, the ordinary squadrons of Bomber Command dropped 1,000 tons of bombs for the first time. The target was Lorient. Within a little more than three months of that night, more than 2,000 tons of bombs would be dropped on Dortmund. There had been times before, however, when Bomber Command had seemed to be on the verge of a new and favourable phase in its offensive against its main objectives only to be pulled back by orders to help out elsewhere. This was not to happen now. The only directive received by Bomber Command during the main part of the Battle of the Ruhr would be one which released Bomber Command from the need for further attacks on the U-boat bases in France. Sir Arthur Harris would be left with complete freedom to concentrate his forces on the Battle of the Ruhr until that battle had run its full course.
The second favourable factor was the ability of the Pathfinders to find and mark the Ruhr cities accurately. Earlier diary entries have shown how painfully and with so many setbacks the Pathfinders developed their tactics. Over the Ruhr would come almost complete success, a success dependent entirely upon Oboe. The Oboe beams would be set up to cross with near complete reliability over target after target and guide the Mosquito Pathfinder aircraft to that point in the sky where their target indicators were released with an accuracy undreamt of in the early years of bombing. The Pathfinder heavy squadrons also played a major role. The small numbers of Mosquitoes which the Oboe system could handle were only able to provide the primary marking, always the Pathfinder backers-up had to come in, straight and level through the searchlights and Flak, to drop their markers of a different colour. The Main Force had orders to bomb the Mosquito markers if visible, the backing-up markers if not. Very rarely did the crews of the Pathfinder heavies leave a gap in the marking. It was during this period that 8 Group received important reinforcements. 97 Squadron came in as the second squadron provided by 5 Group and the newly formed 6 (Canadian) Group sent 405 Squadron. A further significant addition to the Pathfinders was the creation of 1409 (Meteorological) Flight which, directly under 8 Group control, carried out daylight weather reconnaissance flights in preparation for nearly every Bomber Command raid to Germany until the end of the war, as well as a large number of flights for the bomber units of the American Eighth Air Force. All these additions to the Pathfinders took place in April. But the Pathfinder unit without which the Battle of the Ruhr could not have been fought so successfully was 109 Squadron and its handful of Oboe-equipped Mosquitoes. The contribution of the fast, high-flying, safe Mosquito cannot be overestimated. To all this should be added the degree of perseverance and courage shown by the men of the Main Force squadrons who fought this battle, sustaining heavy losses over a long period. Their morale never wavered and the old dictum was proved that heavy casualties can be sustained by a force as long as successful results are being visibly achieved.
17. Aircrew from the Empire and the United States at a Bomber Command station in 'the north of England'.
But, outside the Ruhr and beyond the range of Oboe, success continued to elude Bomber Command on many occasions. The Pathfinders had to struggle with inadequate technical devices to probe the darkness of the non-moon periods and place their target indicators exactly over a certain point hundreds of miles from their bases. It was a task that was frequently not achieved and the diary entries for individual raids outside the Ruhr area show that this continued to be Bomber Command's main problem for many months to come. This leads to mention of the famous Dams Raid carried out by 617 Squadron, which was formed in 5 Group to tackle particularly important small targets. The 617 Squadron raid on the dams near the Ruhr was quite independent of the main Battle of the Ruhr operations. The historical relevance of the Dams Raid, and of a lesser known but equally significant raid by other squadrons of 5 Group on a factory at Friedrichshafen, was that such operations reflected the aspirations of that small body of opinion which hoped that Bomber Command would develop tactics of more finesse than the methods of mass and tonnage that were now Bomber Command's almost exclusively chosen instruments. There is no need to go into more detail on this here; this section of the diary properly belongs to the success of the methods used in the Battle of the Ruhr, but the subject would become more relevant as the war progressed and the contrast became apparent between the almost simple ease with which Oboe marking could be used to smash German cities within the range of that device and the sometimes insurmountable difficulties of finding and marking the multitude of targets in other parts of Germany.
A series of major changes took place in the top ranks of Bomber Command just before the Battle of the Ruhr opened. The movement of senior officers started with Sir Robert Saundby, Senior Air Staff Officer at Bomber Command Headquarters, being raised to the newly created position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief, and a number of further changes left Bomber Command and the Groups with a team that would see the command through the war almost to the end. The line-up established by the end of February 1943 was:
Commander-in-Chief - Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris
Deputy Commander-in-Chief - Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby
1 Group - Air Vice-Marshal E. A. B. Rice
3 Group - Air Vice-Marshal R. Harrison
4 Group - Air Vice-Marshal C. R. Carr
5 Group - Air Vice-Marshal The Hon. R. Cochrane
6 (Canadian) Group - Air Vice-Marshal G. E. Brookes
8 (Pathfinder) Group - Air Vice-Marshal D. C. T. Bennett
The only other change which would occur before 1945 would be the replacement of Air Vice-Marshal Brooks by Air Vice-Marshal C. M. McEwen in February 1944.
2 Group has not been included in the above list because this day-bombing organization left Bomber Command completely during this period. The capabilities of this courageous group had not fitted in with the main operations of Bomber Command since the switch to the night offensive in 1940. Although the group several times tried to join in the night battle, its equipment was never suited to this task and the diary has shown how the group's squadrons were forced to become an almost independent force, often experiencing difficulty in finding a viable role, frequently thrust into a type of operation which brought little success and fearful casualties. Now, with the invasion of Europe being planned for 1944, 2 Group left Bomber Command at the end of May 1943, temporarily to join Fighter Command which provided the escort cover for most of the group's operations but eventually to form the core of the R.A.F.'s Second Tactical Air Force which would achieve success and glory in providing close support to the British invasion forces in 1944 and 1945. From
