Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (10 page)

Edward

Bridges,

and

to

General

Ismay, for C.O.S.

Committee

Now that we can see our way a little clearer, and
after consultation with the Chiefs of Staff, I have
decided that the “Crossbow” Committee, over which I
have hitherto presided, should consist of a smaller
group charged with the responsibility for reporting upon
the effects of the flying bomb and the flying rocket and
the progress of counter-measures and precautions to
meet it. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of
Supply [Mr. Duncan Sandys], will be chairman, and the
membership should be kept as small as possible….

This Committee will report daily, or as often as may
be necessary, to me, the Home Secretary, the
Secretary of State for Air, and the Chiefs of Staff.

The Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Air,
and I will attend together should occasion arise.

Triumph and Tragedy

62

The Committee included Air Marshal Bottomley, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Hill, Air Officer Commanding Air Defence of Great Britain, and General Pile, General Officer Commanding Anti-Aircraft Command.

On July 6 I unfolded to the House of Commons, many of whose constituencies were feeling the strain of the attack, the preparation and action the Government had taken since early in 1943. At any rate, no one could say that we had been caught by surprise. There was no complaint.

Everyone saw we just had to lump it, an ordeal made easier by our hopes of a successful advance in Normandy. My account was detailed.

The total weight of bombs so far dropped by us on
flying bomb and rocket targets in France and Germany,
including Peenemünde, has now reached about fifty
thousand tons, and the number of reconnaissance
flights totals many thousands. The scrutiny and
interpretation of the tens of thousands of air photographs obtained for this purpose has alone been a
stupendous task, discharged by the Air Reconnaissance and Photographic Interpretation units of the
Royal Air Force. These efforts have been exacting to
both sides, friends and foes. Quite a considerable
proportion of our flying power has been diverted for
months past from other forms of offensive activity. The
Germans for their part have sacrificed a great deal of
manufacturing strength which would have increased
their fighter and bomber forces working with their hard-pressed armies on every front. It has yet to be decided
who has suffered and will suffer the most in the
process. There has in fact been in progress for a year
past an unseen battle into which great resources have
been poured by both sides. This invisible battle has
now flashed into the open, and we shall be able, and

Triumph and Tragedy

63

indeed obliged, to watch its progress at fairly close
quarters….

We must neither underrate nor exaggerate. In all, up
to six o’clock this morning, about two thousand seven
hundred and fifty flying bombs have been discharged
from the launching-stations along the French coast. A
very large proportion of these either have failed to cross
the Channel or have been shot down and destroyed by
various methods…. The weather however during June
has been very unfavourable to us for every purpose. In
Normandy it has robbed us in great part of the use of
our immense superiority…. In Britain it has made more
difficult the work and combination of the batteries and
aircraft. It has also reduced the blows we strike at every
favourable opportunity at the launching-sites and
suspected points on the other side of the Channel.

Nevertheless the House will, I think, be favourably
surprised to learn that the total number of flying bombs
launched from the enemy’s stations has killed exactly
one person per bomb…. Actually, the latest figures up
to six o’clock this morning are 2754 flying bombs
launched and 2752 fatal casualties sustained…. A very
high proportion of the casualties, somewhere around
10,000, not always severe or mortal, has fallen upon
London, which presents to the enemy a target eighteen
miles wide by over twenty miles deep. It is therefore the
unique target of the world for the use of a weapon of
such proved inaccuracy. The flying bomb is a weapon
literally and essentially indiscriminate in its nature,
purpose, and effect. The introduction by the Germans
of such a weapon obviously raises some grave
questions, upon which I do not propose to trench today.

Arrangements had been made to evacuate mothers and children and to open the deep shelters which had hitherto been held in reserve, and I explained that everything in human power would be done to defeat this novel onslaught;

Triumph and Tragedy

64

but I ended on a note which seemed appropriate to the mood of the hour.

We shall not allow the battle operations in Normandy nor the attacks we are making against special
targets in Germany to suffer. They come first, and we
must fit our own domestic arrangements into the
general scheme of war operations. There can be no
question of allowing the slightest weakening of the
battle in order to diminish in scale injuries which,
though they may inflict grievous suffering on many
people and change to some extent the normal regular
life and industry of London, will never stand between
the British nation and their duty in the van of a
victorious and avenging world. It may be a comfort to
some to feel that they are sharing in no small degree
the perils of our soldiers overseas, and that the blows
which fall on them diminish those which in other forms
would have smitten our fighting men and their allies.

But I am sure of one thing, that London will never be
conquered and will never fail, and that her renown,
triumphing over every ordeal, will long shine among
men.

We now know that Hitler had thought that the new weapon would be “decisive” in fashioning his own distorted version of peace. Even his military advisers, who were less obsessed than their master, hoped that London’s agony would cause some of our armies to be diverted to a disastrous landing in the Pas de Calais in an attempt to capture the launching-sites. But neither London nor the Government flinched, and I had been able to assure General Eisenhower on June 18 that we would bear the ordeal to the end, asking for no change in his strategy in France.

Triumph and Tragedy

65

Our bombing attacks on launching-sites went on for a time, but it was clear before the end of June that these were now poor targets. Bomber Command, anxious to share more effectively in relieving London, sought better ones; and they were soon found. The main storage depots for the flying bombs in France now lay in a few large natural caverns around Paris, long exploited by French mushroom-growers.

One of these caverns, at St. Leu d’Esserent, in the Oise valley, was rated by the Germans to store two thousand bombs, and it had supplied 70 per cent of all the bombs fired in June. Early in July it was utterly destroyed by Bomber Command, using some of their heaviest bombs to crush the roof in. Another, rated to hold one thousand, was smashed by American bombers. We know that at least three hundred flying bombs were irretrievably buried in this one cavern. London was spared all these, and the Germans were forced to use bombs of a type which they had previously condemned as unsatisfactory.

Our bombers did not achieve their success without loss. Of all our forces they were the earliest engaged against the flying bombs. They had attacked research centres and factories in Germany, and launching-sites and supply depots in France. By the end of the campaign nearly two thousand airmen of British and Allied bombers had died in London’s defence.

At the headquarters of the Air Defence of Great Britain much thought had been given to the roles of fighters and guns. Our dispositions had seemed sensible enough: fighters ranging out over the sea and over most of Kent and Triumph and Tragedy

66

Sussex, where the bombs were dispersed, and guns concentrated in a belt nearer London where the bombs drew into a more compact front as they approached their target. This seemed to give each method of defence its best chance, and it was no surprise that in the first few weeks of the campaign, as indeed in all other campaigns previously, the fighters had much more success than the guns. By the second week of July however General Pile and some discerning experts came to the conclusion that the guns could do very much better without undue prejudice to the success of the fighters if the batteries were moved on to the coast. Their radar for fire control would have more scope, and it would be safer to use the proximity-fuzed shells which were now arriving from America.
3
We had not been sure if the guns could use their radar on the coast, owing to the danger of enemy jamming, but so good had been our Intelligence, and so accurate our bombing, that by D-Day we had put all the German jamming stations out of action. It was nevertheless a grave decision to uproot the enormous Anti-Aircraft organisation from the North Downs and to re-deploy it on the coast, knowing that this might spoil the success of the fighters.