All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [299]
Despite the limited impact of the strategic air offensive in its early years, most of the RAF’s leaders retained a visionary faith not only in what bombing might do, but also in what it had already accomplished. In September 1942, Air Marshal Sir Wilfred Freeman wrote to Britain’s air chief Sir Charles Portal complaining of the extravagant claims made by some commanders: ‘In their efforts to attract the limelight they sometimes exaggerate and even falsify facts. The worst offender is C-in-C Bomber Command.’ Freeman cited claims published in the media about the achievements of some recent raids on Germany: ‘The damage at [Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf] is described as fantastic. I believe this to be untrue … I suggest that you might … send a circular letter to commanders-in-chief … impressing on them the need to adhere strictly to the unvarnished truth in accounts of operations … I am alarmed about the effect which the present tendencies must shortly have on the good name of the R.A.F.’
But, during the long years before Western Allied armies engaged the Germans in strength, it suited not only the air chiefs, but also Britain’s prime minister and America’s president, to collude in proclaiming the triumphs of bombing. Sir Arthur Harris, who became Bomber Command’s C-in-C in February 1942, said: ‘Winston’s attitude to bombing was “Anything to put up a show.” If we hadn’t [used Bomber Command] we would only have had the U-boat war, and as he said, defence of our trade routes was not an instrument of war.’ Churchill regarded the bomber offensive as a vital weapon in Western relations with Stalin, in some small degree assuaging the Soviet warlord’s bitterness about alleged Anglo-American sluggishness in launching a second front.
Ken Owen flew his first 1942 trip, to Kassel, in a mood of euphoria. ‘I was in a daze. It was sheer excitement – the briefing, sitting in the aircraft preparing for take-off. There was bright moonlight. We found the target – and plenty of flak. I was far more scared on the second “op”. My feet were cold, I was sweating under my arms. It didn’t take long for two kinds of reputations to be established: first, there were the “gen crews” – the real “press-on types”; then there were the ones who didn’t like it at all. Two or three were voted most likely to get the chop, some because they were so frightened they were likely to do something stupid … One or two pilots were shit-scared; one or two gunners froze in their turrets. Sometimes people got the chop because of a terrible lack of discipline in their crews.’
Aircrew became intimately familiar with the stench of hot rubber and petrol in the planes, sometimes also of cordite from their hammering guns and vomit from frightened men. Several times, Owen’s wireless operator threw up as the aircraft took violent evasive action. ‘If you were coned [by searchlights], you’d fly towards somebody else in the hope they’d pick them up instead of you. There was a tremendous element of cynicism and callousness – “Thank Christ it’s someone else.” I honestly can’t remember the names of many of the men who got the chop. They were only there about a fortnight. We were quite slow to realise that flying was becoming a dangerous occupation; that element of excitement kept us going, and morale was high. There were problems, of course, but I never blamed higher authority because I felt that we were all learning together.’
The intimacy of the relationships between members of bomber crews is a cliché, but was by no means universally valid. B-24 navigator Harold Dorfman respected his pilot’s skill, but ‘we