HISTORICAL

==Harris==
by Edward Cree
--Historical Background Notes--

This file is a grab-bag of (hopefully interesting) historical details and trivia about some of the entities in the game.

-Phases of the Campaign-

Prelude to War: 1936-39.  When Britain's rearmament began, it was not possible to rapidly build an effective air force from the small cadre that had been kept through the lean interwar years.  Instead, the RAF of the late thirties was a façade: undermanned and equipped with obsolescent aircraft, with no practical experience of bombing anything more threatening than Indian and Arab tribesmen, it was estimated by ACM Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt that if deployed on an all-out assault against Germany, his medium bomber force would last a mere 3½ weeks.  Though Blenheims and Whitleys replaced Overstrands and Heyfords, the chief aim of this 'shop window' force was to look dangerous enough to encourage Hitler to moderate his demands in the name of peace.  As all the world knows, Hitler had no intention of peace in Europe (indeed, the economic situation of Nazi Germany meant that it _could not_ sustain itself without further conquests), so the façade had to be turned into reality.  At the time of the Munich Crisis, Guy Gibson's squadron were still flying Hawker Hind biplane light bombers; they prepared their aircraft for war in case it should come; the only 'snag' was that they had no bombs until three weeks later!  The extra year of preparation was put to good use, with the Hampdens and Wellingtons being introduced, and considerable efforts made in training.  The problem was that the teachers didn't know any better than the students how a modern air war between first-rate military powers would be fought; such a thing simply had never yet happened, and not all of the theories that had been formed about it in peacetime were to prove true in the coming years.

The Phoney War: 1939-40.  The September ultimatum honouring Britain and France's guarantee to Poland resulted in war when Germany persisted with its invasion of that country, but neither of the Entente nations were in a position to intervene militarily in Eastern Europe.  Quite apart from the diplomatic problems that would have resulted had Anglo-French forces encountered the Soviets who were busily grabbing half of Poland for themselves, there was no way an expeditionary force could be disembarked there — for as strong as the Royal Navy was, it could hardly hope to deliver troops through the German-controlled Baltic.  And the Allies had not the troops to spare anyway.  Instead, French and German divisions lined up either side of the border, sitting in their fortifications and shouting propaganda at each other through loudspeakers.  Britain's bombers were not yet ready to assault Germany, and her fighters were not ready to repel a similar assault from the Luftwaffe, so the RAF carefully refrained from bombing civilians or the German mainland, lest the Germans be moved to retaliate.  Instead, bombing raids were confined to warships (which could not even be bombed when in port for fear of hitting civilian dockworkers), and over Germany itself nothing more lethal than propaganda leaflets was dropped.  The winter weather (which was particularly severe in Europe that year) meant neither side could engage in major campaigns whether by land, sea or air.

The Hammer Falls: Spring 1940.  In April, Hitler surprised the Allies by invading Norway, using a combination of subterfuge (many troops were taken there in the holds of iron-ore freighters) and air transport.  (The Allies had hoped to land a force in Scandinavia to assist Finland in the Winter War, but neutral Norway and Sweden refused, as they felt this would give Germany a pretext to invade them.  As usual, when Hitler found himself in need of a pretext he had no difficulty in manufacturing one.)  Distance and the sheer fighter strength of the Luftwaffe meant there was not much Bomber Command could do in Norway itself, but they did make some efforts to interdict the airfields (in Denmark, which Germany had seized at the same time) which were packed with Ju 52s shuttling troops to the front.  By May, the fighting in southern Norway was over (although the battles around Narvik continued), and Germany could turn to its next targets, France and the Low Countries, on May 10th.  The RAF's bombers were kept busy trying to stem the Wehrmacht's rapid advance, not only with the Blenheims of Bomber Command but also the Advanced Air Striking Force and its Fairey Battles, which suffered horrendous loss rates (sometimes exceeding 50% of sorties dispatched).  Meanwhile, the German bombing of Rotterdam was seen by the Allies as having crossed a line, and Bomber Command was at last let off the leash to begin the strategic bombing campaign.

Battle of Britain: Summer/Autumn 1940.  As fighter duels and interceptions played out in the blue skies over England, Bomber Command too was playing its part.  Germany was amassing vast numbers of river barges in the Channel ports, in order to land the troops for Operation Sealion — the invasion of Britain which was slated to follow the elimination of Fighter Command — and so, night after night, the RAF's medium bombers droned low over the basins, trying if possible to drop a single bomb on each separate barge.  Shirer, in his _Berlin Diary_, recorded that from what he saw of the 'Battle of the Barges', he did not think it would be possible to assemble an invasion fleet in the face of such bombing.  Meanwhile, others were groping around the Ruhr looking for steelworks, or trying to hit oil refineries in Hamburg; and of course the dreary 'bind' of leaflet flights continued.  (So frustrated was one crew with dropping leaflets reading "this could have been a bomb", they added to their load one night a brick bearing the legend "this could have been a leaflet".)  The RAF raided Berlin for the first time on August 25th, partially in response to a few bombs which had fallen on London a few nights earlier.  It is still disputed today whether this caused the Luftwaffe's switch from airfields to the London Blitz; what is clear is that doing so took away whatever chance remained of defeating Fighter Command.

Metamorphosis: 1941.  As the bulk of Bomber Command was knuckling down to raiding industrial targets (mostly in Germany, but also occasionally in Occupied Europe — with care to avoid French or Dutch casualties on the ground) in Wellingtons and Hampdens, a few signs of the future were appearing.  In December 1940 the RAF experimented with its first area raid on a city, Operation Abigail Rachel against Mannheim.  (This was partially in retaliation for the blitz of Coventry a month earlier.)  At the time, the RAF distinctly preferred to aim at specific industrial targets, but after the Butt Report in August 1941 showed that those targets were not being hit, Lindemann's 'dehousing' paper suggested that razing cities might be the most effective use of the resources allocated to Bomber Command.  Meanwhile, the new heavy bombers that were to greatly increase the weight of attack were at last coming on stream — first the Manchester, then the four-engined Stirling and Halifax.  And BT308, the prototype 'Manchester Mk III' with its four Merlins, first flew in January 1941, although it took most of the year to get the new type into production.  Learning to operate the 'heavies' was a slow and involved process; they were far more complex machines than the old Wellingtons, and merely keeping them serviceable took an heroic effort from the ground-crews.  But eventually the 'converted' squadrons began to contribute more than a handful of aircraft to each raid, as well as engaging in a few (frankly bizarre) attempts at daylight operations.

Arthur Harris: 1942.  Lancasters.  GEE.  Lübeck.  The Thousand Plan.

Battle of the Ruhr: March-July 1943.  Essen.  Chastise.  "Happy Valley".

Operation Gomorrah: Late July, 1943.  Window.  Hamburg burned.

Battle of Berlin: November 1943 to March 1944.  Rising effectiveness of Tame Boar; Liechtenstein SN2.  Nuremberg.

Invasion Support: Mid-1944.

Back to Cities: Late 1944 to 1945.  Dresden.  Politics.

Manna and Exodus: April/May 1945.

-Groups-

No. 1 Group was based primarily in northern Lincolnshire, and operated first Vickers Wellingtons and later Avro Lancasters.  The AOC, A/Cdre Edward Rice, was determined to maximise the bomb loads of his aircraft; this policy led to 1 Group dropping a greater tonnage than any other Group in Bomber Command over the course of the war, but also caused the group to suffer above-average losses.  Of the group's stations, Hemswell and Ludford Magna appear in the documentary "Night Bombers" (filmed during the war by A/Cdre Henry Cozens) — Ludford was equipped with FIDO equipment to land aircraft in fog — while Wickenby is described in S/Ldr Jack Currie's memoir "Lancaster Target".

No. 2 Group operated the Blenheim light bombers from its airfields in Norfolk and northern Cambridgeshire, making the first operational bombing sorties of the war.  Some of the Group's squadrons were based on the Continent as part of the Advanced Air Striking Force.  No. 101 Sqn, the subject of the book "Bomber Squadron At War", started their war at West Raynham.  While the rest of Bomber Command was making night raids, the light bombers of 2 Group continued their daytime strikes on shipping and airfields, suffering horrific casualties.  AVM Donald Stevenson was infamous for his ruthless aggression and lack of concern for the loss rates in mounting these operations.  In 1943 the Group was transferred to the 2nd TAF, under the control first of Fighter Command and then SHAEF, its Mosquitos and lend-lease B-25s making a number of spectacular daylight precision raids.

No. 3 Group, mostly located in Cambridgeshire, started the war equipped with the then-new Vickers Wellington — No. 99 Sqn were the first to operate the type — and commanded by AVM John Baldwin.  Later, they would introduce the Short Stirling, first used by No. 7 Sqn at Oakington (which today is the site of the Northstowe new town).  In 1942 the Group lost several of its squadrons to form the Pathfinder Force, initially under 3 Group's administrative control but later becoming the distinct No. 8 Group.  AVM Richard Harrison took over 3 Group in 1943; during that year the Stirling became obsolete and the Group began converting to Avro Lancasters but production was mostly taken up replenishing other groups' losses and the conversion languished, taking until late 1944 to replace the last Stirlings.  3 Group was also responsible for the Special Duties squadrons (which handled transport and supply drops for Resistance and S.O.E. units in Occupied Europe), operating a motley mix of aircraft including Handley Page Halifaxes and Westland Lysanders.  Of 3 Group's airfields, RAF Waterbeach is today home to a military museum, while Mildenhall and Lakenheath host units of the USAF.

No. 4 Group in Yorkshire was from the start intended as a night-bombing unit (unlike the other groups which switched from day bombing after encountering heavy losses).  It was initially equipped with Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys and led by AVM Arthur Coningham, but from mid-1941 the AOC was AVM Roderick Carr and the group obtained first Wellingtons and then Halifaxes — first operated by XXXV Sqn at Linton-on-Ouse.  In 1942 the Group lost several of its northern airfields to form the new No. 6 Group.  Throughout the war, 4 Group often operated outdated aircraft, suffered high losses and exhibited poor morale, especially during the Battle of Berlin (in the winter of 1943-44).  Today, Elvington hosts the Yorkshire Air Museum, whose exhibits include a Halifax III (reconstructed from an original Halifax fuselage section and wings from a Hastings) painted as LV907 'Friday the 13th'.

No. 5 Group, in southern Lincolnshire, were the 'glamour boys' of the Command, often being picked for special raids (most famously the Dambusters, No. 617 Sqn) and winning a large proportion of Bomber Command VCs.  In 1939 the Group flew Handley Page Hampdens, and for the first year or so of the war was commanded by (then-AVM) Arthur Harris.  Subsequent commanders included AVM John Slessor and AVM Alec Coryton, but perhaps the name most associated with the group is AVM The Hon Ralph Cochrane, who moved from No. 3 Group in early 1943.  By this time 5 Group had used and then discarded the ill-starred Avro Manchester, replacing it with the Avro Lancaster (first operated by No. 44 Sqn at Waddington).  Today, several historic 5 Group airfields remain active: Coningsby is home to the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (including the airworthy Lancaster PA474 'City of Lincoln'), while the Red Arrows are based at Scampton, and Waddington hosted the RAF's main airshow from 1995 to 2014.  The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, a museum on the site of RAF East Kirkby, has another Lancaster (NX611 'Just Jane') which, though not airworthy, performs taxi-runs under its own engine power.  The museum was founded by the two brothers of P/O Chris Panton, who was killed in a Halifax on the infamous Nuremberg Raid of 30-31 March 1944.

No. 6 Group RCAF was formed in October 1942, funded by the Canadian government and manned by Canadian aircrew.  Initially operating Wellingtons, it had converted to Halifaxes and then partially to Lancasters (including some Hercules-engined Mk IIs), but suffered the same heavy losses and poor morale as No. 4 Group in late 1943.  However, under its new AOC, AVM Clifford 'Black Mike' McEwen, 6 Group recovered and became efficient and effective.  To the end of the war they retained a mixture of Halifaxes and Lancasters, many of the latter being Canadian-built.

No. 8 Group, the Path Finder Force, was a unit of experienced crews who would fly ahead of the Main Force to mark targets with flares and Target Indicator bombs (brightly-coloured airburst incendiaries), hopefully increasing the accuracy of the following bombers.  Commanded by AVM Don Bennett, they initially operated a wide assortment of aircraft (having been formed around five squadrons from other groups), including Stirlings and Wellingtons, but their heavy-bomber component soon standardised on the Avro Lancaster.  Meanwhile, 8 Group also operated most of Bomber Command's de Havilland Mosquitos, both in target-marking rôles (often OBOE-guided) and as the Light Night Striking Force, mounting harrassing raids independently of the main bomber operations.  Units at RAF Wyton included 1409 (Meteorological) Flight, whose unarmed Mosquitos flew over Europe on long-range met. reconnaissance for Bomber Command's weather forecasters; S/Ldr Jack Currie's book "Mosquito Victory" ends with his experiences flying with that unit.

-Bombers-

The Bristol Blenheim started life as the 1930s equivalent of the Learjet: a high-speed private transport commissioned by newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere.  Its performance so impressed the Air Ministry that they ordered a bomber version.  Unfortunately, when crammed full of military equipment and festooned with gun turrets it was no longer quite so sleek and fast.  After leaving Bomber Command, Blenheims continued to serve for some years in secondary theatres such as North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Near East.  Casualty rates often remained severe, though never quite as bad as they had been over France in those dark days of Spring 1940.

The Armstrong Whitworth Whitley appears to have been initially well-liked by its crews, although they did not so much like the leaflet-dropping on which they were initially employed.  Some Whitleys remained in use on Operational Training Units until 1944!  By then they must have been really clapped-out...

The early chapters of Guy Gibson's "Enemy Coast Ahead" give a good picture of Hampden operations.  Other famous Hampden crews included F/Lt Rod "Babe" Learoyd VC and Sgt John Hannah VC.  A variant of the Hampden, the Napier Dagger-engined Handley Page Hereford, saw some use in training but was not used operationally owing to the poor reliability of the Dagger engines.  From 1942, Hampdens served with Coastal Command as torpedo bombers (Hampden TB Mk.1) and maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

The Vickers Wellington was originally to be named the Crecy.  Its geodesic structure, developed from that used on the Vickers Wellesley long-range light bomber, was designed by Barnes Wallis, of 'bouncing bomb' fame.  Wellington number LN514 was built in under 24 hours as a propaganda stunt, filmed for the newsreel "Workers' Week-End".  While the bulk of the over 11,000 Wellingtons built were powered by Bristol Pegasus and Hercules radial engines, some 400 Wellington Mk II aircraft used Merlins, as did the sixty-odd Mk VI high-altitude bombers with pressurised cockpit, originally intended for an OBOE Pathfinder rôle which was eventually filled by Mosquitos.  Mating a pressure cabin to the Wellington's geodesic structure was no easy task!  In secondary theatres and in OTUs the faithful old Wimpy soldiered on to the end of the war.  The Warwick and Windsor, larger bombers developed around the same structural principles, saw only limited success, Warwicks being used by Coastal Command as air-sea rescue and antisubmarine patrol aircraft; of the Windsor only the three prototypes were built.

The chief failing of the Avro Manchester was of course its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines.  The big-end bearings were made with an inadequate alloy (apparently, silver was omitted as an economy measure) causing them to distort and eventually fail.  More Manchesters were lost to engine failure than to enemy action.  Were it not for its famous progeny, the Manchester would be all-but-forgotten today.

The Supermarine B.12/36 is an intriguing 'might-have-been', designed by the legendary RJ Mitchell.  The aircraft was predicted to have a _cruising_ speed of 260mph and some sources give payloads up to 21,000lb.  It's impossible to say how far it would have lived up to those expectations had the prototypes (and several of the engineering drawings) not been destroyed by a Luftwaffe bombing raid in September 1940 — or had Mitchell not died of cancer in 1937.

Short Brothers designed their Stirling around the same B.12/36 specification.  Because the Air Ministry didn't want huge bombers that would require huge runways, they tried to limit the size of the tendered designs by stipulating a maximum wingspan of 100 feet (despite what many accounts will tell you, this had nothing to do with hangar sizes).  Unfortunately, the bomber's all-up weight rose anyway; in order to keep the take-off run down the undercarriage was lengthened, but the new landing-gear caused problems of its own.  Landing after its maiden flight, the very first Stirling suffered a landing-gear collapse — the first of many.  On the other hand, away from the runway the Stirling was considered vice-free and pleasant to fly, and its manœuvrability was useful when under fighter attack — it was able to out-turn German nightfighters.  However, the thick-chord wing which provided this also meant that its high-altitude performance was poor, which ultimately led to the type's retirement.  (What might the Stirling have been had the Air Ministry not insisted on the 100-foot restriction?)  After the Mk III bombers came the Mk IV tug, used for towing gliders on and after D-Day, and the Mk V transport aircraft.  Despite its flaws, the Stirling seems to have been quite popular with its crews and with the public — certainly it _looked_ impressive.  Longest serving was N3721, which completed 61 operational sorties with No. 218 Sqn across 16 months.  The most famous Stirling of them all is probably MacRobert's Reply — but _which_ MacRobert's Reply?  After N6086, the first _Reply_, was written-off in a take-off accident, the coat of arms was carefully removed from the nose and applied to W7531, which was lost to flak three months later.  Short Bros proposed a development of the aircraft, which they called the "S.36 Super Stirling", which would have had a 135-foot wingspan and four Bristol Centaurus engines.  It was a promising design, but would have taken a long time to reach quantity production, so the RAF plumped for more Lancasters instead.

At one point early in its career, the Handley Page Halifax's teething troubles were so bad that it was taken off operations.  The story of how it was turned into a viable weapon is too long to re-tell here; tailfin stalls, cracked undercarriage arches and propellor lubrication failures are only some of the problems that had to be overcome.  Even then, it was ill-favoured: Arthur Harris wanted to abandon it and turn the factories over to building Lancs, but the disruption would have been too great, so the Halifax was persisted with.  Eventually the Hercules-engined Mk III proved almost a match for the Lancaster, and gave stout service, but it couldn't escape its reputation as a second-rate bomber.

There is not much to say about the Avro Lancaster that is not already well-known.  In Britain it is the quintessential World War Two bomber and is often seen in film and television.  After the famous dam-busting raid, No. 617 Sqn specialised in high-altitude precision bombing, dropping Barnes Wallis' earthquake bombs — Tallboy and Grand Slam, the latter weighing 10 tons each — on a variety of targets to devastating effect.  But they were the outliers; most Lancs spent their working lives carrying 'cookies', 500-pounders, and thousands of tiny incendiaries, to drop on German cities.  Lancasters, often equipped with H₂S, were the backbone of the Pathfinders.  No. 101 Sqn's Lancs carried a German-speaking eighth crew member to operate the 'Airborne Cigar' (or 'A.B.C.'), a transmitter used to jam German night-fighter control frequencies.  Today two Lancs are still flying, PA474 in Britain and FM213 in Canada.  There are another fifteen in museums, including three more in Britain: NX611 'Just Jane' at East Kirkby, R5868 (which completed 137 sorties) at the RAF Museum Hendon, and KB889 at the IWM Duxford.

de Havilland's Mosquito was a private venture; the Air Ministry were not interested in an unarmed wooden bomber until the prototype demonstrated startling performance — at which point de Havilland were told to build most of them as photo-recce aircraft and cannon-armed fighters instead.  The aircraft proved to be successful in those rôles as well as serving as a tactical bomber with the 2nd TAF and, of course, in Bomber Command as a marker aircraft.  Its high ceiling altitude extended the range of ground-based radionavigation, allowing the OBOE marking of (some) targets in Germany proper, and loss rates were incredibly low as neither flak nor fighters got near it.  Indeed many fighter Mosquitos operated with Bomber Command as 'Intruders', harassing German night-fighters at their airfields or hunting them in flight with 'Serrate' and airborne radar.

-Fighters-

Most Brits probably associate the Messerschmitt Bf109 with the daytime dogfights of the Battle of Britain; but the type was also used defensively, including at night.  The early German system for night defence was 'Helle Nachtjagd' — searchlight illuminated; once a 'master' searchlight (possibly directed by 'Würzburg' radar) picked up a bomber, the other searchlights in the unit would illuminate it as well, enabling the single-seat fighter to attack.  109s were fast (especially the later F and G variants) and, while less manœuvrable than Spitfires, had no difficulty tangling with a bomber if they could find one.

Kurt Tank's stubby Focke-Wulf Fw190 not only pushed Fighter Command's day fighter operations back to the Channel, it also played a significant part in Major Hajo Herrmann's _Wilde Sau_ ('wild boar') tactics, sighting bombers against clouds backlit either by searchlights or by the fires of the bombers' target.  However, the single-seat fighters suffered a high accident rate, particularly during the winter weather, leading to a wastage of skilled pilots; post-war consensus seems to be that Wilde Sau was a mistake.

Dornier Do 17 bombers were converted into nightfighters using the 'Spanner-Anlage' and 'Kiel-Gerät' infrared detectors.  But neither the aircraft nor the detector were really up to the job — infrared just wasn't practical in 1940 — and they achieved little success.  Later, the airframe was developed into the Do 217, which attempted to plug shortages of the other nightfighter types; the 217's main problem was that it was too heavy, as it retained much equipment to allow the airframes to be used as bombers if needed.

While a failure in its original rôle as a heavy day fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf110 proved to be an effective night fighter.  During the Nuremberg Raid, one 110 pilot, Oblt. Martin Becker, shot down seven heavy bombers in one night — surpassing the 'bag' of six aircraft he had collected against another raid eight days earlier.

Junkers Ju88

Messerschmitt Me262