Bombing of Peenemünde in World War II
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Peenemünde was bombed by 596 British and Canadian aircraft on the 17th and 18th of August, 1943 in an attempt to halt the manufacture of German Vengeance ('V') weapons being researched and developed there. [1] The raid was a first for RAF Bomber Command, with low level attack tactics being used to achieve precision bombing. The attack was a tactical success, with all the raid objectives being achieved. Despite this it was too little, too late, and consequently did not stop the Germans from developing, building and using 'V' weapons against London and South East England.
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[edit] Intelligence and the Decision to Attack
The search for German secret weapons had been going on since the start of the war, with rumours abounding since the anonymous "Oslo Report" which was handed to British Intelligence in 1939.[2] The intelligence agencies were confused for months in late 1942/early 1943 by the fact that Germany was experimenting with two types of weapon, the Wehrmacht's liquid fuel rocket (V2) and the Luftwaffe's pilotless aircraft (V1).[3] Information reaching the British about these two variants produced contradictory and impossible claims.
By the end of March 1943, the Secret Intelligence Service had produced incontrovertible evidence of a rocket programme based at Peenemünde, a peninsular on the German Baltic coast, based on accounts from a Danish chemical engineer and two Luxembourgers pressed into forced work at the facility.[3] In April the Chiefs of Staff informed the Prime Minister of this threat, and five reconnaissance flights were ordered over the peninsular, the last of which in late June 1943 returned with pictures of two 38 foot long 'torpedo-like objects'.[3] At around this time, a German General who had been captured by the Allies admitted that he had been present at the test firing of a rocket capable of travelling 200 km on liquid fuel.[3]
Despite scepticism among high ranking British officers and politicians that the Germans could build such a weapon, Churchill and the Secret Intelligence Service were convinced, and the Prime Minister gave the order to attack on the 29th of June 1943. [2]
[edit] The Attack
[edit] Composition
596 aircraft of RAF Bomber Command were used for the attack.[1][4] Of these, 324 were Lancasters, 218 were Halifaxes and 54 were Stirlings.[1] Air groups involved were 5 Group, 6 (Canadian) Group and 8 Group.
[edit] The Plan
Bomber Command's orders were to destroy the facility, and its aircrews were told that if they did not destroy it on the night of 17/18 August, they would go back every night until they had.[5] This was a deliberate measure which, as well as telling the crews the operational reality and importance of the mission, was also designed to scare them into giving their all first time around.[6]
The geographical distance of Peenemünde from the RAF's bases in Britain meant that they could not use their radio navigation beams - the raid would have to be executed by moonlight.[2] As this was to be a precision raid rather than the standard area bombing which Bomber Command was more used to, the crews would have to drop their bombs from roughly a half of the normal altitude - 8,000 feet instead of 19,000 - to ensure accuracy.[6]
Bomber Command's chief, Arthur "Bomber" Harris, recognised that this would be a difficult mission. The RAF had almost no precision bombing experience, and that which it did have was of raids consisting of a small number of bombers during daylight.[6] Additionally, the target was difficult in itself. Peenemünde was around 600 miles from the most easterly British airbase, and the facility was spread over a wide area and was protected by smoke screens.[6] To ensure success, Harris abandoned the small-scale raid approach and committed the whole of Bomber Command to this objective.[6] In another move to counter their lack of experience in precision bombing, the RAF conducted practise raids on areas similar to Peenemünde. In the first practise, margins of error of up to 1000 yards were recorded - by the last this was down to 300 yards.[6]
The raid was to have one primary objective and two secondary objectives. The primary objective was to kill as many personnel involved in the research and development of the V-weapons as possible by bombing the workers' quarters. The secondary objectives were to hit the experimental station and the rocket factory, in order to render Peenemünde unusable as a research facility and to destroy all paperwork documentation of the project.[4]
The plan also called for a third outing of a new concept in Bomber Command's tactics - that of the "Master Bomber" - first used by Wing Commander Guy Gibson in the Dambuster Raid.[7] This role was given to Group Captain J. H. Searby, of 83 Squadron, 8 Group, whose job it was to fly in continuous circles above the target maintaining command and control. He was to be given command of the whole raid while it was over the target, and in his hands was placed the responsibility of ensuring that the pathfinders had designated the correct targets, or calling in new beacons if they did not. [2] [1]
[edit] The Raid
Owing to the Peenemünde peninsula's distinctive shape and the moonlight, the bombing force found the target without difficulty.[1] To ensure that the raid was not hampered by attacks from the German night fighters, against whom the British and Canadian force would have no defence, a group of Mosquito bombers headed towards Berlin to simulate an air raid there and draw off the defenders.[2]
The initial attack was supposed to hit the workers' quarters.[1] Instead, due to the pathfinders placing markers in the wrong place, the first bombs hit Peenemünde's dedicated forced labour camp at Trassenheide. Between 500 and 750 prisoners were killed, most of them Polish. [1][2]When the mistake was realised, the Master Bomber called in 'shifters', pathfinder units who dropped beacons of a different colour to signify a corrected target, and the rest of the raid went in as planned.[2]
Around 1,800 tons of bombs were dropped in the raid, of which approximately 85% was high explosive.[1][4]
[edit] Losses
Bomber Command lost 40 aircraft: 23 Lancasters, 15 Halifaxes and 2 Stirlings. This was 6.7% of the total force dispatched for the raid - a far higher casualty rate than RAF Bomber Command could sustain over a long period of operations, but judged acceptable given that the attack was a successful moonlight raid against a top priority target.[1] Most of these losses were incurred by the final wave, which was attacked in force by German night fighters who had realised the deception at Berlin.[1]
[edit] Results
The Luftwaffe was embarrassed by the success of the raid, and on the 19th of August Luftwaffe General Jeschonnek, the Chief of Staff, committed suicide as a result of the criticism he received.[8]
Allied evaluations of the raid were more varied. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) concluded that the attack of 17/18 August was inconsequential, coming too late to stop the creation of V1 weapons and delaying the V2 by a negligible amount of time.[6] Harris claimed that the raid made the Germans think twice about their V-weapons programme, and the fact that no return raid was planned may signal that London was happy with the result. [7]
Estimates of how many scientists and technicians were killed vary wildly from 150 to around 700. [1] [7] It is plausible that the number could be towards the lower end of that spectrum, given that the scientists had the warning of Trassenheide Camp being bombed. [2] One certain success was that a prime target, German Head of V-weapon Development Dr. Thiel, was definitely killed. [9]
Historians tend to side with the USSBS in their assessment of the effect of the raid on the V1 weapons programme. [9] The V2 rockets were probably delayed by 2-3 months, a delay which the British Government were happy with, but the raid did serve to push the programme into greater secrecy thus hampering further offensive efforts against it.[4] Despite contemporary British efforts to spin this attack as a great success, the results were probably 'far less brilliant than they seemed'.[9]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Peenemunde, 17th and 18th August 1943. RAF History - Bomber Command. Royal Air Force. Retrieved on 2006-11-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/stories/defiant_modernism/01.ST.03/?scene=9&tv=true
- ^ a b c d Hinsley, Francis (1993). British Intelligence in the Second World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 419-420.
- ^ a b c d Peenemunde - 1943. Weapons of Mass Destruction. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved on 2006-11-15.
- ^ Raid on Peenemunde. WW2 People's War. BBC (16 August 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-15.
- ^ a b c d e f g Harris, Arthur (1947). Bomber Offensive. London: Collins, 182-184.
- ^ a b c Hastings, Max (1992). Bomber Command. London: Michael Joseph, 210. ISBN 0718716038.
- ^ Hastings, Max (1992). Bomber Command. London: Michael Joseph, 238. ISBN 0718716038.
- ^ a b c Terraine, John (1992). The Right of the Line. London: Sceptre, 541. ISBN 0340419199.
[edit] External links
- Long article on all aspects of the attack, from intelligence and inception to aftermath and consequences
- BBC Factfile on Peenemünde Raid
- Official RAF history site about Bomber Command
- La Coupole, German V-weapon launch pad in Northern France
