Bear with me, Erich ... I need to amalgamate from several books & accounts. No time just now - watch this space.....

[ 20. January 2003, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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I understand, research takes time. Thank you for your efforts.

E

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Zzzzzzzzz.....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

For Stevin's pic......from Peter Spoden two hours ago.

Hallo Erich- I do not think that the upper a/c is a Ju 88G. It looks to me like another 4 enigne a/c. The ratio between wing-span and elevator is about the same on both a/c. the heading the same, only that the upper is probably at lower latitude.(interesting thought !) Difficult to recognize, but the picture reflects very well the moments over the burning town like in my book the pic from the museum London: the 4 motor over burning Hamburg. You Know Erich, that Pforzheim was a terrible RAF-area bombing for the German people: about 2000 civlians(among them more than 5000 kids) killed and burned by firestorms in 20 minutes from a population of 65,000 still living in the old town without any strategic value ! So long and best regards Peter-

E

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Thanks for sharing that Erich. Interesting insight. Amazing how an amazing pic and authorative memories can come together like this...

Hmmm....it is late in the day, which was a busy one...so I am not sure if what I want to say comes across.

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Stevin :

When you get a chance, I would be interested in your thoughts of the pic once you have time to enlarge it. Always best in a case like this to get a few different viewpoints. 4 engine or a nf ?

E

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CHEMNITZ 14/15 February 1945

Sorry - there are snippets' of information in various books. so I'll post some of the more interesting from the rarer books ; -

'The next night the Squadrons ( 150 & 170 from Hemswell ) went to Chemnitz, now Karl-Marz Stadt, 40 miles south-west of Dresden. Many government departments from Berlin had taken refuge there and it was also an important supply base for the Russian front. The attack was unfortunate in that although weather en route was good, cloud built up to a height of about 16,000 feet at the target and, because the PFF TI markers were set to cascade from below this height, very few crews saw them. In the end, the Master Bomber called for main force crews to bomb on D/R ( dead-reckoning ) or on navigation aids ( H2S ). However, after the bombing started, PFF started dropping Wanganui sky-markers and the Master Bomber changed his instructions to bombing on the sky-markers. A few crews found gaps in the cloud in the southern part of the target area and reported a fairly concentrated fire area.
All our aircraft landed safely after a nine-hour round flight '.

from ' Bomber Intelligence ' by W E Jones ( Intelligence Officer, 150/170 Sqns ).

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'The following night, February 14-15, Bomber Command laid on one of its most elaborate night operations , ( See Maps 22/23 ) a two-phase Main Force attack on Chemnitz with a 5 Group diversion to Rositz. there were a bewildering number of feints even from a British point of view ; mining, Bullseyes , and numerous LNSF spoofs, a protective Mandrel screen, and 100 Group put up intruders and aircraft to jam German radar. As so often happened the weather had the last word : cloud prevented visual identification and the Master Bombers on both phases had to call for emergency Wanganui flares. '

from ' Pathfinder Force ' by Gordon Musgrove.
( The two maps would be useful to you but the detail is tiny even if I could scan them ! They show the tracks for both attacks with German Nightfighter assembly points and airfields marked..... ! )

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'As soon as I awoke I was to find that I was back on operations that very night, but this time as a Primary Visual Marker with my own crew. I dragged myself out of bed and across to Intelligence to find the target was Chemnitz, so another long haul to East Germany in support of the advancing Red Army.

From the previous night I knew there was a considerable amount of cloud in the Chemnitz area, so hoped it had not increased as I very much wanted to be able to mark the target visually as there were over 700 bombers on the operation. We took off at 17:00 hours and did not encounter any opposition en route to Chemnitz but as we approached the city at about 20:30 hours there was enormous cloud cover over the whole area and in no way was I going to be able to mark the target visually so to my great disappointment it had to be a Wamganui ( sky marking attack ). I thought on this occasion that with more than 700 bombers over the city there would be a reasonable chance that the attack would hit home at supplies, communications, and any troops that may be garrisoned in the city.

There appeared to be a moderate amount of heavy flak reaching around the flight level of the bombers but I saw only one very large flash just after leaving the target, but was too far off to make any guess as to whether it might have been one of our bombers. The sky markers did not appear to be drifting too rapidly and I could see no reason why the majority of bombs would not fall on the city. For our crew it was home and don't spare the revs, and with not a German Nightfighter in sight our Captain was calling Oakington for landing instructions at about 15 minutes past midnight '

from ' Through The Bombsight ' by Sqn Ldr Andrew Maitland, DFC* ( 7 Squadron PFF )

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Do you have a scanner Martin ? I would enjoy the maps even if they are quite small. Probably would have to go to PRO to investigate the possibility of finding the approach to IP and target and then home again for this and other raids over the Reich......good stuff ! Isn;t it interesting too that even with the amount of losses that some bomber crews never saw a fighter. Almost like the US bomber forces, some hit hard others were fortuante in not receiving much at all in the way of air resistanc. I understand now how RAF was able to bomb "below the clouds"; very good explanation with those special flare/markers.

E

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Don't have a scanner - I'll have to think how I can do this.....

Full information will be in the Bomber Command Raid Reports at the PRO, which is where the 'Bomber Command War Diaries' info comes from.

I've just found another description of the 'feints' and countermeasures used on this particular raid in 'Bomber Offensive' by Sir Arthur Harris ( pp. 247 - 249 ).

Yes, you're right - I've often seen it commented upon that for one crew, a raid can be a 'piece of cake' ( straight out, drop bombs, back home ) while for another the same night can be 'hell on earth', or their last....

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Martin are you familiar in how the reports are filed ? Is each mission text filed under a seperate number or letter; file or lumped together if you know ?

post the Harris info if this is not too much bother please......have to run off for several hours of tedious work.....be back soon

E

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As far as I'm aware, the Bomber Command Raid Reports are filed by number. Believe it or not, I've never been to the PRO even tho' it's about twenty minutes from my house by car or train....

Anyhow, to : -

CHEMNITZ, 14/15 February, 1945

In 'Bert' Harris' own words -

'On the night of 14-15 February, 1945, the main targets were Rositz and Chemnitz, both in Saxony, and therefore at a distance from the frontier which would normally have put our force in great peril ; Rositz was to be attacked by 224 heavy bombers, and Chemnitz first by 329 heavy bombers and then, after an interval of three hours, by another force of 388 bombers. Fifty-four heavy bombers were also to lay mines that night in the Baltic. Berlin was to receive yet another attack by Mosquitoes, a force of 46 of them being despatched.

The enemy's early warning system was on that occasion jammed, and reduced in range, from Arnhem to Luxembourg. The minelaying force flew across Denmark to the Baltic while at the same time the Mosquitoes flew across North Germany to Berlin. In addition, 95 heavy bombers made a diversionary sweep over the North Sea. Then two separate forces, each of 12 Mosquitoes, broke from the cover of the jamming screen, and, as soon as they were within range of the early warning stations dropped bundles of window which, on the enemy's radar, simulated the approach of large bomber forces ; these two small Mosquito forces made for Duisberg and Mainz with the object of attracting the fighters based in the Ruhr and North-East Germany. A this stage, the enemy controllers were therefore aware of two main threats, the one somewhere up in the North and towards the East, the other in the general direction of the Ruhr. And at this moment in the enemy's confused affairs the two main heavy bomber forces broke cover from behind the screen of jammers and flew on the same course in the direction of Coblenz. Just north of Coblenz the two main forces diverged, one flying to the North-west and the other to the South-East, but after an interval they converged again and both made for Saxony.

The enemy's first reaction was to decide that we were threatening the Ruhr and to send fighters there; the controllers had been deceived by the 24 Mosquitoes which were the first to break out from the jamming screen. The deception did not last for long, and fighters which had been sent to the Ruhr were hurriedly sent further South to orbit a beacon near Cologne. By this time, when the two Main Forces had reached Coblenz, the enemy had accurately plotted this very large number of heavy bombers, and when the two forces diverged near Coblenz, both of them continued to be plotted and the fighters followed both forces until they came together again, which was at a point about 40 miles west of Chemnitz. After this, the fighters only followed the force which was to attack Chemnitz. But all this was too late. A large number of fighters had eventually collected at the beacon near Cologne, but when they were sent after the main bomber streams not one of them was able to catch up. Meanwhile the mine-laying aircraft flying over Denmark had engaged the attention of some fighters based there and the enemy, after plotting the diversionary sweep across the North Sea and deciding that some 350 aircraft were approaching - the real number was 95 - sent some fighters to a beacon near Hamburg to be ready for this threat ; these fighters were not used again.From stations near Berlin the enemy did send a number of fighters to Chemnitz, but these were scarcely more effective than the fighters sent from the Cologne beacon ; they arrived so late that only a very few combats took place. When the bombers were on their way back from Saxony, other fighters came up from the South, but these also failed to catch up with the two bomber streams.

We had naturally stopped jamming the enemy's early warning stations as soon as this was no longer necessary, but three hours later we began to jam them again, this time concentrating on stations rather farther to the south. It will be remembered that the plan was for a second large force of bombers to make a second heavy attack on Chemnitz, which was now the only real objective. This force flew on a route which passed to the south of Mannheim but in advance of it there flew a small force of Mosquitoes dropping Window, and as soon as these broke from the screen put up by our airborne jamming these diverged from the route assigned to the heavy bombers and flew in the direction of Mainz and Frankfurt. There were then three feint attacks in this second phase of the night's operations ; eight Mosquitoes attacked Frankfurt, 11 attacked Nuremburg and 14 Dessau, which is about 75 miles north-west of Chemnitz.

As many night-fighters as the enemy had previously sent to the beacon near Cologne were sent up in this second phase of operations, and nearl yhalf of them had been airborne three hours before.But the Window-dropping Mosquitoes effectively prevented the fighters from intercepting the bombers near the German frontier, and when the fighters were eventually directed toward the main bomber stream very few of them reached it, partly because we were using effective measures to jam the apparatus they carried for detecting aircraft in the dark and partly because there was cloud over part of the route.

In all, the total losses for that night were only 1.3 percent of all sorties, including the aircraft used to carry apparatus for jamming the early warning stations, Mosquito fighters sent against the enemy's night-fighters, and the diversionary sweep. '

from BOMBER OFFENSIVE by Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Harris, London, 1947 ( pp247-249 )

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Martin :

So much good stuff at your finger tips.....arg !

great stuff on the Chemnitz raid......thankyou. Still cannot figure why no one has really put together something indepth on the raids of 1945/ RAF and with the German defensive reaction. Well maybe if I get off my little ol butt and......man I should open up another web-site.....hmmmmmm.....thinking, and putting on the backburner.....

E

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( Slightly O/T but on my travels yesterday found a nice cheap copy of Theo Boiten's 'Night Airwar' full of interesting personal recollections - will look out for his 'Nachtjagd' next.... )

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A Very good buy, Martin! I am sure Erich will agree. I have both his books and his book with....euh...Martin Bowman(?). You will find several recollections and pics in his books by Mr. Spoden as well!

Nice books also because both sides are featured.

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BTW Martin, I haven't seen a quote from Pathfinder bt Vice Air Marschall Bennett here. Do you own that book? I have a 1960 paperback (charity shop, sheffield. Gotta love 'em), but have to go through it it is says anything on these raids....

But first the rest of the 1-1-45 translations.

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

Martin :

Get both books by Theo if you can. Some of the actions are real brief in nachtjagd but some interesting pics. His night air war from what I have heard is just mostly a supplement to his earlier Nachtjagd book.
Stevin you have the latter book then ? Would you please make comment..... It is a hard one to come by here in the states. If possible can you send me a scan of the pic showing the Bf 109G-2 ? in the foreground and Peter Spoden's Ju 88G-6 in the background.....? Interesting here is that Peter told me last year that he has never received the original of this pic back from Theo......ooooops ! Well maybe Peter included a copy? in his forthcoming book. Don't know. The last pages cover a particular mission that we are covering in our jet nf book. This about ace Herbert Altner flying the Me 262B-1a/U-1.

E

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Bennett's book, although essential reading, doesn't really details individual raids or go into technical detail of Pathfinder tactics.

He does say :

'Take February, 1945 as an example; the Oboe Mosquitoes carried out 427 main operations, whilst the Lancaster heavies carried out 866. The little Light Night Striking Force, however, carried out 1,809 operations against the enemy in that month. Thus the total for my little Group was 3,102 operations for the month, with a loss of only 17 aircraft'...In these days of peace, however, it might be more interesting to realise that we never worked more than seven days in any week, and never more than twenty-four hours per day'.

D C T Bennett ' Pathfinder ' , first published 1958.

If the last comment seems a little enigmatic, it's worth remembering that Bennett was a man to harbour a grudge, and his enmity with Cochrane of 5 Group shows up throughout his book. Makes for entertaining reading, but as for objectivity. . . . !

[ 23. January 2003, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Night Airwar is more a collection of personal recollections. Nachtjagd is more a study of the subject, with personal recollections mixed up. Night Airwar does not dissapoint when it comes to pics, at least that is my opinion. The recollections are also more than worth buying the book for.

I also bought both books in the UK!

I wrote Theo about that, Erich....No answer! Found the pic, will scan and post later tonight. It also has an interesting pic of the nose of a NF Me262 showing the gun ports and the radar arrays.

Martin: Thanks for that! Bennett:Vice Air Marshall at 33! What have I been doing with my life? Where did I go wrong?

[ 23. January 2003, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Stevin Oudshoorn ]

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

Stevin : have heard mixed reviews.........

If you could please along with the scan, inform as to what it covers in text during 1945 and any pics unseen of Ju 88G-6's. I am curious if it is quite a bit different than his Nachtjagd title.

thanks !

E

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Just been away for the weekend and took Boiten's 'Night Airwar' with me.

I have to say that I quite literally couldn't put it down ! The personal experiences cover many aspects from both sides with personal evaluations of aircraft and many photos which are nearly all 'private snapshots' and are certainly new to me.

Also, importantly, many of the accounts describe some of the lesser-known or 'trivial' aspects of operational flying which are not covered by other books - this is the sort of information which is in danger of 'dying with the survivors'.

Anyway - I like it ! And please forgive me for including a snippet of quotation from 4./NJG6's Lt. Helmut Bunje ; -

'In all important aspects the Ju88, and especially the Ju88 G-6, was superior to the Bf 110 G-4. From my own point of view, it was the best night-fighter available to us during the last six months of the war. Nevertheless, most of us would have given a big cheer if we had had an enviably good aircraft which came of the British production lines ;
the MOSQUITO ! '



[ 26. January 2003, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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Yep, Stevin gave me a little run down on the contents for 1945. Ah so many titles to choose from.
Was that a little jab at the end my friend ! har, har. Helmut of course was not the only Luftwaffe pilot to feel that way about his Junkers or the wiley Mossie .....
You have obviously read a little about Walter Briegleb's ops over England in Unternehmen Gisela. He shot down two Beufighters at night and maybe the only German nf pilot to do so......December 44. martin is Walter's Ju 88G-6 depicted in pics in the book ?

E

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Indeed yes, the section on Operation Gisela I found very interesting, and baffling as to why the Luftwaffe didn't try this before.

There's no picture, unfortunately - but I did like the 'snapshot' elsewhere in the book that shows, in the background, Peter Spoden's Ju 88G-6 parked at Schwabisch-Hall.

This book will find a place among the top rank of Bomber-war books in my collection.

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Martin :

Actually NJG 2 as a whole was perfoming the Fernenachtjagd over the UK during 41-42. Flying the Ju 88C-6 the pilots found that the a/c lacked the heavy armament needed to shoot down enemy bombers over their bases as well as limited fuel tanks and also no Schräge Musik till august of 43.
The Bf 110G-4 was no way able to perform this function and get the crews home so only with the advent of the latest Ju 88G-6 models could this be acheived, and also since "Fatty" had such a tight ring over day/night time flyers, the order was to defend the Reich at all costs and not go galvamping around over England in search of prey.
After Gisela there were two other raids, the next being a total of 18 Ju 88G-6's and the last was an almost futile attempt by only2 Ju 88G-6's one being successful and this pilot from NJG 2.

E

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Thanks for pointing this out, Erich.

It's that old 'context of time' thing again - as in, what if the RAF could have mounted 'Hamburg-style' raids in 1941, what if the Me262 had been available in 1942, and so on.....

But they couldn't, and they weren't, and so on...

[ 27. January 2003, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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Yes you are quite correct Martin ! Say a little homework if you have the time.... Does Sir Arthur Harris make any mention of the January 16/17 1945 mission over the Reich in his book ? A big night for the Luftwaffe, and am wondering about the English account(s). And also the Gisela raid in March of 45 ?

thanks

E

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