Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Not having enough aviation fuel was a big problem late in 1944.
Earlier,
the
Germans had a pretty good handle on it, as the 3/30/44 raid to
Nuremburg
showed.

They nightfighters whacked at least 80 Brit bombers, total lost that
night
94-96.

The British had to suspend their night ops over Germany. That's not
well
known
because they were put onto invasion targets in the same time frame.

Probably because its untrue

The simple fact is that during March 1944 bomber command flew a total
of 9031 sorties with a loss rate of under 4%. Nuremburg was indeed a
disaster
but an isolated one.

The RAF definitely was defeated over Germany by the Luftwaffe in the
Spring of
1944. Being put onto invasion targets has obscured this fact.

"Bomber Command had lost 4,160 aircraft missing and crashed in England.
Harris's failure to bring Germany to her knees, and the cost of his
failure,
had become embarrassingly evident to every man but himself.


Bull**** - losses in the first 4 months of 1944 were as follows

Month Lost Crashed %Loss
January 314 38 5.6
Febuary 199 21 5.2
March 283 39 3.6
April 214 25 2.4


During this period the B-17's of US 8th AF were suffering very
similar loss rates. For example on the 19th Jan 1944 the USAAF
dispatched 675 B-17's and 188 B-24's to Frankfurt with an escort
of 89 P-38's, 503 P-47's and 40 P-51's

34 B-17's and B-24's were lost , a loss rate of 3.94 %




And in a letter to
the Air Ministry on April 7, 1944, he came as close as ever in his life to
conceding that he was in deep trouble:

'The strength of the German defenses [he wrote] would in time reach a
point at
which night-bombing attacks by existing methods and types of heavy bombers
would involve percentage casualty rates which in the long run could not be
sustained...we have not yet reached that point, but tactical innovations
which
have so far postponed it are now practically exhausted....'


So in fact in the spring of 1944 he is saying he has NOT been defeated,

This was a preamble to a demand for ten suadrons of night fighters to
support
his bombers. It was the final admission of defeat for the Trenchard
doctrine....Now Bomber Command had discovered that even night operations
against Germany could no longer be continued on their existing basis
unless the
enemy's night-fighter force could be crippled of destroyed."



On the contrary it was a way of ensuring that he got his night fighters,
and it worked.

--Bomber Command, p. 308 by Max Hastings

The Americans also had to stop deep penetrations inot Germany (they had
made
precious few) until they got Mustangs and longer-legged P47's and also
some
P-38's.

It's a tragedy that the USAAF had a long range escort within its grasp
even in
1942, and didn't see it. That was the P-38. A P-38 group was sent to
England
in 1942 but wound up in Africa after Torch. The VIIIth fighter CG,
Hunter,
wanted to concentrate on the P-47. This was a big mistake. It was shown
that
even a few dozen P-38's could break up the massed attacks by the Germans.
But
they weren't supported, nor was the idea pushed. Eaker seemed to think
that
some magic number of B-17's could be self-defending. That ultimately cost
him
his job.

To get back on target, so to speak, the Americans got back over Germany by
adding the long range fighter (and new commanders) to the mix. The RAF
had no
such solution.


Horsefeathers.

The RAF returned to bombing German targets after D-Day as
did the US 8th AF. Ask any surviving German night fighter pilot
about the RAF response, the Mosquito intruders caused them
terrible losses.

Keith