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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1285.PDF
JUNE 28TH, 1945 FLIGHT 699 Bomber Command's Offensive Part II of the Official Story of Britain's Heavy Bombers (Continued from page 671)I N spite of the great successes of 1942, the further de- velopment of navigational aids, and the formation of the Pathfinder Force during that year, it was not until 1943 that Bomber Command was sufficiently strong in four-engined aircraft to begin the main offensive against German war industry. It was also in 1943 that the U.S.A.A.F. was ready to begin its strategic bombing cam- paign against targets in Germany. The joint plan of cam- paign was largely dictated by the equipment and training of both Air Forces and, as is well known, the obvious decision was made to attack the large industrial areas by night and the single war factories by day. A particular instance of the comple- mentary role played by the two Air Forces in 1943 was in the attack on the German aircraft industry as a whole, when the R.A.F. attacked large indus- trial areas in which were many air- craft component factories, while the U.S.A.A.F. bombed the assembly plants which had been built outside the towns in order to be immune from the attacks on industrial cities. It is known that this double attack proved a complete surprise to the enemy. He had antici- pated losing factories in towns, but not outside them, and he therefore sub- jected his aircraft industry to the great strain of dispersing the larger plants. A Focke-Wulf aircraft factory in Bremen, for example, was largely de- stroyed by Bomber Command in 1944, and under the new plan was set up again in open country in East Prussia. There it was destroyed by the U.S.A.A.F., rebuilt, destroyed again, evacuated back to Bremen with ihe approach of the Russian armies, and hit again by the R.A.F. when it got there. Strain on Industry By such exertions—and the history of many German synthetic oil plants is one of even more frequent catastrophies— the enemy was able to keep production f<oing in some of the major war indus- tries—V-weapons, aircraft, synthetic oil —Aa which he decided, or was com- to give first priority. Not only the dispersed factories, but all the more important factories in towns were re- paired as often as they were damaged. All this was subject- ing the enemy's war industry to an enormous strain, towards which the destruction of large industrial areas by Bomber Command, with all their fac- tories and public utility ser- vices and the consequent loss jpf many millions of man-hours of skilled labour, contributed a very great deal. Clear proof of the strain to which the German aircraft in- dustry was subjected by strate- gic bombing is provided by the enemy's decision, made in1 94J, to concentrate almost tries "pdR SHinniuiiiiniHiiHiii! i I 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 exclusively on single-engined aircraft, which naturally could be produced more economically than two-engined or four-engined aiicraft. Their single-engined aircraft were to be used, not only for the air defence of Germany but for protection of the army, and for ground attack on the Allied armies and their communications. There were to be few, if any, actual bombers. It is also a significant fact that even in 1945 two-engined aircraft for use as night fighters were still on the ' Both Von RueEfeteTrFana KesselrinV have said that the main reasoa-for Gemiany's defeat was the conuHtete air superiority of the AllieSja^Their opinion may be tenden- the interest of the to argue that the army jrfas undefeated in the art(]Ijtfffy collapsed under the strafcijjHBonibiosrfbehind <*¥ lines. neral Model, however, in a osT secret order issued by the Supreme Command of Army Group B, for dis- • tribution only down to Divisions, said : "Enemy No. 1 is the hostile air force, which because of its absolute superiority tries to destroy our spearheads of attacks and our artillery through fighter- bomber attacks and bomb carpets, and to render movements in the rear areas impossible." There could be no ques- tion Of such a statement being made for any tendentious reason in a document of this nature. Goering himself gave it as his opinion that the chief reason why Germany lost the war was the '' uninter- rupted Allied air offensive." In fact. German military opinion of all shades of mind is and has been, that one of the main factors contributing to the defeat of Germany was, in Von Rund- stedt's own words, "the smashing of the home industrial areas by bombing." The effect of strategic bombing on the actual fighting capacity of the enemy was not a matter of regular progress. Production of weapons was not cut in the same proportion as the acres of devastation in the industrial areas in- creased. On the contrary, the end of production in most war industries came with a rush at the end, as the whole industrial organisation sud- denly broke under the strain. This is what one would have expected, and captured figures of production show that this is exactly what happened. The bombing of the Ruhr in 1943 caused a general decrease of about 20 per cent, of produc- tion in the steel industry of that area, but by 1945 production in the great Vereignigte Stahl- werke had become almost neg- ligible. 33,263 I During 1943 Bomber Com- I mand was largely concerned with perfecting its tactics in the bombing of large industrial TONNAGE Bombs 31 13,033 31,704 45,561 157,457 525,518 181,740 955,044 Mines Grand total . 988,307 tons | ..,iuuiHiuiiiii(iiitiiiiii!iuHiiiimiuiiiiiiiiiiiiH;iiiiiiiiiiiiiMiinnnii!ii!miBii<5
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