Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

Bernardz wrote:

In article 40fa0ce6$0$1289$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-
01.iinet.net.au, says...

snip

What do these escort fighters do?

Not sure of the question, but overall the idea is two fold, prevent bomber
losses and shoot down the interceptors. At night this meant flying around
the bomber stream, known Luftwaffe night fighter airfields and known radio
beacons.

A fighter is much smaller, more mobile and generally faster then a
bomber. Finding a bomber and recognizing it was hard enough in WW2 how
successful were fighters in finding and identifying interceptors at
night?

The RAF didn't seem to have too much trouble finding and identifying many of
those same Luftwaffe interceptors (used instead as bombers, i.e. the Ju-88 and
Do-217) by night over England. It could be a real pain trying to sort through a
returning bomber strike, as virtually every target was friendly. Here's an
account of such sorting by C.F. Rawnsley, John Cunningham's radar operator, in
his book "Night Fighter":

"The Luftwaffe kept up their attacks [Mid-43], making the most they could of
their limited numbers by sending in mixed raids of FW-190s, ME-410s and JU-88s.
This mixture of fast and comparatively slow types, and the presence all the time
of so many of our own bombers returning from raids, made the job of
identification by ground control extremely difficult. Visual recognition by the
night fighters became even more essential than before; and it helped a great
deal when we were issued with Ross night binoculars. Though they had no great
magnification, these glasses had an amazing power of collecting light. We
tried them out after dark, standing at the door of the crewroom. A vague blur
to the naked eye two hundred yards away took on with the help of the binoculars
the clear outline of a Mosquito, wth the squadron letters plainly readable on
the fuselage. . .
Halfway through August the Germans put on a sharp raid on Portsmouth . . .
Three times during the course of the raid they [the GCI station] gave us
contact, and each time I sweated after our target -- they were all coming in
fairly fast -- and brought John into visual range.

"The first one was flying as straight as an arrow. We were closing in quickly,
and I brought my new binoculars to bear. it turned out to be a Beaufighter.
The second waited until we were within three thousand feet, but before John
could see it the pilot started a tight turn to port. That was a little
puzzling, for he could hardly have seen us, unless the Germans were now equipped
with radar tail warning. But that pilot had chosen the wrong man for a winding
match, and after a couple of turns John was well inside and rapidly closing in.
Our target then steadied up and we saw that it was another Beaufighter.

"Our third customer was moving a great deal faster, and although he flew
straight on it took us some time to catch him. At John's word I looked up from
the A.I. set. The strap of the glasses caught in my harness, but even without
them I could see that this was no Beaufighter. The fuselage was much to slim
and delicate for that; it was far more likely to be an ME-410. I fumbled
impatiently with the strap and finally got the glasses to bear. Our target
leapt into clear profile. this time it was a Mosquito!"

Admittedly they usually had good GCI to get them close, but fighters pretty much
had to be around the bomber stream or their airfields to be effective. Besides,
there weren't any four-engined night fighters over nighttime Germany, which
allowed the bombers to be separated from the potential targets fairly easily ;-)

Guy