F4U Corsair “Whistling Death” Flight Demonstration !

This is a video of the lovely F4U Corsair from a museum in Chino California and it Looks absolutely awesome… WOW !! There’s something truly wonderful about some of those old WW2 planes, they have character. The folding wings look really cool. Take a look…

The Last of the RAF Biplane Heavy Bombers – The Handley Page Heyford

The Handley Page Heyford was the last biplane bomber to see service with the British Royal Air Force (RAF). Actually, it was the most important British bomber of the early thirties. But it looked completely obsolete even before it first took to the air in June 1930. The original Heyford was fitted with two Rolls-Royce 575 hp Kestrel IIIS, 12 cylinder piston engines. It had a fixed undercarriage that did nothing to improve its appearance as an out-of-date aircraft. The wingspan was of 75 ft, very large by those times. The length of the airplane was 58 ft with a height of 17 ft 6 in and a massive wing area of 1,470 sq ft. The Heyford’s wings were made of metal frame covered with fabric coverings, while the main fuselage was half metal, the forward area, and half fabric covered, the rear. Even with these drawbacks, the Heyford remained in front-line service with the RAF until the late thirties and the outbreak of war in Europe.

Three prototypes were originally ordered by the British for performance evaluation in the summer of 1927—the first of these prototypes, having its maiden flight in 1930. The first test was very successful and immediately the RAF ordered the Heyford to be put into full production. When the last Heyford rolled out of the assembly plant in July 1936, 15 Heyford MkIs, 21 Heyford Mk IAs, 16 Heyford Mk IIs and 70 Heyford Mk IIIs had been delivered. The aircraft units types differed little, except in the type of engines that were installed on them—all being Rolls-Royce Kestrels types. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature on the Heyford bomber was that its fuselage was mounted on the upper wing. This feature gave the pilot and the aircraft defensive gunners, an excellent field of vision. The bomber’s main armament consisted on three 7.7 mm machine guns, installed in dorsal, nose and ventral “dustbin” positions, and carried up to a 3,500 lb bomb load. A new technology break through came in the form of a retractable ventral “dustbin” turret that could be lowered beneath the aft fuselage.

The center section of the bomber’s lower wing was thick enough to contain cells for the carriage of bombs. The proximity of the bomb cells to the ground made for speedy re-arming. The Heyford maximum speed performance was of a pedestrian 142 mph with an open cockpit, with a top operational ceiling of 21,000 ft and a climb range of 700 ft/min. The Heyford’s maximum range, with reduced bomb load, was 920 miles. Take off weigh was of 9,200 lbs without a bomb load and with the bomber’s full complement of bombs and armaments—an impressive 16,900 lbs.

The first Royal Air Force unit to receive the Heyford as an operational bomber was the No. 99th squadron based at Upper Heyford, on November 1933. Other squadrons followed, the No.s 7, 9, 10, 38, 78, 97, 102, 148, 149 and 166, all received bomber units to complement its own squadrons. As the Whitleys and Wellesleys bombers started to appear on the mid thirties, the Heyford bomber was gradually phased out—the last of the units, being replace by the new Wellingtons, put in front line service in late 1939. It never saw any action in World War II, but it was of service to the RAF as a bomber training aircraft and target tug until it was finally retired from service July, 1941.

Little Boy and The Story of the First Atomic Bomb

65 years ago, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress helped bring the Second World War to an end with a stunning blow. Its ‘Little Boy’ cargo would show man at his most destructive.

The physicist Albert Einstein first hinted at the potential use of atomic weapons in a letter (co-drafted with Hungarian physicist, Leó Szilárd) to the US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. In it, he expressed concern at the poor reserves of uranium being held by the United States and his belief that Germany was withholding ores chiselled from recently-seized Czechoslovakian mines. His opinion was, “that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.”

Einstein’s conjecture was convincing enough for Roosevelt to approve the start of the ‘Manhattan Project’; an atomic research and development program that would ultimately see the culmination of its work on 6th and 9th August 1945. Until then, $2 billion would have to be spent on research facilities which would eventually span 30 sites.

Two locations would play key roles: Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Los Alamos, New Mexico. While the former was concerned with the research and development of atomic material, the latter was selected as a site for weapon development.

Among the weapons being developed at Los Alamos was a gun-type fission bomb codenamed ‘Little Boy’. It housed a seven inch-long uranium bullet (its uranium having been extracted at the Oak Ridge factory) which would be fired into a target spike. The resultant chain reaction would release tremendous energy which would cause an explosion similar to 200,000 two hundred pound bombs. The Manhattan Project’s scientists were so confident of its success that no field tests ever took place. ‘Little Boy’, though, contained the maximum amount of uranium-235 available to the US. As one B-29 crew member would later observe, ‘Little Boy’ “cost as much as an aircraft carrier”.

The aircraft tasked to carry ‘Little Boy’ to its destination was the subject of discussion in March 1944. Initially it was believed that the British-built Avro Lancaster was the best aircraft capable of carrying the bomb due to the configuration of its bomb bay. The idea was quickly rejected by the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, who felt it was “beyond comprehension to use a British plane to deliver an American A-bomb”. The Boeing-built B-29 Superfortress was eventually selected, although much modification was required to its four bomb bays.

By the onset of B-29 modifications, the US Army Air Forces had activated the 509th Composite Group; the unit that would be tasked to deliver ‘Little Boy’. Under the command of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the group would form at Wendover Army Airfield in Utah before transferring to their operational base at North Field on the Pacific island of Tinian.

By the end of July 1945, most components for ‘Little Boy’ had been delivered to Tinian by the USS Indianapolis. At the same time, diplomatic wrangling had all but ceased. Harry S. Truman, the newly-installed US President subsequently gave authorization to use the bomb. On the evening of 5th August 1945, Paul Tibbets had his gleaming B-29 painted with the name of his mother, Enola Gay; while at the same time, the men of his 509th Composite Group were being briefed on their mission and the expected power of ‘Little Boy’. Weeks of violent flying manoeuvres suddenly made sense.

Hiroshima had been selected as the Group’s target due to its geographical characteristics (being shielded by hills meant any blast would be heavily focussed). It had also been left untouched by the numerous incendiary bombings which had rained down on Japan in the preceding months. Hiroshima was an environment where bomb damage could be easily determined. Ultimately, it was expected that by bombing Hiroshima, Japan would surrender unconditionally.

Special Mission 13 got under way when three weather-monitoring B-29s took-off in the early hours of 6th August. At 02:45, Paul Tibbets eased his B-29 loaded with ‘Little Boy’ off North Field’s runway and on its 1,700 mile journey. The B-29′s would not return to Tinian for 13 hours.

Approaching Hiroshima at just over 32,000ft, Tibbets and the crews of his two accompanying B-29s (one carrying scientific measurement equipment and observers, and the other carrying photographic equipment) could see the city from 50 miles away. Despite being spotted by Japanese radar, ‘Enola Gay’ commenced her nine minute bomb run. Using the t-shaped Aioi Bridge as a target, ‘Little Boy’ was dropped at 0815 (Hiroshima time).

By the time it detonated 1,890ft above the city, ‘Enola Gay’ was almost twelve miles away. The ensuing shock-wave still managed to rock the B-29, though. Before long, the cloud left by the detonation had mushroomed nine miles into the sky, three miles higher than Enola Gay itself.

A slight crosswind had caused ‘Little Boy’ to drift by some 800 yards. It detonated over the Shima Surgical Clinic and totally destroyed every building within a one mile radius. US estimations put damage sustained at 4.7 square miles, while the Japanese claimed around 69% of the city’s buildings had been destroyed. Around 70,000-80,000 people were killed instantly, with many more eventually succumbing to the effects of radiation. Nevertheless, ‘Little Boy’ failed to persuade the Japanese to surrender. Sadly, it took another attack on Nagasaki two days later, before Japan finally capitulated.

Operation Chastise and the Dambusters

‘Chastise’ was the name given to a wartime operation five years in the making. It may read like a Boy’s Own adventure now, but the men of the Dambusters were true heroes.

In 1938, as Adolf Hitler prepared to take Germany into the Second World War, the British Air Ministry was making plans of its own. It had already selected the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley as a target for possible attack. It also knew that to render the region ineffective, bombers would have to destroy large parts. It was left to one Barnes Wallis to take the idea a step further.

Wallis, a scientist and engineer at Vickers Armstrong, came up with the idea of a ‘bouncing’ bomb while skimming pebbles in his garden in 1942. By April, he’d written a paper detailing his ‘Spherical Bomb – Surface Torpedo’ concept. The idea gathered momentum, and a year after testing and modifications, a cylindrical bomb known as ‘Upkeep’ was approved by the Air Ministry.
Due to the unconventional method by which it would be deployed, the RAF selected 21 expert bomber crews to form a brand new Squadron ‘X’. While its airmen wrongly believed their task was to sink the German battleship ‘Tirpitz’, their new leader knew otherwise.

Wing Commander Guy Gibson, a veteran of 170 bombing and night fighter sorties, was just 24 years of age when he assumed command of the squadron. Yet he knew that he was to lead one of the most audacious and dangerous operations ever undertaken by Bomber Command.

Squadron ‘X’ eventually became 617 Squadron based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. They were equipped with modified, light-weight Avro Lancaster Mk III aircraft. The most obvious alterations were the removal of the bomb bay doors and the fitting of two crutches and an auxiliary motor. Dummy ‘Upkeeps’ were slung beneath the fuselage of each aircraft and there followed weeks of low-level practice bombings of lakes up and down the country.

Three targets in the Ruhr Valley had been selected for bombing by Bomber Command. They were the Möhne, Sorpe and Eder Dams. By breaching the dams, widespread flooding, loss of hydro-electric power and the breakdown of Nazi Germany’s ability to wage war would follow. Still, it would require remarkable flying skills and pinpoint bomb aiming if the plan was to succeed.

The squadron’s Lancasters were divided into three groups. The first group of nine aircraft, led by Gibson, would attack the larger Möhne Dam. Any residual bombs left after a successful breach of the Möhne Dam would be dropped on the Eder Dam. The second group of five aircraft would then target the Sorpe Dam, with the third group acting as mobile reserves. The first bomber took off from Scampton just before nine-thirty on the evening of 16th May 1943. Operation Chastise had begun.

Gibson and his group reached the Möhne Dam around three hours after their departure from Scampton. After circling the dam to assess its defences, he assigned five Lancasters to the attack and commenced a dummy run. Commenting he “liked the look of it”, Gibson set off for his actual attack. The back-spinning mine (spun so that it lagged behind the bomber and held against the dam wall) bounced three times and exploded around 150ft short. Unfortunately, the dam remained intact.

By this time, the German flak defences had erupted in a hail of explosions. The second aircraft to attack Möhne Dam was hit and started to burn. Nevertheless, it continued its bomb run but dropped too late. The mine bounced over the dam and the aircraft crashed soon after.

Gibson took the decision that would later win him the Victoria Cross. Hoping to draw the flak away, he switched his Lancaster’s lights on and flew alongside each aircraft that made its bomb run. By the group’s fifth attempt, the ploy worked. A thousand foot plume of water sprayed skyward and Möhne’s structure collapsed allowing millions of gallons of water to cascade through a sizeable breach. Attention could turn towards Sorpe and Eder.

Eder Dam was eventually destroyed by several attempts which caused the loss of one Lancaster. Sorpe Dam remained doggedly intact but was costlier in terms of attempts. Two aircraft were subsequently destroyed and three others never made it there in the first place. What was left of the second group, together with elements of the third, completed their futile attack and returned to Scampton.

Of 617 Squadron’s 19 aircraft, eight never came back. Operation Chastise had cost the lives of 53 aircrew and almost 1,300 on the ground. It had also cost Nazi Germany the irritation of rebuilding its shattered hydro-electric power output. But for Barnes Wallis, Guy Gibson and the men of the Dambusters, it offered a worthy place in the annals of aviation history.

Duxford – An Aviation Museum within a Museum

The Imperial War Museum at Duxford has its origins in the First World War. It’s apt then, that this site of historical importance still preserves military history today.

In 1917, the British Government decided to establish a national war museum to collect, maintain and exhibit materiel from the Great War. At the same time, in response to an increased aerial threat from German bombers, Duxford Airfield (the future site for the Imperial War Museum) was being constructed as a training depot station for the fledgling Royal Air Force.

On its completion in August 1918, Duxford’s existence as an operational airfield was almost immediately threatened by the end of the war. Fortunately, thanks to its location and close links with the city of Cambridge (and its university); Duxford was quickly earmarked as a flying training school. It was subsequently equipped with a selection of Avro 504, Bristol F.2 fighter and de Havilland DH9 biplanes.

During the inter-war years, Duxford went through a period of significant change. The Royal Air Force established a Fighter Station and equipped its three squadrons with Sopwith Snipe, Armstrong Whitworth Siskin and Gloster Grebe aircraft. Cambridge University then created its ‘Air Squadron’ before the Government authorised the set up of a meteorological flight to enable more reliable weather forecasting.

On 6th July 1935 (the occasion of King George V’s Silver Jubilee), a flypast of some 350 aircraft took place at Duxford; among them, the RAF’s fastest fighter, the Gloster Gauntlet. Its display coincided with the end of biplane operations at Duxford.

In August 1938, with the airfield seemingly set for War Establishment, Duxford’s 19 Squadron received the RAF’s first delivery of Supermarine Spitfires. Two years later, at the height of the Battle of Britain, the Duxford Wing of Fighter Command would end up taking to the air three times in one day to intercept the Luftwaffe attacks.

After Hitler mistakenly turned his attention towards the bombing of London, Duxford became the base for the Air Fighting Development Unit. Under its tutelage, captured German aircraft were examined and new technologies trialled on prototype British aircraft such as the Hawker Typhoon.

By the mid-1940s and with the United States having entered hostilities, Duxford was handed over to the 8th Air Force and its 78th Fighter Group. Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and North American P-51 Mustangs soon arrived to churn up Duxford’s grass strip which the American’s promptly christened ‘Duckpond’.

After supporting the D-Day Landings and Arnhem parachute drops, the Americans left Duxford to be replaced once more by the RAF’s Spitfires. Two years after the end of the war, however, they were replaced by an altogether different type of aircraft; the first British jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor.

The RAF continued operations at Duxford until 1961 when it was finally demobilized as a fighter station. A decade later, the Imperial War Museum saw that the site could easily store and exhibit those items too large for its existing museum in London. And so, in 1971, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford was conceived.

Now exhibiting over 140 static aircraft in six hangars, Duxford is renowned as Europe’s premier aviation museum. Pioneering aircraft such as the prototype British Aircraft Corporation/Aerospatiale Concorde 101 sit beside such types as the ill-fated British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2. The museum isn’t only home to static aircraft, though.

Alongside hundreds of military vehicles and boats, Duxford remains an active civil airfield and regularly holds displays such as the popular ‘Flying Legends’ air show. It has also been the location for films and TV productions, the most notable of which was ‘The Battle of Britain’. This famous movie called for one of the airfield’s hangars to be completely destroyed during a scene recreating a German aerial attack.

Fortunately, such attacks weren’t as destructive during wartime; and almost a century on from its humble beginnings, Duxford remains a site of very special interest.

Image By User Asterion on en.wikipedia (photo by Asterion) [CC-BY-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

The 8th Air Force in Britain Ridgewells Story

The 8th Air Force undertook its first combat mission from a new British airfield just nine months after America entered World War II. By D-Day, this number stood at 39.

Hastily carved from East Anglia’s soil during 1942, these airfields were constructed far quicker than the 8th Air Force could be activated. This was evident at Ridgewell – the intended base for a newly-mobilized 381st Bomb Group and their fleet of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses.

While its men and equipment were being assembled at an equally-new Pyote Air Base in Texas, the British Royal Air Force Bomber Command 90 Squadron was already testing Ridgewell’s freshly-concreted runways with its Short Stirling bombers. However, omens didn’t look good when the first aircraft to use the airfield crash-landed.

By June 1943, the polished Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 381st Bomb Group began arriving over the Essex countryside. Several weeks later, 21 of their number climbed away on the group’s first combat mission – a diversionary raid on Antwerp in support of the 8th Air Force’s main attack on Kiel, Germany. This momentous event in Ridgewell’s history was quickly overshadowed, though.

The following day, whilst being primed for her second mission over occupied Europe, ‘Caroline’ (a Boeing B-17F of 533rd Squadron) suddenly exploded on the ground. Her accidental detonation cost the lives of 21 US servicemen and one British civilian.

Tragic events weren’t just confined to the ground. On 17th August 1943, exactly one year after the 8th Air Force’s first daylight raid on occupied Europe; 26 of Ridgewell’s Flying Fortresses joined an armada of 350 others for an ambitious two-pronged assault on the German industrial cities of Schweinfurt and Regensburg.

Pitted with peril from the outset, this ‘double strike’ mission cost the 8th Air Force a total of 60 aircraft and over 550 men. For the 381st Bomb Group, flying across Nazi Germany for several hours without the aid of allied fighter support had also taken its toll. Nine aircraft were lost – the highest of any other group on the Schweinfurt mission.

Despite its deadly purpose, RAF Ridgewell played the ever-composed host to over 3,000 people, most of whom were American males. Fifteen outlying sites had been constructed to accommodate the sleeping, eating and recreational habits of this burgeoning population. Nowhere was this more keenly felt than in the towns and village surrounding the base.

Occasionally, the local civilian population came close to being affected by the machinations of the 8th Air Force. This was starkly illustrated on 3rd January 1944 when a bomb-laden B-17 crashed on take-off, killing all those onboard. Fortunately for those on the ground, this curiously unnamed aircraft crashed in thick woodland.

The naming of B-17s was invariably left to the wistful imaginations of the Flying Fortress crews. While most were daubed with elaborate caricatures of curvy females, others were named in honour of prominent people or places. ‘Stage Door Canteen’ – named after a popular eatery in London’s West End – was just one of them.

A glitzy gathering of some of the best-known celebrities of the time took place in one of Ridgewell’s maintenance hangars. Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur Harris all looked on as Winston Churchill’s daughter, Mary, launched ‘Stage Door Canteen’ with the obligatory bottle of Coca Cola. This aircraft was just one of 346 individual B-17s which were based at Ridgewell during the Second World War.

At the end of hostilities, some 1,290 of the group’s men had sacrificed their young lives in the pursuit of freedom. RAF Ridgewell was just 22 months old when the last of its Flying Fortresses took off for their long journey back to the United States.

The airfield continued to be used for ordnance storage until the mid 1950s. Its runways and hangars were then broken up and dismantled. Today, just a section of the perimeter track and only a handful of buildings remain. The 8th Air Force may have scarred the landscape wherever it went, but it certainly helped to return Britain (and the world) to peace.

Anti-Aircraft Defenses of German U-Boats

In the early years of World War II, Germany’s U-Bootwaffes roamed, almost with impunity, the sea trade routes of the Western Allies, engaging and sinking their extremely vital ships at an alarming rate. It wasn’t until the Allies began to implement a sophisticated system of long rage, air patrols over the Atlantic that the tide of the submarine war finally began to turn in their favor.

Because most of Germany’s U-boat force was incapable of prolonged, submerged patrol times, they became easy targets for praying allied medium and heavy bombers covering the North Atlantic.

Engaging and hitting allied patrol airplanes became the sub’s main objective from late 1943 to the end of the war in May ’45. In an attempt to achieve this task, each boat was fitted with a vast array of defensive weapon systems.

The submarine’s main anti-aircraft weapon was the 2CM Flak Gun. Two basic designs of this uninspired looking but tremendously effective flak system were employed. The first operating 2CM was the No. 30. The thirty was a single barrel weapon with a 360 degree traverse and capable of a two degree depression and 90 degree elevation. It fired a 0.32kg shell capable of reaching distances of up to 12,350 meters. What made this weapon so effective was it impressive cycle rate of 480 rounds per minute.

The second improved version of the 2CM was Flak 38. Similar to the 30 but capable of reaching a cycle rate of 960 rounds per minute, the 38 was arguably the best German, light attack weapon of World War II.

Another light weapon used by U-Boats to fend-off attackers was the 3.7CM M/42 Flak Gun. In the bottom half of the war, most German submarines were fitted with the 42nd platform. It fired a .73Kg shell up to a distance of 15,350m. Maximum firing cycle was 50 rounds per minute.

Those two weapon systems accounted for almost 85 percentage of all hit allied aircraft. Official numbers regarding hit aircraft varies from source to source, but the most reliable figure (coming from British-generated documents released in the mid 1950s) puts the amount at 247 from the spring of 1944 to April 1945.

Although it was not intended as a primary anit-aircraft weapon, the vaunted 8.8CM Schiffskanone Deck Gun was also used in that role, especially towards the end of the war. This remarkable 8.8 gun employed by the German navy was not directly related to the more famous, 8.8 Acht-Acht flack gun utilized by the army as an anti-tank weapon. The CM was purely a naval gun developed in the waning days of World War One.

The gun was mounted on a low box, forward of the conning tower. It could traverse through a field of 360 degrees. Its -4 degrees depressed parameter and 30 degree elevation capacity were two of the most impressive features of this remarkable weapon. The gun fired a 13.7kg high explosive shell at a 700m/sec muzzle velocity. It had a solid impact range of up to 12,350m.

Manned by a three man crew, the CM was a powerful, horizontal weapon that when used against sea-based platforms, it caused heavy damage. As the U-Boats began to sustain alarming losses to Allied preying bombers, German crews commenced utilizing their main armament on incoming enemy aircraft. Although their use on that type of environment wasn’t tested before the war, the gun performed well.

Data on the numbers of downed allied aircraft hit by the 8.8CM is not reliable. But unofficial accounts put the numbers in the low 50s. Much of that amount was accounted for between the autumn of 1944 and the spring of 1945.

Aside from those three defensive weapons, German submarines carried a limited amount of small caliber fire arms including 9mm and 7.62mm hand guns. Nine mm machine guns and some 7.92mm rapid fire rifles. No data on hit aircraft by these weapons are available.

Of course, no weapon can be effective if the enemy isn’t spotted. For long range detection, the U-boats employed the Funkmessorungsgerat (Fu) MO-29 Radar. The MO-29 was used primarily on Type IV boats as well as some Type VIIs. The 29 was simple to utilize thanks to its twin horizontal rows of eight dipoles on the upper front part of the conning tower.

On the top row laid the transmitters and in the lower one, the receivers. An improved version of the 29 was introduced in the summer of 1942. In that version, known as No. 30, the diploes were replaced by a retractable antenna which was housed in a slot in the tower. Although relative powerful for the time, this system barely was able to detect surface vessels because of the low position of it’s mounting in respect to the horizon.

A more complex system, FuMB1 or the ‘Metox’ was introduced in the fall of 1942. This system was utilized in conjunction with a raw, wooden cross antenna strung with copper wire know as the ‘Biscay Cross’. But as with the early Fus platforms, this unit wasn’t that reliable. In fact, a case could be made that their use was highly detrimental to the sub’s survival thanks to the Metox’s volatile emissions which were easily detectable by Allied radars.

By November 1943, the Germans had finally developed what would become the world’s first true, all around naval radar. Born out of desperation, FuMB7 combined Metox and Naxos emissions to give U-boat commanders a first rate, long range detection system. Further enhancements were performed (the FuMB24 and 25) to the base MB7 giving it an extended operational radius.

Aside from the radar, maybe the most ingenious defensive measure used by German submarines was the Focke-Achgelis. The ‘Focke’ was basically a manned rotary glider with a triple blade rotor. It was as simple to operate as it was to assemble. Housed in a storage cylinder on the afterdeck, the Focke was quickly armed and launched. It remained connected to the U-boat by an umbilical cord. From its advantageous position high above the sub (10-12,000 feet), the pilot could spot any target approaching the boat. Unfortunately for the Focke, if the U-boat came under direct attack, there was no time to reel it in, thus the sub cut the cord and left the pilot to defend himself until all was cleared to surface back again.

More effective than the Focke-Achgelis was the Aphrodite. It was a basic devise consisting of a large (one meter diameter) hydrogen-filled balloon from which dangled small strips of metal foil. It was attached to the sub by way of an anchor weight. Its main purpose was to confuse allied aircraft utilizing radar navigational systems.

Air Attack on the German Oil Industry

The swift focus of the Allied bomber campaign against the German’s oil industry had immediate and far-reaching effects, compared with the 175,000 tons of aviation fuel it produced in April 1944. In June of that same year, German oil production fell to just over 55,000 tons, less than a third of the previous years output. Unless something was done, and done very soon, the Luftwaffe could find itself with insufficient aviation fuel to continue to sustain air operations. As an initial move to change the situation, large numbers of anti-aircraft batteries were transferred from other areas inside Germany, to protect the oil industry refineries. The 14th Flak division was assigned responsibility for the defense of the industry district at Leipzig, which included the most vaunted oil production plants at Leuna-Merseburg, Bohlen, Troglitz, Espenhain and Mucheln. All would receive the bulk of the anti aircraft pieces, a move made in order to strengthen the Division. By the beginning of May, the Division had in its possession 374 heavy caliber guns, 342 of the 8.8cm caliber, 24 of 10.5cm and 8 of 12.8cm caliber. Immediately after the combined allied offensive against the oil industry commenced, the energetic General Adolf Gerlach was appointed to the command of the Division. He received a visit from Riechsminiter Albert Speer, who made it clear that unless the sector refineries were kept working, the war was as good as lost. When Gerlach assumed command of the Division, there had been 104 heavy guns protecting the large Leuna-Merserburg production complex, he demanded, and received, sufficient weapons to bring about a six fold strengthening of the flack defenses ringing that particular target.

Having secured as much of the larger guns he needed, Gerlach set about to increase its tactical effectiveness. During the attack at the plant, US heavy bombers dropped huge quantities of “chaff” and radiated a cacophony of noise jamming that effectively neutralized the German Wuzburg flack control radar system. As a result of this tactic, during day bombing, the gunners were forced to abandon the use of radar-laid fire and resorted to optical predicted fire. If the clouds and enemy countermeasures prevented accurate predicted fire, the gunners would put up a box barrage. All guns fire at the same point in the sky just short of where it was calculated that the bombers would release the bombs, by disrupting the bombing run in this way, the accuracy of the attack could be greatly reduced. This method was highly extravagant in the use of ammunitions, however, and it was permitted to be used only in the direct defense of high priority targets such as oil refineries. US bomber crews rated the oil refineries and chemical plants around Leipzig as the most heavily defended areas against air attack. In addition to these active defense measures, passive measures were also introduced to lessen the effects of the constant bombing. Concrete reinforced blast walls were built around items of vulnerable machinery, and a warren of deep shelters under the plants enable its workers to remain near at hand during the bombing attacks and emerge afterwards to extinguish the fires before they took hold. Although by this time the German Army was short of skilled manpower, they shifted seven thousand engineers for employment in rapid repair brigades at the refineries and a large number of slave workers, primarily Russian prisoners of war, were drafted in to assist with this work. Finally, to ensure that morale at these facilities did not flag under the intense Allied bombardment, the work force came under “special supervision” from Heinrich Himmler’s feared Security Service.

As a further measure to safeguard German’s precious oil production, Edmund Geilenberg was appointed head of a far reaching program to build a network of new refineries that would be far less vulnerable to air bombardment. For the indispensable production of aviation fuel, he and his staff laid plans for the construction of seven underground hydro generation plants. Lower grade motor fuel was to be produced in 41 much smaller facilities situated above ground but widely dispersed in woods and quarries, each carefully camouflaged and individually too small to make an attractive target to the bombers. Geilenberg made full use of the authority given to him to tale labor and materials from other industries, and his labor force was built up rapidly to more than a third of a million workers. He was planning to have several of the motor fuel producing plants ready to enter service by the autumn of 1944, but despite great efforts by Geilenberg and his staff, the first underground plant was not due to produce aviation fuel until well into the spring of 1945. In fact, no aviation fuel came from this source as the war ended on April 1945. During this period, German rocket fighters went into action several times in defense of refineries in the Leipzig area. On the 16th of August, the US Eighth Air Force, known as the Mighty Eight, put up a thousand bombers to attack a spread of targets in central Germany, including the oil refineries at Bohlen. Five Me 163s were scrambled, and two were promptly shot down without inflicting any damage to the raiding force.

The Messerschmitt 163 achieved its first aerial victory just one week after the event, on August 24th. Eight of the smaller fighters took off from fields on Brandis to engage a bomber force of some 185 B-17s running into attack the refinery at Marseburg. Feldwebel Siegfried Schubert carried out a successful interception of the force and shot down two Flying Fortresses, other pilots from the same unit shot down two more units. Two Me 163s were damaged, one by return fire from a B-17 gunner and the other by a landing accident. It had been a successful day for this new jet fighter and seemed to be important for its future as a bomber-destroyer airplane. But in the end, when the Me163s scored four bombers destroyed that day, were to be the high mark point of its operational career. On September 24, Squadron 400 reported that it had nineteen Messerschmitt Me 163s in operation, of which just eleven were serviceable. By that time over a hundred of these jet fighters had been delivered to the Luftwaffe, and it is clear that the factor limiting operational employment was not aircraft but trained pilots. Now it was clear that the hope for salvation for the German Fighter Force was not going to come from this quarter. During September, Squadron 400 operated on five different occasions, the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and the 28th. The largest of these operations was the last one, when nine of the diminutive planes were committed.

The relative short range of the Me 163 meant that accurate ground control was essential if the fighters were to be used effectively. Such controled operations was not always forthcoming, however, and only a small proportion of the fighters reached firing positions. During September 1944, the Me 163 program suffered a disaster from which it would never recover fully. In bombings attacks on the towns of Leverkusen and Ludwigshaven that month, two of the main sources of hydrazine and hydrate suffered serious damage and production was greatly reduced by it. For the remainder of the war, shortages of this chemical fuel would dog the 163. A major competitor for this limited chemical fuel was the Fi 103 flying bomb, which used it to power the catapult system that fires them into the air. The Fi 103 enjoyed a higher priority for supplies than the Me 163 programs. At the same time, the piston engine fighter units continued to mount defensive attacks against bomber formations, and from time to time they were able to pick their way past the American fighter screens and deliver their special brand of saturation attacks on an unexpected bomber. On September 27th, Squadron 4 delivered a sharp attack on the 445th Bomber group and in three furious minutes, it shot down 28 Liberator bombers out of a total of 37 dispatched. It would be the heaviest loss ever suffered by the US Bomber Group on a single mission. On the following day, the Squadron No. 3 assailed the 41st Combat Wing and shot down eighteen Flying Fortresses before the arrival of strong forces of escorts, preventing the slaughter to continue. Just over a week later, October 6th, a Squadron drawn from the 4th and 300th fought a similarly brisk battle with the 4th combat Bomber Wing and shot down fourteen B-17s.

Despite that such actions brought disaster upon the individual bomber units involved, their effect on the US bombing offensive as a whole was not. During the three days mentioned before, heavy bombers of the US Eight Army Air Forces flew a grand total of 3,275 successful sorties for a loss of some 81 units, less than 2.5 percent of the total. And that, it must be stressed, was on three days when the German defenders were relatively successful. Each passing day, when the weather permitted, the US Eighth and Thirteen Air Forces would send more than a thousand heavy bombers to attack targets across Germany and the occupied territories and on most days, losses were less than 1 percent of the total force involved. The German night fighter force had not recovered from the neutralization of its early warning radar system when it suffered a further calamity. The loss of French territory to the Allies had torn a gapping hole on Germany’s early tracking radar chain, which the Royal Air Force now exploited by routing bombers from that direction during attack on the south and western parts of Germany. Even as signals personnel struggled to reposition radar dishes to plug this breach there came a further blow; the fuel famine started to take effect and forced a curtailment of night fighter activities.

Then, to add to the worsening situation, No 100 Group of the RAF began to make its present felt during the night air battles. The Group operated five squadrons of heavy bombers modified into special jamming aircrafts, B-17 Fortresses, B-24 Liberators, Halifaxes and Stirlings. These aircraft were able to carry a large quantity of “windows” of all types, as well as noise-jamming equipment to counter the German’s Wurzburg fire control system and the Freya, Mammut, Wassermann and Jagdschloss radars that made up the German early warning chains. In addition, some of the aircraft carried “Jostle”, a high power jammer to blot out the night fighter’s radio communication channels. No 100 comprised of six squadrons of Mosquito night fighters carrying special systems to enable them to operate against their Luftwaffe counterparts deep inside the Third Reich. Homing on to radar emissions was a game that two could play, and in addition to AI radar some of the Mosquitos carried “Serrate”, which enabled them to home in on emissions from the German night fighter’s SN-2 radars. Other Mosquitos carried “Perfectos”, which transmitted interrogating pulses to trigger the identification friend or foe (IFF) sets of German aircraft in the area. When Germans IFF sets replied, their signals betrayed the range and bearing of the aircraft and identified it to the Mosquito crews as hostile. Several German aircrafts were shot down following “Perfectos” contacts, and many others were lost when German crews, having heard of the system, flew with IFF switched off and were shot down by their own flak.

But despite the presence of the Mosquito in the night battles, the German night fighter force suffered a far lower rate of attrition than its day fighter counterparts. But No. 100 group’s operation imposed considerable pressure on the German defenses, which in combination with the other factors, allowed the RAF night bombers to operate at will over the German sky with minimal losses. Throughout this period, the German oil industry was hit hard and repeatly. An example of the fate of the German oil industry, in the hands of the Allied bombing offensive happened in the spring of 1944, when one of the largest producers of synthetic oil, the Amoniakwerk Merseburg plant at Leuna, who produced about one sixth of the total German production. The huge plant sprawled over an area of 757 acres, and in addition to liquid fuels it produced ammonia, methanol and various types of industrial alcohol from coke and brown coal. The first large scale attack that happened at the plant was from 224 Flying Fortresses of the Eighth Air Force, which took place on May 12th, even before the Allied main offensive against the German oil industry began. That initial attack brought a halt to fuel production. During the next six months, the plant was attacked twelve more times. Time after time the plant was hit hard and production halted, as if one of the prize-fighters had been knocked to the ground. But each time it picked itself up and production resumed. At first the recovery was quickly and almost complete, but as the accumulation of punishment began to tell, the recovery became progressively slower and less complete.

Compared with 175,000 tons of aviation fuel produced in April, in August there were only 16,000 tons and in September a mere 7,000 tons. Throughout that summer, the Luftwaffe kept going on its fat, the reserves of over half a million tons of aviation fuel it had accumulated previously. With consumption running far in excess of production, by the beginning of September more than half this reserve had been consumed; from a high point of about 580,000 tons at the beginning of May, stocks were only about 180,000 tons at the end of September. Now the harsh reality of the shortfall of fuel production could not be avoided. Operation by the Luftwaffes medium and heavy bombers were sharply curtailed, the use of aerial reconnaissance was limited, air operations in support of the Army were permitted only in decisive situations, and the number of night fighter sorties was cut back. Only day fighter operations in defense of the Fatherland were allowed to continue at their previous level. Meanwhile, in Germany the production of combat aircrafts, and in particular fighter types, had risen to unprecedented levels. The Luftwaffe was about to stage a remarkable recovery in fighting strength.

An article by Raul Colon: rcolonfrias@yahoo.com

The Blackburn Baffin

The Blackburn Baffin’s design was directly influenced by the early versions of the Ripon torpedo/bomber platform. But unlike the underpowered Ripon, the Baffin B-5, as the aircraft was marked, was sufficiently equipped for its proposing operational role.

Inspired by alterations performed on Ripons in Finland, Major FA Bumpus, the chief designer of the B-5; decided to incorporate into the new aircraft a full radial engine. In those early days of aviation, the water cooled inline plants were the power plant of choice.

Bumpus’ effort resulted in a frontline, two-seat single bay biplane torpedo-bomber of mixed metal and wood construction. The British aviation pioneer began working on his blue print in the summer of 1931. By August 1932, he developed his first prototype which made its first flight on the afternoon of September 30th. After a brief series of successful tests, the Royal Navy issued Order No. 168, calling for the delivery of 25 Baffins within one year.

Full production of the plane was achieved in February 1933, with the first batch, twenty nine aircraft, delivered between the summer and winter. Beside the brand new Baffin, sixty Ripons were converted to the new standard. The British Navy began assimilating the B-5 into its force from early 1934.

The first unit to be reequipped with the Baffin was No. 812 Squadron operating out of HMS Glorious. HMS Courageous (No. 820 Squadron), Eagle (812) and Furious (811) also fitted their air arms with the B-5.

Although the aircraft entered World War II in an active mode, it never saw combat operations. In fact, the Navy was deeply submerged in the process of removing it from service when the Germans invaded Poland.

In 1937, the New Zealand commonwealth pursed 29 B-5s from England in order to bolster their Territorial Air Force stationed at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The New Zealand air force employed the type as a reconnaissance platform at the outset of the war. But due to its lack of power and low survivability ratio, the plane was removed from frontline service in 1941.

No sample of this remarkable aircraft remains today.

Power plant: One Bristol 565hp Pegasus IM3 radial engine
Length: 11.68m
Height: 3.91m
Wingspan: 13.88m
Total wing area: 63.45m (square)
Maximum takeoff weight: 3,452kg
Top speed: 219kph
Service ceiling: 4,570m
Climb rate: 146m per minute
Operational range: 869 nautical miles
Armament: One fixed .303″ forward firing Vickers machine gun. One .303 Lewis machine gun in the rear cockpit. Total bomb load was 907kg.

An article by Raul Colon: rcolonfrias@yahoo.com

The Forgotten Saunders Roe A-27 ‘London’

Only thirty one units of the Saunders Roe A.27 ‘London’ biplane flying boat were built for the Royal Air Force Costal Command. The RAFCC,operated the type from 1936 to the fall of 1941. The ‘London’ is another sample of an aircraft which was obsolete before it reached front line units.

The Saro A.27 was conceived in response of Great Britain’s Air Ministry Specification order R-24/31 that called for “a general purpose open sea patrol flying boat”. Based on Saunders’ questionable Severn A.7 model, the London was destined to become one of England’s last operational flying boat platforms.

The first flight of an A.27 took place in 1934. The unit was fitted with two powerful Bristol Pegasus II radial engines mounted on the center upper top part of the wing structure.

The first ten units delivered to the RAF were designated Mk Is and were powered by a larger set of engines, the Bristol Pegasus III. They were easy to recognize by their polygonal cowlings and two-bladed propellers. The next generation of the ‘London’, the Mk II, carried the Pegasus X engines which had a circular cowling look with a four blade configuration. The Mk II would become the aircraft’s most produced (20 units) model. Construction of the II ran until the summer of 1938. The remaining I’s were converted to model II specifications from May of that same year.

The first operational A.27s were assigned to the No. 201 Squadron at Calshot where they replaced the venerable Supermarine Southampton. No. 204 squadron at Mount Batten also received deployments of the London. In 1937, five A.27s of the No. 201′s were selected to represent the RAF on the 150th anniversary of the founding of the State of New South Wales.

Between the spring of 1937 and the autumn of 1938, the 204 Squadron utilized five, specially modified Londons for long distance training missions. The converted A.27, carrying external auxiliary fuel tanks, flew from the British capital to Australia demonstrating the type’s long range operational capability. The round trip covered 48,280km in distance.

The London was still on active, frontline service when World War II broke in 1939.
All A.27s were primarily used as maritime reconnassaince platforms. Operating mainly on the North Sea and in the western Mediterranean Sea, they scanned the vast sea lanes in search for signs of the dreaded U-boats.

Aircrafts based at Gibraltar served until April 1941, when they were replaced by the more modern Consolidated Catalina flying boats.
Beside the RAF, the Royal Canadian Air Force utilized the aircraft during the mid stages of the Second World War.

Powerplant: Two Bristol 1,055ho Pegasus X radial piston engine
Armament: Three 0.303in heavy machine guns located on the bow and an amidships. Total bomb load was up to 907kg.
Length: 17.31m
Height: 5.72m
Wingspan: 24.38m
Total wing area: 132.38m square
Maximum takeoff weight: 8,346kg
Top operational speed: 249kph
Service ceiling: 6,065m
Operational range: 2,800km
Climb rate: 360m per minute
Crew complement: Five

An article by Raul Colon: rcolonfrias@yahoo.com

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