Baby Blitz on England 1944... Operation Steinbock

5fish

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The Germans tried another bombing campaign of England in 1944. It was called the Baby Blitz by the Brits and the Germans called it Operation Steinbock. It was the beginning of the end of the Luftwaffe. It would cause the Luftwaffe to lose its effect offensive punch for D-Day...


Operation Steinbock (German: Unternehmen Steinbock), sometimes called the Baby Blitz, was a strategic bombing campaign by the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) during the Second World War. It targeted southern England and lasted from January to May 1944. Steinbock was the last strategic air offensive by the German bomber arm during the conflict.

In late 1943, the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive was gathering momentum against Germany. The Allied air forces were conducting a strategic bombing campaign day and night against German industrial cities. In retaliation, Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to prepare a bombing operation against the United Kingdom. The bombing offensive also served as propaganda value for the German public and domestic consumption. The operation ran parallel to Bomber Command's campaign against Berlin (November 1943 – March 1944).

The Luftwaffe assembled 474 bomber aircraft for the offensive. The attacks were mainly aimed at and around the Greater London area. In Britain, it was known as the Baby Blitz due to the much smaller scale of operations compared to The Blitz, the campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940–1941.[2] The operation began in January and ended in May 1944. It achieved very little, and the German force suffered a loss of some 329 machines during the five months of operations—an average of 77 per month—before it was abandoned.

Eventually, the revenge attacks gave way to attempts to disrupt preparations for the impending Allied invasion of France, but Steinbock had worn down the offensive power of the Luftwaffe to the extent it could not mount any significant counterattacks when the invasion began on 6 June 1944.[4] The offensive was the last large-scale bombing campaign against England using conventional aircraft, and thenceforth only the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rockets – the pioneering examples of cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles respectively – were used to strike British cities.[5

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Although the 'Baby Blitz' attacks had involved more Luftwaffe aircraft than any other raids on the UK since 1941, the effectiveness of air and ground defences, the relative inexperience of the German bomber crews, and the sheer lack of bomber numbers meant relatively minor damage and few casualties were inflicted. The initial bomber strength was built up at great expense from the operational requirements of the Luftwaffe. Most bombs failed to reach their targets, and those that did represented only a fraction of what was hitting Germany. The choice to not target the assembly areas for Operation Overlord meant that there was no significant impact on the allied time table for the invasion. The raids were ironically to prove more costly regarding German military capability than for the British, draining the Luftwaffe of irreplaceable aircrew and some contemporary aircraft and thus reducing the potential offensive air response to oppose Operation Overlord. After the failure of this conventional bombing campaign, the Nazi leadership sought unconventional ways to attack Britain. This desire was to manifest itself in the V-1 cruise missile and V-2 short-range ballistic missile campaigns later that year.




 

5fish

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It seems the German had an early Blitz based off travel books... 1942... It looks like they were trying to destroy history...



The Baedeker Blitz or Baedeker raids were a series of aerial attacks in April and May 1942 by the German Luftwaffe on English cities during the Second World War. The name derives from Baedeker, a series of German tourist guide books, including detailed maps, which were used to select targets for bombing.

The raids were planned in response to a devastating increase in the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force's (RAF) bombing offensive on civilian targets after the Area Bombing Directive (General Directive No.5 (S.46368/111. D.C.A.S), starting with the bombing of Lübeck in March 1942. The aim was to begin a tit-for-tat exchange with the hope of forcing the RAF to reduce their attacks. To increase the effect on civilian morale, targets were chosen for their cultural and historical significance, rather than for any military value.

The majority of the raids took place in late April 1942 through May 1942, but towns and cities continued to be targeted for their cultural value over the following two years.

By any measure, the attempt was a failure. In the time following the original German bombing campaign of 1940–41 ("The Blitz"), a little over a year earlier, the RAF had dramatically improved its night fighter capability and introduced the AMES Type 7 radar specifically for the night fighting role. Losses to the Luftwaffe's bomber force were unsustainable, and for a variety of reasons the damage to the targeted cities was minimal compared to the Blitz or to the contemporaneous RAF bombing campaign against Germany. Nevertheless, the raids resulted in over 1,600 civilian deaths and tens of thousands of damaged homes.

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The Baedeker-type raids ended in 1944, as the Germans realized they were ineffective; unsustainable losses were being suffered for no material gain. January 1944 saw a switch to London as the principal target for retaliation; on 21 January the Luftwaffe mounted Operation Steinbock, an all-out attack on London employing all of its available bomber force in the west. This too was largely a failure, with heavy losses for little gain. Henceforth, efforts were re-directed toward the ports that the Germans suspected were going to be used for the allied invasion of Germany, while the assault on London became the domain of Germany's V-weapons.
 

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Here a article about the Baby blitz and V-1... a bunch of personal stories...


Almost 10,000 V-1s were launched towards England between June and August 1944, sometimes at a rate of nearly 100 a day.
 

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Some more on the Baedeker raids...

https://www.militaryhistories.co.uk/york/baedeker

The Baedeker Blitz or Baedeker Raids were a series of attacks by the German air force on English cities in response to the bombing of Lübeck on the 28/29th March 1942.

On the 27th April (when the four raids on Exeter and Bath had already taken place) he said at a Press Conference for Foreign Correspondents, "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide."


The major "Baedeker Raid" targets were chosen for their cultural not military significance.......the "Three Star" reference.
Is it surprising therefore, that the Abbeys, Minsters and Cathedrals in these cities were not destroyed or badly damaged?
 

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Here is another German desperate operations in 1944... The German pilots thought they were being organized to attack a daylight American bombers with thought to make Americans back off daylight bombing but instead they were called together to attack airfields. The attack was a surprise but they hit the airplanes instead of the pilots housing. It is easy to replace equipment than pilots for the allies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bodenplatte

Operation Bodenplatte ([ˈboːdn̩ˌplatə]; "Baseplate"), launched on 1 January 1945, was an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries during the Second World War. The goal of Bodenplatte was to gain air superiority during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge so that the German Army and Waffen-SS forces could resume their advance. The operation was planned for 16 December 1944, but was delayed repeatedly due to bad weather until New Year's Day, the first day that happened to be suitable.[8]

Secrecy for the operation was so tight that not all German ground and naval forces had been informed of the operation and some units suffered casualties from friendly fire. British signals intelligence recorded the movement and buildup of German air forces in the region, but did not realise that an operation was imminent.

The operation achieved some surprise and tactical success, but was ultimately a failure. A great many Allied aircraft were destroyed on the ground but replaced within a week. Allied aircrew casualties were quite small, since the majority of Allied losses were grounded aircraft. The Germans, however, lost many pilots who could not be readily replaced.[6]

Post-battle analysis suggests only 11 of the Luftwaffe's 34 air combat Gruppen (groups) made attacks on time and with surprise.[6] The operation failed to achieve air superiority, even temporarily, while the German ground forces continued to be exposed to Allied air attack. Bodenplatte was the last large-scale strategic offensive operation mounted by the Luftwaffe during the war



Operation Bodenplatte (English: Operation Baseplate or Operation Ground Plate), launched on 1 January 1945, was an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries during the Second World War. The Germans husbanded their resources in the preceding months at the expense of the units defending against the Allied strategic bombing in what was a last-ditch effort to keep up the momentum of the German Army (Heer) during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge (codenamed "Operation Watch on the Rhine" German: Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein). This is a list of all known casualties during the course of the operation.

@rittmeister your guy has the best videos on the topics...

 

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Here are some more accounts of this day... personal ones...


But Eindhoven’s rocket-firing Hawker Typhoons, which had run amok over German tank columns for six months, now found themselves on the receiving end. Three squadrons were taxiing for takeoff when the Germans swept in low from the southwest, with Lt. Col. Heinrich Bär, one of the war’s highest-scoring aces, in the lead. He caught a pair of “Tiffies” taking off. Flight Lieutenant Peter Wilson, on his first mission as leader of 438 Squadron, veered off the runway and climbed out to die minutes later of stomach wounds. His wingman, Flying Officer Ross Keller, barely got airborne when Bär shot him down; he was later found in the burned wreckage of his Typhoon. JG.3 destroyed almost 30 enemy planes, damaged another 30 and lost about 30 of their own. If the entire operation had gone the way of Eindhoven, Bodenplatte would have been deemed a success.

Asch, Belgium, was home to the P-47 “Hun Hunters” of the Ninth Air Force’s 366th Fighter Group and blue-nosed P-51s of the 352nd, on loan from the Eighth. The Thunderbolts were returning from a morning raid on German tanks near St. Vith when they spotted 50 inbound fighters of JG.11. First Lieutenant Melvyn Paisley of Red Flight, 390th Squadron, piloting his P-47 La Mort, downed four of them, one with an unconventional attack. “Instead of using my guns, I chose to initiate my attack with the rockets I was carrying,” he said. “I missed him with the first two, but got him with the third.” Landing, he called for his ground crew to rearm his “Jug” for another go. “The field was still under attack and they were not about to reload….My flying was over for the day.”
 

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Here is the little know reason why German military readiness faded as the war went on because German military started using their training instructors on the front line, like the Luftwaffe did. They cut the training hours for new pilots as well... It cause long term effects on the German pilots in the war... DEATH! @rittmeister


The campaign in Russia also brought more direct forms of pressure on the flying training organization. Early in 1942 many Ju52 aircraft, together with their instructor pilots, were removed from the C, blind-flying and bomber schools and sent to Russia to supplement the fleet of air transports engaged in flying supplies to the German troops cut off at Demjansk and Cholm. Owing to actual losses and shortages at the front line units, many of the instructors and aircraft were never returned to the training organization. Later in the year the pace of air operations in the east led to a shortage of aviation fuel throughout the Luftwaffe; again it was the flying training schools that suffered.

Training begins to laps

By the beginning of 1944 German fighter pilots were joining their operational units with only about 160 hours flying training; this compared with more than double that figure for their counterparts in the RAF and the USAAF.

The cycle goes no...

During the first half of 1944 the Luftwaffe day fighter units suffered debilitating losses at the hands of the better-trained American escort fighter pilots, whose P-51 Mustangs could in any case out-perform the best fighters the Germans then had in service at this time; during this period the home-defense units lost some 2,000 pilots killed, missing or wounded.


More unready pilots...

During the late spring standards fell yet further, when the B flying schools were disbanded. Fighter pilots were now sent into action with only about 112 hours flying, made up as follows: A School, two hours glider flying and 50 hours powered flying on elementary types; Fighter School, 40 hours; Replacement Fighter Group, 20 hours. Moreover, the so-called Windhund program, which provided for the hasty conversion of ex-bomber pilots by giving them 20 hours flying in fighters resulted in a stream of pilots little able to stand up to the enemy.
 
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