DUISBURG
232 aircraft - 111 Lancasters, 56 Halifaxes, 39 Wellingtons, 26 Stirlings. 12 aircraft - 6 Lancasters, 4 Wellingtons, 2 Halifaxes - lost, 5.2 percent of the force.
The bombing force found that the target area was clear and claimed much damage. It has not been possible to obtain a report from Duisburg.
LUTTERADE OBOE TRIAL
6 Mosquitoes of 109 Squadron were dispatched to bomb a power-station at Lutterade, a small town in Holland near the German frontier. The first Oboe-aimed bombs were dropped by Squadron Leader H. E. Bufton and his navigator Flight Lieutenant E. L. Ifould. 2 other crews bombed on Oboe but the equipment in the remaining 3 aircraft did not function properly and they bombed elsewhere. The Mosquitoes all returned safely.
Daylight photographs taken after the raid showed so many old bomb craters from an earlier raid when the Pathfinder mistook Lutterade for Aachen that it was impossible to identify the Oboe results reliably. A local report, however, states that 9 bombs fell together in open ground 2 km from the power-station, fortunately just missing a large area of housing situated between the power-station and the place where the bombs fell. It is surprising that the target for this first Oboe trial should have been a location in friendly Holland which had so much housing near by.
4 O.T.U. Wellingtons on leaflet flights to France without loss.
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9 Venturas and 6 Bostons to attack railway targets in France, Belgium and Holland but only 2 Venturas found targets, at Monceau and Valenciennes. No aircraft lost.
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MUNICH
137 aircraft of 1 and 5 Groups and the Pathfinder Force - 119 Lancasters, 9 Stirlings, 9 Wellingtons. 12 aircraft - 8 Lancasters, 3 Stirlings, 1 Wellington - lost, 8.8 percent of the force.
110 aircraft claimed to have bombed Munich and started fires but their photographs showed that all or most of the bombs fell in open country, possibly attracted by a decoy site.
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to S March 1943
(75 days/nights)
Number of days with operations: 38
Number of nights with operations: 58
Number of daylight sorties: 923, from which 25 aircraft (2.7 percent) were lost
Number of night sorties: 9,057, from which 251 aircraft (2.8 percent) were lost
Total sorties: 9,980 sorties, from which 276 aircraft (2.8 percent) were lost
Approximate bomb tonnage in period: 17,834 tons
Averages per 24-hour period: 133.1 sorties, 3.7 aircraft lost, 237.8 tons of bombs dropped
Official History, Vol. IV, pp. 152-3.
Feuersturm ber Hamburg, op. cit., pp. 157-8.
Sir Arthur Harris called the period from the spring of 1943 until the spring of 1944 his 'main offensive'. He had steered Bomber Command through the recent winter with great skill, recognizing that the time was not yet ripe for an all-out effort, conserving and building up his force, yet constantly experimenting with new tactics and the introduction of new devices. But now, in the early March of 1943, all was ready for a sustained and major effort against Germany and Harris decided that he would commence what he called at the time the Battle of the Ruhr. History would confirm the suitability of that title.
The 'battle' concept was a reflection of the principle of concentration, with the main strength of Bomber Command's night force being directed as much as was tactically possible against one target system until that target system was destroyed. It is probable that Harris had Berlin in mind as his ultimate battle; to destroy Berlin would surely force Germany out of the war. But Harris knew that Berlin was too difficult a target for Bomber Command at that time. The vital considerations were the need for further development of target-finding methods and the duration of darkness. Berlin required the increasing nights of autumn and winter, not the shortening ones of the coming spring. The Ruhr was the logical place to fight Bomber Command's first pitched battle. The whole of the Ruhr area, with its huge spread of industrial cities, was within range of the blind-marking device Oboe and any target in that area could easily be reached in the shorter nights of spring and summer.
There were two aspects of the coming offensive which should be mentioned. Firstly, none of Bomber Command's battles could ever concentrate exclusively on one target area. Such a course of action would have allowed the Germans to concentrate their night-fighter and Flak defences and defeat the bombers. The main Battle of the Ruhr would last for four months, during which forty-three major raids were mounted. Two thirds of these raids were on the Ruhr but the remainder were scattered across widely spread areas of Europe - to Stettin on the Baltic, to Pilsen in Czechoslovakia, to Munich deep in Bavaria, to Turin in Italy. It was a good example of the flexibility of air power and the Germans were never allowed to concentrate all their defences at the Ruhr. The second point, however, is that the Flak and searchlight defences around the Ruhr cities were already the most powerful in Germany and the night-fighter units manning the boxes on the routes between the coast of Europe and the Ruhr were already the most experienced and best equipped in the Luftwaffe. Despite the dispatch of some raids to distant points, the Germans were bound to reinforce both their ground and air defences around the Ruhr as the battle developed. The coming period was going to be a major test between the skill, determination and courage of the participants. On the one side stood the commander-in-chief of Bomber Command and the men of his squadrons; on the other side stood the German city civilians and the personnel of the Flak and night-fighter units which were attempting to defend the cities. The levels of death and destruction were about to mount dramatically.
Two major factors were on the side of the British. The first was the continuing increase in Bomber Command's striking power. At the opening of the Battle of the Ruhr there were nearly 600 bombers available and, at the peak of the battle, towards the end of May, the city of Dortmund would be attacked by more than 800 aircraft. Four fifths of these were four-engined aircraft. One set of statistics can illustrate this point. On the
