7.4 Legalities and Casualties.
Sir Phillips final task on reviewing the first six months of hostilities was to read again the reports from Bomber command. When the war started to many squadrons were flying obsolete aircraft types and some of the more modern aircraft issued to Bomber Command were really not suited for a prolonged strategic campaign. Both the Battle and the Blenheim really fell into this criteria and hence as many as possible had been sent to France where their lack of range was not such a handicap. For UK based squadrons there were Hadley Page Hampdens, Armstrong Whitley’s and Vickers Wellingtons. The decision taken prewar to concentrate on a night bombing campaign was undermined by two separate but converging opponents. The first was purely political, the peace time fear of the bomber carried over into the war and politicians argued over the legality of bombing private rather than government property, add to this the appeal by President Rosevelt for war mongering nations to avoid civilian casualties and not bomb undefended cities.
This led to such restraints on the RAF as to what they could and could not bomb as to all intense and purpose neutered the bomber force. For instance the Krupps armament works was privately own and could not be bombed as was the Blomm and Voss shipyards. These constraints therefore made night time raids impossible because the probability of hitting private property and killing civilians was just two high. These targeting restraints played into the hands of the remaining ‘Trenchardists’ in the RAF who argued that modern bombers with their defensive machine guns could fight their way to and from a target in daylight. So from the first full day of the war the only night time sorties carried out over enemy territory carried nothing more lethal than leaflets.
When a daylight raid was conducted on the anchorage at Wilhelmshaven on the 4th of September no less than five of the ten bombers were lost. Despite this a further visit by Wellingtons was carried out on the 14th of December to targets north of Wilhelmshaven this had resulted in the loss of five of the fourteen aircraft sent. Despite these high losses of between thirty and fifty percent on each of these raids a further sortie against the German navy in Wilhelmshaven was carried out on the 18th of December by a force of 24 Wellingtons from three squadrons, No’s 9, 37 and 147, flying from bases in Norfolk and Suffolk. As far as Sir Phillip was concerned the result of this raid had been all to predictable. Half the aircraft were lost, twelve crews just thrown away and to add insult to injury not only had most of the bombers not dropped their bombs because of the injunction not to risk civilian casualties the ground based senior officers had subsequently blamed the losses on poor formation keeping by the bomber pilots. Sir Phillip however had read deeper into the reports and found that here had been poor briefing and co-ordination between the constituent squadrons by the officers responsible for the raid planning. Thankfully this was the last time a formation oh bombers was sent to attack a heavily defended target in day light.
Reports from Maritime Command regarding the big four engine Stirling had been very favourable and in fact the command was trying to monopolise the entire Stirling production. However with the second production line in Belfast about to start production Shorts at Rochester would soon concentrate solely on the bomber version. The first Short Stirling Squadron should be operational in early September with the first Manchester squadron vying to beat them to it. Despite Fairey Engineering increasing production capacity Sir Phillip could foresee a shortage of the Monarch engines causing problems. Especially when both the Hawker Tornado and the Fairy Barracuda commenced serial production as well. Sir Phillip considered it a forlorn hope that Napier would get satisfactory Sabre engines delivered an time soon to ease the situation. The delays with the Bristol Hercules was also causing head aches but the cancellation of the Taurus engine had freed up capacity and when Bristols final cured all the Hercules ills Sir Phillip could see a good supply becoming available. Currently Alvis with Armstrong Siddley were producing sufficient Pelides to meet both the considerable demand from the FAA, who were using this engine in the Follond Fulmar, The Bristol 148 being built by Cunlif Owen and the new Fairey Albacore monoplane TBR aircraft being built by Austin in lieu of the Battles they were originally contracted for and Gloster’s who were using the engine for the Reaper.
Talking of engines There was much excitement at Powerjets a few days ago when the first flight worthy engine produce 850lb of thrust on the test stand and did not blow up! Power Jets and Glosters were talking of a first flight for the Gloster E28/38 by late summer and shipping two engines to Westlands before then. The big question after that would be getting a production line up and running.
With the Famingo’s and the Hudsons sharing the near water patrols, the LRMPA Stirlings were covering doing the mid-atlantic whilst the Sunderlands filled the gap between them. Maritime Command were holding their own at the moment against the u boat and had been tracking neutral shipping and potential blockade runners. Resources were still stretch and more long range aircraft and crews required for which there was stiff competition from the rest of the RAF.
Cannon production was only just keeping pace with the new aircraft production and there were no surplus as yet to make up grading existing earlier marks of aircraft to cannon configuration. So the policy of transferring the older marks to reserve and training would continue.
After much discussion in cabinet the decision was made, After much agitation by Churchill, to send two full Squadrons of Hurricane to Malta. This was intended to serve two purposes, Hopefully it would deter the Italians from making an attack on the Islands, Secondly it would show our allies in the region that we were serious about the defence of the Mediterranean sea lanes.
I was watching this
