Operation Bodenplatte

On the morning of 1 January 1945, the first clear, frosty day of the new year, some thousand German aircraft took off from dozens of airfields in western Germany. Flying at treetop height and in complete radio silence, they headed west – over the Netherlands, Belgium and north-eastern France. At about 9.20 a.m. they fell upon the airfields from which Allied tactical air forces were supporting the troops fighting in the Ardennes and on the Rhine. This was Operation Bodenplatte (Unternehmen Bodenplatte, “Baseplate”) – the last great offensive of the German air force in the west.

War chronologies speak of an attack on Allied air bases in Belgium and the Netherlands carried out by elements of ten different fighter wings (Jagdgeschwader), and call it the Luftwaffe’s last major air offensive in the west. This is correct: the fighter wings JG 1, JG 2, JG 3, JG 4, JG 6, JG 11, JG 26, JG 27, JG 53 and JG 77 took part. It needs to be supplemented, however. Alongside them flew two groups (III. and IV.) of an eleventh wing, JG 54, as well as the ground-attack wing SG 4, Messerschmitt Me 262 jets of the bomber wing KG 51, and twin-engined Junkers of the night-fighter wings (NJG), which led the formations as pathfinders. Nor were the targets only airfields in Belgium and the Netherlands – one group also struck an American airfield near Metz in France.

An air force without pilots

At the end of 1944 the Luftwaffe had more aircraft than ever before, but fewer and fewer men capable of fighting. Despite the bombing, the German aircraft industry reached its peak output of fighters in the autumn of 1944. What was lacking was fuel and experienced pilots. Since the spring of 1944 – from “Big Week” and the battles over the Reich, through the Normandy landings, to the fighting over France and the Netherlands – the fighter arm had been losing hundreds of men a month. Training had been cut short; young pilots reached their units with a few dozen flying hours, and for lack of petrol they could not practise gunnery or formation flying. The flying schools themselves had become targets for Allied long-range fighters.

On the other side of the front, the Allied tactical air forces had moved to the Continent in the summer and autumn of 1944. Air Marshal Arthur Coningham’s British Second Tactical Air Force, the US Ninth Air Force and the Canadian wings of the Royal Canadian Air Force occupied dozens of airfields in northern France, Belgium and the southern Netherlands – often hastily repaired Luftwaffe bases or strips of metal planking laid on fields. After the liberation of Brussels and Antwerp, aircraft stood on them densely packed, in rows, without protection. The Allies’ superiority in the air was so great that they did not reckon with a serious attack on their bases.

The plan

A strike on the Allied airfields had been part of the plan for the Ardennes offensive from the outset. In September 1944 Adolf Hitler resolved to turn the tide of the war in the west with a great offensive and ordered the air force to prepare for it. In November the Luftwaffe’s commander, Hermann Göring, instructed the fighter divisions to prepare a massed attack on ground targets. To this end most of the fighter wings that had until then been defending the Reich against American bombers were moved west. Some of them belonged to the reserve that the General of Fighters, Adolf Galland, had been building up for the “Great Blow” – a single attack by several hundred fighters on an American bomber raid. Hitler decided otherwise: the fighters were to support the ground forces.

Planning of the operation was entrusted to Generalmajor Dietrich Peltz, who in December took command of II Fighter Corps (II. Jagdkorps). Peltz was not a fighter pilot – he had begun the war flying Ju 87 dive-bombers and later commanded the bomber force over England – but he was regarded as a specialist in attacks on ground targets. On 15 December the plan was discussed with the wing commanders. The attack was to take place on 16 December, the first day of the Ardennes offensive. But the same fog that grounded the Allied air forces grounded the German one too. The operation was postponed from day to day, and in the meantime the fighter wings were sent over the front, where within a fortnight they lost hundreds of aircraft. When the skies over the Ardennes cleared on 23 December, Allied fighter-bombers began destroying German columns, and the Luftwaffe’s fighters suffered further heavy losses in combat with them.

The plan called for a simultaneous attack on 17 airfields. Each wing was given its target – often one, sometimes two. The formations were to fly at low level, below Allied radar cover, led by Ju 88 and Ju 188 Junkers, and over the target to make several passes, strafing aircraft on the ground, hangars, fuel bowsers and anti-aircraft positions. According to the most frequently cited figures, those of John Manrho and Ron Pütz, 1,035 aircraft took part, mainly single-engined Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters, including the new Fw 190D-9.

The operation was shrouded in strict secrecy. The pilots were told of their target only at the last moment; many of them, as their later accounts show, thought they were flying an ordinary reconnaissance over the front. The maps showed only the targets, not the routes. The order reached some German anti-aircraft batteries late, and the routes of several wings were laid over the area around The Hague, where V-2 launch sites stood, heavily defended by Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine flak. Allied intelligence intercepted several signals that might have heralded the operation – orders to stockpile flares for guiding formations, references to a “special undertaking” – but drew no conclusions from them.

The morning of 1 January

On the evening of 31 December the order came, with the codeword “Hermann” and the time of attack: 1 January, 9.20 a.m. That same night the German offensive in Alsace, Operation Nordwind, began, and Bodenplatte was meant to support it indirectly. In the morning the fighters took off from airfields between the Netherlands and the Rhineland, assembled over their rendezvous points and flew west.

The trouble began before they reached the front line. German flak, either not warned or taken aback by the sight of hundreds of aircraft overhead, opened fire on its own formations. According to Manrho and Pütz, roughly one in four German units lost aircraft to friendly fire before even reaching its target; some sources put the number shot down by German guns at no fewer than 84. Over the front and over Antwerp, dense Allied anti-aircraft defences, deployed against the V-1 flying bombs, lay in wait.

Over the targets the operation went unevenly. Some wings lost their way and attacked the wrong airfields or fields with no aircraft on them. According to a post-war analysis cited by Manrho and Pütz, only 11 of the 34 participating groups attacked on time and with surprise.

Airfields under fire

The Germans achieved their greatest successes where surprise came off. Over Eindhoven, Oberstleutnant Heinrich Bär’s JG 3, supported by part of JG 6, which had mistaken Eindhoven for its own target, found several hundred aircraft on the airfield, including Canadian reconnaissance machines and squadrons of Hawker Typhoons. The pilots made three or four passes each, setting aircraft, bowsers and stores on fire. According to British figures, more than 40 aircraft were destroyed there and several dozen damaged. Me 262 jets of KG 51 also flew over Eindhoven and nearby Gilze-Rijen – aircraft that had entered combat less than six months earlier – but they played no significant part in the action.

Near Brussels, JG 26 struck the airfield at Evere, home to the Canadian No. 127 Wing with its Spitfires, with transport aircraft and American bombers standing alongside. The wing’s commander, Wing Commander James Edgar “Johnnie” Johnson, one of the RAF’s highest-scoring aces, attributed the relatively moderate losses among his Spitfires to the poor shooting of the German pilots. Even so, about 60 aircraft were destroyed at Evere. Equally effective was the attack by JG 27 and a group of JG 54 on Melsbroek (PL), base of British reconnaissance wings: the RAF’s No. 69 Squadron lost 11 Wellington bombers, and Mosquitos, Spitfires and transport aircraft also went up in flames. By contrast, the neighbouring airfield at Grimbergen, attacked by I./JG 26 and III./JG 54, was almost empty – for six aircraft destroyed there, the Germans paid with 21 of their own.

In the south, JG 53 attacked the American airfield near Metz and destroyed more than 20 P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, but one of its groups had earlier been intercepted and broken up by Thunderbolts of the 358th Fighter Group. At Sint-Truiden a dozen or so fighters of JG 4, which had strayed off course on their way to Le Culot, destroyed or damaged several dozen American P-47s; Le Culot itself was not even attacked. Over Antwerp, JG 77 ran into alert defences and destroyed only a dozen or so aircraft.

Other wings met with disaster. JG 6 failed to find its target, the airfield at Volkel, where British Tempests were based; it attacked an empty landing ground near Helmond and the airfield at Heesch, and its commander, Oberstleutnant Johann Kogler, was taken prisoner. JG 2 and SG 4, heading for Sint-Truiden, flew over Malmedy straight into the fire of American anti-aircraft artillery, which had been defending the area for weeks against air raids and V-1s. According to various tallies, JG 2 lost between 40 and more than 70 per cent of the aircraft in its individual groups, and of the whole of SG 4 only six aircraft reached the target; the wing’s commander, Alfred Druschel, went missing.

The most famous engagement was over airfield Y-29 near Asch in Belgian Limburg, occupied by the American 352nd Fighter Group (Eighth Air Force) and 366th Fighter Group (Ninth Air Force). When JG 11 arrived, a dozen P-51 Mustangs under Lieutenant Colonel John C. Meyer were just taking off, and pilots of the 366th Group were already airborne. The Americans took off under fire and went straight into combat. The battle lasted about three-quarters of an hour; the Americans claimed 35 kills, although – according to Manrho and Pütz – a dozen or so can be credited to them with certainty. JG 11 lost 28 aircraft and its commander, Major Günther Specht, who was killed; on the American side not a single Mustang was shot down. The engagement passed into the history of American air power as “the Legend of Y-29”.

The Polish wing near Ghent

One of JG 1’s targets was the airfield at Sint-Denijs-Westrem near Ghent, where since the autumn of 1944 No. 131 (Polish) Fighter Wing had been stationed, with No. 302 “Poznań”, No. 308 “Kraków” and No. 317 “Wilno” Squadrons. The wing, flying Spitfire IXs, belonged to No. 84 Group of the British Second Tactical Air Force and since the Normandy landings had been supporting 21st Army Group, including the Polish 1st Armoured Division. The other groups of JG 1 struck the neighbouring airfields at Maldegem and Ursel, home among others to the Spitfires of the New Zealand No. 485 Squadron.

On the morning of 1 January the three Polish squadrons took off on operations: according to the record on polishairforce.pl, No. 308 Squadron at 8.15 a.m. to bomb targets around Woensdrecht north of Antwerp, No. 317 Squadron at 8.35 a.m. to the River Waal, and eight aircraft of No. 302 Squadron at 8.40 a.m. to the Amersfoort–Zwolle–Apeldoorn area. When II Group of JG 1 – 36 Fw 190 fighters according to Manrho and Pütz – arrived over Sint-Denijs-Westrem, the aircraft that had remained at base were standing on the field, while Nos 308 and 317 Squadrons were returning from their sorties with almost empty tanks. The Polish pilots joined battle over their own airfield; some of them had to make forced landings for lack of fuel.

The German group suffered heavy losses: according to Manrho and Pütz, 17 of its 36 aircraft were shot down, including those of several experienced pilots. The Polish pilots claimed 18 aircraft destroyed (18 and a half in some tallies), one probable and five damaged; JG 1 as a whole lost 29 aircraft and 25 pilots that day. The wing’s own losses are also given differently. Manrho and Pütz count 13 Spitfires destroyed and two damaged beyond repair; other tallies speak of 17 aircraft lost on the ground, in the air and in forced landings. According to polishairforce.pl, two pilots were killed – Second Lieutenant Wacław Chojnacki of No. 308 Squadron and Lieutenant Tadeusz Powierza of No. 317 Squadron – along with three members of the ground crew, and about twenty were wounded; some sources give 23 wounded, including two pilots. Airmen of the Polish wing lie in the local cemetery, and a memorial to the Polish airmen at Sint-Denijs-Westrem commemorates their fight. In Polish aviation tradition, the “Battle over Ghent” is regarded as one of the greatest air victories of the Polish Air Force in the last year of the war.

The balance of losses

The exact losses on both sides are still disputed. Allied returns of the time were incomplete – the Americans did not include some Eighth Air Force aircraft standing on Continental airfields, and the British counted damaged aircraft in different ways. The figure most often cited in the literature is about 465 Allied aircraft destroyed or damaged, about 70 of them in air combat; this is the figure given in some accounts. John Manrho and Ron Pütz, authors of the most comprehensive study of the operation, estimate after collating the records of individual squadrons that about 300 Allied aircraft were destroyed (a dozen or so of them in the air) and about 190 damaged. The great majority burned on the ground, so Allied casualties were relatively light. Some of the airfields attacked were not fully usable for several days, and a few for as long as two weeks.

The Luftwaffe paid a much higher price. According to Manrho and Pütz it lost some 270–300 aircraft destroyed (some sources give 304, of which 62 fell in air combat, 84 to Allied anti-aircraft fire and at least 84 to its own), with several dozen more damaged. The losses in men were even more grievous: 143 pilots were killed or missing, 70 were taken prisoner and 21 wounded – in all more than 210 pilots lost to the Luftwaffe for good or for a long time. Among them were three wing commanders (Geschwaderkommodore), five group commanders and fourteen squadron leaders – men with years of experience who could not be replaced. It was the heaviest single-day blow to the leadership of the German fighter arm in the entire war. A part of the losses, and by no means a small one, the Germans inflicted on themselves with their own flak.

A Pyrrhic victory

In the first hours after the attack the German command judged Bodenplatte a success – the pilots claimed hundreds of aircraft destroyed, and photographic reconnaissance confirmed heavy losses at several airfields. In time it became clear that the success was purely tactical and short-lived. The Allies made good their lost aircraft within a week, sending replacements from reserves in England; British and American factories were producing more than had been destroyed on 1 January. Nor did the operation achieve its aim – even a temporary command of the air over the Ardennes. As early as the afternoon of 1 January and in the days that followed, Allied tactical aircraft were again attacking German columns and supply lines, and on 3 January the Allied counter-offensive against the German salient in the Ardennes began.

The German fighter arm, on the other hand, lost hundreds of aircraft in a single morning and – more importantly – men who could no longer be replaced. Adolf Galland, who had from the outset criticised the use of fighters to attack airfields rather than to defend the Reich, wrote after the war that in this operation the Luftwaffe had “sacrificed its last substance”. The German historian Werner Girbig called Bodenplatte a total defeat, and the historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that after it the German air force was weaker than ever and incapable of another great blow. The operation was of a piece with the wider picture of the Ardennes offensive, in which Hitler staked his last reserves on a single throw instead of husbanding them for the defence of the Reich’s frontiers.

Place in the war

Bodenplatte was the Luftwaffe’s last major offensive in the west and one of its last anywhere. In January 1945, after the Red Army’s offensive on the Vistula, most of the surviving fighter wings were transferred east, where they operated chiefly in the ground-attack role in support of the army. Fuel was ever scarcer, and the Allied strategic bombing of synthetic-fuel plants was stripping the Luftwaffe of its last capabilities. In the months that followed, the German air force was unable to disrupt either the Allied fighting in the Rhineland or the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945. The Me 262 jets scored occasional successes against American bombers, but there were too few of them to change the course of the air war.

For Polish aviation, the “Battle over Ghent” remained one of the notable moments of the last year of the war: Polish pilots who in 1939 had defended Polish skies against an overwhelmingly superior Luftwaffe, and in 1940 had fought in the Battle of Britain, were in January 1945 shooting down over Belgium the aircraft of an air force that was now in retreat. No. 131 (Polish) Fighter Wing fought on as part of the Second Tactical Air Force, moved to airfields in Germany in April 1945 and, after the surrender of the Third Reich, became part of the British occupation forces.