This lesson provides a quick summary of some of the key elements of the air war in Europe. By the end of the lesson, you will be able to:
Explain the concept of strategic bombing during World War II, and in particular its effectiveness in the European theater from both the Allied and Axis perspectives
Describe the role of radar in the Battle of Britain
At the start of the war in 1939, Germany possessed experienced pilots and a well-designed plan for integrating their air force (the Luftwaffe) in both strategic bombing and ground support roles. When Germany attacked Poland, they utilized the air force to gain air superiority over the smaller Polish air force. Germany also used the Luftwaffe to protect the advance of their Panzer tanks on the ground and to bomb key transportation hubs to disrupt mobilization by the enemy. In Norway they used paratroops to capture critical airfields and then fly in their own fighters and reinforcements to help the ground attack on cities like Oslo and Kristiansand. They duplicated this plan when Germany moved to seize Holland and eventually France, although the French Air Force was able to inflict significant casualties on the Luftwaffe for the first time in the spring on 1940. This helped the British during the Battle of Britain, as Luftwaffe units were not at 100 percent effectiveness due to lost planes and pilots. In short, Germany had a broader understanding of the role of aircraft from the outset of the war. The Allies, on the other hand, were focused heavily on strategic bombing and it took until 1943 for the Allies to begin to use aircraft more effectively in a variety of roles and missions.
The German Luftwaffe lost 20-40 percent of their various aircraft (bombers, transports, etc.) during the Battle of France. Despite these loses, they still believed that mopping up Britain would only take a few days. The German high command continued to assume it would be a simple operation despite the firm stand by the British air force exhibited during the evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk in May 1940. However, German leaders were unaware of the preparations made by Air Chief Hugh Dowding. In the latter half of the 1930s, Dowding directed the construction of a network of communications and radar facilities along the entire English coast. They operated as an integrated system of early warning sites, the first use of radar in such a concentrated way in war. During the Battle of Britain from July through October 1940, this network was critical to the British defenses. It allowed the British to see incoming waves of German fighters and bombers while they were still over France or the Channel and to scramble their own fighters into the air to defend Britain. Initially the Germans did not understand the importance of these radar sites and focused on bombing airfields, with heavy losses to the Luftwaffe. Even when they switched to focus on bombing cities to sap civilian morale, the Germans continued to suffer heavy losses from the British Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft. In fact, the Battle for Britain essentially ended during a raid on September 15, 1940, when over half the German bombers sent to attack London dropped their bombs early over Kent and turned to escape back to France. Spitfires and Hurricanes sweeping through the bomber formations at will struck fear into the bomber crews, effectively ending the ability of the Luftwaffe to maintain discipline and formations for attack. Both the British and the Germans lost numerous aircraft and aircrew during the Battle of Britain, but ultimately Germany lost the will to continue the attacks, especially as demands for the Luftwaffe increased on the Russian front and in the Mediterranean as well.
By July 1940, Hitler was planning a spring offensive against the Soviet Union. German leaders wanted to eliminate the threat posed by the Soviet Union despite the non-aggression pact between the two nations. The Luftwaffe would be called on to provide transports, bombing, and air support to German tanks and troops as they advanced into the Soviet Union, and between the Soviet front and new operations opening in the Balkans and Italy in 1940-41, the Luftwaffe was stretched thin. Although leaders kept assuring Hitler that they could accomplish the goals set by the Fuhrer, in reality the remaining years of the war can best be seen as a war of attrition on multiple fronts in which the Luftwaffe simply did not have the planes and crews necessary. Constant rotation of units from one front to another to support offensives on all sides of the continent further weakened the Luftwaffe. By the time of the D-Day invasion in June 1944, the Luftwaffe was essentially unable to contest the Allies in the air.
The Allies, ironically, started the war with many of the same assumptions as the Germans when it came to the effectiveness of strategic bombing on military targets and civilian centers. Even though the British resolve only deepened during the Battle of Britain and the bombing of cities, Allied leaders still thought bombing the enemy into submission would be an effective strategy. The British took on night bombing raids in the Allied effort, while American bomb crews stuck to daylight raids assuming that the formation flying and machine guns on the B-17 would protect the bombers from German fighters. Further, Americans believe the Norton Bombsight was the most accurate when bombers could easily see the targets, and that it was worth losing some planes to ensure greater accuracy in bombing missions. This proved inaccurate on both fronts--the American Eighth Air Force regularly lost half the crews or planes sent on bombing missions and the Norton Bombsight provided limited benefit when few planes reached the target--casualties of anti-aircraft and Luftwaffe fighters. Only the industrial might of the United States kept planes and crews flowing into the European theater almost as fast as they were lost, offsetting the losses. The development of the P-51 Mustang, which could escort the bombers further into Germany, and the declining the numbers of fighters that the Luftwaffe could muster on any particular front at one time ultimately helped turn the tide in the air over Europe.
As soon as they were able, Allied leaders collected evidence of bombing attacks in Europe and in the Pacific, which were later published in a summary report called the Strategic Bombing Surveys. (You can read the Strategic Bombing Survey summary reports here digitally.). There were actually over 200 studies produced on the bombing campaigns in Europe, and over 100 for those in the Pacific Theater. These involved sending civilian and military officials into bombed areas as soon as they were able to study the effectiveness of the bombing campaigns and the impact on Germany. The summary report highlights both successes and failures of strategic bombing. It notes that campaigns against the Nazi synthetic oil and petroleum oil facilities as well as those against truck and submarine manufacturing facilities were effective, essentially halting production of those resources. However, multiple strategic bombing raids on the Schwinefurt ball-bearing facilities did little damage despite massive losses to Allied crews. Similarly, attacks on rocket facilities and aviation factories, steel, and tank production were ineffective. In some cases, the damage wrought by bombing did not hit the facility targeted, or it only damaged the building and not the machinery inside. In short, the bombing campaigns were not as effective as was assumed by leaders during the war, which bears out the realities that the war ultimately did not end until Allied and Soviet troops seized parts of Germany itself on the ground.