Tuesday, June 4, 2013
EMPLOYMENT OF AIR IN 1941 BY AXIS
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EMPLOYMENT OF AIR IN 1941 BY AXIS
On December 29th, the Luftwaffe fire-bombed London,
injuring civilians and destroying many historic buildings. British civilians
killed in December totaled 3,793, and another 5,244 were injured.
On January 10th, the German Luftwaffe made its first
attack on the British Mediterranean fleet. Early that morning, two Italian
torpedo-boats off the island of Pantelleria attacked a British convoy on its
way to Malta. Forty of the Luftwaffe's Stuka aircraft attacked, damaging the
aircraft carrier Illustrious and the cruiser Southampton, which the British
sank themselves the next day because it was too far gone to recover. The
Warsprite was only slightly damaged. The
next day the Luftwaffe returned to damage the cruiser Gloucester. At the same
time, British submarines began targeting German convoys heading for Libya.
On January
13th, 1941, the Luftwaffe raided the port city of Plymouth in southwest
England.
On February
6th, Hitler appointed Erwin Rommel to command the Deutsche Afrika Korps (DAK),
which consisted of one light and one Panzer Division for the new German
contingent to Libya. Rommel had previously served as an infantry office in the
First World War and as a Panzer commander in May of 1940 during the invasion of
France.
On February
23rd, Luftwaffe Stukas sank the British monitor Terror off the shores of
Tobruk, Libya.
On March 13th and 14th, the Luftwaffe raided
Clydebank, a town near Glascow, Scotland. Seventy-five percent of Clydebank's
inhabitants were homeless after the attack.
The Luftwaffe
continued to hit cities and towns throughout Britain, concentrating especially
on port cities from which shipping convoys set out across the Atlantic. During
the month of March, Cardiff, Wales, was attacked three times; Plymouth, two;
and Portsmouth, five. London suffered less than before, but still endured three
major raids.
Germany had
urged the Italian navy to do something about the British convoys carrying
troops from Alexandria to Greece. Italian Naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral
Iachino responded by planning sweeps north and south of Greece to attack these
convoys. He put together a squadron of the battleship Vittorio Venetto, nine
destroyers, and eight cruisers and sent them on their way. The Luftwaffe was
supposed to provide air cover for the squadron, but failed to show up. Instead,
it was spotted by RAF reconnaissance, and the British Mediterranean fleet
immediately set sail from Alexandria in pursuit. The battle took place the next day, on the
28th. The four British cruisers and four destroyers that were escorting the
convoy drew the Italians on toward the main British fleet. Aircraft from the
carrier Formidable torpedoed Vittorio Venetto, which limped back to Taranto.
The Italian cruiser Pola was also hit. Later that night the British sank two
cruisers and two destroyers that had been left behind by the Italian squadron
to assist the damaged Pola.
Erwin Rommel
and the Afrika Korps, with a heavy assortment of Luftwaffe Stukas, attacked the
British at Mersa Brega on March 31st, driving the 2nd Armored Division out of
the area. The British left behind 50 armored cars and 30 light tanks.
On April 6th, Germany and Italy invaded Yugoslavia.
The Luftwaffe attacked Belgrade for two days in Operation Castigo, killing civilians
even though it had been declared an open city. Most of Yugoslavia's air force
was destroyed before it left the ground.
On April 8th, the industrial city of Coventry in
central England suffered heavy air bombardment.
Rommel hoped to surprise the British at Tobruk when he
attacked on April 11th, but instead found the garrison well-protected by the
9th Australian Division, an infantry brigade, an anti-aircraft regiment, and a
tank regiment. Rommel's forces were successfully repulsed. Here it is worth mentioning
that this attack was mounted with very little air support, in any case,
insufficient to be the cause of much trouble to the anti-aircraft forces
guarding the garrison.
On April 11th, the port city of Bristol was bombarded
by the Luftwaffe.
On April 15th, the port city of Belfast in Ireland was
attacked by the Luftwaffe.
The Luftwaffe struck London again on April 16th.
On April 19th, the Luftwaffe bombarded the city of
London. During the remainder of April, the Luftwaffe attacked and nearly destroyed
the city of Plymouth. It also raided Belfast, Hull, and Nottingham. This string
of attacks was a ploy to draw attention away from Hitler's preparations to
invade Russia.
Hitler had been deploying a heavy concentration of
troops in the East for some time, and German reconnaissance flights over Soviet
territory were common. Yet in spite of this, Stalin discounted Soviet,
American, and British intelligence reports that Hitler was planning an
invasion. He believed that Britain and the US were trying to provoke a war
between Germany and the Soviet Union. But Hitler's recent actions in Yugoslavia
and Greece gave Stalin pause. By April 23rd, Hitler had deployed 59 divisions
in the East, and Stalin began to treat Hitler with as much diplomacy as
possible. He also took the precaution of organizing some defense on Russia's
western border.
On April 25th, the Germans drove the British out of
Halfaya Pass, the key to the approach to Egypt. British forces fell back to the
line Buq Buq-Sofafi, and began to think of positioning themselves at the
defensive line at Mersa Matruh to protect the approach to the Suez Canal. After a brilliant offensive in Libya, the
British now found themselves pushed all the way back to their starting position
of five months before. All General Wavell had to show for his efforts was the
British possession of Tobruk in Libya.
Rommel, on the other hand, by his innovative and daring employment of
armour, air and alacrity and had experienced an incredible debut in North
Africa.
The night of May 10th was the Luftwaffe's heaviest
attack on London, and the last night of the London Blitz. There were 1,436
people killed and another 1,792 injured in the bombing. Fully one-third of
London's streets were turned to rubble, and 150,000 families were without
utilities. At this point in the war,
Hitler was concentrating on an invasion of Russia. Because of this, the
Luftwaffe stopped its intense attacks on Britain's population. The British
people had endured a severe test to their morale for the past winter. But air
raids alone were not enough to break them, and the German invasion of Britain
never came to pass. As German activity
in Russia increased, the RAF made more air raids on Germany. This was partially
to weaken the morale of the German people, but it was also the only significant
means by which the British could directly attack Germany. By distracting the
Luftwaffe with air raids over Germany, the RAF could draw a little of the heat
away from the Russian Allies.
The Luftwaffe began preliminary attacks on the island
of Crete on May 15th.
The assault on Crete began on 20th May 1941with heavy
air attacks followed by paratroop drops on the four air bases, Maleme,
Heraklion, Canea, and Retimo. The paratroops were easy targets for the
defenders on Crete, forces consisting of 32,000 British and Commonwealth
soldiers, and 10,000 Greeks. By the next morning, the Germans had only managed
to capture the air base at Maleme. Convoys of German mountain troops and
reinforcements escorted by Italian destroyers were intercepted by the Royal
Navy. The first convoy suffered heavy losses, and the second convoy had to turn
back toward occupied Greece.
On the third day of the battle for Crete, the
Luftwaffe sank the British cruisers Fiji and Gloucester and four destroyers.
They also damaged four other vessels. Realizing that the German superiority in
the air was overwhelming, a British counter-attack on Maleme air base was
launched which, however, proved unsuccessful.
On the morning of December 7, 1941, 96 vessels of the
United States Pacific Fleet were anchored at the naval base in Pearl Harbor,
Oahu, Hawaii. Only the aircraft carriers Lexington and Enterprise were at sea.
At 7:55 a.m. a wave of Japanese aircraft left their carriers in the Pacific: 51
dive-bombers, 50 bombers, 43 fighters, and 70 torpedo-bombers. They swooped in
and attacked the airfields at Ewa, Hickman, Kaneohe, and Wheeler Airfields,
destroying 188 United States aircraft on the ground. Almost the entire air
fleet burned to cinders. At the same time torpedo-bombers struck the string of
battleships on Battleship Row, capsizing the battleship Oklahoma, and sinking
the target ship Utah and the mine layer Oglgla. The battleship Arizona blew up.
The battleships California, West Virginia, and Nevada, all anchored in shallow
water, were almost completely destroyed. Also damaged were the battleships
Maryland, and Tennessee, the cruisers Helena, Honolulu, and Raleigh, and the
naval auxiliaries Curtiss and Vestal. The US forces were taken completely by
surprise by this first attack. Though warnings had gone out to other US
installations all over the Pacific, a communications error had prevented the
message from reaching Pearl Harbor. At
8:54 a.m. a second wave of Japanese aircraft, 134 bombers and 36 Zero fighters
attacked the naval base. US anti-aircraft forces were prepared this time,
shooting down several Japanese aircraft. Nevertheless, ten minutes later the
fleet flagship (the battleship Pennsylvania) was damaged, as well as the
destroyers Cassin, Downes, and Shaw. By
9:45 the battle was over and the Japanese returned to their carriers 200 miles
away. Altogether the American casualties were 3,226 dead and 1,272 wounded. 65
USAAF and 196 USMC aircraft were destroyed, as well as four battleships, three
light cruisers, and three destroyers. Most remaining craft were damaged. 110
Japanese died and one was taken prisoner. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft and
five midget submarines, a small price to pay for wiping out the majority of the
American Pacific Fleet. The only targets missed were the two carriers Lexington
and Enterprise, and important oil stores on Hawaii. The attack on Pearl Harbor
gave Japan a temporary supremacy at sea, which allowed Japan to make great
gains in the Far East.
Seventeen Japanese aircraft bombed Singapore early in the morning on
December 8th. The city had not been blacked-out, which made the mission much
easier for the Japanese.
Japanese aircraft bombarded the capital of Burma on
December 23rd, damaging docks in the port city.
EMPLOYMENT
OF AIR IN 1941 BY ALLIED
On January 22nd, after an attack preceded by heavy aerial bombardment,
the Italian garrison at Tobruk surrendered to the XIII Corps, who netted 25,000
prisoners, 208 guns and 87 tanks. The British forces suffered only 400 casualties.
The port was quickly opened to shipping to relieve the supply problems facing
the Commonwealth forces. Previously, air supply had been the only means of
replenishment of the beleaguered Allies.
On March 10th, the RAF used the heavy bomber Halifax to raid the
German-occupied port city of Le Havre, France. One of the six Halifax bombers
on this mission was accidentally shot down by an RAF fighter.
On March 19th, Winston Churchill formed the Battle of the Atlantic
Committee to coordinate safer convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Losses to German
U-boats were incredible, in spite of the improved escorts. The Committee
determined that escort groups and aircraft from the Royal Air Force Coastal
Command would be based in Iceland to provide even better coverage.
On April 2nd, Italian Rear-Admiral Bonnetti ordered
seven of his destroyers in the Red Sea to make for Port Sudan. The vessels were
spotted by British reconnaissance aircraft. The Royal Navy sunk one near
Massawa, and two more on the way to the Suez Canal. Two other destroyers were
sunk by the British Fleet Air Arm. The remaining two ran aground and were
seized by the British near Jedda, Saudi Arabia.
On May 19th, General Freyberg ordered the last of six remaining
fighters to Egypt to save them from the Luftwaffe, which had overwhelming air
superiority.
RAF Bomber Command was convinced that large-scale attacks on German
cities designed to destroy German morale and disrupt the nation's economy were
the best means of checking Germany's successes and turning the war around. In
an effort to convince Churchill of the efficacy of bombing, Air Chief Marshal
Sir Peter Portal arranged large raids on Berlin, Cologne, and Mannheim on the
night of November 7th. The results were less than encouraging. Thirty- seven out
of three hundred aircraft failed to return. Some losses could be blamed on bad
weather conditions, but the German Kammhuber air defense line was also
responsible. The Kammhuber Line, named for General Joseph Kammhuber, included
searchlights, radar, anti- aircraft guns and coordinated communications among
night fighters. Because of this superior warning and defense system, Churchill
decided to limit air operations to targets with limited risks during optimal
weather conditions until Britain could build a larger air fleet.
On 10th December 1941, the RAF, after heavy losses in defending Malaya,
withdrew its remaining aircraft to Singapore Island.
This post was written by: Franklin Manuel
Franklin Manuel is a professional blogger, web designer and front end web developer. Follow him on Twitter
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