Reaching for the Stars: a New History of Bomber Command in World War II

215 Pages·2014·4.513 MB·English

by  Connelly, Mark

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Reaching for the Stars
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REACHING FOR THE STARS
A New History of Bomber
Command in the World War II
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MARK CONNELLY
I.B.Tauris Publishers
LONDON(cid:127)NEW YORK
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Published in 2001 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States and Canada distributed by St. Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © Mark Connelly, 2001
The right of Mark Connelly to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 1-86064-591-7
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Typeset in Garamond by The Midlands Book Typesetting Co, Loughborough
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Hoping the Bomber will always get through 5
Chapter Two: The Lion Tries His Wings, September 1939–February 1941 16
Chapter Three: Committing Britain to a Bomber War,
February 1941–Spring 1942 37
Chapter Four: Unleashing the Whirlwind, February 1942–August 1943 62
Chapter Five: Berlin, ‘the Big City’ 104
Chapter Six: Achieving Victory, Spring 1944–May 1945 121
Chapter Seven: Remembering and Misremembering, 1945–1999 137
Conclusion 158
Appendix A: Bomber Command and the War Artists Scheme 164
Appendix B: Journey Together (1945) and The Way to the Stars (1945) 166
Chronology Bomber Command 168
Notes 175
Bibliographical notes 185
Index 195
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Illustrations
1 Sir Richard Peirse, Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command 1940–41, with Sir
Robert Saundby, Senior Air Staff Officer, at Bomber Command Headquarters,
High Wycombe.
2 Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, Commander-in-Chief Bomber Command 1942–45.
3 Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys under construction.
4 ‘Wings for Victory Week’, Trafalgar Square, March 1943.
5 A Vickers Wellington of 214 Squadron undergoing repairs in the hangar in late
1941.
6 Bomber Command flew in all seasons and the weather rarely grounded the force
completely.
7 ‘Bombing up’ a Whitley, 1940.
8 ‘Bombing up’ a Lancaster and fusing a 400lb ‘cookie’.
9 Crews at a briefing.
10 An intelligence officer questioning a crew after a raid on Berlin.
11 A Halifax caught in the light of a photoflash over St Ghislain, Belgium, May 1944.
12 Halifaxes over Pforzheim, 1943.
13 Halifax over Wanne-Eickel in a daylight raid, October 1944.
14 Hamburg, 1945.
15 Berliners awaiting burial, Christmas 1943.
16 The Bielefeld railway viaduct after 617 Squadron’s ‘Grand Slam’ attack, March
1945.
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Acknowledgements
Many people and institutions have helped me with the research and writing of this
book. Firstly I would like to thank the British Academy for providing funds for a
research fellowship, which allowed the project to get started. The book was inspired by
the work of Martin Middlebrook and Len Deighton. Their fascinating investigations of
Bomber Command led me to the subject and Len Deighton was kind enough to
answer some of my queries about his work. Don Shaw replied to a list of questions
about his play Harris and so I extend my gratitude to him. The staff of I.B.Tauris
provided some excellent advice and many helpful suggestions. Professor Jeffrey Rich-
ards proved once again how generous he is with his knowledge and time. I would also
like to thank all my friends who listened to my monologues on the RAF, Harris and a
dozen other related subjects with great patience.
The staff of the British Library and British Newspaper Library, the Public Records
Office, the University of London Library, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the Impe-
rial War Museum, the Royal Air Force Museum and the British Film Institute all
provided valuable assistance and material. I owe them all man thanks.
I would also like to take the opportunity of expressing my deepest gratitude and
love to my family, who made all this possible. They are always enthusiastic about my
work and in being so take many other responsibilities from my shoulders. This book is
for them.
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Introduction
Bomber Command’s role of honour stands at 55,000 dead. 55,000 dead, and a great
number of them were just the sorts of men the new Britain of 1945 so desperately
needed. In the Great War 38,000 British officers were killed. If the Western Front
stripped Britain of some of its most promising young poets, composers and artists,
then the Second World War bomber offensive denied the nation thousands of highly
trained technicians – wireless operators, engineers, navigators, pilots. Men that had so
much to offer their nation in peacetime. But those dead men were also sons, brothers,
husbands, fathers, lovers. Men like Flight Sergeant Ron Thomas of Cornwell.1 On the
night of March 30/31 1944 he set out with his Lancaster and six comrades, their task
was to bomb Nuremberg. They were a brand new crew flying their first mission. It was
their last too. On of its way home Lancaster LL622 was shot down by a fighter. The
bomber crashed on the edge of the battlefield of Waterloo. Thomas and all his crew
were killed. They had spent over a year training, costing the tax payers many thousands
of pounds. The aircraft they flew that night cost considerably more. Ron Thomas had
flown half way across Europe and his mates then managed to drop a few bombs some-
where near Nuremberg. That ended their contribution to the British war effort. It also
ended the dreams and hopes of seven families. On that same night Bomber Command
lost over 90 other aircraft and over 500 crew members.
One of my mother’s earliest memories is of being hurried into a brick tunnel at the
start of an air raid, close to the railway viaduct at Bad Oeynhausen. She says she
remembers mutters and prayers and the crash of bombs. Looking up Bad Oeynhausen
in the index of Martin Middlebrook’s and Chris Everitt’s Bomber Command War Diaries, I
found that the town was attacked only once, on March 23 1945. Eleven Lancasters of 1
and 5 Groups attacked the railway bridge in the town of her birth. Ironically the people
of Bad Oeynhausen had sought shelter directly underneath the target. Presumably if
the RAF had scattered their bombs (perhaps they were using the new Barnes Wallis
tallboys designed to wreck things like railway viaducts) more widely my mother might
not have made it to adulthood.
When the Bomber Command Association unveiled a statue to their most important
wartime leader, Sir Arthur Harris, in May 1992, a large crowd gathered to witness the
event. The Queen Mother had been given the honour of pulling the cord on the Union
Jack draping the impressive statue. Time and again the Queen Mother was interrupted