator and

more

hits followed,

into

the

wings

and

the

Wench proceeded toward it

would not remain

Aflame,

cockpit.

the target; but

Hell's

Baker knew

bomb

aloft with the

into

load and

he jettisoned the explosives. The plane continued leading the rest of the 93rd toward the target.

A

chute or two blossomed out of Hell's Wench, and it

appeared that Baker had attempted to bring

up high enough altitude

Hell's

to enable the

from which

Wench,

still

men

have

to

it

sufficient

to drop.

burning, continued to lead the

force into the target area, attempting to clear the

stacks which spiked

Lieutenant Colonel Addison Baker,

93rd Group, here photographed public address system,

commander

of the

in his office using the

while the group was

still

sta-

tioned in England. Baker died in the crash of Hell's

Wench and was awarded

of Honor for his role in the mission to Ploesti. (u. s. air force)

a

Medal

it

up

into

its

appeared to be completely

area although

still

path.

afire

To

in

observers

the cockpit

seemingly under control. About

three hundred feet above the ground Hell's

suddenly veered into the earth with flame.

Baker had succeeded

in

a

Wench

splashing

bringing his group

THE BIG LEAGUE

166 over the target, but everyone

men who had been

—

—

including

few

the

doomed plane

able to leave the

Those who followed placed the

bombs

first

into

The first bomb fell from Walter Stewart's Utah Man, only survivor of Baker's three-plane wave. However, the bombs rained down the Ploesti target area.

targets assigned not to the 93rd, but to the

44th

(still

coming up, though

as briefed,

late, but,

company with Kane's 98th). Liberators had

in

begun dropping out of the force before Ploesti was reached as point-blank antiaircraft fire smashed into the low-flying aircraft.

Black funeral pyres dotted

the route to the target. Gunners in the aircraft en-

gaged in duels with the enemy machine gunners

and

Some

crews.

antiaircraft

from the planes

fire

of the machine-gun

the unimportant tank

ignited

farms, smudging the area with leaping flames and

smoke,

black

dense,

introducing

hazard into the affrighted It

(of

the

thirty-nine)

original

planes swept through

more

one

just

an hour and barely

others smashing to earth in

One

of

wingmen,

Potts's

did not

More than half come out of the

balloon cables;

off

the

ground.

Their

fiery

in

those few

attacking planes

of the

target

some were

area.

by

hit

Some

flak

slammed

or

into the ground.

Hidden guns popped out of fake haystacks special mobile flak nests

or

on railway cars with drop

sides. Liberators trailed sheets of

into fields of

flame and crashed

wheat or corn even before arriving

rose over

various obstacles

it

to skid

Potts,

in

until

into a clear-

it

managed

burst into flame. Half the crew

Rumanian air

which had vaulted into the

fighters,

from near Bucharest,

harassed 93rd Liberators.

emerged out of the

above

Rumanian

little

but scraping the street)

(all

Apparently

aircraft.

roared

Liberator

the

Ploesti with the

of Potts's B-24s

target area, a low-winged

plane clung to the big tress,

on the

attacks

initiated

As one

the

streets

into

firing

monoin dis-

of

underneath

fighter

its

belly.

With a massive boom the American bomber crashed into

the

women's

prison,

in

which not only the

crew of the plane but around

sixty prisoners died

trapped in the flames.

Potts

led

Ploesti, he

remnants of the 93rd away

the

was on a

near-collision course with

now coming

planes of the 376th,

and Compton had faced the

in

Duchess, led

the

93rd

final

element. Target Force 3, into fumid Ploesti. Deeply

wrong turn had "wiped out our

bomb. Ent

to

frightful

had led the force into a wrong

truth:

they

During the

turn.

run from Targoviste to the outskirts of Bucharest they had, indeed, "served their time in hell." there

mand

was more

to

And

come. Ent spoke into the com-

channel and ordered the 376th away from

Bucharest, turning north and following a railroad linking the capital with Ploesti.

The

question

now

was: Should they circle to come in from the briefed course or should they

bomb from

a completely un-

familiar approach?

This vexing question was answered

when

serving the savagery of the antiaircraft

at the target.

Ramsay

where

As

other gunfire; some, flying through the turbulence of earlier planes, simply

painfully

Worthy Long managed

to get out of the plane.

from

ended and complex actions occurred minutes.

ing,

thirty-four

more than two hundred

at

flame, pilot

Bomb Group

as the

93rd

attack could only have taken minutes, but lifetimes

struck

crashes.

air.

was an unimaginable scene

miles

gashing

fiery,

Jersey Bounce, with nose shot away, engine trailing

died.

upon

some continuing on but

the

men

had been

to hit "targets of opportunity." flying north, directly into

Ent, ob-

fire,

ordered

The B-24s

heavy

flak,

and

most then swerved away to the

east,

chance for a successful mission," Potts knew his

whatever targets they could

According to the

small force would not be

original plan the target of

fearful that

the

able

to

hit

its

target.

Having weathered a murderous sequence of flak guns, it would be difficult enough to find an alternate target.

Potts and his

assigned

target

but

in their line of flight

target in

to

Kane's

wingmen turned with

Astro

directly

began dropping bombs;

the original planning

98th.

to find their

Romana

this

had been assigned

The planes behind and around

Duchess began shredding parts of fuselage or wing,

Romana Americana

find.

to strike at

Compton's planes was the

refinery

—

deliberately

selected

Germans took over) American ownership. There must be no because of

its

onetime

(i.e.,

before the

favoritism displayed in the Ploesti attack. Because

of the confusion, as well as the heavy flak reception, the

Romana Americana complex was

not hit at

all

that day.

Major Norman Appold

led his five Liberators of

WAVE

TIDAL

167

do everything. Appold, however, was not in doubt. He had selected his target and went for it; blind to

see to the rest.

His

bombers groped through

the hail of fire

and

good fortune would have five

smoke and dropped their bombs directly into the target area. Only then did he lead his planes up and over Potts's planes rushing away from Ploesti. Appold turned turret

engaged

also and, while Barwell in the top in duels

with various low-lying gun

away from

positions, pulled

the nightmare in noon-

time Ploesti.

The other 376th

seeking targets of op-

aircraft,

portunity, scattered in sweeping turns to the west of Ploesti.

Compton's Teggie Ann salvoed into a

small complex of buildings, not one of the briefed

Other planes followed

targets.

dropping their

suit,

loads to the north and west of Ploesti before veering south near Floresti

—where they converged with

Jack Wood's Sky Scorpions, which had bombed at

Campina.

It

Norman C. Appold, who had like Ramsay Polls Teggie Ann had made a wrong turn, but who

realized

Despite

this,

Appold bombed

portunity, Concordia Vega. (u.

s.

IP and correct turning

at Floresti, the third

pressed

on toward Ploesti and saw a mass confusion over the target.

was

point for the run into Ploesti, that Kane's 98th and

his target of op-

dividing line between the two forces

was a

armed

ran

train

flak

along

this

railroad

A

track running from Floresti to Ploesti.

air force)

The

Johnson's 44th began their massed approach.

track,

heavily firing

at

Kane's Pyramiders to the north and Johnson's Eight the 376th directly into Ploesti instead of spreading

Balls to the south as the

out as did the other planes. Appold had selected

came upon

what appeared portance

(it

assigned

to

Baker's

proached on the to see other

an untouched target of im-

to be

was: Concordia Vega, which had been 93rd).

bomb

B-24s

run,

flying

But even

he ap-

as

Appold was disconcerted

through the smoke directly

toward him; these were the survivors of Potts's force leaving the target.

But there was more

for

Appold to see: as he bore down on Concordia Vega more B-24s appeared to be converging upon him. These were Killer Kane's Pyramiders, somewhat

late after joining

cloud mass, and If

up upon emerging from the

now on

how

carefully planned military operation could go

thanks to the simple introduction of Ploesti

became

There

is

human

a

awry error,

Army

axiom: when

in

doubt

down upon

their

Ploesti targets,

James Posey, also of the 44th, led an additional twenty-one Eight Ball Liberators toward Colonel

his

southwest

of

Here was located the Creditul Minier

re-

finery,

about

Brazi,

target,

Ploesti.

miles

five

production center for high-octane aviation

fuel.

Leading

V

in

for

Victory,

John H. Diehl, Posey swept wave. Diehl

had

but

target area.

to

the

pull

bombs

piloted

by veteran

into Brazi in the

plane

the fell

up

precisely

first

avoid

to

into

the

Brazi had not been struck by any of

the earlier planes

which had scattered over

Ploesti

seeking targets. This part of the mission occurred exactly

a classic.

a classic

forces, flying abreast,

While Kane's Pyramiders and sixteen of Johnson's Eight Balls bore

chimneys,

the proper target run.

ever there was a demonstration of just

two

Ploesti.

as

planned

—and

the

totally destroyed at a cost of

Brazi

refinery

two Liberators.

was

i5^i^ that

without trying to get our targets.

far

Kane had come

bomb

to

.

.

,"

and he would

Ploesti

not leave until he had. So he led his decimated

One

Pyramiders into the inferno.

mond us up.

looked out of the side windows and saw

I

the others flying through [like]

to

flying

through

heaven when we "It

battle

son

I

artist's

them on

conception of an

"We

flew through

ble to

and others exploding.

fire

target

led the

way

into Ploesti.

The

heat was so intense

arm was

caped

from the

Of

Kane out the Pyramiders

proached further

was

Ploesti,

totally

As

different.

seemed

it

that

in

inferno

it

was

flying

the forty-one planes which

the target run

and

hit

singed;

an engine

and when the smoke- and flame-blacked B-24 engines.

of the remaining Eight Balls

of

indescriba-

area with his fixed front guns and

Hail Columbia also received a

fate

It's

sheets

some

Hail Columbia, churned

at the controls of

up the

at his attack altitude that his left

But the

air

anyone who wasn't there."

Kane,

Kane's Pyramiders come in over Ploesti to find that have already been hit by Baker's Traveling Circus, (jerry joswick: u. s. air force)

was

It

have ever experienced," John-

told Brereton.

later

flame.

guess we'll go straight

I

We've had our purgatory."

die.

was more Hke an than anything

smoke and

hell.

of flame, and airplanes were everywhere,

their targets

Ray-

of his crew,

B. Hubbard, recalled that the "fire wrapped

at Floresti,

of the smoke.

the assigned target zone,

on

es-

three

had begun

only nineteen followed

But their bombs lay in compounding the destruc-

they ap-

would be

they

hindered by murky rain clouds low over

The 98th

Bomb Group

flies

over an already burning

the target area. Several Liberators in both Kane's

Astra Romana. Stacks in the heavy smoke were as

and Johnson's forces had been damaged by the

much a danger

flak

train,

and the dark cloud was but one more

down upon

unforeseen hitch. But as they charged Ploesti

it

became

was

clear that the "rain"

in fact

smoke, the effusion of the bombings by the 93rd

Group.

This

smoke,

height, not only

now

rising

bombing

above

added turbulence, but also secreted

chimneys, barrage balloon cables, and bracing wires of the chimneys. Intense flame, too, shot into the air intermittently It

was

could targets,

throughout the entire target area.

at this point that

both Johnson and Kane course

and

obscured by smoke and

livid

have

swerved

had already been

off

struck.

no one would question that the thought so

fled.

Their

with flame,

They could turn back and

their decision. It

much

is

unlikely

as flickered through the

minds of these two quite opposite men. Johnson expressed their attitudes all

when he

agreed ahead of time

that

said that

we

"we had

weren't going

as

German

flak.

(jerry joswick:

u.

s.

air force)

on by the

laid

tion

There had

93rd.

distracted

been, however, just one

more hazard

—

the explosions

of the delayed-action bombs.

Johnson's "White Five" target force of sixteen Liberators

smoke,

flew

Traveling Circus.

of

The

the

so

Baker's

of

visit

black

of

curtain

earlier

great B-24s, twisting and turn-

ing to avoid balloon cables like

a

into

directly

evidence

and chimneys, wallowed

many winged whales

a fiery sea. With

in

shocking regularity the leviathans foundered to the

bottom of the murky ocean, spurting flame.

Of

the

"White Five"

sixteen

planes

red, bloodlike

which

entered

(Colombia Aquila refinery)

the

target

area only seven, with Johnson's Suzy-Q in the lead,

came

out.

But leaving the area of the target did not conclude the nightmare, for both Kane's and Johnson's survivors

Luftwaffe all

the

—

came under severe fighter attack mainly men in Me- 109s. As he raced away with

power

his three straining engines could

Hail Columbia was

by

mus-

ter,

Kane's

fire,

with punctures in the wing (with a resultant

laced

fighter

Leon in,

buckled wing spar), the

tip

of

a

propeller

Johnson's

only to find

it

only seven

44th

Columbia Aquila,

approaches

burning; of the sixteen planes that flew

came

out.

(jerry joswick:

u.

s.

air force)

shot

away, and a holed blade on another. Knowing he could never

make

it

back over the planned withdrawal route to Benghazi, Kane throwing out

prus,

One the

of the targets hit "as briefed," Steaua objective

of

the

green

The Sky Scorpions (389th) were

{389th

s.

Cy-

air force)

led with only

Wood to their target at Campina ("Red Target"). Wood too had inadthe slightest hitch

u.

set coiu-se for

excess weight on the way.

Romana,

"Sky Scorpions"

Group) led by Jack Wood. (jerry joswick:

all

by Jack

vertendy led his formation into a wrong turn; he corrected

it

by a smoothly executed turnabout and

a vault over a small ridge.

two

forces.

Wood

John A. Brooks, forward

firing

The Scorpions came

leading a dozen B-24s and

his deputy, leading seventeen.

led the forces

untouched Steaua

Romana com-

Like Posey's attack upon Brazi, Jack Wood's

plex.

attack

upon Campina was "as

had the

briefed." His group

least losses of all involved.

nine attacking planes, six were

flown only

Of

lost,

the twenty-

one of them

by Second Lieutenant Lloyd Hughes, the of the Ploesd mission below the rank of

man

major

to receive the

Medal

of Honor.

Hughes's Liberator had been struck by it

approached the drop point.

fuel

With

Wood

guns chattering.

into the until then

in in

Major

poured out of a ruptured

A

flak

as

wide stream of

bomb bay

tank, twist-

— THE BIG LEAGUE

170

dos (376th), they came under fighter attack. From the dropping of the

Vagabond King, less

bomb by Utah Man

first

before noon, until the

last

—placed

just

by the 389th's

John B. McCormick

piloted by

than a half hour had elapsed. But for the survi-

most of them spread across the skies of Rumania with damaged planes, wounded, dying, and dead aboard, there were still the fighters to contend vors,

with until the of fuel.

German and Rumanian

Keeping the

tattered,

air-borne was an epic in

The

On

paper

would be

all

targets

all

survivors

itself.

gone so completely

plan, having

longer held.

planes ran out

scorched Liberators

of the

it

astray,

that

and

that

simultaneously

hit

no

had been intended

attack

should

return

to

the

Libyan bases together. Thus would they be able to

defend each other in formation with massed guns.

The withdrawal from

Ploesti

was not orderly

as dif-

ferent groups in various stages of distress left the target areas.

Some

planes were badly

damaged and

could not keep up with a formation, others came

away under

An

fighter attack.

attempt was

made

to

form ragged groupings

Lieutenant Lloyd Hughes (as an air cadet), one of the Sky Scorpions who did not leave the target area;

Hughes was awarded mission, (u.

Medal of Honor

the

the

for

air force)

s.

ing and flashing under the big plane like a liquid

ribbon of fuze.

Now

on

bomb

his

run,

Hughes did

not attempt to land or to evade the wall of flame

which stood

in

the

Liberator was set target,

pure

but fire

the

The bombs

stricken

plane,

a

the

left

streaming from

chance. Obviously

still

an instant Hughes's

In

path.

afire.

fell

white wing,

into

the

sheet

of

had no

under control, Hughes seemed

headed for a stream bed for an emergency landing.

A

bridge loomed in the path of the burning plane,

but the plane rose above the obstruction, lowered again

The

—and then

tering molten its

a wing

brushed the riverbank.

tip

f*.

blazing Liberator whirled across the earth, spat-

wreckage and scarring the meadow

scorching death throes;

all

but two

men

in

in the

"Getting the hell out": a Liberator at treetop level

plane died in the crash.

The Sky Scorpions were the Ploesti

area,

and

in

the

last

addition

to

to

bomb

rushes in

dodging the

target-of-opportunity seekers of Compton's Liberan-

away from

burning

Ploesti.

Some bombers

nearly scraped the earth and returned with cornstalks in their

bomb

bays.

(jerry joswick:

u.

s.

air force)

TIDAL

WAVE

171

Some

for the sake, of survival.

damaged,

down

throttled

not badly

aircraft,

remain with

to

others

which could not keep up and thus became easy targets for fighters. A trail of ammunition belts, radios, guns, seats

—anything no

which added weight

longer required and

to a struggling plane

—followed

the Liberators from Ploesti to the sea.

The

least

hurt groups, the 376th (Liberandos) and the 389th

(Sky Scorpions), managed to form up and head for

home

over the planned route, although not as a

single unit. hit

Some

of the 44th and 98th (the worst

Eight Balls and Pyramiders) joined together for

the flight back, but the Pyramiders' leader, in tow,

Kane, with other planes It

made

a shorter flight than to Africa, although not

was

without

its

could not

Bulgarian mountain barrier. Planes which

make

it

even that far landed in neutral

Turkey, where crews were interned. In Liberators

came down

in

all,

at Allied

It was Columbia

came

bases in Malta, Sicily, or Cyprus.

nighttime into the

Although the

seven

Turkey, and one ditched

into the sea off the Turkish coast; twenty-three

down

John

for Cyprus.

flare

Kane

before

RAF

brought

Hail

base at Nicosia, Cyprus.

path was lighted, the exhausted

iM^JV In the fires at

wake of "Tidal Wave," Rumanians fighting the Ploesti. Although smoke and flame were imthe

pressive,

attack

did

knock out

not

(u.

iron

man

s.

the

target.

AIR force)

brought the wheezing Liberator in a

little

which

short, snagging the landing gear in a ditch

the British, with characteristic perversity, placed at

end of runways. The main wheels snapped and the Liberator came in on its nose and with tail threatening to rise and upend them. Kane and

either

John

copilot

prevent

down

S.

flipping

as

the

Young onto

battered

along the runway. to see

prised

ahead. first

pulled

on the controls to The tail came

back.

their

aircraft bellied

Bumping

along,

screechingly

Kane was

sur-

two wheels and a propeller racing

The plane

twisted

to

a halt,

and

for

time in more than twelve hours, Killer

the

Kane

left his seat.

On

the return flight to Benghazi

lost to the last fighter attacks

two Journey's end: a Liberator sets

down

after the Ploesti mission,

air force)

(u.

s.

in north Africa

aircraft flying in

never came out

—

and

more planes were fell

into the sea;

formation entered a cloud and

they had collided. Finally, after

nearly twelve hours of waiting, the

men

at

Benghazi

THE BIG LEAGUE

172 heard the

of the survivors approaching. Brere-

first

Compton and

ton awaited the arrival of

whom when

Ent, from

he had had no word since around noon,

had

the simple message "Mission Successful"

been radioed from

estimates, Brereton noted in his diary, "While the

WAVE operation was extremely successful, was somewhat disappointed because we failed to hit White No. 1 and 2 at all." White No. 1 was TIDAL I

Romana Americana,

Ploesti.

In the deepening African twilight the giant

bomb-

whining from

strain,

ers fluttered back, their engines

in

been

fact,

American-leased

the

section

was Concordia Vega, which had, by the determined Appold with

of Ploesti; No. 2 hit

had not swerved away,

had

the planes themselves whistling because of buUet-

his five planes that

and flak-riddled surfaces. Planes came

the others of the 376th, to seek targets of opportu-

without

in

some crash-landed wounded aboard. When the dispirited

as

brakes, without proper control,

nity.

Brereton assigned his discomfiture to the fact

with dead and

that

the

Ent revealed

to Brereton the story of the mission,

had no triumph on

the latter realized that he

The be known hands.

eyewitnesses

had been hard

his

would not

to Ploesti

reconnaissance photographs were

until

From

taken.

damage

extent of

was

it

clear that Ploesti

so that Ent's curiously premature

hit,

and wildly optimistic "Mission Successful" message

seemed

landed

at

in,

men and aircraft as Ramsay Potts brought

Benghazi.

Duchess down and

his feet

had barely touched the

ground before he was teUing Timberlake of a

mili-

164 Liberators

target area,

41 had been

had

which

60 per cent

a

As

per cent, and while crashing aircraft) did

Germany's duced

An

the

over Bulgaria. Thus the total plane

(And

added up to 54.

those which

of

returned to Benghazi, barely 30 were

The

final

death

Air Force

to

wounded was in

too the loss of toll

files,

flyable.)

still

damaged

to

310.

The number

given as 54 (3 of

whom

war

in

facilities,

a half hour's work was, indeed,

Honor

of

awarding of no

(the highest

less

number

high.

than

son

and

John

Kane

— and

the

than

This

five

for any

action) to Ploesti raiders, to the quick

was

Medals

single

air

—Leon John—Addison

dead

Baker, John Jerstad, and Lloyd Hughes.

On August

4,

1943,

When

following the preliminary

closer to

40

weU

as

(as

facilities for

and

labor in restored

Ploesti, instead of being

as potent as ever. It

was

Foggia,

at

made upon

the heavily defended

the U. S. Fifteenth Air Force, based

Italy,

was formed and powerfully armed

with B-17s and B-24s, Ploesti could be struck en

masse from high

American

bombers

to

level.

But Ploesti was never its

heavy

By

flak

time,

that

planes

fighter

and from the

could

to

be an easy

the end of

August 1944, a oil

fields

little

It

target, with

oil

supply.

over a year after

in

and occupied the

had taken thousands of bombers (and a

further expenditure of

In short, the

Tidal

the

did stop functioning. In

September the Russians moved ruin.

long-

and many men died

attempting to put a stopper to Hitler's

By

too,

escort

target.

concentration,

Tidal Wave, the

Rumania.

cost to the Ninth Air Force for less

implicit in the

also,

fin-

not until late in the spring of 1944 that any more

of

were

in hos-

Rumania. More than 100 prisoners,

spent the rest of the

The

damage was bombs and fire knock out some

knocked out of the war, was

range

of the Ploesti raid, according

came

initially

had

540 men.

Turkey), but that number plus 20 lay

pitals in

and we are

.

make up the loss. With slave Germans very quickly

attempts could be

mean

.

supply. In fact, Ploesti had never pro-

oil

target.

This would

.

had

it

who had

to full capacity, so that other units could be

action.

Turkey)

supply."

oil

four to six months, no "serious dent" was put in

sea of Flavelle's plane near Corfu and the collision

loss

Germany's

in

"Another such victory

accident of Kickapoo, the inexplicable dive into the

in the clouds

had been reached and

figure

ished."

plentiful supply, the

enemy

lost to

he believed

Still,

been another victorious warrior, Pyrrhus, said,

had

he

destruction

cent

reported centuries before by Plutarch,

the

through other causes, such as the takeoff

lost

per

had "put a serious dent

gained

additional 14 (including the 8 interned in

were

75

to

had not been achieved.

activated to

tary nightmare.

the

65

for

In truth, the extent of

began to come

toll

intimated by the condition of

Of

that

less ironic.

But the ravages of the they

hoped

more than 350 bombers

men who undertook and

Wave had

lost).

carried through

attempted the impossible. Their

true achievement could be

measured only

in cour-

age and not decisive results. For the tragedy of Ploesti

is

that there

were no decisive

results.

8

SCHWEINFURT O-

VER another panacea

ball

target,

bearings,"

Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris exclaimed with undisguised scorn, pletely

"the

target

experts went

mad." The outspoken Briton,

it

is

com-

true,

was

speaking from the vantage point of hindsight, but

he was no resisted

less critical

all

which had

and skeptical

suggestions,

pleas,

initiated

with

the

He

at the time.

Germany's supply of

ball

bearings, so es-

the

portance (in which rejection he was not correct),

stroyed

the

effect

would not be prophesied."

Schweinfurt were entirely de-

Bomber Command,

letter

of the

Combined Bomber

the

spirit

Offensive,

a

major objective of which was the crippling of the

German

aircraft industry,

prepared to spring upon

Schweinfurt.

rectly

VIII

Bomber Command (more corBomber Command) had, since its initial

modest mission to the Rouen-Sotteville marshaling yards

(August 17, 1942), concentrated

its

slowly

submarine pens, besides various industrial targets in

and would therefore be

Bomber Command leader, own chiefs of the Air Staff, city

difficult to find at night, that

was heavily defended, and that even several would achieve,

in

his firm but

in general

airfields.

By

it

composed mainly

against

more recent

the

American of the

formations,

and the

Liberators, tactics were devised to in-

terfere seriously with

Fortresses

bomber

Flying Fortress

and

bombing

Liberators

The early weak on frontal

missions.

were

American policy

armament, so German

gets.

attack in small formations, ranging

of concentration upon selected tarThey argued that massive destruction in a few key industries would naturally be more effective than

was grievously

German Air Force was indeed a formidable enemy. As German pilots gained experi-

clear that the

ence

agreed with the

Germany and Luftwaffe

the beginning of 1943

full-

For months the doughty Harris endured the pres-

who

the occupied countries and

con-

sidered opinion, only dubious results.

sures of his chiefs,

boiled in

was "so confidently

fiery

argued that Schweinfurt was a relatively small

scale attacks

crisis

little

population of sixty thousand.

expanding forces upon such ungrateful targets as

standing firm against his

it

While the

its

many

not

upon German war production

as disastrous as

The

Schweinfurt with

they housed many, cities to destroy,

Eighth Air Force

of Schweinfurt.

city

Harris rejected the claims for Schweinfurt's im-

if

—and

and

produced

stating that even

to locate

Germans. These were the

"panacea mongers"

machines and instruments of war, was Bavarian

were easier

American Eighth Air Force, committed to the

sential to the in

many. Harris pre-

in

ferred the larger population centers, for such cities

and even demands

despite their quite accurate information that about half of

widespread small destruction

craft to a half dozen,

pilots learned

from the

eventually to

from

front.

single air-

The head-on

THE BIG LEAGUE

174

must be eliminated. This did not preclude attention to other targets. Weather, the number of operational aircraft, the range limit of escort planes also

played a part in the planning.

The

Eaker was capable of dispatching

force that

which separated Mission No. 1, when a dozen B-17s flew to Rouen-Sotteville, and Mission in the year

No. 83, when 237 bombers struck various German operated

airfields in

France, had grown. But post-

holing runways, wrecking operations buildings and barracks, and destroying parked aircraft could only

be

defined

as

tactical

—warmaking

mediate, short-range objective.

with

The more

an

im-

strategic

aspect was notable in missions toward the end of July

when

1943—Missions the

Kassel, the

Fiesler

78,

aircraft

79,

Focke-Wulf plant

the Heinkel works at

for

80,

example—

components factory at Oschersleben,

Warnemiinde

(all

at

and

of which

Aircraft of British Bomber Commund and the American Eighth Air Force, by night and by day, shared the menace of German flak guns in occupied Holland. Flying Fortress Lady Liberty falls toward Flushing after being cut in half by a direct hit. (u. s. air force)

attack, considering the double closing speed of the

two

always present danger of collision,

aircraft, the

and the

sight of twinkling

was unnerving,

wing guns and cannon,

to say the least.

Although aggressive

Luftwaffe fighter attacks did not succeed in turning

back any of the American bomber succeed in knocking aircraft

head-on attack,

down

forces, they did

and, with the

in interfering with the

accuracy of

Colonel Curtis E. LeMay, commander of the 3rd Air Division

bombing. Flak was another problem, but a more impersonal one, and one which depended to some extent

upon chance.

or an

FW-190 was

this It

was was

Bomber

A

German

pilot in

an Me- 109

out to get you, specifically, and

true,

then,

as

noted

in

the

Combined

Offensive document, that before the major

target systems could

be dealt with, the Luftwaffe

who

led

the

first

shuttle

bombing

To LeMay's right: Brigadier General Haywood S. Hancommander of the 1st Bombardment Wing {units

sell,

of which later comprised the 1st Air Division).

When

photograph was taken LeMay was commander of the 305th Bomb Group. Later in the war both Hansell and LeMay were to play important roles in the development of the B-29 as an air weapon. (v. s. AIR force) this

rattling.

(right),

mission from England to Regensburg to north Africa.

SCPfWEINFURT

175

belonged to the complex which turned out the formidable

FW-190) were

zealously defended;

heavily

the

three

if

also

missions cost

days'

And,

forty-four heavy bombers.

They were

hit.

the Eighth had

not succeeded in erasing the factories from Ger-

many's war economy,

among

the

it

did initiate serious thought

German High Command about

dispers-

ing such factory complexes, which dispersal prom-

damage.

ised to disrupt production as critically as

The

first

anniversary of the Eighth's

from Britain was 84,

to

sparkled with superlatives: before,

to

more

moment.

that

aircraft

more bomb tonnage than ever

deepest penetration into

and a

Germany

strike against the then

gets: the

mission

be celebrated with Mission No.

most impressive up

the

first

before; the

attempted

ever

two most

It

than ever

critical tar-

Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg and

the ball-bearing plant at Schweinfurt.

was a bold strategic concept," Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker has written of the Regensburg"It

Schweinfurt mission. "It was the ing mission of the war.

first

shuttle

The 3rd Air

bomb-

Aircrew quarters, Graf Ion-Underwood, England. Men of the 384ih Bomb Group hug the stove between missions. Galoshes are a concession to England's muddy airfields. The steel helmet was not an affectation; it was worn by aircrews in combat. (Robert chapin)

Division, the

force attacking the Messerschmitt fighter factory at

Regensburg, landed in

VIII

the

took

fields in

Bomber

from

off

English

bases

and

North Africa. The decisions by

Commander,

Major

General

Frederick L. Anderson [who replaced Eaker,

now

head of the Eighth Air Force], and the 3rd Air Division

Commander, Colonel

Curtis E.

LeMay,

to

proceed to Regensburg with but part of the force,

when

the 1st Air Division [led by Brigadier General

Robert Williams] was delayed

in

take-off

due to

weather, were two of the most dramatic and coura-

geous

command

decisions of the air

war

Europe.

in

This battlefield was a thousand miles long and miles above the earth.

temperatures

and the

It

was fought

gladiators,

friend

five

sub-zero

in

and

foe,

wore oxygen masks." Brereton's Ninth had bled at Ploesti; now, less

than a

month

later,

it

would be the turn of Eaker's

Eighth.

Major General Frederick L. Anderson, commander of the Eighth Air Force's

Bomber Command during

Schweinfurt missions. (U.

S.

air force)

the

By June

of

1943 about ten heavy bombardment

groups had arrived in England, taking over

ex-RAF

THE BIG LEAGUE

176

and from the

fighter bases dotted the routes to

a certain point because of limited range.

point on,

was a ruiming

it

and

structiveness

that

terror.

the advent of the

until

capable of escorting the bombers round-trip,

fighter

to rid the sky of the Luftwaffe.

the Regensburg-Schweinfurt mission

and

itself

indirectly

anti-friction-bearing

"The plan

of attack,"

by striking

Channel

to cross the

attack

fighter

the

written, "called

150 Flying Fortresses

at 8 A.M., fly to

three hours

Schwein-

industries.

Eaker has

for the 3rd Air Division with

more than

at

complex which supplied

war

ball bearings for several

So it was that was visualized

upon the Messerschmitt

as a double blow: directly

factory furt's

From

unexampled de-

battle of

Obviously one solution,

was

tar-

planes could not venture beyond

gets. Allied fighter

Regensburg,

away from English

factory

there,

bases,

and proceed to

landing fields in Africa, fuel being insufficient for return to England.

"The

1st

Air Division with 150 heavy bombers

would follow 30 minutes With a jack raising the wing, 384ih Group ground crew men prepare to remove a wheel from a B-17. (ROBERT CHAPIN)

bearing complex lish

bases.

way

fight its

and the Midlands. One of

most recent arrivals was the 384th Bombardment Group (H) based at Grafton-Underwood, from which the first heavy bomber strike had been the

made

the

August.

previous

In

time

later

and

in,

the ball-

was visualized the 3rd Air Division

and the

way

bomb

Schweinfurt, returning to Eng-

would bear the brunt of German the

stations in East Anglia

It

at

out.

1st

fighter reaction

on

Air Division would have to

Such long-range U.S.

fighters as

were then available would escort the 3rd Division in

and the

1st Division out."

The 384th was one

of the groups belonging to

384th

the

adopted the slogan "Keep the Show on the Road,"

Major

the contribution of

group commander, second mission

—

L. McMillan, deputy

S.

who went down on

a strike

upon

German

burg. Writing from a

the group's

the docks at

Ham-

prisoner of war camp,

McMillan provided the heartening phrase, the phimen in the group might have

losophy of which the

found

ironic.

384th

lost

In

its

first

four days in combat the

ten aircraft on the

wrong

of the

side

Channel.

These 8th

losses,

as

well

as

others

the

Bomber Command, were more a than

Luftwaffe's

assertiveness

capabilities

of the 384th Group.

a

reproach

Even

formations had grown larger during the year of 8th

massing

Bomber Command's

defensive

firepower),

decimating

tribute to the

if

to

the

bomber

critical first

operations

(thus

numerous German

B-17F of 384th Bomb Group;

triangle on tail signifies group belonged to the 1st Air Division; "P" was the group's code letter. (Robert chapin)

that the

— 177

LeMay

as well as could be.

l||£^^l|.i%

Regensburg and then

to

sightedness, as

it

planned to lead the force to

But

Africa.

his

fore-

eventuated, led to an ominous twist

outcome of the mission.

in the

The

Bombardment Wing

1st

(later the

Division) was preparing for the mission in

1st

its

training of navigator-bombardier teams. It

Air

special

was

not,

however, unlike LeMay, giving due consideration to the weather contingencies.

After several scrubbings, the mission was finally

on" for August

"laid

As was

17, 1943.

wont, English weather contributed

known

factors. "It

"that

calls,

flashlights

The airman's English

enemy: the

weather.

Sudden

changes made takeoff and assembly difficult and frequently led to collision over bomber bases. After a mission bad weather added to the toll when distressed aircraft attempted to land.

(u.

s.

As

and lanterns,

The weeks LeMay managed to

field

was socked

enemy

coast).

force,

some of

what was rumored

private

Hitler's

seemed

to

be a "big one" had

weeks before. Would fortress

likely, for the

pick

to

team and

"We

training.

their

to detach

them

didn't

be Berlin, or

Berchtesgaden? Berlin

in

Eighth had not yet struck at

the capital of the Third Reich.

ordered

it

Each group was

navigator-bombardier

best

to headquarters for special

know where

the target was,"

Malvern Sweet, navigator of The Ex-Virgin, ad-

we

mitted,

"but

looked

like."

During

this

could draw pictures of what

it

waiting, partly to re-

cuperate from previous mission losses and partly to

LeMay, comCombat Bombardment Wing

await a good turn in the weather,

mander

of

(later the

the

4th

3rd Air Division) placed his crews on

bad-weather practice. The foresighted commander's reasoning was characteristically clear-cut: likely that they

would have

it

to his

was un-

clear weather over both

in

by fog but could

LeMay's force had crossed the

With the approach of the Schweinfurt

German

the

fighter

been hoped, would be drawn

off

attack,

the

it

had

Regensburg

—

and friendly fighters eighteen squadrons of American P-47s and sixteen squadrons of Spitfires force;

could take on the Luftwaffe as planned.

Because he had to arrive

LeMay

before dark,

bound

at

the African bases

could not wait for the fog-

nor could he spend time hop-

1st Division,

ing for the arrival of the fighters.

on

So he proceeded

Regensburg. "Our fighter escort,"

to

written,

same period of

flew in the lead aircraft

not get off the ground as scheduled (this was timed for ten minutes after

six

146 B-17s of the

all

consternation that there were no escort fighters to

order the evening before the mission was scheduled.

target for

get

LeMay

Speculations about the nature and location of the

begun

of instrument takeoS paid

be found in the sky. Then there was a further hitch:

AIR force)

Air Division and was alerted by a

1st

them onto

in order to get

Bombardment Group and found

the 1st Division too

the

re-

ground and above the clouds.

off the

division leader,

of the 96th

of un-

to lead the airplanes out with

the runway." off;

capricious

set

was so foggy," Curtis LeMay

we had

3rd Division

its

its

"had black crosses on

LeMay

has

their wings." In truth,

American and British fighters did arrive to protect some of the other groups, although not the 96th with which LeMay flew for the bombers stretched across miles of air but had to turn back when fuel ran low. They returned to their bases to refuel

—

and rearm

in

—

order to take off again to escort the

Schweinfurt bombers.

LeMay meanwhile

hurtled through a ferocious air

Flak had begun coming up at Woensdrecht,

the bases and the target. Practicing blind takeofTs

battle.

would take care of the poor

within minutes after the B-17s had crossed the North

LeMay

visibility

over England,

provided target

—

Once above the clouds and all would be visibility was good

calculated.

—

Sea.

Eight

minutes later

German

fighters

ripped

through the formations and the battle was on. For

THE BIG LEAGUE

178 almost two hours, until Regensburg was reached,

ensued and both German and

violent battle

the

American

men

aircraft

factories,

his

surviving

neatly into the Messerschmitt

every important building besides

hitting

number

destroying a

LeMay and

fell.

bombs

placed the

awaiting

aircraft

of finished

my

"I lost twenty-four out of

hundred and twenty-

seven planes which attacked the target at Regens-

LeMay

has noted. His battered formations,

however, pushed onward from Regensburg for North Africa. This confused the

German

who

fighters,

ex-

pected the B-17s to return over the same route flown

on the way occurred,

was on

in. It

that six of the

this final leg of the

Regensburg

some

mission

force's twenty-four losses

over Italy and others splash-

falling

LeMay

ing into the Mediterranean.

landed at the

at

Grafton-Underwood across

North Sea, over occupied Holland, and deep into

the

Germany. There had never been so long a ribbon before.

Considering

must

probabilities

the

face, a special effort

officers to stress the

delivery to the Luftwaffe.

burg,"

running from the base

a target;

why

which

crews

the

was made by the

briefing

importance of Schweinfurt as

they carried a mixed

bomb

load of

five-hundred-pound general-purpose bombs and

in-

cendiaries: the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt

were floored with wood. This was, they were formed, so that

if

dropped

a bearing

No

would not be damaged.

detail

set

it

was too minute,

The GPs would open up

apparently.

and the incendiaries would

in-

to the floor

the factories

them

ablaze.

A

thorough job must be done, for "we don't want to

have to go back there."

more

Lieutenant Frank A. Celentano, ex-Cornell law

than primitive. His losses had been the second high-

student, and a navigator in the 546th Squadron, sat

base

at

Telergma

est (the first: the

in Africa

and found

June 13 attack on Bremen, which

by the Eighth Air

cost twenty-six planes) sustained

Force any

There had not been

in its year of operations.

he could

fighter protection, so far as

upon

arriving at

see,

and

Telergma he found that no arrange-

ments has been made

to

house

his

Though he had gone

the B-17s.

facilities

men

or to service

to Africa himself

been assigned to a strange ship. Lucky Thirteen, because his regular plane. Battle Wagon, was under repair.

But

—low

most vulnerable position

off right

shuttie mission

from England

to Africa:

and he was

most

LeMay's Regensburg groups had gotten

away

around 9:35 a.m. But the Schweinfurt force, un-

was "stood down."

away," Celentano

longer they waited, the

would guess the

During the early morning

briefing,

large wall

to see their route

That

reaction.

it

when

map and and

remained

the

Whistles,

indrawn

greeted the the

the

favorite

map

fuel

of

sighs,

the

546th Squadron of the

the

target,

men there

many from

they carried. BerUn

rumor

mongers.

"Wows!" the briefing room of 384th Bombardment

and

unveiling in

the cover

would be a long

mission had already been gleaned by load and

the

in

with

recalls laconically,

"you

target.

more

likely

it

the

"Word had gone off.

in. The Germans

out that the

We

were hop-

be, particularly because of the weather.

would

of collision

was ever-present. There was

nothing quite so chilling as pulling up above the

was removed from the

bomb

"Coffin

struck

generally

mission was bound to be called

The danger

the others, this mission too

would be scrubbed.

the

the rear:

enthusiasm." The longer the wait, the more ap-

lost

men; perhaps, hke

was an audible

fighters

at

then the waiting followed. "If you didn't get

ing

had a chance

German

and

telling effect.

And

This was a hopeful development for the waiting all

this

prehensive the crews became; tension set

not shy about letting this be known.

able to take off in the heavy fog,

The squad-

it.

Group's formation

good mood when he reported on the

historic

was not the worst of

Corner." In formation,

first,

that

ron had been assigned the low position in the 384th

month before to arrange for the shuttle mission, the war had moved on in North Africa, taking LeMay's arrangements with it. LeMay was not in a a

He had

through the briefing in a state of unease.

several

Group. There was a seemingly interminable ribbon

clouds into the clear air and seeing a column of black

smoke

rising

up from the

clouds.

It

was

ways a sign that two planes had come together

al-

in the

overcast."

For more than three hours Celentano and the 230 Flying Fortresses had a good

other crews of

deal to think about: from the soupy English weather to the long ribbon

on the map. And

then, unex-

pectedly, about one in the afternoon, a green flare

shot

up from the control tower and

it

was time

to

crank engines. Celentano settled in his position in

— SCHWEINFURT

179 "It's

a lot of ballyhoo to say that Germany's

line fighters

have

all

first-

been shot down. They came at

us four abreast and fought like hell."

"When we lose

Beckett

because the

in

where the support,

enemy

got over the

altitude

lead

of

plane

fighters got to us.

enemy

During the

fighters

fighter

we had

coast

lowering

the

related

to

overcast,"

later.

Although we had

"That's fighter

kept hitting us anyhow."

attack,

mainly by FW-190s,

manned his waist gun, but the seriousness of wound began to show. He remained, however,

Miller his

at his

gun, firing at the countless attackers. Algar

ordered radio operator Francis

Gerow

to take over

gun and Miller was forced to lie down. Even then he indicated to Schimenek that he was Miller's

all

Lieutenant Frank Celentano,

navigator of the 546th

Squadron, 384th Group, who went

Schweinfurt for the first time in Lucky Thirteen in the low rear position in the bomber stream "Coffin Corner" to airmen. to

—

(frank celentano)

right

and need no attention and that Schimenek

must remain

at his

own

"After the fighters

climbed back to there were

no

gun.

left,"

altitude.

Beckett continued, "we

When we

fighters there."

got to the target

But by

this

were a number of 384th planes gone

time there

too.

Celen-

tano found that Lucky Thirteen had graduated from the

nose of Lucky

Thirteen

as

pilot

Lieutenant

M. Algar gracefully lifted the heavy B-17 the runway and climbed, without incident,

Philip off

He

through the clouds.

Corner the

plane

eighteenth

Thomas

P.

in

bomber stream, formation. Major

the

leading

Beclcett,

and that there remained only two or three planes to lead.

Lead navigator

tucked the plane into Coffin

the end of the 384th's

at

Coffin Corner during the battle to squadron lead

the

ward

J.

Knowling,

of the 384th

was Lieutenant Ed-

who brought

the survivors of the

group that day,

brought them into the wing formation, which then joined the division, led by Brigadier General Robert

Williams.

Even before they arrived over Germany, Lucky lucic had gone bad. Over Holland the formation had come under 20-mm. attack and Lucky Thirteen rocked to the blast of a hit in the Thirteeri's

Both waist gunners, Loring C.

plane's center section.

Miller and John Schimenek, were

aware of

his

own

punctured his lung

injury

—

hit.

of

sliver

Miller, unshell

had

called in to inform Algar that

Schimenek had been himself.

—a

hit.

He

I

nothing about

said

But soon Miller was too busy

to think about

the pain in his chest.

"There were

at least

200 enemy

fighters attack-

^^*