Big Week

by James Holland

  The P-51B also had a quicker roll rate than either of these German aircraft or than any other Allied fighter. In addition, its internal layout and essential construction were both more logical and more straightforward than many other contemporary fighters, and it was smaller overall than most others too, all of which made it well placed for mass production and, crucially, some $30,000 cheaper to build than the P-47 Thunderbolt. With its small laminar wings and high wing-loading, the P-51B Mustang now combined power with phenomenal manoeuvrability. In short, it was an absolutely stunning new fighter.

  But that was not all the Mustang had in its favour. The aerodynamics of Schmued’s design, originally drawn up in early 1940 and using very smooth surfaces with sunken and filled-in rivets and thick, glassy paintwork, combined with the Packard-Merlin and a much lighter take-off weight than other fighters, meant it was more fuel-efficient too. What really made the difference in fuel efficiency, however, was less the sleekness of its design and more the amount of extra thrust derived from the placement of the radiator and the way air passed through it in such a way that its net coolant drag was only one sixth of that of a Spitfire. Although the standard Mustang’s fuel tanks allowed a range of only around 415 miles, which was not exceptional, it had a fuel economy that was more than 30 per cent better than that of the P-47 and more than 60 per cent better than that of the twin-engine P-38, the only other fighter that was being considered to fill the long-range escort hole. The implications of this far superior fuel efficiency were obvious: add drop tanks and that extra fuel would go far further than on the other Allied fighter aircraft – even a Spitfire equipped with extra fuel-carrying capabilities.

  The USAAF had ordered 1,350 Packard-Merlin Mustangs on 8 October 1942, even before Rolls-Royce had tested their Merlin 61 versions. The re-tooling and subsequent production took time but, by the summer of 1943, they were ready. Interestingly, though, during this time the Mustang’s potential as a long-range fighter had not registered higher up the chain.

  ‘Attached are Mr.4 Lovett’s comments,’ Arnold told his deputy, Lieutenant-General Barney Giles. ‘This brings to my mind very clearly the absolute necessity for building a fighter airplane that can go in and come out with the bombers. Moreover, this fighter has got to go into Germany.’ Arnold, who had been the leading champion of US bombers defending themselves, had now, following the Schweinfurt and Regensburg raids, accepted that fighter escorts were needed throughout any mission. ‘Within this next six months,’ he continued, ‘you have got to get a fighter to protect our bombers. Whether you use an existing type or have to start from scratch is your problem. Get to work on this right away, because by January ’44, I want fighter escort for all of our bombers from UK into Germany.’ Crucially, he was not giving Giles six months to find a solution, but half a year to find a solution and have enough aircraft built and shipped to England and enough pilots trained and ready to fly them.

  Even in this instruction, Arnold did not specify, as Lovett had, that Giles should look into the range potential of the P-51. Giles, however, correctly recognized that the answer to the long-range fighter was already right under their noses and immediately flew to California to see Dutch Kindelberger and Edgar Schmued at North American Aviation. There, Giles suggested replacing the radio set behind the pilot’s head with a 100-gallon fuel tank and putting new bulletproof fuel tanks along much of the length of the two wings. Kindelberger initially doubted the wings were strong enough, but Giles insisted and was swiftly proved right: the sturdy Mustang could handle an extra 300 gallons on board without difficulty. That gave it a range of up to 750 miles. When two 75-gallon drop tanks were added, tests showed it could manage a stunning 1,474 miles. That was a round-trip from England that went beyond Berlin. And that was a game-changer.

  Incredibly, however, most of the P-51Bs now rolling off the production line had continued to be sent to reconnaissance units or to the new Ninth Air Force. Only at the end of September did Arnold appear to realize what an asset they had wasted, and fired off a cable to Portal asking him for any P-51s operating in England to be sent either directly to, or for service in support of, the Eighth. The RAF’s Mustangs, however, were nearly all P-51As – that is, with the Allison engine and therefore not entirely suitable as long-range escorts. Consequently, Portal didn’t send over very many.

  Then on 14 October, the same day as the second Schweinfurt Raid, Arnold sent another tense letter to Portal. Both men had incredibly difficult jobs; no matter the material superiority they had over the enemy, their air forces were needed globally and in a multitude of different roles. The pressures on them were immense and the lives of many young men were held in their hands. Much has been made of the tensions between British and American commanders, but it is remarkable how comparatively few spats and strained relations there were considering the gargantuan levels of responsibility on their shoulders. For their part, Arnold and Portal got on well and there was undoubted mutual respect, but Portal was in England, where so much of the USAAF was now based, whereas Arnold, for much of the time, was on the other side of the Atlantic in Washington. Portal had eyes on the ground; Arnold did not.

  Arnold’s letter to Portal on 14 October revealed both his mounting frustration and anxiety and his distance from the epicentre of the Combined Bomber Offensive. ‘Overlord hangs directly on the success of our combined aerial offensive,’ he wrote, ‘and I am sure that our failure to decisively cripple both sources of German air power and the GAF itself is causing you and me real concern.’5 His concern was that not enough was being done to take on the Luftwaffe directly. He was, he said, pressing Eaker as much as he could to get as large a force off the ground as possible in order to strike hard against the targets outlined in POINTBLANK. But why, he wanted to know, was RAF Fighter Command not doing more? As he understood it, the RAF had ‘thousands’ of fighters. Surely they could help with escorting bombers? Couldn’t more drop tanks be put on to Spitfires? ‘Is it not true,’ he asked, ‘that we have a staggering air superiority over the German and we are not using it? Should we not make it possible to put all fighters in an effective offensive action against the German Air Force at this critical time?’

  Arnold had a point.6 Undoubtedly, the Mustang was the best bet for a long-range fighter, but the Spitfire, equipped with extra internal and auxiliary drop tanks, could easily have been capable of flying a round-trip deep into Germany. In fact, the previous year, in the summer of 1942, Fighter Command had been asked to provide long-range escorts for RAF Coastal Command’s attacks on Germany’s vital iron trade down the coast of Norway and into the Baltic. Calculations had been made, somewhat disingenuous conclusions drawn, and the notion summarily dismissed. Despite hard evidence to the contrary, it was decided there was not enough margin for error; nor did they want their pilots flying alone over water for the length of time it would involve. That US Navy fighter pilots, meanwhile, were carrying out lengthy flights over the Pacific and accepting the demands of such flying does not appear to have been considered.

  Arnold’s frustration was entirely justified, but he was coming up against a culture in which long-range Spitfires – except in special circumstances, such as flying to resupply Malta – had already been dismissed as not practicable. And he was also coming up against Leigh-Mallory, because, before he replied, Portal passed Arnold’s note to the commander-in-chief of Fighter Command. Nor was it just Spitfires Leigh-Mallory was zealously guarding. He had not permitted a single Hawker Typhoon, nor the new Hawker Tempests, to be sent to other theatres either. The Typhoon and Tempest were fast, powerful, bristling with weaponry, and quite superb ground-attack aircraft, so, although there was sound logic to keeping them in the UK, the decision didn’t help overcome Leigh-Mallory’s – and Fighter Command’s – reputation for hoarding or for being parsimonious with their assets.

  In his reply to Portal, Leigh-Mallory pointed out that he didn’t have ‘thousands’ but rather some 750 Spitfires and 270 Typhoons. There was also a difference between what was
available on paper and what was ready to fly on any given day. The latter figures were more like 580 Spits and 216 ‘Tiffies’, as they were known, and some of these, he claimed, were needed for defence purposes. However, despite Hitler’s orders, the numbers of enemy bombers and fighter bombers coming over were low. Leigh-Mallory could have spared plenty more fighters if he had been inclined to do so.

  He had also weighed in on the issue of drop tanks. ‘Acceleration of production of the 45 gallon drop tank has been urged by Fighter Command for some months,’ wrote Leigh-Mallory, ‘but the Fleet Air Arm, for whose use these tanks were originally designed, have prior claim.’7 It was an admission of the failure of Leigh-Mallory’s command to plan for them earlier and betrayed either a total lack of understanding or even greater levels of disingenuousness. In fact, Spitfires were capable of carrying up to 216 gallons internally plus two 62-gallon drop tanks, giving them a theoretical range of 1,904 miles.fn2 What’s more, if Leigh-Mallory had demanded them earlier and more emphatically, the Ministry for Aircraft Production would have produced them. Suggesting Fighter Command did not have drop tanks because of the Fleet Air Arm’s superior claims was nonsense. It was a lack of will at the top that was the issue.

  ‘It is becoming increasingly difficult,’ Leigh-Mallory added, having dismissed the drop-tank option, ‘to bring the German Fighter Force into action, for Germany’s policy is to conserve her fighters and to use them only against large bomber formations, while avoiding engagement with escorting fighters.’8

  Portal gave his response to Arnold a leisurely ten days later. Fighter Command, he told him, was currently devoting 73 per cent of its total effort to offensive operations, of which 76 per cent was devoted to escorting American bombers. ‘We intend to continue the offensive effort,’ he wrote, ‘and to continue the tactics designed to cover offensive operations or to provoke air battles.’9 But only within the limits of the Spitfire’s standard range. He was emphatically drawing a line. The RAF was simply not prepared to engage in this discussion. They did not believe in long-range fighters, so it was left to Arnold, who had belatedly woken up to the urgent realization of what was required, somehow to find the solution before it was too late.

  Even Eaker was only slowly realizing what was needed. Immediately after Schweinfurt, he had sent a long cable to Arnold, which included a list of three urgent requirements. The first was to rush through replacement aircraft and crews. Currently, Eaker told him, he was getting 143 planes and crews a month, but he needed at least 250. Second, ‘send every possible fighter here as soon as possible.10 Especially emphasize earliest arrival of P-38s and Mustangs.’ Finally, he wanted eight thousand drop tanks each month.

  However, not until the end of October, more than two weeks after the second raid on Schweinfurt and a week after Portal’s response, did Arnold order that all Mustangs, as well as P-38 Lightnings, should be sent exclusively to the Eighth Air Force. This was why Dick Turner and the rest of the 354th Fighter Group were now part of the Eighth Air Force after all, although they remained under administrative control of the Ninth. The trouble was, it would take time to bring enough of these superb fighters to England to make a decisive difference – one fighter group was not enough – and almost certainly longer than the January deadline Arnold had given Barney Giles back in June.

  It was a case of missed opportunities: first, the RAF had failed to pursue long-range fighters with more drive earlier; and second, the length of time required since the revelation of the P-51B to realize its full potential. Had its long-range capability been thought about the previous autumn, the crisis now facing Allied air commanders might very well have been avoided altogether.

  Meanwhile, in Germany, those in charge of defending the Reich were largely ignorant of the emergency facing their enemy. As far as they were concerned, the crisis seemed largely with them and the ongoing problem of how to find more and better fighters and, more importantly, more and better pilots. On 6 and 7 November, the commander of the newly formed I Jagdkorps, Generalmajor Beppo Schmid, called a meeting in Berlin with his senior commanders, including Dolfo Galland, General Hubert Weise and those in charge of the fighter divisions. Schmid had just received an order from Göring to destroy all enemy four-engine bombers while avoiding combat with Allied fighters. It was, of course, easier said than done, particularly with one hand tied behind their backs by the demands and restrictions imposed by the senior leadership.

  Galland had already been trying to increase the size of the day-fighter force by poaching units from the Eastern Front and increasing the size of each Geschwader by adding an extra Schwarm of four aircraft to each Staffel, so bringing it up to sixteen aircraft, and an extra Staffel to every Gruppe, and a fourth Gruppe to each Geschwader. So far, he’d managed to enlarge both JG2 and JG26 in such a way. In all, this had bolstered the size of the fighter defence by nearly a thousand aircraft, which was no small number.

  It was still not enough as far as Galland, Schmid and their divisional commanders were concerned. They were conscious only of a hydra’s head developing in England with more and more bombers and fighters inevitably heading their way, and with their own numbers bleeding away badly. Göring’s new order meant a switch in tactics was now necessary and at the Berlin Conference Schmid persuaded his commanders to move all fighter units back into the eastern part of Holland and to the Rhine area in order to avoid short-range fighter escorts and any attack by tactical bombers. He also accepted Weise’s suggestion that, regardless of Göring’s order, a small number of single-engine fighters should try to draw off the escort force, and in turn got agreement that the day-fighter force should concentrate efforts against one part of the bomber stream at a time. This played into time-honoured German principles of concentration of fire, but was a different approach to the successful tactics of Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park during the Battle of Britain; he had deliberately used his squadrons in pairs to peck away at and continually disrupt the flow of the Luftwaffe’s bomber formations.

  Another problem that was harder to square was the vast number of aircraft and pilots lost in flying accidents and to friendly fire. In the last four months of 1943, 967 Luftwaffe pilots would be shot down over Germany by the Allies, but a staggering 1,052 more without any help from the enemy. In part this was due to trigger-happy and inexperienced anti-aircraft gunners, and in part due to inexperienced pilots with sub-standard training. Galland had been trying to improve training by insisting each Geschwader sent its own instructors to the training schools from which it recruited its new pilots; this, he hoped, was improving the quality of the instructors. Since the Americans were still coming over in poor winter weather, there was now an urgent need for blind-flying training – flying using instruments only, rather than relying on being able to see out of the plane – but this was a corner that had been completely cut from the training schools. Galland had insisted on reintroducing blind-flying training, but the lack of fuel was hindering this. The truth was, Germany had long been fighting a war it could no longer afford.

  At least good, competent and dynamic men were in charge. Schmid himself had begun the war as an intelligence officer on Göring’s personal staff. A veteran of the Nazi’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, he was a personal friend of his boss with very few qualifications for the role. His intelligence briefing on the RAF back in July 1940, before the Luftwaffe had launched its all-out attack, had been risible, but he had matured considerably since then and was still only forty-two. Göring had given him command of his ground panzer-grenadier division in Tunisia, and it was certainly true that many still regarded him as little more than one of Göring’s lackeys. ‘Some malicious tongues,’ noted Hajo Herrmann, ‘had said that we should have let the Americans have him, because he would have told a big pack of lies as he had previously told his own leaders.’11 However, Schmid’s long years of observing the Luftwaffe high command and working alongside men like Galland, Falck and Weise had taught him much, so that by the autumn of 1943 he had a far wiser and more astute head
on his shoulders. He also understood the importance of diplomacy – a vital characteristic when working through the myriad dynamics of Nazi command structures and politics. Herrmann, for one, thought Schmid was up to the task. ‘I found him to be interested, ready to learn and of a practical turn of mind,’ he noted.12

  The Berlin meeting resolved some tactical issues, but Schmid was already thinking of ways to wrest greater control of the flak units to his fighter units – and with it, he hoped, to cut the amount of home losses dramatically. Furthermore, the night-time defence of the Reich was in far better shape than it had been in July when Hamburg had been hit. That attack had caught the Luftwaffe out; they had not been prepared, but the combination of the intensity of the attack and the use of Window had forced dramatic changes. Kammhuber’s Himmelbett system, quite sensible when first suggested, had long ago begun to creak and at Hamburg its limitations had been horribly exposed. Since then, not only had Himmelbett been superseded, but Kammhuber himself had, in October, been posted away to take command of the Luftwaffe in Norway. How long Herrmann’s Wilde Sau would prove effective was questionable, but there was no doubting the efficacy of the Zahme Sau tactics. Since Hamburg, the defence system had been further refined, the number of aircraft had been increased, as had the number of anti-aircraft guns: now more than twelve thousand were defending the Reich. Whatever Germany’s long-term chances, this did mean the Luftwaffe was now a much tougher proposition than it had been back in July.

  On Wednesday, 17 November, at Achmer to the north of Münster, Leutnant Heinz Knoke was awarded the German Cross of Gold for his sterling efforts. The presentation was made by the Reichsmarschall himself and beforehand a number of men from JG11 and other fighter units had been ordered to line up for an inspection. Göring eventually appeared in a motorcade of some thirty vehicles, then stepped out to speak to a number of the men, Knoke included; he was currently the leading ace in 2 Jagddivision, with some fifteen heavy bombers to his name. Such a score hardly compared with the massive tallies gained by some on the Eastern Front, but few others had as many American heavies to their name. This impressed Göring, who paused to talk to him for around ten minutes. The Reichsmarschall was particularly interested that the previous year Knoke had also managed to destroy a Mosquito – an aircraft with which Göring had become increasingly obsessed. The Mosquito, he told Knoke quite emphatically, was ‘an infernal nuisance and pain in the neck.’13