Operation Crossbow 1944: Hunting Hitler's V-weapons (Air Campaign) by Steven J. Zaloga

Author:Steven J. Zaloga [Zaloga, Steven J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472826138
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-07-25T23:00:00+00:00

On the afternoon of Saturday June 17, 1944, a V-1 buzz bomb landed on a street in St. John’s Hill, Battersea, London damaging the Surrey Hounds public house, two passing trolley buses, and numerous homes and businesses; one person was killed and many more were wounded.

There was growing resistance from the air commanders to divert missions to attack the ski sites. Instead, Spaatz wanted to shift the focus to an attack on the missile supply network and the German industry manufacturing the missiles. The problem with the latter mission was that Allied intelligence had very little precise information on the location of the missile plants or their sub-contractors. There was a belief that hydrogen peroxide plants were a key industry since the earlier Hs.293 antiship missile had used this for its rocket engine. In fact, the FZG.76 did not use this oxidizer for fuel, but did use it in the steam catapult of the launch system.

Eighth Air Force had successfully crushed the Luftwaffe fighter force with Operation Pointblank in the late winter and early spring of 1944, but had been diverted in May and June 1944 to support Operation Overlord. Spaatz and Doolittle were wary of futile attacks on the devastated ski sites, and wanted to return the focus to Germany, both to keep the Luftwaffe suppressed as well as to continue new missions against the German fuel industry and the industrial transportation network. Both the 2nd Tactical Air Force and Ninth Air Force were now under Leigh-Mallory’s AEAF command, and they were intensely focused on providing air support for the Allied ground forces in Normandy. RAF Bomber Command remained inactive in the Crossbow battles, though 617 Squadron was preparing to use the new Tallboy bombs to strike the Heavy Crossbow sites.

The much more successful missile attacks on the night of June 15/16 completely changed the situation. Churchill held a meeting of the War Cabinet on the morning of June 16. The previous Crossbow Committee of the JIC had been deactivated earlier in the year and its functions largely turned over to the British Air Ministry. Churchill ordered the creation of a new Crossbow Committee under the War Cabinet, and he personally led it during the first weeks of the new crisis. On June 18, Churchill visited the SHAEF headquarters at Teddington, and stressed to Eisenhower and his deputy commander, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, the need to elevate Operation Crossbow to the first priority in the Allied air campaign.

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