Bomber Command and the Transportatio N Plan : Spring 194 5
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CHAPTER 1 7 BOMBER COMMAND AND THE TRANSPORTATIO N PLAN : SPRING 194 5 NE of Hitler 's motives in ordering and sustaining the Ardennes offen- O sive against the advice of his own generals, had been frankly political : he hoped to create divisions among the Allies which would then permi t Germany to snatch a negotiated peace . Indeed from this time onward geo- political and nationalistic issues begin to overshadow purely military ones . Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill were each trying to shape in advance a new Europe after the inevitable collapse of Germany, with the result tha t their political agreements or failures to reach agreement on certain issues prevented at times a purely "military" solution to a ground situation . Among the generals too the planning of final campaigns became tinge d with prestige factors and the desire to ensure that particular armies or national groups were in the van when final victory came . To some exten t these prestige factors affected the individual armed Services, and in retro- spect it would appear that both the R.A.F. and U.S.A.A.F. tended to bomb individual targets and target systems with an intensity which demon- strated their ability to hit hard rather than as a result of a clear assess- ment of the weight required to neutralise vital targets . But the individual soldier, sailor and airman only vaguely comprehended these influences ; the prevailing mood in February 1945 was to strain every nerve for a quic k end to the war in Europe to release forces to join in the mounting successe s in the Pacific against Japan . The immediate benefits of German miscalculation in the six-week s Ardennes campaign were reaped by Russia . In Poland the Germans had , since October 1944, grimly held a defence line along the Vistula. Denied reinforcements for this vital part of the Eastern front covering Warsaw and the direct approach to Berlin, the defenders were literally swept aside when Marshals Koniev, Zhukov and Rokossovsky, with vastly superio r forces, drove westwards in mid-January . Within two weeks Koniev had seized part of Silesia, whose coal mines were as important as those of th e Ruhr; Rokossovsky had driven north to the Baltic to seal off more tha n 20 German divisions in Danzig and east Prussia ; and in the centre Zhukov had rushed forward two-thirds of the way to Berlin, halting only at the lin e of the River Oder. Even greater diplomatic successes followed immediately at the Yalta conference of 4th-10th February, for Stalin was in a strong bargainin g position. The Casablanca formula of "unconditional surrender " was re- affirmed thus eliminating any possibility of compromise between Germany and any of the major Allies ; the pattern of occupation zones within a defeated Germany was laid down, and more importantly Roosevelt an d Churchill were manoeuvred into accepting a formula for a new Polan d which did not entirely safeguard the principles on which Britain had 408 BOMBER COMMAND AND TRANSPORTATION Feb1945 originally gone to war in 1939 . There was sufficient intransigence in th e Russian attitude to cause doubts of future harmony but, at the expens e of conceding Stalin virtually a free hand in eastern Europe, Roosevelt wa s able to secure Russian support for the international security organisation proposed at Bretton Woods, and a promise that at an appropriate tim e Russia would declare war on Japan . While, behind the scenes, politics dictated the outcome of victory, on a practical military level new spring campaigns were planned by the Allies . The direct Russian drive against Berlin was not resumed, but instead flank- ing movements into east Prussia, the Baltic states, Silesia, Czechoslovaki a and Hungary consolidated Stalin's political gains . For his part General Eisenhower took up again his proposed three-pronged attack eastward s across the Rhine which had been in preparation before Field Marsha l von Rundstedt's attack through the Ardennes. This plan envisaged that General Montgomery's Twenty-first Army Group (retaining the Ninth American Army) should first seize the west bank of the Rhine fro m Nijmegen to near Dusseldorf . To cover Montgomery's build-up for a dash across the Rhine, General Bradley's forces would then take the offensiv e between Coblenz and Dusseldorf, while, in the final assault stage, General Patton was to attack in the southern sector with a view to crossing th e Rhine to permit complete envelopment of the Ruhr industrial area . Montgomery made his preparations with typical thoroughness an d reliance on weight of impact . During the first week of February 1945 th e Second Tactical Air Force and American light and medium bombers operated at high intensity against enemy rail and road networks both wes t and east of the Rhine in an attempt to interdict German regrouping. For the initial attack, made on 8th February by XXX Corps in the directio n of Kleve, he assembled an artillery force of 1,000 guns which laid a five - hour barrage of a fury unprecedented on the Western front . Bomber Com- mand was called on to make a supplementary air bombardment of th e key centres of Kleve and Goch during the night of 7th-8th February . No. 460 contributed 21 Lancasters to the raid on Kleve, and, although tw o crews failed to attack, the remainder bombed well and returned withou t loss. Eighteen Halifaxes of No . 466 went to Goch, but only seven crew s bombed as the master bomber instructed later arrivals to return to base . Again all aircraft returned safely ; Flying Officer McCalluml and his crew claimed the destruction of an Me-410 in one of the few brushes with enem y aircraft that night. Bombing, especially at Kleve, was too devastating . High-explosive bombs were used and these, while effectively destroying the centre o f the town, blocked roads and caused extensive cratering, which impede d the progress of British troops who arrived 24 hours later; by this time the defenders had recovered from the shock of attack and were able t o use the rubble and craters as strongpoints . This factor, together with a sudden thaw which brought floods and quagmires along the only two route s 1 F-O A . B . McCallum, DFC, 420977 ; 466 Sqn . Draftsman ; of South Lismore, NSW ; b . Taree , NSW, 23 Jan 1923 . Feb 1945 CLOSING IN 409 of advance, delayed the fall of Kleve until the 11th, and the Reichswald area, a forest near Kleve, was not cleared of enemy troops until 13t h February. Meanwhile the Ninth American Army (General Simpson), due to mak e a supporting thrust on 10th February, was forced to stand by idle becaus e at the last moment the enemy blew up the control valves of the Roer dams , thus creating floods, which aggravated by rain and thaw conditions, mad e the river impassable for another two weeks . These delays gave ampl e opportunity for the Germans to bring in divisions from the Rhineland t o oppose the British and Canadian drive beyond Kleve . Fighting was dour , unrelenting and marked by only limited Allied gains, but it had a hidde n significance . In sealing off this threat the Germans were forced to transfer reserves from the Rhineland proper, and their over-all defensive potentia l became dangerously unbalanced . On 23rd February, when the Roer floods had almost subsided, the Ninth Army struck beyond Aachen, and wit h very light casualties advanced directly to Dusseldorf, whilst its left win g swung north-west to link up with the Canadians at Venlo, thus completin g the first phase of Eisenhower's plan. The relatively slow progress made by Montgomery 's forces durin g February appeared to justify pessimistic views that the war could not b e won before the autumn . Both the R.A.F. and U.S.A.A.F. had already made plans to transfer large forces to the Pacific and now saw these plans jeopardised . The answer of the air commanders to the stubborn enem y ground resistance was simply heavier bombing both in degree and extent . Improving weather, particularly at night, permitted Bomber Command t o drop nearly 45,000 tons of bombs during February 1945, a total thre e times as large as in February 1944 . Moreover, planning staffs pointed ou t that by this time nearly every ton of bombs dropped was falling inside Germany proper and was thus directly effective in diminishing enemy capacity to resist . There was also a significant swing of the pendulu m regarding choice of targets : enemy communications, although not formall y elevated to an overriding priority, in practice received the greater part of the Allied bombing effort. British and American heavy bombers from England and Italy attacked the larger enemy rail centres and a number o f important bridges; medium bombers concentrated on bridges and railheads near the front line (Western front only) . As this bombing campaign created choke points, Allied fighter-bombers and fighters on their daily sweep s found increasingly favourable opportunities to attack rolling-stock and locomotives thus further temporarily blocking tracks and slowing the whol e tempo of enemy supply lines . This new confidence in a transportation target system also led the U.S.A.A.F. to advocate the mounting of a one-day coordinated strike b y every available Allied aircraft against rail, road and canal targets through- out the greater part of the Reich. This operation (Clarion) was intende d to affect not only the immediate tactical situation but also the economi c life of areas remote from the battleground ; moreover it had a subsidiary 410 BOMBER COMMAND AND TRANSPORTATION Feb 1945 purpose of giving a massive and terrifying display of Allied air superiority .