Sir Richard Pierse had instituted a weekly meeting with, as he called it, "the brains trust" — the AOCs of Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5 Groups, A/Cdre Saundby (SASO), AVM Bottomley (DCAS), and a couple of High Wycombe staff officers Pierse had found who could be trusted not to agree with something just because their boss said it. The intention was to generate new ideas in a freewheeling environment, but somehow the various personal rivalries among those present always seemed to bubble up and lead to guarded statements.
The day's main discussion topic was a pair of raids Carr's 4 Group had made on the previous two nights, on Bremen and Bonn. Both were all-Halifax efforts of about two dozen aircraft, and both were conducted at the type's ceiling altitude. In each case a specially-picked crew (chosen by the Photographic Ladder rankings which were beginning to firm up), bombing a couple of minutes ahead of the rest, carried as part of their load a pair of modified flare bombs. Omitting the cables joining the candles together, these bombs were set to burst at low altitude, producing a small cluster of bright pin-pricks of light. The remaining crews were ordered to bomb the flares rather than finding their own A.P.s; the idea was to concentrate the raid in both time and space, producing maximum havoc in a limited area (rather than the usual widely scattered light damage) while accepting that the absolute location of that area could not be accurately controlled.
The first raid had seemed to go well; the target-finding crew had obtained a good fix on the coast crossing before making a timed run on Bremen, where the clear air left their flares easily visible to the following aircraft. While a few of the 'candles' disappeared (doubtless buried under debris from bomb blasts) before the last aircraft bombed, both the debriefing reports and the bombing photographs suggested a tight raid. Results could not be confirmed as thick frontal cloud covered the city by morning, preventing a useful reconnaissance, but Carr had felt confident enough (and Pierse optimistic enough) to go ahead with the repeat performance at Bonn on the 23rd.
Unfortunately, inland navigation remained a difficult task and the target-finding crew this time dropped their load on E.T.A. in open fields near Linz-am-Rhein. While a handful of eagle-eyed bomb-aimers recognised this and directed their pilots elsewhere in search of a built-up area to target, most of the aircraft aimed their payloads at the flares as ordered, producing some very heavily-ploughed earth.
Further disappointing news arrived shortly before the meeting: a photo-recce sortie had finally gotten covers of Bremen, which showed that, while the raid had hit a built-up area, it was some seven miles north-west of the A.P., in a residential part of Burglesum rather than the hoped-for Weser docklands — and the all-HE loads carried by the Halifaxes were not really suited to gutting houses (a task better performed with incendiaries, which had not been used to avoid confusion with the marker flares).
On the other hand, Carr was able to proudly point out that all aircraft had returned safely from both raids, with only a few flak-holes to patch up. The degree to which he had "just gotten lucky" was hotly debated.
With the Coastal Command vultures circling and mutterings in the War Cabinet about giving the Battle of the Atlantic priority for long-range bombers, the leadership of Bomber Command were all keen to produce some sort of a success — something to keep Churchill on their side. The plan hashed out at the meeting was for a major fire-raising raid involving a complex sequence of marking/aiming tactics.
This raid would, once again, begin with a lone Halifax — a different crew was chosen this time after the Bonn débâcle — whose flares would provide the target for the first wave, about a hundred 1 Group Wellingtons carrying mainly incendiaries. With their lower altitude, these were to be out of the way by the time their fires took hold, hopefully lighting up the target for the second wave, consisting of the remainder of 4 Group's Halifaxes carrying HE and (one per aircraft) another version of the flare bombs (this time delayed-action), and starting some fifteen minutes after the first wave ended. The third wave, timed to arrive just as these flares went off, would be made up of Stirlings from 3 Group and Mitchells and Manchesters from 5 Group, all carrying heavy mixed loads of GP/MC and incendiary clusters. In total the raid would last over an hour, and consist of about 160 aircraft.
The hope was that no matter what sort of buildings the attack happened to fall on, it would thoroughly demolish the area. The target, chosen the following day based on weather forecasts, was Kiel.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Crews of several of the first-wave Wellingtons were alarmed to see, several miles ahead of them, an aircraft brought down in flames by Flak. Their worst suspicions were confirmed when it exploded, as the debris contained several bright white lights: this was the target-finder Halifax, its flare bombs now burning prematurely far from the A.P. for which they had been meant.
With no target-finder, the incendiaries dropped by the first Wellingtons to reach Kiel would define the target for the raid; while all the crews had been warned at briefing to aim for flares rather than fires (in case the Germans lit decoy fires in open country), as there were no flares to be seen each crew had to fall back upon its own judgement and most chose to aim either at the fires or at buildings seen or imagined in the firelight. While a few of the latter were merely reflections in the harbour, many Wellington-loads did indeed land on the waterfront, producing a long chain of scattered fires along the coastline. While hardly the hoped-for concentrated blaze, at least the following wave would have something to aim at.
Though some of the fires were in the Howaldtswerke shipyard, these were quickly extinguished and by the time the second-wave Halifaxes arrived, the most prominent remaining fires were in a residential part of the Altstadt. Thus it was this area that collected most of the bombs, both from the second wave and, thanks to the flares, from the third wave as well. Bombing was still somewhat scattered, and not all confined to Kiel — the Germans had lit decoy fires outside the city, and at least two Stirlings got so lost they bombed Husum, on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein — but even so, a worthwhile amount of damage was certainly dealt to the centre of Kiel. It was, of course, a far cry from the devastation later to be associated with Bomber Command raids, but by the standards of 1941, the raid could be counted a partial success, despite the loss of the target-finder.
Losses for the night totalled six: apart from the Halifax, the first wave got off lightly with only a single Wellington lost, but several fighters were over Kiel in time to meet the third wave and two Stirlings and two Manchesters were brought down. The unscathed survival of the Mitchells can probably be attributed to their higher ceiling, most being able to reach at least 20,000ft over the target rather than the 16,000ft or so of the Stirlings.
A further Stirling was damaged in a landing accident on return to base, but Sebro were able to repair it fairly rapidly and none of its crew were hurt.
All in all, while not the vindicating success Bomber Command's leaders had hoped for, it was at least enough to — for the time being — keep Pierse in his post, and keep the bomber production coming (including the Halifax B.II, of which the first example reached No. 35 Sqn the following day). However, there was still concern about loss rates and Pierse was ordered to conserve and build up his forces ready for a renewed offensive when GEE arrived.
Report from Supermarines to Vickers management, 27th Oct.
B.II (Interim) prototype
The prototype Mitchell B. Mk II (Interim) is expected to make its first
flight later this week. Taxiing trials have not thus far shown any major
issues with the Dagger, but there is a tendency to overheat if the engines
are run up for too long against the brakes. As the installed power is
lower than the Hercules but the revs. are higher, we expect an increased
top speed relative to the Mk I but a reduction in range and payload.
Letter from Josef Kammhuber to Erhard Milch, 28.10.1941.
Obwohl ein neues Erprobungskommando in volle Zeit um die FuG 202 zu
probieren gebrauchen werden wird, kann Telefunken keine Ahnung geben, wann
diese Gerät fertig sein wird. Deswegen habe ich keine Vorbereitungen für
die Entstehung eines solches Kommandos getroffen.
(translation)
Although in the fullness of time an evaluation unit will be needed for
testing of the FuG 202, Telefunken can give no indication of when this
apparatus will be ready. Thus, I have made no preparations for the
formation of such a unit.
You have reached the in-progress mark of this story, which is still being written (the above chapter was posted on 2021-04-09).