No. 5 Bomber Group

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The 5th Bomber Group of the Royal Air Force ( No. 5 Group RAF ), which already existed during the First World War , became the most famous group of the RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War . Among other things, the association was involved in the bombing of Dresden on the night of February 13-14, 1945.

history

First lineup

When the RAF was founded on April 1, 1918, a group called the 5 Group Royal Air Force was formed. She was stationed on both sides of the English Channel around Dover and Dunkirk and worked with the Dover Patrol of the Royal Navy under Roger Keyes in combating German submarine bases in Flanders. It was dissolved after the end of the First World War on May 15, 1919.

Second lineup

In the run-up to the Second World War, the "No. 5 Group" was newly formed on September 1, 1937. Their location was Mildenhall , England . The headquarters were later moved to St. Vincent's near Grantham , Lincolnshire , England. In September 1939 Air Commodore Arthur Harris became Commander of the 5th Group. In 1942 Harris took command of the RAF Bomber Command . The group had other bases in North Africa during the war and was deployed in Tunisia and Italy . In November 1943 the group headquarters moved to Morton Hall near Swinderby in Lincolnshire.

The squadrons belonging to the 5th Bomber Group were initially equipped with twin-engine Handley Page Hampden . They were replaced by Avro Manchesters in 1941 . The group initially specialized in laying out sea ​​mines , as well as on special missions with precise target bearings and on day attacks at low altitudes. In March and April 1941 the group carried out daytime attacks on the port city of Brest in Brittany and attacked the two battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau . Bremen was bombed on the night of October 12th to 13th, 1941 . The accuracy of the No. 5 Group showed itself in the successful demolition of the dams of the Dortmund-Ems Canal , in the sinking of the battleship Tirpitz and the heavy cruiser Lützow and in the destruction of the industrial city of Ludwigshafen am Rhein .

In 1942 the group was equipped with the new Avro Lancaster . In their first operation, they laid mines in the bay of Heligoland . The Lancaster were primarily intended for area bombing. Their first major attack on German cities took place in Cologne in May 1942 ( Operation Millennium ). Likewise was Genoa and Milan bombed in Italy. In the Ruhr region were power plants decommissioned, attacked military targets also in Belgium and France. In July 1944, submarine bunkers in Brest, Lorient and La Pallice were bombed. Cities that were badly damaged were Wesel , Bielefeld , Danzig and Königsberg , the easternmost destination. The two attacks on Königsberg in August 1944 broke Swedish neutrality.

On the night of February 13-14, 1945, the Royal Air Force attacked the city of Dresden, which had been largely spared until then, in cooperation with the 8th US Air Force with large bomber groups. The first attack was carried out by 235 four-engine Lancasters and nine twin-engine mosquitos of the 5th Bomber Group in the time from 10:03 p.m. to 10:28 p.m. The main aim of the attack was to set fire to Dresden's old town with stick bombs . This led to a hitherto unique, large-scale and devastating firestorm . In public commemoration, Dresden remained the symbol of brutal aerial bombing, similar to Nordhausen am Harz at the beginning of April 1945.

On March 28, 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill proposed to end the aerial warfare against German cities. However, the bombing continued and was still justified as a military necessity.

Important missions of the 5th bomber group

Burning Braunschweig on the night of October 15, 1944

Commodores

The commanders were:

1918 and 1919

1937 to 1945

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ No 5 Group to rafweb.org , accessed on July 21, 2015.