RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command was the organisation that controlled the RAF's bomber forces. It was formed in 1936 and absorbed into the new Strike Command in 1968.

Bomber Command 1936-1945

When Bomber Command was formed, Giulio Douhet's slogan "the bomber will always get through" was popular, and was cited by figures like Stanley Baldwin. Until advances in radar technology in the late 1930s, this statement was effectively true. Attacking bombers could not be detected early enough to assemble fighters fast enough to prevent them reaching their targets. Some damage might be done to the bombers by AA guns, and by fighters as the bombers returned to base, but that was not the same as a proper defence. Consequently, the early conception of Bomber Command was in some ways akin to its later role as a nuclear deterrent force. It was seen as an entity that threatened the enemy with utter destruction, and thus prevented war. However, in addition to being made obsolete by technology, even if the bomber did always get through, its potential for damage to cities was massively overrated.

Related Topics:
Giulio Douhet - Stanley Baldwin - Radar - AA

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The problem was that the British Government was basing its data on a casualty rate of 50 per ton of bombs dropped. The basis for this assumption was a few raids on London in the later stages of World War I, by Zeppelins and Gotha bombers. Both the government and the general public viewed the bomber as a far more terrible weapon than it really was.

Related Topics:
World War I - Zeppelin - Gotha

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At the start of WWII, Bomber Command was hampered by three problems. The first was simple lack of size; Bomber Command was not large enough to effectively attack the enemy. The second was rules of engagement; at the start of the war, the targets allocated to Bomber Command were not wide enough in scope. The British Government did not want to violate international law by attacking civilian targets, and the French were even more concerned lest Bomber Command operations provoke a German bombing attack on France. Since the Armée de l'Air had almost nothing in the way of modern fighters, and no defence network comparable to the British chain of radar stations, France was effectively prostrate before the threat of a German bombing attack. The final problem was lack of good enough aircraft. The main Bomber Command workhorses at the start of the war were the Battle, Blenheim, Hampden, Wellesley, Wellington and Whitley. None of them had enough range or ordnance capacity.

Related Topics:
Armée de l'Air - Battle - Blenheim - Hampden - Wellesley - Wellington - Whitley

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Bomber Command was further reduced in size after the declaration of war. No. 1 Group, with its squadrons of Fairey Battles, left for France to form the Advanced Air Striking Force. This was for two reasons; to give the British Expeditionary Force some air striking power, and also to allow the Battle to operate against German targets, since it lacked the range to do so from British airfields.

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The "Sitzkrieg" (or Phoney War) mainly affected the Army. However, to an extent, Bomber Command was not properly at war during the first few months of hostilities either. Bomber Command flew many operational missions, and lost aircraft, but it did virtually no damage to the enemy. Most of the missions either failed to find their targets, or were leaflet dropping missions. The attack in the west in May 1940, changed everything.

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The Fairey Battles of the Advanced Air Striking Force were partially disabled by German strikes on their airfields at the opening of the invasion of France. However, far from all of the force was caught on the ground. The Faireys proved to be horrendously vulnerable to enemy fire. Many times, Battles would set out to attack, and be almost wiped out in the process. This was somewhat ironic given the fact that due to French paranoia about being attacked by German aircraft, during the Sitzkrieg, the Battle force had actually trained over German airspace at night.

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Bomber Command itself soon fully joined in the action. With the immensely quick collapse of France, invasion seemed a clear and present danger. As its part in Battle of Britain, Bomber Command was assigned to pound the invasion fleets assembling in the Channel ports. This was much less high profile than the battles of the Spitfires and Hurricanes of Fighter Command, but still vital work.

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Bomber Command was also indirectly responsible, in part at least, for the switch of Luftwaffe attention away from Fighter Command itself to bombing civilian targets. A German bomber on a raid had got lost due to poor navigation. It bombed London. Churchill consequently ordered a retaliatory raid on the German capital of Berlin. The damage caused was minor, but the raid sent Hitler into a rage. He ordered the Luftwaffe to level British cities, thus precipitating the Blitz.

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Like the US Army Air Force later in the war, Bomber Command had first concentrated on "precision" bombing in daylight. However, when several raids were cut to pieces by German defences, a switch to night attack tactics was forced upon the Command. The problems of enemy defences were then replaced with the problems of finding the target. It was common in the early years of the war for bombers relying on dead reckoning navigation to miss entire cities. One of the most urgent problems of the Command was thus to find technical aids to allow accurate bombing.

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Bomber Command was made up of a number of Groups during the war. It began the war with Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Groups. No. 1 Group was soon sent to France, as indicated above. It was, however, returned to Bomber Command control after the evacuation of France, and reconstituted. No. 2 Group remained part of Bomber Command until 1943, when it was removed to the control of Second Tactical Air Force, to form the light bomber component of that command. Bomber Command also gained two new Groups during the war. No. 6 Group was activated on 1 January, 1943. It was unique in that it was entirely made up of Royal Canadian Air Force crews and aircraft. Several squadrons and many personnel from Commonwealth and other European countries were distributed throughout the other Groups. No. 8 Group was actived on 15 August, 1942. It was a critical part of solving the navigational problems referred to in the previous paragraph.

Related Topics:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Groups - Second Tactical Air Force - No. 6 Group - 1 January - 1943 - Royal Canadian Air Force - No. 8 Group - 15 August - 1942

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The navigational problems of Bomber Command were solved by two methods, technical aids to navigation and Pathfinders. The technical aids to navigation took two forms. One was external radio navigation aids, as exemplified by Gee and the later Oboe systems. The other was the H2S radar, which was carried on the bombers themselves. The Pathfinders were a group of elite crews who flew lighter aircraft ahead of the main bombing forces, and marked the targets. No. 8 Group controlled the Pathfinder squadrons.

Related Topics:
Pathfinder - Radio navigation - Gee - Oboe - H2S radar

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Bomber Command was increasing massively in size. In the early days of the war, it was common for raids to consist of a few tens of aircraft. By late 1941, raids by hundreds of aircraft were regularly being mounted.

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Strategic bombing 1942-45

The government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Frederick Lindemann was very close to Winston Churchill, who gave him a seat in the Cabinet. In 1942, Lindemann presented a seminal paper to the Cabinet advocating the "aerial bombing of German cities by carpet bombing" in a strategic bombing campaign. His paper put forward the theory of attacking major industrial centrers in order to deliberately destroy as many homes and houses as possible. Working class homes were to be targeted because they had a higher density and fire storms were more likely. This would displace the German workforce and reduce industrial output. Lindemann's calculations showed that Bomber Command would be able to destroy the majority of German houses located in cities quite quickly. The plan was highly controversial even before it started. However it was considered an integral part of the "total war" which the German leaders had begun, and the British Cabinet thought that bombing was the only option available to directly attack Germany, since an invasion of Western Europe was years away. The Soviet Union was also demanding that the Western Allies do something to relieve pressure on the Eastern Front. The plan was accepted by the Cabinet and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris was appointed Air Officer Commanding to carry out the task.

Related Topics:
Frederick Lindemann - Winston Churchill - 1942 - Strategic bombing - Working class - Total war - Western Europe - Soviet Union - Eastern Front - Arthur Harris

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Harris decided to mount a massive raid on Cologne on May 30, 1942 by scraping together virtually every aircraft in Bomber Command that could fly — including those from advanced training units — to form a force of 1,000 aircraft. Cologne was vitually destroyed; only 300 houses in the whole city escaped damage. However, this was not an effort that could be repeated on a regular basis by the RAF in 1942.

Related Topics:
Cologne - May 30 - 1942

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Along with an increase in the size of the Command came a massive increase in the capability of the aircraft it was using. In 1942, the main workhorse aircraft of the later part of the war came into service. The Halifax and Lancaster made up the backbone of the Command, and had a longer range, higher speed and much greater bomb load than the earlier aircraft. The classic aircraft of the Pathfinders, the Mosquito, also made its appearance.

Related Topics:
Halifax - Lancaster - Mosquito

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By 1944, Bomber Command did have a genuine operational capability to put 1,000 aircraft over a target without extraordinary efforts.

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The most controversial RAF raid of the war took place in the very early morning of February 14, 1945 with the bombing of the city of Dresden resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed several tens of thousands of civilians.

Related Topics:
February 14 - 1945 - Bombing of the city of Dresden - Firestorm

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The culmination of the RAF Bomber Command offensive occurred in the raids of March-April 1945 when the RAF dropped the highest monthly weight of ordinance in the entire war. The cities hit included: April 1st, Mannheim by 478 aircraft; 2nd, Cologne 858 aircraft; 3rd, Kamen 234, Dortmund-Ems Canal, 220; 4th, small raids; 5-6th, Chemnitz 760, (1,223 smaller raids); 6th-7th, small raids; 7-8th, Dessau 526, Hemmingstedt 256, Harburg 234 (1,276 smaller raids); 8-9th, Hamburg 312 Kassel 262 (805 smaller raids); 10th small raids; 11th Essen 1,079 aircraft; 12th Dortmund 1,079; 13th Wuppertal and Barmen 354; 14th, Herne and Gelsenkirchen 195, Datteln and Hattingen (near Bochum) 169; 14-15th, Lützkendorf 244, Zweibrücken 230 (smaller raids 812 sorties); 15-16th, Hagen 267, Misburg 257 (smaller raids 729); 16-17th, Nuremburg 231, Würzburg 225 (smaller raids 171); 17-18th, small day raids of total of 300 aircraft; 18-19th Witten 324, 277 Hanau (smaller raids 844); 19th, No. 617 Squadron RAF using six Grand Slams hit the railway viaduct at Arnsberg; 20-21st, Böhlen 224, Hemmingstedt 166 (smaller raids 675). The daytime total on the 21st was 497; the nighttime total on the 21-22nd was 536, the 22nd daytime total was 708. On the 22-23rd and in daylight on the 23rd, about 300 bombers carried out small raids. On the 23-24th, 195 Lancasters and 23 Mosquitos from 5 and 8 Groups carried out the last raid on the town of Wesel. No aircraft were lost. (It is claimed that Wesel was the most intensively bombed town, for its size, in Germany: 97% of the buildings in the main town area were destroyed. The population, which had numbered nearly 25,000 on the outbreak of war, was only 1,900 in May 1945.) The attack was part of 537 sorties flown as tactical attacks in support of the British Army?s crossing of the Rhine on the 24th. On April 25th there were attacks on towns with communication support for German troops defending the Rhine: Hanover 267, Munster 175, Osnabruck 156. On the 27th, there were attacks on Paderborn 268, Hamm area 150 and smaller raids 541. On the 31st Hamburg was attacked by 469 aircraft.

Related Topics:
Mannheim - Cologne - Kamen - Dortmund - Ems - Chemnitz - Dessau - Hemmingstedt - Harburg - Hamburg - Kassel - Essen - Wuppertal - Barmen - Herne - Gelsenkirchen - Datteln - Hattingen - Bochum - Lützkendorf - Zweibrücken - Hagen - Misburg - Nuremburg - Würzburg - Witten - Hanau - No. 617 Squadron RAF - Grand Slam - Arnsberg - Böhlen - Wesel - British Army - Rhine - Hanover - Munster - Osnabruck - Paderborn - Hamm

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The last raid on Berlin took place on the night of 21-22nd of April, when 76 Mosquitos made six separate attacks just before Soviet forces entered the city centre. Afterwards most of the rest of the bombing raids made by the RAF were tactical support attacks. The last major strategic raid was the destruction of the oil refinery at Tonsberg in southern Norway by 107 Lancasters, on the night of 25-26 of April.

Related Topics:
Tonsberg - Norway

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Once the surrender of Germany had occurred, the Allied high command turned its attentions towards Japan. RAF Bomber Command represented a significant resource as the proposed invasion of Japan approached. Plans were put in place to send a detachment of about 30 Commonwealth bomber squadrons to bases on Okinawa, under the code name Tiger Force and there was a reorganisation of groups within Bomber Command to facilitate this. However the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred before any part of the force had been transferred to the Pacific.

Related Topics:
Japan - Proposed invasion of Japan - Okinawa - Tiger Force - Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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