Operation Millennium
Operation Millennium was the code name for the bombing of Cologne on the night of May 30th to 31st, 1942, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) used over 1000 bombers at the same time for the first time, which is why it was the first " 1000 bomber attack " is known.
prehistory
The British Air Ministry had on 14 February 1942, the area bombing directive ( for manual carpet bombing published). In this instruction, the new commander in chief of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was informed that he could use his armed forces immediately without any restrictions. The operations should be concentrated on the morale of the hostile civilian population - especially on the industrial workers.
The RAF Chief of Staff, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, wrote on February 15: “I suppose it is clear that the targets are built-up areas and not z. B. shipyards or aircraft factories according to Appendix A. This must be made clear to everyone if it has not yet been understood in this way. "
The implementation began with the night raid on Essen on March 8 and 9, 1942, as well as further air raids on the Ruhr area .
This strategy of area bombing was based on the assumption of the so-called Trenchard doctrine that bombing residential areas - instead of military installations - would weaken the civilian population's willingness to fight. This was based on ideas about strategic aerial warfare from the First World War . It was hoped that insurrections or a revolution against the system of government in an opposing state could be triggered and that the destabilization of the enemy would be an advantage that was important to the war effort. However, this turned out to be a fallacy and rather led to the opposite, namely the solidarity of the population with his system of government towards the attacker.
The 1047 bomber attack
The first air raid by the Royal Air Force (RAF) with over 1000 bombers was named Operation Millennium and aimed at Cologne . The head of the RAF Bomber Command and planner of Operation Air Marshal Arthur Harris had originally selected Hamburg as a target, but this was not possible due to the weather conditions on the day of the attack. The attack was carried out as part of the British Area Bombing Directive offensive. Various aspects were cited for this:
- It was expected that widespread devastation of the big cities would weaken the German Reich or at least break the morale of the population.
- The attacks were useful propaganda for the Allies and especially for Harris' concept of strategic area bombing , with an emphasis on incendiary bombs . The modest results of the British bombing in 1941 (with a focus on high-explosive bombs ) had led to consideration being given to the dissolution and redistribution of Bomber Command. A spectacular attack on a German city seemed to be a good opportunity for "Bomber-Harris" to demonstrate to the British War Cabinet the importance of Bomber Command for the course of the war, if only enough funds and aircraft were available.
At this point in the war, Bomber Command only had a regular fleet of around 485 aircraft and was in the process of replacing its older, twin-engine, pre-war medium bombers with more modern, heavier models. In addition to his own machines, Harris also wanted to use around 330 aircraft from the training squadrons and 250 from the Coastal Command (department for defense against sea-based attacks) in order to get to the targeted number of one thousand bombers. The attack order was issued on May 23rd to the participating bomber groups. On May 25, however, the Admiralty banned the use of Coastal Command bombers. She attached too little importance to the propaganda value of the attack and referred to the importance of the bombing operations against submarines in the Atlantic battle . Harris pulled out all the stops and acquired in Erstausbildungskursen enough aircraft and crews, some with student pilots and flight instructors busy, and finally was able in 1047 Bomber send out to attack Cologne - two and a half times as many as in any previous bombing of the RAF. In addition to the fleet attacking Cologne, 113 aircraft were used to attack German night fighter airfields.
This was the first time the " stream of bombers " tactic had been used, and most of the lessons learned from this operation formed the basis for Bomber Command's missions over the next two years of the war, some even until the end of the war.
It was assumed that such a high number of bombers, if they flew through the Kammhuber Line in formation , would surprise and overwhelm the German night fighters, and thus their own losses would be manageable. The recently introduced GEE navigation enabled the bombers to be able to fly a given route very precisely with time and altitude planning. The British night bomber activities had been going on for several months and based on the findings from these operations it was possible to make an estimate of how many bombers would fall victim to the enemy night fighters and anti-aircraft fire and collisions. It was also assumed that the pilots of the enemy night fighters could fly a maximum of six interception flights per hour and that the anti-aircraft guns could not intercept this large number of attacking aircraft. Earlier in the war, a period of around four hours was allowed for such an attack. In Operation Millennium , the bombers only needed 90 minutes to drop the bombs. In the following time, this period ( time over target ) could be reduced to less than twenty minutes for around 800 bombers.
The first aircraft appeared on May 31 at 12:47 a.m. in the Cologne night sky. Of the 1047 launched bombers, more than half of which were twin-engined Vickers Wellington , about 890 reached the target area and dropped 1,455 tons of bombs, two thirds of which were incendiary bombs . The Bomber Command expected that the high concentration of bombs dropped in the very short time would completely overwhelm the Cologne fire brigade and thus trigger large fires such as the attacks by the German Air Force on London during the so-called " Blitz ".
The attack caused around 2500 fires in the city, of which 1700 were described as "large" by the Cologne fire brigade . Thanks to the efforts of the fire brigade and thanks to the vastness of many roads, there was no firestorm , but the majority of the damage was caused by fire and less by the explosive bombs. About 3300 non-residential buildings were completely destroyed, 2090 badly damaged and 7420 slightly damaged. That makes a total of 12,810 buildings in this category that were hit. Among the buildings that were classified as completely destroyed were:
- 7 official buildings
- 14 public buildings
- 7 banks
- 9 hospitals
- 17 churches
- 16 schools
- 4 university buildings
- 10 post and railway buildings
- 4 hotels
- 2 newspaper publishers
- 2 cinemas
- at least 10 buildings of historical importance
The only building used by the military that was damaged was an anti-aircraft gun position. On the other hand, 13,010 civilian housing units, mostly in multi-storey houses, were completely destroyed, 6360 severely and 22,270 slightly damaged.
According to the police chief's report, 469 people were killed (411 civilians and 58 military personnel), 5027 were wounded and 45,132 were homeless. The number of registered residents of Cologne fell by around 63,000 or around 11% over the next few weeks. It is estimated that around 135,000 to 150,000 of the 684,000 residents left the city after the attack.
The RAF lost 43 aircraft, which corresponds to about 4.5% of the bombers used. 22 of them were shot down over or near Cologne, 16 elsewhere by flak fire, 4 by night fighters, 2 in attacks on surrounding airfields and 2 were lost in a collision.
Further attacks by the "1000 bomber fleet" took place on January 1st and 2nd. June on Essen (956 aircraft) and on 25/26. June on Bremen (960 aircraft). Thereafter, these major attacks were temporarily suspended. Later in the war there were "1000 bomber attacks" again. Only four-engine machines with a significantly higher bomb load were used.
The city of Cologne was bombed 262 times in the course of the Second World War , more than any other German city, including over 31 times heavily. On March 2, 1945, the RAF attacked Cologne for the last time with 858 bombers in two phases. As part of Operation Lumberjack , the left bank of Cologne was captured by the 1st US Army a few days later .
| groups | Number and type | Total number |
|---|---|---|
| No. 1 bomber group | 156 Wellington (medium bomber) | 156 |
| No. 3 Bomber Group | 134 Wellington (medium bomber) 88 Stirling (heavy bomber) |
222 |
| No. 4 Bomber Group | 131 Halifax (heavy bomber) 9 Wellington (medium bomber) 7 Whitley (medium bomber) |
147 |
| No. 5 Bomber Group |
73 Lancaster (heavy bomber) 46 Manchester (medium bomber) 34 Hampden (medium bomber) |
153 |
| No. 91 (Operational Training) Group | 236 Wellington 21 Whitley |
257 |
| No. 92 (Operational Training) Group |
63 Wellington 45 Hampden |
108 |
| Flying Training Command | 4 Wellington | 4th |
See also
- List of Allied air raids on the German Reich (1939–1945)
- Air War in World War II
- History of the city of Cologne
literature
- Alexander Kuffner: Time Travel Guide Cologne 1933–1945 . Helios Verlag, Aachen 2009, ISBN 978-3-938208-42-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patrick Facon: Opération Millénium . Le fana de l'Aviation, No. 510, May 2012 p. 43, ISSN 0757-4169 .