Royal Air Force Bomber
Command 60th Anniversary
Campaign Diary
1941
January
The year started with a raid by 141 aircraft on the very first night
of the month. Bremen, the main target for the night reports very accurate
bombing, especially by the first waves of aircraft against the Focke
Wulf aircraft factory in the south of the city. Smaller attacks are
made against the city on the following two nights. In the following
nights the bombers are used in piecemeal attacks on shipping in both
German and Channel ports as well as Gardening. Indeed, the 8th/9th
January saw the RAF bomb Wilhelmshaven where the battleship Tirpitz
was berthed - the first of many attempts in the war to sink the vessel.
On the following night, synthetic oil plants at Gelsenkirchen are
raided by less than half of the 135 aircraft despatched. The 10th
saw the first Circus operation. 6 Blenheims of No 114 Squadron, escorted
by 72 fighters, bombed an ammunition depot south of Calais. Two more
large-scale raids were made on Wilhelmshaven on the nights of 15th/16th
and 16th/17th involving 96 and 81 aircraft respectively. The success
of the first night is not repeated in the second mission.
February
Crews found that many targets were obscured by cloud and as a result,
what little accuracy there was, suffered tremendously. Diary entries
in records of German cities report little or no damage on nights when
Bomber Command crews had supposedly visited. Given this situation,
it is therefore hard to believe that the Command was told to concentrate
its efforts on enemy oil production. A list of 17 targets was drawn
up from which it was believed that the destruction of 9 would result
in a reduction of 80% of Germany's ability to produce oil. Air
Chief Marshal Pierse, the Command's AOCinC, decided that one large
attack against an industrial city would be made with the oil attacks
taking up the remaining operations. On 10th/11th February, 222 aircraft,
the largest despatched to a single target, attacked Hannover. Four
aircraft were lost. On the nights that followed, oil facilities were
bombed by anything between 1 and 73 aircraft - all with little success.
As an example, the night of the 14th/15th saw 44 Wellingtons despatched
to Nordstern, near Gelsenkirchen but only 9 claimed to have hit the
target. Interestingly, when No 57 Squadron returned to its base at
Feltwell, a German aircraft is believed to have been amongst them!
After landed, the aircraft quickly took-off again. The ill-fated Manchester
was also used on operations for the first time this month. Six aircraft
from No 207 Squadron took part in a raid on Brest. One Manchester
crashed.
March
As is the norm in England during this time of the year, fog played
havoc with Bomber Command's operations. Not by only by forcing the
cancellation of trips, but also causing many crews to abandon their
aircraft upon the return home. The night of 1st/2nd alone saw 14 aircraft
lost in this manner. The month saw the operational debut of the Halifax
when 6 aircraft from No 35 Squadron joined 8 Blenheims in a raid on
Le Havre. Unfortunately, one of the Halifaxes was shot down by an
RAF fighter during its return flight - only the pilot and one other
man survived.
Barely a month after the oil plant directive, the Command was forced
into another theatre of operations - the Atlantic War. Allied shipping
losses had risen dramatically since the fall of France less than a
year ago and the Air Ministry directed Bomber Command to attack U-boat
production factories, docks (containing the virtually indestructible
U-boat pens) and airfields when long-range German patrol aircraft
operated from. The shipbuilding ports of Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen and
Vegesack topped the target list along with U-boat engine factories
in Mannheim and Augsburg and airfields in Norway and France. Brest
would find itself in the firing line on many occasions when the battleships
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were berthed in the coming months.
It was also during this month that some very prophetic words about
the Command's operations were written. Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfred
Freeman, in a directive dated 9th March, he said: "Priority of
selection should be given to those [targets] in Germany which lie
in congested areas where the greatest moral [sic] effect is likely
to result." Despite the unfortunate miss-spelling, it was obvious
what Freeman was suggesting, and this, ironically, was taken up by
the then Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Arthur
Harris who, when said of Mannheim and the recently added city of Stuttgart
to the U-boat production targets said: "Both are suitable as
area objectives and their attack should have high morale value."
These two statements would greatly influence future Bomber Command
thinking.
With it's new orders, Bomber Command attempted to disrupt the production
of U-boats. Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin were attacked by a total of
257 aircraft during the night of 12th/13th March. Hamburg was again
the target the following night when 51 people were killed, the highest
number so far. Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Lorient (in France)
followed in quick succession with Manchesters, Halifaxes and Stirlings
all making the debut over German skies in these operations. On the
29th, a daylight attack on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was ordered
by 6 Blenheims; all turned back because of cloud cover. Three nights
later, over 100 aircraft attempted to hit the vessels in Brest harbour
- all failed. Blenheims had more success on the 31st against other
warships in the Channel. The aircraft were also allowed to attack
targets of opportunity on the coasts they were patrolling and several
gun positions and troops on parade where attacked in Holland. The
night of the 31st March/1st April saw the first use of 4,000lb high
capacity bombs (known as 'blockbusters' or 'cookies' by crews) during
a raid on Emden.
April
A succession raids against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (or 'Salmon'
and 'Gluckstein' as Bomber Command's crews had christened them) eventually
forced the captain of the Gneisenau to order his vessel to be moored
out in Brest harbour. The vessel was hit the next day by a torpedo
dropped from a Beaufort of Coastal Command and the subsequent damage
took six months to repair. The aircraft was shot down during the attack,
but it's pilot, Flying Officer K Campbell, was posthumously awarded
the Victoria Cross. For two nights, Kiel was subjected to attacks
by a total of 389 aircraft. The raids were deemed a success by the
crews and were probably the most successful raids against a single
target during the war to date. Along with Brest (10 raids), Kiel was
the main objective of many operations (6 raids) with Bremen and Hamburg
other main targets. The end of the month saw a new method of operation
for 2 Group and its Blenheim with the Channel Stop. Aircraft, operating
with fighter escort, attempted to stop any German vessels passing
through the narrowest part of the Channel by day whilst fast patrol
boats attempted the same by night. Operations against oil facilities
did continue, but with poor results.
|