COASTAL BATTERIES
259 aircraft - 125 Lancasters, 118 Halifaxes, 16 Mosquitoes - of 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8 Groups to bomb 4 gun positions; 3 of these were deception targets in the Pas de Calais but the fourth battery, at Maisy, was in Normandy between what would soon be known as Omaha and Utah Beaches, where American troops would land in less than 36 hours' time. Unfortunately, Maisy was covered by cloud and could only be marked by Oboe sky-markers, but it was then bombed by 52 Lancasters of 5 Group. 2 of the 3 gun positions in the Pas de Calais were also affected by bad weather and could only be bombed through cloud but the position at Calais itself was clear and was accurately marked by the Mosquitoes and well bombed by Halifaxes and Lancasters of 6 Group.
No aircraft lost on these operations.
Minor Operations: 20 Mosquitoes to Cologne and 6 to Argentan, 4 R.C.M. sorties, 6 Serrate patrols, 4 Halifaxes and 3 Lancasters minelaying from the Scheldt to Dunkirk, 17 aircraft on Resistance operations. No aircraft lost.
Total effort for the night: 319 sorties with no aircraft losses.
Operational Statistics, 31 March/1 April to
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(66 days/nights)
Number of nights with operations: 57
Number of days with operations: 6
Number of night sorties: 24,060, from which 525 aircraft (2.2 percent) were lost
Number of daylight sorties: 12, from which no aircraft were lost
Total sorties: 24,072, from which 525 aircraft (2.2 percent) were lost
Approximate bomb tonnage in period: 75,748 tons
Averages per 24-hour period: 364.7 sorties, 8.0 aircraft lost, 1,147.7 tons of bombs dropped
The report is Luftgaukommando VII, Mnchen, from the Bundesarchiv, Freiburg.
The Allied armies made their historic landings on five beaches on the Normandy coast at dawn on 6 June, but they would remain locked in battle with a determined German defence for ten weeks before breaking out to sweep forward towards Germany. On the night before the landings, Bomber Command flew 1,211 sorties, its greatest total yet in one night; nearly all were in direct support of the invasion forces. Bad weather for much of the first two weeks restricted some air operations but the bomber crews became full partners in the invasion, a fact that would be a matter of great pride to the Bomber Command survivors. Their main invasion tasks would be the direct bombing of German troop and gun positions, ammunition and oil dumps, the continuing attack on German rail and road communications to the battle front, and the bombing of French ports where E-boats and other light-attack vessels were gathering to threaten the Allied supply ships off the invasion beaches.
But these tasks only required a part of Bomber Command's great strength and there was a variety of other operations during this period. One of the most important of these was a renewal of the attack on the German synthetic-oil industry, which had been tried in the early years of the bombing war but had failed because of the chronic target-finding difficulties of those years. The effects of a successful attack on the German oil industry upon the outcome of the Battle of Normandy were obvious. The American day bombers had started bombing the oil plants in May and General Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, asked Bomber Command to join in as soon as the Allied ground forces were safely established ashore in Normandy. Bomber Command was allocated the oil targets in and around the Ruhr; the R.A.F. night attacks would save the American bombers having to face the fierce Ruhr Flak defences by day. The R.A.F. bombers duly tackled these difficult targets with much success, though with some setbacks and the occasional heavy casualties caused by night fighters.
But, as had happened so often in earlier years, there came a call to divert the bomber effort from the main task. The Germans launched the first V-1 flying bombs against London six days after the invasion. The prolonged V-1 campaign was a nuisance rather than a major military threat because the Germans directed most of the V-1s against London, as a 'revenge weapon' for R.A.F. bombing, rather than against the invasion supply ports. But the damage and casualties in London were heavy and everything possible had to be done to knock out the multitude of small launching ramps which were hidden in the countryside of the Pas de Calais area. The Allied air forces had to turn their attention to the V-1 launching sites and stores, although more important invasion tasks always took priority. The V-1 campaign would last until late August, when advancing Allied troops captured most of the sites; the last ground-launched V-1 was dispatched by the Germans on 3 September.
A smaller diversion forced on Bomber Command by the V-1s was the need to send at least two Mosquito fighter squadrons of 100 Group back to Fighter Command (now called Air Defence of Great Britain) for the interception of V-1s, but there were few major raids on Germany at this time and the 100 Group Mosquitoes could easily be spared. These squadrons are believed to have shot down eighteen flying bombs and they returned to Bomber Command when the V-1 threat ended. (The 100 Group Mosquito anti-flying-bomb operations were flown under the control of Air Defence of Great Britain Headquarters - Fighter Command under a new title - but they are also recorded in the Bomber Command records; because of the difficulty which would be experienced in separating details of these operations from other 100 Group Mosquito operations, the anti-flying-bomb sorties are included in the diaries here.)
So the men of Bomber Command played their part in the events of those historic weeks. For the bomber crews it was a time of almost unbelievable intensity, variety and interest. There were no major raids in Germany in June but time was found to make five attacks on German cities during the non-moon period in July. Day raids were reintroduced, though with some reluctance, by Harris with his memories of heavy daylight losses earlier in the war, but all went well as long as the bombers operated within the limits of the range of the vast Allied fighter-escort force available. The benefits accruing from the return to daylight operations were the virtual doubling of Bomber Command's potential strength at a stroke and the elimination of some of the problems of target-finding, at least on days of good visibility. The need for accurate bombing was greater than ever, particularly when the targets being attacked were near Allied troops, French communities or were the small flying-bomb sites. In the early daylight raids of this period, Bomber Command simply pretended that day was still night and used Pathfinder markers in the long established manner, but more sophisticated means were quickly developed. The most important of these were the Oboe-leader and the G-H formation methods, in which aircraft fitted with these devices led small formations of heavy bombers which released their bombs when the leading aircraft bombed. The 'Oboe-leader' method proved to be the most accurate of all daylight methods but G-H was more flexible because there was no limit to the number of aircraft which could eventually be fitted with the G-H blind-bombing device and hence to the force of ordinary bombers which could be employed.
Operations during this period consisted of a multitude of small or medium-sized raids. The planners never worked harder, nor did the aircrew and the ground staffs. Sometimes aircrews flew two sorties in twenty-four hours. By day, they might be bombing targets only a few yards from the battle lines in Normandy; a few hours later they could be bombing an oil refinery in the Ruhr. Bomber Command flew approximately the same number of sorties in an average week during this period - more than 5,000 sorties - as in the first nine months of the war! No one who flew in those weeks and survived will ever forget them.
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NORMANDY COASTAL BATTERIES
1,012 aircraft - 551 Lancasters, 412 Halifaxes, 49 Mosquitoes - to bomb coastal batteries at Fontenay, Houlgate, La Pernelle, Longues, Maisy, Merville, Mont Fleury, Pointe-du-Hoc, Ouisterham and St-Martin-de-Varreville. 946 aircraft carried out their bombing tasks. 3 aircraft were lost - 2 Halifaxes of 4 Group on the Mont Fleury raid and 1 Lancaster of 6 Group on the Longues raid. Only two of the targets - La Pernelle and Ouisterham - were free of cloud; all other bombing was entirely based on Oboe marking. At least 5,000 tons of bombs were dropped, the greatest tonnage in one night so far in the war.
SUPPORT OPERATIONS
110 aircraft of 1 and 100 Groups carried out extensive bomber-support operations: 24 A.B.C.-equipped Lancasters of 101 Squadron patrolled all likely night-fighter approaches, so that their German-speaking operators could jam the German controllers' instructions; 100 Group flew 34 R.C.M. sorties and 27 Serrate and 25 Intruder Mosquito patrols. 2 Intruders and 1 A.B.C. Lancaster were lost.
DIVERSION OPERATIONS
58 aircraft of 3 and 5 Groups carried out a variety of operations to conceal the true location of the invasion for as long as possible. 16 Lancasters of 617 Squadron and 6 G-H fitted Stirlings of 218 Squadron dropped a dense screen of Window, which advanced slowly across the Channel, to simulate a large convoy of ships approaching the French coast between Boulogne and Le Havre, north of the real invasion coast. These flights required exact navigation; both squadrons had been practising for this operation for more than a month. The second diversion was carried out by 36 Halifaxes and Stirlings of 90, 138, 149 and 161 Squadrons. These aircraft dropped dummy parachutists and explosive devices to simulate airborne landings over areas not being invaded. 2 Stirlings of 149 Squadron were lost while carrying out this duty.
Osnabrck
31 Mosquitoes bombed Osnabrck without loss.
Total Bomber Command effort for the night: 1,211 sorties, 8 aircraft (0.7 percent) lost. The number of sorties flown was a new record. British, American and Canadian divisions landed on five Normandy beaches early the next morning.
