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Area Bombing by Day: Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944–1945

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Area Bombing by Day: Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944–1945 Canadian Military History Volume 15 Issue 3 Article 3 2006 Area Bombing by Day: Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944–1945 Laurie Peloquin Wilfrid Laurier University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Peloquin, Laurie "Area Bombing by Day: Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944–1945." Canadian Military History 15, 3 (2006) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Peloquin: Area Bombing by Day Area Bombing by Day Bomber Command and the Daylight Offensive, 1944-1945 Laurie Peloquin his article will examine an important but 1929, advocated an offensive bombing strategy Tneglected phase of the Allied strategic based on the view that “war could be won by bomber offensive in the Second World War. Given producing such moral effect on the civilian the very rich literature on the bombing war1 it is population of the enemy that its government surprising to discover that little attention has would have to sue for peace.”3 During the 1930’s, been paid to the daylight attacks undertaken by the British Air Staff refined this concept. Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command in the Bombing of key German industrial, fall and winter of 1944-1945. Nowhere in the transportation and oil facilities would deliver a existing literature is there a systematic analysis “knock-out blow” to the German economy. This of this period of operations when the RAF and view dominated air force planning in the early Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) carried out 153 1930’s. With the outbreak of war, the RAF held daylight raids between 27 August 1944 and 24 cautiously optimistic views regarding the value April 1945.2 Two primary issues will be and possible results of a bombing campaign, but addressed. The first concerns the accuracy this attitude was based on little more than hope. achieved by Bomber Command in its daylight missions. The second is to determine if the By the end of 1939 it became clear that reintroduction of daylight attacks resulted in daylight bombing was too costly for the RAF and Bomber Command carrying out a different and would not cause any serious difficulty to more selective targeting policy. Both of these Germany.4 Over the first few months of 1940 issues are related to the more general question Bomber Command engaged in very little activity of the role played by Air Marshal Sir Arthur apart from reconnaissance flights and leaflet Harris in shaping the policy of Bomber drops. The situation changed markedly after the Command. Harris’s name is usually associated Germans dropped bombs on the Dutch city of with a doctrinaire commitment to area bombing Rotterdam on 15 May. The War Cabinet reacted in general and the destruction of German civilian by removing the order restraining bombers from housing in particular. The evidence presented attacks near civilian areas.5 High loss rates in this essay will allow the reader to form a more during daylight hours, 5.7 percent in May and complete picture of Harris’s response to the June 1940, resulted in major raids being changing circumstances of the war. confined to hours of darkness, when, during these same months, the loss rate was 2.9 6 * * * * * percent. By the autumn of 1940 night bombing had taken precedence, as daylight missions were emembering the long and deadly stalemates limited to smaller and more specialized Rencountered in the First World War, the operations.7 major powers searched for a way to bring decisiveness to the battlefield. In Britain Sir Hugh Bomber Command underwent nothing less Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff from 1919 to than a complete transformation by the time it © Canadian Military History, Volume 15, Numbers 3 & 4, Summer-Autumn 2006, pp.27-42. 27 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2006 1 pg027-042 27 11/9/06, 2:55 PM Canadian Military History, Vol. 15 [2006], Iss. 3, Art. 3 RAF Lancasters bomb through cloud during a daylight raid over France during the summer of 1944. returned to large-scale daylight operations in range was limited by the curvature of the earth, 1944-1945. The availability of aircraft and crews and thus against targets deep inside Germany it had increased from 506 in November 1941 to was primarily used by high-flying Mosquitoes of 1,609 by April 1945. The light, two-engined the Pathfinder Force that dropped target markers bombers had been completely replaced by heavy for the main force. H2S, by contrast, was a four-engined aircraft that could carry much ground-mapping radar carried in the aircraft. larger payloads further, with the formidable Avro Although excellent for navigation, it proved to Lancaster accounting for the majority of planes be of limited effectiveness for target-finding in available (1,087) by the last few months of the built-up areas, which appeared as a large blur war.8 The lightweight wooden de Havilland on the cathode-ray tube. It worked well, however, Mosquito was also available in large numbers. in conjunction with Oboe, and with G-H, an Originally put into service to find and mark upgrade of Gee widely used starting in the fall of targets, the speed (350 mph) and ceiling (33,000 1944 that featured two-way communication with feet) of the Mosquito made it invaluable as a ground stations for target finding and was more bomber as well.9 flexible than Oboe.10 The years of night bombing had forced The preparations for the invasion of Bomber Command to address the problem of Normandy diverted Bomber Command from its target location. This led to the development of a night area bombing offensive of German cities succession of electronic aids, Gee, Oboe, H2S to operations in support of the upcoming land and G-H, which, despite effective German radio battle in France. The necessity of bombing rail counter-measures such as “jamming,” enabled yards in French cities to prevent German the bombers to attack with increasing accuracy, reinforcement of the invasion area without killing even when the target was completely obscured very large numbers of French civilians required on moonless or cloudy nights. Gee was a a level of precision that forced a reevaluation of “passive” system in which directional radio daylight bombing. pulses from ground stations allowed the aircraft to plot its position. Oboe was a two-way system, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, who had in which a transponder in the aircraft enabled become commander-in-chief of Bomber ground plotting staff to bring the aircraft over Command in 1942, strongly opposed any the target. Like Gee it was “line of sight” whose suggestion that Bomber Command attempt 28 https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol15/iss3/3 2 pg027-042 28 11/9/06, 2:55 PM Peloquin: Area Bombing by Day daylight attacks against precision targets. He to support directly the Allied armies in the claimed that his force was operationally invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, and in incapable of performing under the very different the intense battles that raged for ten weeks circumstances of daylight, and strongly clung to thereafter. Still, the effectiveness of what often his belief that Bomber Command would be far amounted to close support by heavy bombers more useful against area targets.11 But, his remains controversial. Extensive cratering of the superior, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, ground and reduction of German-held towns to Chief of the Air Staff, was equally convinced that readily defensible rubble at times impeded Allied Harris underestimated the capabilities of his troops, and, despite significant achievements in force. To test those capabilities, Portal ordered precision attacks, lapses in the bomber crews’ a series of raids against six railway marshalling navigation and target identification resulted on yards in France.12 several occasions in heavy losses to friendly forces. Events proved Portal to be correct. The attacks, which began on the night of 6/7 March With the Allied victory in Normandy control 1944, were successful, and reported “enormous of Bomber Command returned from General damage” to the railway facilities, although some Eisenhower’s headquarters to the Royal Air bombs hit civilian areas.13 Over the next few Force, which reassessed its strategy. There were months Bomber Command made the majority important new opportunities, because the of its attacks on precision targets in France, flying progress of Allied ground forces deprived the just under 9,000 sorties, as well as making 3,000 Luftwaffe of its forward air defence radars, sorties into Germany.14 Aircrews were perfecting meaning that Allied bombers would encounter their ability to hit specific targets accurately at much less effective interception.15 The debate as night. This skill would benefit them greatly when to what should have priority turned on three large-scale daylight attacks began as the whole major target systems: oil, communications and of the British and US heavy bomber forces began transport, and industrial areas. Air Chief Left and below: Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies (LCMSDS) Photograph Collection Photograph (LCMSDS) Studies Disarmament and Strategic Military for Centre Laurier below: and Left A Halifax of 6 Group RCAF makes a daylight attack on an oil refinery in the Ruhr during October 1944. 29 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2006 3 pg027-042 29 11/9/06, 2:55 PM Canadian Military History, Vol. 15 [2006], Iss. 3, Art. 3 Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) PL 144277 PL (CFJIC) Centre Imagery Joint Forces Canadian Above left: An Avro Lancaster attacks the city centre of Münster, Germany, 19 September 1944.
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