Intruder ops by Luftwaffe after 1941

I got me a book "Bomber Command" By Max Hastings ( Martin, don´t faint... ) and there´s something I thought would be interesting to mention:

"Kammhuber´s greatest misfortune was that, on Hitler´s orders, in October 1941 he was ordered to abandon his experimental "intruder" operations against British bomber airfields. Hitler considered that only aircraft shot down over Germany were of value in convincing the German people that they were being defended. From late 1940 onwards, the General had been dispatching his largest force he could spare- never more than twenty Ju88 fighters, equipped with cannon and small bombs- to attack British bombers at their most vulnerable moments, as they took off and landed at their airfields..."

"With the exception of a single isolated incursion in Oct 1943, the Luftwaffe left British airfields in peace."

Ideas on this Gentlemen?

 

If the Germans had been able to consistently bomb and attack allied airfields in the UK I think it would have made an impression. But to make any real difference they would have to be attacking multiple targets, at night and in force to do any damage. But how about lots of fighters mingling in with the forming up bombers? But lets not forget the amount of Allied fighters...

 

I was confused there for a moment but looking in my own copy, he's referring to the situation by the winter of '43 ; there were certainly intruder raids in '44/'45. But this is Erich's home turf so I think I'll leave it to him....

It's a good book, though, Kai . For some reason, I especially like the first couple of pages of Chapter 12, 'Pathfinders : 97 Squadron ' which sums up the misery of the 'Battle of Berlin' quite well.

 

let's see I could go on for how long ?????

I'm doing research as one of my pet projects on the 4 March 1945 raid, Unternehmen Gisela and the two other raids after that over the UK homeland.

To be brief, only NJG 2 and especially the C-6 nf gruppe the I. flew the Fernenachtjagd missions over England and were quite successful at it too.

Der Führer had several notions in his puny skull and that was by early 1942 he was getting a little worried about allocation of fuels to this gruppe doing long range work and not coming back with reports of 40-50 kills per mission, and the fuels and arms needed to be regulated and given to Reich defending gruppen against persistant heavy RAF 4-engine bomber attacks over main industrial centers.
I./NJG 2 pilots and commanders did everything they could possible to try and continue operations but it was for not. The gruppe was soon sent to the mid-east regions of the Med to attack day and night flying twin engine RAF bombers.

Would it have been effective to continue, YES if the other NJG gruppen would have been equipped with long range Junkers and would have attacked en-masse. Would it have changed the way of RAF bomber command thinking towards pursuit of bombing the Reich ? No, but tactics sure would have changed and the advent of the Beufighter on all short range missions over the coast and into the Ruhr Gebeit. As the Mossie intruder/night fighter had really not been perfected in 1942 for local defence, the RAF bases would also have had to beef up their monitoring/radar systems and provided enough light AA to go around all the many airfields.

Although only RAF targets were attacked at night by NJG 2, if this would have clearly been examined as being successful then most probably all out day-light attacks would have been scheduled by the Luftwaffe high command, but that is another topic for discussion......

~E

 

Although we're getting into the realms of 'what if..?' here, I think that, if they'd had the capability, the Luftwaffe could have caused very serious losses to Bomber Command over 'home' territory.

Nearly all accounts I've read admit ( naturally enough ) the bomber crews certainly relaxed their guard after re-crossing the Dutch coast.

 

Martin your last statement was proven on the 4 March 45 raid. almost every German crew's narrative I could find for that eve mentions the lack of discipline, with lights showing and a very casual way of flying towards the home field. The Luftwaffe crews couldn't beleive what they saw and only when after the word was given to the Bristish crews did the navigational lights get shut down and the usual heavy bomber weaves and s turns to base.
Can U imagine if Schrägwaffen would of been perfected by 1941......eeeeeeekkkkkkksssssss.

incidently after the Gisela thing, another small raid was done on the night of 4/5th of March and then two more in March and that of 20 Ju 88G-6's flying over the UK on March 17/18, 1945 and the last one on March 20/21, 1945 with only 10 Ju 88G-6's. 22 Mossie night fighters came up to meet the force and one Ju 88 was claimed shot down 10 miles NE of Cromer.......Martin , any idea who the Mossie crew was and their squadron ?

~E

 

Thanx for the great answers!

Indeed, I´m sorry I forgot to put that I referred to the time 1941-1942 to start with, of course there were such operations later on.

Anyway, for Nachtjagd I think hunting the huge amount of planes returning for example from the first 1,000 planes bombing mission...Maybe a dream come true for Kammhuber...

 

I'm not real sure of the content but the Polis firm Kagero has released a book on the Fernenachtjäger gruppe I./NJG 2, 1941-42. It is in Polish/English text with profiles. I beleive member George Parada from achtungpanzer.com is selling it and other titles.....probably should pick up a copy for my files.

~E

 

Erich, 'your' Ju88 on 20/21 March 1945 was claimed by F/Lt Kennedy of 68 Squadron flying from RAF Coltishall in a Mosquito NF.30.

This is one of the lesser-known Squadrons, here they all are with a NF.30 the following month : -

http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/drongo/72/68d.jpg

[ 21. May 2003, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

 

Hot dang Martin ! a big thank you .....

will check the site now......much appreciated as always.

~E

 

I forgot to say that I think Kennedy is one of the aircrew wearing a tie in the photo....

 

Martin :

What reference did you use to find out about the Ju 88G-6 shoot down by this Mossie crew ? Still cannot find anything on the German loss through my NF data base........rats !

~E

 

It's a very brief mention in C. Martin Sharp / J F Bowyer's magnum opus entitled, resonably enough , ' Mosquito ' ( Faber, London, rev. ed. 1971, p. 184 ).