The switch to night bombing was made shortly before the Nazis invaded Denmark and Norway. Bomber Command’s sole role in that campaign was to mount ineffective attacks on the airfields the Germans had seized.
When the Germans invaded Belgium and the Netherlands, restrictions on Bomber Command’s operations were lifted. The Blenheims of Bomber Command’s 2 Group, operating in daylight, were hurled into the land battle and suffered from German fighters and flak. On the night of May 15-16, the rest of Bomber Command opened the strategic air offensive proper. Executing Western Air Plan 4C, (WA 4C), 99 night bombers set out to attack marshalling yards and synthetic oil plants in the Ruhr. These attacks did little damage.
Bomber Command could not have influenced the Battle of France even had its operations been effective. But after the battle was over, bombers were the only offensive weapon the Allies, what was left of them, had. Britain was alone; Bomber Command was the only, if pitifully ineffective, means with which it could strike Germany. On August 8 Churchill wrote that should Hitler “be repulsed here or not try invasion, he will recoil eastward, and we have nothing to stop him. But there is one thing that would bring him back and bring him down, and that is an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country on the Nazi homeland. We must be able to overwhelm them by this means, without which I do not see a way through.” In September he put it more pithily. “The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it.”
By early June it was clear that the war’s next phase would see a desperate struggle for air supremacy. Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, who had replaced Ludlow-Hewitt in April, was ordered to attack aircraft plants when oil plants could not be found. Several times reshuffling its priorities, the RAF went after aircraft plants and airfields, German ports, and shipping. More units were assigned to mining enemy-controlled waters; this proved an effective and cheap means of sinking enemy ships, superior to direct attacks with bombs and torpedoes.
During August, Bomber Command concentrated on “counter-air” operations against the Luftwaffe’s bases and factories, while 2 Group, now flying mostly at night, bombed the ports across the English Channel from which an invasion of Britain was to be mounted. A special operation was launched to stop the assembly of the invasion fleet by wrecking the aqueduct that carried the Dortmund-Ems Canal over the Ems River. Barges and small craft used the canal to reach the invasion ports. On the night of August 12-13, eleven Hampdens with picked crews attacked the canal. While some tried to draw enemy fire, the remainder struck at low level. Despite the diversion there was a storm of flak. Two planes were shot down, but the canal was blocked for ten days. Flight-Lieutenant Roderick Learoyd, who dropped the critical bomb, received the Victoria Cross. In September the other groups joined 2 Group against the channel ports, which proved easy targets; unless the weather was utterly impossible, the ports could be hit even on moonless nights. Bomber Command destroyed over 200 barges, almost a tenth of the invasion fleet.
This bombing alone did not prevent an invasion, although it had done a good job of hindering invasion preparations. The fundamental reason the Germans failed to invade Britain was the Fighter Command prevented them from gaining air superiority. Bomber Command’s actions had little direct effect on the fight for air superiority, but indirectly they may have encouraged the Nazis to make a mistake that greatly helped Fighter Command. Despite considerable advice to the contrary. Hitler had ruled that the British capital should not yet be attacked on a large scale, and the Luftwaffe was concenttating its efforts on beating down the RAF. However, since there were more bombers than could be escorted during the day, the Germans employed some at night. And on the night of August 24-25, German bombers seeking oil-tank farms and aircraft plants mistakenly hit residential areas of London.
The British were furious. At the Air Ministry’s suggestion, Churchill ordered Bomber Command to Berlin. The British had refrained from attacking the German capital until then; it contained few targets of high priority under recent directives, and on the shortest nights it had been out of reach. On the night of August 25-26 Bomber Command sent 81 bombers to strike industrial objectives in Berlin. Clouds interfered with the bombing, which as usual was inaccurate. More attacks followed, killing a few civilians.
On August 30 Hitler decided to retaliate on London. In this he was following the advice of many Luftwaffe generals, who had long believed that an attack on London would force a decisive air battle under conditions that would favor the Luftwaffe. This was a miscalculation. The attacks on London, which began on September 7, lifted the pressure from Fighter Command’s airfields in southeast England, and the RAF did well in the fighting over London. The decision to make London a target, however hard for the Londoners, gave Fighter Command a welcome respite. It is doubtful that this decided the Battle of Britain, as was once widely believed. But the attacks on Berlin, along with Bomber Command’s attacks on the invasion fleet, certainly were to Britain’s advantages.
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