Post by simon darkshade on May 23, 2023 15:48:28 GMT
At airfields all across East Anglia, as the late afternoon began to creep into evening, the hum of frenetic activity gave way to the first squadrons of four engined Vickers Wellington heavy bombers taking off for the night’s flight to the enemy capital. The 780 Wellingtons would be followed by the larger Handley Page Halifaxes, a mere 726 of them, from their bases in Bedfordshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire, and 1052 of the great Avro Lancasters from Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Ten squadrons of de Havilland Mosquito night fighters were to provide the vanguard and flanking escort of the bomber stream, whilst three of the precious skyships would provide airborne radar, command and control from over the North Sea.
This was to be their largest muster for over a year, after the hammer blows of last May and June, as their force had been divided by the necessary exigencies of war. Now, however, the enemy’s defences were far, far less deadly and their night fighter force was as presumed to be a shadow of what their foes had been. Neither Kammhuber’s vaunted line, which had been smashed the year before, nor the network of radar stations in the Netherlands that might have later provided early warning were present.
Forming up into the bomber stream was a delicate dance that would have been far more arduous without the aerial command ships and the careful plotting put together by Bomber Command’s operational planning wizards and their Super Analytical Engines. If everything went to plan, then there would be over 50 bombers a minute hitting Berlin from 2236. Their route was direct - straight over Alkmaar and north of Hannover to Berlin.
Operation Whirlwind had begun.
…………
The first German warnings came from Army and Luftwaffe ground units in the Netherlands, reporting hundreds of English bombers flying at perhaps 8000 metres. These began to be echoed by frantic telephone reports over Western Germany and the aerial armada was picked up by the Freya stations along the border, but to little end. The Luftwaffe’s fighters were at the front, leaving almost all of the Reich’s defences to the guns.
………….
Major Brandt had just landed at Staaken Airfield with his assistant Oberleutnant Froedl for a meeting at the Air Ministry. The lights and charm of the city were a world away from the front.
“Would you believe it? Don’t they know there’s a blackout?” said Froedl.
”You know what Goering said: If ever a bomb falls on Berlin, you can call me Meier.”
”Hmm.”
As they drove along the Brunsbütteler Damm and marvelled at the bustling atmosphere of peace and normality, the street lights suddenly went out. A few seconds later, amid the confused tumult of the crowds, Berlin’s air raid sirens began their unmistakeable drone.
“As from today, we are called Meier.”
…………
Whirlwind struck the centre of Berlin along a a path several miles wide south of the Spree and nominally guided by the grand central boulevard of the Heerstrasse and the Kaiserdamm. Adolf Hitler Platz was hit by two errant 4000lb ‘cookies’, but this was merely the beginning. The bombers came on and with them cane destruction, fire and ruin, the like of which the world had not seen before this night.
Over ten thousand tons of high explosive and incendiaries had been dropped a little more than an hour, blasting through the historic centre of the city and the government quarters. The devastation was imprecise but, even with the huge volume of bombs, no firestorm like that in Hamburg was ignited. Wilhelmstrasse, the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstrasse and the new Reichskanzlei were smashed to shattered ruins, whilst the Reichstag itself was not spared another fire. The Brandenburg Gate yet stood , damaged but still intact amidst the rubble and bomb blasted buildings and the US Embassy in the Blucher Palace adjacent had been mostly spared by the vagaries of fortune. The death toll would not be known for days to some. The missing included Reinhard Heydrich, Martin Bormann and Fritz Todt, whilst Joseph Goebbels suffered a freak groin injury from falling masonry.
Hermann Meier, at his estate at Carinhall, was silent.
This was to be their largest muster for over a year, after the hammer blows of last May and June, as their force had been divided by the necessary exigencies of war. Now, however, the enemy’s defences were far, far less deadly and their night fighter force was as presumed to be a shadow of what their foes had been. Neither Kammhuber’s vaunted line, which had been smashed the year before, nor the network of radar stations in the Netherlands that might have later provided early warning were present.
Forming up into the bomber stream was a delicate dance that would have been far more arduous without the aerial command ships and the careful plotting put together by Bomber Command’s operational planning wizards and their Super Analytical Engines. If everything went to plan, then there would be over 50 bombers a minute hitting Berlin from 2236. Their route was direct - straight over Alkmaar and north of Hannover to Berlin.
Operation Whirlwind had begun.
…………
The first German warnings came from Army and Luftwaffe ground units in the Netherlands, reporting hundreds of English bombers flying at perhaps 8000 metres. These began to be echoed by frantic telephone reports over Western Germany and the aerial armada was picked up by the Freya stations along the border, but to little end. The Luftwaffe’s fighters were at the front, leaving almost all of the Reich’s defences to the guns.
………….
Major Brandt had just landed at Staaken Airfield with his assistant Oberleutnant Froedl for a meeting at the Air Ministry. The lights and charm of the city were a world away from the front.
“Would you believe it? Don’t they know there’s a blackout?” said Froedl.
”You know what Goering said: If ever a bomb falls on Berlin, you can call me Meier.”
”Hmm.”
As they drove along the Brunsbütteler Damm and marvelled at the bustling atmosphere of peace and normality, the street lights suddenly went out. A few seconds later, amid the confused tumult of the crowds, Berlin’s air raid sirens began their unmistakeable drone.
“As from today, we are called Meier.”
…………
Whirlwind struck the centre of Berlin along a a path several miles wide south of the Spree and nominally guided by the grand central boulevard of the Heerstrasse and the Kaiserdamm. Adolf Hitler Platz was hit by two errant 4000lb ‘cookies’, but this was merely the beginning. The bombers came on and with them cane destruction, fire and ruin, the like of which the world had not seen before this night.
Over ten thousand tons of high explosive and incendiaries had been dropped a little more than an hour, blasting through the historic centre of the city and the government quarters. The devastation was imprecise but, even with the huge volume of bombs, no firestorm like that in Hamburg was ignited. Wilhelmstrasse, the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstrasse and the new Reichskanzlei were smashed to shattered ruins, whilst the Reichstag itself was not spared another fire. The Brandenburg Gate yet stood , damaged but still intact amidst the rubble and bomb blasted buildings and the US Embassy in the Blucher Palace adjacent had been mostly spared by the vagaries of fortune. The death toll would not be known for days to some. The missing included Reinhard Heydrich, Martin Bormann and Fritz Todt, whilst Joseph Goebbels suffered a freak groin injury from falling masonry.
Hermann Meier, at his estate at Carinhall, was silent.
