The sounds of Rolls Royce Merlin engines roaring over the south of England have been replaced by the steady hum of traffic and commercial jet liners. But in 1944 there were more than 2,000 heavy bombers taking off and landing at over 100 air bases. Many of these airfields have been abandoned and are still visible today.
More than a million men and women served in RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. 125,000 of these were flying the heavy bombers that brought the war to the heart of Nazi Germany.
The odds facing these brave flyers were catastrophic. Bomber Command had a higher casualty rate than any other service in the armed forces. Only one in three would survive the war, a 75% casualty rate not even seen on the Russian Front.
These men and women came from 60 countries from around the world, with the UK, Canada, Australia, and South Africa providing the bulk. There were others, as well. Those who had escaped the Nazis flocked to the RAF. Poles, free French, Dutch, and even Germans. South Americans, particularly from Peru, were well-represented in Bomber Command. And before the United States got involved in the war, many Americans volunteered with the RAF, determined to stop Hitler.
“And then we all met in this very large room at the airport of Leicester and this man came to me and he said, can you tell me who are you? Well, I said, Ron Dawson, and he said, what did you train? I said, I’ve been trained as an air gunner, oh, he said, I’m a pilot, and he was Australian. And he said, I’m a pilot, I’m looking for a gunner, I said, well I’m American and a rear gunner, he said, that’s fine and I said, my pal who managed to get the same course, we did the gunnery course together, and so I joined up with the pilot, the navigator and other people and we flew together.” - Ron Dawson, from International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive, University of Lincoln
More than 80,000 of them trained at air bases across Canada, which had become, in the words of Franklyn Roosevelt, “the aerodrome of democracy.” Canada was running the Commonwealth Air Training Plan and became the primary manufacturer of Bomber Command’s airplanes. Men and women from around the world flocked to Canadian air bases for primary training, then were shipped to England to finish up on the real deal. One Canadian bomber pilot remembers the first time he sat in a giant Handley-Page Halifax bomber.
“Sitting in the front seat of a Halifax for the first time, the ground seems a long way down, but after taxiing about a bit, you get a feel for it. It took me about four hours to solo, and by that time I felt pretty hot on the big machine.” - P/O Ray Smith, DFC, RCAF, interview for Canadian Air Cadet magazine, Bomber Command Air Museum
Life on Bomber Command air bases was regimented but relaxed. Most of the men and women were in their early twenties and there was a carefree and cosmopolitan vibe on the airbases, with drinking and dancing and plenty of fornicating. These young men and women were from all around the world. Officers were older, in their late twenties or early thirties, and senior commanders were mostly British and in their fourties and fifties.
An outside observer looking in would think Bomber Command was living out the best part of the war. But this hid the awful side of what they went through every night. A horrific ordeal of terror and death. The night of 31 March, 1944, was the deadliest.
Bombing the Reich
The first British bombing raids on Germany occurred shortly after the war began. On 18 December, 1939, 22 Vickers Wellington twin-engined bombers conducted a raid on the German naval port at Heligoland Bight. They flew during the day and were intercepted by 44 Bf-109 and Bf-110 fighters. Bomber Command lost 15 bombers, and of the seven who returned, only three were undamaged. Several more daylight raids cost the RAF dearly, and by 1940 the decision had been made to attack only at night time, when the bombers would have a better chance of remaining undetected.
Bomber Command grew in size and sophistication as the war progressed. The small and lightly-armed Wellingtons and Whitleys were soon replaced with big four-engined Halifax bombers. These were heavily-armed and could fly further and carry more bombs.
The Halifax had some shortcomings. It wasn’t fast enough, and it couldn’t carry a heavy load of bombs and fuel, limiting its range. It was also easy to shoot down thanks to a lack of armour.
Bomber Command’s goal was to disrupt German industry, but by flying at night it was nearly impossible to hit specific targets. They developed the tactic of “area bombing.” This basically meant completely obliterating entire German cities, destroying not only the factories but also the workers with them. For this, they needed a strong, heavy bomber, and a lot of them.
It wasn’t until 1942 and the introduction of the might Avro Lancaster bomber that the RAF finally had the right tool for the job. The Lancaster was a behemoth, and was powered by the same Rolls Royce Merlin engine that powered the Spitfire, only it had four of them. It could carry up to 14,000 lbs (6,400 kg) of bombs and fly 2,300 miles (4,000 km). It was armed with multiple turrets of Browning .303 inch machine guns to fend off German fighters. The Lancaster was the most advanced aircraft of its time.
Bomber Command also put a new man in charge of this offensive. Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris was a stern man, and he would go on to earn the nickname “Bomber Harris.” He was committed to destroying every German city in revenge for the Luftwaffe’s Blitz on London. He approached his job with a morbid fatalism.
“One evening as I was speeding down the road in my motorcar a policeman pulled me over. “You could have killed someone, sir!” he told me. “Young man,” I replied. “I kill thousands of people every night.” - Sir Arthur Harris
The first 1,000-bomber raid occurred on the night of 30 May, 1942 when the RAF obliterated the city of Cologne. The firestorm the bombers created became a vortex, as the burning hot air from the fires sucked everything up into it and the city was razed to the ground. More than 5,000 people were killed and 80% of the city’s buildings destroyed.
The bombers had used a new tactic called “the stream.” The bombers flew on their own in a long stream that stretched back to England, rather than in a formation. The goal was to overwhelm the German air defences and to ensure the stream passed over the city for several hours, as plane after plane unleashed its bombs.
The first bombers were part of the pathfinders group. These planes would locate the city’s edges and the center and drop clouds of coloured flares for the following bombers. As each plane flew over the city, the target would be illuminated by the flares, the burning city from the bombers who had already dropped their loads, and the German flak.
German air defences
Germany’s cities were ringed with flak guns, primarily the 88 mm. These fired shells into the sky which exploded and sent shrapnel flying in all directions. Many of these guns were radar-guided, allowing them to accurately target RAF Halifaxes and Lancasters as they flew overhead.
The guns worked in sync with powerful searchlights, which projected beams of bright light high into the night sky. When one beam picked up an unlucky bomber, all of them would snap over and lock the plane in a cone of light. Every flak gun would then blast away at it. Being caught by a searchlight almost always meant death for the young men in the bomber.
“We were picked up by the searchlights and at once the entire plane was lit up like a Christmas tree. To get out of it, we dove. My ears were bleeding from the pressure. The flak came at us like nothing I’ve seen before. Eventually, we got free and levelled out.” - Joseph Favreaux, RCAF
German night fighters also patrolled the skies. The Germans used the Messerschmitt Bf-110 and Junkers Ju-88 as night fighters, outfitted with onboard aerial radar and heavy cannons for shredding the big bombers. A chain of ground-based radar would pick up the RAF bombers as they approached and direct their fighters into the stream.
Most of these aerial battles happened in the pitch black of night. It was a cat and mouse game, the fighters using radar to hone in on a target, and then spotting the dark silhouette of the big lumbering plane. The gunners on the bomber were constantly scanning the dark, looking the tell-tale sign of a little flame from an engine exhaust or a silhouette.
Attacks were sudden and ferocious. A burst of gunfire, screams, explosions. German night fighters shot down 6,000 Bomber Command planes during the war, each with between seven and ten men on board. Another 2,300 were lost to flak. Bomber Command lost 55,573 killed during the war, 72% of them British, 18% Canadian, and 7% were Australian.
The bomber crews only defence was to hide in the night and pray they were not spotted. But even this couldn’t help them on the night of 31 March, 1944.
The men of Bomber Command had difficulty coping. The joy of life on land contrasted with the terror in the skies, night after night, and many had mental breakdowns. Suicides spiked in 1943. The RAF did not recognize PTSD and men who lost their minds were often arrested and court-martialled.
Those who held it together developed a dark sense of humour. One example is the popular barroom song they sang when at the pub:
“My eyes are blind I cannot see, the searchlights they have blinded me.
There was flak, flak, bags of bloody flak, in the valley of the Ruhr.”
Each crew had to complete 30 missions before they could be sent home. The life expectancy of a bomber crew was about 18 missions in 1942, and that was down to 12 missions in 1943.
The men became extremely superstitious as a result. They started to believe that luck was the determining factor in who lived and who died. They would do anything to nudge lady luck their way, so each man had his lucky trinkets he would bring with him. Tail gunners always pissed on the rear wheel before takeoff.
“There was no rhyme or reason to it. You’d lose a bunch of guys who had just arrived and you’d think, well, they were new. They didn’t know what they were doing. But then you would lose a bunch of guys who were almost done their 30, and you’d realize you didn’t have a chance in hell of surviving.” - Joseph Favreaux, RCAF
Death in the moonlight
Bomber Command was at the height of its power by 1944, with more than 1,800 aircraft. It had spent two years razing German cities and perfecting its tactics. 1943 had been a brutal year, with more than 2,000 bombers shot down, but Bomber Command was able to replace them with more and more aircrews coming out of Canada’s training programs.
Arthur Harris set his eyes on Nuremberg, the spiritual heart of Nazism, and a major raid was planned for 31 March, 1944. It would be another 1,000-bomber raid. The meteorologists predicted a dark cloud-covered night for the way to the target, with clear skies over Nuremberg. It was perfect.
The crews were assembled in the late afternoon for their flight briefings. They were given their target, Nuremberg, a flight of 1,000 miles there and back. At 280 miles per hour, it would take four hours. Navigators plotted their routes, pilots performed pre-flight checks, and gunners loaded their ammunition. Flight crews went over every detail of every aircraft while bomb loaders cranked the heavy bombs into each planes belly.
A DeHavilland Mosquito was sent up to check the weather over the target and report back to Harris concerning the visibility. When it came back, the navigator, Canadian R.G. Dale, got on the phone with Bomber Command.
“All the group captains come on the line simultaneously at their bases. Would the route to Nuremberg be covered in cloud? Would the target be clouded over? I told them it was so clear, we left a long vapour trail in the sky.” - R.G. Dale, RCAF
Harris thanked Dale and then proceeded to authorize the raid anyways. Despite the lack of cloud cover, the boys would be going.
The tail gunners peed on the rear wheel before climbing in to their turret. “We would never, ever forget to do that,” One gunner recalled.
The stream assembled over southern England as the sun went down, and the bombers all turned towards the Nazi-occupied continent.
But it wasn’t dark. There was no cloud cover, like they had been told to expect. Even worse, it was a full moon and the spring equinox, so the moon was particularly bright that night. The bomber stream was easy to see as if it were daylight.
“My god. We can see everything. The entire bomber stream. All of the planes behind us, all of the planes in front of us. Lit up as if were the middle of the afternoon.” - An Australian rear gunner (name unknown).
The first German fighters swept in while the stream was still over France. There were the usual Bf-110s, but the sky was so bright the Luftwaffe was able to scramble Fw-190s as well.
Martin Becker was an experienced 25 year old fighter pilot in the German Luftwaffe. He had been flying Bf-110s since 1940, and had experience over Russia and then defending the skies of Germany.
“It was a very bright night, almost like daylight. As we moved into the enemy’s bomber stream, we could see the first kills exploding in the sky.” - Lt. Martin Becker
Most of the airmen of Bomber Command were unsettled by the day-like conditions. German fighters swarmed over them. Turret gunners blasted away and pilots had to constantly remind them to conserve ammunition. The radio was filled with excited chatter.
“On Nuremberg you could see everyone. The plumes of smoke, the contrails from the engines. Poof! They started shooting us down like geese.” - Joseph Favreaux, RCAF
Becker moved his Bf-110 into a position to attack across the width of the stream and flew in. The four 20mm cannons in the nose of his fighter blasted a Lancaster to pieces. Then another. And then another. He shot down six Lancasters in one pass, before turning around to go again.
“One guy, one German pilot shot down six of us. Just bang bang bang all in a row. I was so frightened then. I was damn near standing up on the rudder pedal.” - P/O Doug Harvey, RCAF
“I dove into the stream and then shot down six bombers in a row. They exploded. A few parachutes came out here and there. Then I turned around for another pass but I was almost out of ammunition at that point.” - Lt. Martin Becker
The German fighters massacred the bombers all the way to their target.
Over the target
Nuremberg itself was completely covered in cloud when the bombers reached the city. A storm of flak exploded and several bombers were blown out of the sky. At least two Lancasters crashed into each other in the dark cloud bank, according to witnesses who survived that night.
The crews unloaded their bombs but were unable to accurately find the city. The pathfinders dropped their flares all over the place. It didn’t make a difference in the thick clouds, which reached nearly to ground level.
The western end of the city was completely devastated, but a large majority of the bombs landed in the countryside. Several bombs hit another town 60 km away. As the survivors turned back, the German fighters pounced again.
“The section of the route from Aachen on was reminiscent of a battlefield of burning aircraft. So many aircraft were going in flames.” W/O Jim McNabb, RAAF
The stream was no longer a stream. The surviving bombers were scattered everywhere and at all different altitudes, which may have helped to lessen the casualties. Becker shot down his seventh bomber of the night, this time a Halifax that had wandered north over Strasbourg on its way home.
It was 0600 when the last bombers returned home. 14 of them crash-landed at their bases in England due to heavy damage.
Black Friday aftermath
Bomber Command lost 106 bombers that night and 1,245 men killed. 165 men managed to bail out and were taken prisoner. Entire squadrons were decimated. The survivors recall flying through clouds of falling, burning wreckage from all around.
The Luftwaffe lost 10 fighters to turret gunners. Martin Becker, the Bf-110 pilot who shot down seven planes that night, survived the war with a total kill count of 58 planes, all of them at night. He remains the tenth highest-scoring fighter ace in history.
The RAF had to suspend operations for more than a week following Black Friday. The losses were staggering, even for Sir Arthur Harris. The crews changed his nickname from “Bomber” Harris to “Butcher” Harris as a result of Nuremberg.
When the City of London tried to commemorate a statue to him after the war, there was public outcry and protests, and the statue was taken down.
The city of Nuremberg was bombed eight more times after that. It was completely destroyed. After Hamburg and Berlin, Nuremberg was the third most-bombed city in Germany. Unexploded bombs are still found throughout the city from time to time. The rubble of the city is covered over in dirt and grass today, and is pleasant park where couples stroll and children play.