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The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany: the Early Phase, May – September 1940*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Koch
H. W. Koch
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

Given the vast amount of literature that has been published about bomber command's role during the Second World War, it might seem, at first sight, that there was not much to add. The magisterial volumes of the official history written by Sir Charles Webster and Dr Noble Frankland appear to have said all there is to say; and to them must now be added numerous books which they have helped to engender, such as – to mention but the most recent two – those of John Terraine and Max Hastings.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 117 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

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25 See the U.S. expert in international law de Zayas, A. M., ‘Guernica in Lichte neuerer Untersuchungen’, Wehrforschung, 11/12 1974, pp. 183ff.Google Scholar; Abendroth, H.-H., ‘Guernica: ein fragwürdiges Symbol’, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen I/1987, 111ff.Google Scholar; Kappe-Hardenberg, S., Ein Mythos wird zerstört (Berg am See, 1987), passimGoogle Scholar.

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27 Text in Revue Internationale de la Croix Rouge, X (1939)Google Scholar; see also Spaight, J. M., Air power and war rights (2nd edn, London, 1947), p. 260Google Scholar; Domarus, M. (ed.), Hitler, Reden 1932 bis 1945 (Wiesbaden, 1973). part 3. P. 1315Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., Revue internationale de la Croix Rouge; Hansard: House of Lords Debates, CXIV, col. 1058.

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33 Ibid. p. 28.

34 Public Records Office (P.R.O.), CAB 2/8; Dilks, D. (ed.), The diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan 1938–1945 (London, 1971), pp. 130ffGoogle Scholar.; the flow of misleading information is too voluminous to be cited here, in addition to which some ofthe relevant files in the P.R.O. are closed until 2017.

35 Hubatsch, W. (ed.), Hitlers Weisungen für die Kriegsführung 1939–1945 (Munich, 1965), Weisung No. 2, 3 September 1939, p. 26Google Scholar.

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37 Ibid. Weisung no. 13, 24 May 1940, p. 63.

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39 Quoted by Spaight, , Bombing, pp. 65ffGoogle Scholar.

40 Ibid. p. 65.

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44 The Aeroplane, 3 May 1940; see also 20 March 1940.

45 The Daily Mail, 26 Apr. 1940.

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48 Ibid. p. 66; Gilbert, , Churchill, VI, 142Google Scholar but omitting this passage.

49 Ibid. p. 276.

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66 Ibid. vol. II, ‘Their finest hour’, p. 43.

67 Ibid. p. 219.

68 Ibid. vol. II, ‘The Grand Alliance’, p. 382.

69 Ibid. II, 265.

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71 Ibid. p. 144.

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77 Extracted from Bomber command war diaries, pp. 42–86.

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79 Boberach, , Meldungen, 4Google Scholar, no. 88, 16 May 1940, pp. 114ff.

80 Ibid. no. 89, 20 May 1940, pp. 1152, 1154ff.

81 Ibid. no. 90, 23 May 1940, pp. 1163ff.

82 Ibid. no. 91, 27 May 1940, pp. 1175ff.

83 Ibid. no. 92, 30 May 1940, pp. 1189ff.

84 Bomber command war diaries, pp. 48ff.

85 Webster, and Frankland, , Offensive, I, 145Google Scholar.

86 Ibid. p. 146.

87 Bomber command war diaries just records an attack on Hamburg and ‘railways in Germany’. In fact one house was destroyed in Munich's Barerstrasse, opposite the Neue Pinakothek art gallery. The sight proved so attractive to Munich's crowds, that it had to be cordoned off by the police. When on 12 July 1944 the entire street was flattened by the USAAF the novelty had long been worn off. [Author's own recollection.]

88 Boberach, , Meldungen, 4, 13 06 1940, p. 1247Google Scholar.

89 Ibid. p. 1256.

90 Bomber command war diaries, p. 52.

91 Boberach, , Meldungen, 4, 20 06 1940, pp. 1276ffGoogle Scholar.

92 Ibid. p. 1279.

93 Ibid. no. 99, 24 June 1940, p. 1294.

94 Irving, , Churchill, p. 370Google Scholar. Irving cites as his source P.R.O., AIR 14/1930, Ltr Portal to VCAS, Sholte Douglas, 2 Aug. 1940.

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98 Boberach, , Meldungen, 4, no. 100, 27 06 1940, p. 1307Google Scholar.

99 Ibid.

100 The author discovered how difficult it was to keep even vital secrets when hospitalized in the summer of 1942. A boy in the next bed gave him a detailed description of a Turbinenflugzeug in the development of which his father was involved, describing its interior and explaining that it had to land on skids. After the war it became clear that it must have been the first German jetbomber, the Arado-Blitz 234.

101 Boberach, , Meldungen, 5, no. 102, 4 07 1940, pp. 1335ffGoogle Scholar.

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103 Ibid.; Webster and Frankland, Offensive, I, make no reference to these fiendish devices, though Gilbert, , Churchill, VI, does on pp. 498, 711Google Scholar.

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105 Ibid. no. 103, 8 July 1940, p. 1352.

106 Ibid. no. 104, 11 July 1940, pp. I362ff.

107 See Martin, B., Friedenspolitik und Machtpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg 1939–1942 (Düsseldorf, 1974), especially ch. 4, pp. 234ffGoogle Scholar.

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109 Ibid.

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111 Webster, and Frankland, , Offensive, III, 112Google Scholar. On the following pages the authors go out of their way to demonstrate Churchill's and other cabinet members', like Eden's, total commitment to ‘terror bombing during the three preceding years.’ See pp. 133ff.

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113 Ibid. p. 603, notes 3 and 4.

114 Ibid. p. 656, note 1.

115 Webster, and Frankland, , Offensive, I, 154Google Scholar. Richards, D., Portal of Hungerford (London, 1977) makes a rather disingenuous attempt to explain away Portal's attitudeGoogle Scholar.

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118 Ibid. no. 106, 18 July 1940, p. 1389.

119 Ibid. no. 115, 15 Aug. 1940, p. 1470; no. 116, 19 Aug. 1940, p. 1481. This report also records the dropping of ‘arson balls’ in the Siegen area, each varying in diameter between 2 and 3 cm which alarmed farmers because of the danger they posed to their grazing livestock.

120 Such was the case during the author's stay at his grandfather's estate near Nordhausen/Harz where in the nearby village of Crimderode four children sustained severe burns from these products of Churchill's ‘dirty tricks’ department.

121 Hubatsch, , Weisungen, no. 17, 1 08 1940, p. 76Google Scholar. ‘Adler-Tag’ had originally been scheduled for 8 Aug. 1940, but because of adverse weather conditions was postponed to 13 Aug.

122 Kesselring, , Soldat, pp. 85, 95Google Scholar; Tippelskirch, K. V., Geschkhte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, 2nd edn (Bonn, 1956), p. 104Google Scholar. I am indebted to the former Luftwaffe captain, Hermann Diederichs, Koburg, in 1940 Staffelkapitän in group 2 of KG 54 for giving me access to his war diaries which he kept at the time and which confirm this. On 13 Aug. 1940 groups I, II and III of Kampfgcschwader 54 were affected, on 16 Aug. groups of KG 2. Mason, F. K., Battle over Britain (London, 1969), p. 272Google Scholar displays serious flaws in his day-by-day record. To mention but one example, he lists one Ju 88 aircraft as a loss in the battle of Britain as a result of ‘having crashed in the Starnberger See’. Since this lake is 21 km south-west of Munich the aircraft concerned cannot have had anything to do with the air battle.

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124 Irving, D., Göring (Munich, 1986), p. 444Google Scholar gives as his reference on p. 807 the ‘diaries and notes of Field Marshal Milch’.

125 Boberach, , Meldungen, 5, no. 114, 12 08 1940, pp. I451ffGoogle Scholar.

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129 Ibid. p. 406.

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141 Boberach, , Meldungen, 5, no. 118, 26 08 1940, pp. 1503ffGoogle Scholar.; Bomber command war diaries, pp. 76ff.

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148 Ibid.

149 Boberach, , Meldungen, 5, no. 124, 16 09 1940, pp. 1572ffGoogle Scholar.

150 ‘Das Oberkommando’, 1, 303ff. The use of the term Vergeltungsangriffe, reprisal attacks, occurs for the first time in the bulletin of 14 September but is qualified by the alleged targets, ‘dock installations, storage houses, factories, airfields, industrial installations, harbours and railways’. See also note 154 below.

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152 Schleunes, K. A., The twisted road to Auschwitz (Chicago, 1970), passimGoogle Scholar; Gordon, S., Hitler, Germans and the ‘Jewish question’ (Princeton, 1984), passimGoogle Scholar.

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154 Since this article has been completed the MGFA, Freiburg has published a further volume in its series Vorträge zur Militärgeschichte entitled Operatives Denken und Handeln in deutschen Streitkräften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Herford, 1988)Google Scholar. Horst Boog in his contribution ‘Führungsdenken in der Luftwaffe im Zweiten Weltkrieg’ makes a number of very important points, only two of which can be mentioned here. Firstly that there was a fundamental difference between Germany's propagandistic projection of its air force and actual reality. Secondly that Hitler even in early 1941 discounted reprisal raids as useless. Indeed, in his war directive no. twenty-three of 6 February 1941 (Hubatsch, op. cit., pp. 118ff.) he emphasized that reprisal raids were counter-productive in that they strengthened the enemy's will to resist, and caused unnecessary wastage of scare materiél Reprisal raids would be explicitly announced to stop the enemy from continuing his indiscriminate bombing. Hitler ordered only one specific “destruction” raid, and that against Belgrade in 1941, which the commander on the spot, General Löhr, changed to attack decisive military and administrative key points in the city centre. This was done with such effect that all lines of communication between the Yugoslav high command and its forces were broken. The German army and Luftwaffe sent “fact-finding-teams” to Belgrade which drew up detailed reports which provide a different picture than Churchill's literary eloquence (Churchill, III, 137ff.). I am indebted to Dr. Hans Umbreit of the MGFA for making available to me a copy of this volume which was quickly out of print after publication.