The World at War Episode 12 - Whirlwind - Bombing Germany (September 1939 - April 1944)
Transcript
00:00I don't think very many of the aircrew knew what strategic bombing really meant.
00:18We as boys from school joined the Air Force because there was a war being fought and there
00:23was a bit of glamour attached to the Air Force.
00:26If you couldn't get the kraut in his factory, it was just as easy to knock him off in his
00:32bed and if old Granny Shicklegrubber in the street next door got the chop, that's hard
00:39luck.
00:40There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war.
00:46Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet and we shall see.
01:56After the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force had cause to celebrate.
02:23Strategic command had shown how difficult it was for bombers to destroy a country which
02:27could defend its own airspace, a lesson the air staff apparently neglected to teach itself.
02:40Lord Trenchard had founded the service as a force of strategic bombers.
02:46Fighters for defence were secondary.
02:51Long-range bombers, it was argued in the 30s, could win wars without costly land battles.
02:56They would bomb the industrial heart out of an enemy and totally demoralise his civilian
03:01population.
03:05In 1939, the RAF was not really equipped to put this thesis to the test.
03:11But after Dunkirk, it was the only force capable of attacking Germany and the British public
03:16desperately needed an attack.
03:19The British Empire is building up a tremendous bomber force designed as the offensive air
03:25weapon to smash the heart of Germany.
03:35The first daylight raids were disastrous.
03:37Bombers fell easy prey to the Luftwaffe.
03:55Still the RAF persevered, though losses mounted.
03:59The casualties forced bomber command to start flying at night.
04:29For air crews trained to attack in broad daylight, night flying had its problems.
04:56To find a target in Germany, in the dead of night, in any average weather conditions,
05:04was quite far beyond the task of any bomber crews.
05:17Patriotic films had no difficulty in giving the impression that pluck and determination
05:21and a diet of raw carrots could overcome the law that says you cannot see in the dark.
05:33If you could get visual pinpoints en route, you could get within five or seven miles of
05:41the target.
05:45Of course, once the target was reached, it was a piece of cake.
05:57Provided you were just blowing up a studio model.
06:00I hope I haven't kept you waiting, sir.
06:06Good lord, no.
06:07Come and sit down.
06:08Well, how'd you get on?
06:09Caused a hell of a great big foul.
06:13Buckets of smoke.
06:14Visible, ooh, 50 miles away.
06:17Well, old boy, how about some bacon and eggs?
06:29The truth was different.
06:31In fact, in those days, and it's been proved since, three bombs in every hundred got within
06:39five miles of the aiming point.
06:51Inaccurate bombing could be embarrassing.
06:56The German propaganda ministry was quick to capitalize on the destruction of this children's hospital.
07:09But the war cabinet's view was that Germany had to be bombed.
07:14And this was the only strategic bombing Britain could then undertake.
07:18Coventry and Liverpool indicated the German industry would suffer if its workers were bombed out.
07:24Professor Lindemann was advising Churchill that de-housing one third of German workers
07:29would bring industrial production to a halt.
07:32And there was popular pressure to avenge the Blitz.
07:37We ask no favors of the enemy.
07:41We seek from them no compassion.
07:50On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes
07:57as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities,
08:04an overwhelming majority would cry,
08:07no, we will mete out to the Germans the measure.
08:11And more than the measure, they have meted out to us.
08:22The Germans were now meting it out to the British bomber.
08:34By the end of 1941, Britain had lost 700 aircraft.
08:51The navy and the army were demanding bombers for the Atlantic and the desert.
08:58Bomber command stood to be put out of business.
09:02In the face of mounting losses, the cabinet ordered bombing operations to be cut down
09:07to save the bomber force.
09:13During the respite in February 1942, Sir Arthur Harris took over as commander-in-chief bomber command.
09:19He was determined to succeed with new tactics and new bombers.
09:24The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion
09:30that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them.
09:36At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places,
09:42they put that rather naive theory into operation.
09:47They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.
09:52I put them onto the North German ports in the Baltic
09:56because having flown quite a bit at night myself,
10:00I realised that the easiest targets to get hold of, of course,
10:04were always the ones on the coastline.
10:07Because if you can see anything, you can see a coastline.
10:11And if you can see a coastline with its odd shapes,
10:14you can find your way along to ports and recognise them.
10:19Lübeck and Rostock were the first major targets.
10:24As ports, they were easy to find
10:27and they burnt well.
10:30In March 1942, 230 bombers destroyed half Lübeck.
10:36In April, Rostock was bombed into flames.
10:40The style was set. Night, area, bombing.
10:45This was to become the pattern for the next three years.
10:48It was terrifying. It was indiscriminate.
10:53But as far as bomber command was concerned, there was no alternative.
10:58How many occasions, looking out of the window or walking out in the garden,
11:02could you see up to 18 or 20,000 feet?
11:06Maybe on two or three days at most.
11:09On how many occasions can you guarantee, if you could see up to it here,
11:13that you could see down to it,
11:15four or five hundred miles away in the other end of Europe?
11:19That was the situation.
11:21There's no possibility of hitting individual targets,
11:25consistently small targets,
11:28until we'd got the navigational electronic aids
11:33that would show those targets up in the dark or through clouds.
11:39The first electronic aid to navigation now came into service.
11:42It was called G.
11:45Three radio transmitters in England sent out an invisible grid of signals
11:50across Western Europe.
11:56By monitoring the signals and plotting them on a map,
12:00a navigator could tell where his aircraft was.
12:05G was first used at Cologne.
12:08Here, Harris threw in every bomber he could scrape up
12:11for a monumental prestige attack.
12:13In your hands lie the means of destroying a major part of the resources
12:19by which the enemy's war effort is maintained.
12:23Press home your attack.
12:25If you individually succeed,
12:27you will have delivered the most devastating blow
12:30against the very vitals of the enemy.
12:33Let him have it right on the chin.
12:36Send that message to all groups and stations.
12:39I was trying to show then what could be achieved
12:42with something approaching an adequate force
12:45and that it would be achieved without abnormal casualties.
12:52The hours of darkness over Hitler's Germany
12:55are about to be made hideous.
12:57The men of Bomber Command know well what they have to do.
13:01A calm, moonlit night.
13:04Everything ready and waiting, from planes to carrier pigeons.
13:07They seem to know the ops are on.
13:09Come on, fellas, get cracking.
13:19Round the clock with the RAF.
13:21At station after station, there are heavies,
13:24including Lancaster's, the heavy bomber of the moment,
13:27ready for tonight.
13:29Bombers, get ready.
13:31For tonight is going to be very, very interesting.
13:34A thousand-bomber night.
13:51On that night, 30th May 1942,
13:541,046 bombers took off for Cologne.
13:58We heard the drone of the approaching bombers
14:01and guessed that it was a heavy formation.
14:08And soon after, the first bombs fell around us.
14:11We were all shaking with fear.
14:14Some people were afraid.
14:16Some people were afraid.
14:18We were afraid.
14:20We were afraid.
14:22We were afraid.
14:24We were afraid.
14:26We were all shaking with fear.
14:28Some people nearly fainted.
14:30Many of the patients were crying.
14:32The roaring and crashing came closer and closer.
14:35We really thought all hell was breaking loose.
14:40Our part of the city was in flames.
14:43People were running out of cellars and out of houses.
14:46Some were buried in the rubble.
14:48Others were caught by the falling masonry.
14:51Many people actually caught fire
14:55from the torches.
14:58We really didn't expect in 1942
15:01that such a heavy raid would take place.
15:04We were only used to smaller attacks.
15:07And when I got the news
15:10that about a thousand bombers were attacking Cologne,
15:13it was incredible.
15:20The morale of the people was not shattered too much.
15:24It was more like a short shock
15:27which passed away.
15:34German industry remained resilient,
15:37although the Ruhr, the industrial heartland,
15:40was under attack throughout 1942.
15:43Damage was extensive, but there was still
15:46some slack in the economy to be taken up
15:49in more war production.
15:52Make me know
15:54the effects of a war
15:55that's being caused by the government.
15:58I'm looking ahead with hope
16:00and hope that the day is coming
16:03when we'll really start running the country.
16:06That's what I really hope.
16:09I think of you.
16:12I know you.
16:15I love you.
16:18I know I love you so much.
16:210-2-15, please measure the speed of 0-2-15.
16:32And the Germans could give as well as take.
16:36The Luftwaffe was acutely aware of the lesson radar-controlled RAF fighters had taught it during the Battle of Britain.
16:44Air Defence Chief General Kammhuber evolved a most efficient system.
16:49Across the North Sea coast stretched an early warning radar grid, the Kammhuber line.
16:54This grid was divided into boxes.
16:57In each box was a night fighter waiting like a spider for the fly.
17:02We overtook the plane on the side, so he thought, ah, he hasn't seen me.
17:10He still did some corkscrewing or waving.
17:14I just banked slightly to give the gunners a good view underneath.
17:19I moved off maybe 10 degrees to port and starboard during this manoeuvre.
17:24But it wasn't violent in any sense at all.
17:27And then I was shooting this way and diving directly.
17:34Or with what we said, schräge Musik, two centimetres cannons.
17:43The same, only flying underneath and waiting.
17:48The moving, very easy, we did the same parallel to the other one.
17:52Shooting and between the motors.
17:56You had about 5,000 litres of gasoline and that was burning very easily.
18:03The advent of the Kammhuber line and all that went with it
18:07was a startling sort of thing to be confronted with
18:12because the German night defences took a terrible toll on British bombers.
18:23But now the RAF was no longer alone.
18:33The ridging words and the skies are not cloudy all day.
18:42Hiya, fellas. There's your birth seat for Hitler. Come and get it.
18:53Throughout 1942, the United States 8th Army Air Force had been building up in England.
18:59The American air chiefs believed they could succeed in daylight
19:03without suffering the losses the British had done.
19:06They were convinced they could bomb accurately by day.
19:11There's Charlie doing his twirl again.
19:13Wish I had something like that to play with.
19:15You guys wouldn't know what to do with a turret if you had one.
19:18It took six months to teach you how to pull a trigger.
19:20Well, it taught us anyway.
19:21All right, folks. Can the swans walk and keep the intercom open?
19:25Can the swans walk and keep the intercom open?
19:30Their aircraft were very heavily armed.
19:32Some carried up to 12 machine guns,
19:34and they were trained to fly in close formation.
19:39Formation flying was really the name of the game
19:42as far as the 8th Air Force was concerned.
19:46There was never anything like it happened before or since.
19:51And they actually were sort of making their own rules up as they went along
19:59because it was just a brand-new concept.
20:02You made it possible to have a more concentrated firepower
20:07from the gunner's positions of all your airplanes.
20:11The fact that you could depend on good formation, tight formation,
20:18not only helped you in defense of fighter attack,
20:25it made your chances of achieving good bombing results much better
20:32because if your squadron of airplanes was bombing
20:36and the pattern was a good, tight pattern,
20:39your results were bound to be good.
20:48Bombers away!
20:51Early raids into France seemed to bear out the American optimism.
20:54Later, over Germany, it was a different story.
20:57But we found that at first, yes, the bombers could cope pretty well with the fighters
21:02and take acceptable losses if the penetrations were not too deep.
21:06And the bombers kept good formation,
21:08and they had a supporting fire, one from the other.
21:11But as time went on, the Germans were learning, too,
21:14and so they learned how to make their attacks,
21:16and they learned how to penetrate the formations,
21:18and they started the head-on attacks,
21:20which were trying to get the leader and spread out the formation.
21:23And once they got the formation spread out,
21:25then they could pick the bombers off at will, more or less, anyway.
21:31The End
21:44But it was too early to admit defeat.
21:50At night, the British bombers flew on, hundreds at a time, but each on its own.
21:56Well, when we used to see them go over in the early evening, one by one in trail,
22:01I would not have changed places for them,
22:04and I'd much rather have the close formation, the firepower,
22:09than go over the way they did.
22:12Well, when you were flying with the RAF, you were a single trolley.
22:15Just after we'd crossed the Dutch coast,
22:18I had felt a terrific bang in my face,
22:21and the windscreen was shot away,
22:23and I'd been wounded in the forearm and the shoulder and the head,
22:27and the plane went out of control temporarily.
22:35So I didn't see any sense in saying, you know,
22:37that I'm wounded in case they all thought, you know,
22:39he's going to pop off any minute now.
22:43The candle again exploded in the front of the plane, beside us,
22:47and the shell hit the engineer who stood beside me in the forearm,
22:51and I had bits of my leg and skin off my hand.
22:57The port elevator had been shot off the plane.
22:59That's the elevator that keeps the plane straight and level,
23:02each side of the till.
23:04And the port one had been shot off,
23:06and this meant that you had to hold the stick back,
23:08right back, as if you were going to climb like this,
23:10to keep the plane straight and level.
23:12So the bombing men had to help push this back as well,
23:15because my shoulder was, this arm was pretty weak, my shoulder being hit,
23:18and it was a matter of keeping the stick back
23:20by holding my hands in front.
23:23And the engineer held it with his other hand, his good arm,
23:26so we held this combined back to keep the plane straight and level.
23:31It wasn't a sort of press-on-the-garders feeling.
23:33It was just a fact that the four engines were still flying.
23:39If we'd had any engine cut, I'd have thought right away,
23:41well, we can't get any further.
23:44But another factor here was that had I turned back,
23:47you have another 600 or 700 planes that are more or less in the same track,
23:51and spread of something like 8 or 10 miles broad,
23:54and maybe, what, 4,000 to 6,000 feet deep,
23:57and you're turning back right into them,
23:59and you're heading right down through this lot to get back.
24:03And then again, had I turned off, say, at 90 degrees,
24:06to try and avoid them, you're still turning across quite a number of them.
24:11And then I watched for the target indicators and opened the bomb doors,
24:14and kept the plane as steady as I could on the target indicators,
24:16and then just kept it straight and level.
24:18And I think this is probably one of the things that made the fuss about it,
24:20that we had a picture of the actual target after all this happening.
24:24But as soon as we had the picture taken, I turned off to head for base.
24:29One of the things that I always remember feeling in this particular trip
24:32was that we had to get back because I knew we were wounded.
24:37None of the other members could fly it, even normal straight and level.
24:40So to fly it at night with one elevator gone
24:43and having to stick back in your belly and no instruments, as it were,
24:47would have been pretty well impossible.
24:50And we were shot at a few times on the way back, but we weren't hit again.
24:54And eventually we did come over England when I saw these beacons flashing.
25:05As it touched down, the legs of the undercarriage collapsed
25:09along the belly for maybe 50 yards or so.
25:12And came to a stop, switched off engine to keep the fire hazard down.
25:18It was then only that I knew the navigator was killed
25:20because he had slid forward beside me.
25:38And by how many enemy fighters did you see?
25:40I couldn't keep track of them, sir, but I counted about 60 packs.
25:43I stopped trying to count when I got to 50, sir.
25:46I think it was generally understood that the combat tour was 25 missions
25:51because you'd be dead by the end of that time,
25:54so there wasn't any point in asking you to stay around any longer.
25:57Bomber crews lived a curious war.
26:01One day in action, the next on the town.
26:04When our group wasn't flying, they'd usually go into London,
26:08spend the day in London, and sometimes if they had some money left,
26:14they'd call up to find out whether or not there was a mission going the next day,
26:18and if not, they'd stay over.
26:20Flak will be heavy, probably accurate.
26:23You've been through worse before.
26:25Remember that your biggest enemy is still a single-engine fighter plane.
26:32Fire!
26:37I recall one evening in the officer's club,
26:40our operations officer was pouring scotch into a one-armed bandit,
26:45you know, these things that you put quarters in,
26:48trying to persuade the machine to deliver a jackpot.
26:52But I guess it was a kind of an eat, drink and be merry sort of life.
27:01♪
27:10The going's going to be rough.
27:13You're going to have to blow your neck in there
27:15and stay in there and pitch every minute.
27:18♪
27:44I think that flying is so impersonal, that is to say combat flying,
27:50that you don't get that intimate sense of loss
27:53if you see an aeroplane get shot down,
27:55that you'd have if your buddy on a battlefield
27:59had his head blown off right within arm's length.
28:07Young men came from Britain, America,
28:09occupied Europe and the British Commonwealth
28:11to fight and die in the most determined air offensive yet waged.
28:17In January 1943, at Casablanca,
28:20Churchill and Roosevelt decided to combine
28:22the British and American bombing efforts
28:24in preparing Nazi Europe for D-Day.
28:28U-boat yards, aircraft plants,
28:33armament factories, oil installations and transport
28:38were deemed priority targets for round-the-clock precision bombing.
28:48But precision bombing at night was still impossible for Harris.
28:52An attempt to pick off the Ruhr dams with specially designed bombs
28:55was only partially successful
28:57and cost the lives of some of the best air crews.
29:01MUSIC
29:11Though the raid led to improved accuracy later on,
29:14not all the dams were hit.
29:17Ruhr arms production was unaffected.
29:20Harris believed that only the mounting onslaught
29:23of night area bombing would crush German industrial capacity.
29:27At this time, we were getting better aircraft.
29:30The Lancaster was coming out in great numbers.
29:32We were losing the lesser efficient Stirling and the Halifax.
29:37We were getting better radar devices.
29:40And we had extremely good navigators, selected navigators,
29:45and this was the essence of the whole thing.
29:48And these navigators were able to get much closer
29:52to an aiming point than we had previously.
29:55Then we laid great lanes of flares, hundreds of flares.
29:59Even if we missed the aiming point,
30:02we would identify some very positive feature on the ground,
30:08like a lake or a bend in the river,
30:11and from there we could then creep on to the target
30:14and put flares down, different coloured flares.
30:18And then later on we got target indicators,
30:22and these were, just imagine, a great bunch of incandescent grapes
30:28falling from 2,000, 4,000, wherever we wanted them to detonate from.
30:36At the end of July 1943,
30:38Harris deployed his improving technology with devastating effect on Hamburg.
30:43The effectiveness of the first Hamburg raid
30:47was due to us at last getting permission
30:52to use something we'd had in the bag for a long time,
30:55which was known as window,
30:58which was the dropping of clouds of aluminium paper strips,
31:03which completely upset not only the German location apparatus,
31:08but also their gun aiming apparatus.
31:18MUSIC
31:30None of us, neither civilians nor firemen,
31:34knew what happened in this night.
31:37It was a very heavy raid,
31:40but we had almost the same one year before.
31:45We were not prepared for the firestorm,
31:48which broke out half an hour after the raid.
31:56The effect of the bombing, combined with the summer heatwave,
31:59was to create a man-made tornado of flame, a firestorm.
32:11I went to this area near the docks.
32:14It was crossed by canals.
32:16People tried to leap down into them out of the flames,
32:20but the water was on fire.
32:28It's difficult to explain why the water was burning.
32:32There were many ships, small ships, moored in the canals.
32:37They had exploded and burning oil had been released onto the water.
32:45And the people who were themselves on fire jumped into it.
32:50And they burnt, swam, burnt and went under.
33:15Most people were killed by the fierce heat,
33:19not burnt or suffocated or poisoned by carbon monoxide.
33:26We think that in some places
33:29the temperature reached 1,000 degrees centigrade.
33:38The British night attacks and American day raids
33:41The British night attacks and American day raids lasted nearly a week.
33:4530,000 died.
33:48In Hamburg, we really found out the first time
33:54that the morale of the German people can be shattered so much
33:59that the work for industry, the work in the armaments industry, would collapse.
34:12At the time, Speer said that six more raids like that would have finished them all.
34:21The Allies did not have that capacity.
34:27The shock passed.
34:33At the same time, the 8th Air Force had stepped up the intensity
34:37of its daylight raids against precise targets.
34:40This group will bomb from an altitude of 13,000 feet.
34:47We feel that this low altitude will be equalized by the element of surprise which is weather.
34:55Two weeks after Hamburg,
34:57they planned to deal their knockout blow against German industry.
35:01Lights, please.
35:04This group of buildings here is your target.
35:07This building will be the aiming point.
35:10If your bomb pattern is concentrated in this area,
35:14it should very effectively knock out the factory.
35:18The target was the ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt,
35:21producing a major part of Germany's needs.
36:08The attacking force was to be split into two.
36:11The first wave would fight to a secondary target,
36:14the Messerschmitt aircraft plant at Regensburg.
36:17Then it would fly on unhindered to North Africa.
36:20The second wave, ten minutes behind the first,
36:23would then arrive at Schweinfurt
36:25whilst the German fighters were on the ground refueling.
36:28Their battle would be during the trip home.
36:32We went in.
36:34I went in without any fighter escort at all
36:37and flew clear across Europe without fighter escort
36:41with about 125 airplanes that I had in the division at the time.
36:48Astonished German air defence staff plotted the path of the first wave
36:52as it flew further and further into Germany.
36:57They could not tell the plan was going wrong.
37:00British weather helped to upset the Americans' careful plans.
37:03Unexpected low cloud delayed the take-off of the second wave.
37:07The result, the Luftwaffe, refuelled and re-armed,
37:10was waiting for them.
37:12Well, we didn't expect an attack
37:15coming that far into the country without fighter escort.
37:18And we were all very astonished.
37:30Victor! Victor!
37:52Schweinfurt has been the result of very good conditions
37:56in favour of the German fighters
37:59and the fact that we could bring about all our fighters in operation
38:03to intercept the bomber stream,
38:06this altogether has favoured our results.
38:1521 flying fortresses were lost
38:18before the first bomb fell on Schweinfurt.
38:22EXPLOSION
38:28The 1st Division, coming in later, had heavier losses
38:32because they had to go back out in addition to coming in.
38:36I think we wound up the day by losing about 60 airplanes,
38:40which didn't make anybody very happy.
38:51MUSIC
39:16The cost was high,
39:18but ball-bearing production was disrupted for six weeks.
39:22When you hit Schweinfurt first,
39:27it was a nightmare getting through.
39:32But then I had a very good representative, Kessler,
39:36and he did with all means
39:39not only the repair but also replacement of ball-bearings
39:43with other devices,
39:46which could do the job,
39:49not as good as the ball-bearing, but it could be done.
39:57In the two-wave attack,
39:59over 120 aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair.
40:03To prove their point at Schweinfurt,
40:06the Americans would have to go back.
40:08Naturally, I was keenly disappointed,
40:11largely because in sending my crews back,
40:14I knew they would sustain additional losses,
40:17and if we had done the job right in the first place,
40:20we could have avoided these losses.
40:23But nobody who fires a gun hits his target every time.
40:28We went back because we got a period of good weather
40:31and it was our highest priority target,
40:34and that's why we returned.
40:37On the 14th of October,
40:39some 300 bombers were marshalled over England.
40:43There were airplanes climbing all over England.
40:46England was just an airport, really,
40:49and this, I think, was real difficult.
40:55It took some time to group a large number of heavy bombers
40:59into a tight formation.
41:01These complicated maneuvers gave ample warning to the Luftwaffe
41:05of the strength and direction of an attacking force.
41:08Two-thirds of all German fighters
41:11concentrated against the 8th Air Force.
41:14Well, the fighter, he was the boogeyman.
41:17The fighter had eyes, and in a great many instances,
41:23the fighter had a pretty confident follow at the controls,
41:29and when he latched on to you,
41:33you were in trouble lots of times.
41:36I was that close that I could really see the rear gunner,
41:40and I saw him, frightened as I was.
41:49They'd call the positions of the fighters
41:51out over their intercom, you see,
41:53and sometimes they'd get so frightened
41:55that they'd continue to hold the microphone down
41:58and keep hollering into the microphone.
42:04And they started by 1,000 meters,
42:09almost with their tracing ammunition in order to frighten us,
42:13and I told my younger pilots, who had no experience,
42:18to close their eyes, attacking from behind.
42:26Well, it wasn't very much time to think.
42:28You just put that gun sight on what kept waving your head
42:32around in the sky looking for enemy fighters
42:34and kept the gun sight on them.
42:37Pilot to navigator, what's the word?
42:40Right. We're making the run.
42:42Right before we hit the target was the worst part of the ride.
42:46We got picked up by fighters and were taken into the target,
42:49and then they left and we dropped the bombs
42:51and they picked us up after the target.
42:57More than 60% of all ball-bearing production at Schweinfurt was destroyed.
43:03The Americans had lost more than 60 flying fortresses.
43:08If you would have repeated those raids shortly afterwards
43:11and wouldn't have given us the time to rebuild,
43:15then it would have been a disastrous result.
43:18But could you take the losses that the forces took
43:21when you didn't know whether you were going to accomplish it or not,
43:23when you thought ball-bearings were coming in from Sweden
43:25and possibly through Switzerland?
43:27So you didn't know, so you don't go on with those things.
43:31So the strategy swung back from pinpoint targets like Schweinfurt
43:35to another night area offensive, Berlin.
43:40With American support, Harris believed he could wreck Berlin in six months
43:44and win the war.
43:46But the depleted Eighth Air Force were not now able to join him.
43:51He sent the most amazing signals, and one that I'll always remember,
43:55and this is the sort of thing you read out to your crews at briefing.
44:00This one went on to say,
44:03Tonight you go to the big city, that's Berlin.
44:06You have the opportunity to light a fire in the belly of the enemy
44:11and burn his black heart out.
44:20Well, when crews after they stopped cheering, a thing like that,
44:24they didn't want aircraft.
44:26They'd just fill their pockets with bombs and point them towards Berlin
44:30and they'd take off on their own.
44:36Bomber command had to go on on its own.
44:39It was a long way,
44:41and the weather at the end of 1943 was particularly bad.
44:45But each night, the bombers fought their way to Berlin
44:48and other cities deep in Germany.
44:55Harris's crews wrought terrible damage.
45:04Berlin is getting a real taste of total war.
45:07The terrific weight of the RAF assaults on the capital of Nazi land
45:10has set the Hun reeling.
45:12How he must regret the ruthless attacks he made on Warsaw,
45:15Rotterdam, Belgrade, London, Coventry and the rest.
45:18The day and night of reckoning is here.
45:20What do you think of it, Keith?
45:22Well, I think Jerry definitely had it this time.
45:25Certainly was a wizard praying.
45:35Yet many of Berlin's offices and factories managed to go on working.
45:42In my experience, people rather got numb.
45:49They were going through the streets like shadows,
45:53but they were still working like automats.
46:19We had very little trouble in getting there,
46:22but one thing I did notice was the vicious way
46:25in which every German town now seems to throw up flak indiscriminately.
46:32The technological advantages which prevailed over Hamburg
46:35no longer mattered.
46:37The Germans had the advantage.
46:39The Germans had the advantage.
46:41The Germans had the advantage.
46:43The Germans had the advantage.
46:45The technological advantages which prevailed over Hamburg
46:48no longer applied.
46:50The German air defence had leapfrogged ahead once more.
47:01Berlin looked as if it would indeed remain Berlin.
47:16If no one stays true to you,
47:19I will stay true to you forever.
47:22By early spring 1944,
47:24Paris had not totally destroyed the city.
47:45Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin!
47:51Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin!
47:59Bomber command had been savagely mauled by the Germans.
48:03In those four months, in raids against Berlin and other targets,
48:07a thousand aircraft, the command's first line strength, were lost.
48:12But Harris did not, and does not, concede defeat.
48:16The casualties in the Battle of Berlin were no more than we would have suffered if we'd
48:22gone anywhere else in Germany, deep into Germany.
48:27People seem to forget that Bomber Command fought a thousand battles during the war.
48:33You can't succeed in every one.
48:34I'm not saying the Battle of Berlin was a defeat or anything like a defeat.
48:38I think it was a major contribution towards the defeat of Germany.
48:43There were thousands of heavy anti-aircraft guns, millions of ammunition for it, and hundreds
48:53of thousands of soldiers which were drawn away from our fight in the Eastern Front.
49:00So I should say, with air attacks on Germany, you had in an early state, from 43 on, really
49:09a so-called second front.
49:16Despite all the devastation the Germans carried on, German industry was still supplying the
49:21armies fighting fiercely in the East and in Italy.
49:24The strategic bombing thesis remained, as yet, unproven.
49:34The lessons of Feinfurt have been well-learned by the Americans.
49:38Re-equipped, they joined the RAF over Berlin in March 1944, but now they were escorted
49:43by the Muster, a remarkable aeroplane which was to change everything.
49:47It had a bomber's range and a fighter's performance.
49:50The German day fighter had now met its man.
49:59By the end of spring 1944, the German day fighter had lost where the Spitfire and Hurricane
50:04had won.
50:05The Americans had finally beaten the Luftwaffe over daylight Europe with their long-range
50:10fighters.
50:12We had nothing of the same effort, and I think they frightened us quite a bit.
50:22I think the main concern was the quantities which were showing up.
50:30The Germans had lost control of their airspace in daylight.
50:37From now on, the Allies would be able to launch day raids over Germany at will.
50:52But in March 1944, both bomber forces were placed under Eisenhower's overall command
50:59to prepare for D-Day.
51:02There would be six months' respite before the Allied bombers could set out once more
51:07to break the will of the German people.
52:07to break the will of the German people.