germnay bombing 1939-41

Most famous bomer in WW2

Avor Lancaster bomber

Key personal involved in booming

Churchill

Portal

Trenchhard

British killed in blitz’s 1940-41

42000

How many air crew killed in bomer command Ww2

55000/125000

44%

8000 wounded

10000 prisoners of war

Casualties 60%

Chief of air staff

Charles portal oct1940-1945

Previous head of bomber command in apr 1940 plan strategy to bomb Germany industrial cities

Roles of protal

Protection of britian during the blitz 7 sep 1940-11 may 1941

Bombing Germany

Preparing for Dday in 1944

Chiefs or staff committee

Chief of imperial general staff : Dill may 1940-dec 1941 , Brooke Dec 1941

First sea lord : pound 1938-1943 and Cunningham to 1943-1946

Chief of the air staff: portal

Permanent secretary: ismay

Strategy for boming

Boming industrial areas rather than spesific factories due to

Luffwaffe fighters

AA guns + search lights

Cloud cover

stomer / poor weather

Strategy to bomb

Chaff metal shavings to confuse Germany rader

Insenduries + high explosive

Significant

Disrupt supplies to factories

Reduce moral of workers

show Nazi we can fight back

25 aug 1940

First order to bomb Berlin

Result of Nazi boming britian previous in cities like london,Birmingham, Bristol,Aberdeen and Portsmouth

100 people killed in Portsmouth in 24 Aug 1940 ( Germany’s hit areas of military targets)

Britian had been hitting military strategic areas since 11 may 1940

Goering during boming

Wanted revenge so he changed tactics of blitz in early sep 1940( portal strategy as commander of bomber command then promoted to chief of air staff by WSC Oct 1940)

January 1943

Conference Casablanca

Combined chief of staff chooses portal to coordinate American and British bomer offens in Germany

Shortly time was transferred to Eisenhower for duration of operation overlord

Steps of boming

Metal shaving to confuse Germany rader (chaff)

Incendiaries + high explosive

Commander in chief of bomber command from Feb 1942 onwards

Auther Harris (butcher controversial policy on area bombing )

Lindemann

( the prof) became lord of Cherwell in 1941

Lindemann helped convince wsc to support area boming( saturation boming )

Barnes Wallis

Invented the bouncing bomb fro the dam busters

British air plans 1 sep 1939

Attack German air striking force it’s maintenance organisation and product

The Rurh

Essen

Dortmund

Duisburg

Düsseldorf

Cologne

What was happening in the air war in October 1940?

The Blitz

–heavy attacks on London including the port of London

–other attacks on British industrial cities and ports such as:

•Industrial cities

–Birmingham

–Coventry

–Manchester

–Glasgow

Ports

Liverpool

Portsmouth

Bristol

14/15 Nov 1940

Boming of Coventry

1/3 of city destroyed

4000 people killed

WSC after boming They have sown the wind,   they shall reap the whirlwind”

9 March 1941

The Prime Minister has ruled that for the next 4 months we should devote our energies to defeating the attempt of the enemy to strangle our food supplies and our connection with the United States.”

11mar 1941 lend leas

Boming of Nazi occupied france

vitchy france ( north and west france )

22 June 1940

Donitz German naval commander france has formally surrendered and signed Armistice of Compiègne (1940)

U boat pens ( bag of biscay)

Breast

Lorient

St nazaire

La Rochelle

Bordeaux

Battle of Atlantic

best year for u boats 1940,41 and especially 42

Destruction of pens factories making u boast were priority until 1944 to 45

9 March 1941

Appendix A

Kiel a bunker of u boats

Germany

•Kiel        -    submarine building

•Bremen    -    submarine building

           Focke Wulf factory (assembly)

•Hamburg    -    submarine building

•Mannheim    -    diesel engine factory

•Augsburg    -    diesel engine factory

 

Nazi-occupied France

•Lorient    -    submarine base

•St Nazaire    -    submarine base

•Bordeaux    -    submarine base and Focke Wulf aerodrome

 

27 apr 1941

Athens fell British campaign in Greece had failed resulted in evacuation

May1941

Nazi invaded Crete and then fell

Another British evacuation the cynics criticised and said BEF standee for back every fortnight

20000 casualties in Greece and Crete

March

Rommel had taken Benghazi and Tobruk and was advancing to Egypt

19 March 1941

Memo from lord trenchard

Trechard knew WSC since playing polo in India 1890

Learnt to fligh on 1912 a year after WSC

1914 trechard was given command of the royal flying corps in home soil

•Trenchard thus oversaw the raising of new squadrons for the war effort

•Trenchard was given command of First Wing in October 1914 and in November was posted to take command of the wing on the Western Front

•Trenchard soon became involved with planning of strategy with General Haig on the Western Front where his planes carried out reconnaissance and bombing in support of the infantry

•Trenchard was CO of the section of the air force that was responsible for bombing Germany in 1918

•Churchill appointed Trenchard as Chief of the Air Staff in 1919 when WSC was Secretary of State for War and Air

Early boming of WSC and trechard early 1920

As a result of the Treaty of Sevres 1920 (which dealt with, and partitioned, the defeated Ottoman Empire) Palestine and Iraq had been given to (or taken by) Britain as mandates for the League of Nations (ie. Britain was responsible for running and controlling Palestine and Iraq)

•Britain was therefore trying to control the whole of its empire, plus the mandates, on a limited budget after WW1

•Churchill and Trenchard therefore came up with a policy of policing Iraq on the cheap by using the RAF

•It was cheaper to use air power (including bombers) than the army

•An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British then took place in 1920

•Churchill and Trenchard instructed the RAF (including a young bomber pilot called Arthur Harris) to deal with the uprising. How

Auther I g the use of mustard gas bombs

Andrew Robert’s argues it was tear gas

Arguably first use of area boming

9000 Iraqis were killed stoped uprising

WSC and trechard accused of war crime due to boming

Churchill and Trenchard were pleased with the result as the RAF (rather than the army) was given responsibility for policing the mandate and this helped to justify the existence of the RAF as an independent service in the military

Trenchard also defended the RAF in the face of drastic cuts following WW1

•Trenchard became the first Marshal of the RAF  in 1927

•Trenchard is thus seen by many as “the father of the RAF”

 

19 may 1941

• Sought enemy weak points: strategy should target “weak points”

• Rejected land warfare: Wehrmacht stronger than BEF in numbers + technology

• Dismissed decisive naval victory: Royal Navy couldn’t cripple Germany (U-boat threat + Germany’s access to continental resources)

• Focus shifted to RAF as main tool of attack

• Believed German morale was vulnerable

• Argued Nazi regime unpopular; population “passive” and fearful

• Claimed Germans lacked unity found in Britain’s civil defence (ARP + military cooperation)

• Concluded bombing morale was Germany’s key weak point → “strike and strike again”

Reasoning for memo

• Claimed bombing accuracy was very low: only about 1% hits the intended target

• Therefore, most bombs are “wasted” if dropped outside Germany (e.g. Norway, Holland, Belgium, France), often harming civilians or allies instead

• Argued bombing Germany is more “efficient”: even missed bombs still damage or frighten German civilians

• Concluded the RAF should focus entirely on Germany as the most effective target

• Advocated persistent, continuous bombing (day and night) of military targets in German towns

• Goal of sustained bombing: pressure and demoralise the German civilian population

• Believed constant attacks would make civilians realise the consequences of war and weaken enemy resolve

9-12 Aug 1941

Placentia bay conference

Atlantic charter

22 June 1941

Operation Barberossa

9 July 1941 air detectives

• Main RAF bomber focus:
  

  • Disrupt German transport system

  • Undermine civilian morale, especially industrial workers

• Target selection:
  

  • Key targets listed in official appendix (Appendix A)

  • Many targets were railway hubs in crowded industrial areas

  • This allowed bombing to hit both infrastructure + nearby workers’ housing

• Strategy:
  

  • Civilian morale damage seen as an “incidental effect” of attacking transport targets

• Industrial targets:
  

  • Priority given to destroying synthetic rubber plants (Schopau and Hüls)

  • These supplied most of Germany’s rubber industry

• Expected impact:
  

  • Severe disruption to road transport and military logistics

  • Increased importance due to the Russian campaign (Eastern Front)

• Overall aim:
  

  • Combine economic disruption + psychological pressure on civilia

Plan 9 July 1941

A

Outline Plan of Attack on German Transportation and Morale

 

A    Hamm        The most important and largest railway centre in Germany

B    Osnabruck    Heavy traffic between the Ruhr and NW Germany

C    Soest        Heavy traffic between the Ruhr and Central Germany

D    Schwerte    Heavy traffic between the Ruhr and SE Germany

E    Cologne    Marshalling Yard Kalk    

F    Cologne Marshalling Yard Gereon

G    Duisburg

H    Dusseldorf

J    Duisburg-Ruhrort      -  Largest internal rail-water transhipment port in Europe

 

Targets E to J are all suitable for attack on moonless nights as

14 july 1941 Churchill speech

tonight the people of London were asked to cast their vote as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities the overwhelming majority would cry, ‘No, we shall mete out to the Germans the measure and more than the measure they have meted out to us’

Encouraging the revenge sprite amounts British