2 Blenheims; 1 bombed a ship off Dutch coast but scored no hits. No losses.
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WILHELMSHAVEN
96 aircraft; most crews reported good bombing results. 1 Whitley lost. Wilhelmshaven reports much damage and many fires. Among buildings destroyed or damaged were: the head post office, the main police station, an army barracks, a naval technical school, the main dock offices, 7 large commercial premises and 2 hospitals. At least 22 fire-fighting teams were called in from towns in a radius of 120 km; the men of these teams had to travel in open vehicles over icy roads and then had to fight fires in freezing temperatures. 21 people were killed and 34 injured. The diarist says: 'The year of 1941 would bring many more heavy raids but none causing such heavy damage as this one.'
Minor Operations: 8 Wellingtons and 1 Whitley to Emden and Rotterdam. No losses.
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, the Air Ministry had sent Sir Richard Peirse the most concise, clear and forceful directive yet produced. It was assumed that 'oil position of the Axis Powers will be passing through their most critical period … during the next six months' and that, if the scale of attack on Germany's synthetic-oil industry could be increased, 'there will be widespread effects on German industry and communications, while it is even probable that within this time an appreciable effect may be felt in the scale of effort of her armed forces'. Sir Richard Peirse was therefore told that 'the sole primary aim of your bomber offensive, until further orders, should be the destruction of the German synthetic oil plants'. A list of seventeen places where oil was being produced from nearby deposits of cheaply mined brown coal (lignite) was added and it was judged that a reduction of 80 percent in Germany's internal production of oil could be achieved if the first nine of these plants could be destroyed. The leading nine plants were: Leuna, Plitz, Gelsenkirchen (the Nordstern plant), Zeitz, Scholven/Buer, Ruhland, Bhlen, Magdeburg and Ltzkendorf.
The intentions of Sir Richard Peirse on receiving these orders were quite clear. He would wait for the February new moon, make the large once-a-month attack on a large industrial city to which he had become accustomed, and then set to work to concentrate on those oil plants. The serious attack on the oil targets would, of course, be carried out almost entirely by night. He would be able to dispatch 265 aircraft on his February 'big night'; this was fifty-six more than the previous highest total, achieved in September 1940. Hannover would be chosen for this attack. The number of aircraft Peirse would send to Hannover would be 222, which well exceeded the previous largest concentration on one target, 135 to Gelsenkirchen in the January 1941 moon period. There should be no reason why a substantially increased effort by the current types of bombers should not be available for operations for a prolonged period, and new, improved, types were also beginning to appear. The Manchester and the four-engined types, Stirling and Halifax, the new generation of aircraft with much increased bomb-carrying capacity and, it was hoped, better all-round performance, were all due to make their operational dbut within the next month. There was only one change in command at this time: Air Vice-Marshal D. F. Stevenson succeeded Air Vice-Marshal J. M. Robb in the command of the still operationally trouble-ridden 2 Group.
The new period was due to get off to a good start but would then run into further weather problems. The clearest of conditions were needed for the finding of the oil plants; when these conditions were not available, the bombers had to be sent to less important targets. It was in this way that Cologne, the comparatively short-range target and one that was outside the main Ruhr Flak and searchlight defences, came to be chosen for attack on numerous nights of marginal weather conditions. When the weather was really bad, the bomber force often had to be stood down completely. Sometimes risks were taken to keep the offensive going and the bombers suffered heavy casualties in crashes around their home airfields or in the more distant parts of the United Kingdom to which they were sometimes diverted. Nearly three quarters of the aircraft casualties incurred in the following weeks would be the result of crashes in the United Kingdom.
Unhappily for Bomber Command, the great oil offensive never really got under way. Frustrated immediately by the weather, it was soon to be cut off completely by yet another diversion of effort. The clear run for which Bomber Command Headquarters had hoped was destined to last for just one month.
