Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [153]
It was quite often such simple ideas as the drop-tank that made the difference between life and death for individuals, and between mastery and defeat for air forces. The mainstay of the German defense, for example, was a beautifully streamlined fighter known as the Focke-Wulf 190. Fast, agile, and deadly, the F-W was a match for any of the Allied planes. Up against the heavier American Thunderbolts, which were the biggest single-engined fighter of the war, the Focke-Wulf could break off the combat by rapidly climbing away from the Americans. Then one day a new Thunderbolt appeared, with bigger, wider propeller blades, dubbed “paddle-blades” by the pilots. Suddenly, the Thunderbolt could claw its way up into the air right after the Focke-Wulf, and German pilots had lost another advantage.
In the long run, more than any one plane, or any one operation, it was the sheer momentum of the bombing campaign that began to pay off. After five long years the bombers reached the point of destructiveness proclaimed by their champions at the start of the war. During the entire war, the Allies dropped 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Germany; nearly three quarters, 72 percent of that figure, was dropped between July 1, 1944, and the collapse of Germany. Only when the Allied bomber force could achieve that degree of concentration could they attain decisive results. The kind of results they did achieve were shown by the great raids of the war, such as those on Hamburg and Dresden.
The destruction of Hamburg took place in late July and early August of 1943, so it was a concentrated attack that served as a foretaste of what would come later, when the Allies were regularly able to mount this type of raid. Hamburg was the second largest city in Germany, and a major shipping and industrial center. It had been steadily bombed throughout the war—more than 130 times already. The Germans had learned to live with this and had created in the city a model civil defense organization, with plenty of shelters, fire fighting equipment, warning systems, and all the paraphernalia of a city under attack. With its industry, its population concentration, its wooden center dating from medieval days, it was a perfect target. The Allies decided, in an operation code-named Gomorrah, to wipe Hamburg out.
By now they had their techniques perfected. The major weapon used was the incendiary bomb, with enough high explosive mixed in to create fuel for the incendiaries. They also used delayed-action bombs, particularly useful in impeding the fire-fighters, and phosphorus bombs, perhaps the most cruel of all the different types. The first attack was on the night of July 24-25, by 740 planes from Bomber Command. The results were spectacular. Massive fires were set off, and the German civil defense mechanisms were quickly overwhelmed. The next day the Americans arrived and hit Hamburg again in a heavy raid that cost them a whole squadron wiped out by the ferocious German fighters. The second night Hamburg was left alone while the R. A. F. finished off Essen, but on the next day, the 26th, the 8th Air Force was back again. At night fast twin-engined Mosquito bombers of the R. A. F. put in nuisance raids to keep the Germans awake, then just before midnight of the 27th, the heavies came back again.
In two great waves of bombers sowing a carpet of destruction across the city, the R. A. F. created a fire-storm. Thousands of individual