Strategy

According to McFarland & Newton (1991), Big Week was not primarily a bombing campaign, but a campaign designed to kill Luftwaffe fighters.^[14] Two tactical factors made this difficult. First, Luftwaffe fighters avoided Allied fighters and would simply ignore the fighter sweeps. Thus, the Allies could not entice the Luftwaffe fighters to engage. Second, during escort missions, Allied fighters remained in close escort formation with bombers. This tactic limited bomber casualties but it also reduced Allied pursuit and destruction of Luftwaffe fighters. Recognizing these problems, Major General Jimmy Doolittle, commander of Eighth Air Force from the end of 1943, ordered bombing missions of key aircraft factories that the Luftwaffe could not ignore. In addition, Allied fighters were ordered to abandon the bombers with the primary goal of shooting down Luftwaffe fighters. In effect, the primary purpose of the bombing missions was to bring up the Luftwaffe and the real role of the Allied bombers was to be used and sacrificed as bait.^[14]

On the other hand, Brinkhuis (1984) contended that the operation's target was attacking Germany's aircraft industry,^[10] 'going back to a plan that had already been made in October 1943. This plan, operation Argument, was the biggest Allied air action so far. The ambitious enterprise had the total destruction of the German aircraft industry as its goal.'^[15] 'The manufacture of these [fighters, such as Messerschitt 109, 110, and the Focke-Wulf 190], saw such a steep rise that the USAAF and RAF had good reason to fear that the defence of Hitler's Festung Europa with all these aircraft would lead to a horrible massacre amongst Allied flight crews. Therefore, the primary goal of the Allied airforce became the destruction of the factories producing these aircraft.'^[10] Planners estimated that the Allies would lose between 7% and 18% of their aircraft every day; given that the campaign was to last six days, the expectation was thus that between 42% and 100% of all aircraft (981 bombers in total^[2]) would be lost.^[15] In order to achieve the objective, U.S. commander Frederick L. Anderson was prepared to sacrifice three quarters of all planes and crew (meaning 736 bombers).^[16] The Allies proceeded to gather intelligence on all parts of German industry involved in producing parts, engines, wings and airframes, as well as assembling factories.^[10] However, operational success was foreseen to heavily depend on several consecutive days of good weather, meaning ideal cloud covers between about 600 and 4,000 metres above England, but no clouds above the target areas in Germany.^[15] As such a situation was extremely rare, leadership decided to launch the campaign anyway as soon as the forecast showed the smallest signs of acceptable flying weather.^[15]

Allied order of battle

As of 22 February 1944.^[17], under the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe commanded by lieutenant general Carl Spaatz,^[10] the U.S. Eighth Air Force – major general James H. Doolittle,^[10] major general Frederick Lewis Anderson^[2]

• 2nd Bombardment Division^[17]
  • 20th Combat Bombardment Wing (first wave, commanded by formation leader William R. Schmidt)^[17]
    • 93d Bombardment Group^[17]
    • 446th Bombardment Group^[17]
    • 448th Bombardment Group^[17]
  • 14th Combat Bombardment Wing (second wave)^[17]
    • 44th Bombardment Group^[17]
    • 392nd Bombardment Group^[17]
  • 2nd Combat Bombardment Wing (third wave)^[17]
    • 389th Bombardment Group^[17]
    • 445th Bombardment Group^[17]
    • 453rd Bombardment Group^[17]
• 3rd Bombardment Division – major general Curtis LeMay^[18]
  • 333 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers^[18]

There were 981 bomber aircraft available for Operation Argument in total.^[2] The B-24 Liberator usually had a crew of ten men, sometimes with an extra navigator.^[17] Each bombardment group usually consisted of 36 bombers.^[17]

USAAF bomber sorties

RAF bomber sorties

RAF Bomber Command directly contributed to the attacks on the aircraft industry in Schweinfurt. Some 734 bombers were dispatched on the night of 24/25 February, and 695 reported they struck the target.^[5] However, analysis of the photographs taken during the raid showed that only 298 of the aircraft dropped their bombs within three miles of the aiming point.^[23] Of these, only 22 hit inside the target area; that is, they came down within the boundaries of the built-up districts of the city.^[24] Little damage was done due to creepback: marker aircraft dropped markers short, and bombers dropped their payload at the first markers seen rather than at the centre of the markers.^[24]

On 25/26 February 1944, Bomber Command sent almost 600 aircraft to the aircraft assembly plant at Augsburg.^[24] This time, the markers were dropped accurately, the attack was accurate and destroyed about 60 percent of the industrial city.^[24]

Allied losses

During Big Week, the Eighth Air Force lost 97 B-17s, 40 B-24s and another 20 scrapped due to damage. The operational strength of the Eighth Air Force bomber units had dropped from 75 percent at the start of the week to 54 percent, and its fighter units strength had dropped from 72 percent of establishment strength to 65 percent. The Fifteenth Air Force lost 14.6 percent (90 bombers) of establishment strength, and RAF Bomber Command lost 131 bombers (5.7 percent) during Big Week.^[26] Although these numbers are high in absolute terms, the numbers of bombers involved in the missions were much higher than previously, and the losses represented a much smaller percentage of the attacking force. The earlier Schweinfurt missions had cost the force nearly 30 percent of their aircraft per mission.

German losses

US aircrews claimed more than 500 German fighters destroyed, though the numbers were massively exaggerated.^[27] The Luftwaffe losses were high amongst their twin-engined Zerstörer units, and the Bf 110 and Me 410 groups were severely depleted.^[28] More worrying for the Jagdwaffe (fighter force) than the loss of 355 aircraft was the loss of nearly 100 pilots (14 percent) who had been killed.^[4] In contrast to the raids of the previous year, the US losses were replaceable, while the Germans were already hard pressed due to the war in the East. Although not fatal, Big Week was an extremely worrying development for the Germans. The lack of skilled pilots due to an attrition in the three-front war was the factor eroding the capability of the Jagdwaffe.^[26]

According to McFarland & Newton (1991), the purported Allied strategy of sacrificing bombers in order to lure and kill Luftwaffe fighters was very effective. Freed of close bomber escort duty, Allied fighters, particularly the P-51s, decimated the Luftwaffe. German aircraft and pilot losses could not be sufficiently replaced. As a result, the Allies achieved air superiority by the time of the D-Day invasion.^[14]

Allied bombing results

The actual damage to the German aircraft industry was fairly limited; during 1944 German fighter aircraft production peaked by dispersing production and reducing the production of other aircraft types.

• 20 February: The 3rd Bombardment Division failed to reach its target, the Tutow complex, due to long-hanging clouds. It attacked its secondary target Rostock instead.^[2] The 1st and 2nd Bombardment Divisions also failed to find their objectives, and bombed other places instead.^[2]
• 21 February: None of the 924 bombers who had departed hit their original targets, but diverted to other targets instead.^[2]
• 22 February: 252 B-24s were readied for combat, but due to various formation problems, only 177 took off, and only 74 saw combat action.^[18] During formation, several accidents occurred resulting in crashes and the deaths of dozens of crew members.^[18] Because of this, and the fact that low-hanging clouds were reported across central Germany, none of the 333 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the 3rd Bombardment Division reached their targets, as all of them were recalled early to prevent disaster.^[18] The remaining B-24s received the order to return to England much later, and efforts to turn the formation around caused chaos and fragmenting; on the way back to base, they looked for targets of opportunity, and eventually the Dutch cities of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Deventer and Enschede were selected and attacked.^[29] Approximately 880 civilians were killed in the disorderly Bombing of Nijmegen,^[7] while the actual target of opportunity, Nijmegen railway station (used for German arms transport), was barely damaged.^[30] In Enschede, 40 civilians were killed, 41 were injured, and hundreds of homes destroyed, causing 700 civilians to become homeless; the likely target of opportunity, in the middle of a residential area, was a small factory producing components for German missiles.^[31][8] In Arnhem, 57 civilians were killed and 86 homes destroyed, affecting 464 families in the residential areas of Rijnwijk and Malburgen; the target of opportunity was the Arnhem Rubber Factory (Arufa) on industrial terrain Het Broek, whose production capacity was largely in service of the German war effort.^[8][32]
• 23 February: All operations were suspended due to bad weather and for investigating operational failures during the previous day, especially the Bombing of Nijmegen.^[33]
• 24/25 February: RAF conducted a very ineffective attack on the aircraft industry in Schweinfurt, doing little damage.^[23]
• 25/26 February 1944: RAF carried out an accurate and effective attack on Augsburg, destroying some 60 percent of the industrial city.^[24]

Humanitarian impact

Damage to Nijmegen after the 22 February Bombing of Nijmegen

The Bombing of Nijmegen on 22 February, which resulted from the aborted attack on the Gothaer Waggonfabrik, was a disaster in terms of barely damaging any targets of military importance while killing hundreds of civilians of the Netherlands (approximately 880 civilian deaths in Nijmegen^[7]), whose government-in-exile in London was part of the Allied coalition.^[33] On the day after the raid, 23 February, the Allied air force launched an investigation: all air raids planned for that day were cancelled (also due to poor weather conditions), and all flyers and briefing officers involved were held on the base and questioned.^[33] In London, a diplomatic incident occurred between the American, British and Dutch military and civilian commanders and officials about what had happened, who should be granted access to which information, and in which order, and who should ultimately be held responsible, creating distrust within the Allied leadership for some time.^[33] The American military command was relatively late in drawing lessons from the disorderly air raid, which had struck an ally's civilian population hard.^[30] Not until mid-May 1944, orders were given to seek out targets of opportunity at least 30 kilometres away from the Netherlands' border.^[30] Nazi German propaganda attempted to exploit the tragedy in order to counter pro-Allied sympathies amongst the Dutch civilian population, but these efforts appear to have been ineffective, and perhaps even counterproductive.^[29]

Brinkhuis (1984) stated that several Allied actions during Operation Argument allowed the Allies to achieve air superiority, which would make subsequent bombing raids less risky and chaotic, and more effective.^[1] The tragic failures of the 22 February bombings of Dutch cities no one had ever heard of, which had resulted in almost a thousand civilian casualties and major infrastructural damage, were initially brushed off as an 'incident', and Operation Argument would be glorified as 'Big Week' in Allied historiography.^[1]

Military impact

Otherwise, Big Week bolstered the confidence of US strategic bombing crews. Until that time, Allied bombers avoided contact with the Luftwaffe; now, the Americans used any method that would force the Luftwaffe into combat. Implementing this policy, the United States looked toward Berlin. Raiding the German capital, Allied leaders reasoned, would force the Luftwaffe to battle. On March 4, the USSTAF launched the first of several attacks against Berlin. A force of 730 bombers set off from England with an escort of 800 fighters. Fierce battles raged and resulted in heavy losses for both sides; 69 B-17s were lost but it cost the Luftwaffe 160 aircraft. The Allies, again, replaced their losses; the Luftwaffe, again, could not.^[34]

The new German tactics of using Sturmböcke (heavily armed Fw 190s) as bomber destroyers and Bf 109Gs to escort them in Gefechtsverband formations, were proving somewhat effective. The US fighters, kept in close contact with the bombers they were protecting, could not chase the attacking fighters before they were forced to turn around and return to the bombers. General Doolittle responded by initiating a breakthrough in fighter tactics by "freeing" the fighters, allowing them to fly far ahead of the heavy bomber formations in an air supremacy "fighter sweep" mode on the outward legs; then following the USAAF heavies' bomb runs, the fighters roamed far from the bomber streams and hunted down German fighters — especially the Sturmböcke, that had limited maneuverability with their heavy underwing conformal gun pod-mount autocannons — before they could ever approach the USAAF bombers. Though the change was unpopular with the bomber crews, its effects were immediate and extremely effective.

The Combined Bomber Offensive attacks against fighter production officially ended on April 1, 1944, and control of the air forces passed to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower in preparation for the invasion of France. Allied airmen were well on the way to achieving air superiority over all of Europe. "While they continued strategic bombing, the USAAF turned its attention to the tactical air battle in support of the Normandy invasion".^[34]

Citations

Bibliography