Authors: Anthony G Williams
He ran through the figures in his head.
The Mosquito was equipped with a comprehensive array of navigational aids as well as the big Target Indicator flare which occupied the remainder of the bomb bay.
The Oboe radio navigation system was the most precise of them, able to locate them to an accuracy of 150 yards which was plenty good enough for blind bombing.
Unfortunately it had a maximum range of 250 miles from Britain at a height of 30,000 ft, which was not good enough to reach
On a trip like this, it could only be used as an aid to dropping route-marking flares, which would reassure the following bomber stream that they were on course.
In theory, they all had their own navigation aids but the electronic devices were notoriously unreliable.
Gee was the other radio navigation system carried by the Pathfinders.
It had a much longer range, at least in theory, and a transmitter in Norway helped to extend the system, but the accuracy of only 6 miles was not good enough for blind bombing.
In any case the Heinrich jamming stations were powerful enough to swamp the Gee transmissions as they approached Germany, so it was of limited use.
The final aid was the new lightweight H2S ground-mapping radar set, which had only recently been miniaturised sufficiently to be carried by the Mosquito.
This was also carried by many of the bombers, but
Even when the aid worked properly, the available accuracy was only to within one or two miles, not good enough to hit the target factory.
They would have to go down and find it the hard way.
He glanced at the navigator, squashed into the cramped seat beside him, studying the radar image.
‘How far are we from the target?’
‘About ten miles.’
‘Stand by to drop Target Indicator.’
‘Standing by.’
‘We must concentrate our efforts in both production and organisation.
Otherwise we will never have the resources we need.’
Speer was being as firm as ever, relentlessly drilling home his main theme, but Herrman was not sure he would succeed this time.
‘But, my Führer,’ reasoned Himmler, ‘it really is better to allow privately-owned industries to manage their own affairs.
Everyone knows that management by government is inherently inefficient.’
Just as almost everybody knows, thought
Herrman, that
Himmler was trying to ensure that the SS took over as many key industries as possible in order to give themselves a private source of supply, away from the interference of the government.
In this argument he had the acquiescence of the other Nazi warlords, who were all competing to extend their power bases by controlling as much of the economy as possible.
Speer had an uphill task ahead of him.
‘I’m not talking about trying to manage the businesses.
I’m talking about coordinating their efforts in order to ensure that the right materials are being produced in the right quantities.
To achieve that, we must obtain central planning control while decentralising management responsibility.’
Speer leaned forward, trying to communicate his vision.
‘If we establish a Main Committee for each type of production – for example weapons – and Main Rings of factories concerned with the appropriate raw materials and intermediate products, such as alloy steels, we can ensure a continuity of planning from iron ore to gun.’
Göring, who for once had joined forces with Himmler in an attempt to stave off the threat from Speer, took a different tack.
‘Who will decide what is made?
Who will control development and production?
That is the responsibility of the individual services who must know what is best for their needs.’
‘The problem with the present system is that the services state their needs without any interest in, or knowledge of, how they may be met.
They might ask for things which are simply impossible to make.
Under my system, the Wehrmacht will still formulate their requirements and be responsible for approving the finished product, but the development and production will be the responsibility of industry, in consultation with the military of course.’
Himmler returned to the attack.
‘And how exactly would this centralised organisation cope with the sort of bombing raids our industry is facing now?’
Göring stirred, uncomfortable with this line of argument.
The failure of his beloved Luftwaffe to live up to his prewar boasts that no enemy bombs would fall on Germany was a sore point.
‘We will decentralise production as well as management.
Manufacture elements of a weapon in many different places and only bring them together for final assembly.
We are already doing this with the new submarines; it minimises the amount of time they spend in the dockyards, vulnerable to bombing.’
‘But that would only make your system vulnerable to disruptions in the transport network.
Hit the railways and it all grinds to a halt.’
Göring interrupted, steering the discussion onto safer ground.
‘But what about our people?
If all of our efforts are concentrated on producing munitions, what will be for sale in the shops?
What kind of life will our women and children have?’
A lot better than they would get if Stalin’s armies roll through
Germany
again, thought Herrman, but he knew better than to take on Göring and Himmler, who then produced his trump card.
‘Why, our friend here would have our womenfolk working in factories instead of looking after their husbands and children!’
Hitler’s emphasis on preserving normal family life was well known. Up to now he had listened to the arguments in silence, but he suddenly turned to Herrman.
‘What does my policy adviser think of all this?’
Herrman felt his heart sink and his bowels clench with dread.
He fought down a desperate need for a drink and tried to compose his thoughts, to walk the tightrope between letting Germany continue on its disastrous course and earning the bitter enmity of the Nazi warlords.
‘Of course,’ he temporised, ‘the Minister of Munitions is correct that we should ensure that our war production is as efficient as possible, but we must not forget the importance of preserving family life and the well-being of our people.’
Hitler grunted in what sounded like approval,
then
dismissed them without giving his views.
Outside, Speer hung back to talk to Herrman.
‘I understand you advise our Führer about general policy.
Do you think he will accept the need for the policies I described?’
Herrman was wryly amused at the opportunity to show his omniscence.
‘You’ll get most of it,’ he predicted, ‘Göring can’t really be bothered with anything as mundane as industry, but you won’t beat Himmler.’
Speer walked thoughtfully beside him, obviously choosing his words, unsure of Herrman’s exact status and influence.
‘We are beginning to get real problems with manpower.
Too many Germans have been conscripted, and the impressed workers that Todt use are of relatively little value.
We must mobilise our economy for all-out war, in the same way that the Russians and even the British have done.’
‘Just how much damage to production are the RAF raids doing?’
Speer shrugged.
‘Not as much as you might think.
Machine tools are extremely hard to damage.
We find factories blown apart and burnt out, but most of the machinery still intact, so we can get back to work again quite quickly.
The main problem is when the workers lose their homes or are scared away.
And Himmler was correct about the transport issue, of course.
If the railway system is disrupted, we have real problems.’
Herrman was curious to get to know this able organiser, of whom he had read so much in his previous existence.
‘Is the Luftwaffe not getting on top of the problem?’
Speer shrugged again.
‘I think their priorities are wrong.
Before the war they took the view that bombers could not do much damage.
If they tried to fly low and straight to hit the target, the Flak would get them.
If they flew higher or tried to weave to avoid the Flak, they wouldn’t hit the target.
Away from the target area, the fighters would get them.
If they tried to bomb at night, our new Freya radars would spot them, and and Würzburg radars could control night-fighters as well as Flak.’
He sighed.
‘Experience has shown that it isn’t as simple as that, of course.
The bombers swamp our night-fighter control system by streaming through the Kammhuber Line in such concentrated formations that fighters only have time to be zeroed onto a few of them.
Then there are the countermeasures to our radar which often leave us fighting blind.
Also, there aren’t enough fighters.
For an air force, the Luftwaffe places a surprising amount of reliance on their Flak defence, in order to disrupt the bombers over the target.
Yet statistics prove that night-fighters are two to three times more effective than Flak, in terms of the resources involved.
Even if we had the fighters, we would have problems with finding enough pilots.
Not enough are being trained, and they are not being rotated or promoted to the staff so the lessons they are learning are not being passed upwards.’
‘What are the production bottlenecks you are experiencing?’
Speer sighed again.
‘There is a constant competition for resources – for Flak, fighters, bombers, U-boats, tanks and radar.
This leads to a shortage of some raw materials, such as aluminium and wolfram.
Too much aluminium goes into Flak shell fuzes, and there is a great demand for wolfram for Hartkernmunition,’ he said, referring to the tungsten-cored armour-piercing shot which had dramatically improved the performance of anti-tank guns.
‘Also, it’s difficult to get the production balance right between offensive and defensive weapons.
Our Führer is very concerned to take the offensive at every opportunity, so he is keen on bombers and these new pilotless missiles.
The problem is that each heavy bomber costs many times as much as a fighter, and the V-weapons are taking a huge development effort.
Then there is radar.
Our electronics resources are being focused more on radio navigation systems than radar, because they help the bombers.
We’re also having
to make a major effort to catch up with the new centimetre-wave technology, which has real potential in guiding anti-aircraft missiles.’
He turned to Herrman, clearly keen to persuade him.
‘If we don’t put more effort into defence, we may lose the capability to make the offensive weapons our Führer wants.’
I know, thought Herrman, I know that all too well.
‘We have a Kurier for you.’
The Fighter Control Officer’s calm voice had an edge of triumph.
The Oberstleutnant knew that the Naxos and Korfu systems used by ground stations would have been on the alert to get a bearing on any transmissions from the Rotterdamgerät (H2S) carried by the bombers.
When they were close enough, his Heinkel’s own Naxos-Z system would pick them up.
He listened carefully to the coordinates and adjusted his course.
It was probably a Mosquito Zeremonienmeister, guiding in the other bombers.
The Pathfinders were fast, but they were on a converging course, and closing in.
His headphones crackled again.
He edged the straining Heinkel to a still greater height.
They would not need to use the ‘Schräge Musik’ guns tonight.
Suddenly, the ground appeared to glow pale grey.
The Oberstleutnant grinned wolfishly.
The Leichentuch was working!
The defenders of
There!
Just crossing ahead and below!
The slender, fleeting shape of a Mosquito speeding on its way to the target.
The Oberstleutnant threw the Heinkel into a shallow, curving dive, the note of the big twelve-cylinder Daimler-Benz DB 603 engines rising painfully up the scale as the Nachtjäger accelerated.
‘Ente in sight!
’,
he yelled.
‘Machen Sie Pauke-Pauke,’ the ground controller shouted.
The Oberstleutnant hardly heard the excited instructions of his radar operator.
He needed no such guidance now.
The British plane slowly drifted across the Revi sight, slipping into the centre as the Oberstleutnant pressed the firing button.
The big MK 103 cannon roared into life, the Minengeschoss shells speeding towards the target at nearly nine hundred metres per second.
They carried no tracers, so as not to blind the pilot or alert the target, but the flashes of hits around the centre of the Mosquito were clearly visible.
It seemed to stagger in the air, panels flying free,
then
suddenly a large, streamlined object fell from the British plane, plummeting down towards the glowing clouds.
A second later, the Mosquito broke up, torn apart by the Heinkel’s devastating firepower.
There were no parachutes.
As the pieces of the sleek little bomber tumbled gracelessly to Earth, the Oberstleutnant shouted in triumph to the fighter controller,
then
turned his aircraft back into a climb to await the arrival of the bomber stream.
Below him, bright colour bloomed.