Unflinching Zeal by Higham Robin;

Author:Higham, Robin; [Higham, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

The Luftwaffe in the Battle

It is difficult to find an account of the Luftwaffe in the campaigns in the west that details individual raids. In general, the German Luftwaffe operated bomber formations of roughly 100 Dornier Do-17 light and Heinkel He-111 medium bombers. For the crossing of the Meuse on 13 May, the GAF flew 310 bomber and 200 Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber sorties, and after the crossing and breakthrough, attacks were concentrated along the path of the advance so as to eliminate roadblocks, strong points, supply depots, and airfields. The French railways were disrupted and the Allies prevented from mounting a counterattack with armor on particular targets.

On 23 May operations were halted short of Dunkirk to allow the Wehrmacht to consolidate gains, to rest, repair, and refuel, and enable the infantry to catch up. The GAF was still operating from bases in Germany, so while Goering boasted that the Luftwaffe could destroy the Allies around Dunkirk and Calais, his forces in fact could not do it. They flew many sorties, but at a very reduced rate after three weeks of intensive campaigning.

General Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt’s 24 May halt before Dunkirk was caused by a fear of a counterattack to the south. He had about 1,500 tanks in running order and many others on the verge of repair. But Goering’s Luftwaffe was incapable of filling the gap and reducing Dunkirk. Most of the bombers’ impotence was due to being unserviceable and unable to operate at night, while fighters had to await establishment of forward airfields. As for the Battle of Britain, the Germans had no long-term strategy; they had not intended to invade and so lacked plans and wanted Intelligence on the island. The British thought German industry was near collapse while greatly overestimating the Luftwaffe’s strength.

The Luftwaffe could only operate fully on 2.5 of the 9 days of Dunkirk, from 26 May to 4 June, and then faced the new Spitfire opposition. Attacks had also to be made on Calais, Lille, and Amiens, and the effort cost the Germans 200 aircraft. From 1 June the Luftwaffe also attacked the Armée de l’Air in the south of France, then carried out an especially large raid against the aircraft industry and aerodromes in the Paris region in Operation Paula on 3 June, which included high- and low-level bombing and strafing by Me-109s.

But on the night of 9–10 May the starlit sky was clear (Table 41). When Luftwaffe aircraft began to take off at 0500 hours, French and British ground crews were relaxing in the pleasant spring weather on forty-seven bases in eastern France. The dawn attacks destroyed four French MS-406 fighters and damaged thirteen. Other chasseur were soon in action before their fields were attacked, but the Luftwaffe claimed forty-nine destroyed and ten probables. The lack of a Spitfire photo-reconnaissance unit (PRU), as opposed to the single such aircraft sent out in June on sorties from the United Kingdom, allowed the BEF to be surprised on 10 May.

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