"They sowed the wind and now they will reap the whirlwind."

Arthur T Harris, Commander in Chief, Bomber Command, 1943

 

On the night of 30th / 31st May 1942 1,046 RAF bombers attacked Cologne, delivering a devastating blow. This set the scene for the great and terrible bombing offensive that was to follow.

 

The allied bomber offensive of 1942 –1944 was carried out in response to the Blitz, when German bombers had brought death and destruction to London and other British cities and towns, including Portsmouth, Manchester and Coventry (where the Cathedral was destroyed).

 

The Chief of Staff had defined the task of Bomber Command as:

"Your primary object will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance is fatally weakened".

 

Huge controversy rages today about Bomber Command's contribution to the war. By the middle of summer 1944, RAF Bomber Command was an unstoppable machine, directed by ‘Bomber’ Harris. Although able now to attack pinpoint military targets with devastating force, he persisted with area city bombing when it wasn't necessary any more.

 

Whilst area bombing did no more to fatally weaken the enemy's capacity to wage war, and to destroy morale, than did the London Blitz in 1940, it can be argued that did hasten the defeat of Germany, and thus the end of the war. War production (factories and installations) and especially communications (railways and canals), suffered massive destruction, forcing the enemy to deploy manpower from the fighting areas to the home front as well as reducing manufacturing capacity.

 

What is not in debate is that Bomber Command paid a heavy price for its activities in the war: 55,573 aircrew were killed – this amounted to 67% of the RAF's total casualties and 12% of the country's total dead, both military and civilian – and 4,200 were wounded in operations.

 

No one can doubt, or should forget, the courage and bravery of the young air crew – too young to vote yet old enough to volunteer to fight, and often to die, for their country.

 

One of those brave young men was Ray Williams.

 

Bomber Command was formed 0n 14 July 1936. The re-armament programme gave only third priority to Bomber Command and the initial build-up was very slow. In 1936 specifications were issued for ultra-heavy bombers that would be needed in any forthcoming war, which eventually led to the Command's 'heavies'.

 

Early operations were confined to leaflet raids, security patrols and attacks on German warships. The invasion of Norway gave the command its first mainland targets, followed by the bombing of German supply routes and depots to give the British Expeditionary Force and French armies breathing room as the Germans rolled on.

 

When the Allies were defeated and withdrew from the continent, Bomber Command turned its attention to enemy airfields and invasion barges until the invasion threat had passed. Attention then turned to offensive bombing of Germany.

 

In the early days, pilots were given a main target, a couple of alternates, and left to plan their own take-off times and routes based on their own experience and preferences.

 

Working on the maxim that "The bomber will always get through", early RAF tactics dictated that a formation of bombers could defend themselves in daylight against enemy fighter attack. This theory soon proved false as great numbers of RAF bombers were lost in daylight operations. By mid-1941 RAF Bomber Command had switched to night attacks.

 

However flying by night with primitive navigational aids was very difficult and early bombing was grossly ineffective. If unable to visually identify the target, crews bombed on dead reckoning. This was done by flying a known course for a known time from a known point, and dropping their bombs when they were supposed to be over the target. The Butt Report in 1941 revealed bombing to be shockingly inaccurate. It was impossible with the technologies available in the early 1940s to even find the desired targets by night, let alone hit them. Bombs, too, often failed to explode, and a crew who were able to bomb accurately might have 40% of its bombs not explode. The ineffectiveness of the early operations was carefully concealed from the general public but losses were worsening as the German defences improved their techniques. The answer was better navigational aids and better-trained crew.

 

Gradually the standard of equipment and training improved: pilots, navigators and bomb-aimers received comprehensive training in Canada, America, or South Africa; and electronic aids arrived.

 

By mid 1941 it was possible to send many hundreds of medium and heavy bombers together in large numbers, and brief the crews to attack over a short time period. This swamped the defences and decreased losses. This provided the basis for the major bombing raids that commenced with the 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne at the end of May 1942.

 

The architect of the bomber offensive was Sir Arthur Harris, who headed Bomber Command from February 1942 until September 1945.

 

During 1942 Bomber Command built up its strength and tried out new techniques, including incendiaries and pathfinders, which resulted in the creation of the Pathfinder Force in August 1942.

 

At the beginning of 1943, the Command introduced operationally two Radar aids, Oboe and H2S.

 

By the spring of 1943, Bomber Command's strength lay in its massive force of Lancaster and Halifaxes and at last possessed the means to execute its task.

 

In March 1943, Bomber Command began a sustained attack against Germany which lasted exactly a year. Guided by Oboe and the Pathfinders, Bomber Command 'heavies' smashed the industrial and economic heartland of Germany for a year, including the smashing of Essen in the summer of 1943 and the Battle of Berlin. The Mosquito also featured heavily in the action, including the raid on Jena, the target being the Schott and Genossen optical glass factory about 300 miles inside Germany.

 

A second 1,000 bomber raid took place against Bremen on 25th / 26th June 1943, but this was not so successful due to adverse weather.

 

On the night of July 30th / 31st 1943 "Operation Gomorrah" took place on Hamburg and over the next four nights, with daylight operations by the Americans, the city centre was almost destroyed by a firestorm brought about by great fires merging into one firestorm conflagration.

 

At the beginning of 1944 Bomber Command had 1,600 frontline aircraft nearly all 'heavies'. The Strategic Bombing Offensive was in full swing and continued until early spring, when the Command turned its attention to the smashing of the Germany military and transportation system in France. They also smashed V-weapon sites, before turning their attention back to Germany in the autumn.

 

This large-scale bomber offensive technique was repeated at Dresden on February 14th /15th 1945, and the city was almost completely destroyed. Controversies surround this attack, even today, as Dresden was not a military objective.

 

When Germany fell, Bomber Command switched some of its aircraft to bringing home POWs, and importing food and vital supplies to the occupying armies and civilians caught in the midst of the fighting.