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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 2182.PDF
478 FLIGHT OCTOBER 31ST, 1945 THE LUFTWAFFE AND ITS FAILURE A.V.-M. Elmhirst Tells of Lack of Experience and Influence at "High. Levels'* : Optimism and Over-confidence : Period of Complacency : Hitler's Interference : Fighter Shortage SPEAKING at the Royal United Service Institution onWednesday, October 23rd, Air Vice-Marshal Sir ThomasElmhirst, K.B.E., Assistant Chief of the Air Staff(Intelligence) reviewed the shortcomings of the German Air Force from 1939 until final defeat. His lecture is summarizedas follows: There was little of either tradition or experience on whichGoering and Udet could build up the German Air Force. In the 1914-18 war it was an army support force and themajority of the best flying personnel of the age that might have been leaders in 1939 were killed in the earlierwar. Also, full conversion to the Nazi doctrine was necessary to ensure high appointment in 1939. Goeringand Udet were themselves unlikely to have sufficient experience to plan and build up a balanced force or laydown a policy for its operation in a world-wide cam- paign. The German Air Force was built up in a hurryby Goering and his counsellors, none of whom looked much further than an air force for army support. Therewas no Air Force Staff College to digest the lessons of 1914-18. * How then did it become the very effective weapon it The G.A.F. went into the war an exceedingly strong, well-trained and equipped tactical aii force for the support of an army for a European land war. Goering may have had otherideas, but Hitler and the Supreme Command Staff had not. There were no functional commands for studying the use ofair fighting in home defence and it had no night fighters. It had no Command for operating with the Navy, no shipping <(jj»strike force, no Bomber Command watching the strategic use of bombers, and in general it was quite unbalancedshould it meet opposition. At the end of 1941. as the result of its early successes,the prestige of the German Air Force and of Goering as war-winning factors stood high. A period of com-placency arrived, and the possibilities of the British, U.S. and Soviet aircraft industries and air trainingscheme were not foresee*] by the High Command. No immediate steps were taken by Udet and the GermanAir Ministry to increase their fighter strength, improve their fighter rajige, improve their naval co-operation ororganize a fighter command for home defence-—except, of course, the night-fighter defence, which, in the faceof increased Bomber Command effort, had been forced A .H :c An A-4 ("V-2") war rocket, Me 163 rocket-propelled intercepter and Fi 103 ("V-i ") flying bombs—all ingenious weaponsdeveloped late in the war. The flying bomb on the right of the picture is a piloted type and was not employed on operations. was in the last three years of war? The reason was that in thefew years before the war Goering made it a corps d'ilite. There was no Treasury limitation over Goering; he could get thebest of everything, both men and equipment. At its peak the German Air Force included just under 3,000,000 men,200,000 of whom were in the signal service. The seed from which final failure grew was the overall controlot the German armed forces. From the early months of 1942 Hitler was Commander-in-Chief of all the Services and fromhis field Headquarters exercised such command at most stages in the war. Hitler himself became Commander-in-Chief ot thearmy and there were separate Commanders-in-Chief of the Navy and the Air Force, but on a level with the Commanders-in-Chiefwas the " O.K.W.," a Supreme Headquarters Staff who were responsible to Hitler for the strategic policy of the war andthe Overall planning of intelligence. Here was a brilliant military staff of some 700 officers, but their minds were tunedto land warfare. Tne highest-ranking Air Force officer among them being a Group Captain. The German Chief of Air Staffcould have but little influence with the Supreme Headquarters Staff with one Group Captain as his representative. His onlyhope when he had a policy was to get Goering to bully Hitler. After the first two years of war Goering sat back and theGerman Air Force accordingly took a very back seat in the Councils of State that directed the German war policy. to develop considerably from the summer of 1940 onwards.Why did the German Air Force not win the Battle of Britain? It was a big force, having 2,600 aircraft with heaps of reservesand very high morale. The operational direction was good at the start, but there was blind optimism, over-confidence, and'a lack of good intelligence oi our fighter command organization. It was soon found that unescorted bombers suffered cripplinglosses and that Stukas could not survive at all. It was also found that the fighters had not sufficient endurance to escortthe bombers to London and back if they were engaged and had to fight for it. The G.A.F. found that our fighter pilotswere a well-trained team with high morale, and that they were good shots, brilliantly led and mounted, and brilliantly con-trolled from the ground for raid interception. Politics and Strategy The G.A.F. was an unbalanced force for such a campaign,the implications of which had not been studied, and at a critical moment Hitler interfered. The original plan was to destroyR.A.F. aircraft on the ground by bombing their airfields, but half-way through the battle this aim was changed. Hitler,irritated by the first R.A.F. night bomber raid on a Berlin suburb OK August 27, ordered the German bombers to avengethemselves on London, and attacks on airfields ceased. The
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