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23
The aftermath of Operation Condor is remarkable, not for the military results, although the effective destruction of an Army Corps was a not inconsiderable achievement/loss, but in the manner with the results were taken.
The Allied commanders almost immediately (as soon as they completed the so-called “Hot Wash” on July 12th) initiated a series of operational changes designed to ensure that no divisional size unit would find itself left with no air cover assigned for emergency call on a bright sunny morning as had been the case for both the Polish and Indian forces on the morning of the 11th. Immediate efforts were also begun to ensure that, in the polyglot Allied command structure, joining units always had liaison officers who were fluent in their neighbors language (or at least in English, the de facto language of the Allied forces) so there would be no delay in requesting or receiving support. Both changes were to prove of use as the campaign progressed.
The Allied Tactical Air Forces overall commander, General James Doolittle, perhaps more than any other American officer, acknowledged that the Allied victory was as much a matter of luck as any operational genius or even the courage and tenacity of the 2nd Fusiliers. Luck that the Thunderchief flight literally stumbled over the Luftwaffe attack squadrons as they were moving into attack the Polish formation, luck that Lion hadn’t been 10 miles further away, and luck that the Luftwaffe had suddenly disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Doolittle found that the Allied fighter commanders had, in far too many cases, been assuming that the Luftwaffe would not make a serious appearance, at least not until the Allied lines had moved considerably inland and that, if/when the Reich launched any attack the Allies would detect the attack long before it happened. This thinking cost the C.O. of the 56th Fighter Group, the Group responsible for defending the airspace over Arneke, his job. He was not the only individual to lose his position due to the action, but he was the most senior allied officer removed.
While it would have been of little comfort to the 56th’s former commander, Operation Condor ended the careers of men with far more gold braid than he possessed in the Reich. The most senior of these was Reichsmarschall Herman Goring, who SS commander Himmler managed to paint as the scapegoat for the entire disaster. The political maneuvering that allowed Himmler to effectively cut the man who had once been Hitler’s designated successor out of the party’s leadership is far beyond the scope of this work, but it represented the first sign of panic among the Nazi senior leadership (for a fascinating study of this element of the Reich’s political history The Devil’s Princes, Leadership in the 3rd Reich, by Guy Lambert, University of Toronto Press, 2001, is highly recommended). Goring’s manner of dismissal was responsible for considerable change, not all of it within the Reich.
It is extremely fortunate for the Allies that Goring was not removed in the aftermath of the St. Patrick’s Day Raids given his opiate dependency and his largely successful effort in convincing Hitler that the Luftwaffe was superior in both men and equipment than anything that the Anglo/Americans could field. Goring’s confidence in, and championing of, the carefully planted KGB/GRU disinformation concerning the West’s A-bomb program was one of the crucial elements in the Reich’s failure to discover the remarkably large, although fairly well concealed, American and British parallel & joint weapon programs. Goring preference for short range interceptors and relative distain for extremely long range bombers was also a significant element in the Luftwaffe’s overall combat structure.
Goring’s replacement, Generaloberst Adolph Galland, was promoted from commander of the Luftwaffe’s Fighter Command. An exceptional technical officer, and an acknowledged tactical genius, Galland arrived on the scene too late to re-engineer the Luftwaffe along the lines he had advocated since his promotion to General in 1943, something that was fortunate indeed for the RAF and USAF. Galland also lacked Goring’s political power, a situation that effectively hamstrung him in any competition with the SS. This was perhaps best illustrated by Himmler’s successful takeover of all Luftwaffe ground formations, including the Anti-aircraft forces (with the resultant chaos as SS political appointees rapidly replaced experienced Luftwaffe senior commanders) in the weeks immediately following the failure of Operation Condor. General Galland’s lack of political clout was also a strong contributor to the deployments of Luftwaffe resources in the period following Goring’s ouster.
Himmler’s ability to hang any of the remaining fault for Condor’s failure onto the French National Forces and not on the battle plan that he had personally approved and ordered implemented is also noteworthy, not only for the degree of political astuteness it demonstrated, but for its foreshadowing of events to come.
