ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945

---

VOLUME III
THE FIGHT AT ODDS

By
Hilary St. George Saunders

---

LONDON
HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE
1954

Marshal of the Royal Air Force the Lord Portal of Hungerford, G.C.B., D.S.O., M.C.
Chief of the Air Staff, 19490-1945

First published 1954

 

Crown Copyright Reserved

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE

To be purchased from
York House, Kingsway, LONDON, W.C.2     423 Oxford Street, LONDON, W.1
P.O. Box 569, LONDON, S.E. 1

13a Castle Street, EDINBURGH, 2		1 St. Andrew's Crescent, CARDIFF
39 King Street, MANCHESTER, 2		Tower Lane, BRISTOL, 1
2 Edmund Street, BIRMINGHAM, 3		80 Chichester Street, BELFAST

or from any Bookseller

1954

Price 13s 6d net

 

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

The final chapter of this volume was written jointly by Hilary St. George Saunders and Denis Richards

Chapter I.	POINTBLANK and Area Attacks	1
II.	The U-boat in the Atlantic and the Bay	34
III.	Stratagems and Spoils	68
IV.	Before the Curtain Rose	79
V.	'D Day'	103
VI.	The Battle for France	115
VII.	Flying Bombs and Rockets	142
VIII.	Bag and Baggage	177
IX.	From Brussels to the Rhine	190
X.	The End in Italy	211
XI.	The Balkans and the Middle East	234
XII.	Oil and the Climax	258
XIII.	Over the Rhine to the Elbe	279
XIV.	The Long Road Back to Burma	295
XV.	Arakan, Kohima, and Imphal	311
XVI.	The Rising Sun Sets	341
XVII.	The Balance Sheet	369
APPENDICES
I.	Members of the Air Council, 1944-1945	395
II.	Principal Air Commanders, 1944-1945	396
III.	Royal Air Force Command Organization, June 1944	398
IV.	Royal Air Force Command Organization, January 1945	400
V.	First-Line Aircraft of the British and German Air Forces, June 1944 and January 1945	402
VI.	German and Italian Submarines Destroyed by Allied Shore-Based Aircraft	403
VII.	Enemy Surface Vessels Destroyed in the Atlantic and North-West European Waters by Aircraft under Royal Air Force Control, 1939-1945	405
VIII.	Principal Operational Aircraft of the Royal Air Force, 1944-1945	406
IX.	Principal Operational Aircraft of the German Air Force, 1944-1945	409
X.	Principal Operational Aircraft of the Japanese Air Force, 1944-1945	411
XI.	Order of Battle, Allied Expeditionary Air Force, 'D Day', 6th June 1944	412
XII.	Order of Battle, Air Command, South-East Asia, 1st July 1944	418
XIII.	Glossary of Code Names and Abbreviations	423
INDEX		427
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS
		facing page
The Battle of the Atlantic (VI), June-August 1943		50
The Battle of the Atlantic (VII), September 1943-April 1944		62
The Air Plan for the Landings in Normandy, 6 June 1944		114
The Battle for France, July-September 1944		135
Deployment of Defences against the Flying Bomb, 13 June and 20 July 1944		158
Air Operations against Walcheren, 3 October-8 November 1944		196
Air Operations up to the German Frontier, September-December 1944		206
The Campaign in Italy, 8 June 1944-2 May 1945, and the Liberation of the South of France, 15 August-12 September 1944		222
The Balkans		236
The Indian Ocean		254
Principal Targets Attacked by Bomber Command, 1 January 1944-5 May 1945		262
The Battle of the Atlantic (VIII), May 1944-May 1945		276
The Advance into Germany, January-May 1945		288
The First Arakan Campaign, December 1942-May 1943		300
The First Chindit Expedition, February-June 1943		305
Air Supply Operations in the Second Arakan Campaign, February 1944		318
Japanese Attacks on Imphal and Kohima, March-April 1944		324
The Second Chindit Expedition and the Northern Front in Burma, December 1943-August 1944		334
The Reconquest of Burma, November 1944-May 1945		354
R.A.F. Bomber Command. Distribution of Effort Between Principal Target Systems, 1940-1945		384
Annual Tonnages of Bombs Dropped by the R.A.F. Bomber Command and the U.S. Eighth Air Force 1939-1945		389
PLATES
Marshal of the Royal Air Force The Lord Portal of Hungerford		frontispiece
Wing Commander G.L. Cheshire		facing page 30
A 'Kill' in the Bay		between pages 54-55
Flying Officer L.A. Trigg		between pages 54-55
The Railway Yards at Aulnoye before and after an attack by Bomber Command		between pages 86-87
Amiens Prison after the Mosquitos had struck		between pages 86-87
Pre 'D-Day' Bombing. Tours Airfield		between pages 102-103
Horsa Gliders in Normandy after the Airborne Landings		between pages 102-103
Wreckage of German Transport near Chambois		between pages 126-127
A.E.A.F. Daily Conference, August 1944		between pages 126-127
The Flying Bomb (V.1)		between pages 168-169
A V.2 being prepared for Launching		between pages 168-169
Arnhem		between pages 198-199
The Gestapo Headquarters at Aarhus after No. 2 Group's Attack		between pages 198-199
A Synthetic Oil Plant at Bohlen after Bomber Command's Attack		between pages 270-271
Oil Refinery at Bremen under attack by Lancasters		between pages 270-271
The Last of the Tirpitz		between pages 270-271
Beaufighters Attacking a Minesweeper off Borkum		between pages 270-271
The Railway Viaduct at Bielefeld after Bomber Command's Attack		between pages 286-287
A Battered Target in the Patch of the Allied Advance--Bocholt		between pages 286-287
A Beaufighter attack on a Japanese Storage Dump		between pages 342-343
Bombing of Japanese Dock Installations at Surasdilani		between pages 342-343
A Japanese Tanker Hit by R.A.F. Liberators		between pages 350-351
Heavy Bombers Attacking Japanese Positions on Ramree Island		between pages 350-351
A Bridge over the Myitnge River after Attack by R.A.F. Thunderbolts		between pages 358-359
The Docks at Rangoon, shattered by Allied Bombing		between pages 358-359

Preface

---

I SHOULD like to recall here what has been said much more fully in the general preface in the first volume, namely, that this is primarily a history of Royal Air Force operations and the policy governing them. While not part of the full-length official Military History of the War, it was nevertheless officially commissioned, and is based throughout on official documents, to which full access was given by the Air Ministry.

The text of this volume, like that of the others, was substantially completed in 1950. It is entirely the work of Hilary Saunders, except that the last chapter, an attempted assessment of the whole wartime effort of the Royal Air Force, was planned and written jointly with myself. Hilary Saunders did not live to read the proofs of this or either of the other two volumes. He would certainly have wished, in this last foreword, to repeat our thanks to those we mentioned in the general preface: to emphasize our great and continued indebtedness to the Air Ministry Historical Branch under Mr. J.C. Nerney, I.S.O.; and to join with me in a warm expression of gratitude to three senior officers who read the text of all three volumes and helped us very greatly by their comments and criticisms--Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor, G.C.B., D.S.O., M.C., Air Chief Marshall Sir Guy Garrod, G.B.E., K.C.B., M.C., D.F.C., and the late Mr. C.G. Caines, C.B., O.B.E.

D.R.

November, 1953.

Return to HyperWar: United Kingdom Official Histories