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Aviation History
1948
1948 - 1512.PDF
33° FLIGHT SEPTEMBER I6TH, 194S f,L. A. £. Tarry, briefing navigators of a Lincoln squadron at a "Southland " bomber station. Air Exercises by giving them a large number of formations to cope withand partly by driving in simultaneously on two fronts. While eight ci nine packets of bombers were approachingYorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, a still bigger force was coming up towards London from the Channel,mostly across Kent. The day before, there had been a long warning of incoming bombers while they were still inthe vicinity of the Channel Islands, and the Meteors were waiting for them confidently, on standing patrol near SelseyBill—surely the first instance in history of the precious fuel of jet fighters being risked on a standing patrol. On this occasion, with raiders coming in from half thepoints of the compass, the fighter groups took no such chances. They sent up the Meteors, Vampires and Spit-fires on direct interception courses, and during this battle we had our best opportunity to gauge the interceptionschedule. The Superfortresses were at heights between 10,000 ft and 35,000 ft; and the fighters were chosen, so -far as was possible, with some care as to rate of climb. The average time occupied in intercepting was about 15 minutesor about eight and a half minutes longer than the Meteor III needs to climb to 30,000 ft. Plenty of interceptions were made, and many of themwere made over the sea. Indeed, we concluded that a small time margin had been deliberately allowed by the con-trollers so as to make sure that the fighters should be in a position to deliver the favoured head-on attacks, particu-larly against aircraft of the B-29 type. This was the day on which some of the B-29S went on across England and"bombed" Liverpool, far outside "Northland's" terri- tory, by way, possibly, of acknowledging gracefully thatthey had been intercepted. By day, the fighter machine undoubtedly worked well,even to the point of delighting the gunners. They had arranged to short-circuit the communications system be-tween the detection and plotting centres and ti^un sites, A night fighter Mosquito running up before take-off (the scanner can be clearly seen through the nose). During one raid squadrons from one station in south-east England estimated 35 "kills " from 29 sorties. cutting out some of the " middlemen." The gunners wereloud in the approval of the change, which not only put them promptly on the mark but also gave them immediatewarning of the onset and conclusion of a combat. The fighters always appeared to have the situation in hand.They were often busy, but they were never at a loss or too late-. How well they fought and fired, only the umpireswill know, when all the combat films have been developed. But we who watched would have liked to see them matchedagainst the Hornets flying high and fast from behind the cover of a B-29 formation. We fancied, too, that thefighters would have welcomed the challenge. "Dirty Tricks " "Southland's" onslaught lacked that kind of tacticalingenuity by day. If anything, it was a little too orthodox, as though '' Southland'' were the schoolmaster settingproblems to find out what these bright boys knew rather than to trip them up. No such pedagogic restraints with-held " Southland " by night. The whole repertoire of dirty tricks from "window" to decoys was performed, appar-ently with exactly the same results that infuriated the Germans in the days when they had sacrificed everythingto fighter defence. The night bombers upset the defence on the second night of the Exercises; they upset thedefences again on the last night of their operations. On this last occasion they did it thoroughly and ruthlessly.And by morning the Exercises had been called off. The Air Staff had obtained the information it wanted. The onlooker may legitimately wonder what was beingtested primarily in the night Exercises. Were we hopeful that the improvements in night fighter technique wouldshow up in a largely increased percentage of interceptions? If so, there were no signs that that hope had been realized.Or were we anxious to discover what success the night bombawjiight still expect against the best defensive system it would be likely to meet?As the only nation which has persistently developednight bombing for 20 years, we might be excused ameasure of satisfaction at finding the night bomberstill extremely hard to catch. Or did we just seekreassurance that a new generation of night bombercrews has inherited the right tradition ? A crew of No. 77 Bomber Squadron, U.S.A.F. preparing their Superfortress for a raid on "Northland". B 4
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