The first American raid on Germany

On 27 January 1943 American heavy bombers dropped bombs on the territory of the Reich itself for the first time. Ninety-one aircraft of the Eighth Air Force took off from airfields in eastern England: 64 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and 27 Consolidated B-24 Liberators. The target was the U-boat yards at Wilhelmshaven, the Kriegsmarine’s main base on the North Sea. Fifty-three bombers reached the port and bombed it. Three aircraft failed to return. The results were modest, but after five months of operations over France, Belgium and the Netherlands the Americans had carried the air war over Germany itself.

Many chronologies speak of “50 bombers”. That figure roughly corresponds to the aircraft that actually bombed Wilhelmshaven. According to the official history of the US Army Air Forces there were 53 of them; other studies give 55 or 58. But 91 aircraft were dispatched; some turned back or failed to find the target.

Five months over occupied Europe

The American bomber command in England had been building up its strength since February 1942. On 17 August 1942 twelve B-17s attacked the railway yards at Rouen, and that was the beginning of daylight raids by heavy bombers. Over the following months the Eighth Air Force attacked targets in France and the Low Countries: railway stations, airfields and industrial plants, and from the autumn above all the U-boat bases on the Atlantic coast at Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Brest and La Pallice. These last raids proved a disappointment. The concrete submarine pens turned out to be impervious to bombs, while losses among the crews mounted.

On top of this, the force was weakened. In the autumn of 1942 many bomber and fighter groups – and, at the end of the year, the commander of the Eighth Air Force, General Carl Spaatz – were sent to North Africa to support the landings in Morocco and Algeria. On 1 December 1942 General Ira Eaker, until then head of its bomber command, took over the Eighth Air Force. That winter he had only a handful of heavy bomber groups at his disposal. He could rarely send more than a hundred aircraft over a target at once.

The most serious problem, however, was that the British did not believe the American method could succeed. The RAF had begun the war with daylight raids and quickly abandoned them after the Wellingtons’ defeat over the Heligoland Bight in December 1939 – when the bombers had been heading for Wilhelmshaven, of all places. Since then Bomber Command had flown by night, and from 1942, under Arthur Harris, it had been area-bombing whole cities. The Americans were convinced that heavily armed bombers in tight formation could defend themselves against fighters and that, thanks to the Norden bombsight, they could hit a specific factory by day rather than merely a district. In the autumn of 1942 the British openly urged Washington to abandon daylight raids and join the night offensive. The dispute over day and night bombing went on until early 1943. Eaker knew that the best argument would be a successful raid on Germany.

Backing from Casablanca

The matter was settled in Morocco. At the Casablanca Conference Winston Churchill intended to persuade Franklin Delano Roosevelt to switch the American bombers to night operations. General Henry H. Arnold, commander of the US Army Air Forces, summoned Eaker from England. On 20 January Eaker met the Prime Minister and handed him a one-page memorandum. In it he argued that the two methods of bombing complemented each other: if the RAF bombed by night and the Americans by day, Germany would be bombed around the clock and given no respite. Churchill liked the phrase about bombing “round the clock”. He withdrew his objection, and in his memoirs admitted that he had decided to give the American method a chance.

On 21 January the Combined Chiefs of Staff adopted a directive for both bomber forces in Britain. Their task was to be the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of German morale to the point where their capacity for armed resistance was fatally weakened. Top of the list of targets were the yards building submarines, a response to the crisis in the Battle of the Atlantic. Next came the aircraft industry, transport, oil refineries and other branches of war industry. The directive also required daylight raids to concentrate as far as possible on targets in the Reich itself. The choice of Wilhelmshaven, a centre for building and repairing warships, U-boats included, followed it to the letter.

The British did not, however, abandon their own night offensive. In the same month Bomber Command returned to Berlin after a break of more than a year.

The raid

On the morning of 27 January two forces took off. The B-17s of the 1st Bombardment Wing, commanded by Brigadier General Haywood Hansell, one of the architects of the American doctrine of precision bombing, came from four groups: the 91st, 303rd, 305th and 306th. The Liberators belonged to the 2nd Bombardment Wing. At the head of the whole mission flew the 306th Bomb Group from Thurleigh airfield. It was led by Colonel Frank A. Armstrong, the same man who had led the mission to Rouen in August. Eaker had sent him to the 306th Group at the beginning of January to raise its standard of training and its morale. The bombers flew without fighter escort, since no Allied fighter at the time had the range to accompany them over Germany.

The weather over northern Germany was uncertain, with cloud and haze. The B-17s flew over the East Frisian Islands and bombed the port and shipyard area at Wilhelmshaven. A few aircraft dropped their loads on other targets, including, according to American lists, Emden. The Liberators were less fortunate. After crossing the coast they lost their way, circled over the Netherlands and never found the target at all.

The German anti-aircraft defences failed. The flak was almost continuous over the Frisian Islands and over Germany, but inaccurate. A British observer flying in one of the B-17s called the barrage over Wilhelmshaven “pitiful”. The Americans were surprised, as they knew how many guns guarded the base. The fighters proved more dangerous. According to American estimates more than a hundred of them joined the fight, among them Messerschmitt Bf 109s from the airfield at Jever, which lay almost directly beneath the route, and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. The German pilots were facing American heavy bombers in tight formation for the first time and could not attack them effectively. They shot down one B-17. Over the Netherlands, near the island of Terschelling, they caught the straying Liberators and brought down two, one of them in a collision with a fighter in which both the German pilot and the entire American crew were killed.

Results and claims

On their return the air gunners claimed 22 German fighters destroyed, 14 probably destroyed and 13 damaged. These figures were exaggerated many times over, as was routinely the case when a dozen or more gunners from different bombers fired at the same aircraft at once. The official history of the American air forces, relying on British Air Ministry data, accepts that the Germans lost about seven fighters. According to tallies based on German records the losses came to six German aircraft and three American. Even in this more modest version, the balance came out in the bombers’ favour.

The damage at Wilhelmshaven was limited. Cloud and the crews’ inexperience meant that the bombs were scattered over the port and its surroundings, and the yards’ output was not seriously disrupted. The American command and press nevertheless presented the mission as a success. The first bombs had fallen on Germany in broad daylight, at little cost, and the American method had passed its first test over the Reich itself. The official history later judged that it had not been a particularly well-executed mission, but a highly instructive one. A relatively small force with inexperienced crews had penetrated deep into enemy territory by day, without escort, and had not suffered prohibitive losses. In Britain, where many had doubted the American bombers, the news was received with relief.

The reporters knew of the course of the mission from the crews’ accounts. A group of American war correspondents who were to fly on combat missions aboard the bombers was only then being trained.

Place in the war

Wilhelmshaven opened a new stage in the air war. Within weeks the Germans had drawn their conclusions. On 4 February over Emden the bombers met much stronger opposition, including twin-engined heavy fighters for the first time. On 26 February the Eighth Air Force returned to Wilhelmshaven. This time six war correspondents flew aboard, among them Walter Cronkite. One of them, Robert Post of The New York Times, was killed when his Liberator was shot down. Luftwaffe fighters attacked more and more effectively, especially head-on, where the B-17s were most weakly armed.

In June 1943 the Pointblank directive made the destruction of the German fighter force the precondition of the whole bombing offensive. Deep raids without escort ended in disaster: on 17 August over Schweinfurt and Regensburg, and on 14 October over Schweinfurt again, the Eighth Air Force lost sixty bombers each time. Daylight bombing was resumed on a large scale only when long-range fighters arrived, above all the P-51 Mustang. By early 1944 American and British bombers were indeed attacking Germany around the clock, as Eaker had promised at Casablanca. The offensive devastated German cities and industry, and in fighting the escorted bombers the Luftwaffe lost most of its experienced fighter pilots. The first step had been taken by 53 bombers over Wilhelmshaven.