Bomber Command during BofB

kev35, No.5: WSC, 8/7/40: (Britain’s traditional preferred means of waging War – visiting mass destruction upon the enemy’s land by Naval) “blockade is broken (but) there is one thing that will bring (Hitler) down and that is an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from (UK) upon the Nazi homeland. We must be able to overwhelm them by this means without which I do not see a way through.” WW2/II,Cassell,1949,P567; J.Terraine,The Right of the Line, P260: WSC,Sept.40: “Fighters are our salvation (but) Bombers alone provide the means of victory”. In Nov.1918 Bloody Paralysers, 400 HP(Harland) 0/400, more en route from US Standard, and imminent heavy HP V/1500, Vickers Vimy and more, merely as a fleet-in-being had contributed to victory. WSC and others believed that the Central Powers had folded before bombardment rendered Society ungovernable.

New Minister of Aircraft Production Beaverbrook, May,1940, put temporary priority on output of Hurri/Spit/Blenheim/Wellington/Hampden (A.Furse, Wilfrid Freeman, Spellmount, 2000,P.136); from end Sept.’40 the industrial programme began by which through 1942-5 Supervisories and their shadows built a £50,000 bomber every 100 mins. 2/3/44 SecState for War: the “RAF programme is already employing more than the Army(’s) I dare say that there are as many engaged in making heavy bombers as on the whole Army programme”. 7% of UK war effort {12% ’44/5 “measured (as) production and combat man-hours” R.Overy,Why the Allies Won,P128 – truly more, as the King’s Forces took even more (2,445) US-built B-24 than Stirling (2,369)}.

The first VC of the RAF in WWII was during the BoB and was won by bomber command, a raid on the Dortmund Ems by some Hampdens resulted in Flt Lt Learoyd of 49 Sqn, as mentioned there were efforts to hamper movement of raw materials within the Rhur area, build up of potential invasion forces, troop movements, the containment of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen for a while before the channel dash. Mining of the North Sea and straights around Denmark/Norway, Bomber Command were pretty busy during this time.

And sorry for any repetition, not read in detail the whole thread.

I think this is a fuller version of the same speech referred to earlier, but I’m not sure if it is the complete speech.

This war is only a continuation of the last, but very great differences in its character are apparent. In the last war millions of men fought by hurling masses of steel at one another. Prodigious slaughter was the consequence. In this war nothing of this kind has yet appeared. It is a conflict of strategy, organisation, technical apparatus, science, mechanics, and morale.

The British casualties in the first twelve months of the Great War amounted to 365,000. In this war, I am thankful to say, British killed, wounded, prisoner, and missing, including civilians, do not exceed 22,000. A large proportion of these are alive as prisoners of war.

But the consequences to the belligerents have been even more deadly.

We have seen great countries with powerful armies crushed out of coherent existence. In a few weeks we have seen the French Republic and the renowned French Army beaten into total submission with fewer casualties than they suffered in any one of the battles of 1914-15.

Although up to the present the loss of life has been mercifully diminished, the decisions reached in the course of the struggle are even more profound upon the fate of nations than anything which has happened since barbaric times. Moves are made upon the scientific and strategic boards. Advantages are gained by mechanical means as the result of which scores of millions of men become incapable of further resistance, or judge themselves incapable of further resistance, and a fearful game of chess proceeds from check to mate by which, unhappily, players seem to be inexorably bound.

Rather more than a quarter of the year has passed since the new Government came into power in this country. What a cataract of disaster has poured out upon us since then!

The trustful Dutch overwhelmed – their beloved and respected Sovereign driven into exile – the peaceful city of Rotterdam the scene of a massacre as hideous and brutal as anything in the Thirty Years War.

Belgium invaded and broken down – our own fine expeditionary force which King Leopold called to his rescue cut off and captured, escaping as it seemed only by a miracle and with the loss of all its equipment; our ally France out; Italy in against us; all France in the power of the enemy, all its arsenals and vast masses of military material converted to the enemy’s use. A puppet Government set up at Vichy which may at any moment be forced to become our foe; the whole western seaboard of Europe, from the North Cape to the Spanish frontier, in German hands; all the ports, all the airfields upon this immense front employed against us as potential springboards of invasion. The German air power, numerically so far outstripping ours, has been brought so close to our island that what we used to dread has come to pass, and the hostile bombers not only reach our shores in a few minutes and from many directions but can be escorted by their fighters.

If we had been confronted at the beginning of May with such a prospect it would have seemed incredible that at the end of a period of horrors and disaster we should stand erect, sure of ourselves, masters of our fate, and with the conviction of final victory burning unquenchable in our hearts. Few would have believed we could survive – none would have believed that we should to-day, not only feel stronger but should actually be stronger than we have ever been before.

The great air battle which has been in progress over this island for the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its duration. We must certainly expect that greater efforts will be made by the enemy than any he has so far put forth. Hostile air-fields are still being developed in France and the Low Countries. It is quite plain that Herr Hitler could not admit defeat in his air attack on Great Britain without sustaining more serious injury.

If, after all these boastings and blood-curdling threats and lurid accounts trumpeted around the world of the damage he has inflicted, of the vast numbers of our Air Force he has shot down, so he says, with so little loss to himself, after tales of the panic-stricken British crouched in their holes cursing the plutocratic parliament which has led them to such a plight – his whole air onslaught were forced tamely to peter out, the Fuhrer’s reputation for veracity of statement might be seriously impugned.

We may be sure, therefore, that he will continue as long as he has the strength to do so and as long as any preoccupations he may have in respect of the Russian Air Force allow him to do so.

On the other hand, the conditions and course of the fighting have so far been favourable to us. I told the House two months ago that whereas in France our fighter aircraft were wont to inflict a loss of two or three to one upon the Germans and in the fighting at Dunkirk, which was a kind of no-man’s-land, a loss of about three or four to one, we expect that in an attack on this island we should achieve a larger ratio. This has certainly come true.

It must also be remembered that all the enemy machines and pilots which are shot down over our island, or over the seas which surround it, are either destroyed or captured, whereas a considerable proportion of our machines and also of our pilots are saved, and many of them soon again come into action.

A vast and admirable system of salvage directed by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, ensures the speediest return to the fighting line of damaged machinery. At the same time the splendid, nay, astounding, increase in the output and repair of British aircraft and engines which Lord Beaverbrook has achieved by a genius for organisation and drive which looks like magic has given us overflowing reserves of every type of aircraft and an ever-mounting stream of production both in quantity and in quality.

The enemy is, of course, far more numerous than we are, but our new productions already, as I am advised, largely exceed his, and the American production is only just beginning to flow in. It is a fact that after all this fighting our bomber and fighter strengths are larger than they have ever seen.

We hope and believe that we shall be able to continue the struggle indefinitely and as long as the enemy pleases, and the longer it continues the more rapid will be our approach first towards that parity and then into that superiority in the air upon which in a large measure the decision of the war depends.

The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world except in the abodes of the guilty goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unweakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aims their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often at serious loss, with deliberate, careful precision, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.

On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of an invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meantime on numerous occasions to restrain. I have no hesitation in saying that the process of bombing the military industries and communications of Germany and the air bases and storage depots from which we are attacked, which will continue on an ever-increasing scale until the end of the war and may in another year attain dimensions hitherto undreamed of, assure one at least of the most certain, if not the shortest, of all the roads to victory. Even if the Nazi legions stood triumphant on the Black Sea or indeed upon the Caspian, even if Hitler was at the gates of India, it would profit him nothing if at the same time the entire economic and scientific apparatus of German war power lay shattered and pulverised at home.

At the time of the Battle of Britain, night bombing, if not in its infancy, was surely only approaching very early adolescence. Aircraft, navigation, bomb aiming and delivery, counter measures, training, tactics. All were a very poor relation to the Bomber Command which finished the war five years later, making the achievements of the time all the more astonishing. At a time when regular offensive operations against Europe could only be carried out by Bomber Command, any failings were not for the want of trying.

Regards,

kev35

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain.”

This is actually quite embarrassing for me, throughout my teens I knew virtually everything worth knowing about The Battle Of Britain and the (then) modern day RAF yet I never knew there was more to Churchills famous speech! 😮

I offer you S/Ldr Paul Richey

Moggy

Fair point. Not to mention Guy Gibson and Richard Hillary…. I’ll have to point that out to the Amazon reviewer that I lifted the text from.

Thank you for reminding us of that, at this time and particularly when there is such controversy surrounding the memorial. Our debt is to every aviator, not only the “Few”.

It might be of interest to some to read full text of Winstons “The Few” speech.

With regard to the famous paragraph In general it seems to have been curtailed beyond the first semi colon…

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain.”

“The Other Few” by Larry Donnelly is a day by day account of the activities of Bomber Command during the period of the Battle of Britain

Thanks for the recommendation – looks interesting, have just ordered a copy.

Unknown Blenheim down in France

Tail Gunner is unique among wartime memoirs, as it was written within months of the events..

I offer you S/Ldr Paul Richey

Moggy

I can recommend “Tail Gunner” by S/L Richard C. Rivaz for a good account of the early days of the bomber war.

“First published in 1943, this is the gripping story of one man’s involvement in the RAF Bomber Command’s fledgling offensive between August 1940 and December 1941. Dick Rivaz was tail gunner to Leonard Cheshire, one of the most famous RAF pilots of the Second World War, flying in Whitleys with No. 102 Squadron and latterly in Halifaxes with No. 35 Squadron. Tail Gunner is unique among wartime memoirs, as it was written within months of the events Rivaz describes, and with all the immediacy of one who was in the very thick of the action. He gives graphic descriptions of his experiences on night bombing attacks against heavily defended enemy targets likes Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Essen, and relates a dramatic shoot-out with German fighters over La Rochelle in broad daylight during July 1941. He survived these events to write this book, but was sadly killed in October 1943, aged just thirty-seven.

Richard Rivaz was born in India in 1908 and on his return to England studied painting at the Royal College of Art. He volunteered for the RAF in 1940, and trained as an air gunner. At the end of the war he was collecting material for a history of RAF Transport Command when, on 13 October 1945, the Liberator in which he was a passenger caught fire on take off from Brussels, killing all on board”.

Bomber Command lost a lot of aircraft and a lot of men. This is from something I put on another thread…..

“In this other battle, Bomber Command lost some 361 aircraft, comprising 112 Blenheims, 107 Hampdens, 66 Whitleys, 57 Wellingtons and 10 Battles. Of the aircrew aboard those aircraft lost, 209 were taken prisoner, 87 were injured and some 959 were killed. (These figures are approximate as I was tired when I did this).”

“The Other Few” by Larry Donnelly is a day by day account of the activities of Bomber Command during the period of the Battle of Britain and would make an interesting comparison when read alongside the day to day events as written in “Battle of Britain Then & Now.”

What was the quote of the time? Something along the lines of the fighters may be our salvation but only the bombers provide the means of victory?

Regards,

kev35

Let us remember that it was on the night of Battle of Britain day that John Hannah earned his VC by showing incredible courage when wounded in flying his damaged Hampden back more or less safely.

Otherwise as said, primarily invasion barges, airfields, U-boat bases, gardening, and futile attempts to set fire to the German forests.

Moggy

Various things; attacking concentrations of ‘invasion’ barges in Channel ports, attacking German targets such as oil installations, the Dortmund-Ems canal, Berlin etc. Blenheim squadrons were tasked with attacking Luftwaffe airfields in occupied territories, often at great cost.

Erm, I think they were pretty busy launching the first mass attacks on Berlin!
Tactically seen as an important move as it possibly led the Luftwaffe into conducting the Blitz over our cities and thus giving Fighter Command airfields a welcome break from attacks.