“ The story of the air war in the past year is largely the story of the RoyalAir Force and the United States Army Air Force working in the closest partnership and harmony for the destruction of the common enemy,
“Began Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State of Air, in introducing the Air estimates on March 6th, 1945.
Outstanding points in the story as he told it are recorded below.
DDay for the British and American armies of liberation was June 6th last year, but for the Royal Air Force the campaign had started long before.
The weight of our invasion of Northern Europe would have been much reduced if the U- boats had been sinking in every month of the year 1943.
Gradually, however the squadrons of Coastal Command, working in closest co- operation with the escort groups of the Royal Navy, had obtained an increasing mastery of the German submarines.
Bomber Command, too had contributed largely to this result by bombing the U-boats in their assembly yards and in their pens, and by their arduous, difficult and extremely successful mining operations.
The Germans had boasted that, thanks to the U –boat, no Allied soldier would set foot on the Continent of Europe.
Coastal Command and the Royal Navy answered this boast with deeds.
Together they swept the seas and kept open those channel lanes on which depended the security of our convoys and the nourishment of our armies.
In the opening stages of this great battle the burden of the fighting lay principally on Coastal Command.
In the three weeks before D Day Admiral Doenitz was endeavouring to move up his reserves of U- boats from their bases in Norway to the threatened area of the ChannelCoast.
From Norway these U- boats began to slink out on their long trek through Northern and Atlantic waters to the Channel.
The Commander in Chief, Coastal Command Sir Sholto Douglas had anticipated every move they made.
Knowing what they had to expect the German Command had given their crews a concentrated course of training against air attack.
In particular they were equipped with a new 37-mm. anti aircraft gun.
Their foresight was wise but unavailing, for these reinforcements were attacked and mauled by aircraft of Coastal Command.
In the continuous daylight of the Northern summer, the battle was joined off the coasts of Norway, the Shetlands and the Faroes and even in the Arctic when the U- boats sought to escape the range of our aircraft.
Many were sunk and damaged.
This was the opening bout. The main campaign, fought in the English Channel and its Western approaches, began on D Day.
Previous to that date, single U- boats had penetrated into coastal waters with the aid of Schnorkels.
When the invasion cane, the Biscay U- boat fleet made their way to the Western approaches of the Channel on the surface.
They were instantly engaged by Coastal Command, and U-boat prisoners have
Frankly admitted that entering the Channel was a nightmare.
During the first four critical days from D Day, the Command made 38 sightings, which resulted in several destructive attacks.
These successes of Coastal Command, won in unison with the Royal Navy, were decisive a blow was inflicted on the enemy from which he never recovered….
The work of Bomber Command under Sir Arthur Harris and the United States Strategic air forces under General Spaatz in preparation for the launching of our armies, had been continuous over a period of years.
All through 1943 and 1944, the great battles of the Ruhr, of Hamburg and Berlin, were steadily undermining the war power of Germany.
We had become aware that the Germans were making a tremendous effort to build up the biggest fighter force that the world had ever seen……
The British and American bomber forces, therefore in the winter of 1943 and spring of last year turned their main effort against the German fighter factories and ancillary production……
General Arnold, Commanding General of the United States Army Air Force, in his annual report to Congress says.
“This week of February 20th -26th 1944, may well be classed by future historians as marking a decisive battle in history one as decisive and of greater world importance than Gettysburg”.
That great series of attacks against the German aircraft production laid the foundation of the air mastery which the Allies enjoyed on D Day and now enjoy over Germany and the battlefields of Europe.
In the late spring, the destruction of German communications behind the intended invasion front took place among our bombing objectives….
It was not a task upon which the Allies Air Forces entered light-heartedly, for it involved the destruction of railways facilities, some of which were in thickly populated areas of France…..
Marshalling yards and railway repair facilities were destroyed on a great scale.
24 road and railway bridges over the Seine were selected for bombing, by D Day all 24 had been either demolished or severely damaged.
The result was to destroy one of the main assumptions on which the enemy’s plan of defence was based.
He had naturally assumed that he could reinforce his defensive front by road and rail more quickly than we could reinforce by sea.
As things turned out, the weather favoured this calculation and for the three critical days it was impossible to land troops or supplies over the beaches.
Nevertheless so thoroughly had the Allied Air Forces done their work and so complete was the mastery of the British and American Tactical Air Forces over the French roads and railways by day that the Allied armies were able to reinforce much more rapidly than the Germans…
Two activities of Bomber Command call, I think the House will agree, for special attention on this occasion.
The “ Tirpitz” …. Was sunk by two squadrons of Bomber Command under Wing Commander Tait.
They flew 1,200 miles to bomb from some 15, 000 feet and scored 3 direct hits and two near misses….
I think Hon Members will be gratified to reflect that this brilliant feat of arms was accomplished by British crews aiming, with a British bombsight of extraordinary complexity, ingenuity and accuracy a12, 000-lb bomb of British design and manufacture from a British Lancaster, the only aircraft in the world to-day which could carry that bomb…
When the peoples of Europe awoke from the nightmare of 1940, they found themselves powerless against the mechanized might of Nazi Germany.
To the Royal Air Force fell the task of supplying arms to the resurgent peoples of Europe.
The task was exacting.
Every crew was a pathfinder.
They were searching, not for towns or marshalling yards, but for fields and points in the open country often miles from roads and other landmarks.
This entailed extremely low flying, with the aircraft especially if it was a light night an easy target for even the lightest flak.
In difficult country the navigation risks were almost as formidable as the risks from the enemy.
Frequently pilots had to land their aircraft in occupied territory to bring out leading members of the Underground movement…
Aircraft operating from this country dropped more than 160,000 parachute containers of arms and explosives, and 37,000 packages of specialized equipment.
At least 15,000 tons of supplies were dropped from Great Britain alone.
For four years the Allied Air Force was the only force from the West carrying the war to Germany.
From Dunkirk to D Day they harried and pounded German war industry and transport.
Had not the Luftwaffe been out of fought in the air, hammered on its airfields and smashed in its factories, there could have been no invasion of Normandy.
Allied air bombing is on such a colossal scale that Dr Goebbels has had to admit that “it can now hardly be borne”.
In the week ending February 12th, 16,000 tons of bombs were dropped by the Allied Air Force.
This rose to 23,000 tons the next week, to 41,000 the week after that and in the following week 32,000 tons with some returns out standing.
This swelling crescendo of destruction is engulfing oil plants, tank factories and the communications of the German armies on every front, as from West, East, and South the Allied Armies surge forward into Germany.
