The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

Of all the factors that encouraged the final months of heavy bombing, the fear that the German military situation might be reversed by new weapons, secret or otherwise, kept bombers at their task. Though some of these fears might appear with hindsight as mere fantasy, the launch of the German V-weapons in the summer of 1944, and the first employment of the Me262 jet fighter/fighter-bomber, confirmed the Allied view that Germany’s military situation might abruptly improve. The so-called vengeance weapons hit British targets indiscriminately, first the V-1 flying bomb, which was first launched in mid-June, and then the V-2 rocket, which first fell on London in September. The Me262 was a crude fighter, easily adapted to mass production, but with its high speed it appeared capable of posing a serious challenge to the bomber fleets had it been available in sufficient numbers. The few units equipped with the Me262 by the end of the war claimed to have shot down 300 heavy bombers. The new aircraft was certainly welcomed by German air leaders as a possible war winner. Evaluations of the war situation produced in September 1944 and January 1945 by German Air Force intelligence presented the possibility of a “final victory” given the apparent decline in Anglo-American military capability and enthusiasm since the summer and the clutch of dangerous new technical developments available to Germany; these included the Wasserfall ground-to-air missile (V-4), proximity fuses, jet fighters ...