The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

Richard Overy THE BOMBING WAR Europe 1939–1945

Oh bountiful Gods of the air! Oh Science and Progress!
You great big wonderful world! Oh what have you done?

John Betjeman, ‘1940’

Maps

Abbreviations in the Text

ADD: aviatsiya dalnego deystviya (Long-Range Aviation, USSR)

AI: Airborne Interception (British night-fighter radar)

AON: aviatsya osobovo naznachenya (Strategic Air Reserve, USSR)

ARP: Air Raid Precautions

AWPD: Air War Plans Division

BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation

BBSU: British Bombing Survey Unit

BMW: Bayerische Motorenwerke

CBO: Combined Bomber Offensive

CCS: Combined Chiefs of Staff

COSI: Comité Ouvrier de Secours Immédiat (Committee for Workers’ Emergency Assistance)

DBA: dalnebombardirovochnaya aviatsiya (Soviet Long-Range Aviation)

DiCaT: Difesa Contraerea Territoriale

Do: Dornier

Fw: Focke-Wulf

GAF: German Air Force

GHQ: General Headquarters (USA)

GL-1: Gun-Laying radar

He: Heinkel

JIC: Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)

JPS: Joint Planning Staff

Ju: Junkers

LaGG: Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov

LMF: lack of moral fibre

MAAF: Mediterranean Allied Air Forces

MAP: Ministry of Aircraft Production

Me: Messerschmitt

MEW: Ministry of Economic Warfare

MiG: Mikoyan & Gurevich

MO: Mass Observation

MP: Member of Parliament (UK)

MPVO: mestnaia protivovozdushnaia oborona (Main Directorate of Local Air Defence, USSR)

NCO: Non-commissioned officer

NFPA: National Fire Protection Association

NFS: National Fire Service

NKVD: narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, USSR)

NSV: Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare)

ORS: Operational Research Section

OSS: Office of Strategic Services (USA)

OTU: Operational Training Unit

PVO: protivovozdushnaia oborana strany (National Air Defence, USSR)

PWB: Psychological Warfare Branch (USA)

PWE: Political Warfare Executive

RAF: Royal Air Force

R&E: Research and Experiments Department (UK)

RFC: Royal Flying Corps

RLB: Reichsluftschutzbund (Reich Air Protection League)

RM: Reichsmark

SA: Sturmabteilung (literally ‘storm section’)

SAP: Securité Aérienne Publique (Public Air Protection)

SD: Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service – German secret home intelligence)

SHAEF: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

SIPEG: Service Interministériel de Protection contre les Événements de Guerre (Interministerial Protection Service against the Events of War)

SNCF: Societé nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (French National Society for Railways)

SS: Schutzstaffel (literally ‘protection squad’)

T4: Tiergarten-4 (cover name for German euthanasia programme)

TFF: Target-Finding Force (UK)

UNPA: Unione Nazionale Protezione Antiaerea (National Union for Anti-Air Protection)

USAAF: United States Army Air Forces USSBS United States Strategic Bombing Survey

USSTAF: United States Strategic and Tactical Air Forces

VNOS: vozdusnogo nablyudeniya, opovescheniya i svyazi (Air Observation Warnings and Communication, USSR)

VVS: voyenno-vozdushnyye sily (Military Air Forces, USSR)

WAAF: Women’s Auxiliary Air Force

WVS: Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions (UK)

Yak: Yakovlev

Preface

Between 1939 and 1945 hundreds of European cities and hundreds more small townships and villages were subjected to aerial bombing. During the course of the conflict a staggering estimate of around 600,000 European civilians were killed by bomb attack and well over a million more were seriously injured, in some cases physically or mentally disabled for life. The landscape of much of Europe was temporarily transformed into a vision of ruin as complete as the dismal relics of the once triumphant Roman Empire. To anyone immediately after the end of the war wandering through the devastated urban wastelands the most obvious question was to ask how could this ever have been agreed to; then, a second thought, how would Europe ever recover?