World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF EUROPE: The Sights Are Lowered

Airmen in Britain, main base of the air offensive against Germany, had to swallow a bitter pill. The war was not being fought their way. They were not, after all, waging the all-out campaign which they looked forward to a few months ago. Instead of fighting for victory from the air, they were fighting toward further victory by the ground armies.

In itself, this fact was neither new nor surprising: the Allied high command long ago stated its conviction that bombing could do no more than ease the path of the armies. But for a time airmen hoped that in their supporting role they would have sufficient forces by this fall to test the possibility of victory by bombing.* Last week this hope had all but faded. The adopted—and so far successful—strategy in the Mediterranean showed all too clearly that the Allies could not yet provide the enormous air forces necessary for such operations, and at the same time mount an independent air offensive on the scale which airmen consider necessary.

Last week the R.A.F.’s fast, light Mosquitoes gave Berlin its 80th bombing, but between Sept. 8 and Sept. 19 no heavy bombers went into Germany. Airmen attached no particular significance to this circumstance; they have had such lulls before, will have them again. But they were bound to reflect that their principal operations from Britain last week were “supporting operations”—Fortress attacks on the Germans’ Atlantic port of Nantes, on the submarine base at La Pallice, on factories near Paris which supply engines to the Luftwaffe on all fronts; R.A.F. night attacks on the great Dunlop tire factory at Montlugon, and on the Germans’ only two direct rail routes from France into Italy.

Furthermore, the offensive against Germany would certainly be renewed and intensified: Fortresses last week made their first after-dusk attacks on France, preparing for the misty days and long winter nights ahead, and it was only a matter of time until a two-way offensive could be mounted from Britain and Italy. But, in the light of recent experience, airmen were no longer willing to measure the success or failure of their campaign by their ability or inability to knock out Germany this year. Their maximum hope, but not their certainty, was that President Roosevelt meant what he said in his Congressional message (see p. 17):

“We must remember that in any great air attack the British and Americans lose a fairly high proportion of planes and that these losses must be made up quickly so that the weight of the bombing shall not decrease for a day in the future. In fact, a high rate of increase must be maintained according to plan. . . .”

Reconnaissance studies showed that four R.A.F. night raids, two U.S. daylight raids in July and August wrecked about nine sq. mi. (or 77%) of Hamburg, left that port a dead city.