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CHAPTER 3
Bomber Command and the Battle of the Ruhr

At the beginning of 1943 the British bomber force was still the main offensive weapon in the hands of the Allies. Indeed, for some four years after the withdrawal of the British Army from Dunkirk, the bomber aircraft remained the only means of attacking Germany since the Mediterranean campaigns, although invaluable in bleeding Germany of some of her best manpower and material, were until the later stages essentially defensive. Throughout all those years, apart from the bomber offensive, British forces could do no more than nibble at the fringes of German-occupied territory.

The operations of Bomber Command, however, passed through many different phases before they became a potent factor in the achievement of victory. The earlier years were a long-drawn-out struggle to build up an effective force and to overcome the difficulties associated with night bombing. Frequently the offensive was checked by the diversion of the bomber force to defensive tasks and there was uncertainty both in policy and its application. Many were the authorities who found what they considered ‘essential’ jobs for the bombers to carry out. Experts in economic war thought out one class of industrial target after another, the destruction of which would, they argued, cripple the German war effort. The experts in maritime war called for attacks on the enemy ports, on ships in harbour, on U-boat bases and shipbuilding yards. The experts in land warfare called for attacks on tank factories, on fuel dumps, ordnance depots and so on; even the experts in air warfare had their own target systems as part of their campaign for air superiority. In fact, nearly everyone had vital jobs for the bomber force which, small as it was, could not do all the many things regarded as ‘essential’ but which were otherwise impossible.

Unfortunately the accuracy of the early bombing had been greatly overestimated. Economic intelligence had been seriously at fault, and the ability of the Germans to counter the bombing raids and to repair damage was not fully appreciated. And when the spectacular results which some had been led to expect failed to materialise there were doubts, criticisms, and even opposition in some quarters regarding the whole bombing campaign. The early enthusiasm faded and the bomber offensive became a hard-fought battle in which new and ever-changing tactics had to be hammered

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out by hard-won experience. Weather, phases of the moon, distance of targets, enemy fighter strength and tactics, defence organisation for guns, searchlights, radar and fighter control; ever-changing techniques of navigation, target marking and bombing — all these factors had played a part in the development of the campaign. The ‘thousand bomber’ raids of mid-1942 and the formation, in August of that year, of the special pathfinder force for target finding and marking were two outstanding achievements of the early period. Nevertheless, to develop the equipment and technique and to train the aircrews to attain a high degree of accuracy in the face of enemy opposition and under all weather conditions continued to be a long and difficult struggle fought at great cost, and it was not until the middle of 1943 that it became possible to deliver a heavy attack in Germany with real precision.

Like the blockade by the British Navy in the First World War and by the German U-boats in the early stages of the second, the effects of the bomber offensive were only gradual, slowly cumula- tive, and therefore difficult to discern. There were no spectacular advances over large tracts of enemy territory; no towns or fortresses were captured with large numbers of the enemy made prisoner. Only by degrees was the enemy's industrial capacity and his ability to make war undermined. Yet the damage inflicted by the bombing was not confined to that which could be seen and photographed. It was reflected with equal significance in the way the German Air Force was driven from the offensive to the defensive both in its operations and in new construction, and compelled to concentrate more and more of its resources on the protection of Germany against bombing attacks from the west to the benefit of the Allied forces engaged on other fronts.

A force of over 600,000 in 1943 and nearly one million in 1944 was maintained to man the anti-aircraft defences – not far short of the peak total strength of the RAF all over the world. Anti-aircraft guns took an ever-increasing part of Germany's total weapon pro- duction,¹ while the German night-fighter force which had grown from virtually nothing to 150 in November 1940 and 250 by July 1942 now rose to 550 by July 1943, 800 by the spring of 1944, and 1250 by the end of 1944.

A vital battle – the battle for air superiority, for the initiative in the air – was also to be fought out in the skies over German terri- tory. This battle against the German Air Force and the attack on the enemy's production resources and communications were closely interlocked, for as the Allies gradually gained air superiority so

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automatically was the power of the bomber force increased for destroying the enemy's means of production and the communications on which they depended. Herein lay the essence of a successful air offensive. And now in the fourth year of war, when the Allies at last possessed the means to put it into greater effect, an attack, massive, sustained and compelling, began to fall upon Germany. To Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force it had fallen to lead the way and blaze the trail in this great but hazardous

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venture of war. The path which it had opened was soon to become a busy highway along which powerful forces would advance resolutely towards their goal.

* * * * *

Appalling casualties had been suffered in the land battles of the First World War. Of one single day's fighting on the Somme in July 1916 it is recorded that when ‘Night closed over the still-thundering battlefield …. nearly 60,000 British soldiers had fallen, killed or wounded, or were prisoners in the hands of the enemy.’ In the first five days of the Somme battle nearly 100,000 of our best troops were lost and ‘the ground conquered was … so limited both in width and depth as to exclude any strategic results.’¹ It was partly to avoid the repetition of such loss and slaughter as took place at Passchendaele, Verdun, and the Somme that the Allied leaders meeting at Casablanca in January 1943 had decided to postpone an invasion of the Continent and to intensify the air offensive from the United Kingdom. The ultimate object of this aerial onslaught was stated as ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system and the under- mining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened.’ Europe was a fortress which must be subjected to vigorous bombardment before a final assault by the Allied armies could be practicable. To make that assault before the time was ripe would be suicidal for the Allied cause and of no assistance to Russia.

The bomber offensive planned at Casablanca was to be a joint Allied effort in which the operations of the RAF night bombers would be supplemented by American day bombers. But the American bomber force in Britain was still small and the combined offensive did not really begin until June 1943 when the American forces had been substantially augmented and detailed plans had matured. Meanwhile the operations of the American 8th Air Force continued to be essentially experimental, with its bombers gradually extending the scope of their effort to Germany, adjusting their tactics and techniques, and feeling out the quality of German opposition. There- fore, during the first half of 1943, the main effort against Germany was undertaken by Royal Air Force Bomber Command under Air Marshal Arthur Harris.

Harris had been in charge of the British bomber force for less than a year. Appointed at a time when Bomber Command was at a most difficult period in its development, he was both by training and temperament well fitted to fill this hard post, for he was an

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expert in air matters and much of his twenty-five years' experience with the RAF had been gained in operating bombers both by day and by night. He sincerely believed that the bombing could shorten the war and save terrible casualties in land battles. His fierce honesty of purpose and singleness of mind drove him to demand the utmost of his crews, but at the same time, with equal vehemence, he strove to move mountains on their behalf and get the weapons and aids they required. He was accused of ruthlessness and frequently blamed for shortcomings of a policy that was not altogether of his making. Yet the respect and admiration which this grim and formidable leader won from his men was well demonstrated not only at various gatherings both during and after the war but also by the confidence with which his directions were followed even when they involved heavy casualties. He bore heavy responsibilities which imposed a strain different from that imposed upon naval and land commanders, for the bombing offensive was continuous and involved the committal to action night after night of a force of some five or six thousand highly trained and skilled men, in machines whose value might well exceed fifty million pounds.

The declarations of the combined Allied Chiefs of Staff at Casablanca regarding the bomber offensive from the United Kingdom were more a statement of policy than a specific directive, and even the subsequent orders to Air Marshal Harris were in the broadest terms. Bomber Command was to proceed with ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system’, giving priority to certain aspects of it, such as U-boat and aircraft construction, transportation, oil production, and targets in the enemy war industry. This was interpreted by Harris as meaning the destruction of principal industrial centres in Germany, and since the Ruhr was by far the most important, he regarded it as a principal objective.

However, for tactical reasons, Harris was forced to conduct the offensive more in accord with the general aim than with any special type of target laid down. Among the factors which affected his choice of targets were the weather in different parts of enemy territory, the disposition of the enemy defences, the radio aids available and their limitations, together with intelligence gained of the effect of operations and the relative importance of various targets. Up to 1943 the choice of target on any particular night had been severely limited by the weather, but with improvement in pathfinder and bombing techniques following the introduction of new radar aids, the weather over the target area became less important. Operations could now be carried out on a greater number of nights and, since moonlight and clear skies were not so essential, it was possible

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to operate in conditions less favourable to the enemy night fighters. All the same the skill with which the enemy directed his defences and the steady increase in their strength meant that frequent changes of tactics and targets had to be made.

The planning of each bombing raid was a complex affair. Early in the day the Commander-in-Chief would meet his staff officers in the Operations Room of Bomber Command's headquarters on the outskirts of London. The weather forecasts for the Continent and also for bases in England would be considered along with intelligence reports before the night's target was finally chosen. Then the route for the bombers was decided upon, special attention being given to the time that the aircraft would spend over enemy territory, the avoidance of heavily defended areas, and methods of deceiving the German night-fighter force. The Commander-in-Chief finally fixed the aiming point, the size of the force to be despatched, and the bomb load to be carried. After discussion with the groups concerned an operation order was passed to them; then further instructions went to the stations where the detailed plans were worked out according to the pathfinder tactics that were to be used.

During the earlier years the results of bombing had been assessed from crew reports which in the enthusiasm of the moment had often proved inaccurate. By 1943, however, large numbers of night photographs were being taken showing the actual release of the bombs by each aircraft. From these photographs an assessment of the bomb concentration and of the area attacked could be made and immediate lessons drawn as to the advantages of different tactics. For example, it was soon found that aircraft reaching the target in the later stages of a raid tended to undershoot on the markers owing to the large area of fire usually visible by then. This was corrected either by varying the direction of approach of the later waves or by instructing the later marker aircraft to place their target indicators behind the aiming point. Daylight reconnaissance was usually made within a few days of a raid and the interpretation of the photographs taken gave a fair assessment of the damage done. It was then possible to judge whether further attacks on the same target were necessary. Yet owing to the extraordinary speed with which repairs were effected by the Germans, even this judgment was, as post-war investigation reveals, frequently too optimistic.

The British bomber force, with a long-deferred expansion of strength at last becoming effective, was now better equipped for its avowed task of ‘beating the industrial life out of Germany’. During 1942 there had been no significant increase in the number of aircraft but a major part of the force had been re-equipped with heavy bombers. Moreover, subsequent expansion was such that, by the beginning of March 1943, the front-line force included 380 heavy

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and 160 medium bombers.¹ Within another three months there was a force of nearly 800 aircraft, of which just over two-thirds were heavy four-engined bombers, Lancasters, Halifaxes and Stirlings. Yet while this increase in numerical strength was impressive, the outstanding feature of the period was the substantial rise in bomb lift following the change from medium to heavy bombers, with the Lancasters, superior in both operational height and bomb capacity at long range, emerging as the mainstay of the force. The Lancaster was to prove a magnificent machine. It was subsequently employed in many different roles, in massive saturation raids, in precision attacks such as that which sank the Tirpitz, for low-level raids on German power supplies and the Moehne Dam; it supplied the underground armies of Europe, supported the Allied armies, and in the final stage fed starving Holland and carried home British prisoners of war. Pilots liked the Lancaster's manoeuvrability, the excellent all-round vision from its cockpit, its instant response to the controls, and the rugged construction which enabled it to absorb much punishment in combat and yet bring its crew home. Altogether it was to prove a worthy successor to the faithful Wellington which had been the mainstay of Bomber Command in the earlier years and which, in fact, was still employed on operations until October 1943.

* * * * *

A considerable contribution to the expansion of Bomber Command during 1943 was made by the Commonwealth countries, notably by Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Canada now provided a whole bomber group which was completely maintained by the Canadian Government. The substantial part played by both Australia and New Zealand was less evident, for although certain squadrons were identified with each country the majority of their men were scattered among RAF units. Had the New Zealanders who flew with Bomber Command during 1943 been more concentrated in squadrons, their numbers would have been sufficient to provide crews for more than 200 bombers in any one raid. As it was they were to be found in almost every unit, usually flying in crews made up of men from various parts of the Commonwealth. And in addition to the men engaged in flying duties, there was a substantial number who shared in vital maintenance work on the airfields. New Zealanders were also employed in a wide variety of posts in the vast and complex bomber organisation – of planning,

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operational control, technical development, training and various staff duties. Several veteran pilots were in command of RAF bomber stations and squadrons, notably Air Commodore A. McKee who was in charge of the large operational airfield at Downham Market in Norfolk, Group Captain S. C. Elworthy who now became Station Commander at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, from which three squadrons of Lancasters operated, and Wing Commander Dabinett¹ who continued to lead No. 12 Lancaster Squadron.

The New Zealand Stirling Squadron was to play a prominent part in the bomber offensive during 1943 and further increase the reputation it had gained in the earlier years. Flying under the apt motto, Ake Ake Kia Kaha – ‘For ever and ever be strong’ – No. 75 was now led by Wing Commander Lane,² an Englishman with considerable experience in bombing operations. His flight commanders were Squadron Leader Allcock,³ a New Zealander who had joined the Royal Air Force before the outbreak of war and served in the Middle East before returning to win further distinction with a Stirling squadron, and Squadron Leader Fowler⁴ of Chellaston, Derbyshire, who had previously completed his first tour of operations with No. 75 Squadron. During 1943 just over 300 New Zealanders, aircrew and ground staff, served with the squadron, and while New Zealanders were predominant among the aircrew, the presence of men from Britain, Australia, and Canada preserved the Empire character of the unit which had been a pleasant feature of the earlier years.

At the beginning of 1943 No. 75 Squadron was emerging from a very trying period of three months in which there had been a move to a new base, a change in aircraft and, in relation to the number of operations, heavy casualties, including the loss of a popular commanding officer. But the aircrews were now more familiar with the four-engined Stirling bombers that had replaced the Wellingtons with which the squadron had been associated since its formation. Initial mechanical failures in the new machines, the cause of so much disappointment and frustration to all members of the unit, were being overcome by the ground crews, after much persistent effort, and the men were more accustomed to surroundings which were in

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direct contrast to those at the peacetime stations of Feltwell and Mildenhall, their previous bases.

There were good reasons for the feeling of strangeness which had been experienced. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any other operational squadron flew from an airfield less warlike than that now occupied by the New Zealand Squadron at the Rowley Mile on the famous racecourse at Newmarket. Some of the aircrew were billeted in a wing of the Jockey Club and their mess was a mile away in the grandstand of the racecourse where the ground staff were accommodated. The grandstand itself was, as a senior officer put it, ‘a rabbit warren of a building with three floors housing billets, dining rooms, kitchens, recreation rooms and workshops. All windows were blacked out and it was quite easy to lose oneself in the labyrinth of rooms, passages and stairs.’ The briefing room was at first in the saddle room, which still retained the large brackets on which saddles had been hung, while the operations room was located in the cream and gilt weighing-in room. When the briefing room was later moved to what had been a lavishly equipped cocktail bar, the serious business of briefing a bomber squadron for action provided a sharp reminder of the gulf which existed between the days of peace and war.

After a quiet beginning in January, when severe winter weather restricted activity, No. 75 Squadron was to operate intensively during the following months, and by the end of July a total of nearly seven hundred sorties had been despatched in eighty-seven raids, during which the Stirlings dropped 1285 tons of bombs and laid 604 mines. Unfortunately the unit again suffered heavy casualties, thirty-five aircraft being lost during these seven months.

When the squadron resumed full-scale operations in February, Nuremberg, Turin, and the Rhineland city of Cologne were among the targets attacked. But the main effort, in common with that of most other squadrons in Bomber Command, was concentrated on enemy U-boat bases in Occupied France and on construction facilities in German ports. By the end of the month aircrews had more confidence in their new aircraft, while the ground staff, in mastering the technical difficulties which had beset them with the introduction of the Stirling, succeeded in maintaining a high level of aircraft serviceability. The squadron was then ready to take a leading part in the offensive against German industry in the Ruhr and Rhineland which was to be the principal feature of Bomber Command's operations during the first half of 1943.

With RAF squadrons in Bomber Command, many New Zealanders were to win distinction during 1943 as captains of air- craft, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and air gunners.

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Several men were outstanding, notably Squadron Leader Thiele,¹ as flight commander and captain of a Lancaster in No. 467 Australian Squadron; Squadron Leader St. John² in similar duties with No. 101 Lancaster Squadron, and Squadron Leader Silcock³ with No. 44 Rhodesian Squadron, also flying Lancasters. Special commendation for his part in difficult and hazardous missions of which little was heard at the time was won by Squadron Leader Boxer,⁴ who led a flight in No. 138 Halifax Squadron. His unit was one of several engaged in supplying the underground armies of Europe and dropping and picking up Allied agents, missions which often involved long flights over enemy territory. Boxer was later to command a squadron engaged in these ‘special duties’, as they had come to be known.

Other bomber captains who established a particularly fine record of achievement at this time were Squadron Leader Starky⁵ with No. 115 Lancaster Squadron and Squadron Leader B. G. Wallace⁶ with No. 214 Stirling Squadron; Flight Lieutenants D. C. MacKenzie⁷ and J. B. Smith⁸ and Pilot Officer C. M. Wallace⁹ were also prominent as captains with an Australian squadron and Squadron Leader D. W. S. Clark¹⁰ with a Canadian unit.

Few brothers probably shared war experience to the same extent as Flying Officers Anthony¹¹ and Peter Singer,¹² twin brothers from Gisborne, each of whom now captained a Lancaster in No. 57 Squadron. They had joined up at the same time, trained together in New Zealand and England and then piloted aircraft in the same squadron, very often flying over the same target within a few

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minutes of one another. They both flew on twenty-nine raids and finished their first tour of operations by bombing Dortmund in May 1943. Both brothers were then awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and went on to take the same instructors' course. Subsequently, they returned to operations with a Lancaster squadron and survived the war to return together to New Zealand.

Navigators to achieve distinction during 1943 were Flying Officer Sheild¹ with No. 149 Squadron and Flight Lieutenant Fowler² with No. 90 Squadron, while among the New Zealand air gunners, Flight Sergeant de Joux,³ who was credited with the destruction of five night fighters, continued a most successful operational career with No. 102 Halifax Squadron. He was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal in November 1943. Pilot Officer Florence,⁴ who flew many sorties with No. 214 Lancaster Squadron, was among those who distinguished themselves as bomb aimers. Towards the middle of the year he joined No. 617 Squadron – ‘The Dam Busters’ – only to lose his life in a November attack against the Antheor Viaduct on the Riviera route into Italy. The Lancasters had flown on to land in North Africa and it was during the return flight that Florence's aircraft was lost.

New Zealanders also continued to be prominent in the pathfinder squadrons, which contained picked crews specially trained in target location and whose aircraft were equipped with the newest aids to navigation and bombing as they became available. Among those who were to achieve particular distinction during 1943 were Squadron Leader Barron⁵ and Flight Lieutenant Kearns,⁶ who captained heavy bombers, Squadron Leader Ball,⁷ Flight Lieutenants Gray,⁸ Hilton,⁹ Martin,¹⁰ and Flying Officer Barclay,¹¹ who flew as navigators, and

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Flying Officer Marshall¹ and Warrant Officer Barnham,² wireless operators and gunners. All these men had been with the Pathfinder Force during the pioneering period in 1942. Only four of them survived the war.

Others who won commendation as captains of pathfinder aircraft were Flight Lieutenant Moore³ of No. 83 Squadron, Flight Lieutenant Petrie⁴ of No. 7 Squadron, and Flying Officer Matich⁵ of No. 35 Squadron. Moore survived many hazardous missions to complete a long period of operations with the Pathfinder Force; Petrie lost his life whilst leading an attack on Berlin in December; Matich was also shot down towards the end of the year but he escaped serious injury, evaded capture, and got back to England.

There was now a relatively large group of New Zealanders with No. 156 Lancaster Squadron, where Squadron Leader Mandeno,⁶ Flight Lieutenants Sullivan,⁷ Thomson⁸ and Wright⁹ were prominent as captains, Squadron Leader Hall¹⁰ and Flight Lieutenant Kelly¹¹ as navigators, and Pilot Officer Crankshaw¹² as air gunner. In No. 35 Squadron Flying Officers Jamieson¹³ and Robson,¹⁴ Warrant Officer Dowman,¹⁵ and Flight Sergeant Ridings¹⁶ won distinction as wireless operators and air gunners.

The Pathfinder Force, whose formation and early operations have been described in the previous volume, was now organised as a

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separate group in Bomber Command under its original leader, the Australian pilot Air Commodore Bennett,¹ and to the initial five squadrons a further Halifax and Lancaster squadron were added in April; then three months later came two more Mosquito squad- rons. There was also a gradual re-equipment of the original units with Lancasters.

The pathfinder crews, it will be remembered, preceded the main force in order to mark the target by means of flares and ground markers. But their early operations had revealed an urgent need for devices that would enable them to find targets on moonless nights or in cloud and then mark them so unmistakably that a large main force could follow and deliver heavy and concentrated attacks. Before the end of the previous year ‘Gee’, of which so much had been expected, had been reduced to a valuable aid to navigation on which limitations of range could be imposed by enemy jamming, but trials with various other bombing aids had so progressed that they were now ready for use on operations. The first, known as ‘Oboe’, had already been tried out towards the end of December 1942 in an attack against the power-station at Lutterade. Then, on 16 January during a raid on Berlin, the long awaited TI ground markers were introduced, followed by a second new radar aid known as ‘H2S’² on the night of 30 January when Hamburg was the target.

These new technical aids which began to reach Bomber Command at the beginning of 1943 were of even greater importance to the success of its operations than the increase in its size. The bomber force could now be concentrated both in time and space to produce the maximum effect with a minimum of loss, for it had long been known that the saturation of the German defences – night fighters, anti-aircraft guns and searchlights – was the secret of economy. Moreover, with this concentration, effective radio counter measures could be taken. Specially equipped aircraft and ground stations were now better able to jam the signals of enemy fighters and their control and thus screen the British bombers from identification for part of their flight towards Germany.

Oboe was a system for guiding a pilot to his target along a radio beam, and was so named because the tone of the guiding radio beam was similar to that of the musical instrument. Briefly, its operation depended on the re-radiation by the aircraft of radar signals sent

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out to it, and from the echoes the position of the machine flying along a certain beam could be calculated. There were two ground stations. One controlled the aircraft by signalling a system of dots and dashes whenever it deviated to the left or right of a given course. Simultaneously, the second station measured at intervals how far the aircraft had proceeded, and when it was directly over the target a special signal would be sent for bombs or markers to be released.

The chief disadvantage of Oboe was that each pair of ground stations could handle only one aircraft at a time, and then the aircraft had to fly on a steady course for a considerable distance as it approached the target. This made the machine extremely vulnerable. Further, the range of the system was limited by the height at which the aircraft could fly because, owing to the curvature of the earth, the transmissions from the ground stations followed a straight line and had therefore to be received at an ever greater height as the aircraft's distance from the station increased. The first difficulty was dealt with by gradually increasing the number of ground stations to control at least sufficient aircraft for marking a target, whilst the risks entailed by the necessary straight and level approach were reduced by using the fast and high-flying Mosquito aircraft.

Oboe had developed out of the methods used by the RAF to interfere with the beams used by the German bombers as navigational aids for the attacks on Britain during the second winter of the war. In the early stages of its development the device had been considered simply as an aid to blind bombing, and the fact that only a handful of aircraft could be guided by it in any one attack seemed a fatal objection. But by the end of 1942 Bomber Command was no longer thinking in terms of thousands of bombers, with each crew finding the target by themselves, but of a smaller force being directed to an area which had been marked by very few aircraft. Thus a navigational and bombing aid which could be used by no more than a single squadron seemed likely to change the whole course of the bomber offensive, which indeed it certainly did.

From the beginning of 1943 No. 109 Mosquito Squadron of the Pathfinder Force which had been experimenting with Oboe from the initial stages was used whenever possible to mark the bomb-release point for the main force. Another Oboe-equipped unit, No. 105 Mosquito Squadron, was added in July, but for the remainder of the year those two squadrons provided the sole Oboe force of Bomber Command. Flying Officers Dray¹ and Leigh² were pilots

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and Flight Lieutenant Patrick¹ flew as navigator with No. 109 Squadron during the pioneering period with this new device.

H2S, the second radar aid, was an entirely different device from Oboe in that it was quite independent of ground stations, the apparatus being carried wholly within the aircraft. It was, in fact, similar to the radar equipment already in use by Coastal Command for the detection of submarines and other vessels at sea. For some time it had been known that radar impulses transmitted from an aircraft gave back varying echoes from water, open country or built-up areas, and the picture given on the screen by these echoes was gradually improved until it was possible to identify coastlines, rivers, towns, and eventually even individual factories; thus targets and navigational pinpoints could be identified in total darkness or through cloud. Nor was this system limited by range. But on the other hand, its operation required far greater experience than did the Oboe and its effectiveness in Bomber Command was therefore not so immediate. Indeed, a considerable period was to elapse before the aircrew operators acquired the necessary experience and before the definition of the reflected picture was sufficiently improved for it to be both accurate and reliable.

H2S largely depended for its eventual success upon the magnetron valve, which was capable of producing far higher power than any other contemporary valve. It was one of the most brilliant inventions of British science and indispensable for many forms of airborne radar, since it enabled a powerful transmission to be made from a piece of equipment small enough to be easily carried in an aircraft. There was at first much alarm at the prospect of it getting into enemy hands for it was proving invaluable in the Battle of the Atlantic. Indeed, a serious controversy which extended to both sides of the Atlantic over the release of the equipment to Bomber Command was settled only by the British War Cabinet Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting under the Prime Minister towards the end of December 1942.

At first the supply of H2S sets was restricted and Bomber Command was unable to take advantage of the fact that this device could be used by an unlimited number of aircraft at the same time. It was not until September 1943 that all the heavy bombers of the Pathfinder Force were so equipped. In the meantime H2S, like Oboe, had to be employed as a pathfinder device and tactics based on its use by a small number of aircraft.

Unfortunately, in the early stages of its use the apparatus was liable to fail even more often than the Oboe equipment, and with

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so few aircraft equipped with H2S this meant that far too few target indicators were burning at any given moment during an attack. Another cause of early failure was that the special target maps were found in some cases to be out of date. These special maps had been prepared with the built-up areas drawn to look as far as possible like the actual image that would appear on the radar screen in the aircraft, but on several occasions the Pathfinders mistook a newly built-up area which was not marked on their maps for the actual target. Moreover, it was found that the relation between the real shape of a town and the image of it that appeared on the H2S apparatus varied according to the angle or direction from which the town was viewed. Indeed, it was most difficult to predict exactly how any particular town was going to show up on the screen so that only the most experienced and skilful navigators were able to achieve real accuracy. It was soon found that the difference between land and water showed up far more clearly than the difference between built-up areas and open country, which meant that coastal targets could be more easily identified than those inland. Targets in small towns were also more readily found than in large cities because it was fairly easy to identify a town as a whole but much more difficult to distinguish any particular area in a large city from the city as a whole. Altogether it was some time before H2S was used effectively and its tactical development during 1943 was a slow process marked by many disappointments.

Oboe, on the other hand, proved its value immediately. During January, when only a few Mosquitos were equipped with the necessary apparatus, the period when marking could be maintained was limited. Therefore a series of small experimental raids was launched in which these Oboe-equipped aircraft marked the target for a following force of fifty to sixty heavy bombers. Essen was the principal objective of these raids. This large industrial city, home of the huge Krupps armament works and an important centre of the German mining industry, had been the most frequently bombed town in Germany up to this time. Yet because of the industrial haze and smoke which almost invariably covered the Ruhr area and made identification of landmarks extremely difficult, the attacks had caused little damage. This difficult target was therefore an ideal one on which to experiment with the Oboe bombing aid.

The eight small attacks which took place in January 1943 were remarkable for it was estimated that by the despatch of 418 sorties and the loss of only eighteen machines better results were achieved than in all the raids against Essen in the previous year. After the attack on the night of 9 January the photographs revealed that sixty per cent of the bombs had fallen within three miles of the centre of the city, a percentage that was three times greater than

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the best hitherto recorded. Attacks on Dusseldorf and Duisburg showed similar promise.

Among the New Zealanders to take part in the repeated attacks on Essen was Flight Sergeant Rowsell¹ of No. 207 Squadron who distinguished himself during the first operation on the night of 3 January. The Lancaster in which Rowsell flew as wireless operator was intercepted by night fighters, and during their attacks he acted as fire controller from the astro-dome with good effect and the enemy aircraft broke off the attack. The rear gunner had been wounded and was trapped in his damaged turret but with the aid of an axe Rowsell managed to get him free. As the elevators had been damaged and the Lancaster was difficult to control through being excessively tail heavy, he then helped to rig up the spare trailing aerial on to the control column so that the bomb aimer could pull on the aerial and relieve the pilot of some of the strain. Rowsell then returned to his wireless set to obtain a diversion to an airfield where there was good visibility, and the bomber finally landed safely.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to follow up the success against Essen immediately with further attacks on the Ruhr as for the next two months the effort of Bomber Command was devoted mainly to the U-boat war with attacks on the submarine bases in the Biscay ports and construction facilities at Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, and Bremen. The reasons for this diversion of effort and the results achieved have already been related in the previous chapter. How- ever, on several nights when weather did not favour the offensive against the U-boats, it was possible to deliver attacks on Cologne and Nuremberg. Cologne, scene of the first ‘thousand bomber’ raid and an important commercial and industrial centre in the Rhineland, was attacked on three occasions during February, altogether 831 sorties being despatched for the loss of twenty-four bombers.

The early months of 1943 were also notable for the resumption of raids against Berlin, which had not been heavily attacked since the end of 1941 owing to the serious casualties suffered by Bomber Command in the early raids. Berlin had been allotted high priority throughout 1942, and in the autumn of that year the Commander- in-Chief was continually pressed to renew the attack as soon as the nights lengthened sufficiently to bring the city within range. But Harris had consistently resisted these proposals for he considered that little damage would result and that there was a serious risk of incurring heavy casualties. He maintained that, with several

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hours' flying over strongly defended areas, a certainty of strong night-fighter activity and the size of the German capital, not only were heavy bombers needed for a successful raid but also that only Lancasters could be sent there with any reasonable degree of safety and economy of force. In the last attack in December 1941, out of 140 bombers despatched only half of them had reached the target and twenty-one had been lost.

But now that the Command's expansion was becoming a reality it was possible to raise a substantial force of Lancasters; therefore, on two consecutive nights in January, Berlin was attacked by forces of 201 and 187 Lancasters. Unfortunately haze and snow, which always made it more difficult to see the outlines of a built-up area, prevented the Pathfinders from identifying the aiming point, and although several important factories were hit the damage was scattered. On the first night the enemy's fighters made scarcely any interception, and though the flak was heavy and the force too small to saturate it, only one Lancaster was missing. The next night the weather and the light proved favourable to the enemy; night fighters operated in strength and twenty-two bombers were lost.

Flight Lieutenant Keith Thiele captained a Lancaster from No. 467 Australian Squadron on both these raids against Berlin. On the first night during the approach to the target his rear gunner lost consciousness through lack of oxygen. Thiele went on to attack whilst two of his crew endeavoured to assist the rear gunner out of his turret and render first aid. As soon as the bombs had been dropped, Thiele took the Lancaster down through the flak and searchlights in an attempt to save his gunner's life. This action did not succeed in reviving the gunner so Thiele carried him to the pilot's seat, no mean feat in a Lancaster in flight. Artificial respiration was then continuously applied during the return flight which Thiele maintained at low level. Unfortunately the crew's efforts were unsuccessful and the squadron diary records ‘an unfortunate loss to a very gallant crew after a very successful sortie.’

Among the aircraft which returned damaged that same night was a Lancaster of No. 101 Squadron captained by Sergeant Ralph.¹ Over Berlin his bomber was hit by flak and the starboard petrol tanks holed but Ralph got clear and completed the long flight back, landing the damaged machine safely, despite very poor visibility. Ralph had already completed twenty sorties with his squadron. Early in the previous December when returning from an attack on Frankfurt, he had displayed outstanding skill and airmanship in landing his machine safely at base with both port engines failing.

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Three further heavy raids on Berlin were made during March 1943 in an effort to follow up victories on the Russian front and, with the effort of the Lancasters supplemented by Stirlings and Halifaxes, a total of just over eight hundred sorties was despatched. In the second attack on 27 March one of the Stirlings from No. 15 Squadron carried a ‘National Savings’ bomb from London. The captain was Pilot Officer Renner,¹ a twenty-six-year-old New Zealander who had been a farmer in Hawke's Bay before the war. His bomb aimer, wireless operator, and gunner were also New Zealanders, and a Canadian navigator and a flight engineer from London completed the crew.

‘I think this trip to Berlin, our twenty-second “op” on Stirlings, gave us most satisfaction,’ writes Renner. ‘A Wings for Victory week had been held in London's Trafalgar Square during which three large bombs had been plastered inches thick with Savings Stamps by the British public on the promise that they would be duly delivered with the bomb. At the end of the week two of the bombs were hurried to our Station and one found its way into our aircraft which we had named Te Kooti, after the famous Maori chief. Three times the raid was postponed. We became quite attached to our bomb and each day the bomb-aimer would go round to make sure it was still loaded on Te Kooti. The third night we were actually on the move when the red light shot up from the control tower and we rolled off the runway and back to dispersal unable to express our feelings of frustration. The next night, amid rain and sleet, we got off. Icy clouds kept us down to two thousand feet until we got over Denmark where we were able to sneak a little more height. Then over the Baltic the clouds broke up and we were able to reach Berlin at a reasonable height to deliver our bomb. The German defences, although formidable, did not seem so concentrated as those we knew so well in the Ruhr, but the searchlights made us feel awfully bare.’

New Zealanders also flew on each of the four major raids that were launched against Italy during the early months of 1943, when the principal objectives were the industrial centres of Milan and Turin and the naval base at Spezia where units of the Italian fleet, including three battleships, were sheltering. A few hours before the first attack on Spezia Flying Officer Pethick² of No. 1409 Meteorological Flight carried out a reconnaissance of the area and also took photographs of great value. ‘He flew an unarmed Mosquito and displayed determination and skill in avoiding inter- ception,’ says an official report. ‘On reaching the French coast on the return flight his aircraft developed engine trouble and there was complete failure of all electrical and wireless equipment, but he landed safely in England. His information led to the heavy and successful raid on Spezia that night.’ Between June 1942 and October

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1943 Pethick made almost ninety long-range ‘met’ flights, many of which involved deep penetrations of enemy territory in unarmed aircraft.

Although casualties were light the missions to Italy were not without incident. After the raid on Milan in mid-February one Lancaster had just crossed the Alps on its return flight when an engine suddenly caught fire. The pilot, Flight Sergeant Whyte,¹ put the bomber into a dive in an effort to extinguish the fire by the rush of air. Unfortunately, however, this proved unsuccessful and the flames began to envelop the wing; Whyte was just able to control the aircraft sufficiently for the crew to leave by parachute. He then followed them out and came down in hilly country to the west of Dijon. With the help of the French partisans Whyte was able to evade capture, and after many adventures finally made his way back to England, where he returned to operations and completed a second tour.

Early in March 1943 Bomber Command was able to turn its attention to the Ruhr and the next four months saw one of the most dramatic battles of the air war – a battle in which a veritable fortress was assaulted from the air in a series of short but intense actions of almost incredible ferocity.

* * * * *

The relatively small but compact area of the Ruhr was of vital importance to the German war machine, for within its boundaries lay a great many of the factories that forged the guns, tanks, and engines of war upon which the enemy forces depended. Moreover, as the largest centre of heavy industry and coal-mining in Europe, the Ruhr not only provided finished products of all kinds but almost the whole of the coal and steel needed by other industries in Germany for the production of war material. It was indeed ‘the smithy of the German Reich’, and as such it had always been regarded as an objective of prime importance for the British bomber force. However, in the early years, with small and relatively weak forces lacking reliable navigational aids, the odds had been heavily against successful attacks. Apart from the distance to be flown over enemy territory and the strong ground defences in the Ruhr, the hundreds of factory chimneys continuously belching smoke produced a thick and persistent haze which made it almost impossible for crews, even on a moonlight night, to pick out a given aiming point. Moreover, in the important target of Essen situated in the centre of the Ruhr, there was not one prominent landmark, and the

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city itself was very similar in appearance to others in the valley. Indeed, it was difficult at night, even in clear weather, to see where one Ruhr town ended and the next began because of the many settlements and industrial buildings which covered much of the intervening ground. The Germans also went to considerable trouble to produce effective decoys and to camouflage what few distinctive landmarks there were.

The introduction of Gee as a navigational aid early in 1942 had led to optimistic hopes of achieving a higher degree of accuracy in raids on the Ruhr, but these hopes had been disappointed for at that extreme range and in the face of strong defences its accuracy proved considerably less than expected and the bombing was still very scattered. But now, in March 1943, with Pathfinder Mosquitos equipped with the Oboe device to lead a stronger bomber force, there was better prospect of finding and accurately marking targets so that a large proportion of the bomb load would be concentrated near the aiming point.

This renewed Battle of the Ruhr, as it may well be termed, opened in the first week of March and continued until the end of July. During that period the towns heavily attacked included Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Mulheim and Ober- hausen; the great Rhineland centres of Cologne and Dusseldorf, which although not in the Ruhr were part of the same industrial complex; Krefeld, Munster, Remscheid and Wuppertal, not primarily concerned with heavy industry but important for the manufacture and transport of vital war materials. Altogether 15,504 sorties were flown in major raids against these towns and 42,348 tons of bombs were dropped for the loss of 718 aircraft.

The initial attacks on Essen were more or less typical of those which followed throughout the Ruhr and Rhineland. In the first raid on the night of 5 March a total of 442 bombers was despatched. In the main force there were 140 Lancasters, 89 Halifaxes, 52 Stirlings and 131 Wellingtons, while the Pathfinder marking force consisted of 22 heavy bombers and 8 Oboe-equipped Mosquitos on which, and on the equipment they carried, the success of the raid almost entirely depended.

The attack, by far the most important carried out by Bomber Command up to this time, followed a carefully prepared plan. After making a landfall at Egmond on the Dutch coast, the bombers flew directly to a point 15 miles north of Essen, which point Pathfinder heavies marked with yellow route markers on the ground as a guide to the main force. From there the crews began the run-up to the target which they were to reach at the rate of eleven a minute, the whole attack being planned to last thirty-eight minutes. Flying

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in ahead the Oboe Mosquitos dropped red target indicators on the aiming point before the bombing began and then at intervals during the attack. This renewal of the marking was limited by the fact that the Mosquitos could only be guided over the target at the rate of one every five minutes by the ground stations with which they were in communication. There were as yet only two pairs of ground stations in operation and, while they could guide twelve Mosquitos over the target in an hour, there was the risk that there would be intervals when no target indicators were burning on the ground. Therefore, the twenty-two heavy bombers of the Pathfinder Force acted as ‘backers-up’ throughout the attack, dropping a large number of green indicators aimed at the red ones which the Mosquitos had dropped. Thus the bomb aimers of the main force, if they could not see the more accurately placed red target indicators, could at least aim at the more plentiful green ones. In this way it was hoped that there would be a clearly distinguishable mark at which to aim at every moment during the attack.

In the event the marking was most accurately done by the Pathfinders and the bombing which followed was well concentrated. Soon innumerable fires sprang up around the markers until there was an almost solid ring of flame two miles in diameter. The municipal archives of Essen afterwards revealed that half of the bomb load had, in fact, fallen in the centre of the city, and such was the concentration of the bombing force that only fourteen aircraft were missing from this raid.

Five more attacks were launched against Essen in the next few months, and by the end of July both the huge Krupps works covering several hundred acres in the centre of the city and the town of Essen itself contained large areas of devastation. There was also serious damage to gas, water and electricity facilities.¹ This had been brought about by 3260 sorties with the loss of 138 aircraft, as against 3720 sorties despatched during 1942 with the loss of 201 aircraft which did no significant damage to Krupps and little to the town of Essen. After the 1943 attacks, although repairs were pushed forward vigorously, some factories never resumed production. Among them was the largest single unit in the whole Krupps works, the huge Hindenburg Hall where locomotive construction ceased after the second attack in March and was never restarted in spite of the fact that this work then had equal priority with aircraft, tanks and submarines. Other major war requirements whose production was seriously reduced as a result of Bomber Command's attacks at this time included shells, fuses, guns and aero-engine parts.

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But Essen was only one of many targets, and from the middle of March to the end of July the attack on the Ruhr was pressed with the greatest vigour, all the chief industrial areas being attacked in turn. Many of the raids were remarkably successful in causing widespread destruction but they did not always go according to plan. Although provision had been made for the unexpected arrival over the target of cloud thick enough to hide the ground markers, there were occasions when even the use of ‘skymarkers’ – a kind of firework which floated slowly down and made a point of aim above the clouds – was not enough to save an operation from failure. This was when the tops of the clouds were so high that the skymarkers fell into them and were quickly lost – as happened one night towards the end of May when there was cloud up to 20,000 feet over Dussel- dorf. Bomber Command was, in fact, not yet wholly independent of the weather.

* * * * *

The Battle of the Ruhr was fought by Bomber Command with mounting casualties in the face of an opposition which grew steadily in strength and skill, for the arsenal of the Ruhr was exceptionally well defended by guns, searchlights, night fighters, observation and radar posts, and decoys of various kinds. By the summer of 1943 the area had well over one-third of the total anti-aircraft guns available in Germany. British crews called it ‘Happy Valley’ – a grim euphemism for a region which could become a better reproduction of Dante's Inferno than any of the other well-defended parts of Germany.

As the battle developed it became a colossal battering match between air and ground, with the ground defences trying to blast the invaders out of the sky and the bombers trying to smother the defence under the weight of their attack. As the first aircraft approached, hundreds of searchlights would come on at once and soon the whole sky would be filled with bursting shells, so that the bombers had to drive forward through a barrage of fire and steel. ‘The searchlights, in huge cones, made a wall of light through the Valley,’ declared one Lancaster captain after the second heavy raid against Essen. ‘Intense flak was being directed into the centre of each cone and one got the impression that the defences were being very intelligently directed. They were certainly ready for us and as we flew in I saw other bombers twisting and turning in the searchlight beams.’ Outside the circle of light night fighters waited to pounce upon crippled machines or the unwary crew. Many bombers returned with parts of their wings or fuselage torn to shreds, flying back, as a popular song of the period put it, ‘On a

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Wing and a Prayer’. Others were shot down over the target or, mortally damaged by flak and night-fighter attack, crashed on enemy territory; a few struggled gamely back over the enemy coast only to be forced down in the North Sea.

During the attack on Remscheid one Lancaster of No. 50 Squadron was just turning away after dropping its bombs when it was coned by searchlights. The pilot, Flight Sergeant Cole,¹ succeeded in getting clear but a few minutes later the bomber was again caught in the blinding glare of the lights and then hit by flak. The rear gunner was killed. The Lancaster turned over on its back and petrol poured out of one of the tanks. Cole managed to regain control, but shortly afterwards an engine caught fire and became useless. The bomber then proved so unstable in flight that he ordered his crew to stand by to bale out while he struggled with the damaged controls. Eventually, by lashing back the rudder pedal with a leather strap and by careful piloting, Cole managed to keep his machine airborne and get back across the Channel to make a forced landing in England.

Typical of many other eventful flights was the experience of Squadron Leader Thiele and his crew in the attack on Duisburg