Air Battle of Berlin
The RAF Campaign
BackgroundThe Battle of Berlin was the British bombing campaign on Berlin from November 1943 to March 1944. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris believed he could successfully bomb Berlin with the help of the United States, which would result in a surrender from Germany. Despite the United States not being able to help out, Harris received approval in early November 1943 from Prime Minister winston L.S. Churchill to begin the bomber offensive. He employed the RAF's new Avro Lancaster heavy bomber, as this four-engine aircraft had the requisite range to strike targets deep in German territory. The first raid, the largest battle Bomber Command had yet fought, occurred on the night of 18–19 November.
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The Attack Attacking heavily defended Berlin was not an easy task. The city was ringed
with a flak belt 40 miles wide and a searchlight band over 60 miles across. The defense centered on 24 128-mm antiaircraft guns grouped in eight-gun batteries on flak towers. The British employed Window—strips of foil dropped from aircraft to jam German radar. To counter this, the Germans organized groups of single-engine fighters to attack the bombers as they were caught in searchlights. The Germans called this new tactic Wilde Sau (Wild Boar), and the technique helped them until they could develop effective radar. By early 1944, German night-fighter aircraft—primarily Ju-88s, FW-190s, and Bf-109s—were successfully employing bomber-intercept tactics with the help of SN2, an aircraft-based, air-to-air radar that would cause Bomber Command's losses to approach 9 percent for a single raid. To make matters worse for the British, many bombs did not come close to their desired targets, as chronically poor weather over Berlin forced pathfinders to mark targets blindly, relying exclusively on H2S radar. The Battle came to an end in March 1944 when the bombers passed under the control of the Supreme Allied Command to prepare for the Normandy Invasion. |