Combined Bomber Offensive

Both the British and the US (through the Air War Plans Division) had drawn up their plans for attacking the Axis powers. The British Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) published the ''Bombers' Baedeker'' in 1942 that identified the "bottleneck" German industries of oil, communications, and ball bearings; a second edition followed in 1944. At the January 1943 Casablanca Conference the Combined Chiefs of Staff agreed to conduct the "Bomber Offensive from the United Kingdom" and the British Air Ministry issued the Casablanca directive on 4 February with the object of: After initiating the preparation of a U.S. targeting plan on December 9, 1942; on March 24, 1943, General "Hap" Arnold, the USAAF Commander requested target information from the British, and the "Report of Committee of Operations Analysts" was submitted to Arnold on March 8, 1943 and then to the Eighth Air Force commander as well as the British Air Ministry, the MEW and the Royal Air Force (RAF) commander. The COA report recommended 18 operations during each three-month phase (12 in each phase were expected to be successful) against a total of 6 vulnerable target systems consisting of 76 specific targets. The six systems were 1) German submarine construction yards and bases, 2) German aircraft industry, 3) ball bearing manufacture, 4) oil production, 5) synthetic rubber and tires, and 6) military transport vehicle production. Using the COA report and information from the MEW, in April 1943 an Anglo-American committee (composed of British Chiefs of Staff and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff) under Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker; led by Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell, Jr.; and including Brig. Gen. Orvil A. Anderson completed a plan for the "Combined Bomber Offensive from the United Kingdom", which projected the US bomber strength for the four phases (944, 1,192, 1,746, & 2,702 bombers) through to 31 March 1944. Eaker added a summary and final changes (into the "Intermediate Objectives" section), such as: ==CBO Plan==

A committee under Eaker, led by Hansell and including Brig. Gen. Orvil A. Anderson, drew up a plan for Combined Bomber Operations. Finished in April 1943, the plan recommended 18 operations during each three-month phase (12 in each phase were expected to be successful) against 76 specific targets. The plan also projected the US bomber strength for the four phases (944, 1,192, 1,746, and 2,702 bombers) through 31 March 1944. Eaker's "Combined Bomber Offensive Plan" was "a document devised to help Arnold get more planes and men for the 8th Air Force" and not "designed to affect British operations in any substantive way." on October 9, 1943. (p. 465) -->p=206}} While the CBO Plan was being developed, the British independently drew up a plan in April 1943 entitled "The Attack on the GAF" which identified German fighter strength as "the most formidable weapon...against our bomber offensive" and advocated attacks on airfields and aircraft factories, The document recommended attacks on 34 airfields that were within range of the Rhubarb and Circus operations. The plan identified ten towns as suitable for attack by high level daytime bombing followed by RAF night attacks and may have influenced target selection by the Eighth AF (and, later, the Ninth AF). The Combined Chiefs of Staff approved the "Eaker Plan" on May 19, 1943, and identified six specific "target systems" such as the German aircraft industry (including fighter strength): :1. Intermediate objectives ::German fighter strength :2. Primary objectives: ::German submarine yards and bases ::The remainder of the German aircraft industry ::Ball bearings ::Oil (contingent upon attacks against Ploiești) :3. Secondary objectives: ::Synthetic rubber and tires ::Military motor transport vehicles ==Pointblank directive (PBD)==

On 14 June 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued the Pointblank directive which modified the February 1943 Casablanca directive. Along with the single-engine fighters of the CBO plan, Among the factories listed were the Regensburg Messerschmitt factory (which would be attacked at high cost in August), the Schweinfurter Kugellagerwerke ball-bearing (attacked in October and also causing heavy USAAF losses) and the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke (WNF) which produced Bf 109 fighters. ==Beginning of operations==

The Combined Bomber Offensive began on 10 June 1943 during the British bombing campaign against German industry in the Ruhr area known as the "Battle of the Ruhr". Pointblank operations against the "intermediate objective" began on 14 June, The Germans built large-scale night-time decoys like the Krupp decoy site (German: Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) which was a German decoy-site of the Krupp steel works in Essen. During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied airstrikes from the actual production site of the arms factory. Losses during the first months of Pointblank operations and lower-than-planned U.S. bomber production resulted in Chief of the Air Staff Sir Charles Portal complaining about the 3-month CBO delay at the Cairo Conference, where the British refused a U.S. request to place the CBO under a "single Allied strategic air commander," as they did not want to interfere with, nor be part of, a decision they deemed unwise and purely of American military origin. After Arnold submitted the October 9, 1943 "Plan to Assure the Most Effective Exploitation of the Combined Bomber Offensive" on October 22 the "Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff" signed orders to raid "the aircraft industries in the southern Germany and Austria regions". July 1943 was the first time that the USAAF would coordinate a raid on the same location as the RAF. They were to fly two daylight missions against industrial targets (U-boat pens and yards) in Hamburg following the opening raid of the RAF campaign against Hamburg. However fires started by the night's bombing obscured the targets and the USAAF "were not keen to follow immediately on the heels of RAF raids in the future because of the smoke problem". In October 1943 Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, C-in-C of RAF Bomber Command writing to his superior urged the British government to be honest to the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign and openly announce that: On February 13, 1944, the CCS issued a new plan for the "Bomber Offensive", which no longer included German morale in the objective: "The subject of morale had been dropped and [the number of cities with targets] gave me a wide range of choice. ... the new instructions therefore made no difference" to RAF Bomber Command operations (Arthur Harris). The February 13 plan was given the code name Argument, and after the weather became favorable on February 19, Argument operations were conducted during "Big Week" (February 20–25). Harris claimed the Argument plan was not "a reasonable operation of war", and the Air Staff had to order Harris to bomb the Pointblank targets at Schweinfurt. In practice the USAAF bombers made large scale daylight attacks on factories involved in the production of fighter aircraft. The Luftwaffe was forced into defending against these raids, and its fighters were drawn into battle with the bombers and their escorts. ==Pointblank operations==

fighter had both the range to escort bomber formations deep into Germany and the performance to take on German fighters. single-engine fighter targeted by Pointblank. Following the heavy losses (about a quarter of the aircraft) of "Black Thursday" (14 October 1943), the USAAF discontinued strikes deep into Germany until an escort was introduced that could follow the bombers to and from their targets. In 1944, the USAAF bombers—now escorted by Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and North American P-51 Mustangs—renewed their operation. Eaker gave the order to "Destroy the enemy air force wherever you find them, in the air, on the ground and in the factories." The campaign did not achieve its strategic objective, and coupled with the RAF's unsustainable losses (7–12% of aircraft committed to the large raids), the official British historians identified it as an operational defeat for the RAF. At the end of Battle of Berlin, Harris was obliged to commit his heavy bombers to the Transport Plan attacks on lines of communications in France as part of the preparations for the Normandy Landings and the RAF would not return to begin the systematic destruction of Germany until the last quarter of 1944. Pointblank outcome Operation Pointblank showed that Germany's aircraft and ball bearings plants were not very vulnerable to air attack. Its production of synthetic rubber, ammunition, nitrogen, and ethyl fluid was concentrated in fewer factories and would likely have been much more vulnerable. Despite bombing, "German single-engine fighter production ... for the first quarter of 1944 was 30% higher than for the third quarter of 1943, which we may take as a base figure. In the second quarter of 1944, it doubled; by the third quarter of 1944, it had tripled, in a year's time. In September 1944, monthly German single-engine fighter production reached its wartime peak – 3031 fighter aircraft. Total German single-engine fighter production for 1944 reached the amazing figure of 25,860 ME-109s and FW-190s" (William R. Emerson). According to Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, Big Week and the subsequent attack on the aircraft industry reduced "the fighting capacity of the Luftwaffe" through threatening the bombing of strategic targets and "leaving the German fighters with no alternative other than to defend them" but "the combat was primarily fought and certainly won" by the US long range fighters. ==Overlord air plan==

During the "winter campaign against the German aircraft industry ... January 11 [-] February 22, 1944", review began on the initial air plan for the Overlord which omitted the requirement "to seek air superiority before the landings were attempted." Instead, the plan was to bomb communications targets (primary) and rail yards and repair facilities (secondary). Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, who would command the tactical element of the invasion air forces had been assigned the responsibility on June 26, 1943, for drafting the plan, and at the February 14, 1944, meeting regarding the Overlord air plan, he claimed German fighters would defend and be defeated during the attacks on rail yards, and if not, air superiority would instead be won over the D-Day beaches. Sir John Kennedy and Andrew Noble countered that the military fraction of rail traffic was so small that no amount of railyard bombing would significantly impact operations. As endorsed on March 6 by the MEW and the U.S. Mission for Economic Affairs, Spaatz again proposed that "execution of the oil plan would force the enemy to reduce oil consumption ... and ... fighting power" during Overlord. During the trial raids of May 12 and May 28, German fighters heavily defended the oil targets, and after the invasion had not begun during the good weather of May, Luftwaffe fighters in France were recalled to defend Reich industry. The German plan was to await the invasion and then, "on the cue words 'Threatening Danger West'," redeploy fighter strength back to unused French air bases when needed against the invasion. The last two Jagdgeschwader 26 Fw 190As, piloted by Josef Priller and his wingman Heinz Wodarczyk, that were to be recalled conducted two of the very sparse Luftwaffe day sorties over the Normandy beaches on D-day, On April 12, 1945, Strategic Bombing Directive No. 4 ended the strategic bombing campaign in Europe. ==See also==