In December 1943, the weather continued to restrict the
operations of the Fifteenth Air Force, and the POINTBLANK program suffered
especially. Airdromes were the principal target, with several attacks being
made against GAF bases near Athens. The Fiat Ball Bearing Works at Turin, which
had been twice raided in November, was visited again by 118 B-17’s for the
first mission of the month on 1 December. Coverage of the target by some 354
tons of bombs was regarded as complete by the returning bombers, and later
reconnaissance reported considerable damage to the factory. Prior to these
attacks, the Fiat plant was supposed to produce forty percent of all the ball
bearings available to Germany; it was now believed that two months output had
been eliminated.
The Rome/Casale airdrome was attacked without opposition on
3 December by a small force of Liberators dropping 32.24 tons of fragmentation
and 16 tons of GP bombs. On the 6th, a series of raids on the Athenian
airdromes began with attacks on the field installations at Athens/Eleusis and
Athens/Kalamaki. The attack on Eleusis was made by 45 B-17’s escorted by 33
P-38’s. Fragmentation bombs were dropped with fair success, but the photo
coverage was not good; an exact estimate seems to be lacking. The Kalamaki
airdrome vas first bombed by 500-pound GP bombs, then hit by 4,250
fragmentation bombs. Dust and debris made it difficult to assess the damage. In
both cases, these attacks provoked a certain GAF reaction, but the air battles
were usually small affairs and not very costly to either side.
Another attack was made on the Greek fields on the 8th.
Eleusis was raided again and well covered with 8,172 fragmentation bombs. The
Athens/Tatoi field revealed a concentration of 42 aircraft, and so it was hit
by 38 Liberators dropping 4,000 of the 20-pound antiaircraft and antipersonnel
bombs. It was estimated that fourteen aircraft were destroyed on the ground,
including seven bomber-transport types. Later reconnaissance confirmed this and
credited the attacking forces with wiping out twenty-one aircraft at the
Eleusis airdrome. Again on the 14th, Liberators and Fortresses of the Fifteenth
attacked the three Athenian fields with P-38 and P-47 escorts. Tatoi was well
covered and seven hangars received direct hits or near misses; the runway and
west dispersal area were a mass of smoke and debris as the bombers retired from
the area. Kalamaki was hit by the largest task force (76 bombers) of the three,
dropping 224.5 tons of 500-pound GP explosives. Between 15 and 20 FW-190’s and
Me-109’s were encountered over the target, with 8 claimed as destroyed. During
the attack, twenty-nine enemy planes were counted on the airfield of which
eight were destroyed and seven believed damaged. There were heavy concentrations
of hits on the hangar area, storage facilities, landing strips and runways, and
dispersal areas.
A final blow was struck on the 20th when Eleusis was heavily
bombed by a task force of 109 B-17’s escorted by 66 P-38’s. The defense was the
stiffest yet encountered over the Greek airdromes. Both flak and planes were
well controlled, and the tactics had obviously been planned in advance by
experienced personnel. The bombing was considered successful; many buildings
were struck and the field was well holed. Three bombers were lost.
A final blow was struck at airfields when Medium bombers of
the Fifteenth (the 17th and 319th groups) attacked Guidonia and Centecello on
28 December. Strike photos showed eighteen aircraft on the ground at Guidonia
with seven destroyed and one damaged. The bomb pattern covered the field. At
Centecello, bomb strikes were distributed over the southeast side of the field
only.
Although the weather interfered with operations to a
considerable extent in December, the growing strength of both the Eighth and
the Fifteenth Air Forces as well as the use of H2X equipment made possible a
much heavier bomb load delivered than in November. Several missions of
well over 400 planes were mounted by the VIII Bomber Command; approximately 12,000
tons of explosives were dropped. The Fifteenth dispatched 1,598 effective
sorties, dropping some 4,300 tons. Nevertheless, POINTBLANK operations were
practically nil except for the raids on Greek and Italian airdromes by XV
Bomber Command. Of the some 18,000 tons dropped by both strategic air forces,
only around 1,800 tons fell on POINTBLANK targets. A British source
estimated that this phase of the CBO was about three months behind schedule,
and the Fifteenth Air Force warned that if the offensive against the German
fighter industry were not followed up by more attacks, production would
reattain the July levels by February 1944.
There is no doubt that General Arnold was seriously
concerned. When RAF Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory visited him in
November, he had been very emphatic in his demands for greater action against
Luftwaffe, indeed what with our great material superiority. Although more and
more bombers were being sent out and more bombs were being dropped, Arnold was
not satisfied with the results. He believed there had been too many
diversionary raids, especially in the case of the Eighth Air Force, against
targets such as submarine pens that not contribute to the destruction of the
German Air Force. In a message to the commanding generals of the Eighth
and Fifteenth, he stated:
“It is a conceded fact that an invasion will not be possible unless the
German Air Force is destroyed. Therefore, my personal message to you —this is a MUST — is to DESTROY THE ENEMY AIR FORCES WHEREVER YOU FIND
HIM on the ground, in the air and HIS FACTORIES.”
It seems likely that the slow progression of POINTBLANK also
affected the decision on command problem that had been concerning the American
and British staffs for some time. When the activation of a strategic air force
in Italy was being considered, several plans were put forward by the American
authorities to establish some sort of overall control for the various air
organizations operating in Europe. Failing to convince the British of the
desirability of setting up a supreme air commander for all American air forces
and the RAF Bomber Command, General Arnold argued that strategic operations
would be greatly facilitated if the Eighth and Fifteenth were under a unified
control. This question was discussed throughout October and November with
considerable opposition to the proposal coming from the British, and from
Genera Eaker. Early in December, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff rejected the British
objections, indicating their intentions of setting up a unified strategic
control for Army air forces in the European Theater. In their memo to Combined
Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that “these forces
should be employed primarily against POINTBLANK objectives as the Combined
Chiefs of Staff may from time to time direct.” It seems reasonable to assume
that General Arnold’s vocal dissatisfaction with the progress of the offensive
against the Germans was one of the factors that led him to favor this new
arrangement.
What would ensue was a rash of new commands and a rapid
shuffling of commanders. It had now been decided to reorganize the air
command in the Mediterranean; on 10 December 1943, the Mediterranean Allied Air
Forces (MAAF) was officially authorized. This command, under Air Marshall
Sir Arthur Tedder, with Lt. Gen. Spaatz as deputy, consisted of the Fifteenth
and Twelfth Air Forces, the Coastal Air Force (U.S., British, and French
units), and the RAF Middle East Air Force, totaling approximately some 12,500
aircraft and 321,000 men (January 1944).
Almost immediately after the formation of MAAF, however, its
command was changed. In a major reorganization of his commands, Gen.
Spaatz and Air Marshall Tedder were brought to England, and General Eaker was
moved from the Eighth to command MAAF with RAF Air Marshall Sir John Slessor as
his deputy. These final changes were not completed until the middle of
January.
The Cairo Conference of November 1943, attended by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Chaing
Kai-shek of the Republic of China, among other issues related to the war in the
Pacific, sanctioned the creation of MAAF and also gave formal approval to the
centralized control of strategic operations in Europe. General Arnold had long
desired such control. The official directive activating the U.S. Strategic Air
Forces in Europe (USSAF later USSTAF) was issued 5 January1944. USSTAF
was to come under the Supreme Allied Commander (SAC) at a future date; in the
meantime, all POINTBLANK operations would be coordinated by Air Marshal Portal
acting as agent of the CCS for both British and American forces. Under his
direction, General Spaatz, commander of USSTAF, would direct strategic
activities of the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, coordinating the latter’s
activities as far as possible with the operations of the Allied
Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, Sir Harry Maitland Wilson. In case of
a strategic or tactical emergency, General Wilson was empowered to use the
Fifteenth Air Force as he saw fit; but for the rest, he was required to provide
it full support in POINTBLANK missions, its first priority. It was soon
arranged that General Spaatz would deal with the Fifteenth only through MAAF,
and General Eaker would have operational control of this force subject to CBO
directives.
Issuing these directives was the responsibility of Air
Marshal Portal. Joint Anglo-American committees prepared studies of the
various targets and presented evaluations of missions. Their recommendations
finally went to the Joint Target Committee which prepared the directives for
Portal’s signature. The directives were received by USSTAF and then reprocessed
to the Eighth and Fifteenth. General Spaatz and his deputy commander for
operations, Maj. Gen. F. L. Anderson, controlled the order of selection of
targets.
In some ways, the problems and duties facing the new
commanding general of MAAF were much more involved than the situation in the
United Kingdom had been, and it did not take General Eaker long to discover
this. He wrote in March:
“This is a new kettle of fish from U.K. The job there was clean-cut. We
had really but one major program: to deliver the maximum bomb load against
German industry. Here we have three primary tasks and many, many
subsidiary ones. The primary tasks are: the accomplishment of POINTBLANK
with the Strategic Air Force; the support of land armies in battle with
the Tactical Air Force; and keeping the sea lanes open and protecting the
logistic establishments with the Coastal Command. In addition, we have
such odorous morsels, or secondary commitments, as re-equipping the French,
maximum lift to the Balkan partisans, moving out of Africa and leaving the
African war behind and moving into Italy and getting on with the
continental war.”
Furthermore, the demands of the land battle in Italy
frequently cut into the strategic bombing operations. Thus, when General
Eaker arrived at MAAF Headquarters, he found the Fifteenth involved in an
extensive attack on airdromes in preparation for the Anzio landings on 22 January,
and this continued into February. Indeed, a great deal could be written during
this period about the constant tug-of-war that went on between the often-conflicting
demands on MAAF’s vast reservoir of air power. There were conflicts between
different projects; between tacticians as to whether the ground campaigns or
POINTBLANK should have first call on the heavy bombers; and between the airmen
as to which types of target were the best for the bombardment effort.
In spite of policy disagreements, the air war continued as
intensively as the weather permitted. On 3 January, the Fifteenth raided
the Fiat ball-bearing establishment at Villar-Perosa. With the successful raids
on other centers of ball-bearing production such as Schweinfurt (14 October
1943) and Turin (8 November), the Fiat plant had assumed a special importance.
It was reported that forty tons of ball bearings had been shipped from Italy to
Germany in November; before this date, there were no comparable shipments.
Furthermore, the plant at Villar-Perosa was supposed to be making a special
type of bearing essential to aircraft production. Consequently, a small
force of 50 B-17’s attacked this target on the 3d, dropping 156 tons of
1,000-pound bombs from an altitude of 23,000 feet. The strike photos showed
twelve direct hits on the main units of the plant and damaging near misses.
Later reconnaissance photos showed that the factory had sustained extensive
damage with twenty-five percent of the roofing destroyed.
The next missions for both the Eighth and Ninth were minor.
Eighth Air Force bombers struck at the airfields at Bordeaux and Tours on the
4th, while the Fifteenth dispatched 43 heavy bombers to bomb the Steyr
aero-engine factory at Maribor, Yugoslavia, on 7 January. No strike photos were
obtained, and the results were not evaluated until the end of the month.
On the 8th, the Fifteenth bombed the Reggiane Aircraft
Factory at Reggio Emelia, Italy. A careful reconnaissance, which indicated a
considerable turnover of single-engine aircraft, preceded by mission. Between 3
and 7 January, the number of aircraft on the adjoining airfield varied from day
to day as follows: 17, 23, 40, 18, and 35. It seemed likely that the Germans
had converted this factory and airfield into an important depot for fighter
repair, maintenance, and supply. The target was first attacked during the
night of 7-8 January by 26 Wellingtons dropping 39.5 tons from 2,000 to 8,500
feet. The town, factory, and airdrome were covered with bursts; at least two
4,000-pound bombs hit the factory, with many fires started. The following day,
109 B-17’s escorted by 32 P-38’s dropped 324 tons on the still smoldering
buildings. All opposition seemed crushed as there were no aircraft over the
town and no flak. With at least twenty direct hits on the factory buildings,
this target was eliminated for the time being.
#
The middle of the month brought a new operational directive
for the Fifteenth from General Spaatz. The ranking objective was the
destruction of the German fighter force, to be accomplished in the following
order of priority:
GAF single-engine fighters
GAF twin-engine fighters
The ball-bearing industry
Chief targets in the first priority were the Messerschmitt
factory at Regensburg; the Messerschmitt complex in Wiener Neustadt; plants in
Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, and Nuremberg, Germany; and airplane factories in
Austria and Hungry. However, this list remained more of a sign of things
to come rather than something immediately effective. The weather, of
course, frequently interfered with the long flights into Central Europe, which
were necessary to reach many of these high-priority objectives. In addition to
weather, the Fifteenth was unable to devote its full attention to aircraft
factories because it was involved in support of the amphibious operations of
the ground forces in the Rome area, which began with the landing at Anzio. Both
before and during this operation, however, more than 5,000 tons of bombs were
dropped by the strategic forces on aerodromes and communications. Of special
importance were the attacks on eleven major airfields, which rendered the enemy
reconnaissance completely ineffective and allowed the allies to achieve a rare
thing in modern warfare – a complete surprise.
#
The 13th of January was a big day in counter-air force
operations. As part of the preliminaries to the Anzio landing, three airfields
at Perugia, Centecello and Guidonia, Italy were attacked. The Perugia airfield,
a big reconnaissance center, was attacked on the night of 12-13 January by 49
Wellingtons with undetermined results. The following morning it was again
struck by 40 B-17’s dropping 48.9 tons of fragmentation bombs. A cloud
over the target prevented an estimate of the bombing. Centecello, located on
the fringes of Rome, was an important fighter base for GAF operations in
support of the forces defending central Italy. It was hit by sixty-one escorted
Fortresses that did some damage to service and administrative buildings.
Guidonia, a little to the north, was attacked by 65 B-17’s of which only 38
were able to bomb, the remainder bringing their explosives back to base. There
were direct hits on a workshop, an assembly building and a transformer station.
The next day, perhaps to divert the Luftwaffe’s attention from central Italy,
an airfield near the Yugoslav coast was raided by 140 B-17’s dropping 9,638
fragmentation and 213 tons GP-bombs. Two-thirds of the field was well postholed
and many installations hit.
#
This task finished, the Fifteenth was next called upon to
deal with a situation at the Aviano, Italy, airfield. A reconnaissance of
26 January had revealed an increase in the number of German airplanes at this
base from 54 to 72 of which 45 were now Ju-88s. It seemed that the Germans
had withdrawn bombers from the Greece-Crete area for operations against the
Anzio landings. Sixty-four B-17’s visited this target, covering it with some
9,000 fragmentation bombs. Although German fighters took the air against the
bomber formations, there were no losses. Many of the buildings on the field
were hit, and the main landing area was well covered with bursts. Of the
fifty-six enemy planes sighted on the field, four were damaged and one reported
destroyed.
The climax of this series of tactical operations in support
of the Anzio beachhead was the great counter-air force action of 30
January. The Aviano bombing was, in a sense, the prelude to this
operation, for it was an attempt to break up a concentration of German
low-range bombers. Following this raid, there was a wide-spread reconnaissance
of German bases in northern Italy on the 28th. This showed a total of 170 enemy
fighters in the area, with 127 distributed on the four fields of Maniago,
Lavariano, Villaorba, and Udine, Italy. It seemed likely that the Germans
were trying to counteract the threat of American bombers based in southern
Italy by developing considerable air strength in the North, especially
long-range bombers. For example, Villaorbawas showing a considerable
increase in Ju-88’s. Such bases could be used for raids against shipping and
airfields in the southern area; therefore, a large operation was planned to
render them useless. It was decided to bomb the four fields; however, to
take care of the concentration of planes at Villaorba, this field was to be the
object of a special mission planned with great skill. Since the Germans usually
put all their aircraft into the air as soon as the radar informed them of the
approach of heavy-bomber formations, it was decided to send a group of P-47’s
in below the radar screen if possible and a few minutes in advance of the heavy
formations to catch the German planes still on the ground.
The surprise worked perfectly. About 1130 on the morning of
the 30th, an approaching force of heavy bombers showed strong on the radar
screen of the Villaorba field and the pilots began warming their motors for a
quick take-off. A few had just left the ground when suddenly at 1140 a force of
60 Thunderbolt fighters swept in at terrific speed just above the treetops. The
Germans were caught completely off balance, and for the next few minutes
the Thunderbolts had a field day. Altogether 28 enemy planes were shot down for
a loss of two. Hardly had the dust settled before 76 B-17’s came sailing over
at 23,000 feet to drop 10,988 frags and complete the job.
While this brilliant tour de force was being carried out at
Villaorba, the three other fields were also being dealt with in summary
fashion. Maniago was bombed at 1,157 by 35 B-17’s, and a heavy concentration
was achieved on the northern landing area. There were several fires
started, with bombs seen exploding among the parked aircraft. Lavariano was
attacked at the same time by forty-one heavy bombers f1ying in two waves. The
second formation was attacked by twenty-five to thirty German fighters during
the bomb run, but only one bomber was lost—the field was well covered with
hits. Shortly after these three missions, sixty-three Liberators reached the
Udine airfield and dropped a heavy load of fragmentation bombs. The north
landing ground and hangar area were hit repeatedly, and some bursts were noted
among the forty aircraft parked on the field. About 35 Me-109’s and FW-190’s
pressed home attacks just after the bomb run was made. The bombers claimed the
destruction of fourteen fighters, at a loss of two Liberators.
The raids of 30 January undoubtedly dealt the enemy a severe
blow. In addition to losing valuable planes, the large number of damaged
aircraft probably strained his repair and maintenance facilities to the
uttermost. The destruction of those facilities at Udine and Aviano made the
situation even more critical. The nearest repair center now available was at
Klagenfurt in Austria very near the Italian border and considered a key point
in the defense of south Germany. To complete the work of the 30th, the
airfields at Aviano, Udine, and Klagenfurt were attacked on the 31st by 41th,
70th, and 74th heavy bombers respectively, with successful results. At
the last field, sixty-seven aircraft were seen on the ground, and eleven were
destroyed and seven damaged. An estimate of the enemy air situation given in
the IntelOps summary for 31 January stated the following:
“Experience in previous campaigns indicates that estimates of ground
damage based on photographic evidence are conservative. In the present
case, air claims appear reasonable on analysis of the apparently
serviceable aircraft remaining after the attacks. Concrete evidence shows
at least 145enemy aircraft destroyed or damaged and it is highly probable
that substantially more were rendered unserviceable by the operation.”
This achievement was the result of the heaviest bomber
attacks yet mounted in the air war, plus the determination of General Spaatz to
press home the offensive against the Luftwaffe. In a letter of 23 January 1944
to Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air, he stated his
bombing plans:
“I believe …that the ability to apply the pressure from two sides against
the middle can be utilized to the discomfiture of the enemy. My tendency
will be to place a little bit more emphasis upon swatting the enemy on his
airdromes whenever possible, and force him to fight under conditions most
advantageous to us. There are certain essential targets, however, such as
fighter factories and ball-bearing works, beyond fighter cover, which must
be hit when weather conditions permit accurate bombing results. These
attacks will no doubt result in heavy losses, but will materially reduce our
later losses.”
Shortly after, the Air Ministry issued a comprehensive
bombardment program for the Eighth, Fifteenth, and British bomber commands.
First and equal priority was to go to single-engine and twin-engine fighter
airframe and component production. The Eighth Air Force’s targets were listed
in the following order:
Erla Me-109 plant at Leipzig
Me-109 plant at Regensburg/Prufening(also the Fifteenth)
FW-190 plant at Rosen
Me-110 plant at Gotha
Ju-88 plants at Bernburg, Halberstadt, and Oschersleben,
Germany
Me-110 plant at Brunswick
FW-190 assembly at Tutow, Germany
FW-190 assembly at Kassel
Ju-88 plant at Schkeuditz, Germany
For the Fifteenth Air Force the first priority air
production centers were:
Me-109 plant at Regensburg/Prufening
Me-410 assembly plant at Augsburg, Germany
The components plant at Styr
The Me-109 plant at Fischamend, Austria
The Me-410 plant in Szigetszentmiklos, Hungry
Me-110 plant at Brunswick
Two days later, the Fifteenth attacked the airdromes at
Viterbo, Tarquina, and Orvieto in Italy with small task forces. Of the
forty-four aircraft present at Viterbo, six were probably destroyed and four
damaged. All three fields were in central Italy a short distance north of Rome,
and all were in fighter range of the beleaguered Anzio beachhead.
The 218th operation on the 11th, although not directed at a
POINTBLANK target, is of considerable interest because of what looked like a
possible change in GAF tactics. Heretofore, it had been sometimes difficult for
our fighters to get the German fighters to engage them. The GAF usually
preferred to keep away from the Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings in order
to concentrate on the bombers; however, the opposite technique was followed in
this mission. The Germans abandoned their usual tactics and turned viciously on
the fighters. Several sharp engagements took place; as a result, the American
escorts claimed 32-3-22 but lost 14 of their own number – a high figure for
fighters. In addition, 4 P-47’s, 2 P-38’s and 1 P-51 were seriously
damaged. When General Arnold received this information, he was quick to
see the possibility of a change in GAF tactics. He cabled General Spaatz to
inquire if our fighters were going to abandon their escort functions to take
aggressive action against German fighters whenever encountered. Replying for
General Spaatz, General Anderson stated they welcomed this aggressive action
against the fighters as it permitted them to restore considerable freedom of
action to our escorts who would now be able to force the Germans into combat.
As it turned out, this did not mark the beginning of a new policy, and other
missions found the Luftwaffe none too anxious to engage the Thunderbolts and
Mustangs, preferring instead to save ammunition and gasoline for the big
formations of heavy bombers.
Certainly these operations were not the “big numbers” of
bombers out to lay something “flat” that General Arnold had been hoping
for. Nevertheless, such an operation involving both the Eighth and
Fifteenth Air Forces had been scheduled for some time. One of the principal
motives in the activation of the Fifteenth had been the hope that the two
strategic bombing forces could coordinate their joint operations. It was
confidently expected that the Po Valley would soon be available for
Anglo-American air bases and that the Fifteenth “and the Eighth would integrate
their attacks on German targets with frequent joint raids, shuttles, one-two
punches, etc.” The Po Valley remained in enemy hands. But in early December a
plan for a combined attack on the German aircraft industry was being drawn up
under the code name of ARGUMENT. It is not clear if this operation was actually
planned for 1943, although one writer suggests that it was first scheduled for
12 December but supply deficiencies and weather had forced a cancellation.
