Hitler's Girls: Doves Amongst Eagles by Tim Heath

Author:Tim Heath [Heath, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781526705334
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2017-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Terror from the Sky

In many ways, 1943 was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. Hitler’s failure to invade England, followed by the crushing defeat of his armies in Russia, were events that would seal Germany’s fate. Again, Hitler’s interference had cost the German forces dearly. By not allowing his armies to conduct tactical withdrawals and retreat at the critical points during the battles in Russia, Hitler had resigned his military machine to certain annihilation. To make matters worse, by May 1943, the German military campaign in North Africa had also began to falter and lose ground to the Allies.

America’s entry into the Second World War, following the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, would prove to be the real nail in the coffin for Germany. American forces could not mount attacks on Germany from their own shores, but bomber and fighter-bomber aircraft based in England could. Up until January of 1943, the RAF had fought the air war against Germany alone, sending its bombers to attack German cities at night.

The whole strategy of the Allied air offensive against Germany, however, was to change from January 1943. The changes were relatively simple, but ones that would prove to be devastating to the German infrastructure, which would find itself rapidly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks launched during the new phase of the Allied bomber offensive. By 10 June 1943, it was agreed that, while RAF Bomber Command would continue to attack Germany by night with saturation-bombing raids, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) would attack by day, in what were termed precision-bombing raids. A system of round-the-clock bombing was planned, which was steadily intensified in the hope that German civilian morale would collapse.

It was on 27 January 1943, that the USAAF made its first daylight raid against Germany. With a force of B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, the USAAF attacked Emden and Wilhelmshaven.

On 29 January, the Nazi Party’s tenth anniversary celebrations were disrupted when RAF Mosquito fighter-bombers came in at low level on what was the RAF’s first daylight raid on Berlin. Without any opposition from the Luftwaffe they strafed buildings with 20mm cannon and .303 machine-gun fire, before roaring off over the rooftops. Such an attack proved not only to have been a huge embarrassment to Goering, but also a huge psychological blow to the German civilians taking part in what was an important celebration in the Nazi calendar.

The USAAF would suffer appallingly high losses amongst bomber crews during the daylight raids, particularly against Berlin. The city had more anti-aircraft guns per square kilometre than either Hanoi had during the Vietnam War or Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. More bomber crews were lost while attacking targets over Berlin than any other city of the Third Reich. In comparison, German civilian loss of life was even greater, but quite apart from destroying the German civilian morale, the bombing only had the effect of hardening civilian resolve. Life

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