The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

It was the impression of overwhelming air superiority and accurate and destructive raids that fuelled the belief among the German Air Force leadership that the RAF was close to collapse in the last two weeks of August 1940. On 20 August Göring directed his forces to complete the elimination of Fighter Command in four days of ‘ceaseless attacks’ against targets that the RAF would be forced to defend, including aero-engine and aluminium production.⁸⁰ German Air Intelligence concluded by the end of August that 18 Fighter Command stations had been permanently destroyed and the rest disabled (when not one had been out of action for more than a few days); Fighter Command was estimated to be down to around 300 aircraft, including reserves and a monthly production of 280 (when Fighter Command strength was 738 serviceable aircraft on 6 September and fighter production for August totalled over 450). Between 12 and 19 August, based on the eyewitness reports of German pilots, 624 British aircraft were claimed for the loss of 174 German. At Hitler’s headquarters it was recorded on 1 September, ‘English fighter defence strongly affected… the question is can England therefore continue the struggle?’⁸¹

It is this perception that explains the shift in the last week of August to a variety of other targets, many of them attacked by small groups of aircraft, but all of them designed to accelerate the decline of Britain’s war effort and so create the conditions for a successful Channel crossing. On the night of 19–20 August there were more than 60 raids across the British Isles on aircraft industry targets and harbour installations. Heavy attacks were ordered on Portsmouth, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham, again almost all at night, although Göring excluded London from the list. Hitler’s headquarters gave specific instructions on 24 August that only Hitler could authorize raids against the enemy capital, but the attacks edged ever closer.⁸² On the night of 18–19 August the first bombs fell in the London suburbs, on Croydon, Wimbledon and the Maldens, and four nights later the first bombs fell by mistake on central London. There was nothing inadvertent about the next raids. On the night of 24–25 August there were bombs on Croydon, Banstead, Lewisham, Uxbridge, Harrow and Hayes. On the night of 28–29 August, London was under red alert for seven hours and bombing was reported in Finchley, St Pancras, Wembley, Wood Green, Southgate, Old Kent Road, Mill Hill, Ilford, Chigwell and Hendon.⁸³ Although the bombing of London, indeed the official start of the ‘Blitz’, is usually dated from the major daylight raids of 7 September 1940, industrial and military targets in the suburbs were under attack throughout the previous three weeks, paving the way for a final wave of attacks timed to take place shortly before the launch of Sea Lion. On 31 August Hitler gave the order to prepare for major attacks on London. A directive was issued by Göring on 2 September and approved by Hitler three days later.⁸⁴

The decision to begin a systematic aerial campaign against London has always been seen from the British perspective as a merciful reprieve from the battering sustained by Fighter Command. It is argued that the switch to bombing London saved the RAF and exposed the German bomber forces to debilitating losses as they tried to bomb by day in large formations. It is usually explained as Hitler’s indignant response to two small raids on Berlin on the nights of 25–26 and 29–30 August. These raids caused little damage but had a profound moral effect on the population of the German capital, which had been told repeatedly that German air defences would keep British bombers at bay. ‘The Berliners are stunned,’ wrote William Shirer, who witnessed the massive response of German anti-aircraft artillery and searchlights, ‘a magnificent, a terrible sight’.⁸⁵ During the second raid on 29 August, 10 people were killed in Berlin and 21 seriously injured. So shocked was Hitler that he immediately returned from his headquarters to the capital. After the first raid the Propaganda Ministry ordered a modest six-line communiqué; after the second raid Goebbels ordered banner headlines condemning the raid. ‘Berlin is now in the theatre of war,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘It is good that this is so.’⁸⁶ The raids gave Hitler the opportunity to present the planned attack on London to the German public as a reprisal and plans for the first major daylight raid were given the title ‘revenge attack’ (Vergeltungsangriff ). His speech on 4 September condemning the British bombing of Berlin was given full publicity and the ‘revenge attack’ on 7 September was greeted in the German press with jubilation: ‘one great cloud of smoke stretches tonight from the middle of London to the mouth of the Thames’.⁸⁷