Black Night for Bomber Command by Richard Knott

Author:Richard Knott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781594421
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2012-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

Meanwhile the losses continued: on the night of 7/8 November 1941, a major raid on Berlin by 392 aircraft, mainly Hampdens and Whitleys, saw thirty-seven aircraft fail to return or crash in England. The likelihood is that many plunged into the North Sea, dragged down by chronic icing or running out of fuel.3 Churchill gave a typically robust response: ‘. . . I have several times in Cabinet deprecated forcing the night bombing of Germany without due regard to weather conditions. There is no need to fight the enemy and the weather at the same time!’ That mantra again. The immediate result was that on 13 November the Air Ministry issued instructions to reduce the scale of operations against Germany, especially when the weather was bad.

It was many months, however, before significant progress on fog dispersal was made: on 26 September 1942, Churchill fired a minute to Geoffrey Lloyd, the minister responsible for the Petroleum Warfare Department (PWD) requiring immediate action: ‘. . . It is of great importance to find a means to dissipate fog at aerodromes so that aircraft can land safely. Let full experiments be put in hand by PWD with all expedition . . .’ Five months later, the first FIDO landing took place at Graveley in Cambridgeshire; the pilot was Group Captain Donald Bennett: ‘. . . I took a Lancaster myself from Oakington over to Graveley one night and did the first landing with FIDO burning . . . The glare was certainly considerable, and there was some turbulence . . .’ But Bennett was convinced it would work – not least perhaps because his experiment was done in visibility of about 100 yards – and expressed his total confidence in it: ‘. . . I made it a rule that whenever I wished to fly I did so regardless of the weather, on the basis that FIDO was always there to save my miserable neck should the need arise . . .’4

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