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Prologue .......................................................................................................... 5 Second Phase .............................................................................................14 Third Phase ............................................................................................... 23 Flying Bombs and Rockets............................................................................ 32 The Armaments and Military Power of Germany......................................... 40 Military provisions of the Versailles Treaty ............................................. 40 The modifications agreed to by the Allies .................................................41 Evolution of the military system since 1920 ............................................ 43 The german demands ............................................................................... 48 Conclusions............................................................................................... 50 Arado Ar 234 “Blitz”...................................................................................... 52 Design ....................................................................................................... 53 Ar 234B ..................................................................................................... 62 Specification.............................................................................................. 64 Ar 234C ..................................................................................................... 65 Ar 234D..................................................................................................... 65 Ar 234P ..................................................................................................... 65 Variants..................................................................................................... 66 Engine trouble .......................................................................................... 69 Hi-tech cockpit.......................................................................................... 69 Plugging the intelligence gap.................................................................... 70 Operators ................................................................................................... 71 Creating the Operational Air War.................................................................. 71 The Lessons of World War I ...................................................................... 71 Pre-World War I ........................................................................................ 71 Aviation and the German General Staff ................................................... 74 The Outbreak of war: The Airplane proves decisive ................................ 78 Reorganization of the German Air Force .................................................80 Flanders Air Campaign............................................................................. 83 German Night Fighter ................................................................................... 86 Fighter’s Night............................................................................................... 93 Arado Fluezaugwerke.................................................................................. 103 Walther Wever .............................................................................................105 Awards .................................................................................................... 109 Werner Streib .............................................................................................. 109 Awards ..................................................................................................... 110 References in the Wehrmachtbericht ..................................................111 Illustrations...............................................................................................111 Annexes ........................................................................................................ 113 Kampfgeschwader 76 ................................................................................... 113 War Time Service..................................................................................... 114 Polish Campaign.................................................................................. 114 Denmark and Norway ......................................................................... 114 Battle of France and the Low Countries.............................................. 114 Battle of Britain and Channel Front: 1940 - 1941 ............................... 115 Eastern Front ...................................................................................... 115 2/177

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Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres ............................. 116 Return to British skies......................................................................... 116 Western Front 1944-1945.................................................................... 116 Commanding officers............................................................................... 117 Geschwaderkommodore ..................................................................... 117 Gruppenkommandeure....................................................................... 118 Luftwaffe ...................................................................................................... 118 World War I ............................................................................................. 118 Interwar period........................................................................................ 118 Preparing for war: 1933–1939 ................................................................ 120 The Wever years, 1933 – 1936............................................................ 120 A change of direction, 1936 – 1937 .....................................................122 Dive-bombing ..........................................................................................124 Mobilization, 1938 – 1941........................................................................124 The Defeat of the German Air Force ............................................................125 Foreword..................................................................................................125 Attrition of the Enemy Fighter Force ......................................................126 Fig No 1 German A/C destroyed & damaged in S/E fighter units......127 Fig No 2 German plans for fighter aircraft production ..................... 128 GAF Training Hours ............................................................................... 128 Fig No 3 GAF training hours ...............................................................129 Fig No 4 Size of opposing forces on selected strategic missions ........133 Fig No 5 One USAAF four-engined bomber versus one Me-110 with 21cm. RP's ...........................................................................................135 Fig No 6 Effectiveness of enemy fighters............................................137 Fig No 7 Loss rates ..............................................................................138 Fig No 10 Comparison of firepower - GAF vs. USAAF fighters ..........142 Fig No 11 One Fortress versus one FW190 - 1945...............................143 Fig No 12 Relative destruction potentials of single hits by GAF guns against allied bombers ........................................................................144 Fig No 13 Principal German fighters and armanent...........................145 Fig No 14 Trends in the strategic air war on the Western front .........146 The Delay in the growth of the German Air fighter force.......................147 Fig No 16 Strength and losses. German S/E fighter A/C in first-line units .................................................................................................... 148 Fig No 17 Battle order rates of drowth. GAF day fighters vs USAAF heavy bombers and fighters ................................................................149 Fig 18 Strength of S/E fighters in combat units .................................150 Fig No 19 Bomb tonnages on aircraft industry ..................................150 Fig No 20 Planned monthly production of German fighter aircraft ..153 Fig No 21 GAF comparison of battle order changes in S/E fighters with production and losses in 1st line units ................................................154 Fig No 22 German aircraft production ...............................................156 Destruction of the sources of the enemy aircraft fuel production ..........156 Fig No 23 German aviation gasoline situation ...................................158 Disruption of the GAF supply and repair systems caused by attacks on 3/177

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german transportation.............................................................................158 Editor Note ..............................................................................................158 Junkers Jumo 004 .......................................................................................159 Design and development .........................................................................159 Technical description and testing............................................................ 161 Postwar production .................................................................................162 Variants table...........................................................................................163 Applications .............................................................................................163 Arado Ar 234 Weapons ................................................................................163 MG 151 Cannon ............................................................................................163 Development and wartime history (MG 151/20) ....................................163 Postwar Use .........................................................................................165 MG 151 specifications ..............................................................................165 MG 151/20 specifications ........................................................................165 Ammunition specifications......................................................................166 The 'Tonne-Seedorf TV Guidance System ...................................................167 The British H2S Panoramic Radar ............................................................. 168 Neptun Radar ...............................................................................................169 Glossary ........................................................................................................ 171 Bibliography .................................................................................................172 Index.............................................................................................................176 Notes.............................................................................................................178

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Prologue First Phase THUS far the war has been, in the air, a strange one. It has been strange in several ways. People had expected the Blitzkrieg to break in full fury in the west, but as yet no thunderbolt has fallen there. Poland felt its impact and crumpled under the stroke, though conditions there seemed, prima facie, unfavorable for the successful conduct of a lightning war. The course of the conflict has not, in fact, followed the book. There have been a number of surprises. In the operations at sea, for example, it was confidently expected that aircraft, not the submarine, would be the chief danger to maritime commerce. The airplane, we were told, would harry and dragoon belligerent and neutral shipping in the narrow waters into which the busy lanes of ocean traffic converge. Actually, the air arm has not been particularly effective at sea, though British aircraft have taken a hand with some success in hunting the submarine. That, however, had been foreseen.

Certainly the achievements of the German air force in Poland fulfilled the expectations of the most sanguine adherents of the blue sky school. In conjunction with the mechanized ground forces it dominated the situation from the first. The lists were set for a tourney between the old order of warfare and the new. Germany's strength lay in her possession of the most modern instruments of mechanical destruction. Poland was, in comparison, a nineteenth century Power. Her cavalry was her pride. One could imagine her gallant horsemen galloping with Jeb Stuart or Sheridan in Virginia. Indeed, her great masses of cavalry might have thundered their way to victory in the still more appropriate setting of the mediĂŚval era. As it was, they were a sheer anachronism. Confronted by armored cars and tanks, hammered by high explosive from the air, they were only flesh for the slaughter. The twentieth century won all along the line. The Polish defeat was a tragedy, but an inevitable one.

In the east, the war in the air was practically decided on the first day. On the morning of September 1, the German bombers made a vigorous attack on all the air bases in western Poland, as well as on strategic railways and junctions. The Polish aircraft, caught in their hangars, were destroyed or seriously damaged. That first sudden blow, delivered treacherously and without a declaration of war, while the Polish Government thought that negotiations were still possible, crippled the Polish air arm for the rest of the war. A gallant fight was still made by the remnant but the odds against it were too great. In any case the Polish equipment was inferior to the German.

Germany had the unquestioned mastery of the air.

At first the methods by which she won it were, apart from the fact that the aggression itself was utterly unjustified, fair enough in themselves. Herr Hitler had announced to the Reichstag on September 1 that he would not war against women and children. He was speaking, it will be noted, less than four weeks before the time when women and children were to be slaughtered and mutilated in Warsaw. "I have ordered my air force," he said, "to res5/177

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trict itself to attacks on military objectives." Replying to President Roosevelt's appeal that civilian populations be spared the horrors of air bombardment, he defined his attitude to this question in terms which, coming from another, would have presaged the waging of a humane and chivalrous war: " . . . that it is a humanitarian principle to refrain from the bombing of nonmilitary objectives under all circumstances in connection with military operations, corresponds completely with my own point of view and has been advocated by me before. I, therefore, unconditionally endorse the proposal that the governments taking part in the hostilities now in progress make public a declaration in this sense. For my own part, I already gave notice in my Reichstag speech of today that the German air force had received the order to restrict its operations to military objectives."

That the German air force did confine itself more or less to military objectives in the opening phase of the war is supported by a certain amount of independent evidence. Mr. H. C. Greene, the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, reported in that journal from CernaĹ­ti on September 10 that military objectives such as bridges, roads, railways and aĂŤrodromes had been aimed at almost exclusively, though terrible losses had fallen on the civil population as a result of the attacks. On September 6, Mr. Butler, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, stated in reply to a question in the House of Commons that the information in the British Government's possession showed that the German bombing attacks had in general been directed against objectives serving a military purpose and not indiscriminately against the civil population; but he also was careful to add that the latter had at the same time suffered heavy casualties. Soon, however, evidence began to accumulate that other than military objectives were being attacked and that, in fact, methods of terrorization were being adopted by the German Luftwaffe.

It is true that one must always accept with caution reports from belligerent sources concerning excesses or outrages committed by the enemy. There is inevitably an element of propaganda in such reports. Further, newspaper correspondents on the spot are apt to be impressed by what is told them and are not in a position usually to know or state the other side of the case. Some of the Polish announcements were certainly examples of exaggeration, excusable, no doubt, but still unreliable. For instance, a communiquĂŠ of September 2 stated that individual farms and farmers had been bombed -- a somewhat improbable occurrence. On the other hand, it is even more improbable that the reports from many quarters about the ruthlessness of the German air force were entirely devoid of foundation. We have, in fact, unbiased evidence sufficient to convict without any need for dependence on ex parte testimony.

Unquestionably, there were numerous instances of bombing objectives which by no possibility could be termed military. Among them was that of the village of Tomaszow, which was the victim of "a particularly vicious bombing" according to a message to the Times of September 11 from its special correspondent on the Polish frontier. Other instances were attested by 6/177

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Dr. Oskar Zsolnay, a Hungarian official trade delegate who had been in Lwów and who described in a Budapest paper a large number of bombing raids on that city, nearly all of them directed against non-military objectives.

Some of the most important evidence was supplied by the American Ambassador to Poland, Mr. Biddle, who on September 8 furnished the State Department with particulars of cases in which non-military targets had been attacked: they included his own villa, more than ten miles outside Warsaw, a sanatorium, a refugee train, a hospital train and a hut for Girl Guides. "It is also evident," he added, "that the German bombers are releasing the bombs they carry even when they are in doubt as to the identity of their objectives." Again, on September 13, Mr. Biddle reported that the village to which he had then moved and which was, he said, "a defenseless open village" had been attacked by German bombers. On September 20 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Information said in the House that reports from the British Ambassador to Poland supported the evidence of Mr. Biddle on the bombing of open towns.

One may perhaps feel some hesitation in accepting without reservation the statement in the Polish communiqué of September 15 that the bombardment of open towns by German aircraft had "assumed the character of a systematic destruction of all built-up areas or cities without any connection with military operations," but there can be no reasonable doubt about the fact that a great number of non-military objectives were bombed. Beyond question many villages were deliberately attacked and a number of them destroyed. In Warsaw itself the Belvedere and Lazienki Palaces, the Seym (Parliament) building, the Soviet and Rumanian Embassies, the Latvian Legation, a number of churches and some hospitals had been wholly or partly demolished from the air even before the intensive bombardment from air and ground began on September 25. The final state of the city was still more tragic. The correspondent of a Danish newspaper who visited it after the surrender reported that scarcely a house was undamaged and in several districts, especially the suburb of Praga, not one house was left standing. The devastation was due in part to artillery fire, but the bombs of the aircraft contributed very materially. Inevitably the losses suffered by the civil population were heavy in the extreme. It is perfectly clear that if the Germans did in fact attempt to bomb only military objectives, they failed in that attempt most lamentably. The more likely explanation is that no such attempt was made. The city was bombed indiscriminately, subjected, in fact, to a display of Nazi Schrecklichkeit. The destruction was intended as an object lesson. "I should like the gentlemen of London to see what a city looks like when it has been through what Warsaw suffered," said the German wireless announcer on October 4. "These gentlemen ought to see what might happen in their own country if they persist in their mad warmongering."

The fiction that only military objectives were bombed was kept up in the German reports. A communiqué issued by the High Command on September 25 stated: "Important military objectives in Warsaw were successfully attacked in power-dives by German aircraft." It is a sufficient commentary 7/177

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upon this to record that when Warsaw asked for an armistice on September 27, 16,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians lay wounded in the hospitals. There is little doubt, indeed, that Warsaw was subjected to a bombardment, from ground and air, of which the purpose was psychological, or more bluntly, to terrorize. That particular type of bombardment is nothing new in the practice of German arms. It was tried on many occasions in the Franco-German War of 1870-71. At Strasbourg, for instance, the civilian quarters of the city were shelled by siege batteries in order to "induce the inhabitants to compel the governor to surrender the fortress." The effect was simply to stiffen the determination of the garrison and the inhabitants to resist.

Exactly the same tactics were employed at Warsaw nearly seventy years later, and the same effect was produced; the morale of the city was unbroken, for it was lack of ammunition and supplies, not loss of courage, which finally made surrender inevitable. Methods of frightfulness defeat their aims when used against a determined people. Herr Hitler announced in his speech on September 19 that the British blockade might force him to make use of a "weapon by which we [Germany] cannot be attacked." The fresh resort to Schrecklichkeit here foreshadowed, whether it referred to the poison gas or to bacteriological warfare or merely to massed attack from the air on cities, will not effect its object. On that point there can be no doubt whatever.

The major rôle which the German air force played in the conquest of Poland is no proof that it will achieve similar successes in the west. Poland was, in comparison with Germany, very weak in the air. That her air force, after the initial losses which it sustained on September 1, was able to resist as well as it did testifies to the gallantry of its personnel. It is the more regrettable that its achievements were magnified by some absurd propaganda. The statement in a communiqué of September 3 that 64 German machines were brought down on that day for the loss of 11 Polish machines was entirely unbelievable. The announcement a little later that Berlin had been bombed was no less unconvincing. There is no escape from the conclusion, on the known facts, that Poland was wholly outclassed in the air.

The position is and will continue to be a very different one in the west. Here the German air arm is faced with a far harder task. Neither in numbers nor in quality will it be able to claim superiority over the Franco-British air strength. Indeed, Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall stated in an interview in Paris on October 7 that the British and French air forces were already well on the road to establishing their supremacy in the air. Some 2,000 to 3,000 German aircraft are said to have been employed against Poland. The total first line strength at Germany's disposal in the west may be 4,000 machines or more. The Allies' effectives are probably as great. In quality of matériel there is probably not much to choose between the opposing combatants, but what little advantage there is should be on the Allies' side. The German Heinkel, Junkers, Dornier and Henschel bombers are undoubtedly formidable aircraft but they are no better than the Wellingtons, Blenheims, Amiots, and Loiré et Oliviers on the other side. No German bomber, so far as is known, carries a bomb-load so large as that of the latest French heavy bom8/177

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ber, the Farman 223. The French Morane 406 C and Bloch 151, the British Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane are at least a match, in the fighter class, for the Messerschmitt 109 or 110 and the Heinkel 112. Sir Kingsley Wood, Secretary of State for Air, declared in the House of Commons on October 10 that the latest British fighters were "definitely better than their German counterparts."

The newest French fighters are also fine machines. The French air force is fortunate in that practically all its equipment is of the latest design and production. At the time of the Munich settlement the French equipment was notoriously unsatisfactory; production had fallen to around 50 machines a month and the flying squadrons were equipped with types which were obsolescent if not obsolete. Now, France has a splendid, modern air force. Her factories are pouring out machines in an increasing flow and the supplies received from America help to swell the volume. The American fighter, the Curtiss P. 36, has already acquitted itself well in action.

It is already evident from the encounters which have taken place that the fighter is the master both of the bomber and of reconnaissance aircraft. That is no surprise to those who followed the air operations in Spain, where -- to quote General Duval -- "the chasse machine considers the bombing machine [i]

incapable of defending itself."

"It is now definitely admitted," says Captain Didier Poulain, referring to the air fighting in Spain, " that the bomber [ii]

is practically without defense against the fighter." In Spain the bombers could avoid heavy casualties only by protecting themselves with screens of [iii]

fighters, says F. A. Fischer von Poturzyn.

"Whether in individual combat or in formation," says M. C. Rougeron, "the bomber in its present form is no [iv]

match for the fighter."

The evidence so far obtainable in the present war confirms that afforded by Spain. When a British bombing formation made an attack on enemy warships in the Helgoland Bight on September 29, five out of the six bombers were shot down according to the German official report, which was not denied on the British side. In the epic encounter of five British bomber-reconnaissance aircraft with fifteen Messerschmitts over the western front on September 30, three of the former were shot down and a fourth made a forced landing. The fifth managed to reach its own lines after shooting down two German fighters; it had 80 bullet holes in its structure, its ailerons and rudder were damaged, both its petrol tanks were burst, its retractable undercarriage was jammed. The British fighters have been even more successful in their encounters with the German bombers. They shot down 4 out of the 12 or 14 which raided the Firth of Forth on October 16; and on the next day two bombers which approached the English east coast were both engaged and shot down. Out of 12 German bombers which attacked a convoy in the North Sea on October 21, 4 were shot down by British fighters, and 3 more, it was subsequently ascertained, failed to reach Germany. Two more bombers were brought down on October 22 and 28.

The operations in Poland confirmed another lesson of the Spanish civil war -- the importance of the air arm as a tactical weapon when used in conjunc9/177

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tion with ground forces. In Spain the technique of air support in the assault was successfully developed by the Nationalists. An American officer has described this method from personal observation. Bombing aircraft with small bombs and machine guns would fly in single file -- la cadena, it was called -over the trenches and rake them while the tanks and infantry deployed into [v]

assault formation and moved up to the attack. According to a British officer, General Beauman, the principal tactical lesson of the Spanish civil war -- one which will be taken to heart by the great continental armies -- is that aircraft must be used if an attack is to make headway against modern defen[vi]

sive weapons.

In Poland the same method was adopted in a bigger theatre of war. First, aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the enemy's positions, then the armored cars and tanks drove home the initial attack, to be followed in turn by the columns of infantry, whose task was immensely lightened by the preliminary work of the aĂŤrial and mechanized spearheads.

When the major operations begin on the western front, the use of aircraft to open the way for the ground assault is likely to be a prominent feature of the tactical program.

Another lesson learnt in Spain was the increased effectiveness of the modern anti-aircraft gun as compared with its predecessor of twenty years ago; and here again experience in Poland and on the present western front seems to support the teaching of Spain. The German 88-mm. gun proved itself extraordinarily effective in Spain. Before it arrived, the losses of the Republican bombers from gunfire were almost nil. After its arrival they became severe. "By their anti-aircraft artillery," writes M. Rougeron, "the Nationalists succeeded in protecting their rear areas," the Republican aircraft venturing [vii]

within range of it only at their peril.

The British 3.7-inch gun is the counterpart of the German 88-mm. gun and is at least as formidable a weapon; the 4.5-inch gun has a still greater range and muzzle velocity, but is fixed whereas the 3.7-inch gun is mobile. Britain, declared Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary, at Swansea on January 26, 1939, has the most modern and effective types of anti-aircraft guns in the world. Their effectiveness is due largely to the fact they are used in conjunction with the predictor, an instrument which enables its crew, using a telescopic eyepiece, to set it so that it can calculate with great precision the point at which the shell and the flying target will collide in space if level flight is maintained by the latter. The information so calculated is transmitted electrically to a dial on the gun, whose crew can then train their weapon at the indicated spot. Another instrument, the height-finder, is used with the predictor. Altogether, anti-aircraft artillery is today something which cannot be mocked by the pilot as was the "Archie" of the last great war.

Naval anti-aircraft gunnery has been improved to at least a corresponding degree. When introducing the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons on March 16, 1939, Mr. Shakespeare, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, told his audience that if he had the choice between being in a battleship which was being bombed and in the aircraft which was bombing it, he 10/177

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would choose the former every time. His words were borne out on September 26 by the result of an attack by about twenty German aircraft on a squadron of British capital ships, with an aircraft carrier and destroyers, in the North Sea. Not a single hit was scored by the aircraft, not a single casualty caused on the warships; the attack was beaten off without difficulty and two of the aircraft were shot down. The Germans claimed that an aircraft carrier -- subsequently stated to be the Ark Royal -- was destroyed, that a battleship was badly damaged, and that no loss was sustained by the German aircraft, which returned safely to their base. There was no truth in any of these statements. Again on October 9 German aircraft made both level and dive bombing attacks on British warships in the North Sea, but scored no hits and inflicted no casualties. Two of the bombers, one with a wounded man on board, made forced landings on the same day in Denmark, and a third in Norwegian waters. The presumption is that all three had been damaged by the warships' fire. The effectiveness of the German anti-aircraft guns had already been demonstrated during the raid of September 4 by British bombers against the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsb端ttel; it was claimed by the German and not denied in the British official report that five of the twelve attacking bombers were brought down by the anti-aircraft batteries.

On this occasion, however, the raiders had something to show for their losses, for they scored a direct hit with a heavy bomb upon a German battleship.

The greatly increased strength of the active defense, in the air and on the ground, has doubtless been one reason why there has been a certain shyness about beginning the long-range raiding attacks which had been expected.

Against well-defended areas such raids must be, by day, very perilous adventures. The raiders are certain to be forced to pay heavily for any successes they may achieve. They have to run the gauntlet of the outer gun zone, the zone of the interceptor aircraft, and then the inner gun zone, before they can reach their objective, and they have to clear the same hurdles on their homeward run. By night the chances of the bombers' coming through are better; but even then they will probably find their task no light one. Blinded by the searchlights, they will be a fairly easy mark for the interceptors, and in clear weather the anti-aircraft guns should be able also to claim some victims.

When they do get through they will then have to find their objectives -- and this will often be difficult. The "blackout" is now so effective that there is little apparent difference, from the air, between the built-up areas and the open countryside. Night-flying raiders groping for a particular factory or military establishment will probably have to plaster the whole area with bombs in which the objective is supposed to be. That is a costly method of trying to hit a target, costly in petrol as well as in high explosive. Most of the bombs would probably fall on empty ground. Even if London as a whole were the objective, the odds are, as Major General Foulkes has pointed out, that only one bomb in ten, on the average, would hit a building, for 90 percent of the whole area is open space. "In the area within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, containing a population of eight and a half millions, the odds against a 11/177

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bomb falling within fifty feet of any particular spot is two and a half millions [viii]

to one."

The indiscriminate bombing which such a method of trying to hit a given objective would involve is hardly a practice which either side will be eager to initiate. Not only would the effect upon neutral opinion be unfavorable to the belligerent who began it, but the result would inevitably be to stiffen the determination of the nation which figured as the first victim of such an attack. Moreover, the belligerents in the west are too evenly matched in the air to make it safe for the one to expect the other not to make a strong counteroffensive. Even if the initial stroke were confined strictly to military objectives, the reply to it might not be similarly restricted. Perhaps -- one cannot tell -- it was for this reason that the French and British air forces refrained from trying to smash up the German troop concentrations and the trains carrying men and matĂŠriel from Poland to the west. The very fact that bombing raids into the interior of the enemy country had been begun might be the signal for resort to la guerre totale in the air, with all its horrors. That may come yet, but one harbors a faint hope that behind the reluctance to begin long-distance raiding attacks there may be, as a conscious or subconscious influence, the idea that bombing should be confined to the zones of active operations and their immediate vicinity. Some vague suggestions for an agreement to limit bombing in this way were indeed put forward by Herr Hitler in 1935 and 1936. In any case, it is evident -- whatever be the reason -that neither side has desired to be the first to bomb objectives far behind the other's lines.

Long-range raids there have been, but their purpose has been primarily reconnaissance and secondarily the distribution of literature, not of high explosive. Some surprise has been expressed that the first task of the British Air Force should have been to disseminate propaganda in this way; but, in fact, it is not in the least a novel task either for the British or other air services. Raids for such a purpose were frequent in the last great war. The Germans, for instance, dropped leaflets among the Indian troops in France in November 1914, urging them to revolt; the flaw in the plan was that the language used was Hindi, whereas the particular troops to whom the appeal was made spoke Urdu. Attempts to seduce the Senegalese troops in Gallipoli were similarly made by the Germano-Turkish air force in October 1915.

French airmen, on their side, dropped leaflets on many occasions, notably in May 1915, to inform the German people of Italy's participation in the war on the Franco-British side. British aircraft dropped an enormous number of notes during 1917 and 1918. America's entry into the war was made known in this way, as was also President Wilson's message to Congress early in 1918.

So great was the effect of this propaganda that Field Marshal Hindenburg thought it necessary to issue a proclamation in September 1918, urging the people to pay no attention to "leaflets intended to kill the soul."

The recent flights made into Germany by the Royal Air Force for reconnaissance and the distribution of leaflets (dropped in the form of "bricks" which broke up in the air) were carried out at a great height and encountered very 12/177

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little opposition. That these raids are, from the German point of view, anything but a joke, is evident from the severe penalties threatened against any inhabitants found reading the leaflets. How great will be the effect of such propaganda it is impossible as yet to say. It may well be that in retrospect it will be seen as no less important than if an equivalent weight of bombs had been dropped. The British flights had another effect, too. They demonstrated beyond possibility of doubt that all northern, western and even central Germany lay within the range of British aircraft. They showed the true value of Field Marshal GĂśring's assurance that if an enemy machine crossed the German frontier it would be at once brought down.

The demonstration of Britain's ability to carry the war into Germany contributed, no doubt, to the latter's hesitation to launch air attacks upon Britain in the early days of the war. Whatever the cause, the thunderclap for which all ears were straining was not heard. The result was something of an anticlimax. The whole country had braced itself for the worst. Measures of passive defense had been organized on a colossal scale. Millions of children, invalids and expectant mothers had been evacuated from the danger areas on or before the outbreak of war. Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds had been earmarked for air raid casualties. Doctors, nurses, air raid wardens, auxiliary firemen, decontamination squads, dispatch riders were all standing by and waiting for their services to be needed. And then, lo and behold -- nothing happened. People began to ask: Will nothing happen at all? That question has not been answered yet. But it may be answered at any time. Devastating air attacks may have been launched on London and other cities before these words appear in print. They may be simultaneous with a great thrust on the western front, the object being to pin down in England fighter squadrons which would otherwise be available for reĂŤnforcing the units in France. If the Maginot Line is to be smothered by high explosive bombs, preparing the way for an onset by giant tanks, all the fighter aircraft which can possibly be assembled by the Allies will be needed to beat off the German bombers and their escorting fighters.

Whether the raiders come to London and Paris or not, whether they cause destruction on a widespread scale or not, they cannot decide the issue of the war. That will be decided by sea power. Admiral Mahan's doctrine that the belligerent who holds command of the sea can never be beaten in the end will again be proved true. Air power cannot prevail against sea power, regardless of the methods of Schrecklichkeit it uses. And the result must be the same whether it comes soon or late. Germany will be beaten; the only question is how long it will take. The collapse of Germany may come sooner than any man could now surely predict; it may come within the three years for which the British Government is laying its plans; or perhaps we may have to wait until grass has long been growing in the streets of Hamburg. [i]

"Les Leçons de la Guerre d'Espagne." Paris: Plon, 1938, p. 154.

[ii] [iii]

Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, August 1938, p. 582.

"Luftmacht." Heidelberg: Vowinckel, 1938, p. 85.

13/177

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"L'Aviation de Bombardement," I. 36.

[v]

"The Aëroplane's Rôle in Battle in Spain," by Brig. Gen. H. J. Reilly, in The Aëroplane, April 29, 1939. [vi]

Brig. Gen. A. B. Beauman: "A Short Outline of Modern Tactics." London: Rees, 1939, p. 46. [vii] [viii]

"Les Enseignements Aériens de la Guerre d'Espagne," 1939, p. 105.

"Commonsense and A.R.P." London: Pearson, 1939, p. 32.

Second Phase ONE lesson taught by the second phase of the air operations in the present [i]

European war is that superior strength on the land and in the air can produce a decision far more quickly than in the days before the air was conquered. This was the lesson taught by the German triumphs in Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. It was taught, too, more clumsily, by the Russians in Finland. Even if a belligerent makes almost every possible tactical error in land operations, predominance in the air will enable him to blind and overwhelm an opponent whose air arm is inadequate and whose army, even though well directed and, indeed, superior in fighting quality, is numerically inferior. Such, at least, was the lesson of the mid-winter campaign in Finland.

In the air, as on land, Russia had an immense superiority of strength. Finland had probably less than 100 first-line planes; her total strength in serviceable aircraft can hardly have exceeded 150. What Russia's first-line strength was is uncertain, but it was undoubtedly immense. The estimate of "Max Werner,"

[ii]

10,000 to 12,000 first-line aircraft, was certainly excessi[iii]

ve; that of M. Laurent Eynac, 3000 aircraft, was probably too low. M. Pierre Cot placed the figure at 4500-5000 machines, and General Sikorski at 5000, with an equal number in reserve.

[iv]

The figure of 4200 to 4500 was [v]

suggested in 1938 in a French publication and was probably not far wrong. In the fighting in the Karelian Isthmus on February 15, 1940, more than 500 machines were reported to have been in the air, and on a later day in February at least 1000 were flying in all the Finnish theatre.

The Russian machines were on the whole of poor quality. The I-16 singleseater fighter had a maximum speed of only 248 miles per hour and a comparatively poor armament. The standard bomber, the S.B., had a top speed of no more than 250 miles per hour and a range of only 620 miles. Another bomber, the Ts.Kb.26, had a range of 1300 miles, with a similar maximum speed. Both would have been shot to pieces by modern fighters. The quality of the Finns' aircraft was not, however, much better. Their machines were a scratch collection. The fighters were largely Bristol Bulldogs, long discarded in Great Britain. Better machines were gradually acquired. Gladiator fighters and Blenheim bombers were obtained from Britain and a number of 14/177

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modern aircraft were also supplied from France and the United States. Altogether, 101 planes were sent from Britain during the war, as well as 15,700 [vi]

aircraft bombs. By the end of the war Finland had probably more and certainly better aircraft than she had had at the beginning. She was still, however, woefully inferior to Russia in the air.

How ruthlessly Russia exploited her superior strength is notorious. It is true that the Red Army Command issued at the beginning of March 1940 a categorical denial of the charges that the air arm had bombed non-military objectives and machine-gunned civilians. The evidence in support of the charges is too strong. Photographs of the destruction wrought at Helsinki, Viipu[vii]

ri, Hanko and other places were published in many newspapers.

The verdict of Sir Walter Citrine, who, with Mr. Philip Noel Baker and Mr. John Downie, visited Finland in January 1940, on behalf of the National Council of Labor, is quite uncompromising. He and his colleagues most certainly had no bias against Russia and their condemnation of her acts is accordingly the more impressive. Of Turku (Aabo) he wrote that "by far the vaster proportion of the damage was utterly without military importance" and that "it [viii]

was certain that the bombing was indiscriminate."

Of the destruction of Hanko he wrote: "It seemed diabolical to me that a country which only a couple of years ago was denouncing to the world the German and Italian bombing in Spain should now be resorting to this means of trying to terrori[ix]

se the Finnish people."

So flagrant were the Soviet attacks on hospitals that the Finnish medical authorities abandoned the use of the Red Cross as a protective emblem. Before they did so it was reported that a couple of Russian prisoners captured in the Isthmus protested against being taken to a Red Cross hospital. "That," [x]

they said, "is the kind of house our airmen bomb."

Some terrible photographs of the devastation caused by bombs in the hospital at Rovaniemi, where the operating theatre and a ward were hit, five nurses and many pa[xi]

tients being killed, were published in a British newspaper.

The ruthless bombing undoubtedly had its effect. A well-known war correspondent, who followed the operations in Finland, has stated that "Russia's air supremacy was really the deciding factor." The advantages which it gave were, he states, that it prevented all counter-bombing by the. Finnish air force; it allowed the Russian aircraft to observe all that occurred on the other side; it stopped the flow of Finnish munitions and food to the front; and, [xii]

above all, it deprived the exhausted Finnish soldiers of rest.

It is nevertheless open to question whether the Soviet authority in the air would have sufficed to quell the Finnish resistance except in combination with a vast superiority on the ground. It was the "Russian steam-roller" below that made the assault from above so effective. All that one can say as a result of the campaign in Finland is that predominant air power plus predominant land power is decisive today in war, in circumstances in which sea power cannot be brought into play. There is not sufficient evidence that the 15/177

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first without the second would have succeeded in forcing Finland to capitulate.

Meanwhile in the western theatre of war the strange lull in the air which marked the first phase of the conflict continued. The fact that no attempt was made on either side to carry the war into the enemy's country during the first eight months of hostilities was the cause of surprise and bewilderment alike in Britain and in Germany. In Britain, it had been expected that terrific attacks would be made on London. In Germany, it was expected that they would be made against Berlin. Referring to the British declaration of war, Dr. Goebbels said in a speech at Poznan on 19 January, 1940: "One would have expected that on the afternoon of that very day their muchvaunted bombers would have appeared over Berlin." In both capitals a measure of relief was felt that the bombing had not started at zero hour -- or before it.

What was still more extraordinary was the failure of the Luftwaffe, on one side, and of the British and French air forces, on the other, to interfere with the great troop concentrations which took place in September 1939 and thereafter. As long ago as 1927 Lord Thomson, the former Secretary of State for Air, had written that "should such a calamity as another world war occur, hostilities will begin at once, there will be no breathing space of ten days or a fortnight for mobilization. . . . In these circumstances the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force would have been hampered, if not prevented, and a number of our warships would have been disabled before they [xiii]

could put to sea."

Yet the British Expeditionary Force of 1939 had been able to embark, to cross to France, to disembark there and to move up to the line, without let or hindrance. There might have been no German air force whatever for all that that great army, moving with its impedimenta, knew about it in September 1939, or in the following months when reĂŤnforcements for it crossed to France.

A still greater surprise, to the well-informed, was the abstention of the British and French bombers from interfering with the huge concentration of the German forces in the west. Britain had sent a strong "Advanced Air Striking Force" to France in the first days of the war; and the French had their striking force, too. Neither struck. Division after division moved from the east to the west of Germany. They did so in perfect peace. "The extraordinary thing," wrote Mr. E. Coleston Shephard, "is that while they held the initial command of the air in the west, the French and British Air Forces did not attempt to prevent the swift transfer of troops by concentrated bombing on railway junctions, roads and aerodromes up to a hundred miles or more behind the German lines. The bombing fleets had been built for just such a [xiv]

purpose."

Not until after the end of the war shall we know, probably, the full reasons for the strange quiescence in the air in its early stages. Prima facie it appears as if each side lost a golden opportunity. It is evident that none of the belligerents was inclined to initiate air attack upon the enemy's territory.

Why each of them held back is not entirely clear, though many different rea16/177

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sons could be suggested for the mutual restraint. At the back of all the reasons there was, one must surmise, the working of the balance of air power.

Each feared the other's riposte.

In a speech at the Rheinmetal-Borsig armament factory on September 9, 1939, Field Marshal Gรถring said: "If the British aeroplanes fly at tremendous heights at night and drop their ridiculous propaganda in German territory, I have nothing against it. But take care if the leaflets are replaced by one bomb. Then reprisals will follow as in Poland." (Later, the propaganda film, "Baptism of Fire," was made in Germany to show what this threat of frightfulness meant in practice.) "We shall return blow for blow," said M. Daladier on November 30. "If the destructive fury of the enemy falls upon our villages we shall strike back at him with the same harshness." When in a raid upon Scapa Flow on March 16, 1940, bombs were dropped on Orkney Mainland and one civilian was killed and seven were wounded, the Royal Air Force promptly retaliated, on March 19, by bombing the German air base at Hรถrnum in the island of Sylt. About three months earlier the German official news agency had alleged that bombs had been dropped on Hรถrnum and another small town in Sylt (Rantum). This was at once denied by the British Air Ministry, and a similar denial was issued on February 10, 1940, when it was again alleged in Germany that Hรถrnum and Rantum had been attacked. Not until after the invasion of Norway was Sylt again bombed; the aerodrome at Westerland was heavily raided on the night of April 23-24.

That the raid was not intended to mark a departure from the general policy was implied in the Air Ministry's announcement that it (as well as the raid on Aalborg aerodrome in Denmark) was directed "against air bases available to the enemy for use in the invasion of Norway."

Norway itself was not included in the unexpressed ban, and that unfortunate country experienced the full measure of German Schrecklichkeit from the air. Not only towns like Namsos, Aandalsnes, Elverum and Stenkjer, but many villages were largely destroyed, and peaceable inhabitants were machine-gunned on various occasions. The Germans had a marked superiority in the air and exploited it to the full. It was, indeed, that superiority which forced the Allies to abandon the idea of capturing Trondheim. "Intense and continuous bombing of the bases at Aandalsnes and Namsos prevented the landing of any large reinforcements," said Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons on May 8, 1940, "and even of artillery for the infantry already landed, and of many supplies. It was therefore necessary to withdraw the troops or leave them to be destroyed by overwhelming forces."

It was Germany's superiority in the air which brought Britain's intervention in Central Norway to a premature and unsatisfactory end, and it was the same superiority which deterred the Allies from taking the initiative in raiding military objectives in Germany. There were hundreds of objectives there simply shrieking for attention from their long-range bombers. There were the oil-fuel installations, for instance. Yet it was not until May 17 that any attempt was made to destroy these vital sources of Germany's armed strength.

On that night British bombers attacked the petrol storage tanks at Hamburg 17/177

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and Bremen; they repeated the operation on later occasions and included the tanks at Hannover also, for luck, and by the end of September the oil refineries at Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover had been bombed no less than 36, 31 and 19 times respectively. The Germans at once complained that the Royal Air Force had killed 29 people and injured 51 in the raid on Hamburg.

Possibly they had, but then civilians are likely to suffer if they are in the vicinity of military targets. In subsequent communiquĂŠs the German High Command charged the British Air Force with making "random attacks" on nonmilitary objectives. That allegation was only to be expected; it was a good opening for propaganda. What is quite certain is that British airmen did not deliberately attack noncombatants. They aimed solely at military objectives.

The policy of waiting before carrying the war into Germany was defended by Mr. Churchill in a speech at Manchester on January 27, 1940. He asked, Ought we to have begun bombing? No, he said, our policy was right. We were not as well prepared as Germany. We were now much better organized and stronger in defences than at the beginning of the war. There had been, he said, a great advance in the protection of the civil population and in the punishment which would be inflicted upon the raiders. There were others who took a different view, but the question was a very difficult one.

Many prominent people were far from satisfied with Britain's policy of restraint. Mr. Amery and Mr. Duff Cooper, both out of office at the time but soon to become ministers again, pleaded in public for the adoption of much sterner methods. The view of the aeronautical world was reflected in The Aeroplane, which kept hammering away at the same point. Why on earth, the editor, Mr. Colston Shephard, asked in effect, were we not hitting at Germany's strength at its source and bombing Dessau, Bremen, Rostock and Oranienburg, where dozens of new aeroplanes were being produced every week to be used against us? Lord Trenchard, the greatest figure in British military aviation, added his powerful support to their plea. In the House of Lords on May 8, 1940, he asked why we waited, and said that if it was because we had promised not to bomb "open towns," this meant that Germany need not retain any defences at home. Nobody, he added, wanted to kill civilians, but the British people would not shrink from facing whatever risk was necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion. "Make no mistake about it," he said. "When it suits Germany's book she will hit open towns and all, mercilessly and thoroughly. Why should we await her convenience before striking at German military might in Germany?"

Lord Trenchard's words were prophetic. It suited Germany's book to begin bombing the homelands of the western Allies in the second week of May, when she attacked Holland, where a whole district of Rotterdam was practically wiped out, and Belgium, where the cities of Tournai, Louvain, Nivelles and Namur were savagely bombed. German bombers also attacked aerodromes and railway stations at a large number of French towns -- Nancy, Lyon, Lille, Colmar, Luxeuil, Pontoise, BĂŠthune, Lens, Hazebrouck, Abbeville and Laon. Some 44 bombs were dropped, too, by a German aircraft in a wood in Kent where they did no damage; they were probably jettisoned. The Allies 18/177

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on their side bombed aerodromes, troop concentrations, mechanized columns on the move, bridges, and roads behind the German lines. The war in the air was thus carried for the first time into the enemy's country.

Since then the incursions of the Royal Air Force into Germany and of the Luftwaffe into Britain have steadily increased in frequency and vigor. Those of the British airmen have been aimed exclusively at impairing Germany's military strength. Oil refineries, synthetic oil plants and petrol storage depots have been among the chief targets. Not only in western Germany but also as far away as at Leuna in central Germany, at Pรถlitz (near Stettin) on the Baltic, and at Regensburg on the Danube have Germany's oil fuel installations been raided with damaging effect. Other objectives of importance for the German war effort have also been attacked unremittingly. The aircraft factories in which the Focke-Wulf, Dornier, Fieseler, Junkers, Gotha and Messerschmitt machines are constructed or assembled have been bombed.

So have the aero-engine works of the B.M.W. and Daimler-Benz firms. The great Fokker factory at Amsterdam was heavily raided as soon as it had been brought into operation for German purposes. The rail and canal communications of western Germany have been repeatedly bombed. The great railway centre of Hamm, which serves as a clearing house for the whole of the goods traffic of western Germany, was attacked no less than sixty times in the three months which ended on September 30. The aqueduct of the Dortmund-Ems canal, which carries the equivalent of 400 train-loads daily and serves as the chief link between the Rhineland and northwest and central Germany, has been put out of action, repaired, and put out of action again.

The naval dockyards and ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Cuxhaven have been the objectives of recurrent attacks.

Indeed, the whole of Germany's industrial and economic system has been seriously affected by the incessant blows rained upon it by the Royal Air Force. These have ranged as far afield as Pilsen, in Czechoslovakia, where the great Skoda armament works were successfully bombed on the night of October 27 -- a feat eclipsed by the British Bomber Command four days later, when oil plants and military objectives at Naples were attacked by aircraft starting from England.

So great, indeed, was the effect of those blows that the menace to the effectiveness of Germany's war machinery was already becoming evident in the summer. Something had to be done to bring the activities of the British bombers to an end. The obvious course was, if possible, to invade and overrun Britain just as France and the other victims of Germany's armed might had been invaded and overrun, or, if that was not possible, at least to drive the British Air Force out of the sky. Invasion was the solution -- preferably by sea, land and air; but by air alone, if the other alternatives could not be achieved. So in the autumn of the year all the necessary preparations were put in hand for loosing a combined attack upon southeast England and, as a preliminary to that attack, for overwhelming the Royal Air Force in that corner of the country.

There is reason to believe that first one and then another date was fixed for 19/177

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the launching of the grand assault. The first was in mid-August. To gain command of the air, an essential condition for the success of the invasion by sea and land forces, a mass attack was launched against the air bases in southern England on August 15. A veritable armada of bombers and fighters came over the coast. The bombers were largely Junkers 87 dive-bombers, "Stukas," as they are called, the machines which, in combination with mechanized columns and tanks, had enabled the Germans to smash their way through northern France in May and June. There were thousands of these machines in the Luftwaffe, and thousands more of the Junkers 52 troop-carrier, which had also played a prominent part in Germany's successes, notably in Norway and Holland. The stage was never reached at which the Ju52's could be used against Britain. The Ju-87's were used -- and the tale was a sorry one for their pilots and crews.

Already the dive-bombers had been handled roughly by the Spitfires, Hurricanes and Defiants of the Royal Air Force over the beaches of Dunkirk.

When they ventured over the English coast they suffered more severely still.

Nine of them were shot down in a few minutes by a Spitfire squadron near Southampton on August 13, but it was on August 15 that they were veritably massacred. On that day the Luftwaffe lost 180 aircraft over and around southern England; the slaughter of the Stukas really sealed the fate of the first project of invasion.

The August plan had come to naught. The next attempt was more carefully planned. It was fixed, apparently, for mid-September. Early in that month the Germans began to concentrate barges, shipping and light naval forces in the ports along the Dutch, Belgian and northern French coasts, with the intention of making a sudden dash across the English Channel. The Royal Air Force foiled that plan, too. It struck again and again at the concentrations of light craft, first at the mouth of the Scheldt and at Ostend, then, when they were moved westward, at Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and Le Havre, and finally even at Lorient in the Bay of Biscay. One particular onslaught was a veritable disaster for the would-be invaders. It coincided with a dress-rehearsal for the invasion; on that night the barges were packed with fully equipped troops, who were caught unawares by the British bombers. Many were killed, many drowned, others burnt by the blazing oil which covered the sea after incendiary bombs had been dropped and the tanks of the barges had been set on fire. To that disaster in the tidewater was added another, which befell the Luftwaffe about the same time. On September 15 a second mass attack was made on southern England in the air and routed even more decisively than that of a month before. The definitely confirmed losses of German aircraft on that day amounted to 185; it is highly probable that in reality not less than 232 machines were destroyed. No such destruction of aircraft in one day has been known in the annals of war.

It was undoubtedly the inability of the German air force to penetrate the British defence by day which inspired the savage attacks by night upon London and other cities in Britain. Those attacks were a confession of failure. The Luftwaffe had not been trained for night operations. It was in this respect 20/177

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both technically and professionally far inferior to the Royal Air Force. The latter, as a result in part of the "leaflet raids" carried out during the winter of 1939-40, knew the darkened face of Germany as well as it knew that of England. Its personnel was highly skilled in night flying. Its matĂŠriel was, for this purpose, superior to Germany's. The pilots and bomb-aimers had been trained to a pitch not even approached by those of the Luftwaffe. Precision of aim was inculcated and practised. Long periods were spent in the search for and exact location of targets. If the designated objective could not be found, and if no alternative target could be bombed with reasonable precision, no attack was launched. Bombs cost money and it is folly to dump them where they can do no harm. Frequently a full bomb-load has been brought home because it could not be dropped on a military objective. There is nothing of blind or indiscriminate bombing in the work of the Royal Air Force. A similar statement cannot be made of the Luftwaffe, as those who, like the present writer, reside in the outskirts of London far from any military objective, and whose houses have suffered from the incompetence -- it was that, probably, rather than malice -- of the German airmen, have practical reason for affirming without any hesitation whatever.

While these words are being written, the callous, ham-fisted bombing of London continues. Defence in the air has proved to be more effective by day, less effective by night, than had been expected. In time, no doubt, a solution of the problem of the night bomber will be found. That time may possibly be soon. Meanwhile we have to grin and bear our adversity, and that is what in fact we are doing. There is no likelihood whatever that the random, indiscriminate attack to which the once-chivalrous German air force is subjecting the civilian population of London and other cities will break their spirit. Rather, it is steeling them to a grimmer determination to put an end to the rĂŠgime which can slaughter women and children as a mere incident of its march to world-domination, to stop the wheels of the Nazi juggernaut for all time.

It will do something more, too: it will give British air power a freer hand when the day of reckoning comes. There will be little mercy then for the butchers of the air.

The day of reckoning is coming. The air strength of Britain and the Empire is being marshalled. The Luftwaffe is still numerically stronger than the Royal Air Force. Mr. Churchill stated, however, in his speech in the House of Commons on August 20, that the new production of aircraft in Britain is already considerably larger than Germany's, and, he added, the American production was then only beginning to flow in. Soon it will be a flood. Some 500 aircraft are believed to be coming each month from the United States.

The number will increase to 700 by the end of the year and to 1000 by the early summer of 1941. Canada, we know from statements by two of her ministers, Mr. Power and Mr. Gibson, will be sending 360 aircraft a month by then. Britain expects to overtake the German lead in 1941, Mr. Churchill stated on October 8. In his broadcast to the French people on October 21 he was still more definite and said that in 1941 Britain would have command of the air.

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The British Air Force, already qualitatively superior to the German, will soon be better still. Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert stated in a broadcast on October 24 that the new machines soon to come into operation will be as distinct an advance upon the existing ones as they were upon their predecessors. New American aircraft of very high performance are also under construction. The Bell, Brewster, Curtiss and Lockheed fighters, the Douglas, Boeing and Martin bombers, will be a most important supplement to the new and improved types of both classes now on the stocks in Great Britain.

The Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force knows, from its experience with the Lockheed Hudson, about the quality of American machines; and the new Lockheed Vega is understood to be a super-Hudson. There will be advances in German quality, too, no doubt; but Britain, with American help, should be well able to keep her lead. When it is a quantitative lead also, then the end of this great struggle will be near at hand.

The first lesson of the second phase of the air warfare has been, as stated at the beginning of this article, the swiftness and decisiveness with which the combination of superior strength on the ground and in the air became effective. What was involved there was the overrunning of a weaker belligerent whose land frontier marched with that of a more powerful neighbor. What of belligerents separated by the sea? Will sea power plus air power be able to bring about a decision? This lesson remains to be learned. Already it has been established that sea power has not been materially affected by the coming of the aeroplane. Destroyers, sloops, minesweepers have been sunk by air action. Larger warships have, in general, been immune. Usually, it has been the aircraft and not the ship which has had to lick its wounds after the encounter. What has not yet been proved is whether sea power and air power can overcome land power and air power. That is really the crux of the matter as between Britain and Germany.

There will be encounters, no doubt, on land. In the Middle East there will be a clash of armies. The war will not be decided there, however, though it appears probable that the result of Mussolini's attack on Greece will be to give British sea and air power alike footholds from which shattering blows can be aimed at Italy's naval and air bases and her maritime communications with her expeditionary forces. The success of the fleet air arm at Taranto may be the first of a series of strokes which will end in knocking Italy out of the ring. Unfortunately, Germany may not be the weaker on that account.

The vital theatre will still be in the west of Europe. No triumphs elsewhere will profit Germany -- or Italy -- if the island of Great Britain remains inviolate and defiant. If that outpost of the British Empire still holds out, and if British strength on the sea and in the air is unbroken and increases -- as increase it will -- the Axis cannot win this war, however far it extends its conquests elsewhere. Given the achievement of the task which the British nations have undertaken -- to mass overwhelming strength in the air -- the Axis must lose. It will be crushed in the grip of two mighty forces, sea power and air power, against which land power, backed by air power that is outmatched, will find it useless to struggle. That, one makes bold to predict, 22/177

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will be the lesson of the third phase of the war. [i]

Editor's Note: See "The War in the Air: First Phase," by J. M. Spaight, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, January 1940. [ii]

"The Military Strength of the Powers," New York, 1939, p. 61.

[iii] [iv] [v]

In L'Air, July 1939.

Articles in Sunday Times, April 8, 1939, and June 4, 1939.

"L'Aviation SoviĂŠtique," 1938, p. 7.

[vi]

Statement by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons, March 19, 1940. [vii]

See, e.g., The Times, December 8, 1939.

[viii] [ix] [x]

"My Finnish Diary," 1940, p. 42.

Ibid., p.56.

The Times, January 30, 1940, report from correspondent at Stockholm.

[xi]

See the Daily Telegraph of February 10, 1940.

[xii]

Article by G. L. Steer on "Looking Back on the Reasons for Finland's Heroic Failure," Daily Telegraph, February 8, 1940. [xiii] [xiv]

"Air Facts and Problems," 1927, pp. 21-22.

The Aeroplane, October 5, 1939.

Third Phase VIEWED in the perspective of history, the year 1941 will probably be judged to have reserved its most important event, vitally affecting the fortune of [i]

war by air, land and sea, until near its close. That event was the entry of the United States into the conflict as a full belligerent. The casus belli was itself an act of air warfare -- as treacherous an act, and as effective for the moment, as Germany's blow at Poland on September 1, 1939. Japan's sudden stroke from the air at the American naval and air forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7 was a crime. It was also a blunder. The losses inflicted, grievous as they were, were perhaps the lowest price necessary for bringing the vast American nation as a grimly determined unit into the struggle for freedom.

The tremendous tidings from the west in the fateful days from December 7 to 11 were dimmed for British ears by the shattering reverberation of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse on December 10 -- again an epochal event of the war in the air. But it was not that disaster which even then mattered most. The far greater event was the crossing by the United States of the last interval between peace and war.

The year 1941 had already been notable in the annals of air warfare. The one before had had as its outstanding feature the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the Royal Air Force over and around Great Britain in the months of August and September. The next phase of the war in the air opened with another 23/177

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triumph. It was won far from the scene of the first, in the northeastern corner of Africa and over the eastern Mediterranean. There, in the period from November 1940 to February 1941, the British, South African, Australian and Rhodesian airmen practically drove the Italian airmen out of the sky. Never has any air force of an important Power been so roughly handled as was the Regia Aeronautica. Alike in personnel and matĂŠriel the British and Dominion Air Forces were definitely superior to the Italian, and this was the more remarkable because, so far as equipment went, it was the second string of the Royal Air Force that was entered for the contest. The British fighter machines then in the Middle East were Gladiators, and though they were practically obsolescent they quickly mastered the Italian fighters, most of which were Fiat CR.42's, with some Macchi C.200's and Fiat G.50's. During the winter, Hurricane fighters were received, and at a later date Curtiss Tomahawks. Both proved even more clearly the masters of the Italian fighters than the Gladiators had been. The best British fighter, the Spitfire, was not used in the Middle East.

That was the first round in the contest for supremacy in the sky of North Africa. The second was fought when General Auchinleck's forces invaded Libya on November 18, 1941. By then the Italian air force had been stiffened by detachments of the Luftwaffe, and the British and Imperial airmen had a much stiffer time of it than they had had during General Wavell's invasion.

There was hard fighting in the air, but the Tomahawks, Hurricanes and Beaufighters operating with the British troops soon showed that they had little to fear from the opposing Me.109 and Macchi C.200 and C.202 fighters; and the Curtiss Kittyhawks which came into action in the opening days of 1942 at once established their mastery also. "The Royal Air Force are definitely on top," the Cairo correspondent of The Times reported on December 6.

The communiquĂŠs issued by British General Headquarters referred repeatedly during December to the powerful support given by the air to the ground forces. As the British columns advanced, tangible evidence of the effect of the bombing and machine-gun attacks was afforded in the shape of wrecked lorries and aircraft littering the route and the landing grounds. More than once the official reports referred to the devastation caused by the low-flying aircraft among the retreating Axis forces. In their operations the Imperial troops were also assisted materially by such raids as those of January 5 on Castel Vetrano aerodrome in Sicily, where some 44 German and Italian aircraft were destroyed and many others damaged by Blenheims in the afternoon and then by Wellingtons after nightfall.

The eclipse of the Regia Aeronautica at the beginning of 1941 was the more clearly displayed in the light of the better showing made by the Luftwaffe when it, too, appeared in the Mediterranean. The Germans gained a notable success on January 10, 1941. They sent their dive-bombers, recently arrived in Sicily, to attack a British convoy in the Sicilian Channel, with the result that the cruiser Southampton was so damaged that she had to be sunk by the other British warships. The aircraft carrier Illustrious only narrowly escaped a similar fate. Though crippled, she reached Malta, and there, as she 24/177

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lay in the Grand Harbor while makeshift repairs were being effected, she was repeatedly attacked by the German dive-bombers. She survived the onslaught and was able, after a few days, to make her way to Alexandria under her own power. Thence she was taken to the United States, where the major repairs that were necessary were carried out, and she was ready for service again in August 1941.

The German air force did not have matters all its own way. Of about 150 German aircraft based on Sicily at this time, nearly 90 were destroyed, some in the air, by British fighters, by the defenses of Malta and by naval gunfire, and some on the ground, by British bombing attack. Nevertheless, the continued presence of a German contingent made the part of the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily unhealthy for British convoys. They were still able to pass through the Sicilian Channel, but only under powerful escort.

The British fleet's own aircraft, on the other hand, enabled it a little later to bring off a brilliant stroke in the central Mediterranean.

This occurred towards the end of March 1941, when an Italian naval force was sighted to the east of Cape Passero in Sicily. It was pursued by British warships, but might have escaped -- as Italian warships had done more than once before -- if naval aircraft had not slowed up its speed by scoring direct hits with torpedoes upon the largest of the Italian vessels, a battleship of the Littorio class. Blenheim bombers of the Middle East Command of the RAF also obtained hits. Aircraft thus played an important part in the practical annihilation of the Italian formation which the British naval ships thereupon carried out.

Two months later, at the end of May, the Fleet Air Arm had a similar success. Aircraft from the carrier Victorious and Ark Royal scored hits with torpedoes upon the fleeing Bismarck, and the second of these attacks, delivered on the evening of May 26, had the effect of reducing the speed of the German battleship and allowed the heavy ships of the Royal Navy to bring her to battle and to sink her on the morning of May 27. The pursuit of the Bismarck furnished evidence also of the great value of longrange flying boats in the tracking and shadowing of elusive enemy warships. It was a Catalina, built in California by the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, which found the Bismarck on the morning of May 26, and another Catalina which shadowed her when the first had to turn back to its base.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe had been accomplishing a remarkable feat of arms in the Mediterranean. This was the capture of Crete in the teeth of the British command of seas lying between the island and Greece. Already in Greece the German dive-bombers had inflicted serious losses both on the British aircraft at their bases at Larissa and elsewhere, and on the warships which evacuated the expeditionary force after the collapse of the Graeco-British resistance in Macedonia; two destroyers and four transports were sunk as the result of air action in the evacuation. They followed up these successes by simply blasting the British garrison off Crete. It was the concentrated attack from the air rather than the landing of air-borne troops that led to the capture of the island. The parachute troops played an unimportant part in 25/177

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the whole operation; and the landing of soldiers from troop-carrying aircraft which made crash-landings became possible only because the dive-bombers had already done their work.

It was a very notable achievement. One must not forget, however, that it was accomplished in circumstances in which air defense was almost non-existent. The arrangements for protecting the aerodrome at Maleme were far from satisfactory. An attempt was made to cope with the German bombers by flying Blenheim fighters and Hurricanes, equipped with extra fuel tanks, from Egypt. It was a makeshift arrangement and failed completely to save the situation. The British Navy lost three cruisers and six destroyers in connection with the defense and evacuation of Crete. All were victims of air attack.

How vastly different the position would have been if the air attack on the island could have been met by fighter aircraft operating from adequate local bases is shown by the successful defense of Malta against incessant attacks by both Italian and German bombers. "The brilliant defense of the island by the Hurricanes" was given place of honor in the message of congratulation which Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, sent to Air ViceMarshal H. P. Lloyd, commanding the Royal Air Force there, on August 20, 1941. Mention was made in the same message of the fine work done by the Beaufighters in attacking enemy bases, by the Wellington bombers in their "steady and deadly slogging," by the (American) Marylands in their "daring and dexterous reconnaissances," by the Blenheims of the Royal Air Force and the Swordfishes of the Fleet Air Arm in their "tremendous onslaught" on Axis shipping. "You are draining the enemy's strength in the Mediterranean," the message said. Air Vice-Marshal Lloyd in his reply said that "the hunting is certainly good, and hounds are in excellent fettle."

The German raids on that other and more important island, Great Britain, had meanwhile diminished in volume. In the early part of the year the towns of South Wales, of Merseyside and of Clydeside were the chief sufferers, while London, too, had one or two unpleasant experiences. However, the combined casualties in January and February 1941 amounted only to about 5,350 civilians killed and seriously injured, as compared with a monthly average of 13,000 during the period September 1-December 31, 1940. In March there was a marked increase in the figures, which rose to nearly 10,000, largely as the result of two heavy raids on Clydeside on successive nights. Merseyside, Bristol, Hull, London and Plymouth also suffered. The battle of the Atlantic had started and the British ports were therefore a main objective. The toll of life and limb rose again in April, when the total amounted to about 13,000 -mostly in Bristol, Coventry, Birmingham, Belfast, London and Plymouth (raided on five nights). May opened with severe attacks on Merseyside and Clydeside. London had one of its heaviest raids on the tenth. The experience gained during the incendiary attack of the preceding December 29, when a considerable section of the City of London was burnt out, enabled the firefighters to cope more adequately with the attacks of April and May. The casualty list for May amounted to approximately 10,500.

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June witnessed a substantial diminution in the weight of the onslaught, and the succeeding months saw a still further reduction. This was due mainly to the shifting of the chief theatre of air warfare from the west to the east. Germany was preparing for the treacherous blow which she struck at Russia on June 22. The improvement in the British defenses probably contributed, to a minor extent, to the slackening of the German attack. During May, 156 German bombers were destroyed at night, and it is fairly certain that many more, though not claimed as losses, never reached home. In April, which was the next best month, 87 had been destroyed. Thus the toll of the nightraiders for two months was nearly 250 aircraft. In one night (May 10-11) the number destroyed was 33, all but two of them by night-fighters. Two-seater twin-engined fighters had been brought into use for defense at night, and these, with the Hurricane single-seater single-engined fighters, soon proved their worth. One was the Defiant, which had first been employed as a dayfighter in the operations preceding the evacuation of Dunkirk at the end of May 1940, when it had destroyed 37 German aircraft on a single day. Its signal success on that occasion was due to the element of surprise; the German airmen had not expected to encounter a fighter whose armament could be swivelled on the beam. Its four-gun retractable turret was an innovation in fighter aircraft. Afterwards, the absence of a forward-firing gun made it a less formidable opponent for enemy pilots who had been warned of its limitations, and it was restricted mainly to night-fighting. The other and still more dangerous night-fighter was the Bristol-Beaufighter, which was a modification of the Beaufort, the torpedo-bomber used with great success against enemy shipping by the Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force.

The Beaufighter has more powerful engines (Hercules) than the Beaufort (Taurus), and an extremely formidable armament, which consists of four 20 mm. shell-firing guns under the fuselage and six Browning machine guns in the wing.

Another twin-engined aircraft also proved a distinct acquisition to the RAF for defense at night. This was the American Douglas DB-7 medium bomber, which, as adapted for night-fighting, was renamed the Havoc. Its specialty is the "picketing" of enemy aerodromes at night. Its long endurance enables it to "sit over" the enemy bombers' base and to attack them when they try to land or take off. It secured many victims in this way in the spring of 1941 -certainly more than the Junkers 88, used by the Germans for a like purpose, obtained in England.

Both the night-fighter pilots and the anti-aircraft gunners were indebted to the operators of the radiolocators for a substantial part of their successes.

Radiolocation is a means of ascertaining the presence and locality of aircraft by utilizing the reflection of electro-magnetic waves from solids (conductors or insulators) upon which the waves make impact; the great value of the new system is that it is not dependent on emission of waves from the body to be located. The waves go out from and return to the operator. The necessity still remains, of course, for the pilot or the gunner on the ground to be informed of the location of the object -- the enemy aircraft -- and then to hit 27/177

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it, and that is not easy in moonless and cloudy nights.

Meanwhile the British counter-offensive had been proceeding and in June it took on a new intensity. Daylight raids, by Blenheim and Fortress bombers, were interspersed among the nightly attacks carried on by the Bomber Command. The daylight sorties were shared in by the fighters of the Royal Air Force, which accompanied the Blenheims in their raids upon objectives in the occupied countries across the English Channel and the southern waters of the North Sea, and also conducted independent sweeps over northern France and the Low Countries. The Blenheims usually carried out their raids at extremely low altitudes; in those directed against shipping at Rotterdam, for instance, on July 16 and August 28, the pilots flew at roof-top, or masttop, level. The former of these two raids was particularly profitable. Seventeen ships, totalling nearly 100,000 tons, were sunk or put out of action for a long time, and five more, totalling 40,000 to 50,000 tons, were damaged.

This was the return obtained for the cost of four Blenheims lost.

The inauguration of the daylight offensive did not slow up the tempo of the Bomber Command's other operational program -- the attacking of Germany's industries and communications on every possible night. On the contrary, the night-raiding increased in intensity after the invasion of Russia, the object being to compel the German High Command to retain in the homeland fighters which might otherwise have been used in the east, as well as to interrupt the communications essential for the reinforcement of the German armies in Russia. The bombers used were the Wellingtons, Hampdens and Whitleys. Hitherto these had been the instruments of the long-range offensive of the Royal Air Force; now, with their performance improved, they could carry both larger and more destructive loads, weight for weight, than in 1940. To these fine bombers, all twin-engined, there were added another twin-engined one, the Avro Manchester, and two four-engined bombers, the Short Stirling and the Handley Page Halifax. All these were employed in the raids of the summer and autumn of 1941. The damage which they were able to inflict upon their targets was immensely greater than that caused in the raids of the preceding year. This was the result not so much of the heavier weights carried as of the greater blasting power of the heavier bombs dropped. The effect, it was officially stated, was five times as devastating as that of the bombs of similar size previously dropped.

The new and more powerful bombs were dropped for the first time on the night of March 31, 1941, at Emden. A pilot who had taken part in thirty raids stated next day that he had never seen such an explosion -- it was like "a gigantic arc-welding flash, blinding white." A little later great devastation was caused by the new bombs in Hamburg and Mannheim. At Hamburg a blast damaged an area of 75,000 square yards, and industrial buildings covering a space of 20,000 square yards were completely demolished. At Mannheim one area of devastation covered four-and-a-half acres. The German propaganda service, apparently to reassure the populace, stated that the British had taken to dropping land-mines because they were short of bombs.

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considerably the anti-aircraft defenses at all their important centres. Bomber crews reported a great increase in the numbers of searchlights and of guns. Night-fighters were also more active and numerous. On some nights the losses of British bombers were substantial. Weather conditions were responsible in part for the increased casualties in one or two instances, as, for example, on the night of June 27, when twelve aircraft were missing after a raid on Bremen and other towns in northwest Germany. The raids of the nights of August 12 and 14 cost the Bomber Command thirteen and twelve aircraft respectively, and that of the night of September 7 cost twenty aircraft, but these were all very heavy raids and the percentage of loss was never as high as that suffered by the Luftwaffe in some of its raids on Britain during May (more than ten percent on some nights). On the night of November 7 there were 37 British bombers missing after raids which embraced Berlin, Cologne and Mannheim. This serious loss was due mainly to the very bad weather which the raiders encountered on their homeward flight. Again the percentage of loss, though substantial, was not catastrophic.

The second German air fleet which, commanded by Field Marshal Kesselring, had been stationed in northern France, was transferred to the eastern theatre of war when Russia was invaded, and squadrons from Field Marshal Sperrle's third air fleet appear also to have been moved to the east. At any rate the offensive against Britain was reduced to almost negligible proportions during the remainder of the year. On some nights, though the weather was not such as to deter the raiders, none came at all, and on many others only one or two made a fleeting appearance. For that respite the people of Britain had to thank the gallant airmen of the Soviet Union. Before the German attack on Russia there had been a tendency to underrate, one might almost say to disparage, the value of the Red Air Force. Apparently that tendency was shared by the heads of the German Army and air service. Their assertion in the early days of the fighting in the east that Russian resistance in the air had already been shattered by the all-conquering Luftwaffe reflected, one may surmise, the Higher Command's initial conception of the Russian strength in the air rather than the stern actuality. In one week of war, it was claimed, 4,107 Soviet aircraft had been destroyed; in eight weeks that figure had risen to 11,250; and by the beginning of December, according to Hitler's speech to the Reichstag on December 11, 1941, to 17,323. This last figure could safely be halved to arrive at something near the truth. It is impossible, however, to give any close estimate of the real losses. The published figures, which were clearly exaggerated for the purpose of propaganda, included admittedly a large proportion of aircraft destroyed on the ground, and precise information on this point cannot have been available to the attackers. No doubt many were so disabled; the dive-bombers -- the Junkers 87's on one side and the Stormoviks on the other -- put a large number of machines out of action on the landing grounds and aerodromes. The Stormovik was one of the Soviet air force's surprises, and another was the M.I.G.3 fighter, which took a heavy toll of the Luftwaffe. The Hurricanes of the British Air Force contributed their quota also. The Russians probably 29/177

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lost the more heavily, since their opponents had the great advantage of initiative and surprise. They still had a formidable air force in being at the end of the year, however, and in some areas were superior to the Germans. There is no doubt that in 1941 the Luftwaffe received in the east a hammering at least as damaging as that to which it had been subjected in the west in 1940.

The effect of it was to be discerned in Mr. Churchill's statement in London on November 10, 1941, that the British Air Force was now "at least equal in size and numbers, not to speak of quality, to the German air power."

The resistance put up by the Red Air Force was, indeed, an extraordinarily fine performance in the circumstances. It must have suffered severely in the first stage of the Blitzkrieg in the east; but it never cracked, and it came back at the assailant, resilient and full of offensive capacity. The effective defense of Moscow was proof that the Germans were far from having the complete ascendancy in the air which they claimed; if that claim had been true, the city would have been dealt with as mercilessly as were Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade. In Russia, as in the west and in the Balkans, the Luftwaffe played a very important part in the successes achieved by the German mechanized forces, but it never dominated the air in the east, and at the end of the year Russia's air fleet was helping her armies roll the Germans back along almost all the immense battle front. It was not only shooting down German aircraft but destroying hundreds of tanks and thousands of lorries as well as other equipment on the ground.

As on land, so on sea the intensity of the German attempt to smash or starve Britain into surrender diminished to some extent during the summer. The battle of the Atlantic continued, but the rate of sinking of British and Allied shipping decreased, especially in July and August. While a variety of causes contributed to the improvement, including the patrolling by American naval forces of the waters between Greenland and Iceland, the recurrent visits of the Royal Air Force to certain bases of vital importance on the German plan of blockade had an undoubted effect upon the situation. At Brest lay two powerful warships, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst, and from the end of May a third, the Prinz Eugen. Had these vessels been free to operate they might well have turned the vital war upon maritime commerce in Germany's favor. They were prevented from doing so by the Royal Air Force. The repeated attacks from the air upon the berths which they occupied and the ships themselves, while not putting them completely out of action, rendered them unfit for service at the time when the battle of the Atlantic was at its height.

When the Scharnhorst slipped out of Brest and took refuge at La Pallice, further south in the Bay of Biscay, she was attacked there by Stirling bombers on July 23, while the Gneisenau was attacked at Brest by Fortress bombers. The attacks were renewed on the same night and on the next day and had the effect of immobilizing the two warships for a further period. Other raids on the docks at Brest, where they and the Prinz Eugen were lying, were made at later periods. There were three within 36 hours on December 1819, including a daylight raid by Stirling, Halifax and Manchester bombers, escorted by fighters. Another daylight raid was carried out on December 30 30/177

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by Halifaxes, again escorted by fighters.

Raids on the bases used by the U-boats and on the yards in which they were constructed or repaired was a further contribution made by the Bomber Command to the defense of Britain's Atlantic life line. Meanwhile, that Command and the Coastal Command, and in the autumn the Fighter Command also, were waging war with great success upon Germany's shipping in the North Sea and the English Channel, while in the Mediterranean the bombers of the Royal Air Force of the Middle East Command and the torpedo carrying aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm were inflicting heavy losses upon Italian shipping and making the reinforcement and supply of the Axis forces in Libya increasingly difficult. The Beauforts of the Coastal Command and the Swordfishes of the Fleet Air Arm accomplished some particularly brilliant exploits with their torpedoes in the North Sea and the Mediterranean respectively.

The air warfare of 1941 was conducted, it is to be noted, with machines which were still of prewar design. The experience gained since the outbreak of hostilities was utilized to the extent that various improvements and modifications were embodied in existing types, but the need for rapid and largescale construction precluded a breakaway to new lines from the models which had been in service at the beginning of the war. Both fighters and bombers were equipped with engines which had been "boosted up," and with more formidable armament, but they were substantially the old machines rejuvenated. It was only in 1941 that the change-over to the production of machines of wartime design was begun in the factories; and only in 1942 will the new models be seen in service in the squadrons. Even the Hawker Typhoon fighter, which is a type not yet available in quantity, was designed before the outbreak of war.

In the air fighting of 1940 the British Spitfire and Hurricane established their claim to be the two best fighter aircraft in action. The improved versions of both these fighters again showed in 1941 that they had the whiphand of the (also improved) German fighters. The Heinkel 113, the diminutive fighter on which, it seems, German hopes of securing ascendancy in air combat had been placed, was apparently a disappointment. It was not encountered in numbers, and the German fighters seen in action were almost wholly Messerschmitt 109's and 110's. The Me.109F, the improved edition of the fighter so roughly handled by the pilots of the Fighter Command in 1940, differed from its predecessor mainly in having a higher ceiling and a greater rapidity of fire. Its armament was not, however, so formidable as that of the Spitfire Mark V and Hurricane Mark II, in which again the Royal Air Force could claim to possess the two best fighters in service. The shattering effect of the new Spitfire's cannons was to be seen in the frequent references in the British pilots' reports to enemy fighters blowing up or disintegrating in the air. The firepower of the new Hurricane has been found to be no less overwhelming; it has as alternative armament either four 20 mm. cannon or twelve machine guns, as compared with the two 20 mm. cannon and four machine guns in each of the new Spitfires. Hurricanes carrying two 31/177

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250 pound bombs also came into use in the autumn of 1941.

In 1942 the weight and range of the British air offensive will be greatly increased and the losses sustained by both sides will be heavier than in the past. They will be made good, one can confidently predict, more easily by Britain than by Germany. The enormous production of the British and American factories (the latter had not in 1941 nearly approached the peak of their output), and the increasing flow of flying personnel trained under the Empire Air Training scheme, should together result by the autumn of 1942 in the assembly in Britain and the Middle East of an air strength so massive that Germany and Italy will not be able to muster an adequate defensive force against it. The first momentous American move in the struggle against totalitarian aggression -- adoption of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 -- has now been followed by the next logical step, the entry of the United States into the war as a full belligerent. With this the eventual defeat of the three Axis Powers becomes certain even though it may still be deferred. We know from President Roosevelt's own words that the change of the United States to full belligerency will not cause its aid to the Allies to flag. His message to Congress of January 6, 1942, announcing a program of production of 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943, was in effect a further assurance to that end. Given the continuance of that aid, virtual command of the air in western Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean should have passed to Britain by the close of 1942. And in the Far East, the powerful air arm of the United States Navy, working in partnership with the British and Australian Air Forces, should have established an ascendancy over Japan's naval and military air arms.

Flying Bombs and Rockets THIRTY-FIVE years ago the English Channel had not yet been crossed by air. Now the crossing of the Atlantic by airplanes is a commonplace. One of this war's sensations was the cross-Channel bombardment of England by flying bombs and rockets. If there is another world war, will the transatlantic flight of bomb and rockets become a commonplace also? There is every reason to believe so. The technical problems involved are not so great as those which had to be overcome by the men who invented and perfected the airplane. A few years from now it probably will have become technically possible to bombard the United States from European bases, and vice versa. And the nature of the bombs so carried may be, as we now have had confirmed to us, terrible beyond any previous imagining.

Both British and Americans have a tendency to hide their concern over some unexpected move on the part of an enemy by scoffing at it. The flying bomb, or VI, was at first greeted in Britain as a great joke. Flight, one of the leading British aeronautical journals, commented on June 29, 1944, 16 days after the attack had begun: "One would have to search diligently through the records of warfare to find a more telling case of substituting futility and pro32/177

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paganda for true military measures than the recent employment of the air torpedo." That scoffing attitude was dangerous then. We should be putting ourselves in extreme peril if we persisted in taking the same sort of attitude toward the future development of these and other new weapons.

The fact is that V1 gave the Nazis real and substantial military gains. At a time when the Allies were engaged in the mightiest military undertaking the world had ever known -- the invasion of the Continent -- the British, aided generously and indispensably by the Americans, had to deploy large forces for the direct and indirect protection of London. Several squadrons of fighters had to be drawn away from the operations on the Continent in order to cope with VI. In the period of greatest activity, at least 30 fighters were constantly in the air, around the clock. A belt of heavy and light antiaircraft guns 20 miles deep was set up; and, as a final obstacle, as many as 2,000 balloons were put to use. To provide communications for this force, 5,000 miles of telephone cables had to be laid and a fleet of 3,000 vehicles was employed continuously. This tremendous defensive expenditure was made at a time when our full force should have been concentrated on the offensive.

Moreover, for nine months before the V1 attack began, and during all the time it lasted, the Allied Air Forces were engaged in reconnoitering and bombing German experimental stations as far east as Peenem端nde, as well as the hundred and more launching sites which the Germans were constructing on the Continent. This involved a tremendous diversion of photo reconnaissance and photo interpretation effort, besides imposing a heavy strain on our intelligence services. Hitler's most substantial gain, however, lay in the extent to which the Allies were forced to divert their bombing efforts from German homeland targets in order to concentrate on the cleverly camouflaged launching sites set up in the French countryside. More than 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped in the effort to knock out these sites, and in these operations 450 British and American aircraft were lost.

Thus even if the flying bomb offensive had failed to register hits on important objectives, Germany would have found it militarily worth while. And, in fact, it did inflict substantial damage on London and throughout southern England. In a period of 80 days and nights, the V1 damaged nearly a million houses and caused thousands of casualties. In the last 12 months of the war, three million Londoners had their homes destroyed or damaged (an estimate which presupposes only three people to each home).

There is reason to believe, however, that the Germans expected a very much greater proportion of their missiles to get through the defenses than actually did so. During the early summer they had staged an experimental operation before high officers of the German Air Staff (Milch was reputed to have been present) at Vicenza, in northern Italy, in the course of which 20 fighters, including one captured Spitfire, endeavored to shoot down flying bombs. The results led the German Air Staff to believe that we could bring down only 10 percent of their bombs in actual operations. And, indeed, there were good grounds for this conclusion. The V1 travelled at 350 miles an hour and it generally flew at a height of 2,000 to 3,000 feet. This height was far below the 33/177

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rated altitude of fighters, and the flying bomb was difficult to see from above. With its 1,870-pound warhead, moreover, it was an extremely dangerous target for a pilot to shoot at. In addition, since it flew so low and so fast, it presented great problems to the AA predicators as developed at the time.

Fortunately, the estimate of the Germans proved over-optimistic. Although they increased the difficulties of the defense by sending the bombs over when weather conditions were favorable, i.e. when there were low clouds, 33 percent of the missiles were destroyed in the first week. By dint of great efforts, the defenders increased this figure until on August 28 they brought down no less than 97 out of 101 flying bombs. Much credit for this was due to the magical development in AA fire during the period, and to the invaluable practical and technical assistance given by American AA units. In the first week that the AA batteries were deployed, they shot down 17 percent of the bombs; in the last week this figure had risen to 74 percent. The American gunners brought with them a new technique which the British were not slow to admit was better than their own.

Londoners are particularly grateful for the aid given by American flying and ground units in what was, from one point of view, a "domestic" operation.

The author may perhaps be permitted to record that during the summer he was on occasion engaged in photographing the flying bomb sites from high altitude. Being a Londoner, he felt a most acute interest in his work. He never failed to be moved by the sight of American comrades setting out on the same task with no other motive than duty willingly undertaken in furtherance of the common cause.

The V1 carried 1,870 pounds of explosive a distance of 150 miles at a speed of 350 miles an hour. There was nothing startlingly unexpected about this.

Even during the First World War the idea of a crewless airplane carrying explosives had appealed to the imagination of strategists, and for years subsequently inventors had been trying to produce one. They had been unable, however, to solve the fundamental problem of designing a craft simple enough to be put into comparatively large-scale production.

After the defeat of the Luftwaffe in 1940, Germany's need for a long-range weapon to bombard London became so acute that great pressure was put on German scientists and manufacturers; and in the end they succeeded in producing the desired simplification of the power unit. They discarded the orthodox reciprocating gasoline engine containing a large number of precisionmade parts and in its place devised an entirely new form of simple reactionpropulsion unit, developing some 600 horsepower. The unit consists of a welded steel tube 11 feet, 3 inches, long, mounted above the rear of the fuselage. Fuel is fed to the engine from a tank in the fuselage, by means of air from compressed air bottles, through a pipe in the forward supporting strut of the propulsion unit. This article does not pretend to go into mechanical detail. Suffice it to say that this engine has about one quarter of the weight of an equivalent gasoline reciprocating motor; but its fuel consumption is eight times greater.

The overall length of the flying bomb is slightly more than 24 feet and the 34/177

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wing span 17 feet, 6 inches. Its loaded weight (with 130 gallons of gasoline) is 4,700 pounds. Once in flight, it is controlled by four gyroscopes which govern direction and pitch, while an aneroid barometer operating to a pre-set figure governs height. Only some 3 percent of the bombs launched were fitted with radio transmitters. The course of these could be plotted by means of direction-finding receivers. Forecasts which had been made as to the velocity and direction of the wind could then be checked, and bombs launched subsequently could be more accurately directed. The range was controlled by an air-log driven by a small air-screw which was revolved by an air stream. When the set distance was reached, the air-log, by means of an electrical impulse, automatically exploded the detonators attached to the tailplane; two tabs were forced into a down position and the flying bomb was thrown suddenly into an almost vertical dive. The engine would then cut out.

By destroying a hundred or more launching sites, the Allied bombing operations delayed for many months the beginning of the V1 offensive against London. These sites were being built on fairly solid lines. As a result of the bombing, the Germans evolved a launching ramp that could be erected in a little more than a week and which lent itself to camouflage. It was from these modified sites that the flying bombs were finally launched against England and also against our lines of communication behind the western front.

The ramp is nothing more than a catapult driven by compressed air. The bomb is assembled in nearby sheds, and is hoisted onto the catapult by a derrick. The controls are then pre-set and the propulsion unit started up. The catapult carrier, on which the bomb rests, is then carried up the ramp at a fierce rate of acceleration. The minimum powered flying speed of a missile is 170 miles an hour, so that the launching speed is extremely high. At the end of the ramp the flying bomb instantly detaches itself and climbs at a gentle rate to its operating height of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

II Hardly had the Londoner recovered his breath from intensive bombardment by flying bombs than the threatened long-range rockets, the V2, started to arrive. There also continued to be a bombardment by flying bombs launched from airplanes, but it proceeded on such a reduced scale that, everything being judged comparatively in this world, Londoners barely noticed them.

V2 was something new, something with added devilment. It betrayed no sign of its approach, but simply arrived from nowhere and exploded with even worse results than VI. Although rockets in various elementary forms have been used spasmodically in warfare for hundreds of years, they did not come into favor on any considerable scale until the present war, when the Russians began to fire them from aircraft against ground targets. They have since been used extensively by aircraft in all theaters and they have yielded large dividends in tactical operations. But rockets fired from aircraft have little in common with the giant V2 rockets which the Germans so skillfully developed. V2 is the outco35/177

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me of at least 20 years of extensive German experimentation with all forms of rocket propulsion. It is not clear at the time of writing when the Germans concentrated on the production of this long-range weapon, but it would seem to have been about 1942.

The V2 rocket is a streamlined projectile 46 feet long, 5 feet, 6 inches, in diameter, with a sharply pointed nose. It carries at the rear four large external stabilizing fins at right angles to each other. It has an explosive warhead of 2,000 pounds in the nose; and when it is filled with fuel the whole rocket weighs about 12 tons. The fuel is carried in two large aluminum tanks, one holding 7,500 pounds of alcohol, the other 11,000 pounds of liquid oxygen.

Since, therefore, the rocket does not depend upon external air for combustion, it can operate equally well at low or extremely high altitudes. In actual fact, its flight carries it to a height of 60 miles above the earth's surface.

V2 is considerably more complicated in design and manufacture than the flying bomb. Its radius of destruction is comparable, but it is apt to cause more casualties, since it gives not even a half second of warning before the actual explosion. This is because it falls at a speed greater than sound travels; one hears the tremendous rumbling roar of its headlong rush through the air only after the explosion has occurred.

The launching and operation of V2 are simple. The rocket is placed in a vertical position on a concrete platform or hard surface. A flat road is suitable.

Within the rocket is a turbine, driven by superheated steam produced by mixing very concentrated hydrogen peroxide with calcium permanganate solution. This mixture is ignited electrically from a distance, whereupon the rocket takes off. Throughout the flight the turbine drives the pumps which force the liquid oxygen and alcohol into the combustion chamber. The products of combustion are forced out at a high speed through the orifice in the rear end of the venturi as a jet of very high gases. One set of control vanes is in the path of this jet stream. The other is fitted externally on the edges of the stabilizing fins. The rocket starts climbing vertically, but a gyroscope control within the projectile comes into play to operate the control vanes, and this causes the rocket to curve away from the vertical toward the target. The combustion of the gases and their ejection through the venturi creates a thrust of about 26 tons. It is this which propels the rocket forward.

When the fuel is exhausted, V2 is pointing upward at about 45 degrees and is travelling at a speed of about 3,000 miles per hour. It continues upward, following the same path that would be taken by a shell fired at this angle.

The maximum range at present is 220 miles. If the target is within that range, the fuel is automatically cut off at the appropriate moment. Descending through the atmosphere from a height of 60 miles, the projectile is slowed down by the resistance of the air to about 1,600 miles per hour; and at the same time it becomes heated by friction to such an extent that it has been observed glowing a dull red. Sometimes the overheating results in a premature explosion in the air.

No one can deny that V2 is a most remarkable technical achievement. In its development the Germans had to find a solution to two hitherto insurmoun36/177

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table problems. The weapon would have been of little value if its construction had involved the use of rare metals; and considering the high temperatures and pressures involved, this might well have been the case. Since the jet is the part which has to bear the highest temperature, the Germans contained in it a liquid-cooled jacket of mild steel. The second big problem was to provide adequate directional control. The stabilizing surfaces are gyrocontrolled and, as previously mentioned, one of the two sets of surfaces is placed in the jet stream itself. In this way the rocket can be controlled immediately the jet stream is ejected. It is this device which enables the rocket to take off from the simplest of bases. A half dozen lorries can hold all the equipment necessary for launching.

The only possible form of defensive action against the rockets was for fighter bombers to attack their bases, storage depots and lines of supply. A V2 base is such a mobile affair that it was extremely difficult to spot. When intelligence provided information on the storage depots nearby, however, attacks on these could interrupt the flow of supplies. A number of ways were developed by which a V2 base could be plotted and placed within a comparatively small area. Attacks on bridges, railroads and transport would then help to isolate that area and disrupt the supply line from the factory to the operating base. In the end, the sites near The Hague were completely cut off from the supply area; but this was possible only because of the close proximity of our armies to the firing area in the final stages.

London was only just within range of the robot bombs fired from the nearest enemy territory. This meant that the V2 bases operating against London were close to the front line, which simplified the task of our fighter bombers. In addition, the invasion towns in France and Belgium in the rear of our front line were subject to rocket and flying bomb bombardment. In these cases, the enemy was able to choose whether to put his bases near his front line and thus, by firing at short range, improve the accuracy of his weapons, or whether to reduce our attacks on his bases by withdrawing them well into his own territory, out of easy reach of our attacking aircraft. He chose a compromise, and arranged his bases in depth. London was not intensively bombarded by V2; but the rockets prolonged the strain and anxiety of life in the capital after the buzz-bomb no longer menaced it acutely with death from the skies.

III The flying bomb and rocket have come into military plans and strategy to stay. Londoners have had only a grim preview of what the future can hold for the population of every city in the world -- unless, that is, the destructive possibilities of these weapons are brought under control by the agreement of all the nations. In view of this, a brief recapitulation of London's experiences may be relevant at this time.

Bombardment by rocket is generally agreed to be not so trying to the nerves as bom bardment by flying bomb. The rocket arrives unheralded; there is a vast explosion; and there is a wide area of devastation. If one is still alive, 37/177

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one knows that another rocket is hardly likely to land in exactly the same spot, at any rate for some time. But though the rocket does not have the psychological impact of the flying bomb -- which one listens for and gauges the course of, and which comes over in sufficient quantities to make second and third explosions at nearly the same spot possible and indeed likely -- it is potentially more accurate. From a strictly military point of view, therefore, it is a more important weapon.

As a flying bomb approaches a great city it brings a warning of death to the ears of millions. When all was quiet in London at night you could hear a flying bomb approaching for three minutes before it came overhead -- three minutes of mounting anxiety. You heard it for probably two minutes before you could say safely that it was not going to pass within three miles of you.

The sound of its engine is indescribable -- a vulgar, roaring noise, rather like the rapid, flapping vibration of giant obscene lips. No one can listen to it without alarm.

After some experience, you could decide with some certainty whether an approaching bomb necessitated taking shelter. Normally, there were a few final seconds of warning of imminent danger between the time you heard the engine cut off overhead, which happened when the flying bomb was thrown into its vertical dive, and the moment of impact. According to some authorities, this warning silence was not expected by the Germans. It occurred because the sudden movement from the horizontal to the vertical threw the gasoline in the tank away from the feed-line and caused the engine to cut, thus preventing the bomb from diving with engine still running. This cutting out of the engine must have saved hundreds of lives by giving people a split-second opportunity to get clear of glass.

Unfortunately, the German missiles had irregular tricks. Enough of them did manage to strike the ground with their engines still running for it to be unsafe to await the dying away of the motor before taking shelter. Furthermore, you could not relax with complete assurance after the wave of anxiety -- mounting as the bomb approached, reaching a peak as it came overhead, and normally diminishing as it passed on -- for some bombs turned round in a circle before crashing to earth. Others cut out at 3,000 feet and, instead of diving, came down in a gentle glide, striking the ground eventually some four miles away. In such cases, people on the spot had no prior warning. If the flying bomb fell in a built-up area, probably 20 houses were totally destroyed and several hundred more were damaged. Human life vanished in a flash which shook the ground and rent the heavens.

The author may in part have owed the invitation to write this article to the fact that the editor, who was in London the latter part of last year, was given particular reason to reflect on the potentialities of V2. One evening as he was preparing to go to bed, the mansion in which he was staying suddenly bounced violently up and down and from side to side, and he was left prone and dazed, his ears ringing with the grotesque noise of a dozen express trains roaring past and away into the night. A rocket bomb had exploded a couple of hundred yards away. It was not surprising that he thereafter dis38/177

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played an enlarged interest in the future of this weapon. That particular explosion, which wrecked several blocks on Oxford Street, took, it is reported, 64 lives, among them the lives of a number of American soldiers, serving their country thousands of miles from home. Their compatriots will (or at any rate should) demand to know precisely what are the potential future uses of these flying bombs and rockets.

The flying bomb is likely to be used in future against the shorter-range targets. Its range will be increased, but it will not be as accurate as the rocket, since it has to fly in the lower altitudes and its speed and direction are, therefore, subject to the action of the wind. The airplane has to have a wing area sufficiently large to enable it to land safely; the flying bomb, however, requires only a large enough wing area to permit it to stay in the air at high speeds. The wing area can be considerably reduced simply by increasing the speed of the bomb at the moment it reaches the end of the launching ramp.

We may therefore expect to see the lifting surfaces become smaller and smaller and the bomb become more of a conventional artillery weapon -- a selfpropelled shell rather than a flying bomb.

The range of the rocket can be increased up to some 2,500 miles without employing any new principles beyond those already introduced by the Germans. This range would be obtained by a two-stage rocket, i.e. two rockets in one. The first would drive the second a certain distance and then disintegrate, leaving the second to start up automatically at that point. Some years will elapse before such projectiles are perfected, but there is nothing Wellsian in the prediction that they will be perfected. Existing scientific knowledge makes them practicable. We should remember, moreover, that the power of explosives is likewise increasing enormously and will perhaps reach a point where destruction from a single charge spreads over such a vast area that it could not be dropped from aircraft operated directly by men if the men were to live. Robot-bombs will be the only means by which a charge of that nature could be poured upon an enemy.

Such are some of the facts about flying bombs and rockets, as we know them to be and as we can expect them to become. The Germans will certainly continue to be interested in the new weapons they developed and will wish to carry their achievements further at some later date. Are we going to keep up our interest also, both in the weapons as such and in what the Germans may wish to do with them? The idea of discharging destructive rockets to a distant portion of the world by merely pressing a button may still sound in some ears fantastic. But it is in the realm of fact. Is it too much to hope that there can be one law and one controlling authority in a world any part of which can be laid waste by the pressure of a single finger?

The Armaments and Military Power of Germany TO EVALUATE the military strength of a country one examines its military system in time of peace and takes account of the potential power which it can command in time of war. In looking at Germany today, however, I shall 39/177

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confine myself to the purely military factors, while admitting the importance of two elements which really cannot be overlooked -- the demographic factor and industrial power.

It is not my intention to reopen the charge that Germany has not executed the Versailles Treaty. But in order to make the subject clear I shall have to point out: first, the legal situation created by the Treaty, and the modifications adopted by the Allies; and, second, the actual situation in Germany, which is very different today from that legally prescribed, even in its emended form. The difference between the de jure and the de facto positions will show how remarkably the offensive power of Germany has increased, and that consequently any argument founded simply on the Versailles statute is sapped at its base. Finally, by comparing the German claims with the ideas of General von Seeckt, the spiritual chief of the German Army, I shall try to draw objective conclusions and offer a reasoned judgment upon the present military power of Germany and its orientation.

Military provisions of the Versailles Treaty The military statute of the Versailles Treaty (which contained no time limit) was intended to reduce the possibility of German aggression, to facilitate the eventual application of the sanctions which were provided for in order to compel Germany to observe the Treaty, and to render possible the preparation of a general limitation of armaments by all nations. Its aims were not punitive, but merely to stabilize Europe as it was in 1919. And it marked the first step of a desired evolution in the direction of disarmament.

Let us in the first place see what the Treaty of Versailles prescribes. It gives Germany a professional army and limits its effectives and matĂŠriel both in number and by categories. It forbids her to make ready for mobilization and establishes a demilitarized zone in the Rhineland. The German Army, which is reduced to 100,000 men (officers included), must be "exclusively reserved for the maintenance of order in the country and the policing of its frontiers."

Compulsory military service is suppressed. The army is to be composed of twelve-year volunteers; the term of service for the officers is twenty-five consecutive years.

The composition and armament of the seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry which are authorized are settled in detail. None of the organs charged with planning and preparing for war are to be allowed. The former General Staff and the war academies are suppressed and cannot be revived "in any form whatsoever." The army shall have no aviation, no tanks, no heavy artillery. All mobilization measures are prohibited. Materials of war exceeding the statutory amounts shall be surrendered to the Allies to be destroyed. The manufacture, import or export of war materials is forbidden. MatĂŠriel authorized for the army and navy shall be supplied by factories designated by name. The manufacture of gas for war purposes, and the use of it, are prohibited. Organizations and educational establishments are forbidden to concern themselves with military questions. Further, in or40/177

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der to obviate future aggression, a zone of German territory between the western frontier of Germany and a line drawn fifty kilometers to the east of the Rhine is "demilitarized."

Lastly, independently of the control exercised in Germany by the InterAllied Commission, the Allied and Associated Powers decided to occupy the left bank of the Rhine and to evacuate it by degrees, the last zone to be freed in 1935, or later if necessary. It will be recalled that France accepted this progressive evacuation in exchange for a pledge that England and the United States would come to her side in the event of further aggression by Germany.

Thus the Allied and Associated Governments were unanimous in recognizing that, in the face of Germany's demographic and industrial superiority, the security of France demanded (once the left bank of the Rhine had been evacuated) that she should have an army superior in effectives to the German Army in order to be in a position to await the promised intervention of England and the United States. As we know, the guarantee was not signed; the United States did not ratify the Peace Treaty. Yet one fact remains, and that is that in 1919 the maintenance of peace in Europe was founded by the Allies, not on "parity" of armaments but on the contrary on the inequality of the military forces of France and Germany, in favor of the former.

The modifications agreed to by the Allies Far from taking a narrow legal point of view, the Allied Governments, represented by the Conference of Ambassadors, interpreted the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles in a liberal and conciliatory fashion, in an effort to show Germany that they had confidence in her. A few specific illustrations will suffice to indicate this: At Spa, for example, the Allies agreed that doctors and veterinary surgeons should be counted separately, which resulted in an increase of 500 officers, and that civilians employed in the army might be increased from 901 to 1,936, more than twice as many. The Inter-Allied Commission of Control observed that the distribution of commissioned officers violated the statute; the Allies, in a spirit of conciliation, allowed the effectives to be reckoned as a total. Again, despite the prohibition against the reconstitution of the Berlin and Munich military academies in any form, the Ambassadors' Conference admitted special arrangements for the training of General Staff officers, and this now proceeds according to pre-war principles.

In the category of armaments, also, there were important concessions, permitting among other things an increase in the number of machine guns; a reserve of 50,000 rifles and 20 million cartridges more than the number provided; the possession of 52,000 revolvers, 166,000 bayonets, 18,000 lances, 30,000 sabres; a supplementary supply of infantry and artillery munitions equal to the requirements of an army; permission to study protective devices against "forbidden" weapons (with the proviso that models cannot be transformed into real weapons). In practice, Germany is learning the use of forbidden weapons. Certain cannon, for example, have real carriages and 41/177

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sights; the tube is of wood, but it can easily be replaced by a real one.

One of the most important concessions was permission to transform the state police into an armed force, with military training and equipment. In 1913 Germany had 80,000 police (30,000 state police and 50,000 local), charged with maintaining order as a separate service. This force did not differ from the police of other countries. Now the Allied Governments have allowed the German police force to be raised to 140,000 men, of whom 105,000 are state police and 35,000 local. The former are a military organization. Like the Reichswehr, they are recruited by voluntary enlistment for twelve years.

Members are cadets for two years (a total of 5,000 men), and afterwards are attached to active units which correspond to infantry companies, cavalry squadrons or technical units. The radio system of the state police is the most important in Germany, and their automobile equipment is far superior to that of the army and can transport more than 20,000 men. Their arms are no longer restricted, as in 1913, to a revolver and a sword, but consist of rifles or carbines. They have 150 armored motor cars, each fitted with 2 machine guns, sub-machine guns and hand grenades. The railway police have been given authorization to be armed (8,000 rifles and pistols), and have armored trains at their disposal. It will be seen how greatly the state police have changed in character. Living in barracks, organized in units, armed and equipped like a military force, they are an important addition to the Reichswehr.

Further concessions were made with regard to war factories. All factories which had manufactured or studied how to manufacture war material, other than those authorized by the Treaty, were required to disappear. But the Conference of Ambassadors decided to suppress only those factories which were built exclusively for the manufacture of war material. With regard to war material in excess of the amount authorized, the Ambassadors' Conference allowed material to be preserved which was not for "combat purposes." The Conference also limited the prohibition on the manufacture, importation and exportation of war material solely to material obviously destined for "war purposes" -- a very difficult thing to define. Again, the Conference allowed surplus barracks to stand, provided they were rendered unfit for military purposes.

The Conference permitted improvements to be made in the fortifications on the eastern, southern and northern frontiers, though they were contrary to the Treaty, as well as certain constructions at Könisberg, Cüstrin and Glogau. The armaments of coast towns were increased, e.g. the Conference granted 119 supplementary cannon and agreed that the 22 cannon at Könisberg, which were to have fixed carriages, could be placed on movable carriages, on condition that they were not to be removed from that place -- a condition which has not been respected.

In the field of aëronautics there were a number of concessions. The Paris agreements of May 1926 restored to Germany the right to build machines of all types, provided they are not armored, nor armed, nor capable of being turned into military machines -- a restriction which it is impossible to enfor42/177

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ce. In addition, 36 members of the Reichswehr and the state police were separately authorized to become pilots. A Bureau of Aviation was allowed to the Ministry of the Reichswehr "for the study of foreign military aĂŤronautics and the aĂŤrial defense of the Reich."

Germany was authorized to send military bands into the demilitarized zone, as well as 9,000 state police. Military railways in those areas were to have been suppressed; an agreement on August 4, 1929, considerably modified the 1922 program. Similarly, Germany was authorized to install underground telephonic cables in the demilitarized zone, to maintain 4 airports, 16 landing fields and artillery establishments (subject to certain observations). She even obtained permission not to destroy completely certain fortifications.

The facts which I have enumerated are sufficient to destroy the legend about the harshness with which the Allies are supposed to have insisted upon the execution of the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty. They did not merely make concessions of detail; they granted Germany the right to revamp her entire military system. As a result, the present legal situation is far different from that stipulated at Versailles.

Now what is the actual situation, in contrast to the hypothetical legal situation which I have outlined?

Evolution of the military system since 1920 Since 1920 Germany has aimed at the execution of a definite program: to create and preserve the essential foundations of a powerful military machine modelled after that of pre-war days. The elements include: (a) A Supreme Command, a General Staff and commissioned officers. (b) Military instruction with a view to offensive warfare. (c) The organization of units which increase the mobility and offensive strength of the army. (d) MatĂŠriel. (e) Trained effectives. An examination of the results obtained in 1932 in these categories reveals the military power of Germany. (a) Commanders and Commissioned Officers. At the head of the army is a single commander, known as the "Chief of the Army Command," who combines all the prerogatives formerly exercised by the Emperor, the General Staff, the Ministry of War and the army inspectors. About him are grouped the 250 officers and numerous officials, most of them retired officers, who constitute the Army Command. It is as powerful an organism as all the prewar central organizations together used to be. Amongst the four major services of the Army Command, the Truppenamt (Troups Bureau) constitutes the present General Staff, properly speaking, and is at all points analogous to the old General Staff. The recruitment of General Staff officers is provided for as formerly. Only the titles have changed.

The lower ranks are also very numerous -- one non-commissioned officer to four men -- and their training is advanced to a point at which they are capable of fulfilling functions far superior to their assigned rank.

It is on this solid structure, out of all proportion to the number of effectives actually authorized, that the present German Army rests.

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(b) Training. So far from accepting the position defined for the German Army by the Treaty, its organizer, General von Seeckt, has sought to make it the framework of a nation in arms. As early as September 1921, in his preface to the new Army Regulations, General von Seeckt took as his basis "the men, armament and equipment of the army of a great, modern, military Power, and not merely the German Army of 100,000 men created in accordance with the terms of the Peace Treaty." And, speaking of the modern weapons of combat which are forbidden in Germany -- aviation, tanks, heavy artillery -- the General suggested that "their absence must not make us afraid to attack."

The Reichswehr, an army of the first quality, of exalted patriotism, and convinced that it will one day be the nucleus of a nation in arms, preserves "the old military ideals of the former army" and the "warlike spirit" which its successive chiefs have always flattered themselves that they have maintained and nourished. It is being trained and organized for offensive warfare. (c) Increase in the offensive power of the army. Germany has not merely maintained the framework of its former military establishment, it has modified the army's internal organization so as to increase its mobility and power on the offensive. Taken singly, these changes are sometimes of only relative importance. But taken together they are seen to be part of a general plan methodically executed.

In the Infantry, the mobility and marksmanship of the units are being constantly improved. The number of machine guns, both light and heavy, is greater; a new type of machine gun has been adopted; the mine thrower has been improved; canons d'accompagnement and anti-tank guns are being studied and tried out.

In the Cavalry, each division now has a communications squadron (instead of a squadron of recruits), caterpillar squadrons, and armored cars.

All the cavalry squadrons are furnished with six light machine guns (whereas they legally should have none), and the high command is now arranging to have the number raised to nine. The number of machine guns in excess of what is allowed may be estimated at about two thousand. The machine gun armament of both infantry and cavalry is twice the amount provided in the Treaty.

In the Artillery, a supply squadron has been created for each division, and observation units have been formed, as defined by modern army regulations. In 1931 further artillery material was put into service. Motorized batteries appeared in the 1932 manœuvres.

In the Engineers, the battalions are increasing the number of their units and becoming partly motorized. The supply units are being grouped, and equipped with motors and modern material of every kind.

The high command has also arranged to use arms forbidden by the Treaty.

With regard to heavy artillery, it has adapted coast defense matériel to mechanical transportation and is now training crews at Könisberg. As for tanks, it has created companies of "imitation" tanks, which are used at manœuvres. In the field of chemical warfare, it has created "fog sections," in 44/177

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part motorized, and capable of using poison gas machinery. The use of gas bombs is taken for granted in all training classes and at the General Staff.

In the field of aviation, machines for reconnaissance, observation, fighting and bombing have been constructed by various firms, officers go through training as pilots and observers, both in Germany and abroad, and in the course of manœuvres contact exercises between the land and air forces take place. The recent condemnation of a German publicist who had alluded in the Weltbuhne to collusion between the Reichswehr Ministry and the Lufthansa Gesellschaft is confirmation of this fact. (d) Matériel. In addition to authorized matériel, Germany possesses stocks of arms which were concealed from the Control Commission, and these, in the words of the Commission, constitute a "not negligible" supply. The police are constantly discovering rifle and machine gun dépôts. At Leipsig in February 1930 the Communists found more than 200 machine guns in military buildings. This fact was confirmed in the Reichstag by Deputy Kippenberger, who added that he had proof that in one garrison in the eastern part of the country more than 2,000 machine guns were stocked in seven different dépôts.

Further, the manufacture of arms has been resumed in many factories, both authorized and otherwise. The trade in arms is proof of it. In 1928 Germany exported arms to the value of 150 million pounds sterling, and in 1930, according to the "League of Nations Annual," she exported arms to the value of 1,765,000 pounds sterling. The Düsseldorf firm of "Rheinmetall," which is authorized only to make cannon, also makes light and heavy machine guns, anti-tank guns, sub-machine guns, and antiaircraft guns. The firm of Mauser, which is prohibited from manufacturing arms, is making rifles and automatic rifles of a new model. Similar activity is observable in making other sorts of war material. The firm of Zeiss is exporting field-glasses. The firm of Siemens is selling wireless equipment and instruments for finding bearings by sound. Since the beginning of 1932 there has been a great increase in the number of other factories which manufacture war materials of divers kinds. Export requirements (export of these materials is in itself prohibited) are not sufficient to justify this increased activity, so that one is left wondering whether part of the manufactures in question are not at the disposal of the Reichswehr.

The German chemical industry is interested in chemical warfare and is preparing for it. The German Army regulations anticipate it. Certain firms, such as Stolzenberg and Minimax, manufacture and openly sell flame-throwers and machines for releasing gas. The firm of Stolzenberg manufactures and exports poisonous gases. It offers them in its catalogs and sells sample boxes.

German aviation firms, despite the prohibition on building, possessing or importing airships fitted up for military purposes, make in Germany the prototypes of reconnoitering and pursuit machines. "H. D. 38," "H. D. 47" and "H. D. 43," built by the firm of Hinkel, are classified in a British handbook on aërial fleets as pursuit machines. Moreover, the foreign branches of 45/177

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the firms of Junkers and Dornier build military aëroplanes which are simply [i]

adapted from certain types of civilian planes built and used in Germany.

The giant Junkers "G. 38" is a magnificent bombing-plane, according to the announcement made by Junkers after her trip to Madrid. Certain foreign affiliates of the German aëronautical industry, like the "Flyindustrie" of Malmo, sell military machines which are merely converted commercial planes.

All this activity is directed and coördinated by the bureau of the Army Command which is charged with looking after armament and matériel -- the Waffenamt. All the large firms are unofficially represented in the bureau, which in its turn has delegates on all the chief economic committees in Germany. A census is regularly taken of factories which would be concerned in industrial mobilization. By the accumulation of stocks of material, by making ready for a mobilization of industries, by the construction of model machines, Germany is assured of supplies of war material far in excess of those provided for in the Treaty or in subsequent agreements.

Since the Treaty did not limit military credits, the Reich has been able to increase its expenditures for these purposes at will. In 1913, for an army of 800,000 men, with 4,000 machine guns and 8,000 modern cannon, the army estimates amounted to 67 million marks, of which 3.1 millions were for the upkeep of arms in use. In 1930, for an army of 100,000 men, with theoretically only 2,336 machine guns and 316 cannon, the same estimates amount to 78.9 million marks, of which 21.3 millions are for the upkeep of arms in use. That is seven times as much money for the upkeep of oneeighth the number of men and about one-half the number of machine guns [ii]

and one-twenty-fourth the number of cannon.

It should be mentioned at this point that certain expenditures of a military character (historical and topographical services, upkeep of the state police, etc.) figure in the budgets of other Ministries, as well as in state and municipal budgets, and even in the budget of the State Railways. Notorious trials, such as that of Captain Lohmann in 1928, the Weltbuhne case, and the condemnation at Leipsig of Kreiser and Ossietzky for revealing the air service estimates and the collusion between the civilian air service and the Reichswehr, have proved the existence of what amounts to a subsidiary budget for military purposes. Finally, the Reich allocates under heads other than the budget of the Reichswehr a long list of subventions to certain factories which are not authorized to produce war material. For example, we find in the secret accounts, referring to the estimates of 1925 to 1930 inclusive, the subventions as follows, all entered under the heading of the Ministry of Finance: Schichau Werke, 12,227,000 marks; Deutsche Werke, 28,753,000 marks; a total of 40,980,000 marks.

The German budget, then,-- a vague document which gives no justification for the expenditures entered under general headings, quite apart from the non-budget resources used for military purposes -- allows for the manufacture of new war materials, for preparations for mobilization, and, as we shall see later, for the allocation of large sums for the "athletic" training of youth. (e) Effectives. Now let us see what are the resources in men, apart from the 46/177

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Reichswehr, which are at the disposal of Germany in time of peace.

In the first place, and thanks to the concessions of the Allies, the Reich has been able to build up an armed force in the state police. The decidedly military character of an important part of this force is evident from its manœu[iii]

vres. Thus, the German press published photographs of the manœuvres of the Mecklenburg state police, with the following caption: "In order to emphasize the character of the Schutzpolizei, whose duty it is to maintain public order, as an army trained for war, the National-Socialist Minister, von Granzow, has put the police through real manœuvres modelled after those of the Reichswehr."

At the present time the masculine population of Germany which could be mobilized amounts to about 11,000,000 men between 17 and 45 years of age. Of this total we may estimate that 4½ millions have received complete military training, to wit: 1,000,000 trained men under 32; 1,700,000 trained men 33-38 years of age; 1,800,000 trained men 38-45 years of age.

The number of trained men under 32 has been decreasing, and the problem of how to maintain the supply of trained soldiers has arisen. Germany first attempted to solve it by trying the system of "time volunteers," based on that of 1806-1813; by making premature releases from the Reichswehr (the number of these authorized by the Treaty has frequently been exceeded); and by giving groups of young men, mostly students, periods of training with the Reichswehr lasting several weeks. But these remedies did not provide for the training of the great mass of the young men capable of bearing arms.

The Reich authorities then decided to entrust private organizations with the duty of giving premilitary training and perfecting the technique of men already trained.

The Stahlhelm, the Hitler organizations, the Kyfhaüserbund, the rifle clubs, the riding clubs, and many others, give individual and collective military training. Their "youth sections" start off with the young men from 17 to 20 and give them route marching with packs, rifle practice, etc.; their "active sections" keep the trained men up to the mark.

In particular, the Stahlhelm and Hitler's army each has a territorial and military organization corresponding to that of the regular army. Impressive gatherings at Coblenz in 1930, in Silesia, in Breslau in 1931, in Berlin in 1932, show the power of these associations. On each occasion 100,000 men were assembled. These men were fully organized, had full military equipment, and were transported by rail and motor under conditions like those of a real military concentration. In other words, they are troops ready for war.

Amongst the other associations which give military instruction the Kyfhaüserbund, the Wehrwolf, the Reichsbanner and the Reitervereine are all of them important, besides the small-calibre rifle clubs and, to give certain sorts of specialized training, the Technische Nothilfe, which receives a governmental subvention. In all we may estimate at more than a million men -- between seven and eight thousand of whom are young -- the number of members of these associations which give more or less complete military training and are capable of reinforcing the Reichswehr.

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The German youth also receive military training, both theoretical and practical, in the universities in the winter, in the sports camps in the summer. The aim of the sports clubs is training in Wehrsport, that is, in sports of direct military use, the natural step towards what the Germans call Wehrhaftigkeit, that is "aptitude for war," according to the definition given by General Rheinhardt, Minister of War in 1919.

In 1930 a bill establishing compulsory labor was abandoned, it being thought preferable first to try a voluntary system. On July 19, 1931, therefore, by a decree of the Reichstag, the "voluntary work service" was created.

Its military advantages are obvious. The army supplies material to the working units and personnel to supervise its use.

Further, carrying out the project laid before the Reichstag in April 1932 by General Groener, Reichswehr Minister, of grouping the entire youth of Germany in one athletic association, the German Government (decree of September 14, 1932) created an organization called the Kuratorium, a sort of central bureau whose task it is to unite members of associations, without distinction of party, "in a common and methodical task." The Kuratorium, which is attached to the Ministry of the Interior, is under the chairmanship of General von Stulpnagel, former Commander of the Fourth Division. It has considerable financial resources, and twenty camps, distributed over the entire country, will be placed at its disposal for the Wehrsport training of the German youth. On September 21 the German press announced the adhesion of the following associations: Reichsbanner, 220,000 men; Stahlhelm, 100,000; Jungdeutscher Orden, 100,000; Wehrwolf, 440,000. The National-Socialist shock-troops also joined the Kuratorium on October 1, 1932, bringing in an additional 200,000 to 400,000 young men. It is only necessary to refer to the statements of Deputy Kasper, on March 10, 1931, in the Prussian Landtag -- statements not contradicted by any Minister -- in order to understand that all this "sport" is simply intensive military preparation for war.

The german demands It is in this factual setting that the present German demands must be studied. They are the same as those put forward in 1930 in a book called "Modern Principles of National Defense," by General von Seeckt, organizer of the Reichswehr and the uncontested spiritual chief of the German army today. A striking similarity between the organization which he recommends and the present demands of the Government is revealed by setting the principal factors in the two systems beside each other.

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The parallel is evident. But General von Seeckt does not confine himself to drawing up an organization. He also enunciates a doctrine of war, and this consists in the principle that at the first outbreak of hostilities there must be a sudden attack led by the 200,000 men (including Reichswehr reserves) who are at the disposal of the present commanders of the Germany Army.

It is superfluous for me to emphasize the menace which a scheme of war like this holds for an organization which is based on principles of defense and slow of motion, particularly if the sudden offensive is undertaken by an army which, if it assumed the form and extent desired by General von Seeckt, would be more efficient than the German Army of 1914.

Conclusions The account which I have given of the German military system as it exists at the end of 1932 proves that the present de facto situation has nothing in common with the de jure situation, even as largely ameliorated by concessions made subsequently to the signing of the Treaty of Peace. Germany has restored the essential foundations of her pre-war strength, and continues to increase that strength for aggressive warfare.

The Reichswehr has a more centralized command than had the Imperial Army. The General Staff, the organ of war preparation, has been restored. It is an army of chiefs of staff, officers and instructors, ready to serve as the framework about which will group "the nation in arms."

The theory of training, directed towards offensive operations, has no longer any connection with the "maintenance of order in the interior and the policing of frontiers."

The army's modernized armament and equipment are considerably in excess of the authorized amounts. Appropriations have made it possible to accumulate large stocks. Thus though the Reichswehr has been given new armament in recent years (e. g. the new rifle "Einheitsgewehr," a new light machine gun, a new mine thrower, new cannon, a new howitzer, etc.) the old equipment has not been destroyed. These yearly credits have also made 50/177

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it possible to give subventions to the war factories (authorized and otherwise) to perfect their machinery.

It is not reasonable to suppose, then, that the troops for reinforcing the Reichswehr would not now have the necessary arms. These troops are trained; the militarized police have been trained with the greatest care; the general reserves, independent of those released from the Reichswehr, have been trained by the various associations. The training will now be developed, in accordance with one inclusive program, in the camps of the Kuratorium.

The trained reserves at the present time total about 800,000 young men.

With these must be counted one million trained ex-combatants, aged less than 32 years.

The number of existing barracks and other military buildings in excess of the requirements of the Reichswehr would easily house the same number of troops as were stationed in 1914 in the same territories.

Under cover of commercial aviation, the nuclei of military and naval aviation have been established.

Forbidden arms are being studied, and sometimes are tried out or actually put into service. Motorization of all branches is increasing.

Military mobilization, in the full technical sense of the term, and industrial mobilization -- both have been fully prepared.

How different is this situation from that generally depicted by Germany when she declares that she has only 100,000 men, and those poorly armed, compared with neighbors armed to the teeth! The real fact is that Germany at this moment could put in the field an army totally unlike that provided for in the Treaty, and with effectives comparable to those which she had on the French front in 1914. And I have moreover shown, I think, that the present demands of Germany seek sanction for organizations which hitherto have been unofficial, in order to mould the military system into one homogeneous whole on the pattern laid down by General von Seeckt. [i]

The following are examples: the Dornier Wal and the Dornier Superwal, hydroplane for sea use; the "R. 35," a scouting two-seater, modelled on the civilian machine; the "R. 47," a pursuit two-seater, modelled on the Junkers "J. 48;" the "K. 37," a fighting three-seater, modelled on the civilian Junkers "S. 35." [ii]

The increase applies to the total army estimates. These grew continuously from 1924-25 to 1929, but were slightly reduced in 1930-31 and 1931-32 because of the German financial crisis. The 1932-33 Reichswehr estimates total 674 million reichmarks, or a decrease of 15 millions compared with 1931-32. But the cost of living has fallen considerably since 1931, so that the estimates do not reflect Germany's financial difficulties. [iii]

See the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, September 29, 1932, and the Ruhr Echo, September 20, 1932

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Arado Ar 234 “Blitz” In November 1 940, many British officials thought the de Havilland company mad as it began flight testing a new reconnaissance and bomber aircraft that was thought to have such a high performance that it needed no defensive armament. How amazed they would have been had they been able to travel east-wards to the German company Arado Flugzeugwerke, where engineers Walter Blume and Hans Rebeski were beginning the design of an unarmed reconnaissance aircraft planned to fly even faster and higher than the famous Mosquito. It was to be able to do this because its engines were to be turbojets, revolutionary new engines then in the early stages of testing at the BMW and Junkers companies.

They submitted to the Air Ministry technical staff their £ 370 proposal in early 1941. With it came various more radical schemes, but it was the relatively conventional 370 that was to be accepted and awarded the '8 series' type number 234.

Predictably, it was an extremely clean and straightforward aircraft of allmetal stressed-skin construction, with a smooth flush-riveted exterior skin.

The tapered wing was mounted on top of the slender fuselage, and the two engines were underslung below the wing in near nacelles about the same distance from the centreline that one might have expected with a piston engine. In the extreme nose was the single-seat cockpit, the entire nose being glazed with Plexiglas. The pilot got aboard by pulling down a retractable step on the left side, clambering up kick-in steps up the left side and entering via the roof hatch. This hatch could be jettisoned, but there was no ejection seat and emergency escape was a doubtful proposition. The cockpit itself, however, was roomy, comfortable and well laid out, and was pressurised by engine bleed.

The challenging demand for a combat range of 2200 km (1,367 miles) meant that almost the entire fuselage aft of the cockpit had to be occupied by fuel, the tanks being filled through the top of the fuselage. All flight controls were manually operated and conventional, the ailerons being of the sharp leading-edge Frisc type and the elevators and rudder having prominent mass balances plus a combined balance weight in the fuselage. The tailplane incidence could be varied for trimming purposes by a large lever in the cockpit, driving a screwjack. Inboard and outboard of the engines were hydraulically actuated plain flaps with a maximum of 45° for landing. It was planned that the big reconnaissance cameras would be carried in the rear fuselage.

The one feature that was truly unconventional was the landing gear. With the benefit of hindsight one can see that there should have been no serious problem, but the Arado design team could see no way to fit a normal undercarriage. With the slim fuselage full of fuel there \vas no room for retracted main gears as well, nor could landing gears be accommodated in the jet nacelles or wing, the high wing meaning that ordinary -wing-mounted gears would have to be very long. The company therefore proposed various unconventional arrangements, and the Air Ministry staff selected one of the most 52/177

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unusual. On takeoff, the Ar 234 was to ride on a large three-wheeled trolley. It would land on a central skid, with small stabilising skids under the engine nacelles.

Design In the spring of 1940 no performance details were specified U except that the aircraft should be capable of covering Britain as far north as the naval base at Scapa Flow. The specification was largely the result of a suggestion of Obstlt. Theodor Rowehl, commander to the Aufklarunsgruppe Ob.d.L, the Luftwaffe's clandestine reconnaissance unit.

At this time Arado's Technical Director was Walter Blume, his department comprising the following sections: TE Technische Abteilung - Entwurfsburo (Technical Department- Design office) under Robert Stelzer.

TEW Technische Abteilung - Entwicklung (Technical Department - Development) under Dipt.-Ing. Emil Eckstein until the end of 1941 when he was replaced by Dipt.-Ing. Wilhelm van Nes with Franz Meyer as his deputy.

TAe Technische Abteilung Aerodynamik (Technical Department Aerodynamics) under Dipt.-Ing. Riidiger Kosin.

Initial design work on the new project was placed in the hands of RiJdiger Kosin who later recalled: "There was no official requirement for the airplane with the usual accompanying design competition. Only Arado was entrusted with the task of establishing whether an aircraft with the necessary performance was feasible. The number of airplanes planned was fifty. For this reason and his lack of confidence in the new form of propulsion, Walter Blume, Arado's Technical Director, showed little interest in the project. Therefore we, the advanced design department, could work with little interference on a straightforward design."

Design work proceeded under the Arado Erprobungs (Experimental) designation E 370. As many as nine alternative proposals were considered, some having four engines and one having a span of 23 metres (75 ft 5 in). A crew of up to four men was also proposed and thought was given to a defensive armament of 13 mm MG 131 machine-guns.

The first definite project, the E 370/IVa, appeared in October 1941. It was a conventional high wing monoplane with a cigar-shaped semi-monocoque fuselage and cruciform tail. Intended for the reconnaissance role, the project was to be powered by two BMW P 3302 V11 to V14 turbojets slung beneath the wings. Two Rb 50/30 or Rb 75/30 cameras were to be mounted in the rear fuselage and provision was made for a 'token' armament of one 13 mm MG 131 machine-gun. All-up weight was estimated as 7,000 kg (15,432 Ibs) which included 4,000 Itrs (880 Imp gals) of fuel in six tanks, three in the fuselage and three in the wing centre section. Because of the need to operate from small military airfields, Kosin's design team proposed that the aircraft take off and land on a broad wooden retractable skid mounted beneath the fuselage.

On 24 October 1941, the design was examined by the RLM's Technical De53/177

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partment and, at a meeting attended by Rowehl, it was decided that an official specification should be issued to cover further development of the project. A batch of 50 aircraft was requested at this stage. The type was envisaged as replacement for the high-altitude Ju 86 R which was then just entering Luftwaffe service. A setback came to these plans when Generaloberst Ernst Udet, overall head of the Air Ministry's , Technical Department, committed suicide on 17 November.

His replacement, Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch, was known to favour continued development of proven types, and this cast doubt upon the future development of the E 370.

By late January 1942 the design had evolved. The fuselage was slightly enlarged and lengthened, with the three fuel tanks contained within the fuselage considerably enlarged in size. The BMW engines, which were experiencing protracted development difficulties, were to be replaced by Jumo 004s with the Daimler-Benz ZTL turbofan (109-007) suggested as a back-up. The skid undercarriage was replaced by a fully-retractable multi-wheeled bogie mounted below the fuselage in an arrangement similar to that chosen for the Ar 232 transport. This was balanced by a simple retractable skid mounted below each turbojet. Finally, the wing was completely redesigned.

All fuel cells were deleted (leaving the three major fuselage tanks) and constant taper was added to both the leading and trailing edges. More revolutionary was the special wing surface. Rudiger Kosin explains: "Up to the design of the E 370 it had been common in the aviation industry to join points of equal percentage in chord, between tip and root, with straight lines. This resulted in warping and unevenness of the sheet metal skinning due to the necessity to rivet it to the spars and ribs. We therefore lofted the wing on the computer 4 by joining points of equal slope, thus obtaining a surface of such smoothness that the RLM ordered all aircraft companies to study our methods at a special meeting held at Brandenburg." 1

The Ar 234 V1 after it was rolled out from Arado's Brandenburg/ Neuendorf factory during the early summer of 1943. At this time the aircraft was finished with black-green (RLM 70) and dark green (71) uppersurfaces and pale blue (65) beneath. The Stammkennzeichen (four letter code) TG+KB was painted in black on both sides of the fuselage.

1

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On 4 February 1942, Erhard Milch visited the Brandenburg Photo Ar234A089 plant where he was given full details of the revised E 370 by Walter Blume. Milch proved to be extremely impressed by the aircraft and issued a contract covering its structural development and the construction of a wooden mock-up. At the same time the official RLM type '8' series type number '234' was allocated to the project.

Two months later the RLM's Technical Department gave preliminary authorisation for the construction of six Ar 234 A prototypes. By this time the project had been further modified. The plan for a retractable skid undercarriage was resurrected but now it was constructed of metal and was to have outriggers beneath each engine. For taxiing and take-off the aircraft was to be provided with a special three-wheeled dolly. This was to be jettisoned after the aircraft left the ground, to fall to earth by parachute where it could be re-used. The dolly weighed 635 kg (1,400 Ibs). Provision was also made for jettisonable rocket-assisted take-off units mounted below the wings outboard of the turbojets.

Throughout the remainder of the year a considerable amount of design work and wind tunnel testing of scale models was undertaken in connection with the development of the project. As more details of the turbojets became available, the basic design was updated constantly. Improved fuel consumption figures for the Jumo 004 engine led to a decrease in total fuel tankage to 3,700 Itrs (814 Imp gals). This was housed in three fuselage tanks, those fore and aft being self sealing, that in the centre, unprotected. The only protection for the pilot against enemy fire was a 15 mm armour plate positioned directly behind his head. Dual taper was added to the leading edges of the wing, the area of which was increased, and the control surfaces were revised to incorporate Friese type ailerons of very narrow chord.

The RLM increased its order for Ar 234 prototypes from six to twenty on 28 55/177

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December 1942. At this stage the VI to V7 were to be powered by two Jumo 004 engines and to be completed by the end of November 1943. The V8 was to be first test aircraft for four BMW 003 engines and was scheduled to be completed by the end of January 1944. The V9 to V14 (to be built between February and July 1944) were to be powered by two BMW 003s and the V15 to V20 (to be completed between June and October 1944) were to be powered by four BMW 003s.

Construction of the first prototype was begun at the experimental workshops at Brandenburg/Neuendorf on the Havel late in 1942, but because of difficulties with the development of the Jumo 004 turbojets it was not until February 1943 that the first pair of these arrived. Although nominally producing 850 kg (1,874 Ibs) thrust the early engines rarely managed to achieve this power. Thought was therefore given to various methods of boosting available take-off power. One scheme, evolved in conjunction with the Graf Zeppelin Research Institute at Stuttgart-Ruit, envisaged using He 111 H-6 bombers as tugs. This scheme was abandoned in favour of that proposed earlier using two Walter 109-500 rocket-assisted take-off engines mounted beneath each wing. These were capable of delivering a thrust of 500 kg (1,102 Ibs) thrust for thirty seconds.

During the early summer of 1943, some static engine testing and taxiing trials were carried out with the first arototype, the Ar 234 V1. It was known that the runway at Brandenburg was too short for flight trials with such an advanced aircraft, and a new, specially-constructed strip at Alt .onnewitz was not ready. Alt Lonnewitz was a former Luftwaffe )ase in Saxony, about 65 km (40 miles) north-west of Dresden.

Therefore the prototype was dismantled and ferried to a Luftwaffe airfield at Rheine near Miinster in an Ar 232 transport. Arriving there on 18 July, it was reassembled to undergo a further series of taxiing trials during the next seven days. These were mainly concerned with the stability of the take-off dolly.

On 26 July the port engine caught fire at over 3000 rpm owing to a leak in the injectors. The engine had to be removed, but was quickly repaired by Junkers engineers and refitted two days later.

During the evening of 30 July the aircraft made its first successful test flight with the experienced Arado test pilot, Flugkapitan Horst Selle, at the controls.

With the take-off weight limited to 5,695 kg (12,555 Ibs) no rocket assistance was required. Selle released the dolly successfully at about 600 metres (2,000 ft) but after deployment the parachute became entangled in the supporting struts at the rear and the dolly was destroyed when it hit the ground.

Otherwise the 14 minute flight went without a hitch. 2

A The Ar 234 V4, W.Nr.130004, coded DP+AY, was very similar to the third prototype. It is shown here just after completion with the Walter 109-500 rocket-assisted take-off pods in place.

2

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During static testing on 7 August the troublesome port engine was found to be leaking again. A replacement (removed from the almost complete V3) was flown in from Brandenburg and fitted the following day. Two days later, Selle flew the prototype for the second time, attaining a speed of 650 km/h (404 mph) during a test lasting 54 minutes. In an attempt to prevent the loss of a second take-off dolly the parachute container was moved further forward, but again it failed to deploy. The dolly was modified a third time by mounting the parachute container behind the main wheels and it was also decided to release it immediately following take-off. This procedure was first tested during the third flight of the V1 and, having proved successful, was adopted for all subsequent flights. Following the completion of this third flight, on 29 August 1943, Selle mishandled the throttles on landing, causing the aircraft to overshoot the grass strip by some 160 metres (525ft). The prototype was so badly damaged during the subsequent belly landing that it never flew again. Some parts from the wreckage were salvaged including the rear fuselage which was placed at the disposal of Frieseke und Hopfner for the trial installation of a new type of ceramic radio aerial.

Shortly afterwards the Ar 234 V2 was completed. This was virtually identical to the first prototype with a similar type of dolly to that used on that aircraft's last flight. During static tests on 7 September, both engines of the V2 were found to be faulty and had to be replaced. Six days later, Selle ferried the airplane from Brandenburg to Alt Lonnewitz to where the Ar 234 flight test program had now been transferred. Three further flights totalling 1 hour 41 minutes followed on the 14th, 16th and 23rd, these being mainly concerned with engine measurements.

Work was now progressing on the Ar 234 V3 which was designed to be fitted with a pressurized cabin and an ejector seat although these were never installed. The prototype also had a redesigned take-off dolly with large outriggers mounted on each side which supported the auxiliary skids beneath the 57/177

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turbojets. It was flown for the first time on 29 September 1943 with Selle ferrying the prototype from Brandenburg to Alt Lonnewitz in only 21 minutes.

A second, 51 minute, flight in the aircraft the following day resulted in damage to the take-off dolly after it was released at an altitude in excess of 2 metres (6 ft 6 ins).

On 1 October 1943, Selle made his fifth flight in the Ar 234 V2, but it was to prove his last. At first there was some doubt as to the cause of the crash, but this was finally resolved at an Office of Air Armaments conference held five days later. Selle's brief had been to make an ascent to 9,000 metres (29,500 ft) to check the aircraft's climbing capability. He remained in radio contact with the ground until the last moment. Although he bravely tried to save the prototype, his efforts were in vain. At the last moment he jettisoned the escape hatch in an attempt to bale out but, by then, it was too late.

Following the fire and subsequent crash of the V2, a report was issued on 19 October 1943 which called for the installation of automatic fire extinguishing equipment in the V3 and ejector seats in the V3, V4, V5, V8, V9, V10, V11, V15, V16 and V17. This compressed air-activated seat had been designed by the Heinkel company for its He 280 fighter, but was to be modified for the Ar 234. Despite the call for such a device, no Ar 234 was actually fitted with it but operational experience was to show that bailing out from the aircraft through the small entry hatch in the top of the canopy was far from easy.

Flight testing of the Ar 234 V3 did not resume until 11 November 1943 when Arado's chief test pilot, Flugkapitan Walter Kroger, made his first flight in the prototype. On the next day Flugkapitan Johann Ubbo Janssen, who had joined Arado on 13 September 1943, flew the V3 from Alt Lonnewitz to Jiiterbog, but problems with the port engine encountered during the flight prevented its return until 15 November.

Six days later the V3 was dismantled and transferred by road to Insterburg in East Prussia where it was to take part in a demonstration in front of Adolf Hitler of the latest types of German aircraft and equipment. Apart from the Ar 234 V3 the display included the Me 262 V1 and V6, the Me 163 BV22 rocket fighter, an example of the V-1 flying bomb and several experimental guided missiles. Hitler arrived in his special train at 11 am and following a tour of the exhibition, both the Me 262 V6 and Me 163 were demonstrated, the former by Gerd Lindner, the latter by Bernhard Hohmann. The Ar 234 was not flown, but the Fuhrer was so impressed with the design that he ordered the production of at least 200 aircraft by the end of 1944.

The fourth prototype, the Ar 234 V4, was generally similar to the previous aircraft. It was completed on 24 October 1943, but flight testing was delayed because of the need to carry out extensive engine evaluation. The aircraft finally made its first flight on 26 November, taking off with the aid of rocketassistance. Even then Janssen experienced problems with the port engine during taxiing.

Following its return from Insterburg, the V3 had been fitted with a special toothed landing skid with the idea of slowing the aircraft's landing run. It 58/177

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was first tested on 18 December when it landed on the snow covered airfield at Alt Lonnewitz and proved quite successful. On 24 February 1944, the V3 made the first of several tests of a braking parachute which, when deployed, considerably reduced the landing run.

Meanwhile the Ar 234 V5 had been completed. This differed from the earlier prototypes in having modified landing skids and Jumo 004 B-0 engines.

Although producing a similar thrust to the A-series engines, these were some 100 kg (220 Ibs) lighter. Janssen carried out the first flight of the V5 on 22 December 1943 with the aid of rocket assistance. However, as he brought the aircraft in to land at Alt Lonnewitz, he discovered that he could not reduce the engines to idling speed and was forced to make a very fast approach, skimming across the concrete runway. This caused the skids to collapse which in turn damaged the wingtips and port wing. Nevertheless the pilot had a good impression of the V5's flight characteristics. After being repaired, the prototype was flown for a second time on 20 January 1944, but as a safety precaution, the skids were locked down.

During January and February 1944, Janssen carried out several flights in the Ar 234 V3, V4 and V5. One of these was on 20 January when he ferried the V4 to Brandenburg-Havel to await the arrival of Erhard Milch and KarlOtto Saur. Milch (Director General of Luftwaffe Equipment) and Saur (deputy to Speer - Hitler's Armament Minister) were touring Germany by special train to check on production arrangements for the Ar 234, Me 262 and Do 335. The two officials and their entourage visited the Arado factory on 21 January where Janssen treated them to a 25 minute demonstration flight in the Ar 234 V4 before returning it to Alt Lonnewitz.

Following the completion of four flights in the Ar 234 V5 by Janssen, the aircraft was flown by Obstlt. Siegfried Knemeyer on 9 February. Knemeyer had been appointed Entwicklungs-Chef (Head of Development) in the RLM's Technisches Amt (Technical Department) usually abbreviated to Chef GL/CE in November 1943. This was one of the most important positions in the Ceneralluftzeugmeister's organisation with responsibility for the development of all new and existing Luftwaffe equipment. As part of this job, he became responsible for the direction of all jet aircraft development until the end of the war.

During another flight, on 22 February, Janssen tested modified snow skids on the Ar 234 V5, but they caught in ruts on landing and collapsed, shattering the cockpit glazing. This failure led to their abandonment. At this stage many problems were being experienced with the skids collapsing and, in an attempt to solve the problem, Hans Rebeski, departmental head of detailed design, suggested that they be raised and lowered twice before landing to ensure hydraulic pressure was at its maximum. This procedure was first tried on the V3 and seemed to overcome the problem. 3 The Ar 234 V8, W.Nr. 130008, coded GK+IY, which was powered by four 109003 A-0 engines in combined nacelles. These early BMW engines were extremely unreliable and posed constant problems.

3

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After being repaired, the V5 rejoined the test program only to be damaged again on 2 April following its eighth flight. Janssen took off successfully from Alt Lonnewitz, but found he could not release the dolly and was forced to land at Brandenburg with it still attached. Without the dolly brakes connected the prototype hurtled off the runway, eventually shuddering to a halt in a field. As if in slow motion, it slid from its dolly, damaging the underside of the fuselage.

Because of the increasing tempo of Ar 234 prototype testing a second test pilot was appointed to assist Ubbo Janssen. Gunther Eheim. He had joined the company in March 1944 from the bomber Geschwader KG 40 and made his first flight in the Ar 234, the V5, on 24 April.

It will be remembered that the BMW P.3302 (109-003) had been proposed for the Arado E 370 project from its inception. Early problems with this engine, which was more advanced in concept than the Jumo 004, had delayed its introduction. During the summer of 1943, however, Kosin's team began to consider a version of the Ar 234 to be powered by four BMW engines. As Kosin explained: "In order to accommodate four of the smaller, lighter and less powerful engines, two solutions were considered. The first was to pair the engines in the same position as the Jumo 004s, the second to mount a single turbojet at this point and another outboard at the existing hard points for the rocket-assisted take-off units. Any modification to the wing was absolutely out of the question. Structurally, the single engine solution was preferable, but from the point of view of stability, control and handling qualities, it appeared less desirable. Flight testing was to confirm our calculations."

Preliminary performance figures for the project looked promising, including a maximum speed of 860 km/h (534 mph) at 4,000 m (13,000 ft) and a range of 1470 km (913 miles) at 12,000 m (39,370 ft). In order to determine the most efficient arrangement of the two layouts proposed by Kosin, two Ar 234 A-series prototypes were allocated.

The first of these to be completed was the Ar 234 V8 which was intended to test the combined nacelle arrangement. The centreline of the new combined twin engine installation used the original mounting points for the single Jumo engines. This meant that the dolly outriggers which supported the skids under the outboard engines had to be slightly extended. Otherwise the take-off and landing arrangement was similar to the earlier prototypes.

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Janssen flew the Ar 234 V8 for the first time on 4 February 1944, thus gaining the distinction of making the world's first four-jet flight. Subsequent flight testing was hampered by the unreliability of the BMW engines. An earlier version of the engine had previously been tested in the Me 262 V1 but this had failed on take-off and was extensively redesigned. The new BMW 003 A-0 engines were tested on a Ju 88 test bed, but even then major problems were experienced, mainly due to the unsatisfactory regulator governors and the Henschel-designed fuel pumps. By 17 April 1944 the V8 had completed only 79 minutes flying.

A second four-engined prototype, the Ar 234 V6, was completed a little later. This was fitted with four BMW 003 engines in separate nacelles and was flight cleared on 17 April 1944. It made its first flight eight days later but its engines proved just as troublesome as those fitted to the V8. On 11 May, Arado expressed grave doubts about the safety of both aircraft and were already considering abandoning flight testing when all four turbojets of the V6 suffered successive failures on 1 June. This event forced Ubbo Janssen to crash land the aircraft onto the Torgau-Eilenberg railway line which resulted in minor damage. No further flights were made with the two fourengined prototypes although :rTiparison flights had shown, as Kosin had predicted, that the combined nacelle arrangement was superior. They also paved the way for the Ar 234 C-series.

On 23 May 1944 Hptm. Conny Noell of the Versuchsverband OKI suggested the making available of two Ar 234 prototypes to undertake experimental reconnaissance operations over the invasion beaches. As Noell said: "It was the ideal reconnaissance aircraft." Three days later, during discussions between Dipl.-lng. Liebing of Arado, Obstlt. Knemeyer of the RLM and Oberst Petersen of the Luftwaffe's Erprobungstellen (Experimental Stations), the plan was accepted.

Arado technicians at Brandenburg immediately began work to mount a pair of Rb 50/30 cameras in the rear fuselage of the Ar 234 V5 (GK+IV). Following completion of this test pilot Ubbo Janssen flew the machine to Alt Lonnewitz on 1 June 1944. The second prototype to be fitted with cameras was the only other Jumo-powered A-series airframe to be completed, the Ar 234 V7. Basically similar to the V5 it was fitted from the outset with two Rb 50/30 cameras in the rear fuselage. It made its first flight on 22 June 1944 with chief test pilot Walter Kroger at the controls, but the rear support strut for the main skid collapsed on landing due to a hydraulic fault.

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Ar 234B The RLM had already seen the promise of the design and in July had asked Arado to supply two prototypes of a Schnellbomber ("fast bomber") version as the Ar 234B. Since the original skid-equipped Ar 234A's fuselage design was very slender and entirely filled with fuel tanks, there was no room for an internal bomb bay and the bombload had to be carried on external racks.

Since the cockpit was directly in front of the fuselage, the pilot had no direct 62/177

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view to the rear, so the guns were aimed through a periscope, derived from the type used on German World War II tanks, mounted on the cockpit roof.

The defensive fixed rear gun system was generally considered useless and it was omitted in production examples of the Ar 234B, while still retaining the periscope for rearwards vision.

The external bombload, and the aforementioned presence of inactive aircraft littering the landing field after their missions were completed (as with the similarly dolly/skid-geared Messerschmitt Me 163) made the skid-landing system impractical, so the B version was modified to have fully retractable tricycle landing gear, with the mid-fuselage very slightly widened to accommodate the forward-retracting main gear units, the nosegear retracting rearwards. The ninth prototype, marked with Stammkennzeichen (radio code letters) PH+SQ, was the prototype Ar 234B, and flew on 10 March 1944.

Production B-series aircraft (like the Ar 234 V9) were slightly wider at midfuselage to house the main landing gear, with a fuel tank present in the midfuselage location on the eight earlier trolley/skid equipped prototype aircraft having to be deleted for the retracted main gear's accommodation, and with full bombload, the aircraft could reach only 668 km/h (415 mph) at altitude. This was still better than any bomber the Luftwaffe had at the time, and made it the only bomber with any hope of surviving the massive Allied air forces. The normal bombload consisted of two 500 kg (1.100 lb) bombs suspended from the engines or one large 1.000 kg (2.200 lb) bomb semi-recessed in the underside of the fuselage with maximum bombload being 1.500 kg (3.310 lb). If the war had continued it is possible that the aircraft would have been converted to use examples of the FuG 203 Kehl MCLOS radio guidance system to deploy and control the Fritz X guided bombs or Henschel Hs 293 air-to-surface missiles.

Production lines were already being set up, and 20 B-0 pre-production aircraft were delivered by the end of June. Later production was slow, as the Arado plants were given the simultaneous tasks of producing aircraft from other bombed-out factories hit during the USAAF's Big Week, and the ongoing license-building and nascent phasing-out of Heinkel's heavy He 177A bomber, even as the Arado firm was intended to be the sole subcontractor for the He 177B-series strategic bomber, meant to start construction at Arado as early as October 1944. Meanwhile, several of the Ar 234 prototypes including a few of the surviving eight "trolley-and-skids" Ar 234A-series prototypes - were sent forward in the reconnaissance role. In most cases, it appears they were never even detected, cruising at about 740 km/h (460 mph) at over 9,100 m (29,900 ft), with the seventh prototype achieving the firstever wartime reconnaissance mission over the United Kingdom by a Luftwaffe-used jet aircraft.

The few 234Bs entered service in the autumn and impressed their pilots.

They were fairly fast and completely aerobatic. The long takeoff runs led to several accidents; a search for a solution led to improved training as well as the use of rocket-assisted takeoff. The engines were always the real problem; they suffered constant flameouts and required overhaul or replacement af63/177

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ter about 10 hours of operation.

The most notable use of the Ar 234 in the bomber role was the attempt to destroy the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. Between 7 March, when it was captured by the Allies, and 17 March, when it finally collapsed, the bridge was continually attacked by Ar 234s of III/KG 76 carrying 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bombs. The aircraft continued to fight in a scattered fashion until Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945. Some were shot down in air combat, destroyed by flak, or "bounced" by Allied fighters during takeoff or on the landing approach, as was already happening to Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters. Most simply sat on the airfields awaiting fuel that never arrived.

Overall from mid-1944 until the end of the war a total of 210 aircraft were built. In February 1945, production was switched to the C variant. It was hoped that by November 1945 production would reach 500 per month.

In addition, it was intended to modify upwards of 30 Ar 234B-2 airframes for the night-fighting role, from a proposal dated September 12, 1944 between Arado director Walter Blume and Goering's top aviation technologist, Siegfried Knemeyer. Designated Ar 234B-2/N and code named Nachtigall (Nightingale), these aircraft were fitted with FuG 218 "Neptun" VHF-band radar with the appropriately reduced-length dipole element version of the standard Hirschgeweih transceiving AI radar antenna system, and carried a pair of forward-firing MG 151/20 autocannon within a Magirusbombe conformal gun pod on the ventral fuselage hardpoint. A second crew member, who operated the radar systems, was accommodated in a very cramped compartment in the rear fuselage. Two of these jury-rigged night fighters served with Kommando Bonow, an experimental test unit attached to Luftflotte Reich. Operations commenced with the pair of 234s in March 1945, but Bonow's team soon found the aircraft to be unsuited for night fighting and no kills were recorded during the unit's very brief life.

Specification Arado Ar 234B-2 Blitz Powerplant two Junkers Jumo 004B-1 axial-flow turbojets each rated at 8.83 kN (1,984lb) Performance maximum speed 742 km/h (461 mph) at 6000 m (19685 ft) cruising speed 700 km/h (435 mph) at 1000 m (32,810 ft) service ceiling 10000 m (32,810ft); range with 500-kg (1,100-lb) bomb load 1556 km (967 miles) Weights empty equipped 5200 kg (11,464 Ib) maximum bomb load 1500 kg (3,300 Ib) maximum take-off 9800 kg (21,605 Ib) Dimensions wing span 14.41 m (46 ft 3 in) length 12.64 m (41 ft 5 in) 64/177

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height 4.29m (14ft 1 in) wing area 26.4 m2 (284.16 sq ft) Armament two fixed aft-firing 20-mm Mauser MG 151/20 cannon with 200 rounds per gun Ar 234C The Ar 234C was equipped with four BMW 003A engines, mounted in a pair of twin-engine nacelles based on those from the eighth Ar 234 prototype.

The primary reason for this switch was to free up Junkers Jumo 004s for use by the Me 262, but the change improved overall thrust, especially in takeoff and climb-to-altitude performance. An improved cockpit design, with a slightly bulged outline for the upper contour integrating a swept-back fairing for the periscope, also used a much-simplified window design with far fewer glazing panels (8 in total), than the total of 13 separate glazing panels of the Ar 234B cockpit for ease of production. Airspeed was found to be about 20% higher than the B series and the faster climb to altitude meant more efficient flight and increased range.

Although Hauptmann Diether Lukesch was preparing to form an operational test squadron, only 14 C-series airframes had been completed by the war's end, and of that number fewer than half had been fitted with engines, with a few of them found at the end of the war sitting out in the open, otherwise complete but with empty engine nacelles. Comprehensive flight testing of the new sub-type had yet to begin when Germany surrendered. Three basic variants of the C-series were planned for initial construction, with several more laid out as detailed proposals. Some of these would have had different powerplants, while others were intended to feature swept or "crescent"type wings.

Ar 234D The D model was a two-seat aircraft based on the B-series fuselage, but with a new, enlarged two-seat cockpit possessing fewer glazing panels than the C version, intended to be powered by a pair of more powerful Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet engines. The HeS 011 powerplant never reached quantity production, with only 19 examples of the new powerplants ever created for test purposes, and no 234D was produced.

Ar 234P The P model was a two-seat night fighter version with a variant of the D-series cockpit, differing in powerplant options and several options of radar. Several were in the planning stage, but none made it into production.

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Variants Arado E 370 Draft proposal submitted to the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) for a fast jet reconnaissance bomber.

Ar 234 V1 to V5 Initial prototypes of the Ar 234A with skid landing gear, take-off nosegear 66/177

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trolley with trio of retractable landing skids, and 2 x Jumo 004 engines.

Ar 234 V6 & V8 Prototypes for what would become the four engined Ar 234C's engine installation, while retaining the A model skid undercarriage, the V6 was fitted with the quartet of BMW 003 engines in individual nacelles, unlike the V8 prototype which had the BMW jet engines in a pair of "twinned" nacelles.

Ar 234 V7 Development aircraft for the Ar 234B production aircraft, retaining the skid undercarriage, and saw active service.

Ar 234 V9 to V11 Representative prototypes of the Ar 234B production aircraft, with the V9 being the first retractable tricycle-geared airframe.

Ar 234 V13 & V20 A pair of B-series prototypes fitted with quartets of the BMW 109-003 engines for the C-series aircraft, using the V8 prototype's "twinned" nacelles, without the V8 example's retractable wing-skids.

Ar 234 V15 A single B-series airframe fitted with 2 x BMW 003 engines for engine development testing, and rumored to have been considered for new wing planform tests.

Ar 234 V21 to V30 C-series development aircraft. V26 and V30 had experimental thick section wooden and thin section metal laminar flow wings.

Ar 234 V16 Intended to be fitted with an experimental crescent wing with sweep back lessening towards the tips, evolved by Dipl.-Ing. R.E. Kosin. The wing was constructed but was destroyed before it could be fitted.

Ar 234 A The first proposed production reconnaissance bomber fitted with skid undercarriage and take-off dolly, built only as the series of eight trolley-and skid undercarriage V1 through V8 prototypes.

Ar 234 B-0 20 pre-production aircraft.

Ar 234 B-1 Reconnaissance version, equipped with two Rb 50/30 or Rb 75/30 cameras.

No serial production, all recons were converted from B-2 aircraft with Rüstsatz b.

Ar 234 B-2 Bomber version, with a maximum bombload of 1,500 kg (3,307 lb).

Ar 234 B-2/N Night fighter version, two aircraft converted from B-2.

Ar 234 C-1 Four-engined aircraft – all C-series Ar 234s powered with a quartet of BMW 003 jet engines – as installed on the Ar 234 V8 prototype, otherwise similar to the Ar 234 B-1.

Ar 234 C-2 67/177

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Four-engined aircraft similar to the Ar 234 B-2.

Ar 234 C-3 Multi-purpose version, armed with two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons beneath the nose.

Ar 234 C-3/N Proposed two-seat night fighter version, armed with two forward-firing 20 mm MG 151/20 and two 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 cannons, fitted with a mid-VHF band FuG 218 Neptun V radar.

Ar 234 C-4 Armed reconnaissance version, fitted with two cameras, armed with four 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon.

Ar 234 C-5 Proposed version with side-by-side seating for the crew. The 28th prototype was converted into this variant.

Ar 234 C-6 Proposed two-seat reconnaissance aircraft. The 29th prototype was converted into this variant.

Ar 234 C-7 Night fighter version, with side-by-side seating for the crew, fitted with an enhanced FuG 245 Bremen O cavity magnetron-based centimetric (30 GHz) radar.

Ar 234 C-8 Proposed single-seat bomber version, powered by two 1,080 kg (2,380 lb) Jumo 004D turbojet engines.

Ar 234 D-1 Proposed reconnaissance version. Not built.

Ar 234 D-2 Proposed bomber version. Not built.

Ar 234 P-1 Two-seater with four BMW 003A-1 engines; one 20 mm MG 151/20 and one 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108.

Ar 234 P-2 Also a two-seater, with redesigned cockpit protected by a 13 mm (0.51 in) armour plate.

Ar 234 P-3 HeS 011A powered P-2, but with two cannon.

Ar 234P-4 as P-3 but with Jumo 004D engines.

Ar 234P-5 Three-seat version with HeS 011A engines, one 20 mm MG 151/20 and four 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 cannon.

Ar 234 R Rocket-powered short range high-altitude reconnaissance version

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Engine trouble The engine selected was the 109-004A being developed by Junkers. Construction of the Ar 234 VI first prototype began in the spring of 1941, Junkers having promised delivery of engines in about 10 months. Work at Arado's Warnemunde factory went ahead rapidly, but the engine suffered very serious delays and did not even begin flight testing until March 1942.

What is very curious is that, whereas two 004As powered the first Me 262 in July 1942, Arado did not receive a single engine until February 1943, and could not fly the 234 VI until 15 June 1943. By this time, the engineless airframe had been waiting for 18 months. Arado considered beginning flight testing using piston engines, but there was inadequate propeller ground clearance. If a conventional landing gear had been adopted this problem would not have arisen; and if Junkers had delivered engines much earlier, this outstanding aircraft would have been available up to a year earlier and in greater numbers.

As it was, the flying qualities of the 234 proved to be delightful. Based at Rheiiie, under chief test pilot Selle, the programme unearthed hardly any shortcomings, and from the start every pilot who flew the 234 had nothing but praise for its handling (although it took up to 10 test flights with each aircraft before the ailerons could be judged properly rigged). In contrast, the take-off/lauding gear gave endless trouble. On the first flight, the big trolley was correctly jettisoned at 60 m (200 ft) but the parachute failed to deploy and the trolley was destroyed on hitting the ground. The same thing happened on the second flight. After this, it was decided to let the aircraft rise clear, leaving the trolley on the ground, but even so both the trolley and the skid gear gave trouble. Often the skids failed to retract, pitching and porpoising on landing was severe, and on several occasions one side skid would collapse and let the wiiigtip drag over the ground. Moreover, the aircraft could not taxi on its high-drag skids, and it was realised that on mass operations the airfield would quickly become filled with immobile Ar 234s -which would obstruct following aircraft and present helpless targets to strafing aircraft. In the late summer of 1943 it was wisely decided to change to conventional landing gear. The planned Ar 234A production version was cancelled, but seven further A-series aircraft had already been built and V2, V3, V4, V5 and V7 all flew in rapid succession (V6 and V8 were set aside for fitting with four engines). In the closing months of 1943, the prototypes tested pressurisation, take-off booster rocket packs that hung under the wings, the lighter and more powerful 004B engine and, in some aircraft, an ejection seat.

Hi-tech cockpit The cockpit was well arranged, the only problem being that of escape in emergency. Standard equipment included,a Patm PDS three-axis autopilot, with course-setting control twistgrip on the right handgrip of the pilot's control yoke. Rudder pedals -were out in front, •with clear Plexiglas giving a view in all forward directions. Between the pilot's legs -was the complex 69/177

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Lofte 7K tachymetric bombsight. At the start of the bombing run the pilot would swing the control yoke clear and fly the aircraft on the bombsight control knobs, looking through the optical sight. Alternatively, he could fly the aircraft in the normal way and use the periscope sight and associated BZA bombing computer for a dive attack.

Handling was beautiful at all speeds, though of course a heavy bomb load made the aircraft sluggish and reduced speed by some 96 km/h (60 mph).

Limiting Mach number was about 0.78, and the clean aircraft was fully aerobatic, although pilots were warned that, should they by some mischance be intercepted, they should use speed rather than manoeuvres to escape. Surprisingly, in view of the tall fin and narrow track, crosswinds were no problem, nor was an overshoot, but brakes tended to burn out after two or three landings and engine failures were common, time between engine overhauls being 10 hours.

Plugging the intelligence gap In July 1944 two early prototypes, V5 and V7, had joined 1 Staffel of Versuchsverband Oberefehlshaber der Luftwaffe at Juvincourt, France, and following indoctrination flying formed the core of Sonderkommando Gotz based at Rheine in September with four B-ls. Strength built up and from early October operational reconnaissance missions were being flown over the Allied area of north-west Europe and the British Isles. In November, SdKdo Hecht and Sperling began operations, followed by Sdkdo Sommer at Udine to cover the Italian front. In each case, the arrival of the Arados transformed the situation, good photo coverage having previously been perilous and almost impossible to achieve.

From October 1944, KG 76 began to convert to the B-2 bomber, beginning with II Gruppe. This began flying bombing missions during the push through the Ardennes. Later, in March 1945, HI/KG 76 at last succeeded in collapsing the Remagen bridge over the Rhine, but by this time the loss of the bridge had little effect. Almost all surviving B-ls and B-2s ended the war in northern Germany and Jutland, from •where nine were flown to England for evaluation. Total production of B-ls and B-2s -was 210, but many failed to see combat duty.

The point "was made earlier that prototypes V6 and V8 were completed -with four engines. Once the beautiful handling and structural strength of the Ar 234 was established, it was soon suggested that it could use greater engine thrust, and the only practical way of achieving this was to fit four BMW 003 turbojets. In the event, V8 flew off its take-off trolley on 1 February 1944 powered by four 003A-0 engines in twin nacelles. V6, with four separate nacelles, followed on 8 April. It was decided at about this time to hasten the Ar 234C into production, with paired nacelles. Throughout, difficulties were experienced -with the immature 003A engine. In particular, while operation on petrol -was satisfactory, use of the less critically scarce J2 jet fuel was tricky, and inflight relights impossible.

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Operators France French Air Force - Two captured Luftwaffe aircraft.

Luftwaffe 1./Versuchsverband OKL, headquarters unit Sonderkommando Götz (named for pilot Horst Götz), Two prototype aircraft, was then increased in size and became; Sonderkommando Sperling, carried reconnaissance on western front and UK and helped to train crews of; 1./Fernaufklärungsgruppe (FAGr) 123 (Long-Distance Reconnaissance unit) Sonderkommando Hecht, carried out reconnaissance of southern portion of western and also intended to train crews of; 1./FAGr 100 (Reconnaissance unit) Sonderkommando Sommer (named for pilot Erich Sommer), carried out reconnaissance in Italy and also intended to train crews of; 1./FAGr 33 (Reconnaissance unit) Sonderkommando Bonow, (nightfighter unit) Kampfgeschwader 76 (Bomber unit)

Creating the Operational Air War The Lessons of World War I During the First World War, air power came of age. Although it was not yet a weapon that was capable of achieving decision on the battlefield, between 1914 and 1918 it became, at the very least, an important weapon used in a variety of ways by all the major combatants. During the First World War, the German Imperial Air Service, the Luftstreitkrafte, fashioned an extensive air theory and air doctrine. Even before the start of World War I, however, Germany had become a serious air power, and had already laid the foundations for an air doctrine. The important weapon that the air service had become by 1918 had already been fashioned prior to 1914. Before 1914, the German army had established a methodology, and laid down some basic principles that would govern the development of German air power in a unique way. In this chapter, I will examine the foundations of German air theory and doctrine from the early years through World War I. Pre-World War I Prior to World War I and during most of the war, the primary missions of the aircraft, airship, and stationary balloon were reconnaissance and artillery spotting. Making reconnaissance the top priority mission of the air arm was based on an accurate understanding of the nature of warfare and technology of that time. The Franco-German War of 1870 had been studied in 71/177

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minute detail by the French and German general staffs, as well as by the militaries of the other major powers. One of the most notable lessons of the Franco-German War was the vital importance of good intelligence and reconnaissance. Most of the early battles of the 1870 war—Spicheren (6 August), Froschwiller (6 August), Beaumont (29-30 August)—were unplanned battles, instances when the French and German armies simply blundered into each other. The result was a series of bloody slugging matches in which the Germans prevailed more by luck and by the mistakes of the French commanders than by any operational finesse. "The fighting at Spicheren, Froschwiller, Colombey, and Vionville had come as a surprise to the high command on both sides as an interruption and distraction to totally different plans." After the 1870 war, both the French and German general staffs therefore placed a high priority on improving their long-range operational reconnaissance. 4

Another lesson from the Franco-Prussian War was the significance of the new, rapid-firing, rifled-steel, breech-loading Krupp guns. Artillery assumed greater importance on the battlefield, and the longer range of the rifled guns required more precise observation at greater distances than the bronze muzzle-loaders that were used for most of the nineteenth century.

In the decades following the war of 1870, both the German and French armies emphasized reconnaissance in their general staff education and their The Luftwaffe C-in-C, with Gen Lorzer at his side, addresses officers of the Nachtjagd at the ceremony marking Falck's award in Berlin on 7 October 1940. The group includes pilots Falck (second from left), Groth, Makrocki, (unknown) and Streib. Despite his widely quoted belief that the Luftwaffe would never need a night fighter arm, Goring gave full backing to the force in its early, formative, months I Falck) 4

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war games. Both the French and the Germans looked to fixed hydrogen balloons as part of the solution for better reconnaissance and artillery observation. The Franco-Prussian War was scarcely over when both sides created committees that undertook experiments with balloons. By 1884, the Prussian army had created its first permanent balloon unit. The French had established their first balloon units in 1879.

The French/German rivalry and arms race prior to World War I was a primary factor in driving the development of aviation in both countries. After creating stationary observation balloon units in the 1880s and 1890s, both countries turned their attention to powered airship flight. By July 1900, Count Zeppelin was able to fly his dirigible airship, powered by gasoline engines turning propellers, over the Bodensee. German officers were on hand to observe the first flight.6 The general staff showed great interest in the development of the powered airship. One of General Helmuth von Moltke's first acts as new chief of the general staff in January 1906 was to advise the inspector of the transport troops to study the use of the airship as a weapon.7 By 1906, the Prussian war ministry was providing 550,000 reichsmarks a year for development of powered airships. From 1906 to 1910, the war ministry, navy ministry, and general staff put considerable effort into developing airships as weapons. In 1908, the army paid 225,000 reichsmarks for one airship, the P-1. In 1909, the first real air maneuvers took place, with four airships participating.

The development of the airship provided the impetus for the army and war ministry to begin thinking about the missions and capabilities of the air weapon. With their long range, airships were first considered for a strategic reconnaissance role, but by the 1909 maneuvers the possibility of developing the airship to drop bombs on military and transportation targets was considered. However, despite the great public enthusiasm for the Zeppelin dirigibles and other powered airships of pre-World War I Germany, the general staff quickly lost its enthusiasm for the airship. Airships were expensive, difficult to build and maintain, required special docking and hangar facilities, and were extremely vulnerable to accidents in winds over 25 knots.

The airship's only real advantages were its range and load-carrying capacity.

In 1908, the army high command had recommended acquiring fifteen airships, but the airship and army maneuvers of 1909 and 1910 showed that the airships were unable to meet the standards set by the army. Trials in 1910 proved that the airship was extremely vulnerable to fire from howitzers and rapid-fire antiballoon guns. Europe's first great air show at Rheims in 1909, moreover, dramatically changed the air power paradigm by demonstrating the capabilities of a new invention: the airplane. Although the German war ministry—which controlled army spending—remained enthusiastic about the airship, the general staff, under the direction of von Moltke, turned its attention to the airplane as being a more fruitful means of developing the potential of military aviation.

In January 1908, the general staff assigned Captain von der Lieth-Thomsen the duty of following domestic and foreign aviation development. Lieth73/177

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Thomsen's study section was assigned to Captain Erich Ludendorff's mobilization branch of the general staff in October 1908, and both officers became enthusiasts for, and advocates of, the airplane. By 1912, von Moltke was pushing the war ministry for funds and personnel for airplane units, arguing that the French were far ahead in heavier-than-air aviation, and were spending far more money on aviation than the Germans.

Under the pressure of the French/German arms race, the Prussian army airplane budget grew from 36,000 reichsmarks in 1909 to 25,920,000 reichsmarks in 1914 out of a total aviation expenditure, including airships, of 52,525,950 reichsmarks. The Bavarian army created its own air service, and developed a Bavarian aircraft industry as well. On the other hand, the German navy lagged behind in developing the airplane, due to its reliance on the ;ong-range airship. Between 1911 and August 1914, only thirty-nine airplanes seaplanes) had been acquired. By the start of World War I, army aviation had passed out of its infancy to become a considerable force, while naval aviation remained in the experimental stage.

By 1909, at the urging of the general staff, the war ministry decided to directly subsidize civilian aviation companies to produce airplanes. By 1910, the army was committed to developing airplane technology through subsidies to the new airplane companies, purchases of airplanes, and contracting to train officers as pilots and observers. In 1910, Germany's first military pilot training began at Doberitz, near Berlin. By 1911, an organizational framework had been developed, and a flight command created and placed under the direction of the inspectorate of transport troops.

After 1910, the airplane program of the German army gained momentum.

Eight army aircraft flew in the Kaiser's maneuvers of 1911, and performed well. The inspector of military transport, Colonel Messing, reported that "Outstanding progress has been made in the construction of airplanes in the last year, although the airplane is not yet a truly effective reconnaissance and observation machine." Henceforth, the army was committed to the rapid development of an aviation branch.

Aviation and the German General Staff Military aviation in Germany was very much a child of the general staff, which spurred its development prior to World War I. The Prussian war ministry, however, had more direct control of the aviation force—it controlled the military budget, procurement of weapons, and the organization of the army. Even though it commanded army operations in wartime, the general staff had less control of the army in peacetime. In peacetime, the general staff was responsible for army training and education, doctrine, and most important, war planning. While the general staff could not order the creation of an air force or directly procure aircraft, it did advise the war ministry on such matters.23 The prestige of the general staff prior to World War I was such that its advice was usually taken with a great deal of respect by the war ministry.

The general staff had rightly earned its prestige. Although the modern Prus74/177

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sian general staff was a product of the era of General Scharnhorst's reforms in the early 1800s, it was scarcely noticed until the dramatic victories of 1866 and 1870 showed that Germany's general staff system gave it a decisive edge in war planning, and command and control. The general staff, as developed by the most famous chief of the general staff, Count Helmut von Moltke, was an impressive institution and a true meritocracy. Once admitted to the general staff, an officer was transferred to a separate branch of the army, and his career was carefully managed. Officers of this general staff corps, identified by the carmine stripes on their uniform trousers, received preference for promotion and command, and had greater opportunities to reach senior command positions than the average line officer.

Admittance to the general staff was earned. About ten years into their careers, officers—usually, as senior first lieutenants—could take the examination for admittance to the general staff school (Kriegsakademie). About forty officers a year were selected and underwent an intensive course at the Kriegsakademie in Berlin. The three-year course emphasized military planning, war gaming, and the study of military theory and history. In the exercises, originality was encouraged. No rigid "school solutions" were taught, and a high standard of clear and logical thought was expected in war games, oapers, and exercises. After a thorough professional grounding of ten years in regimental service, the general staff students learned to think at the operational level of war military operations at the division, corps, and army level. The Prussian Kriegsakademie, open also to officers of the Sachsen, Wurttemberg, and Bavarian armies, provided the most thorough advanced military education in the world prior to World War I. Of the approximately 29,000 officers in the German army in 1914, there were 622 officers (2.14 percent of the active officer corps) who were members of the General Staff Corps. One advantage of this elite group of officers was :ts size. Officers of the general staff corps knew each other well. Intimacy bred debate and discussion, but also some tolerance for views outside the mainstream. Erich von Ludendorff's pre-World War I views on total war were considered extreme by most of his colleagues of the general staff, but his undoubted brilliance as a thinker and tactician kept him in influential positions on the greater general staff, while such views would have earned Ludendorff at least exile to provincial postings in other armies. Another advantage that accrued thanks to the prestige of the general staff corps was that even junior captains and majors were given positions of real responsibility, and lower-ranking members of the general staff could be assured of a serious hearing at ihe highest levels of the army. This fostered discussion, and the flow of accurate information to the top that other armies of the time could not equal.

In contrast to the images of the reactionary and intellectually stagnant officer corps of the pre-World War I era, the German general staff and its chief, General Helmut von Moltke (nephew of Generalfeldmarschall von Moltke), took a lively interest in technological developments. Under his tenure, the general staff assumed a leading role in developing military aviation as rap75/177

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idly as possible. In early 1911, von Moltke advised the war ministry that the nine airships assigned to the army were sufficient, and requested that the requirement for fifteen airships set in 1908 be reconsidered. In the meantime, the general staff would study the degree to which airplanes could carry out reconnaissance. After some serious study, by 1912, von Moltke had come down firmly on the side of the airplane, and made the following recommendations: 窶｢ The creation of a separate inspectorate of aviation troops, and the release of aviation from the transportation inspectorate; 窶｢ An increase in aviation organization, assigning aircraft units to corps and developing antiaircraft guns.

While the aircraft's role remained primarily that of reconnaissance, developing the airplane as an offensive weapon was urged. In March 1912, von Moltke questioned the inspectorate of transport on the following points: 1. With what firing weapons should airplanes be equipped, and are there difficulties in mounting these weapons?

2. What weights have been dropped from our planes up to this time, and what was the degree of accuracy?

I would recommend that, by dropping bombs during flights on main and secondary roads, the accuracy of aircraft against these targets at wartime altitude be determined.

A month later, von Moltke recommended equipping aircraft with machine guns, and requested a report on the Euler machine-gun mount. He also requested information on the largest weights that could be dropped from airplanes to recommend procurement of aerial bombs for the aviation force.30

By September 1912, von Moltke proposed that an aviation organization be created by 1914, which would consist of air detachments for each army and cavalry corps, as well as aviation detachments for border fortresses. The aircraft units would be available for reconnaissance and artillery spotting, and would comprise a force of 388 aircraft窶馬ot including aircraft in air parks or replacement units. The recommended air units were, moreover, to be highly mobile, with motor vehicles, motorized workshops, tents, spare parts, and fuel supplied to the air units so they could operate closely with the army. A standard air detachment would consist of eight aircraft.31 Von Moltke noted his belief that the French were superior in aviation and proposed creating a reserve force of civilian pilots who could be quickly mobilized by the army in wartime. While the aircraft was still seen primarily as a reconnaissance weapon, von Moltke concluded, "The practice and experiments using the aircraft as a fighting machine, such as those being conducted at Doberritz ... need to produce practical results as soon as possible."

By 1913, Ludendorff, who enjoyed flying as a passenger in airplanes and visited aviation units at every opportunity, had revised the general staff's plans for aviation. He proposed to the war ministry that by 1914, the army should have 528 airplanes and by April 1916, an air service with 1,796 air- planes.

Von Moltke's and Ludendorff's interest in aviation reflected the development, at an early date, of an enthusiasm for the airplane within the 76/177

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general staff and the officer corps. The new aviation arm tended to attract many of the army's best officers. In 1911—right after the army's first aircraft fatalities—more than 900 line officers applied for flight training. It took a considerable degree of courage to apply for aviation training at this time because the fatality rate for pilots was horrendous. In 1911 three military pilots died hi air accidents. In 1912 thirteen died and this figure increased to more than thirty in 1913. Prior to the outbreak of World War I more than seventy German army and navy personnel had been killed in aviation accidents.

This figure amounted to about a 20 percent death rate for military aviators.

Yet, the new aviation branch had no problem in recruiting personnel.

Within the general staff, several officers already had experience with aviation. Major Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen had served with airships, and Major Wilhelm Siegert had paid out of pocket in 1910 to learn to fly. Both would hold senior positions in early German aviation. In 1911, four general staff captains, Buckrucker, von Stulpnagel, Wiirtz, and Zimmerman, underwent pilot training. First Lieutenant Helmuth Wilberg received his pilot's license in 1910, after beginning the Kriegsakademie course, and after completion in 1913, he was assigned as adjutant of the air service. Between 1910 and 1914, general staff officers Wilhelm Haehnelt, Hugo Sperrle, and Helmuth Felmy transferred to the aviation branch. By the outbreak of the war in 1914, two to three dozen general staff officers had undergone pilot and observer training. The small new service had succeeded in attracting a disproportionate share of the army's best talent.

The aviation forces were organized into the Prussian Fliegertruppe (Flying Troops) in 1912, and became a separate inspectorate in October 1913, under the command of Colonel Walter Eberhardt. The general staff had recommended in 1912 that each corps have its own air detachment, and by 1913 this was becoming a reality. As the force grew, several corps air detachments "A'ere combined under a senior air commander—equivalent to a battalion commander—who was responsible for training, administration, and logistics. By 1913, four aviation battalions existed in the Prussian air service and one in the Bavarian air arm. In March 1913, even before the creation of the new inspectorate, the first doctrine manual for the new force was published.

Guidelines for Training the Troops about Aircraft and Means of Resisting Aircraft described the missions of aircraft (balloons, airships, and airplanes) as "strategic and tactical reconnaissance, artillery observation, transmission of orders and information, transport of people and objects, dropping bombs, fighting aircraft." The doctrine provided descriptions of the aircraft types in common use, provided advice on the tactics of conducting air reconnaissance, and advised ground troops on methods of camouflage and dispersal to protect themselves against enemy reconnaissance.

The latter part of the manual provided firing tables for machine guns and artillery to shoot down aircraft. The army had been experimenting with specially designed antiaircraft guns for several years and conducted its first antiaircraft exercises in 1910. The army recognized that an antiaircraft artillery force was required, and by 1914 a small number of motorized antiair77/177

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craft guns had been procured.

Maneuvers and other studies were important in moving the air service to a more detailed tactical and operational doctrine. The airplane played an important role in the 1913 army maneuvers with six air detachments with a total of thirty-six aircraft participating. For the first time in maneuvers, the air units conducted night flights. In early 1914, working with the experience of the maneuvers and exercises, the evaluation board for the transportation inspectorate of the army wrote a memo listing nine specific roles for the airplane in military operations: 1. Strategic reconnaissance 2. Tactical reconnaissance 3. Artillery observation 4. Reconnaissance for cavalry divisions 5. Fighting enemy airplanes 6. Fighting ground troops 7. Destroying enemy installations 8. Liaison (carrying messages) 9. Transporting troops The German army was moving quickly to develop specialized types of aircraft and specialized units that could most effectively carry out each of these missions.

In January 1914, Wilhelm Siegert wrote a memorandum to the general staff in which he referred to the Italian use of aircraft in bombing operations in Libya in 1911-1912. He asserted that the airplane was now more than a reconnaissance machine—it was a fighting machine. "It will not be possible to operate without weapons. Every reconnaissance flight will result in an encounter with enemy aircraft... It is likely that an aircraft which is capable of shooting an enemy will have the advantage ... The most suitable weapon is a light, air-cooled machine gun. The army which succeeds in knocking the enemy's aerial reconnaissance system out of operation ... will have the advantage. With these facts in mind, it is essential that aircraft are designed which permit the use of weapons in the widest possible sector above, below, and on both sides of the airplane."

When World War I began in August 1914, only France and Germany could be considered serious air powers. Both nations had well developed air arms with over 250 operational front aircraft each, and reserves of both airplanes and pilots. After mobilization in August 1914, the German flying forces had the following units and equipment available: thirty-three field aviation detachments, with six aircraft each; eight fortress detachments, with four aircraft each; eight rear depots, with three aircraft each (reserve); twenty-four balloon detachments; twelve airship units; and eighteen antiaircraft units.

From 1909 to 1914, the German general staff—notably its chief, General Helmuth von Moltke—showed considerable foresight and innovation in developing an air arm. Germans entered the war with a rational organization, and a well-trained cadre of senior and junior officers for its air arm, an aviation industry, and most important a doctrine that was workable and effective for 78/177

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the era, and which foresaw the evolution of the aircraft from the reconnaissance and artillery-spotting role to a genuine combat weapon.

The Outbreak of war: The Airplane proves decisive In the first months of World War I, the airplane proved its worth in the reconnaissance and spotting roles. In August and September of 1914, German aircraft units flew extensive reconnaissance over the Russian offensive into East Prussia, and kept the German Eighth Army informed of Russian troop movements. The good intelligence thus provided enabled the German Eighth Army to encircle and destroy the Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tanaenberg. As to the worth of the aircraft, Eighth Army Commander General von Hindenburg remarked, "Without the airplane, there is no Tannenberg." On the western front, the aircraft proved a worthy support weapon for the Allies, when Allied aircraft spotted the gap between the German armies before Paris, allowing the French army to counterattack and drive the Germans back at the "Miracle of the Marne" in September 1914. Once the battle lines were stabilized in late fall 1914 and trench warfare became the norm, the reconnaissance mission of the aircraft became less urgent, and both sides looked for means to best employ their aviation arms. In late fall 1914, the Germans created a special bombing unit in Ostend, Belgium, with the mission of attacking deep behind enemy lines. Already, at the very start of the war, both sides had carried out limited bombing attacks against targets behind each other's lines. The new German bombing unit, given the cover name Carrier Pigeon Detachment Ostend, began to prepare itself for a unique mission: the Germans planned a strategic bombing campaign against the British home isles.

In, early 1915 German army and navy airships began direct attacks on London. These attacks continued sporadically throughout 1915. The material effect of bombing London was actually fairly minimal: The casualties were low, and the material damage slight. The first strategic bombing attacks were, however, remarkable for the psychological effect they had on the British population. There were instances of panic in London, and widespread absenteeism in the munitions plants for a time.To deal with flagging civilian morale, the British military began a crash program of building up defenses for Great Britain as a reaction to the German attacks. Despite the impressive psychological effect on its enemies, the first German strategic bombing offensive can be considered a failure. Zeppelin airships, for the reasons noted earlier, were not particularly suitable as bombing aircraft. In the 1915-1916 campaign, German losses of Zeppelin airships—primarily from operational accidents caused by weather and wind conditions rather than by any enemy resistance—were relatively high. The Germans' first strategic bombing offensive confirmed their general staffs' prewar dislike of the Zeppelin airship.

Zeppelin construction was nevertheless stepped up after the outbreak of the war, and Zeppelins were employed as strategic bombers, because they were the only aircraft available with the necessary range and carrying load for bombing targets at a significant range.

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In 1915 and 1916 a wide range of new aircraft models and technologies was developed on both sides, to meet new combat needs on the western front.

The most significant innovation of the era came in 1915, with the development of the single-seat fighter aircraft by both sides. Single-seat fighter aircraft were primarily defensive weapons, developed for the sole purpose of attacking other aircraft. They had limited range and firepower, but the necessary speed and maneuverability to gain the advantage in aerial combat. The fighter plane was the result of an understanding that, for aircraft to operate in their primary roles—that is, as reconnaissance aircraft and as bombers, air superiority must be won and maintained. Reconnaissance and bombing aircraft needed to be protected from other enemy airplanes.

The next major step in the development of German air doctrine came in early 1916, with the planning for the great German army offensive at Verdun. At Verdun, the German army planned to use its fighter force in an air superiority campaign, so that German artillery-spotting aircraft could freely conduct observation flights and then assist German artillery to destroy the French army. In this instance, aircraft were a support weapon, but a very important support arm for the German army. If the German plan was to work effectively, control of the air would have to be maintained, or else accurate artillery fire could not be sustained. To control the air, the Germans placed a major proportion of their air power on the Verdun front, and organized their fighters to fly a pattern of patrols along the front lines to protect German observation craft against French fighters and to prevent French fighters and observation planes from carrying out artillery spotting against the German army. The German air campaign at Verdun was the first major failure for the Luftstreitkrafte. Noting the rigid pattern of German patrols, the French could wait and amass their aircraft, and simply break the German air barrier at a time and place of their own choosing. As the battle over Verdun continued, the Germans lost air superiority over their front, which inhibited their artillery-spotting aircraft considerably.

Reorganization of the German Air Force The year 1916 saw a massive restructuring of the German aerial arm and was a decisive period for the development of German air doctrine. In March 1916, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen, chief of field flying forces, proposed that the German air service, including the naval air arm, ought to be combined, and given the status of a separate and independent branch of the armed forces, coequal with the army and navy, and with its own general staff and commander. The German airmen argued that air power had come of age, and had proven its importance on the battlefield as a decisive arm of battle. The Prussian war ministry and the general staff of the army supported the proposal to create an air force as a separate and independent branch of the armed services and called for the "free development of the whole arm." The debate bogged down, however, because of strong opposition to an independent air force from the German navy. The navy ostensibly opposed the move because naval aviation was a specialized 80/177

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branch of the navy and its development would not be handled effectively in a service dominated by land pilots,59 The navy, arguing that such a force would be against the imperial constitution, placed sufficient roadblocks in the way of the army and war ministry to prevent the establishment of an air force in early 1916. The navy's true opposition to an independent air force was based on service politics: the creation of an independent air force, as a coequal branch of the military, would require the establishment of a new ministry of defense to serve as the cover ministry for all services. This would reduce the influence of the navy, and give the army a greater voice on the defense councils of the empire.

The argument for an independent air force did, however, result in a new organization for the German air arm. In October 1916, the German air service was granted its own commander in chief, its own general headquarters, its own general staff, and effective centralized control of most aviation assets of the German army. The principle of centralized control meant that all aspects of aviation—from production of aircraft to the training of airmen, to the disposition of air logistics units, to civil air defense, to army flak units— now came under the single direction of the air service. The Luftstreitkrafte headquarters had staff sections for operations, weather, flak, home air defense, and medical services as well as the logistics and administrative sections. An army air commander had a staff with communications, operations, intelligence, personnel, airfield engineers, transport, and equipment sections. A commander of flak served under the direction of the army commander.

While the Luftstreitkrafte operated under the command and direction of the army high command, its senior air officers operated at the direction of the air service commander. Units attached to an army reported to a single air commander for that army, and squadron commanders no longer reported, or were directly subordinate to, the army's lower echelon ground commanders. By the end of 1916, the air service had complete control of its own weather service, communications network, flak units, and the entire infrastructure necessary for a modern air force.

The first commander in chief of the German air service was General der Kavallerie Ernst Hoeppner. Though not an airman, Hoeppner was a highly experienced general staff officer who had proven himself as a division commander, and who had long been an advocate of a strong air arm. The commander of the field flying force—that is, the commander of the German air units serving at the front, was the experienced airman, Colonel Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen. Chief of staff of the air service was Colonel Wilhelm Siegert, an experienced airman who served brilliantly as director of procurement and air service logistics.

With the creation of a central headquarters and an air general staff in 1916, the Luftstreitkrafte had a mechanism by which it could effectively evaluate and create air doctrine. In early 1917, numerous new manuals and regulations appeared, including Instructions on the Mission and Utilization of Flying Units Within an Army. The new doctrine manuals provided the air service with clear guidelines for operational doctrine. The early doctrine of the 81/177

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air service provided the air arm with a set of clear doctrinal principles for the execution of an air campaign. These principles were essentially the traditional principles of war of the German army, adapted to aerial conditions and technologies. For example, the new air doctrine emphasized the importance of troop leadership, and stressed that the principles of command and leadership were inherently no different in the air than they were for the ground. As in the case of the ground forces, while realizing the power of the defense, the experience of Verdun had taught the Luftstreitkrafte that a purely defensive battle could not lead to decisive results. To gain a notable effect and keep the initiative, the air force needed to conduct an offensive, including an air superiority battle, in which the fighter planes would conduct sweeps and offensive operations to control the air over the battlefield.

The 1917 doctrine of the air service also stressed, as in the case of the army ground force doctrine, the importance of using air power in mass, and preventing the piecemeal dispersion of air units. German air doctrine, following the army tradition, stressed the importance of maintaining a reserve, and employing the reserve in mass at the decisive point of the battle.

The German general staff system, the foundation for the general staff of the new Luftstreitkrafte headquarters, gave the Germans an advantage throughout the war, by enabling them to react quickly to technological and operational changes on the battlefield. Although German technology was generally equal to that of the Allies, the Luftstreitkrafte was often able to employ its more limited resources more effectively and more decisively than the Allies. In the Luftstreitkrafte, commanders were granted greater authority and responsibility for the operational employment of their units than in the Allied air arms. The air general staff officers serving with every army on the eastern and western fronts constantly reported to the commander in chief of the air service, and made recommendations for changing doctrine and technology. The status and prestige of the general staff officer in the Imperial army meant that even such relatively junior officers as captains were granted more consideration, and were listened to more closely, than company-grade officers in the British, French, and American armies. The Luftstreitkrafte also made a practice of obtaining reports from successful squadron commanders on the front. Commanders such as Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen, a squadron commander in 1916 and 1917 and a wing commander from 1917 until his death in 1918, provided the air service commander with numerous critical reports detailing the state of German equipment and tactics, as well as his evaluation of Allied technology and operational methodology. Von Richthofen's reports were so highly valued that the acceptance of the Fokker D-7 fighter plane in late 1917 was primarily due to von Richthofen's advice.

Another German air service advantage in conducting the air war in 1917 was the thorough training customarily provided for the German army. By 1916, German pilots underwent an extensive training program that included roth short-range and long-range flying, night flying, and day and night landings.

In 1916, by the time a German pilot had his wings, he had flown approxi82/177

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mately sixty-five hours. That amount of training did not, however, qualify a pilot for combat duties. New German pilots were sent to a special training .enter at Valenciennes, in occupied France. There, the fledgling airmen were given an intensive, one-month course in combat techniques, taught by experienced airmen who had just completed tours of several months flying in the front lines. The thorough training that was provided to the German pilots gave them a distinct edge over the battlefield. Throughout 1916 and 1917, the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps, Britain's air service, commonly entered combat with no more than seventeen total flying hours, only a few of them solo. At this stage of the war, British losses of pilots, flying against the more experienced German pilots, were horrendous. During the air battles of "Bloody April" in 1917, the Royal Flying Corps lost aircraft at a more than 3:1 ratio when opposing the Luftstreitkrafte.

Flanders Air Campaign 3erman historians writing after World War I have argued that the Luftnreitkra'fte had reached its highest point of combat efficiency in the air over Flanders during the campaign from May to November 1917. In May 1917, the British army began its major offensive in Flanders, which was to last for six months, petering out in the mud of a Belgian autumn. For both the Allies md the Germans, Flanders can be regarded as the first truly comprehensive modern air campaign. The air over Flanders saw all aspects of modern aviation incorporated: an integrated air defense air network on the German side; interdiction bombing against enemy transport and logistics targets carried rut by both the British and the Germans; air superiority and fighter superiority campaigns conducted against enemy aircraft and airfields; and, on the oerman side, extensive use of close air support in defensive and offensive rattles.

When the British offensive began in the early summer of 1917, the Ger-man air units under the Fourth Army in Flanders consisted of approximately 300 aircraft. The Luftstreitkrafte quickly reinforced the sector. By the end of July 1917, 600 aircraft were operational, under the command of Captain Helmuth Wilberg, commander of aviation forces for the Fourth Army. At this point, by July 1917, the Germans were opposing approximately 840-plus Allied aircraft in the area with about 600 of their own. The ratio of fighter aircraft was approximately 350 Allied fighters against 200 German fighters.

The Flanders campaign saw some distinctive innovations in aerial warfare.

The Germans formed Jagdgeschwader I (Fighter Wing 1) in June 1917. The Luftstreitkrafte had formed a provisional wing organization in April by putting four squadrons together as an operational unit under one commander.

Once the concept was proven in combat, the Luftstreitkrafte reacted quickly, forming other fighter wings as well as JG 1. Now, several fighter squadrons would be formally organized as a consistent tactical and operational unit.

Rittmeister Baron Manfred von Richthofen was named as the first commanding officer of JG 1. The fighter squadron organization was also reorganized in the spring of 1917, and the German Jagdstaffel now consisted of 83/177

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twelve aircraft and fourteen pilots. The fighter wings would now have approximately fifty aircraft and were made highly mobile with motorized transport and the ability to move quickly from one section of the front to another. The appearance of such a large tactical unit over the air in Flanders meant that it soon became common for the Air Service to conduct aircraft sweeps of fifty aircraft, whereas before 1917, an aircraft mission of even ten aircraft at a time was considered exceptional. The battle in the air over Flanders in 1917 proved the effectiveness of using aircraft in mass.

Another innovation of the Flanders air battle was Wilberg's organization of the two-seater observation plane squadrons into two- and three-squadron groups, and their employment as specialized close air support craft during the battle. The German two-seater observation aircraft of World War I, such as the Hannoveraner and the Halberstadt CL IV, were fast, well armed, and rugged. Provided with a small load of hand-droppable bombs, they became an effective weapon in providing support to German ground forces. While ground attack missions had been conducted regularly before 1917, the air campaign in Flanders saw the first use of specialized close air support craft employed in mass.

In early 1917, the first doctrine manual for the ground attack squadrons was issued by the high command. The normal squadron size for the armored two-seaters was six aircraft. Three squadrons were combined to operate as a group. The ground attack squadrons would normally come under the operational control of an infantry division, and squadrons would be attached to divisions based on the army and army aviation commanders' assessment of support requirements. However, as it was understood that the division commander would only be interested in combat to his immediate front, the army aviation commander was enjoined to keep some of the ground attack squadrons under army headquarters control as an operational reserve that could be available to attack lucrative targets found well behind the enemy's front lines. The high command placed a great deal of hope in the new ground attack branch of the aviation forces. The morale effect of low-level bombing and strafing attacks on enemy infantry and artillery was seen as especially important—"the object of the battle flights is to shatter the enemy's nerve by repeated attacks in close formation."

The British approach to the same issue was very different. The Royal Fly-ing Corps employed unmodified single-seat fighters and sent them singly or in small flights over the front to find and attack any suitable targets they found. The British pilots had no specialized training for the role; it was just another duty of a fighter pilot. The German air service set up a training program for the ground attack pilots behind the front and exercised them in group attacks on simulated targets. The Luftstreitkrafte found the idea of small harassment raids as wasteful of scarce airmen and aircraft. One or two aircraft hitting random targets in the rear were unlikely to have any real impact on troop morale. The Germans preferred to mass their forces and wait to attack a specified target. It was believed that a large number of aircraft attacking one target would have far greater effect than a series of small attacks 84/177

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on dispersed targets. The German approach proved to be much more effective on the battlefield. Wilberg and his Fourth Army aviators massed their ground attack squadrons and then flung them at the British front lines and reserve positions in support of major counterattacks. A strong German counterattack on 10/11 July was preceded by squadrons of ground attack Halberstadts and Hannoveraner pinning down British troops and artillery.

Under cover of their aircraft, the German army made some rapid gains and virtually destroyed two battalions of British troops.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Flanders air campaign was the antiair campaign conducted by the Luftstreitkrafte. During the summer and fall of 1917, German heavy bombers carried out a series of raids against British and French airfields and air depots supporting the Allied offensive in Flanders. The German bombers attacked by night and dropped parachute flares to illuminate their targets. The airfield raids turned out to be surprisingly successful. On one raid the night of 6/7 July against the British airfield at Bray Dunes, the Luftstreitkrafte damaged twelve British aircraft. The German bombers struck the British airfield and depot at St. Pol on the night of 24 September and caused heavy damage to the base. One hundred forty aircraft engines were destroyed by a German bomber hit on a hanger. On the night of 1/2 October, the German night bombers returned to St. Pol and destroyed twenty-nine British aircraft and seven French aircraft, and caused heavy damage to hangers and the depot. In several attacks, the Luftstreitkrafte was able to destroy a considerable number of Allied aircraft on the ground with negligible losses, mostly landing accidents, to their own forces.

An important feature of the 1917 air battles was a major interdiction campaign conducted by both sides against targets in their enemy's rear. The British bombers concentrated on bombing German rail yards, and the Germans hit French rail yards supporting the British army and made numerous night attacks on the ports that supplied the British Expeditionary Force i BEF)—especially Calais and Dunkirk. Both sides hoped to interrupt the logistics flow to the other. Neither the British nor the Germans were able to seriously disrupt their opponent's supply lines, but serious damage was indicted and the bombing was a major inconvenience. In June and July 1917, the German First and Fourth Bomber Wings were assigned to support the Fourth Army's campaign in Flanders, and they quickly mounted a program of night raids on the enemy Channel ports. Throughout August the British munitions dumps at Dunkirk were attacked with severe damage. The attacks on rail yards and ports were almost a nightly occurrence and, after a particularly devastating attack on Dunkirk on 3 October, it took four days to put out the fires. Just as fighter aces were being made heroes, some bomber commanders were gaining renown. Captain Alfred Keller, commander of Bomber Wing 1 and a specialist in night bombing, was awarded the Pour le Merite by the Kaiser after his unit dropped 100,000 kilograms of bombs on Dunkirk. On the whole, the German bombers on the Flanders front dropped 300,000 kilograms of bombs on the British during the 1917 campaign.

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The 1917 campaign in Flanders saw several other important innovations m air warfare. The Luftstreitkrafte was ahead of the Allied powers in applying radio technology to the air war. By early 1917, the Germans had radios small and rugged enough so that they could be mounted in two-seater observation planes used for artillery spotting. The Luftstreitkrafte saw the potential that immediate communication between the aerial spotters and the artillery could have for combat efficiency and quickly developed a formal system of radio nets and simple codes for the aircraft observers. The aircraft radios of the time used Morse code, and a two- or three-letter message to the battery would tell the artillerymen the target location and help adjust fire. Some radios were also mounted in the ground attack aircraft, and Captain Wilberg used the radio to direct his ground attack squadrons at the height of the battle. The German Schutzstaffel were able to react quickly, and the employment of his ground attack squadrons at Messines Ridge on 6-14 June, helped slow and control the British offensive.93 Wilberg also used his artillery observation aircraft to support the ground battle by dropping ammunition, food, and medical supplies on forward German infantry units that were hard-pressed by British attacks and unable to get ammunition forward. Captain Wilberg gained a reputation as the Luftstreitkrafte's premier expert on ground attack aviation. General Freiherr von Billow described Wilberg as "having the deepest understanding of the employment of the aircraft in the ground battle." The German army and air service came out of the Flanders campaign deeply impressed with the value of ground attack aviation. The tactics that the Germans had developed for their ground attack squadrons and groups in Flanders were summarized in a detailed manual that was published by the Luftstreitkrafte staff circulated to the air units in September 1917.

German Night Fighter Low-key Germany experiments into the visual night interception of enemy bombers had been conducted during the latter stages of World War 1. These were resurrected after the formation of the Luftwaffe in 1935, and a series of tests using single-engined fighters -notably the Arado Ar 68, Heinkel He 112 and Messerschmitt Bf109 -showed encouraging, but inconclusive, results. If co-ordinated well with searchlights, and enjoying reliable radio communications, pilots were able, with some ease, to catch up with slow bombers, close with them and more often than not show that in a real combat situation they could have shot them down. Flak units, as part of the Luftwaffe, would, it was felt, play a significant co-operative part in destroying night raiders. Not that many Luftwaffe officers from Reichsmarschal Hermann Goring down believed this would really be necessary.

This thinking overlooked an international pre-war preoccupation with the bomber - air forces were built around offensive striking forces, the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, being no exception. While the German air arm opted to build a force of short-range medium bombers, Britain's bombers were designed with a greater emphasis on range and the capability to reach 86/177

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targets in Germany. They were also as modern - particularly in their powerdriven defensive gun turrets - as similar types anywhere, and on 3 September 1939, Bomber Command had 23 frontline squadrons with about 280 aircraft. 5

The RAF began attacking selected targets in daylight from the outbreak of hostilities, the Germans reacting with an integrated defence network of radar detection, fighters and guns, which resulted in some successful interceptions of bombers, usually in conditions of poor visibility during daylight hours rather than at night. Losses led to a British policy of night rather than daylight bombing, although 'cloud cover' operations would continue for some time.

German fighter defence in the early months of the war was vested in the Bf 109, and outstanding day fighter though it was, it was hardly the most reliable aircraft for night interception sorties. Operating in conjunction with searchlights, the flat perspex panels of the cockpit canopy would reflect glare so effectively that the unfortunate occupant could hardly see out. Pilots were obliged to remove the side-opening canopy section in order to have any visibility at all on some sorties.

With all the emphasis placed on attack, the Luftwaffe had reserved few aircraft to undertake a night fighter role on the outbreak of war. Extensive prewar reorganisation had seen a number of fighter units with some practical experience of nocturnal interception reduced to a single Gruff e, namely IV.(Nacht)IJG 2 equipped with the Bf 109D. A Staffel of this unit moved into Aalborg airfield on completion of the invasion of Denmark in April 1940 in order to share the facilities with the Bf 1 lOCs of I./ZG 76 and Wolfgang Falck's I./ZG 1. The airfield was soon subjected to attacks by RAF bombers, and these units flew interceptions during the early morning and late evening hours when natural light prevailed.

Falck found that fighters with positive GCI instructions resulting from plots Fitted with SN-2 and FuG 212 aerials on the centreline, the Bf 110 was almost as numerous on the last day of the war as it was on the first -but a few significant changes had been made to the last wartime versions. Among them was the replacement of the 'double pipe' exhaust flame damper with a straight pipe (Price) 5

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on ground radar could be vectored accurately onto enemy bombers. The few RAF aircraft caught and shot down by what was basically an airfield defence force were enough to convince Falck and other pilots such as Werner Streib, Walter Ehle and Martin Lutz, that the Bf 110 could become an effective night fighter. Falck had scant little time to prove his theories as ZG 1 was transferred to Gutersloh in May, but he took the time to prepare a comprehensive report. This was well received and unwittingly marked out Falck as a leading authority on night fighting.

Despite a considerable effort on the part of Bomber Command crews, early flights into Germany were largely of the 'nuisance' variety. They served as a boost to British morale, proof that the nation was striking back at the enemy in virtually the only way possible on a regular basis at that time. The Germans themselves, previously amazed at the British showering the country not with bombs but propaganda leaflets, were nevertheless aware that enemy aircraft were able to penetrate their airspace with impunity. But a smallscale raid by 37 aircraft on Monchengladbach on 11/12 1940 May had seen high explosives aimed at a German town for the first time.

Then on 15/16 May the RAF carried out the first strategic bomber operation against German industry. Sixteen targets in the Ruhr were targeted by 99 bombers, the number despatched exceeding 100 (also for the first time) as 12 aircraft were also briefed to attack enemy communications points in Belgium. Little damage was done, and no bombers were brought down by hostile action.

In those days there was little attempt to send Blenheims, Hampdens, Whitleys and Wellingtons over Germany in formations, waves or streams. Crews tended to work individually, little knowing that they were making themselves ideal, albeit quite random, targets for night fighters. From their viewpoint the threat was perceived as minimal, and it was widely believed that losses were almost entirely due to flak.

Early German night interception doctrine, such as it was, followed more or less the broad parameters established in World War 1, and enforced during the pre-war experiments. As searchlights had then been a 'traditional' part of the night interception process, there appeared little need to change it in 1940. Consequently, when the first night fighter unit was formed, a searchlight regiment was concurrently allocated to it, along with a Geschwader headquarters. Ground radars were being produced at a steadily increasing rate and being installed to cover all the approaches to Reich territory likely to be taken by enemy bombers.

Bavarian-born Oberst Josef Kammhuber was chosen to oversee the establishment of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1, OKL (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe) having formerly created the post of 'Air Officer for Night Fighters' on the Luftwaffe General Staff. This carried far more responsibility than the title might imply. It meant that the officer was responsible for materiel procurement, pilot training, ground control, personnel and so forth. Kammhuber, who had been a Ju 88 pilot and Kommodore of KG 51, shouldered this additional responsibility with few qualms. He was a brilliant organiser and a 88/177

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good staff officer, used to reporting directly to (and dealing with) Reichsmarschall Goring.

Kammhuber's initial night fighter crews and aircraft would be drawn from the Zerstorergeschwader, which meant that the Bf 110 almost coincidentally became the primary night fighter type. There really was little else with anywhere near the performance required, although in mid-1940 this did not need to be exactly outstanding to catch the intended prey. For the record, the principal RAF bombers of that period could achieve the following maximum speeds in loaded condition: 235 mph for the Wellington, 192 mph for the Whitley and 254 mph for the Hampden. Of these the Wellington, considered Britain's most capable bomber, carried the largest bomb load and had the best service ceiling at 18,000 ft.

By contrast, the Bf HOC was capable of a maximum speed of 349 mph and a ceiling of 32,811 ft - so it can be seen that the interception of enemy bombers was not overly difficult if the searchlight batteries could follow them, and the night fighter was rapidly guided to the right sector to bring it within visual range. Not that the Bf 110 was the only choice of aircraft for the night fighter arm. Once the broad parameters had been established, numerous tests were conducted, not only of equipment with which to ease the crews' task, but other aircraft that could be adapted to the nocturnal interception role. Variants of the standard Dornie/ bombers were selected for conversion for a night role, these initially being the Do 17Z and Do 215B. Bomber types, while large enough to house a four- to five-man crew, bulky radio equipment and ample guns and ammunition in new 'solid' nose sections, were considered to be too slow to be effective night interceptors, as they also lacked manoeuvrability and were excessively heavy. Nevertheless, the earlier Dorniers became useful workhorses and testbeds for equipment, as well as filling an operational need on a limited basis.

Much better all round was the Ju 88C-2, which was reckoned to be generally good for night interception because of its five-hour endurance - the fact that it could be crewed by up to four men, one of whom could act as a specialised radio operator, was another major consideration. In this latter respect it was superior to the Bf 110, which although it could, and did, accommodate a third man, became very crowded as a result. Also, an extra pair of eyes very usefully multiplied visual observation, which the Germans put great faith in for night fighting throughout the war.

Some crews did, however, resent changing over from the Bf 110 to the Ju 88, as the latter was a heavier aircraft lacking the performance of the lighter Messerschmitt 'twin' - in the main it came to be regarded as the second standard night fighter type after the Bf 110. Many embryo night fighter crews already knew the Zerst么rer intimately, had flown it on daylight operations, and were thoroughly versed in its characteristics - most of which they found favourable.

The Bf 110 was endowed with a good rate of climb, being fast enough to catch any of the British night raiders and bring them down with its formidable cannon and machine gun armament, grouped in the nose to give an ex89/177

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cellent concentration of fire. All German night fighters were well armed with a combination of cannon and machine guns, and while there were few complaints about firepower, individual crews showed preferences in the number of guns they wanted, and the type of ammunition to use.

Opinions understandably varied, particularly as to the effectiveness of heavy versus lighter cannon and the minimum number of such guns required. An important factor was to avoid the pilot's night vision being ruined by extensive flash when the guns were fired.

The early individualistic approach to night fighting tended to endure throughout the war despite new weapons installations. These inevitably led to the adoption of differing gunnery techniques, a fact that would later have a detrimental effect on the development of the Heinkel He 219. Having quizzed crews on their armament preferences in the 'ideal' night fighter, manufacturers had to cope with numerous conflicting requirements that could not always be easily reconciled.

The Bf 110s flown by NJG 1 were virtually standard aircraft, simply remarked and repainted black for their nocturnal sorties. Black paint was also applied to Nachtjagdju 88s and Do 17s for in 1940 a dark colour was internationally believed to offer the best camouflage for aircraft operating at night, although this was later found not to be as effective as shades that were almost the complete opposite — light greys and white. But until 1943, the Nachtjagd would fly generally black-painted aircraft.

To engender esprit de corps, the Nachtjagd required an appropriate badge of identity. Wolfgang Falck was instrumental in getting this organised; 'While I was Gruppenkommandeur I./LG 1 in the spring of 1940, my idea was to have an emblem which should be a symbol - something to give crews the feeling that they were members of a special unit. There was a design competition, and I got several proposals. In my opinion the best one was submitted by Oberleutnant Victor Molders, brother of the famous Werner.

It showed the silver falcon taken from my family coat of arms with sky background that was then blue. Since we flew only against the RAF, Molders included a red lightning flash pointing at London, the badge showing the section of the globe over which we were flying. A short time after this, I got the order to organise NJG 1, and I took the new badge with me. For the night mission, we changed the sky blue background to black. That was the origin of the Nachtjagd-Abzeichen, which was used by all the night fighter units, including the Flakschweinwerfer Regimenter, the Luftnachrichten-Regimenter and all staff echelons, with a few changes to demonstrate their special task.'

The 'England blitz' badge was very widely applied to Nachtjagd aircraft, and even when fresh Staffeln formed, or new Geschwaderen and individual emblems were applied, the badge remained predominant. In this small way the force indeed stood a little apart from other Luftwaffe formations, as was Falck's original intention for his unit, albeit one that had changed from day to night operations. The badge was also painted on equipment and vehicles as well as aircraft, including training gliders.

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The importance of searchlights in successful night fighting was reflected in the addition of three white beams to the Nachtjagd badge by the searchlight units. This adapted emblem was painted on aircraft, notably Dorniers, flown by the Nachtjagd general staff, as frontline night fighters appear to have carried a badge without searchlights.

With the Luftwaffe high command recognising the urgent need for a night fighter force, Wolfgang Falck and others set about honing the necessary technique needed to bring down enemy bombers - not that destruction was initially the only option. It was thought, somewhat optimistically, that it might be possible to drive the bombers away from their intended objective.

This quickly proved to be unrealistic.

Falck's earlier experiments into the feasibility of night interception, and his subsequent report, proved useful — and positive to the young Hauptmann's career, as he was appointed Kommodore of NJG 1 on 26 June. It was the first time that anyone of that rank had been given such responsibility. Falck, universally known by the shortform 'Wolf, did not minimise the difficulties facing Nachtjagd crews. Asked to make a parallel as to how the early preairborne radar interception sorties were conducted - one that might be readily understood by the layman - he said, 'Switch off all the lights in the room and try to catch a fly with your hands'.

And that report he wrote had its repercussions. His rueful comment was, 'Of course when the first raids on Germany occurred it was my fault, you see!'

Falck had previously discussed the outline requirements of a night fighter force with Goring, State Secretary Erhard Milch, Ernst Udet (rhc chief of Luftwaffe Supply) and Albert Kcsselring. The latter had apparently demanded such a force be established forthwith when he had witnessed RAF bombers passing over his headquarters while he was C-in-C of Luftflotte 2 for the assault on England.

To enable the various elements of a night defence system to be properly organised, a Night Fighter Division was set up on 17 July 1940 with Oberst Kammhuber in command. On the 23rd a Divisional HQ had been established at Brussels, and a command post was operational at Zeist, near Utrecht, by 1 August.

The first Gruppe of NJG 1 was officially formed on 22 June with Falck in command. The basis was 2. and 3./ZG 1 and IV./ZG 26, and over the remaining months of 1940, the Nachtjagdgcew rapidly. A second Gruppe of NJG 1 had originally been formed from IV.(N)/JG 2 on the same day in June, but in July this unit became III./NJG 1.

A second formation of II Gruppe was created from (Z)./KG 30 in July, and when this became I./NJG 2 in September, a third formation of NJG 1 was concurrently organised that from elements of I./ZG 26. A typical example of the Luftwaffe system whereby experienced elements were transferred to create new units, this process was continued throughout the existence of the Nachtjagd. As all the Zerstorer formations, with the exception of KG 30, flew the Bf 110, this became NJG 1's standard aircraft, although its overall Geschwader inventory, in common with most of the Nachtjagd, would even91/177

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tually include examples of all the leading night fighter types.

The Zerstorer Staffel of KG 30, in common with the rest of the Kampfgeschwader, was equipped with the Ju 88. When it moved to Dusseldorf to become 4./NJG 1 it set something of a precedent in that the Staffel thereafter operated a mix of Ju 88s, Bf 110s and Dorniers.

When NJG 2 was created in September 1940 its primary type was the Ju 88C, but the inventory also included the single Do 17Z-6 Kaus (Screech Owl) I fitted with a Ju 88C solid nose section, plus several Do 17Z-10 Kaus Us. The designation Kaus identified aircraft as carrying the Rohr infra-red sighting device known as 'Spanner', which was intended to enhance the pilot's night detection of targets by reflecting the light from bomber exhausts. It was only partially successful, and was soon dropped from frontline aircraft.

The original II./NJG 1 which became III. Gruppe had been equipped with the Bf 109, single-seaters being officially regarded as useful night fighters throughout the conflict. It was, incidentally, a Bf 109 that is generally credited with achieving the first Luftwaffe night fighter victory on 8/9 July 1940.

Flying with IV.(N)/JG 2, Oberfeldwebel Paul Forster intercepted a Whitley V of No 10 Sqn caught by searchlights and shot it down into the sea off Heligoland. Forster stated that he merely happened to be in the right place at the right time, with no special equipment to assist his kill.

A Whitley V was also the first victim to fall to NJG 1. Flying a Bf 110 over the Ruhr on the night of July 20/21, Werner Streib spotted what he initially took to be another Bf 110. Having correctly identified the British bomber the German pilot closed to 300 yards, his Bordfunker (radio operator), Unteroffizier Lingen, keeping a close watch on the raider. Opting for a beam attack, Streib pressed to 250 yards before he was seen, whereupon the tail gunner of the Whitley sent a stream of Browning machine gun fire in his direction.

Now there was no doubt. The Messerschmitt turned to starboard to position itself below and astern of the bomber and Streib opened fire with cannon and machine guns. Flames were observed from the Whitley' s starboard engine and the crew were apparently seen to bale out as the aircraft dropped away. RAF records confirmed the loss of two Whitley Vs, one each from Nos 58 and 78 Sqns, on that particular night, but in both cases the entire crew perished.

The broad operational parameters under which the Nachtjagd was established would be modified to meet continuing commitments. Much would depend on what the enemy did, for a defensive force must perforce await developments. At the outset no set 'tours of duty' were established for night fighter crews, and in general, single enemy aircraft were left alone, night fighters not being scrambled unless there was a likelihood of intercepting multiple targets.

Gruppe establishment would vary at different times and for a variety of reasons, but it was stipulated that a minimum of 30 aircraft would be needed for a unit to operate effectively from a forward area - i.e. away from more elaborate servicing facilities. This point last lay at the heart of deployment plans for the Luftwaffe in general, fighter forces being provided with a sup92/177

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port infrastructure to enable them to operate from a network of airfields some of them only basically - equipped - all over Germany. And the entire Nachtjaggd would move around constantly during the war years.

Positive identification of airborne targets was necessary at all times, and ctews understood that only two categories of victory claim -destroyed or probable - would be allowed. 'Damaged' claims were not considered. For a kill to be confirmed, the tatget aircraft had to be seen to be (a) on fire or (b) to explode on impact with the ground. If night fighter crews observed fire, but no evidence of the bomber striking the ground or disintegrating, it would be categorised only as a probable.

A system similar to that introduced for the day fighter Geschwader was used to calculate the scores of individual Na.chtja.gd pilots, who would ultimately be recommended for the award of medals as they accumulated sufficient points. As an example, 500 points were required for the award of the Iron Cross (First Class). This system did not, however, endure, being replaced by one based on the number of 'war flights' made by an individual, and his length of service in the Staffel I. There was no automatic award for the destruction of a set number of aircraft, although it was generally considered that the value of a victory for a night fighter was three times that of a day fighter.

Night fighters would take off in virtually all weather conditions if multiple enemy bombers were detected, but in time it was realised that their efforts were pointless if there was thick fog or cloud that reduced the ceiling to less than 250 ft, if there was 10/10th overcast up to 20,000 ft and if visibility was reduced to less than 800 yards. Individual crews would not be penalised if they chose to brave the elements and attempt to get above the weather, where they could play a 'lone wolf role, often with success, Considerable help was provided to the airmen by searchlights, although the enthusiasm of the crews manning the batteries was occasionally counterproductive. They were instructed not to cone a bomber with more than six searchlights when working with night fighters, this number being considered adequate for a Nachtjagd crew to pick up their target, and more beams tended to blind both the attacker as well as the pilot and gunners in the target bomber. Inevitably, though, larger cones were formed due to the fact that the men on the ground all wished to share in the victory. In the far from unusual event of night fighters themselves being picked up by their own searchlights, an ample number of Very cartridges were carried. These would be fired to alert searchlight and gun crews that friendly aircraft were airborne in their sector.

Fighter’s Night Each morning after operations, the aircraft were checked over and rearmed.

Between 1700 and 2100 hours at the evening briefing, the Gruppe was given a meteorological report for the area that it was to cover, and if the weather was favourable to bomber attacks, the unit had to notify its available operational strength to the fighter control centre before dusk. The Gntppe was 93/177

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provided with information as to the runway to be used, the chosen orbiting point and alternative aerodromes, whilst a W/T briefing was also given by the signals officer.

In the Himmelbett zone of operations, two aircraft were sometimes sent up into each box during the afternoon to carry out vectoring and interception practice for the purpose of helping train ground and air personnel, whilst at the same time making a final check on equipment.

Aircraft to be used for the forthcoming night's operations were lined up before dusk at each side of the runway after having been re-serviced by the ground staff. At Grove, for example, there were usually ten machines parked on the apron at the end of the runway, spaced at intervals of 180 ft. In case of enemy intrusion, these undisperscd aircraft would take off so as not to present easy targets.

The balance of the unit's aircraft, including those making up the second alert, were dispersed on, or near, the airfield, camouflaged where possible with tree branches and netting. Care was taken to wipe out all traces of taxy tracks from dispersal points to the aerodrome.

When operating under Himmelbett control, two aircraft of each operational StaffelweK placed at immediate readiness of five minutes. If one aircraft was scrambled, the second was to stand by to take the place of the first if the latter should encounter any last minute trouble such as engine failure. The crew of the second fighter remained in their aircraft for possible immediate take-off until the airborne fighter was known to have reached its assigned box, after which the second crew could return to the dispersal, but were to remain alert for a further call.

Under the ' Wilde Sau system, the single-engined fighters of an entire Staffel or a particular Gruppe were readied. Typically, the first Staffilwas at immediate readiness, with the third at 15 minutes' stand by. This procedure varied according to the tactical disposition: on 'Wilde Sau operations I./JG 301, when charged with defending its allocated area of northern France, divided into two sections. The first comprised 60 per cent of Gruppe strength and the second 40 per cent.

When Allied aircraft were expected over northern France the first section would take off within 15 minutes and be followed, if necessary, by the remainder. However, in protracted operations the second section would take off two hours after the first, by which time the first aircraft would be returning to refuel.

In general ' Wilde Sau pilots were divided into three 'weather grades': (a) those with most experience, who were expected to fly in any weather; (b) those with limited experience, only ordered up in certain conditions; and (c) newcomers who would fly in only the best conditions. Pursuit night fighting, particularly when the RAF night offensive was at its peak, often demanded that the entire Staffel, or even Gruppe, was kept available for immediate use. Major Ruppel, air operations officer for the middle Rhine area, divided his pilots into two categories - those who could get off the ground in three minutes, and those who took five minutes.

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NJG 6, based in southern Germany, had four readiness states: (1) - 80 minutes: operations not expected. Crews were allowed to remain in their quarters and sleep.

(2) - 30 minutes: crews were to stay in their quarters, but dressed and ready for flight, with the possibility of take-off within 30 minutes.

(3) - 15 minutes: crews were to be in the 'ready room' near their allocated aircraft's hardstands, ready for flight.

(4) - immediate: crews were to sit in their aircraft, to be ready for takeoff within two minutes.

Any changes or updates in the prevailing situation were relayed to the crews by loudspeakers in the dispersals and hangars. Very signals from the control tower told pilots to start their engines and taxy to the end of the runway. Actual take-off was usually ordered over the R/T . for the twin-engined fighters operating under the Himmelbett or Pursuit systems, while ' Wilde Sau aircraft usually took off on Very light signal.

A one-minute interval was allowed for each twin-engined aircraft to takeoff, 30 seconds for single-seaters. It was therefore possible to have, if necessary, the entire nightfighter force airborne within 30 minutes.

In NJGs 2 and 6, an entire Gruppe would be airborne in 20-24 minutes, with the first one getting all its aircraft away within eight minutes of the initial warning being received.

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In the event of double sorties 6 being flown by individual crews, those who returned to their base airfield would resume the original state of readiness.

Should they have cause to divert to an alternate airfield, they would be tem6

The Schr창ge Musik type installation.

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porarily attached to the unit they had Visited', and be briefed as though they belonged to that unit.

Under the Himmelbett system, the night fighter would normally patrol the searchlight belt to which it had been assigned - it would fly continually between two given points at altitudes between 12,000 and 18,000 ft. In areas were RAF bombers were expected to be encountered, standing patrols would be maintained in the Himmelbett boxes from dusk onwards. Duration of patrols depended on the aircraft type, Ju 88s and Do 217s typically remaining airborne for three hours and the Bf 110 for two. Patrols would be flown at altitudes roughly similar to those adopted by the enemy bomber stream, both to avoid any conflict with the smooth operation of local flying in training areas at lower altitudes, and to evade intruders.

When the Himmelbett system was changed, standing patrols were largely abandoned, these being further curtailed as petrol shortages took effect.

Fighters were generally scrambled on warnings received, but as the Luftwaffe lost its early warning coverage as the Allies captured more territory, the retreat into Germany reduced the standing patrol until it was a thing of the past. An additional hazard at that time were enemy intruders. This was where the pursuit system came into its own, as aircraft would take-off and make for a particular beacon shortly before receiving orders to proceed to the operational area.

The risk of collision was reduced by all aircraft making a left hand orbit of the beacon at different altitudes - stepped up to 9800 ft (3000 m), with each crew maintaining 100 m (160 ft) separation - which meant that as many as 30 machines could be in a small area at one time without running the risk of collision. The Gruppe commentary would then pass a bearing for interception. Searchlights continued to play their part in night interceptions throughout the war, and under the pursuit system, they were sometimes used as controlling aids in locating the bomber stream — lights would be dipped to point the fighters in the right direction.

Following standard operating procedure, interception tactics depended on the type, and capability, of the equipment used, and weather conditions, particularly the extent and altitude of any cloud.

The fundamental aspects of target approach using Lichtenstein BC, FuG 218 and FuG 220 saw the attacker come in from directly behind and slightly below the bomber at a controlled speed, closely co-ordinated with that of the 'bogey'. The logical exception would be in the event of an illuminated layer of cloud forming a background below, in which case the fighter approached from above to avoid detection by his own silhouette. Speed control was important, both for recognition purposes and to allow the pilot to set up an attack of his own choosing.

During a target approach using radar, the fighter had to modify its speed to the decreasing distance between the two aircraft so that at the moment of visual pick up (depending on the prevailing visibility), both were flying at approximately the same speed.

In most cases of approach using AI equipment, it was the responsibility of 97/177

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the Bordfunker to pass the necessary changes of direction to the pilot. One exception to this general rule occurred when the FuG 240 Berlin equipment was used. In that case the Bordfunker merely had to centre the target on his CRT and the target direction would register on an indicator in the pilot's cockpit. Thus, the pilot himself analysed the target's relative position, and manoeuvred his aircraft accordingly.

The time at which the Bordfunker would turn on his equipment was entirely dictated by circumstances. As one operator stated: 'The SN-2 was switched on for short periods when the operator, either from data from the ground or visual observation of flares, believed that he was near the bomber stream.

There were no orders governing the length of time it was to be switched on.

It was general policy, nevertheless, to turn on the low tension (circuit-heating) when the night fighter received its original vector from around control — not before.'

Ground control aimed to place the fighter immediately behind the enemy aircraft, but the pilot could request that he be positioned to port or starboard, dependent on the available light conditions and the source of such light. Night fighters were normally vectored to the same height as the hostile aircraft or, by request, to heights decreasing to 490 ft (150 m) below it.

When the night fighter was within about 6500 ft (4062.50 m) of the target, the transformer (high tension) of the Lichtenstein was switched on. In some cases it was switched on at up to 9800 ft (6125 m) away, but only an exceptional operator could obtain satisfactory contact at more than 6500 ft distance.

As soon as contact had been established the Bordfunker gave the codeword 'Emil-Emil' ('I have made contact'). The code for being within visual and firing range was 'Ich Beruhre'. Ground control could always be called back in case the target was lost through taking evasive action. It usually took between six to ten minutes to secure a contact after receiving the first vector from ground control. On occasion, a fighter with a radar, or good visual contact, would be instructed to chase the enemy aircraft beyond GCI range - for example, fighters based in Holland sometimes followed RAF bombers as far north-west as the English coast.

The Naxos homer, which was standard in the Ju 88, and fitted to many night fighters in conjunction with SN-2, led to the adoption of an original night interception technique. Limited in that it could be used effectively only against aircraft transmitting radar or navigational data, Naxos was widely used and proved very successful. It was able to detect H2S transmissions as far away as 60 miles, and this capability all but precluded the participation of GCI in the aerial kill. The British radar set was highly directional and created a 'cone' of detectable energy below the transmitting bomber, and German night fighters strove to keep within this area, but low enough to maintain CRT contact.

To find a suitable target the German pilot received a Naxos blip, checked the bearing and aligned his course. He then nosed upwards to pull clear of the H^S cone. The night fighter levelled out when the blip disappeared from the 98/177

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Naxos scope, and the pilot would climb in a series of 'steps' to check his position relative to the H2S cone. By repeating this procedure the fighter avoided detection by any IFF device carried by the bomber.

Naxos was not intended for final approach purposes, but rather to bring the German fighter within range of its SN-2 - although there were some pilots who used the device right into the final phases of interception. At that point the night fighter would open fire without question if the target was identified as a four-engined bomber. The problem came if a twin-engined type was in the sights. In that case the target's identity had to be established before attacking, and in the event that there was insufficient light from flares or searchlights, the quarry had to be followed until its behaviour gave away its nationality.

This sounds vague but it often worked, for there were few Allied pilots who did not adopt some form of evasive action if they were being followed. However, if a. twin-engined type could not be visually identified, and it took no evasive action, there was little more that the German crew could do. Exhaust patterns were not much help, as all operational 'twins' on both sides had some form of flame-damping, but under such circumstances both the Mosquito and Black Widow tended to give away their identities by their respective speeds — although a degree of doubt would still remain as the Me 410 also had a high top speed. A German aircraft would, however, be expected to fire a Very light signal if it was being followed.

In the final analysis, a Nachtjagd crew was wiser to break off the pursuit if any doubt still remained. There were cases of pilots being court-martialled for shooting down friendly aircraft through failing to make visual confirmation.

On clear nights contrails assisted the night fighter crews, these being useful in estimating the approximate distance of the bombers ahead by the density of the trails. Having flown to the end of the contrail, the fighter would weave from side to side to pick up individual aircraft, for it was almost impossible to see the actual bomber creating a trail. “Wilde Sau� operations brought their own recognition problem in an arena where single-seat fighters had not generally operated. In their early operations, ' Wilde Sau pilots would briefly flash their navigation lights seconds before delivering an attack to warn other night fighters of their presence.

When the RAF began using Mosquitos over Germany, this practice was forbidden as being too dangerous.

Technically, the German were hampered by not developing a reliable form of IFF (Identification: Friend or Foe). Other than the standard airborne responder IFF set, the FuG 25a, which was installed in most operational aircraft from 1942 onwards and was used by ground stations for recognition purposes throughout the war. The FuG 25a worked well enough in conjunction with Freya ground stations and Egon control, but it could not operate with the Wurzburg ground set without a supplementary attachment in the form of an interrogator.

A secondary method of identification from the ground did exist. This was a 99/177

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system whereby a red light flashed on the control panel of the night fighter when in the beam of a Wurzburg. The pilot would depress a switch upon instructions from the ground and reply simply 'yes' or 'no' according to whether or not the light flashed to indicate his position within the beam. If ground control was uncertain as to the identity of the fighter, the latter would be asked to make alternate left or right turns to cause a blip on the Wurzburg presentation screen.

Intruding Allied night fighters adversely effected the tactical use of IFF, just as they did most other phases of Luftwaffe night fighting procedure. For some time there was a popular belief that the enemy was able to home onto FuG 25a transmissions, despite being officially told that this was not the case, and that the equipment should be left on at all times during operational flights. Circumventing their orders, many crews still switched off their FuG 25a for fear that they would otherwise be detected. In fact crews were generally wary of any IFF device -they lost faith in such equipment after being continually fired upon by their own flak with the FuG 25a switched on or off! It became standard procedure — if no intruders were reported — to switch on FuG 25a at the point of take-off, and to keep it operating until well clear of the airfield. During intercepts the instrument would be turned off, but on return to base, again providing that no warning of intruders was in effect, the set would be switched on shortly before reaching the airfield.

The fact that British aircraft usually left their IFF sets turned on was a mystery to German crews insomuch as it allowed their own early warning and airborne radars to trip the enemy transmissions for homing and warning purposes. Alternatively, much faith was placed in tail warning equipment — it was known that many crews, contrary to orders, hugged the ground while orbiting a beacon in order to avoid Allied intruders, corkscrewed throughout the course of an interception and, in some cases — particularly with the Ju 88 — carried an extra crewman whose job it was to keep rearward observation, and act as a gunner. Knowing they had a tail warning device relieved tension among crews, and it was generally felt that such protection was both necessary and effective for the prosecution of night fighter tactics.

Tail warning was not infallible, and most crews accepted that a percentage of incomplete interceptions would occur through false warnings being received. All involved agreed, however, that the safety factor more than compensated for this drawback, and that only a small proportion of contacts were lost to this cause. Much depended on the type of tail warning fitted most sets designed for that purpose merely indicated a target to the rear and gave the range only. In this case the overtaking speed of the pursuing aircraft was taken into account as an aid to determining the character of the pursuit - whether accidental or deliberate. If a moderate but definite rate of closure was noticed, the German fighter would take violent evasive action when the would-be attacker reached a position within 1500 ft, although sometimes the critical closing range was allowed to reduce to much less than 1300 ft, this factor depending upon the individual crew's nerves!

Evasive action in such an instance was recommended as a 180° hard turn to 100/177

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port or starboard. It the pursuing aircraft could be seen by the crew, the turn would be made in accordance with its position. In the days when enemy intruders were still relatively rare in German skies the night fighters were briefed to peel off towards an aircraft following them, but this manoeuvre resulted in a loss of 5000 to 6500 ft in height, which took about ten minutes to regain.

Naxos could also indicate (in azimuth only) the presence of an Allied fighter using its 10-centimetre SCR 720 radar, and it had the advantage of picking up such a signal from as far away as 50 miles - providing that the enemy aircraft was somewhat above. Naxos could therefore act as a tail warning aid by supplementing the much shorter range of the radar's purpose-built for tail warning.

Once enemy aircraft had been identified as hostile there were several standard procedures designed to destroy them, and their use depended on prevailing orders and individual crew experience. In some units the tactics preferred by the commanding officer would be followed by the crews under his command. The actual method of approach was usually left to each crew, night fighting having always been more of a 'lone wolf method of attack than other forms of aerial warfare, dictated both by the situation they found themselves in and the type of armament fitted to their aircraft.

With normal fixed forward-firing guns, attacks were nearly always from astern and below, owing to the fact that most German night fighter types had bad downward visibility. British bombers were generally poorly defended from below, and they were usually seen more clearly when silhouetted against the sky.

The usual attack was proceeded by throttling back at the limit of visual range. Then, after deciding on his particular type of pass, the pilot would open up to full throttle and close to firing range. A type of attack favoured by IV./NJG 1 was for the fighter to make a slow approach until it was about 150 ft immediately beneath the target bomber, and then fly along at a synchronised speed until the pilot was ready to fire. It was claimed that in this position, the fighter could not be seen by the bomber's crew and was not covered by any of its guns. The actual attack was made by pulling up almost vertically and sending a burst of fire along the underside of the bomber's wings.

Although this method was very popular in IV./NJG 1, it was apparently regarded as dangerous by other units, who stressed the danger element of the bomber diving or releasing its load just as the night fighter was about to fire Two other methods were; (1) the pilot aimed ahead of the bomber and fired as he pulled up from below so that the bomber flew into the stream of shells which sprayed along the length of the fuselage; and (2) a tactic generally confined to the lighter Bf 110 was to pull up perpendicularly and turn away in either direction while delivering a burst which raked the bomber's wings from tip to tip. 7 Bf 110G-2 2Z+AC Hauptmann Rolf Leuchs, Gruppenkommandeur II./NJG 6.

Echterdingen, March 1944 7

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With Schrage Musik installations the approach was identical, but slightly lower. This armament was not universally popular, particularly with older pilots who preferred to use the fixed forward-firing guns they had trained with and become accustomed to. It was the younger crews who favoured the newer upward firing guns, as some of them tended to open fire with conventional weapons from beyond maximum range, thus giving their position away, and allowing the target to take evasive action. One disadvantage with Schr창ge Musik was that if the target bomber exploded, the night fighter was in danger of being right in the path of burning debris.

On the other hand, it was extremely difficult to stay below a bomber that was taking diving evasive action. The new armament rapidly gained in favour despite the prejudice of the old hands, and Schnaufer for one estimated that in the latter stages of the war, 50 per cent of night fighter attacks were carried out with upward-firing guns. 'Wilde Sau attacks were commonly delivered in a steep climb after a dive from a height of 1300 ft (400 m) above the bomber.

At night fighter schools pilots were taught to aim at the undersides of the bomber, between the engines and wing roots, in the hope of setting the fuel tanks on fire, and a number of Experten were indeed skilled enough to be this exacting. In actual combat the less experienced crews foreswore trying to hit vulnerable spots, as they often found it hard enough to hit the enemy aircraft at all.

Average range for opening fire was about 400 ft, although the more experienced pilots would narrow the gap down to around 200 ft. Breakaway, once a kill was certain, was in a diving turn to avoid any falling debris.

Crews showed a marked preference for attacking four-engined aircraft. For one thing, they were (compared to 'twins' such as the Wellington) faster, and therefore easier for the night fighter to synchronise speeds. When intercepting a Lancaster or Halifax, there was rarely any necessity for the fighter to lower the flaps in order to avoid overshooting.

For their part, the RAF bomber crews employed passive defence against German fighters, using the highly effective corkscrew and, to a lesser extent, weaving. The latter tactic was reported as early as 1943 not to have been so effective, as bomber crews generally followed too shallow a flight path (probably for fear of collision) while it was being executed. Sideslipping in a semistall and losing height rapidly could also shake off a night fighter.

Nachtjagd crews reported that bombers returning from "the Ruhr adopted another tactic that could frustrate them. After clearing the target area, the bombers tended to reduce height steadily until reaching the Dutch coast at 102/177

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about 300 ft. This caused them not only to pass through the night fighter control areas at the greatest possible speed, but also to be low enough to render attacks from below difficult. When the bombers opened fire on attacking night fighters, the use of tracer rounds had a definite deterrent effect on the majority of German crews, as did the rarely-used ploy of exploding a flash bomb to the rear of the bomber under attack. Both kinds of reaction temporarily blinded the night fighter pilot long enough for him to lose sight of the target, and in many cases for the bomber to escape.

Arado Fluezaugwerke The company began life as the Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen U GmbH, a manufacturer of important floatplanes such as the FF 49c which saw widespread service during the First World War. In November 1920 its disused factory buildings at Warnemunde on the Baltic coast were bought by the German industrialist, Hugo Stinnes, who used them to produce furniture, ice yachts and sailing boats. One of the latter, produced by the company for the South American market, was plough-like in shape. The Spanish word for plough is 'arado', thus the success of the boat prompted Stinnes to change the name of the company to the Arado Handelsgesellschaft mbH in 1925.

The name was to seem doubly appropriate about a year later when the company engaged the services of a talented aircraft designer, Walter Bethel, and began building aeroplanes under licence. The German word for plough is 'pflug'- phonetically similar to that for flight, 'flug'.

Although early efforts were concentrated on producing aircraft under licence. Bethel's first indigenous design, the Arado S I two-seat trainer, was built in 1925. This was followed by a number of other biplane fighters and trainers and two sporting monoplanes. Hugo Stinnes died in 1924 and later Walter Blume took over from Bethel as chief designer. Early in 1933 the appointment of Hitler as German Chancellor led to the transfer of a large amount of capital to the company. It now concentrated solely on aircraft manufacture, being renamed Arado Flugzeugwerke GmbH on 4 March.

Two important early designs produced by the new company were the Ar 66 two-seat trainer and Ar 68 single-seat fighter biplanes for the fledgling Luftwaffe.

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Most of Arado's production capacity was, however, given over to the licencebuilding of such aircraft as the He 59, He 60, He 111 and Bf 109. On 6 Sep104/177

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tember 1934, Arado bought a former iron foundry at Neuendorf west of Brandenburg, aircraft production beginning there six months later.

The company was nationalised in 1936, an upturn in its fortunes coming with the appearance of the Ar 95 floatplane and the superb Ar 96 tandem two-seat trainer two years later. This aircraft was swiftly adopted as the standard advanced trainer for the Luftwaffe and over 3,000 were built. This was followed by the Ar 196, a two-seat reconnaissance and coastal patrol floatplane, which saw widespread service during the Second World War. Prototypes of two versions were completed, one with twin floats, the other with a large central float balanced by two outriggers but the former was preferred.

Despite this, most of Arado's production facilities were devoted to the licence-construction of such strategically important types as the He 111, Bf 109 and Fw 190. Almost 4,000 of the latter were built at Warnemunde, Brandenburg and a new plant at Babelsberg near Berlin by the end of 1944. The factories also undertook the production of Ju 88s and latterly the He 177 four-engined bomber.

Several fascinating aircraft prototypes did, however, emerge from Arado's own design offices during the early years of the Second World War. These included the Ar 231, a collapsible reconnaissance aircraft designed to be stowed aboard a U-boat and the Ar 233, a small amphibian transport of which the only prototype was destroyed before it could fly. More important than these were the Ar 232 (project designation E 440), a large transport capable of carrying loads such as two Kubelwagen scout cars and the Ar 240 (E 625) twin-engined multi-purpose aircraft with remotely-controlled defensive armament. One of the features of the former was its multi-wheel undercarriage onto which it could be lowered to facilitate loading. Two versions were produced, one powered by two large radials, the other by four smaller engines. Only about ten prototypes of the Ar 240 were built, the type having difficult handling characteristics but an excellent performance. It was used operationally by the Luftwaffe on reconnaissance sorties over England.

Although these designs achieved success in their specialist fields, it is undoubtedly the Ar 234 for which the company is now best remembered.

Walther Wever Dates: November 11, 1887 in Wilhelmsort, district Bromberg, †June 3, 1936 in Dresden-Klotzsche) A German officer, most recently in the Army Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Wever was the grandson of the Prussian General Prosecutor Carl Georg Wever and son of the late director of Deutsche Bank settlement Arnold Wever.

After graduating from high school Steglitz Wever occurred in 1905 in Schweidnitz in the Prussian army. In 1906 he became a lieutenant and 1914 promoted to lieutenant. Wever was promoted in the First World War the end of December 1914 Adjutant of the 21 Infantry Brigade and in June 1915, 105/177

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to captain. Since July 1915, he worked in various general staffs of the troops.

He's doing the concept of the so-called "flexible run-defense" developed by the German troops long the increasing pressure from the Allies withstood.

He was treated in the autumn of 1917 in the Operations Division of the Supreme Command to General Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. He was personally present when Kaiser Wilhelm II. Decided to abdicate. He was also one of those who confirmed the Emperor that to avoid further bloodshed, the journey into exile in Holland was necessary.

In 1919 he received first by the Hindenburg order to edit the memoirs Erich Ludendorff. He then moved to the General Staff of the group commands I in Berlin. Wever established itself as one of the first publicly to ensure that the officers now in the same devotion should serve the democratically elected leaders of the Weimar Republic as before the Emperor. He was treated as the first non-Bayer in the General Staff of the 7th Division in Munich in October 1921. From 1924 to 1927 he was head of a company. In 1926 it took his promotion to major. Since February 1927 he has been a speaker in the Army Department of the troops Office. It was built in 1929 battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1930, since 1932 Head of the Army Training Department in Truppenamt and 1933 Colonel.

Since September 1, 1933, he took over the newly created Ministry of Aviation, the management of the Aerial Command Office and was appointed in October 1934 to Major General. With the introduction of conscription in March 1935 his position as Chief of Staff of the Air Force became apparent.

He was Lieutenant General in April 1936.

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As the first Chief of Staff of the Air Force Wever came thus to the task of developing in line with the ideas Douhet the principles of strategic and tactical air warfare and to define the technical specifications for the construction of modern aircraft. To underline the strategic importance of the Air Force, he was next dive bombers, fighters and bombers develop smaller four-engine bomber, which he called Ural bomber (Ju 89 and Do 19). According to recent research, however, he made this project a few weeks before his death stop after it became increasingly clear that the regime was at war course.

He crashed on 3 June 1936 at the start at the airport Dresden-Klotzsche at the wheel of a Heinkel He 70 of unknown causes from.

Together with Werner von Blomberg sat Wever, 1935, the opening of the Armed Forces Academy at the Defense Ministry through, were trained in selected courses in annual employee in strategy, war economics and politics. After his death, and the dismissal of Blomberg it was closed at the instigation of Hermann Goering again.

After Wever was on 6 June 1936, the "Squadron General Wever", the squadrons Gotha, 253 and 4 belonged to the "General Wever Barracks" in Hanover, Munich (today: Bayern barracks) in Potsdam-oak and named in Rheine and a bunker in Heilbronn. The tower, as well as several roads contributed or bear his name.

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He married in 1920 Hertha Suadicani, daughter of the Secret Government and Oberbaurat Waldemar Suadicani, the builder of various stations in Berlin and the Berlin Stadtbahn, and his wife Alice, nĂŠe Payne. His two sons GĂźnther Wever (1920-2004) and Walther Wever W. (1923-1945) were Air Force officers in World War II. His son Walter fell as a fighter pilot.

Since 1933, the Air Force has been massively upgraded.

Despite the difficulties brought on by the rapid build with it, the years to 1936, characterized by an effective cooperation of the leading men in the Air Ministry in 1933; showered with offices Goering its employees Erhard Milch, Wilhelm Wimmer and Walther Wever largely free hand. The air defense of those years took into account (more than in the army and navy) economic factors (cost, production capacity, etc.) of armor. Armor focusing in tactical bombers; next recognized the importance of strategic applications (Wever as Chief of the Air Command Office said in 1935 in his "rule for air warfare," that the tasks of the Air Force in the offensive against the "combat power of the enemy, that is, against the enemy air force and against the power sources of hostile army ", and let the so create guidelines for further development of a strategic bomber).

After Wevers certain death Goering Lieutenant General Albert Kesselring as his successor. At the same time, the General Staff Goering was now under the direct [3] Thus, the position of milk as deputy OB Air Force was actually finished in daily service business. he jumped into this function only in real need cases for Goering. [4] Goering mingled more from 1936 in the official business and began to play the three highest air force officers against each other.

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Awards Iron Cross (1914) II. And First Class Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords Bavarian Military Merit IV. Class with Swords Knight's Cross, First Class of the Order of Albert with swords Knight's Cross, First Class of the Order of Frederick Mecklenburg's Military Merit Cross II. Class Mecklenburg's cross for distinction in war II. Class Braunschweiger War Merit Cross II. And First Class Knight's Cross II. Class of Saxe-Ernestine House Order Austrian Military Merit Cross III. Class with War Decoration Gallipoli Star Flugzeugführer- and Observer Badge in Gold with Diamonds on November 11, 1935 Werner Streib Often called 'Father of the Nachtjagd' Streib helped develop the operational tactics used by the Nachtjagd during the early to mid-war years, and along with the likes of Wolfgang Falck made the Luftwaffe's nightfighter arm an effective fighting force against the Royal Air Force (RAF) bombing offensive.

He is mentioned in the book "Almost a lifetime" by John McMahon when he, shot down John's Lancaster, killing all but John.

Werner Streib was born on 13 June 1911 in Pforzheim Germany. After a spell in banking and finance, he joined the Wermacht as an infantryman. A transfer to the Luftwaffe, as an observer in a reconnaissance unit followed, and later he trained as a fighter pilot. In 1937, he was assigned to Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen" at Jüterbog-Damm. He then became a Messerschmitt Bf110 Zerstörer pilot in Wolfgang Falck's Zerstörergeschwader 1 as the war began.

(13 June 1911 – 15 June 1986) Luftwaffe fighter ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords during World War II. His first victory and only daylight victory was over a RAF Bristol Blenheim on 10 May 1940. In May 1940 the creation of the Nachtjagd was commenced, and on 20 July, as part of 2./Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 (NJG 1), Werner Streib claimed his first night victory (and the first official Nachtjagd victory) over a RAF Whitley.

By October 1940 Streib was commanding of I gruppe, NJG 1, based at Venlo, Netherlands in order to more easily intercept the known RAF bomber routes into targets in the Ruhr. He would be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 6 October 1940 as an Oberleutnant with eight victories claimed. By May 1941 he had 26 confirmed victories. He was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knights Cross on 26 February 1943 as a Major and Geschwaderkommodore (wing commander) of NJG 1 with 42 confirmed victories.

On the night of 11–12 June 1943, Werner Streib flew a prototype version of the Heinkel He 219 and claimed to have shot down 5 Lancaster bombers wit109/177

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hin just 30 minutes. However, when returning to Venlo Streib misjudged the landing approach and used the flaps at too high a speed. The Heinkel crashed and was written off on upon landing, Streib and his Bordfunker (radio or wireless operator) escaping with slight injuries.

On 11 March 1944 he was awarded the Swords to his Knights Cross for 66 confirmed victories.

On 23 March 1944 he was made Inspector of Night Fighters and he would stay in this post as Oberst until the end of the war.

Werner Streib was officially credited with shooting down 66 enemy aircraft, with 65 claimed at night. He was the first night fighter pilot to be honoured with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

After the war he worked in the grocery business before joining the Bundeswehr on 16 March 1956. Streib was asked to testify in the aftermaths of the 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident. For three years he commanded the pilot school A in Landsberg am Lech, equipped with the T-6 Texan was responsible for training the beginner pilots in the Luftwaffe. Brigadegeneral Streib's military career ended with his retirement on 31 March 1966. His last position was Inspizient Fliegende Verb채nde (Inspector of Flying Forces).

He died on 15 June 1986 and is buried in Munich, Germany.

Awards Wound Badge in Black

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Ehrenpokal der Luftwaffe (13 September 1940) Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe in Gold Combined Pilots-Observation Badge Iron Cross (1939) 2nd Class (17 May 1940) 1st Class (20 June 1940) German Cross in Gold on 26 February 1942 as Hauptmann in the I./NJG 1 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords Knight's Cross on 6 October 1940 as Oberleutnant and Staffelkapit채n of the 2./NJG 1 197th Oak Leaves on 26 February 1943 as Major and Gruppenkommandeur of the I./NJG 1 54th Swords on 11 March 1944 as Major and Geschwaderkommodore of NJG 1 Mentioned four times in the Wehrmachtbericht (1 October 1940, 15 March 1941, 5 July 1941 and 31 May 1942) References in the Wehrmachtbericht

Illustrations

Arado Ar 234 V6 Aircraft powered by four BMW003 A-0 engines in separatee nacelles. Retractable balancing skids were mounted beneath each of the four engines

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The V6, W.Nr. 130006, coded GK+IW, was the only Ar 234 to be powered by four BMW 003 A-0 engines in four separate cowlings. It was intended that this prototype would conduct comparison tests with the V8 to determine the best power plant arrangement. Although only seven flights were conducted with the V6 and six with the V8, they did prove that the combined nacelle arrangement was much better. Subsequently this arrangement was tested on a B-series airframe, the Ar 234 V13, and later it was adopted

by Ar 234 C-3 production model.

Annexes Kampfgeschwader 76 Was a Luftwaffe bomber Group during World War II . Its units participated 113/177

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on all of the fronts in the European Theatre throughout the conflict, and served until the last day of the war. It operated all three of the major German bomber types; the Dornier Do 17, Heinkel He 111 and the Junkers Ju 88, and also made use of the first-ever operational jet bomber design, the Arado Ar 234.

Kampfgeschwader 76 was formed on 1 May 1939 at Wiener Neustadt in Austria with Stab./KG 76 and I Gruppe. III Gruppe at Wels on the same date with the Do 17E, while II./KG 76 was not formed until September 1939, again in Wels, Northern Austria. While training in the summer of 1939 the Geschwader "worked up" on the Dornier Do 17Z and He 111. II./KG 76 did not become operational until June 1940 and consequently missed the Polish Campaign and the Norwegian Campaign.

War Time Service Polish Campaign During the Polish Campaign I. and III. Gruppen of KG 76 took part in combat operations. Operating from Breslau-Schöngarten (today Copernicus Airport Wrocław), I./KG 76 committed 36 Dorniers (all serviceable) under Luftflotte 4. The unit participated in the Battle of Bzura, and carried out raids in the areas of Galicia, Radom, Kielce and Warsaw against rail, airfield and troop targets. The Geschwader ceased attacks on 22 September and were ordered to western Germany to face a possible Allied attack. KG 76 was then assigned to Luftflotte 3.

Denmark and Norway The unit did not participate in Operation Weserübung but instead spent the spring training and resting in preparation for the decisive western offensive in 1940. 8

Battle of France and the Low Countries During the Battle of France KG 76 began the campaign in the west with a strength of 89 Do 17s, He 111s and Ju 88s, with 89 serviceable on 10 May 1940. KG 76 supported the offensive through the Ardennes and Belgium, laA handful of Ar 234Bs were fitted with cannon in a ventral tray and FuG 218 Neptun radar for night fighting 8

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ter bombed the Allied ports Ostend and Dunkirk, during the Allied evacuation. I./KG 76 supported the crucial breakthrough at Sedan. Other elements supported the drive to the Swiss border, encircling the French forces on the Maginot Line. Attacked several airfields around Laon, and flew sorties against the Maginot Line. The Geschwader took part in Operation Paula, a concentrated attack on airfields around Paris, which began on 3 June. What remained of Allied Airpower was destroyed in this assault. operated I./KG 76 moved to Beavues-Tille. Following the French campaign, II./KG 76 was disbanded and merged into III./KG 28 on 9 July 1940. However, oddly, the Gruppe was reformed on the very same day, as it was decided to rename III./KG 28 back to II./KG 76. The unit also converted to the Ju 88 at this time. For operations over Britain II./KG 76 was moved to airfields at Creil and Cormeilles-en-Vexin in France.

Battle of Britain and Channel Front: 1940 - 1941 The unit was heavily involved in the Battle of Britain. I./KG 76 was reduced to 19 out of 29 serviceable machines by 18 August 1940. The units continued to attack targets into the Blitz campaign. It raided London on 7 September and 15 September, and took part in attacks on London on 18/19 March and Glasgow on 7/8 April 1941. The unit also attacked Coventry on 8/9 April and Birmingham on 9/10 and 10/11 April. Belfast and Portland were attacked on 15/16 April, while Liverpool was bombed on 26/27 April, 3/4, 4/5 and 7/8 May. Hull, Nottingham and Sheffield were attacked on the night of 8/9 May. It began moving to East Prussia on 7 June 1941, for the coming Operation Barbarossa. The rest of the Gruppen attacked the same targets at various periods during the campaign. II./KG 76 recorded 36 Ju 88s and 28 serviceable machines on 13 August. By 6 September than had shrunk to 27 and 21 respectively. III./KG 76 seems to have been the hardest hit. It had 32 Do 17s of which 19 were airworthy on 13 August. By 7 September it had just 17 airworthy Dorniers left, out of a total of 24 machines. The Geschwader was withdrawn to East Prussia on 7 June 1941. It appears its last sortie as on 30 May 1941, an attack on shipping in the Humber Estuary.

Eastern Front During the initial phase of the war on the Eastern Front KG 76 was equipped with 90 aircraft of which 69 were serviceable, in Stab, I, II and III./KG 76. KG 76 supported the German advance through the Baltic states. During this time KG 76 helped sever the rail links between Leningrad and Moscow.

KG 76 then shifted its support to Army Group Centre during Operation Typhoon that led to the Battle of Moscow. I./KG 76 bombed Moscow several times, from 10 November 1941 onwards. I./KG 76 was put under the command of Nahkampff端hrer 2/VIII.Fl.Korps, and then withdrawn for reequipment in January 1942. KG 76's losses during Barbarossa were light for II./KG 76 (reformed in July 1940 after being dissolved and absorbed by III./KG 28 on 9 July 1940). II./KG 76 losses amounted to just 2 per week, including damaged machines. III./KG 76 took part in conventional mission, 115/177

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but in March 1942 the unit took part in anti-partisan operations behind German lines. Later in 1942 the unit took part in the Battle of Stalingrad and saw heavy action in the Caucasus. KG 76 attacked Soviet shipping along the Volga River and around the Crimean peninsula. 9

Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres The Geschwader took part in the Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatres. In November 1942 I., II., and III./KG 76 were transferred to Athens, Greece. Missions were flown against Allied shipping off Tobruk and Benghazi. Raids were also carried out on Algiers and Tripoli on the 2 and 5 March 1943. I./KG 76 was withdrawn to Ansbach, Germany for rest and refit. II./KG 76 was withdrawn on 26 April 1943. III./KG 76 took part in the Kampfgeschwader's most significant action. On 16–17 May KG 76 took part in raids on Allied airfields in Corsica. At Poretta airfield, it destroyed 25 Spitfires. An attack on Alesan airfield destroyed 30 B-25s and damaged another 45. The unit was withdrawn on 16 July 1943. I./KG 76 returned to the theatre later in the year and continued operations during the Italian Campaign until December 1943. During this time it also struck at the Allied landings in Sicily. I./KG 76 had 32 Ju 88 A-4s on strength by the time of withdrawal. II./KG 76 moved into bases in Southern France in December 1943. It flew bombing missions against the Anzio beachhead during the Allied Operation Shingle. The unit continued these missions until 10 July 1944, when it handed all its Ju 88s to I./LG 1.

Return to British skies I./KG 76 participated in night raids over Great Britain during Operation Steinbock. The Gruppe had 33 Ju 88s with 31 serviceable on 21 January 1944. Some elements of the Gruppe left for the Mediterranean to start operations over Anzio. The element in Mediterranean left for Linz, Austria to The Ar 234 used a similar engine installation to the Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter, with long, narrow-throated nacelles slung below the inboard part of the wing.

The adoption of a tricycle undercarriage on production aircraft left the engine nacelles free for weapons carriage, and bomb shackles were incorporated to take up to 500 kg (1,100 Ib) of bombs beneath each wing. A third bomb shackle was located under the centreline, capable of carrying weapons of up to 1400 kg (3.000 Ib), including the 1000-kg SC WOO 'Hermann', with which Ar 234s unsuccessfully attacked the bridges at Remagen during early 1945.

9

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convert to the Junkers Ju 188 and Messerschmitt Me 410. It was later decided to convert the unit to the Arado Ar 234 on 7 June. However this was never carried out, and I./KG 76 was disbanded in July 1944.

Western Front 1944-1945 The Kampfgeschwader began conversion to the Ar 234 in June 1944.

III./KG was the first unit to receive the Ar 234, and received the first two on 26 August. By 1 December 1944 it had 51 of these machines on strength.

III./KG 76 operated over France and the Low Countries until the end of the war. It flew some of the first jet bomber missions in history on 24 December 1944 against rail targets in Namur, Belgium. Troop concentrations were attacked around Liège and Bastogne on 26 and 31 December respectively, in support of German forces during the Battle of the Bulge. The unit also flew reconnaissance missions over Antwerp's docks and airfields on 1 January 1945 during Operation Bodenplatte. On 20 January 1945 Ar 234s struck the docks at Antwerp, and struck again on 24 January 1945, which was the wing's last independent mission. Missions were flown against rail targets in the Brussels area on 8 February, and attacked Allied fores around Eindhoven on 21 February. On 24 February, one of the Ar 234s force landed at Selgersdorf near Aachen, and was captured intact. During the 22–28 February period the unit flew a minimum of 20 and maximum of 37 sorties a day.

The unit also attacked the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen from 9–13 March.

KG 76 reported high losses during this period. On 21 March their base at Achmer was bombed. 10 Ar 234s were lost and a further 8 damaged. By 1 April 1945 the group had just 11 machines on strength, with seven serviceable and 27 pilots of which 16 were ready for action. III./KG 76 received five Ar 234s on 10 April.

Records indicate that on 12 April strength was 15 aircraft of which 10 were serviceable and 31 (18 ready for action) pilots. The Gruppe spent most of April attacking targets on German soil, against the advancing Allied forces.

On 20 April 1945 Ar 234s of III./KG 76 struck at Soviet targets in the Berlin area. 8 Staffel of III./KG 76 flew the Kampfgeschwader's last sortie of the war on 3 May 1945. III./KG 76 also participated in the last battles of the war. The unit had not fully converted to the Ar 234, and still flew the He 111.

A mixed group of these aircraft struck at Soviet forces in the Kürstin area.

Most of the unit was moved to confront the Western Allies in Western Germany. Targets included marshalling yards, airfields bridges and ground forces. Based at Hesepe, the airfield was attacked on 21 March, killed 11 and wounding 10 of the units personnel. II./KG 76 continued to resist British armoured advances until the 15 April. With just 18 pilots left the Gruppe handed over its remaining aircraft to III./KG 76 and all remaining personnel joined the Geschwaderstab/KG 76. No further missions were flown by the Gruppe after this date. The Gruppe surrendered to Royal Air Force personnel at Schleswig airfield on 8 May 1945.

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Commanding officers Geschwaderkommodore Oberst Paul Schultheiss, 1 May 1939 – 15 November 1939 Oberst Stefan Fröhlich, 17 November 1939 – 26 February 1941 Oberst Dr. Ing. Ernst Bormann, 26 February 1941 – 7 January 1943 Major Wilhelm von Friedburg, January 1943 (acting) Oberstleutnant Rudolf Hallensleben, January 1943 – 31 May 1944 Oberst Walter Storp, 1 June 1944 – 30 September 1944 Oberstleutnant Robert Kowalewski, November 1944 – 8 May 1945 Gruppenkommandeure I./KG 76 Oberst Stefan Fröhlich, 1 May 1939 – 14 November 1939 Major Ludwig Schulz, November 1939 – 2 June 1940 Hauptmann Alois Lindmayr, June 1940 – Hauptmann Walter Herbold Hauptmann Robert von Sichart, 1941 – 23 June 1941 Hauptmann Hanns Heise, 1942 Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. After the German Empire's World War I-era army air force, the Luftstreitkräfte, and the Kaiserliche Marine naval air units had been disbanded by May 1920 under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the Luftwaffe was reformed on February 26, 1935 and grew to become one of the strongest, most doctrinally advanced, and most battle-experienced air forces in the world when World War II started in Europe in September 1939. After the defeat of the Third Reich, the Luftwaffe was disbanded in 1946.

Luftwaffe is also the generic term in German speaking countries for any national military aviation service, and the names of air forces in other countries are usually translated into German as "Luftwaffe" (e.g. Royal Air Force is often translated as "britische Luftwaffe"). However,Luftstreitkräfte, or "air armed force", is also sometimes used as a translation of "air force". And because "Luft" means "air" and "Waffe" may be translated into English as either "weapon" or "arm", "Air Arm" may be considered the most literal English translation of Luftwaffe (cf. Fleet Air Arm).

World War I One of the forerunners of the Luftwaffe, the Imperial German Army Air Service, was founded in 1910 with the name Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches, most often shortened to Fliegertruppe. It was renamed Luftstreitkräfte by October 1916. The air war on the Western Front received the most attention in the annals of the earliest accounts of military aviation, since it produced aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, popularly known as the Red Baron, Ernst Udet, Oswald Boelcke, Werner Voss, and Max Immel118/177

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mann, many of whom would later serve in the Luftwaffe, and Manfred von Richthofen's eventual successor to the command of JG I, Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe's commander in-chief for most of its existence.

After the defeat of Germany, the service was dissolved on 8 May 1920 under the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which also mandated the destruction of all military aircraft of Germany.

Interwar period Since the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have an air force, German pilots trained in violation of the treaty in secret. Initially, civil aviation schools within Germany were used, yet only light trainers could be used in order to maintain the façade that the trainees were going to fly with civil airlines such as Deutsche Luft Hansa. To train its pilots on the latest combat aircraft, Germany solicited the help of its future enemy, the Soviet Union, which was also isolated in Europe. A secret training airfield was established at Lipetsk in 1924 and operated for approximately nine years using mostly Dutch and Russian, but also some German, training aircraft before being closed in 1933. This base was officially known as 4th squadron of the 40th wing of the Red Army.

The first steps towards the Luftwaffe's formation were undertaken just months after Adolf Hitler came to power. Hermann Göring, a World War I ace with 22 victories and the holder of the Orden Pour le Merite, became National Kommissar for aviation with former Deutsche Luft Hansa director Erhard Milch as his deputy. In April 1933 the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM – Reich Air Ministry) was established. The RLM was in charge of development and production of aircraft, and soon afterwards the test site or Erprobungsstelle at Rechlin became its testing ground, a military airfield that had been first established in August 1918. Göring's control over all aspects of aviation became absolute. On 25 March 1933 the Deutschen Luftsportverband (DVLA) (German Air Sport Association) absorbed all private and national organizations, whilst retaining its 'sports' title. The merging of all military aviation organizations in the RLM took place on 15 May 1933, which became the Luftwaffe's official 'birthday'. Many members of the Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (National Socialist Flyers Corps –NSFK) transferred to the Luftwaffe. As all such prior NSFK members were also Nazi Party members, this gave the new Luftwaffe a strong Nazi ideological base in contrast to the other branches of the German military. Göring had played a leading role in the build up of the Luftwaffe in 1933–1936, but played little further part in the development of the Luftwaffe until 1936, and Milch became the "de facto" minister until 1937.

The absence of Göring in planning and production matters was fortunate.

Göring had little knowledge of current aviation, had last flown in 1922, and had not kept himself informed of latest events. Göring also displayed a lack of understanding of doctrine and technical issues in aerial warfare which he left to others more competent. The Commander-in-Chief left the organisation and building of the Luftwaffe, after 1936, to Erhard Milch. However 119/177

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Göring, as a part of Hitler's inner circle, was to provide enormous financial materials for rearming and equipping the Luftwaffe.

Another prominent figure in German air power construction this time was Helmuth Wilberg. Wilberg was to play a large role in the development of German air doctrine. Having headed the Reichswehr air staff for eight years in the 1920s, Wilberg had considerable experience and was ideal for a senior staff position. Göring considered making Wilberg Chief of Staff (CS). However, it was revealed Wilberg had a Jewish mother. For that reason Göring could not have him as CS. Not wishing his talent to go to waste, Göring ensured the racial laws of the Third Reich did not apply to him. Wilberg remained in the air staff and helped draw up the principle doctrine "The Conduct of the Aerial War" and its "Regulation 16" under Walther Wever.

Preparing for war: 1933–1939 The Wever years, 1933 – 1936 Contrary to popular belief in American and British circles, the Luftwaffe was not "the hand maiden of the German Army." The German officer Corps was keen to develop strategic bombing capabilities against its enemies. However, economic and geopolitical considerations had to take priority. The German air power theorists continued to develop strategic theories, but emphasis was given to army support, as Germany was a continental power and expected to face ground operations following any declaration of hostilities.

For these reasons, between 1933 and 1934, the Luftwaffe's leadership was primarily concerned with tactical and operational methods. In aerial terms, the army concept of Truppenführung was an operational concept, as well as a tactical doctrine. In the First World War, air units had been attached to specific army formations and acted as support. Dive bomber units were considered essential to Truppenführung; destroying Headquarters and lines of communications. Luftwaffe "Regulation 10: The Bomber" (Dienstvorschrift 10: Das Kampfflugzeug), published in 1934, advocated air superiority and approaches to ground attack tactics without dealing with operational matters. Until 1935, the 1926 manual "Directives for the Conduct of the Operational Air War" continued to act as the main guide for German air operations. The manual directed the OKL to focus on limited operations (not strategic-operations); the protection of specific areas and support of the army in combat.

With an effective tactical-operational concept, the German air power theorists needed a strategic doctrine and organisation. Robert Knauss, a serviceman (not pilot) in theLuftstreitkräfte during the First World War, and later an experienced pilot with Lufthansa, was a prominent theorist of air power.

Knauss promoted the Giulio Douhet theory that air power could win wars alone by destroying enemy industry and morale by "terrorizing the population" of major cities. This advocated attacks on civilians. The General Staff blocked the entry of Douhet's theory into doctrine, fearing revenge strikes against German civilians and cities.

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In December 1934, Chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff Walther Wever sought to mould the Luftwaffe's battle doctrine into a strategic plan. At this time, Wever conducted war games (simulated against the French) in a bid to establish his theory of a strategic bombing force that would, he thought, prove decisive by winning the war through the destruction of enemy industry, even though these exercises also included tactical strikes against enemy ground forces and communications. In 1935, "Luftwaffe Regulation 16: The Conduct of the Air War" was drawn up. In the proposal, it concluded, "The mission of the Luftwaffe is to serve these goals."

Within this doctrine, the Luftwaffe leadership rejected the practice of "terror bombing" (see Luftwaffe strategic bombing doctrine). Terror bombing was deemed to be "counter-productive", increasing rather than destroying [18]

the enemy's will to resist.

Such bombing campaigns were regarded as diversion from the Luftwaffe's main operations; destruction of the enemy armed forces. The bombings of Guernica, Rotterdam and Warsaw were considered tactical missions in support of military operations and were not intended as strategic terror attacks.

Nevertheless, Wever recognised the importance of strategic bombing. In newly introduced doctrine, The Conduct of the Aerial Air War in 1935, Wever rejected the theory of Douhet and outlined five key points to air strategy: 1. To destroy the enemy air force by bombing its bases and aircraft factories, and defeating enemy air forces attacking German targets.

2. To prevent the movement of large enemy ground forces to the decisive areas by destroying railways and roads, particularly bridges and tunnels, which are indispensable for the movement and supply of forces 3. To support the operations of the army formations, independent of railways, i.e, armoured forces and motorised forces, by impeding the enemy advance and participating directly in ground operations.

4. To support naval operations by attacking naval bases, protecting Germany's naval bases and participating directly in naval battles 5. To paralyse the enemy armed forces by stopping production in the armaments factories.

Wever began planning for a strategic bomber force and sought to incorporate strategic bombing into a war strategy. He believed that tactical aircraft should only be used as a step to developing a strategic air force. In May 1934, Wever initiated a seven-year project for the "Ural Bomber", the bomber that would take the Luftwaffe's bombing campaign into the heart of the Soviet Union. In 1935, this led to the Dornier Do 19 and Junkers Ju 89 prototypes, although both were underpowered. In April 1936, Wever ordered a requirement for 'Bomber A' which would have a range of 6,700 km (4,163 mi) with a 900 kg (1,984 lb) bomb load. However Wever's vision of a "Ural" bomber was never realised, and his emphasis on strategic aerial operations was lost, with the only design submittal for Wever's 'Bomber A' that would reach production being Heinkel's Projekt 1041, which became officially known on 5 November 1937 as the Heinkel He 177.

By the late 1930s the Luftwaffe had no clear purpose. The air force was not 121/177

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subordinated to the army support role, and it was not given any particular strategic mission. German doctrine fell between the two concepts. The Luftwaffe was to be an organisation capable of carrying out broad and general support tasks rather than any specific mission. Mainly, this path was chosen to encourage a more flexible use of air power and offer the ground forces the right conditions for a decisive victory. In fact, on the outbreak of war, only 15% of the Luftwaffe's aircraft was devoted to ground support operations, exposing a long-held myth that the Luftwaffe was designed for only tactical and operational missions.

A change of direction, 1936 – 1937 Wever's participation in the construction of the Luftwaffe came to an abrupt end on 3 June 1936 when he was killed along with his engineer in a Heinkel He 70 Blitz, ironically on the very day that his "Bomber A" heavy bomber design competition was announced. After Wever's death Göring began taking more of an interest in the appointment of Luftwaffe staff officers. Göring appointed his successor Albert Kesselring as CS andErnst Udet head the Reich's Air Ministry Technical Office (Technisches Amt), although he was not a technical expert. Despite this Udet was appointed to and helped change the Luftwaffe's tactical direction towards producing fast medium bombers that were to destroy enemy air power in the battle zone rather than through industrial bombing of its aviation production.

Kesselring and Udet did not get on. During Kesselring's time as CS, 1936– 1937, a power struggle developed between the two as Udet attempted to extend his own power within the Luftwaffe. Kesselring also had to contend with Göring appointing "yes men" to positions of importance. Udet realised his limitations, and his failures in the production and development of German aircraft would have serious long term consequences.

The failure of the Luftwaffe to progress further towards attaining a strategic bombing force was attributable to several reasons. Many in the Luftwaffe command believed medium bombers to be sufficient power to launch strategic bombing operations against Germany's most likely enemies; France, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The United Kingdom presented greater problems.

General der Flieger Hellmuth Felmy, commander of Luftflotte 2 in 1939, was charged with devising a plan for an air war over the British Isles. Felmy was convinced that Britain could be defeated through morale bombing.

Felmy noted the alleged panic that had broken out in London during the Munich crisis, evidence he believed of British weakness. A second reason was technical. German designers had never solved the issues of the Heinkel He 177A's design difficulties, brought on by the requirement from its inception on November 5, 1937 to have moderate dive bombing capabilities in a 30 meter wingspan class military aircraft. Moreover, Germany did not possess the economic strength and resources to match the later British and American effort of 1943–1944, particularly in large-scale mass production of high power output aircraft powerplants, those capable of a maximum output of at least 1,500 kW (2,000 hp) apiece. In addition, the OKL had not fore122/177

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seen the industrial and military effort strategic bombing would require. By 1939 the Luftwaffe was not much better prepared than its enemies to conduct a strategic bombing campaign, with fatal results during the Battle of Britain.

The German rearmament program faced difficulties acquiring raw materials. Germany imported most of its essential materials for rebuilding the Luftwaffe, in particular rubber and aluminium. Petroleum imports were particularly vulnerable to blockade. The Germans pushed for synthetic fuel plants, but still failed to meet demands. In 1937 Germany imported more fuel than it had at the start of the decade. By the summer 1938 only 25% of requirements could be covered. In steel materials, industry was operating at barely 83% and by November 1938 Göring reported the economic situation was serious. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the overall command for all German military forces, ordered reductions in raw and steel materials for armament production. The figures for reduction were substantial: 30% steel, 20% copper, 47% aluminium and 14% rubber. Under such circumstances, it was not possible for Milch, Udet or Kesselring to produce a formidable strategic bombing force even had they wanted to do so.

The development of aircraft was now confined to the production of twin-engined medium bombers that required much less material, manpower and aviation production capacity than Wever's 'Ural Bombers'. German industry could build two medium bombers for one heavy bomber and the RLM would not gamble on developing a heavy bomber which would also take time.

Göring remarked, "the Führer will not ask how big the bombers there are, but only how many there are". The premature death of one of the Luftwaffe's finest officers, one that left the Luftwaffe without a strategic air force during World War II, eventually proved fatal to the German war effort.

The lack of strategic capability should have been apparent much earlier. The Sudeten Crisis highlighted German unprepardness to conduct a strategic air war (although the British and French were in a much weaker position), and Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe be expanded by five times its earlier size. The OKL badly neglected the need for transport aircraft; even in 1943, transport units were described as Kampfgeschwadern zur besonderen Verwendung ("Bomber Units on Special Duties", KGzbV). and only grouping them together into dedicated cargo and personnel transport wings (Transportgeschwader) during that year. In March 1938, as the Anschluss was taking place, Göring ordered Felmy to investigate the prospect of air raids against Britain.

Felmy concluded it was not possible until bases in Belgium and the Netherlands were obtained and the Luftwaffe had heavy bombers. Fortunately it mattered little, as the British betrayed the Czechs, war was avoided, and the need for long-range aircraft did not arise.

These failures were not exposed until wartime. In the meantime German designs of mid-1930s origin such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109, Heinkel He 111, Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, and Dornier Do 17, performed very well. All first saw active service in the Condor Legion against Soviet-supplied aircraft. The Luftwaffe also quickly realized the days of the biplane fighter were finished, 123/177

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the Heinkel He 51 being switched to service as a trainer. Particularly impressive were the Heinkel and Dornier, which fulfilled the Luftwaffe's requirements for bombers that were faster than 1930s-era fighters. many of which were biplanes or strut-braced monoplanes.

Despite the participation of these aircraft (mainly from 1938 onward), it was the venerable Junkers Ju 52(which soon became the backbone of the Transportgruppen) that made the main contribution. During the Spanish Civil War Hitler remarked, "Franco ought to erect a monument to the glory of the Junkers Ju 52. It is the aircraft which the Spanish revolution has to thank for its victory".

Dive-bombing Poor accuracy from level bombers in 1937 led the Luftwaffe to grasp the benefits of dive-bombing. The latter could achieve far better accuracy against small mobile tactical targets than heavier, conventional bombers. Range was not key criteria for these tasks and it was not always viable for the Army to move heavy artillery over recently captured territory to bombard fortifications or support ground forces when faster dive-bombers could do the job more quickly. Dive-bombers, often single-engine two-man machines, could achieve better results than larger six or seven-man aircraft, at a tenth of the cost and four times the accuracy. This led to Ernst Udet championing the dive-bomber, particularly the Junkers Ju 87.

Udet's "love affair" with dive-bombing seriously affected the long-term development of the Luftwaffe, especially after General Wever's untimely death.

The tactical strike aircraft programs were meant to serve as interim solutions until the next generation of aircraft arrived. In 1936 the Junkers Ju 52 was the backbone of the German bomber fleet. This led to a rush on the part of the RLM to produce the Junkers Ju 86, Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 before a proper evaluation was made. The Ju 86 was poor while the He 111 showed most promise. The Spanish Civil War convinced Udet (along with limited output from the German munitions industry) that wastage was not acceptable in munition terms. Udet sought to build dive-bombing into the Junkers Ju 88 and conveyed the same idea, initiated specifically by the OKL, for the Heinkel He 177, approved in early November 1937. In the case of the Ju 88, 50,000 modifications had to be made. The weight was increased from seven to twelve tons. This resulted in a speed loss of 200 km/h.

Udet merely conveyed the OKL's own dive-bombing capability request to Ernst Heinkel concerning the He 177, who vehemently opposed such an idea, which ruined its development as a heavy bomber. Göring was not able to rescind the dive bombing requirement for the He 177A until September 1942.

Mobilization, 1938 – 1941 By the summer of 1939, the Luftwaffe had nine Jagdgeschwader (fighter wings) mostly equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, four 'Zerstörergeschwader (destroyer wings) equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 110 124/177

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heavy fighter, 11Kampfgeschwader (bomber wings) equipped with mainly the Heinkel He 111 and the Dornier Do 17Z; and as it had encountered design difficulties, was just starting to accept the Junkers Ju 88A for service with only a dozen aircraft of the type considered combat-ready, and four Sturzkampfgeschwader (dive bomber wings) ready for combat, primarily armed with the iconic Junkers Ju 87B Stuka. The Luftwaffe's strength at this time stood at 373,000 personnel (208,000 parachute troops, 107,000 in the Flak Corps and 58,000 in the Signals Corps). Aircraft strength was 4,201 operational aircraft; 1,191 bombers, 361 dive bombers, 788 fighters, 431 heavy fighters, and 488 transports. Despite deficiencies it was an impressive force.

However, even by the spring of 1940, the Luftwaffe still had not mobilized fully. Despite the shortage of raw-materials Generalluftzeugmesiter Ernst Udet, had increased production through introducing a 10 hour working day for aviation industries and rationalizing of production. During this period 30 Kampfstaffeln and 16 Jagdstaffeln were being raised and equipped. A further five Zerstorergruppen were created (JGr 101, 102,126,152 and 176), all equipped with the Bf 110.

The Luftwaffe also greatly expanded its aircrew training programs by 42%, to 63 flying schools. These facilities were moved to eastern Germany, away from possible Allied threats. The number of aircrew reached 4,727, an increase of 31%. However, the rush to complete this rapid expansion scheme resulted in the deaths of 997 personnel and another 700 wounded. 946 aircraft were also destroyed in these accidents. The number of aircrew completing their training was up to 3,941, The Luftwaffe's entire strength was now 2.2 million personnel.

From 1920s to 1941, hundreds of Luftwaffe pilots and technical personnel visited, studied and were trained in the Soviet Union at Soviet air force schools in several locations in Central RussiaTemplate:Not till 1941 but till 1933, as when Hitler was elected in Germany all military cooperation was terminated. Göring was at these Russian air force training schools several times during the 1930s, he flew Russian airplanes, had a Russian girlfriend and was engaged in numerous drinking parties while living in a suburb ofLipetsk. Roessing, Blume, Fosse, Teetsemann, Heini, Makratzki, Blumendaat and many other Luftwaffe aces were trained in Russia in joint Russian-German schools that were set up under patronage of Ernst-August Köstring.

German-Soviet collaboration was facilitated, besides Göring, by Brauchitsch, Guderian, Model, Keitel, Krause, Adam, and Mannstein, all of whom studied and visited Soviet Russia prior to the beginning of WWII. In April and May 1941, Udet headed the Luftwaffe delegation inspecting Soviet aviation industry in compliance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Udet informed Göring "that Soviet air forces are very strong and technically advanced". Göring decided not to report the facts to Hitler hoping that a surprise attack will quickly destroy Russia. Udet realized that the upcoming war on Russia may cripple Germany. Udet, torn between truth and loyalty, suffered a psychological breakdown and even tried to tell all the truth to Hi125/177

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tler, but Gรถring told Hitler, that Udet was lying, then took Udet under control by giving him drugs at drinking parties and hunting trips. Udet's drinking and psychological condition became a problem, but Gรถring used Udet's dependency to manipulate him.

The Defeat of the German Air Force Foreword On 6 June 1944, General Eisenhower was able to say, "If you see fighter aircraft over you, they will be ours." This remark signalized the achievement of the first objective of the Allied Air Forces In Europe: the reduction of the GAF as an effective deterrent to land or air invasion. This attainment of superiority over the GAF, given priority in the Casablanca Directive of January 1943, was the result of concentrated air action during the nine months prior to D-Day by the Allied Air Forces In the European Theater. It was brought about primarily through a. Attrition of the enemy fighter force in the air and on the ground, and the consequent deterioration of the quality of enemy fighter pilots; b. Attacks on enemy aircraft production which caused vital delay in the expansion of the GAF fighter force. The air superiority gained before D-Day was maintained throughout 1944 and 1945 by the combined efforts of the RAF and USAAF through attrition and c. Destruction of the sources of enemy aircraft fuel production d. Disruption of the GAF system for supply and repair caused by attacks on the German transportation system.

Attrition of the Enemy Fighter Force 1. The GAF fighter army was a major obstacle opposing the Allied strategic air offensive. Its history is marked with periods of temporary successes which were turned to eventual defeat by the effective measures of the Allies.

When the full onslaught of the Allied offensive was felt, the GAF could not mount a defense in the strength for which it planned and worked so desperately. This was partly due to faulty decisions in the early years of the war which contributed to the deterioration of the GAF when faced with a major opponent. It was primarily due to the aggressiveness of the Eighth and Fifteenth AFs in the. air battles fought during the attacks on German aircraft production. A review of the record of the years 1939 - 1944 brings this into focus. As a guide to this review, a chart is furnished (Figure 12) showing the comparative losses of the German fighter force over these years.

2. It will be noted that the tempo of the air war, expressed in losses of German single-engine fighters[1], increased moderately through 1942, spurted ahead in 1943, and sky-rocketed in 1944. It is apparent also that the war on the Eastern Front involved a fairly steady attrition of the German single-engine fighter force which was never so excessive as to become a source of alarm to the German High Command. Hi is Is revealed in German aircraft production plans for the years 1941 and 1942 (Figure 13) when fighter losses 126/177

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on the Eastern Front constituted a high percentage of the total German losses.

These plans called for virtually no increase in production until the daylight strategic bomber threat began to be appreciated in the latter half of 1942. At this time, the German Air Ministry In a study dated 16 December 1942, called for a tripling of fighter production in 1943 (Figure 13). With mounting losses in the air and on the ground, successive studies demanded further increases in production. These were not accomplished in time to cope with the greater expansion of the Allied air forces. 10

Fig No 1 German A/C destroyed & damaged in S/E fighter units 3. Reduction of GAF Fighter Experience Level. The cycle which underlay the deterioration of the OAF worked in this manner: When more pilots were killed In 1942 than the Gorman High Command has anticipated, pressure was put upon the fighter training schools to speed the output of replacements.

But Germany's fuel situation, Inherently weak, required careful allocation of all oil products, especially aviation gasoline. Increased fuel allocation for pilot training was very difficult for the schools to obtain.

The alternatives were either to fall short of the number of replacements or to cut hours of training so that fuel allocations would be sufficient to train the requisite number of pilots. The Germans chose the latter course, with Similar figures for pilots killed are not yet available; the few facts now in hand indicate that between 2-1/2 and 3 aircraft were destroyed per pilot killed.

10

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the result that replacements arrived at combat units subnormally trained

Fig No 2 German plans for fighter aircraft production 1). As skilled and experienced pilots we're killed, they were replaced with pilots with no battle experience and insufficient training. Thus, the average level of experience fell, reducing the tactical capabilities of the force. The rising tempo of combat worked cumulatively against the OAF. On the other hand, combat seasoned many Allied pilots who were fighting on a solid backÂŹground of thorough training at less than expected rates of attrition.

4. The deterioration of pilot quality was first really apparent about March 1944. The cycle had undoubtedly been operating all through 1943, since the first large cut in total training hours of German pilots came late in 1942, followed by a similar cut in mid-1943, and much greater cut in mid-1944 3). The last reduction in training hours of German pilots came at a time when oil targets in Germany were given first priority fop Allied strategic bombing. Then the inadequate allocations of fuel which the fighter schools had received could no longer be delivered. The early decision to skimp on gasoline allocations to training schools was turned painfully against the GAF planners who were now unable to ward off the attacks on oil. This was doubly painful because it occurred at a time when German fighter production was increasing.

GAF Training Hours The GAF situation was recognized by General Fieldmarschall Hugo von Sperrle who stated that the Luftwaffe was most seriously handicapped by a dearth of experienced pilots. This became extremely patent early In 1944. In July of 1944 he canvassed his command and found that, with rare excep128/177

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tions, only group and squadron commanders had combat experience exceeding six months.

A small percentage of other personnel had an average of three months of combat duty, while a majority of pilots had seen active service for periods as low as between eight and thirty days. In the autumn of 1944, disorganization and deterioration of the Luftwaffe began. Lack of fuel, shortages of pilots and a decreasing number of replacements hampered efficiency

Fig No 3 GAF training hours 5. Rise of ITS Fighter Power. Critical losses of German fighter pilots were indirectly caused by the overpowering pressure applied by the USAAF on daylight missions. This pressure was carried deeper into enemy territory as a result of a series of Improvements In US fighter aircraft and their tactical exploitation. These are listed chronologically because of their great importance. a. May 1943. P-47s arrived In Britain and Joined British Spitfires in escorting the heavy bombers. As US pilots gained experience in the handling of their aircraft and In air warfare, the P-47 pilots extended the range of their penetrations beyond that to which the Spitfires could go. Because of increased escort range, the bombers made somewhat deeper penetrations with the result that air fights increased in intensity - the P-47's giving an excellent account of themselves. b. July 1943. Belly tanks of 75-gallon capacity became available, adding more than 100 miles to the range of the P-47s, whose effective strength now 129/177

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had reached the 100 mark. The use of the tanks gave the P-47s tactical surprise over the enemy for a few missions, resulting in an increase In the number of kills. The enemy's twin-engine rocket fighter, so deadly to Allied bombers, was no match for the P-47 and learned early to stay beyond its range. c. August 1943. One hundred and eight gallon belly tanks became available.

This gave the P-47 a further extension in range, with the result that, after reaching the point where the enemy's twin-engine fighters had expected them to turn back, the P-47s attacked and shot them down instead enemy lose rates rose. d. September 1943. Three groups of P-38s of the NW Africa Air Force made a low-level strafing attack on the enemy airfields near Foggia, Italy. The attack was a complete surprise; a great many enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground and only a few rose to give combat. The success of this attack marked a turning point in the air war in the Mediterranean; thereafter losses of Allied bombers to enemy aircraft declined to a marked degree. e. November 1943. P-38s with two 165-gallon wing tanks became available for escort in the Eighth AF and although mechanical difficulties marred their utility, their range was great enough to reach well into Germany. With the increase in bomber penetrations into Germany, the enemy attacked savagely, and the escort had all the targets it could desire. German losses continued to rise. f. Mid-December 1943. F-51s now made their appearance in England. Their range without external tanks was nearly as great as the P-38 with the two 165-gallon wing tanks. Their four 50-calibre machine guns gave formidable firepower and flight characteristics were excellent. Early successes were so great that an increase in the number of P-51s was eagerly awaited. g. December 1943. The newly activated Fifteenth AF was established in the Foggia and Manduria areas in southern Italy. This move increased the capabilities of penetration of US bombers and fighters, bringing within range many vital German and Balkan targets which could not be reached from North Africa. Fifteenth AF fighters included F-38s and P-47s using 75-gallon belly tanks. h. January 1944. At this juncture, a change in the tactical employment of US fighters took place which was more far-reaching in its effects than any of the increases in range. Up to this point, because of the limited number of escort fighters available, they had operated under the strict Injunction that their duty was to "protect the bombers." This method of employment resulted in flying relatively close to the bombers in order to block enemy attacks. It placed US fighters in a defensive position, leaving the initiative to the enemy.

US pilots spent all their time "looking over their shoulder. With the increased strength of fighter escort, tactics were changed to more fully exploit the characteristics of fighter aircraft. The fighters were now charged with the primary duty of "pursuing and destroying the enemy." Although a third of the escort remained in constant final defense of the bombers, the rest ranged out from the bomber formations, watching for the appearance of hostile aircraft. Upon sighting the enemy, this "ranging escort" would attack and 130/177

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pursue him wherever he fled. The enemy soon lost the initiative. He was hunted and harassed wherever he flew. Enemy losses began to rise sharply.

Lieutenant General Karl Koller, Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, stated in this connection that the American long-range fighter cover came as something new and fatal to Germany. Without this cover, Koller had hoped to be able to inflict losses as high as 30 per cent upon un-escorted bombers which, in his opinion, would have made the continuation of the attacks impossible. He laid considerable stress on the fact that neither the British nor the Germans thought of fighters except in terms of the last war and of narrow ranges associated with land warfare in Europe. The German aircraft industry had claimed that an effective long-range fighter could not be built. i. 30 January 1944. The Fifteenth AF carried out a counter air force mission in the Po River Valley with important consequences. While the bombers attacked airfields and aircraft repair depots from high level, the escort formed an "umbrella" which held down most of the Axis fighters, resulting in serious losses to the Germans on the ground. Those enemy fighters which were able to rise in interception were engaged by the US escort and many were destroyed. Air opposition in Italy to strategic day missions virtually ceased after this date. j. February 1944. In this month 150-gallon belly tanks became available for the F-47s based in England, extending their range another 50 miles, and later in the month, two 108-gallon external tanks were fitted to the wings of the F-47s, adding still another 50 miles of range. P-38s received an addition of 60 gallons internally, extending their range of effective escort beyond Berlin; P-51s became available in somewhat greater numbers. The result of all this increase in Allied fighter capabilities was the dispatch, in the fourth week of February, of a series of missions against the German fighter aircraft factories as deep into Germany as Leipzig. During this phase of transition from evasion of the enemy to forcing the battle, the task forces of US bombers and fighters became bolder and more provocative. Actually, a month later, the Allied day bombers began to fly selected routes to force the GAF to fight. Enemy fighter loss rates, in planes and pilots, mounted rapidly, and replacement difficulties multiplied at a time when Allied air power was being increased and reinforced. k. March 1944. During this month, more P-5ls and P-38s became operational in the Eighth AF and the F-51S began to carry external wing tanks. With two 75-gallon wing tanks, the P-51 could escort far beyond Berlin and even Prague. With two 108-gallon external wing tanks, escort, if desired, could be flown beyond Vienna.

Flying with an increased number of these long-range fighters as escorts, the heavy bombers initiated a series of attacks on Berlin. The air fights mounted in number and intensity. On one of these missions the bombers lost their largest number. However this was only the ninth most serious loss of the Eighth AF in percentage of bombers attacking and it resulted in overwhelming the German ability to resist in the air. On the third mission, enemy resistance had declined and at the end of the series enemy fighters failed to 131/177

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put in an appearance. Heavy losses in planes destroyed and damaged had weakened the GAF operational ability to such an extent that it could not sustain the air fighting on a continuing basis even over German territory. l. April 1944. The Fifteenth AF converted its P-47 group to F-51s and received additional groups of P-51s. Its fighter force then consisted entirely of P51s and P-38s. The P-51s had sufficient range to permit escort to targets as deep as Brux in German-held Sudetenland and Blechhammer in a German Silesia. The P-38s were used for additional fighter support during both penetrations and withdrawals.

May 1944. Enemy loss rates mounted rapidly on the Western Front while US bomber and fighter losses declined at the same rate. Enemy opposition to the bomber raids had grown very little numerically in the last nine months. The number of bombers in US task forces had multiplied by four in the same period, and fighter escort numbers also had become four times as great (Figure 4). For example, in the fall of 1943, 300 bombers and 200 escort fighters had been opposed by 200 or more enemy fighters. In May 1944 comparative figures show 1,000 bombers with 900 escort fighters opposed by some 300 enemy interceptors. The GAF by this time could oppose only part of one of the US task forces. The remainder of that task force plus two other entire air divisions were often able to fly the full route without seeing a hostile fighter. By late May 1944, the war in the air against the GAF was won. The exploitation of air superiority was now possible.

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Fig No 4 Size of opposing forces on selected strategic missions m. June 1944. On 6 Tune the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. The final phase of air preparation had started on 17 April with the bombing of enemy airfields over a wide area to rid the battle zone of enemy aircraft. By the day of the assault, the GAF had been forced to deploy to airfields beyond the cleared zone. The constant bombing had caused GAF tactical units to disperse aircraft in woods and hiding places well away from airfields. Such withdrawals required considerable distances of flight to reach the scene of action, and the widespread dispersal at individual airfields cost much in time and labor to reach a state of "readiness." Both of these factors reduced enemy air efficiency. Enemy capacity, expressed in numbers of sorties flown, was greatly reduced. The Allied air tactics during the landing and the consolidation of the beachhead were to fly continuous patrols by fighters of the Strategic Air Force along the perimeter of the area cleared of enemy fighters. The patrols could watch occupied airfields just beyond this area, attacking at any sign of an attempt to bring aircraft out of dispersals. Within these protective patrols the tactical air forces ranged, watching for any enemy fighters which might elude the outer patrols. These tactics were highly effective. Regarding the invasion, General Fieldmarschal Hugo Sperrle11 spoke as follows: "At the time of the invasion, fewer than 500 operational planes were available to meet it; Allied attacks against airfields in the few days preceding D-Day made the use of these planes for the most part Impossible; as a result, we could offer no resistance" . From D-Day to the end of the war, the OAF never constituted more than o. July 1944. The GAF, already no match for the escort fighters of the Eighth AT, now found itself split between strategic defense and tactical requirements. To the overpowering force of Allied strategic escort was added an even larger fores of Allied tactical fighters. Where there had been a sharp inHugo Sperrle (7 February 1885 – 2 April 1953) was a German field marshal of the Luftwaffe during World War II. His forces were deployed solely on the Western Front and the Mediterranean throughout the war. By 1944 he had become Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe in the West, but was subsequently dismissed when his heavily outnumbered forces were not able to significantly hamper the Allied landings in Western Europe. Born in Ludwigsburg, he joined the German Army in 1903 and was commissioned as Leutnant, later promoted to Oberleutnant. After the outbreak of World War I, he transferred to the Luftstreitkräfte (German Army Air Service), serving as an observer in a two-seater aircraft. During the war he rose through the ranks and at its conclusion was commander of the air components of the German 7th Army. Sperrle joined the Freikorps at the end of the war after the disbanding of the Air Service, before rejoining the Reichswehr. Since Germany was not allowed to create aerial units, he served in logistics and army command positions. After the Nazis took over, a new air force, the Luftwaffe, was established. He entered the newly formed Luftwaffe in 1935 where he was soon promoted to a generalmajor (US equiv. brigadier general). He then was the first commander of the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War until October 1937, with Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen serving as his chief of staff. Afterwards he was promoted to General der Flieger (US equiv. Lieutenant general) 11

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crease in enemy fighter losses in the first half of the year, the loss rate now became catastrophic. With oil production In Germany under attack, the problem of the GAF was critical. In a desperate attempt to throw into the air a maximum defensive force, schools were closed and instructors used as fighter pilots.

Short courses were given to convert bomber and transport pilots into fighters. Whole Allied missions would be unopposed in the enemy's attempts to gather strength. The enemy situation is confirmed in an interview with Lieutenant General Karl Koller, Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe, who stated that In addition to the lack of suitable fighter aircraft, the Luftwaffe was handicapped by lack of petroleum and of well-trained pilots. When General Seller became Chief of the Air Staff in 1943 he found that the total aviation gasoline alloted to pilot training was 10.000 tone a month. By February 1944, he had increased this allotment to 50.000 tons. Thereafter, the progressive difficulties in production caused by air attack made it necessary to curtail training and finally to cease training altogether.

6. US Fighter Control with MEW. A development of importance to American fighter tactics was fighter control by radar. A method of controlling fighters had long been in use whereby friendly fighters could be placed in an advantageous position to attack enemy fighters by directions radioed from ground controllers. The ground control station used radar devices (called Vertical Elevation Beam and Plan Position Indicator) which permitted the controllers to see, upon a fluorescent map, the location of both the friendly and the enemy fighters, and to know the relative altitude of each. Knowing the Position of the sun with reference to the fighters shown on the fluorescent map, the individual controller was able to direct the fighter squadron or group under his control into an advantageous position to attack the enemy fighters.

The surprise and advantage of position thus gained resulted In victories of importance for Allied fighters.

7. The British developed this method of fighter control and had carried it to a considerable degree of perfection before the US forces took it up, but the disadvantage of the British system was its limited range. The American contribution was in the form of new devices of considerably extended range and greater accuracy. This equipment was used with a form of control called the Micro-Wave Early Warning System (MEW), integrating into the system information of enemy operations gained by "Y" service (radio interception of enemy controllers' orders to their fighters and enemy inter-aircraft radio conversations). MEW control provided US fighters with knowledge of the exact location of enemy fighters which was of great tactical significance.

8. GAF Fighter Tactics. Prior to the spring of 1944, the GAF had committed its fighters to intercept when and where they could. In 1942, interceptions were made by individual alrcraft, apparently attacking and leaving the fight at will. Early in 1943, head-on attacks were pressed to take advantage of the weakness of firepower in the nose of US bombers. As this armament deficiency was corrected, enemy fighters reverted to attacks from all angles and all levels, continuing, however, to piecemeal their attacks.

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9. During the late winter and spring of 1943, experiments wars made with multiple attacks, from two to 20 single-engine fighters in line astern attacking the bomber formations. Twin-engine night fighters joined the day fighters, attempting to bring their heavier fire power to bear on the bomber formations. Air to air bombing was tried, as well as high-angle, large calibre cannon.

10. By the summer of 1943, twin-engine fighters were equipped with multiple rocket projectors of large calibre, firing time-fuzed rockets. Some singleengine fighters carried similar armament. The rocket-firing twins were found to be highly lethal to bombers when their rockets were fired in salvo from a formation position astern of the bomber formation (Figure 16). All these attacks were planned for execution beyond Allied escort range since these aircraft were no match for our fighters. Their success In the fall of 1943 then appeared to be the answer to Allied bomber formations. On the vital penetrations to targets deep In Germany, US superiority in the air In daylight was put in serious doubt.

Fig No 5 One USAAF four-engined bomber versus one Me-110 with 21cm.

RP's 11. The arrival of the Allied long-range escort was in turn the answer to the rocket firing fighters whose positioning for attack astern left them highly vulnerable. Confused by our new fighter capability and the costly losses of twin-engine rocket planes, the High Command returned to single-engine fighter attacks, ordering a concentration on the bombers, combat with Allied fighters to be avoided if possible. This meant the GAF fighter was on 135/177

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the defensive with respect to Allied fighters. The order was a blunder of the first magnitude.

12. Oberst Kogler, commanding officer of Fighter Wing 6 at the time of hi capture in the summer of 1944, stated: "Orders were given to leave Allied fighters alone and concentrate on the bombers. This command led to a vicious spiral of disaster. The GAF concentrated on bombers and were shot down by Allied figthers.

The (US) fighters learned that they were safe against attack and became bolder and more effective. The GAF headed for bomber formations which supposedly were not escorted, but you ran into fighters anyway and in the end they were all over the place. The GAF developed an inferiority complex which got worse each day but the High Command would not relax the order."

13. In February and March 1944, squadrons of ten aircraft and groups of 30 were committed as units, attacks being made along most of the bomber route, both penetrations and withdrawals. In the spring of 1944, for the first time, the GAF attempted to concentrate its fighter force into larger formations to obtain local superiority over the US force at a selected point of attack. Some enemy units were highly skillful in the execution of massed wave attacks. But their value largely was against bombers while not under escort and such bomber formations rarely were a major part of the total US forces.

Enemy units, on the whole, were too unskilled to accomplish the mass attack. Their formations were haphazard and easily turned. The new tactics did not succeed.

14. Enemy tactics with rocket and Jet propelled aircraft were not fully developed. The rocket plane appeared briefly and was discarded after futile and disastrous commitment. However, the jet Me-262, armed with four 30-mm cannon and much faster than orthodox fighters, had real possibilities. Its maximum speed of 550 mph at 30.000 feet altitude was about 100 mph faster than the P-51. The heavy armament was deadly to bombers and the speed made evasion of fighters fairly easy. But by the winter of 1944-1945, when the Jet began to be seen in small numbers, US fighters swarmed the air. The jets accounted for a few bomber kills, but their losses were at least in proportion to their kills. It is still not clear why more jet fighters were not used against the US air forces. Mr Seiler, Chairman of the board of the Messerschmitt Company could never understand why the Me-262 was not used to a greater extent by the Luftwaffe. Late in 1944, at a time when the company had delivered over 650 machines, the Luftwaffe had only 40 operational in combat. He thought that perhaps 250 were non-operational for lack of proper servicing and that failure to provide an adequate pilot training program might be a contributing cause. Nevertheless, he could not understand the discrepancy between production figures and Luftwaffe strength.

When Saur demanded that there was no sense in such a demand at a time when the workers were asking, "Where are our machines?".

15. Statistical Comparisons. Combat statistics and comparisons, serve to clarify the trends leading to Allied victory in the air war. Figure 17 entitled "Ef136/177

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fectiveness of Enemy Fighters" shows the Increasing lethal capability of the individual enemy fighter. The increase in its fire power from 1942 into 1944 is reflected in the number of bombers lost to enemy aircraft which rose from 2.3 bombers destroyed in each 100 combats with enemy aircraft in 1942, to 17.7 bombers destroyed in each 100 combats with the enemy in mid-1944. This greatly increased fire power had been much more than offset, however, by the tremendous growth of the US force, both in bombers and fighters. For, where 18.2 per cent of US bombers attacking were struck by enemy aircraft fire in mid-1943, only 6.4 per cent were hit in the last quarter of 1943 and the number hit fell below one per cent in the middle of 1944. This chart indicates that the GAF had ceased to be effective against the heavy bombers well before D-Day on 6 June 1944.

Fig No 6 Effectiveness of enemy fighters 16. Another view of the relative effectiveness of the GAF and the AAF is shown by the chart entitled "Loss Rates" (Figure 18). Here are shown yearly average monthly loss rates as a percent of the effective strength of OAF single-engine fighters, Eighth AF combers, and Eighth AF fighters. It will be note that the percentage loss for the bombers rose more rapidly from 1942 to 1943 than did the loss rate for enemy fighters In the same period. This was due to two factors: penetrations were being made by the bombers in that period well beyond the range of their escort; and the rapidly Increasing armament of enemy fighters, particularly the rocket projectors. But the situation reversed with the advent of US long-range escort. Enemy fighter los137/177

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ses increased on a rapidly rising scale, while US bomber losses subsided with equal rapidity. This, was not accomplished without cost to the US forces, whose fighter losses rose sharply from 1943 to early 1944. This increase was inherent in the changed employment from short-range escort in 1943 to the long-range escort in 1944, when the fighters roamed over Germany.

Fig No 7 Loss rates That these fighter losses paid dividends is corroborated by Reichsmarshall 138/177

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Goering, who said: "I most firmly believe that the reason for the failure of the Luftwaffe against the Allied air forces was the success of the American Air Force in putting out a long-range escort fighter airplane, which enabled the bombers to penetrate deep into the Reich territory and still have a constant and strong fighter cover.

Without this escort, the air offensive would never have succeeded. Nobody thought such long-range fighter escort was possible."

17. The relationship of the quality of the opposing fighter forces as evidenced by their training is brought out in Figures 14 and 15. Figure 19 is a comparison of total training hours of the fighter pilots of the three air forces, the GAF, RAF and AAF. It will be seen that GAF pilots received progressively less training throughout the war 1944 total training hours being roughly half the number given prior to mid-1942. New AAF pilots, on the other hand, received more and more training as the war progressed, the number of hours in 1944 being roughly four times the number of training hours given the German cadet. The RAF pilot received more hours of training than the German in all years after 1942.

18. A comparison of training hours on operational types of aircraft is even more significant (Figure 20).German training of this type dropped to about 40 per cent of the early figure, while US training doubled. A comparison in 1944 shows an average of some 165 hours on combat types for Americans but only 30 odd hours for German.

19. Figure 10 compares the fire power of GAF and AAF fighter-type aircraft.

Fire power, as shown here in, is a combination of the number of guns, their calibre, the destructive effect of a hit and the rate of fire. It will be seen that the Me-109 approximated the range of fire power of the American P-47s and P-51s. The Focke-Wulf 190, however, was armed for two different purposes: some of them were very heavily armed for the purpose of destroying bombers, the weight of guns and ammunition being too great a handicap to permit their use in dog fights; others, however, were armed so as to be Just a little more destructive than the heaviest US fighter fire power. So the high-performance Me-109 was intended and used as top cover for the FW-190, which was to destroy the bombers (Figures 11, 12, and 13). The armament of enemy fighters undoubtedly was adequate for their intended purposes.

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Fig No 8 Comparison of total training hours GAF RAF and AAF

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Fig No 9 Comparison of flying training hours in operational type aicraft

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Fig No 10 Comparison of firepower - GAF vs. USAAF fighters

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Fig No 11 One Fortress versus one FW190 - 1945

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Fig No 12 Relative destruction potentials of single hits by GAF guns against allied bombers

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Fig No 13 Principal German fighters and armanent 20. The net result of enemy training, armament, size of force and tactics, when, applied to the battle against the superior pilots of the rapidly growing OS Eighth AF can be seen in Figures 14 and 15 which show the trends in numbers of enemy aircraft intercepting Eighth AF missions, numbers of bombers destroyed by enemy aircraft, and the per cent of Eighth AF bombers destroyed by enemy aircraft. The number of enemy aircraft intercepting (Figure 15) rose sharply until the end of 1943, reached a peak In the first half of 1944, and dwindled slowly thereafter. The number of bombers destroyed by these enemy forces rose more rapidly than did the number of enemy aircraft intercepting until the last quarter of 1943.

This was the result of heavily increased armament of enemy fighters being brought to bear upon bombers beyond the range of their escort. With the advent of American long-range fighters in the last quarter of 1943, the rise in number of enemy aircraft intercepting did not produce an equivalent rise in the number of Allied bombers destroyed. The few long-range escort fighters employed were paying high dividends In breaking the attacks of the enemy fighters. While the force of US long-range fighters was growing rapidly in 1944, the number of bombers destroyed by enemy aircraft rapidly declined; in fact, much more rapidly than the decline in the number of enemy aircraft attacking. By the end of 1944, the number of bombers destroyed had dropped to one-third of the peak figure.

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Fig No 14 Trends in the strategic air war on the Western front 21. But numbers tell only half the story. During the last quarter of 1943 and thereafter, through March of 1944, the number of US bombers expanded very greatly. Bombers lost to enemy aircraft as a percentage of the bomber force attacking, fell sharply as the bomber force grew. The GAF, on the other hand, unable to expand materially its fighter force, suffered losses more than twice the total of 1943 and In much greater percentage of strength in front line units (Figure 16). Stated otherwise, the growth in the size of the bomber force was 80 much greater than the growth in the enemy fighter force that German fighter defenses were saturated with attacking bombers. There were far too many bombers exposed as targets to the enemy fighters for the GA? to maintain its proportionate attack. And when long-range escort fighters greatly diminished bomber exposure, GAF fighter efficiency dropped to a minimum.

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Fig No 15 Trends of size of opposing forces on selected strategic missions The Delay in the growth of the German Air fighter force 1. Through the early years of the war, 1940 until mid-1942, the GAF underwent very little expansion. The easy victories in Poland and France had convinced the High Command that the OAF was adequate for any task. Production priorities for the GAF fell behind tanks and U-boats, lieutenant General

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Werner Kreipe 12 of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht and Director of the Luftkriegs Akadamie confirms this in stating that from 1941 on aircraft had a lower production priority than tanks and U-boats because Goering had relatively little influence on Hitler in this natter and, in any event, Goering, along with most of the General Staff, had been carried away by the ease of victory in France, Poland, and the Balkans. General Kreipe stated he could never understand why it was that the General Staff of the Wehrmacht never gave due credit for the contribution made by air power to early German victories.

2. Not until strategic day bombing by the Eighth AT appeared as a real threat did the OAF begin to show increases in operational strength. In 1943 single-engine fighter defenses on the Western Front were built to nearly double their size at the beginning of the year (Figure 17). This 40 per cent jump in strength on the Western Front was not the result of an overall rise in GAF fighter strength, for the total fighter force on all fronts rose less than 20 per cent.

The rise on the Western Front was accomplished by withdrawing same 180 single-engine fighters from the Eastern Front during the year and an additional 120 from the Mediterranean. The total rise in strength on the Western Front during 1943 was of the order of some 380 single-engine fighters. Hence, nearly 80 per cent of this total rise In the west came about through robbing the Eastern and Mediterranean Fronts of fighter aircraft.

Werner Kreipe (12 April 1904 – 7 September 1967) was a German World War II Luftwaffe General der Flieger. Kreipe joined the Luftwaffe in 1934. Kreipe held various staff positions until the winter 1939/40, when he was selected or applied for a field role. He joined Kampfgeschwader 2 (Bomber Wing 2) and commanded its III. Gruppe during the Battle of France and the Battle of Belgium. In June 1940 he returned to various staff positions. In December 1941 his promoted as Chief of Staff, 1st Air Corps (I. Fliegerkorps). In August 1942 he was promoted as the Luftwaffe's General Chief of Staff. In July 1943 he was appointed General der Flieger (General of Flying).

Dissatisfied with Hermann Göring's leadership of the Luftwaffe, Adolf Hitler wanted to replace him with Robert Ritter von Greim. Unable to convince Greim to accept the role, Hitler forced Göring to sack Kreipe, and provisionally replace him on September 19, 1944 with the stolid Karl Koller, who was officially assigned the position on November 12. However, Koller was unable to reform the Luftwaffe, which had been mismanaged by Göring and had lost air superiority over the skies of Europe. In January 1945, he organised the logistical effort and preparation for the Luftwaffe's last major offensive, Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate) on 1 January 1945. Kreipe continued in staff positions until surrendering to the Western Allies in May 1945.

12

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Fig No 16 Strength and losses. German S/E fighter A/C in first-line units 3. This redeployment constitutes a remarkable paradox in that the German High Command, long believer in ground cooperation as the correct use of air power, ware robbing their two ground fronts of aircraft for defense against air invasion from the west. In the east, the German Sixth Army had been trapped west of Stalingrad and surrendered in February 1943; the Wehrmacht had been forced out of the Caucasus when Virtually within sight of the oil regions which had been its goal; in July, a do-or-die offensive was launched by .the Germans toward Kursk and Orel, resulting in defeat and terrible losses; during the last half of 1943, the Wehrmacht was in full retreat across Russia.

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Fig No 17 Battle order rates of drowth. GAF day fighters vs USAAF heavy bombers and fighters

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Fig 18 Strength of S/E fighters in combat units 5. The increased GAF deployment on the Western Front was accompanied by a strenuous effort to increase fighter production. The OAF planners, led

by Field Marshal Milch, obtained approval late in 1943 of emergency plans for rapid expansion of the fighter force. The GAF studies and industry programs approved in August and October of 1943 sat a goal for production of 3,800 aircraft per month by September 1944. This-figure takes on significance when compared "with acceptances of 853 singleengine fighters in September 1943.

6. The tremendous German effort for expansion of fighter production received particular impetus from the attacks launched by the Allied strategic air forces in the last half of 1943. At that time the airman single-engine fighter aircraft industry depended almost entirely on all huge plants for final assembly. Me-109s were assambled at Wlener-Neustadt, Regensburg and Leipzig; FW-1O9s at Oschersleben, Marienburg and Tutow. These aircraft assembly plants received hlgh bombing priority (ultlmately top priority) and a mounting weight of bombs (Figure 21).

Fig No 19 Bomb tonnages on aircraft industry The attacks in 1943 were successful, judging by the reported production or single-engine fighter aircraft in the last six months of that year. The Speer Ministry figures show acceptances as follows: July 1943 1050 August 1943

914 151/177

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September 1943

853

October 1943

966

November 1943

770

December 1943 360 However, these attacks forced the enemy to disperse his production facilities into many new plants above and below ground. Highest priorities In labor and materials and close government-industry cooperation made this possible. Thus by 1944 the Allied bombers had a more difficult target system and, later in the year, could not reach all German fighter production facilities. The reported figures for S/E fighter acceptances by the GAF in 1944 show continued increases in each month from February to a peak in September.

Production figures would show a different picture from acceptances month to month; but the trend is unmistakable. The German economy had gone all out to produce fighter aircraft and not without some success. In the face of increasing attacks, a force of over 300 000 laborers was assigned to repair and restore damaged plants. The recoveries were remarkable.

January 1944 1316 February 1944

1016

March 1944

1377

April 1944

1696

May 1944

1907

June 1944

2177

July 1944

2177

August 1944

2779

September 1944

3031

October 1944

2735

November 1944

2776

December 1944 2424 7. The reported production, however, did not satisfy GAF requirements and the programs of the aircraft industry were not met in any month. Toe Allied attacks were effecting damage which, though hastily repaired, caused the industry to fall short of GAF requirements. Delay In reaching the necessary level of production, at a time when delay meant inadequacy of force, was fatal.

Aircraft required to maintain a rate of growth for the GAF commensurate with the Allied rate were needed in the beginning of 1944, not at the end of the year. Actually, Allied strength was outdistancing the GAF in the late months of 1943.

The Chart (Figure 15) indicates the inability of the GAF to match forces with 152/177

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the Eighth AF alone. When faced as well with the 1,300 bombers and 400 fighters of the Fifteenth AF operating from Italy, the numerical Inferiority of GAF fighters became even more apparent.

8. Comparison of the production plan approved on 1 October 1943 with the actual acceptances achieved in 1944 reveals that fighter aircraft acceptances in 1944 fell short of plans by some 13,000 aircraft. This plan of 1 October 1943 was stated by Field Marshal Milch to meet the requirements for GAF fighter strength in 1944. Comparison of acceptances with this plan is the more appropriate for this reason.

9. The importance attached to fighter production is attested by the fact that in February 1944 Speer prevailed upon Hitler to reassign the responsibility for fighter production from the Air Ministry (Goering; to the Ministry for War Production (Speer). The Air Ministry was consulted only for a statement of GAF requirements. These were contained in "studies" which appeared in increasing numbers after August 1943. Such succeeding study recognized that production had not risen" expected and called for more rapidly increasing production in the future months. These studies, when approved by the industry and the Speer Ministry, became industrial programs. The new studies and programs make it possible to check the delays suffered in obtaining desired production. When a new study was approved in December calling for production that was expected in September on the previous plan, a three months' delay in planned production was acknowledged.

10. Figure 22 illustrates the principle involved. Assume that a plan of production shows a certain increase in production rates from one month to the next, rising from 500 per month at the start to 1,000 per month half a year later. Now, if another plan is made at the end of the half-year, also starting at the rate of 500 per month, it is apparent that the "expectation" of the planners has been disappointed and that the increase to 1,000 aircraft per month in rate of production expected has not been achieved. This would constitute a six months* delay In "expectation" for increased production.

11. Tne "expectation" at the beginning of a plan should be closely approximate to the facts of production. Wherever actual production falls below the rate of production called for at the beginning of a plan, it is apparent that the industry has suffered a delay which is in the nature of a catastrophe to the planners. For, if a rate of production for next month cannot be calculated With any accuracy, what good is a plan of production for next year?

12. On the chart (Figure 22) horizontal lines are drawn from the production curve of one plan to the starting point of the following plan. These lines show the time lost between plans; the new plan is starting at a rate which should have been reached some time before, as shown on the earlier plan.

Going from the starting point of a new plan vertically upward to the previous plan shows the difference between the present expected rate of production and what had been expected for the same data when the earlier plan was made. The chart brings out four major set-backs in "expectation."

13. So far the emphasis has been on plans. On the same chart, crosses are placed to Indicate officially reported rates of actual acceptance of aircraft. It 153/177

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will be noted that these crosses fall below the curves showing planned rates of production all through 1944, generally from two to three months behind the plan. Turning to Figure 19, it is seen on the chart of bomb tonnages dropped on aircraft and component parts factories that the periods of heavy bombing coincide with the periods when production dropped below plans.

Fig No 20 Planned monthly production of German fighter aircraft 14. There can be no exact assessment of the number of fighter planes "lost" to the GAF as a result of Allied attacks on production. Neither can we assess accurately the disposition of the fighter aircraft which. the Speer Ministry reported to Hitler as newly accepted aircraft. The claimed production of some 36.000 single-engine fighter aircraft in the year 1944 greatly exceeds the number of aircraft which can be accounted for in Luftwaffe units and by records of losses.

15. Hitler was known to demand miracles from his subordinates. Many were replaced if they did not live up to his demands. Under these circumstances, it is not entirely impossible that Ministers Speer and Saur, controlling aircraft production, "rigged" their accounting to make a satisfactory showing.

Dr Wagenfuehr, Speer's statistical chief, referred to the "mystery" of these great numbers of aircraft claimed produced but not appearing in the battle line.

16. The mystery of "where were all the aircraft going which were claimed to be produced?" requires examination. Obviously, if 3.000 fighter aircraft are produced in a month and aircraft destroyed in that month are only 1.000 the 2.000 excess of production over losses should appear in the battle order 154/177

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of the GAF, less a few for training schools, second-line units, etc. Turning to Figure 21, it will be noted that the GAF fighter battle order on all fronts increased in 1944 only from 1.500 to some 2.200, while 3/E fighter "production" exceeded losses in first line units in the same period by more than 16,000. At the same time, fighter school commanders were complaining that there was a serious shortage of operational types of aircraft on which to train. Oberst Littman, commanding offlcer of Straubing Airport flying school, stated that he was told lies about the number of aircraft in the Luftwaffe. His training school had bean short of gasoline and operational type aircraft since the summer of 1943. Flying school commanders had periodical conferences, and he thereby knew that this condition prevailed throughout the training command.

Fig No 21 GAF comparison of battle order changes in S/E fighters with production and losses in 1st line units 17. Even if all fighters damaged more than 10 per cent are added to lost aircraft, more than 8,000 fighter aircraft remain to be accounted for. This means that, if all aircraft receiving anything more than superficial damage were scrapped, there would still be over 8,000 which disappeared.

18. The conclusion - or perhaps "suspicion" is the better word - is that nowhere near so many aircraft were produced. A clue to the mystery may be found in the reports of interrogation of Dr Wagenfuehr where he states, speaking of 1944 (February, March): "this great increase of fighter production was partially made possible by the fact that Saur made use of all the available stocks in the supply and component industries. This boosting of 155/177

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production was not made on a sound foundation; it was single 'shock-production.' " Later, in the same report, he states: "Further sources of error are to be found In the way aircraft under repair were accounted for. There were three possibilities of repair which had to be considered: "a. Repair with the troops (not counted in the statistics). "b. Repair requiring up to 1,000 man-hours, which went to the repair shops.

At first, these repairs were counted as stocks. After the crucial period In i.943, they were no longer considered In the statistics. "c. The normal case: 'Extensive repairs,' which meant that the planes went back to the manufacturers and were counted both as losses and, later, (when they cams back) as new production."

19. Unquestionably there exists, in German aircraft statistics a discrepancy between claimed new production when compared to losses and the strength in units of the GAF. Production of all operational types of aircraft in 1944 was claimed at some 39,000 (Figure 22). Strength in units at the end of 1944 was virtually unchanged from the beginning of the year. With aircraft written off in 1944 totaling 21.946, there remains unaccounted for a difference of some 17.000 planes; ie, the excess of claimed production over aircraft written off. It is unreasonable to believe that 17.000 planes were destroyed outside of units.

A possible partial answer is furnished in the statistics which show 5.689 more aircraft going into repair than were returned for allocation to units. Part of these may well have been repaired, marked as "new production" aircraft and entered in the accounting system as such. In addition, the statistics show that 25 to 30 per cent of the so-called new production aircraft was allocated to "sundry and modification" instead of to GAF units. The records snow the assignment of a negligible number of aircraft from modification to GAF units. There is a strong supposition that aircraft came out of modification again marked as new production .

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Fig No 22 German aircraft production Destruction of the sources of the enemy aircraft fuel production 1. In May 1944 the Allied air forces reached a new high level in operational bombardment sorties. Those missions which were not required In direct preparation for the ground invasion were aimed primarily at installations producing oil and aviation gasoline. From England the Eighth AF by day, and, subsequently, the RAF by night carried heavy destruction to these facilities against the strongest flak and smoke defenses ever mounted by the GAF. The Fifteenth AF from Italy delivered simultaneous blows against oil and gasoline production in southern Germany, Silesia, Austria and Roumania. Results were devastating. The Germans worked feverishly to restore damaged plants, but their efforts were frustrated by return missions timed to prevent a major resumption of production.

2. Raids against oil and gasoline production were continued through the fall and -winter of 1944 with outstanding success (See the Oil Industry Report of the USSBS). German oil reserves were rapidly consumed and by the year's end the situation was desperate. Figure 23, showing production and imports of aviation gasoline, consumption and the decline of reserves, brings this out vividly. As early as June 1944, Production Minister Speer indicated to Hitler hi8 grave concern over thÂŤ attacks on oil and gasoline production. He recognized that destruction of fuel production would lead to defeat for the German war machine and recommended an all-out effort to ward off these attacks. Lieutenant General Karl Kollar, Chief of Staff of the 157/177

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Luftwaffe, gave the following facts relative to oil: "Oil was an excellent target system. The Luftwaffe was using 198.000 tons of aviation gasoline per month in the sunnier of 1943 and later plans called for an increase in this production to 320,000 tons per month... By the spring of 1945, as a result of air attack the Luftwaffe only obtained 6.000 tons per month".

3. From the start of the attacks against fuel production In May 1944, German output declined. The diminishing supply of aviation gasoline resulted at once in serious operational limitations. Training hours, already drastically limited because of fuel shortages, were cut to the bone. Instructors and transport and bomber pilots were given short conversion courses in a lastditch effort to increase the fighter defenses against the Allied air armada .

Pressure was brought to conserve fuel even on operational flights. Motor transport, essential for GAF repair and supply was reduced nearly to the vanishing point. Thus the attack on oil, made possible through the attainment of air supremacy, was a prime factor in assuring the permanence of that superiority. The GAF, which had once threatened the ability of the RAF to continue night bombing attacks, was so completely demoralized that the early months of 1945 saw the RAF carrying out daylight bombing operations in great force with a minimum loss.

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Fig No 23 German aviation gasoline situation Disruption of the GAF supply and repair systems caused by attacks on german transportation 1. In September of 1944, the strategic air forces shifted primary attention to transportation targets. Here again the RAF and Eighth and Fifteenth AFs combined to deliver a huge tonnage of bombs. The results are well known.

Most German experts attribute the final German downfall to the hopeless eoonomic confusion caused by disruption of the transportation system.

Wehrmacht officers as well have testified to the difficulties Imposed on operations as a result of these attacks.

2. The GAF repair system Involved the return of seriously damaged aircraft to the factory which manufactured that type. Rail transportation was largely used to move such aircraft from airdrome to factory.

The factories, under the intensive dispersal program, had been scattered over different sections of German territory and consequently were dependent on the railways for delivery of vital components and parts. So also for local repairs and maintenance the GAF depended on rail transport for spare parts and supplies of all sorts, Including gasoline and ammunition. The heavy attacks on marshaling yards not only delayed train movements f6r considerable periods of time but often resulted in destruction of oars carrying GAF freight. At a time when the GAF was suffering severe losses and damage in the air war, speedy repairs to damaged aircraft were essential.

Delays in the repair cycle meant that units depended almost entirely on new production for replacements. It is significant that "new production" which was presumably increased nearly threefold in 1944 did not provide the GAF with sufficient fighter aircraft to augment its order of battle and that at no time in 1944 was the GAF able to compete numerically with the Allied air forces. It is clear that the attacks on transportation contributed in no small measure to the dilemma confronting the GAF. 3. In summary, then, the attacks on oil and transportation launched in mass after air supremacy had been obtained were two vital factors preventing the revival and resurgence of the GAF. The Luftwaffe, whose task it was to ward off attacks on oil and transportation, suffered its death blow in failing to accomplish that task.

Editor Note This report was written primarily for the use of the US Strategic Bombing Survey in the preparation of further reports of a more comprehensive nature. Any conclusions or opinions expressed in this report must be considered as limited to the specific material covered and as subject to further interpretation in the light of further studies conducted by the Survey.

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was established by the Secretary of War on 3 November 1944, pursuant to a directive from the late President Roosevelt.

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Franklin D'Olier, Chairman, Henry C. Alexander, Vice-Chairman., George W. Ball,, Harry 1. Bowman,, John K. Galbraith,, Rensis Likert, Prank A. McNamee, Jr., Paul H. Nitze, Eobert P. Russell, Fred Searls, Jr., Theodore P. Wright, Directors., Charles C. Cabot, Secretary.

The Table of Organization provided for 300 civilians, 350 officers and 500 enlisted men. The Survey operated from headquarters in London and established forward headquarters and regional headquarters in Germany immediately following the advance of the Allied armies.

It made a close examination and inspection of several hundred German plants, cities and areas, amassed volumes of statistical and documentary material, including top German government documents; and conducted interviews and interrogations of thousands of Germans, including virtually all of the surviving political and military leaders. Germany was scoured for its war records which were found sometimes, but rarely, in places where they ought to have been; sometimes in safe-deposit vaults, often in private houses, in barns, in caves; on one occasion, in a hen house and, on two occasions, in coffins.

Targets in Russian-held territory were not available to the Survey.

Some two hundred detailed reports were made. During the course of its work, the Survey rendered interim reports and submitted studies and suggestions in connection with the air operations against Japan.

While the European War was going on, it was necessary, in many cases, to follow closely behind the front; otherwise, vital records might have been irretrievably lost. Survey personnel suffered several casualties, including four killed.

The Survey studied the effects of the air attack on Japan and further reports have been submitted to the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy.

Junkers Jumo 004 The Junkers Jumo 004 was the world's first turbojet engine in production and operational use, and the first successful axial compressor jet engine ever built. Some 8,000 units were manufactured by Junkers in Germany during late World War II, powering the operational Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter jet and the Arado Ar 234 reconnaissance / bomber jet, along with prototypes including the Horten Ho 229 aircraft. Variants of the engine were produced in Eastern Europe for years following the war.

Design and development The feasibility of jet propulsion had been demonstrated in Germany in early 1937 by Hans von Ohain working with the Heinkel company. Most of the Reich Air Ministry (RLM) remained uninterested, but Helmut Schelp and Hans Mauch saw the potential of the concept and encouraged Germany's aero engine manufacturers to begin their own programmes of jet engine development. The companies remained skeptical and little new development was carried out.

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In 1939 Schelp and Mauch visited the companies to check up on progress.

Otto Mader, head of Junkers Motoren (Jumo), stated that even if the concept was useful, he had no one to work on it. Schelp responded by stating that Dr Anselm Franz, then in charge of Junkers' turbo- and supercharger development, would be perfect for the job. Franz started his development team later that year, and the project was given the RLM designation 109004 (the 109- prefix, assigned by the RLM was common to all reaction engine projects in WW II Germany, and was also used for German WW II rocket engine designs for manned aircraft).

Franz opted for a design that was at once conservative and revolutionary.

His design differed from von Ohain's in that he utilised a new type of compressor which allowed a continuous, straight flow of air through the engine (an axial compressor), recently developed by the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA - Aerodynamic Research Institute) at GĂśttingen. The axialflow compressor not only had excellent performance, about 78% efficient in "real world" conditions, but it also had a smaller cross-section, important for high-speed aircraft.

On the other hand, he aimed to produce an engine that was far below its theoretical potential, in the interests of expediting development and simplifying production. One major decision was to opt for a simple combustion area using six "flame cans", instead of the more efficient single annular can.

For the same reasons, he collaborated heavily on the development of the engine's turbine with Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG - General Electric Company) in Berlin, and instead of building development engines, opted to begin work immediately on the prototype of an engine that could be put straight into production. Franz's conservative approach came under question from the RLM, but was vindicated when even given the developmental problems that it was to face, the 004 entered production and service well ahead of its more technologically advanced competitor, the BMW 003.

13

Cutaway example of a Junkers Jumo 004 jet engine at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.

13

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Technical description and testing The first prototype 004A, which was constructed to run on diesel fuel, was first tested in October 1940, though without an exhaust nozzle. It was benchtested at the end of January 1941 to a top thrust of 430 kgf (4,200 N; 950 lbf), and work continued to increase the output, the RLM contract having set a minimum of 600 kgf (5,900 N; 1,300 lbf) thrust.

Vibration problems with the compressor blades delayed the program at this point, until a new stator design by Max Bentele solved the problem. The original alloy compressor blades were replaced with steel ones and with the new stators in place the engine developed 5.9 kN (1,300 lbf) in August, and passed a 10-hour endurance run at 9.8 kN (2,200 lbf) in December. The first flight test took place on March 15 1942, when a 004A was carried aloft by a Messerschmitt Bf 110 to run up the engine in flight.

On July 18, one of the prototype Messerschmitt Me 262s flew for the first time under jet power from its 004 engines, and the 004 was ordered into production by the RLM to the extent of 80 engines.

The initial 004A engines built to power the Me 262 prototypes had been built without restrictions on materials, and they used scarce raw materials such as nickel, cobalt, and molybdenum in quantities which were unacceptable in production. Franz realized that the Jumo 004 would have to be redesigned to incorporate a minimum of these strategic materials, and this was accomplished. All the hot metal parts, including the combustion chamber, were changed to mild steel protected by an aluminum coating, and the hollow turbine blades were produced from folded and welded Cromadur alloy (12% chromium, 18% manganese, and 70% iron) developed by Krupp, and cooled by compressed air "bled" from the compressor. The engine's operational lifespan was shortened, but on the plus side it became easier to construct.

The first production model of the 004B weighed 100 kg (220 lb) less than the 004A, and in 1943 had passed several 100 hour tests, with a time bet162/177

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ween overhauls of 50 hours being achieved.

Later in 1943 a series of engines suffered vibration problems which dragged on. Eventually, in December, blade-vibration specialist Max Bentele was once again brought in during a meeting at the RLM headquarters, and the problem was solved by raising the blades' natural frequency by increasing their taper, shortening them by 1 millimeter, and reducing the operating speed of the engine from 9,000 to 8,700 rpm.

It was not until early 1944 that full production could finally begin. These setbacks were the principal factor delaying the Luftwaffe's introduction of the Me 262 into squadron service.

Given the lower-quality steels used in the 004B, these engines typically only had a service life of some 10-25 hours, perhaps twice this in the hands of a skilled pilot. Another shortcoming of the engine, common to all early turbojets, was its sluggish throttle response. Worse, it was fairly easy to inject too much fuel into the engine by throttling up too quickly, allowing heat to build up before the cooling air could remove it. This led to softening of the turbine blades, and was a major cause for engine failures. Nevertheless, it made jet power for combat aircraft a reality for the first time.

The exhaust area of the 004 featured a variable geometry nozzle, which had a special restrictive body nicknamed the Zwiebel (German for onion, due to its shape when seen from the side) which had roughly 40 cm (16 inch) of fore-and-aft travel to vary the jet exhaust's cross-sectional area for thrust control, as the active part of a pioneering "divergent-convergent" nozzle format.

One interesting feature of the 004 was the starter system, which consisted of a Riedel 10 hp (7.5 kW) 2-stroke motorcycle engine hidden in the intake, and essentially functioned as a pioneering example of an APU for starting a jet engine. A hole in the extreme nose of the intake diverter body contained a pull-handle for the cable which "turned-over" the piston engine, which in turn spun up the turbine. Two small gasoline/oil mix tanks were fitted within the upper perimeter of the annular intake's sheet metal housing for fueling the Riedel two-stroke mechanical APU unit.

The Jumo 004 could run on three types of fuel: J-2, its standard fuel, a synthetic fuel produced from coal.

Diesel oil.

Aviation gasoline; not considered desirable due to its high rate of consumption.

Postwar production Following World War II, Jumo 004s were built in small numbers by Malešice in Czechoslovakia, designated M-04, to power the Avia S-92 which was itself a copy of the Me 262. Jumo 004 copies were also built in the Soviet Union as the RD-10, where they powered the Yakovlev Yak-15 as well as many prototype jet fighters.

In France, captured 004s powered the Sud-Ouest SO 6000 Triton and the Arsenal VG-70.

A number of more advanced versions were in development at the end of the 163/177

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war. The 004C included an afterburner for increased thrust, but was not built. The 004D improved fuel efficiency with a two-stage fuel injector, and introduced a new throttle control that avoided dumping too much fuel into the engine during throttle-ups. The 004D had passed testing and was ready to enter production in place of the 004B, when the war ended. The 004E was a 004D model with an improved exhaust area for better altitude performance.

A much more advanced model based on the same basic systems was also under development as the Jumo 012. The 012 was based on a "two-spool" system, in which two turbines, spinning at different speeds, drove two separate sections of the compressor for more efficiency. In a jet engine the compressor typically uses up about 60% of all the power generated, so any improvements can have a dramatic effect on fuel use. Plans were also underway to use the 012's basic concept in an engine outwardly identical to the 004, known as the 004H, which improved specific fuel consumption from the 004B's 1.39 kg/(daN*h) to a respectable 1.20 kg/(daN*h), a decrease of about 15%.

Variants table RLM Designation

Type

Layout

109-004B

Turbojet

109-004C

Thrust or power

Weight

Speed

8ax 6in 1tu 8.8 kN (1984 lbf)

745 kg (1642 lb)

8700 rpm

Turbojet

8ax 6in 1tu 10.0 kN (2238 lbf)

720 kg (1588 lb)

8700 rpm

109-004D

Turbojet

8ax 6in 1tu 10.3 kN (2315 lbf)

745 kg (1642 lb)

10000 rpm

109-004H

Turbojet

11ax 8in 2tu

17.7 kN (3970 lbf)

1200 kg (2646 lb)

6600 rpm

109-012

Turbojet

11ax 6in 2tu

27.3 kN (6130 lbf)

2000 kg (4410 lb)

5300 rpm

109-022

Turboprop 11ax 8in 4600 ehp 2600 kg 5000 rpm 2tu (3.4 MW) (5733 lb) Layout: ax=axial flow compressor stages, in=individual combustion chambers, tu=turbine stages.

Applications Apart from the Me 262 and Arado Ar 234, the engine was used to power the experimental Junkers Ju 287, and prototypes of the Horten Ho 229 and Heinkel He 280. There were plans to install the Jumo 004D variant in the Heinkel He 162 in its proposed A-8 version, as well as the Focke-Wulf Ta 183, Henschel Hs 132 and Blohm & Voss P.188 then under development.

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Arado Ar 234 Weapons MG 151 Cannon The MG 151 (MG 151/15) was a 15 mm aircraft-mounted autocannon produced by Waffenfabrik Mauser during World War II. It was the prototype for the 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon widely used on German Luftwaffe fighters, night fighters, fighter-bombers, bombers and ground-attack aircraft. Salvaged guns saw post-war use by other nations.

Development and wartime history (MG 151/20) The pre-war German doctrine for arming single-engine fighter aircraft mirrored that of the French. This doctrine favored a powerful autocannon mounted between the cylinder blocks of a V engine and firing through the propeller hub, known as a moteur-canon in French (from its first use with the Hispano-Suiza HS.8C engine in World War I, on the SPAD S.XII) and by the cognate Motorkanone in German by the 1930s. The weapon preferred by the French in this role was the most powerful 20mm Oerlikon of the time, namely the FFS model, but this proved too big for German engines.

Mauser was tasked to develop a gun that would fit, with a minimum sacrifice in performance. (As a stop-gap measure, the MG FF cannon was developed and put in widespread use, but its performance was lackluster.)

Production of the MG 151 in its original 15 mm calibre format began in 1940.

After combat evaluation of the 15 mm cartridge as the main armament of early Messerschmitt Bf 109F-2 fighters, the cannon was redesigned as the 20 mm MG 151/20 in 1941 to fire a 20 mm cartridge. The combat experience showed that a more powerful explosive shell was preferable to a higher projectile velocity. The MG 151/20 cartridge was created by expanding the neck of the cartridge to hold the larger explosive shell used in the MG FF cannon, and shortening the length of the cartridge case holding the longer 20 mm shell to match the overall length of the original 15 mm cartridge. These measures simplified conversion of the 15 mm to the 20 mm MG 151/20 simply by changing the barrel and making other small modifications. A disadvantage of the simplified conversion was reduction of projectile muzzle velocity from 850 metres per second (2,800 ft/s) for the 15 mm shell to 700 metres per second (2,300 ft/s) for the larger and heavier 20 mm shell. With an AP projectile the new 20mm cartridge could only penetrate around 10-12mm of armor at 300m and at 60 degrees, compared to 18mm penetration for its 15mm predecessor in the same conditions, but this was not seen as a significant limitation. The 20 mm version thus became the standard inboard cannon for the Bf 109F-4 series onwards. The 20 mm MG 151/20 offered more predictable trajectory, longer range and higher impact velocity than the 580 metres per second (1,900 ft/s) cartridge of the earlier MG FF cannon. The MG FF was retained for flexible, wing and upward firing Schräge Musik mounts to the end of the war.

The German preference for explosion rather than armor penetration was taken further with the development of the MinengeschoĂ&#x; ammunition, first in165/177

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troduced for the MG FF (in the Bf 109 E-4), and later introduced for the MG 151/20 as well. Even this improvement in explosive power turned out to be unsatisfactory against the four-engine bombers that German fighters were up against in the second part of the war. By German calculations, it took about 15-20 hits with the MG 151/20 ordnance to down a heavy bomber, but this was reduced to just 3-4 hits for a 30 mm shell, from the shattering effects of the hexogen explosive in the shells used for both the long-barreled MK 103 and shorter barreled MK 108 cannon. (Only 4-5 hits with 20 mm calibre ordnance were needed for frontal attacks, even on B-17s, but such attacks were difficult to pull off.) The 30 mm MK 108 cannon thus replaced the MG 151/20 as the standard, engine-mount Motorkanone center-line armament starting with the Bf 109 K-4, and was also retrofitted to some of the G-series.

Eight hundred MG 151/20 exported to Japan aboard the Italian submarine Cappellini in August 1943 were used to equip 388 Japanese Ki-61-I Hei fighters. The 20 mm MG 151/20 was also fitted on the Macchi C.205, the Fiat G.55 and Reggiane Re.2005 of the Regia Aeronautica and IAR 81C of the Romanian Royal Air Force.

The original 15 mm cartridge is similar to a 14.5mm round developed in World War 2 for the Soviet PTRD and PTRS antitank rifles and used in postwar heavy machine guns.

Postwar Use After WWII, numbers of ex-Luftwaffe MG 151/20 cannon were removed from inventory and from scrapped aircraft and used by various nations in their own aircraft. The French Air Force and French Army aviation arm (ALAT) utilized MG 151/20 cannon as both fixed and flexible armament in various aircraft, including helicopters. The FAF and ALAT jointly developed a rubber-insulated flexible mount for the MG 151/20 for use as a door gun, which was later used in combat in Algeria aboard several FAF/ALAT H-21C assault transport helicopters and on HSS-1 Pirate gunship helicopters.

French Matra MG 151 20mm cannons were used by Portugal and Rhodesia fitted to their Alouette III helicopters, while Denel designed its own variant for the South African Air Force.

Recent developments of 14.5mm High Explosive Incendiary rounds may be regarded as a revival of the 15mm cannon concept.

MG 151 specifications Type: single-barrel automatic cannon Caliber: 15 mm x 96 Operation: Recoil-operated; short recoil Length: 1916 mm Barrel length: 1254 mm Rifling: 8 grooves, right hand twist, 1 turn in 16" Weight (complete): 38.1 kg (84 lb) Rate of fire: 740 rpm 166/177

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Effective range: 1000 m Muzzle velocity: 850 m/s (AP-T); 960 m/s (HE-T, HEI-T); 1030 m/s AP(WC) Projectile types: AP-T weighting 72 g HE weighting 57 g. HE filler: 2.8 g AP(WC) weighting 52 g MG 151/20 specifications Two versions of the 20 mm MG 151 were built. Early guns used a percussion priming system, and later E-models used electrical priming. Some rounds were available with a timer self-destruct and/or tracer (or glowtracer). There were also different types of high explosive shell fillings with either standard PETN, a mixture called HA41 (RDX and aluminium), and a compressed version where more explosives were compressed into same space using large pressures (XM).

Type: single-barrel automatic cannon Caliber: 20 mm x 82 Operation: Recoil-operated; short recoil Length: 1766 mm Barrel length: 1104 mm/55 calibers Rifling: 1 turn in 23 calibers Weight (complete): 42.7 kg Rate of fire: 750 rpm Effective range:800 m Muzzle velocity: 805 m/s (M-Geschoss); 705 m/s (HE-T, AP) Round types:

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Ammunition specifications

The 'Tonne-Seedorf TV Guidance System During the last months of the war, the development of remote control systems had made considerable progress, manifested in high performance and small dimensions. Between 1943 and 1945, the Fernseh GmbH (Television Co Ltd) of Darmstadt had developed the 'Tonne' (Cask or Barrel) TV transmitter and 'Seedorf (Sea or Lakeside Village) TV receiver with an operating range of 150km (93 miles) for installation in explosive-laden guided missiles. The TV camera and transmitter worked on a frequency of 400 MHz (megacycles), a scan of 441 lines at 25 pictures/second and a power of 20 Watts, transmitting the target image over a Yagi antenna to the controlling aircraft. The 'Tonne' equipment was housed in the nose of the missile with the Yagi antenna attached to the fuselage tail. In addition to the standard FuG 203 'Kehl'/FuG 230 'Stragburg' radio-command equipment, the target image was viewed in the controlling aircraft on the 'Seedorf TV screen measuring 8 x 9cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/2in), enabling the appropriate course-correction 168/177

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commands to be given to the missile.

As well as the 'Tonne' and 'Seedorf, the Fernseh GmbH had also developed the 'Adler' (Eagle) and 'Sprotte' (Sprat) TV cameras - to mention but a few, that enabled missiles to be guided to the target with greater precision. The high standard of German technology at that time was confirmed by further development and manufacture of these German devices by the former opponents after the end of the war.

Not mentioned in the author's narrative is that the 'Tonne-Seedorf equipment was flight-tested exclusively in the Henschel Hs 293D missile. This consisted of a standard Hs293A-l where the 'Tonne' TV equipment was installed in the fuselage nose ahead of the warhead, behind which was an additional fuselage collar, with the horizontal Yagi antenna at the rear of the missile just beneath the tailplane and elevators. TV guidance thus allowed the con-"troller to guide the missile without needing to actually see the target from the aircraft. The pilot was hence able to keep at a longer distance and take evasive action or hide in cloud, the target image increasing in size on the TV screen the closer the missile approached its target.

Whereas the German commercial TV broadcasting system prior to the Second World War was based on a scan of 441 lines and 25 pictures per second, the 'Tonne' TV camera developed by the Fernseh GmbH in co-operation with the German Post office, operated on 224 lines at a frequency of 50 pictures per second because of the fast-moving missile. Since the (ship) target presented its main dimension horizontally, after some tests the lines were posed vertically for better resolution. The optical lens was the Zeiss 'Biogon' of focal length 35mm with an image angle of +/-130. The 'Tonne' chassis measured 17 x 17 x 40cm (6 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 15 3/4 in) and only two types of valve were used. The camera was enclosed in a frame of cast magnesium alloy, replacing the trim weight formerly installed and had an anti-dim glass, battery-heated to avoid condensation and icing. Missile length at the nose was increased by 45cm (17 3/4in). To accommodate the DEAG battery, Osmig converter and TV transmitter, the centre section was lengthened by 23cm (9in). The Yagi antenna was positioned where the rear guide flare was normally located.

The 'Seedorf cathode-ray TV receiver tube had a diagonal of 13cm (Sin), the chassis measuring 17 x 22 x 40cm (6 3/4 x 8 3/4 x 15 3/4in). The whole conver-. sion added about 130-150kg (287-331 Ib) to the missile weight. The Blaupunkt firm was given a contract to build 1,000 sets but this was later cancelled. During the missile guidance phase, only three picture adjustments were necessary: to the screen brightness, contrast, and picture phase.

For the 70 flight trials, two He 11 Is had been converted, followed later by a Do 217. Prior to actual airborne tests, the missile controller received training on a ground simulator developed by the DPS Ainring.

In addition to the above equipment, in co-operation with the Telefunken firm and the Reichspost Forschungsanstalt research institute, the Fernseh GmbH had developed the 'Sprotte' TV camera which contained a miniature iconoscope with a reduced number of lines and smaller dimensions, in169/177

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tended for installation in anti-aircraft rockets, but did not reach the flighttest stage. Another development by the Fernseh GmbH was the FB 50 of even less weight. It used a 50-line scan with a picture frequency of 25 per second, but likewise did not reach the testing stage. One other TV camera was the 'Falke' (Falcon) designed by the Loewe-Opta company of BerlinSteglitz. Simple in design, it used a spiral scanning system but was given up when the 'Tonne' was adopted instead. The Goll-now & Sohn firm of Stettin had also developed a missile bomb which was to guide itself onto a ship target with its built-in TV camera which utilised spiral scanning. A prototype TV set with 100-200 spiral lines was developed for Gollnow & Sohn by the Fernseh GmbH. The firm itself had built another camera with improved characteristics and tested it with satisfactory results in 1942 in a sea-and ship-model test, but this was also dropped in favour of the Tonne'.

The British H2S Panoramic Radar From the wreckage of a downed British bomber, German troops in February 1943 captured the damaged British H2S radar equipment working on the 9cm (3 1/2in) wavelength which displayed an electronic image of the land and sea features beneath it in flight. Named the 'Rotterdam' after the location where it was captured, despite extensive damage it was subsequently brought to functioning order in the Telefunken AG laboratories as a model for the manufacture of German centimetre-wave equipment based on this find. Up to that point, the German military leadership had consistently advocated the necessity to use cm-wave technology, but those responsible in the RLM had rejected these demands since authoritative personalities in the economics and technology sector represented the viewpoint that centimetric-wave systems were of no significance as in their character, bore too great a similarity with light waves and upon impact with the target, produced scattered reflections. Comprehensive laboratory tests with the captured 'Rotterdam', however, showed that the advantages of cm-wave technology were much greater than envisaged. For this reason, the head of radar development at that time, Dipl. Ing Brandt, proposed that all German radar sets be converted to centimetre wavelengths.

The first German unit working on the centimetre wavelength was developed

by Telefunken in 1943 as the FuG 240 'Berlin A' and experimentally installed in a Junkers Ju 88G-6 night-fighter. Despite its purely experimental nature, the 3,300 MHz device was smaller and lighter than the captured British H2S and showed a noticeable improvement in performance. The parabolic reflector dish, similar to that used in the H2S, had a diameter of 70cm (27 1/2in)enclosed beneath a casing on the Ju 88G-6. The common dipole for the sender and receiver was rotated by a means of a motor. Connected to the motor drive was the adjustment switch for the antenna dish, which transmitted the programmed values to the receiver exit that channelled the signals to the deflector plate of the indicator tube of the sighting device. The antenna dish reflector thus gave the same picture on the approach of the aircraft to its target as with the FuG 220 'Lichtenstein SN-2'.

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The successor model of the "Berlin A" experimentally introduced into operational service bore the designation 'Berlin N la" and was successfully employed for the first time in March 1945 with NJG 1 based in Guterstah. Its target-recognition range was 4-5km (2.5-3.1 miles) with a near-resolution of 350m (1.150ft). Out of the 350 sets ordered. 25 examples had been delivered

by March 1945 of which ten came to be installed in night-fighter aircraft.

The 'Berlin X la' was suceeded by the FuG 244 'Bremen O" night-fighter radar working on the 9cm wavelength at 3,300 megacycles at a power of 10 kilowatts. The search range was 5km (3.1 miles), with near resolution improved down to 200m (656ft). The parabolic reflector, the rotating system and the indicator screens were identical to the 'Berlin N 1a', the armament activated by the EG3 'Elfe 3'. The entire 'Bremen O' equipment was smaller and lighter than the initial 'Bremen' model. Only one 'Bremen O' had been delivered and was undergoing trials at the E-Stelle Diepensee at the end of the war. The codename 'Elfe" (elf) applied to the weapon activator which, on receipt of a target echo, automatically fired the aircraft's armament.

Neptun Radar Neptun was the code name of a series of low-to-mid-VHF band airborne intercept radar devices developed by Germany in World War II and used as active targeting devices in several types of aircraft. They were usually combined with a so-called "backwards warning device", indicated by the addition of the letters "V/R". Working in the metre range, Neptun was meant as a stop-gap solution until scheduled SHF-band devices became available (for instance the FuG 240/E cavity magnetron-based Berlin AI radar).

Transceiving antennas used for the Neptun on twin-engined night fighters usually used a Hirschgeweih (stag's antlers) eight-dipole array with shorter elements than the previous 90 MHz SN-2 radar had used, or as an experimental fitment, the 90ยบ-crossed twin-element set Yagi based Morgenstern single-mast-mounted array.

FuG 216: Experimental series to plan the further development Installed in Fw 190 A-6/R11 and Bf 109 G-6 The aircraft were used by NJGr 10 until March 1944, after which some machines of 6./JG 300 (Kommando Plรถger) were equipped.

Manufacturer: Flugfunkforschungsinstitut Oberpfaffenhofen (FFO, German for "airborne radio research institute" in Bavaria) R1 version (backwards warning device) Frequency: 182MHz Power: 1.0kW Transmiting and reveiving antennas each consist of twin dipoles, mounted under and above the wings, respectively Single display device with distance readout V version (for single engined night fighters) Frequency: 125MHz Power: 1.2kW Range: 500 to 3,500m 171/177

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Antennas in the form of spikes or (Fw 190) as "antlers" on right and left wings FuG 217: Installed mainly in Ju 88 G-6, only a few Bf 110 G-4, He 219 or Me 262 received the Neptun. It could be combined with the additional Elfe device to automatically measure the target distance and fire the guns at a pre-set range.

Manufacturer: FFO R2 version (backward warning device) J2 version (for single-engined night fighters) Ausf체hrung V/R (combined night fighter and backward warning device for two-engined fighters) Two switchable frequencies: 158 and 187MHz Search angle: 120째 Range: 400 to 4.000m Spike or "antler" antennas FuG 218: mass-produced Manufacturer: Siemens / FFO R3 version (backward warning device) J3 version (for single-engined night-fighters) V/R version (combined night fighter and backward warning device for twoengined fighters) Six switchable frequencies: 158 to 187MHz Search angle: 120째 Range: 120 to 5,000m Weight: 50kg R3 and J3 with spike antennas and V/R with "antler" antennas.

G/R version (combined night fighter and backward warning device for twoengined fighters) Only one single device built, replacing the 2kW transmitter with a 30kW transmitter. Range increased to up to 10km. This device was intended for the Dornier Do 335. "Antler" antennas.

Glossary Abteilung 'L' - Department 'L', the Lippisch design department within the Messerschmitt company.

APZ Automatischer Peilzusatz - automatic supplementary direction finding equipment.

AVA Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt - Aerodynamic Experimental Institute.

AWG Auswertegerat - plotting device.

BK Bordkanone - fixed aircraft cannon.

BMW Bayerische Motorenwerke - Bavarian Engine Works.

DFS Deutsches Forschungsinstitut fur Segelflug - German Research Institute for Sailplanes.

Dipl-Ing Diplomingenieur - literally diploma-ed engineer, equivalent to Diploma of Engineering.

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Doppelreiter Literally 'double-rider', wing fuel fairings.

DVL Deutsche Versuchsanstalt fur Luftfahrt-German Aviation Experimental Institute.

E Entwurf-project.

EF Entwicklungsflugzeug - development aircraft.

EIV Eigenverstandigungsanlage - crew intercom.

EHK Entwicklungshauptkommission - Main Development Commission.

ESK Entwicklungssonderkommission - Special Development Commission.

ETC Elektrische Tragervorrichtung fur Cylinderbomben - electrically-operated carrier device for cylindrical bombs.

EZ Einheitszielvorrichtung - standard sighting device.

FDL Ferngerichtete Drehringlafette - remotely controlled barbette.

FHL Ferngerichtete Hecklafette - remotely controlled tail barbette.

Fl-E Flugzeugentwicklung - AircraftDevelopment Department within the TLR. Flitzer Literally Dasher or Whizzer, single-seater jet fighter.

FuBl Funk-Blindlandeanlage - radio blind-landing equipment.

FuG Funkgerat - radio or radar set.

FZG Fernzielgerat - remote aiming device/bombsight.

General der Jagdflieger Air Officer Commanding fighters.

Generalleutnant Luftwaffe equivalent to Air Vice Marshal (RAF) or Major General (USAAF).

Generalmajor Luftwaffe rank equivalent to Air Commodore (RAF) or one-star General (USAAF).

Generalstab General Staff.

GM-1 Nitrous oxide.

Gruppe Luftwaffe equivalent to Wing (RAF) or Group (USMF).

IFF Identification, friend or foe.

Jagerstab Fighter Staff Jumo Junkers Motorenbau LFA Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt-Aviation Research Institute.

MG Maschinengewehr - machine gun; later also cannon.

MK Maschinenkanone - machine cannon.

MW 50 Methanol-water mixture.

NJG Nachtjagdgeschwader - night fighter group.

Obergruppenf没hrer SS rank, equivalent to Lieutenant General.

Oberleutnant Luftwaffe rank equivalent to Flying Officer (RAF) or 1st Lieutenant (USAAF).

Oberstleutnant Luftwaffe rank equivalent to Wing Commander (RAF) or Lieutenant Colonel (USAAF).

OKL Oberkommando der Luftwaffe - Luftwaffe High Command.

OMW Otto Marder Works 'Otto-Jager' Piston-engined fighter.

P Projekt- project.

PeilG Peilgerat - direction finding set.

Pulk Luftwaffe term for USAF bomber box.

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Pulkzerstorer Heavily armed anti-bomber aircraft.

Rb Reihenbildkamera - automatic aerial camera.

RfRuK Reichsministerium fur Rûstung und Kriegsproduktion - Reich's Ministry of Armament and War Production.

RLM Reichsluftfahrtministerium - Reich's Air Ministry.

Rûstsatz Field conversion set.

SC Splitterbombe — fragmentation bomb.

Schrage Musik Luftwaffe term for oblique upward-firing armament (literally oblique or jazz music.

SD Splitterbombe, Dickwand - fragmentation bomb, thick-walled.

Technisches Amt Technical Office (of the RLM).

TL Turbinenluftstrahl-Triebwerk - turbojet engine.

TLR Technische Luftrustung - Technical Air Armaments Board.

UKW Ultrakurzwellc-VHF. Volksflugzeug People's (\e the Nation-Slate) Aircraft.

Volksjager People's Fighter.

Volkssturm Germany's equivalent to the British home guard WNF Wiener Neustadter Flugzeugwerke - aircraft works.

W/nr Werk nummer - construction (or airframe serial) number.

Zerstôrer Heavy fighter, literally destroyer.

ZVG Zielflugvorsatzgerât - homer attachment device.

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