The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

The German Air Force drew some important lessons from the schooling, particularly about night-time attacks, which in contrast to the conventional image of German bombing during the Battle of Britain, were in the majority, even during July and August. In the London Borough of Balham, for example, there were eight small raids in the last week of August, two by day and six by night. In the first week of September, before the onset of the heavy bombing of the capital, there were ten more raids, seven of them at night, operations designed to help train crews with the more difficult task of navigating in the dark.⁴⁸ It was discovered that aircraft carried too few bombs of the right calibre to be sure of hitting anything successfully; rather than a small number of heavy high-explosive bombs, bomber units were told to carry larger numbers of smaller bombs to make it more likely that some of the bombs would hit their target. The same lesson was learned with incendiary bombs. It was realized that they had to smother an area in large numbers to be sure of creating fires difficult to extinguish. These changes determined the tactics to be used throughout the campaign that followed.⁴⁹

While the air force prepared with enthusiasm for its first independent campaign, the planners at Hitler’s headquarters moved to clip its wings. The operational directives that eventually emerged during the course of July were based on the experience gained in Poland and the Western campaign. The aerial assault on England differed from the earlier operations only because, rather than operating simultaneously, the air force would have to attack first, followed after a short time by the army. Though the geography presented different challenges, the campaign plan differed little from the successful pattern of combined operations established in the first year of war. The air force was to provide an aerial umbrella over the invasion force and powerful artillery support for the army as it landed. Rather than undertake an independent campaign, the whole air force was expected to facilitate the operation of surface forces.⁵⁰ On 21 July Göring met the three air fleet commanders to discuss the operational planning, and three days later the following ‘Tasks and Goals’ for the air force were distributed to air force units reflecting these tactical priorities:

(1) Fighting for air supremacy, that is to say smashing the enemy air force and its sources of power, in particular the engine-industry

(2) protection for the army crossing and the paratrooper operations through:

a) fight against the enemy fleet

b) fight against attacking enemy air force

c) direct support for the army

(3) reduction of England through paralysing its harbour installations. Destruction of its stocks and obstruction of imports.⁵¹

The fighter arm was needed first, to destroy enemy fighters before they could inflict damage on German bombers. Once air superiority was achieved, bombers would be free to attack targets beyond the range of fighter protection, which extended little further than London, and to attack round the clock, by day and by night. The object was to move forward, stage by stage across southern England to a line from King’s Lynn to Leicester, destroying air force, military and economic targets systematically.⁵²