Royal Air Force Bomber Command 60th Anniversary

At the beginning of the war Bomber Command practised daylight bombing which envisaged the bombers being able to defend themselves by the combined and mutually supporting fire from their gun turrets. After suffering heavy losses Bomber Command swapped to night bombing in the spring of 1940. The RAF did not expect any problems in the navigation to and the identification of targets but in the summer of 1941 it was found that only 33% of bomber crews were releasing their bombs within 5 miles of their targets. In response to this poor performance Bomber Command adopted the Pathfinder techniques the Germans had used during the blitz, namely identifying the target with reconnaissance flares and illuminating it with incendiary bombs. This provided limited success but it was realised that more had to be done.

In August 1942 the Pathfinder Force was set up. To start with the force was made up of No. 156 Squadron flying Wellingtons, No.109 Squadron flying Mosquitoes, No. 7 Squadron with Stirlings, No. 35 Squadron with Halifaxes and finally No. 83 Squadron flying Lancasters. As the war proceeded and Bomber Command`s campaign intensified the Pathfinder Force grew in size and importance and was eventually re-designated No. 8 (P.F.F.) Group. By the end of the war No.8 (P.F.F.) Group consisted of 19 Squadrons plus No. 1409 Meteorogical Flight and the P.F.F. Training Unit

To see how the Pathfinder Force found their targets and how they marked them for the main force see the image below. Just use the Next and Previous buttons to view the way the techinques developed.

Klik hieronder telkens op "NEXT" om de animatie stap voor stap te bekijken:



Bron: www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand

Reforming the Command John Gee

`I don`t think we realised at the time that our equipment wasn`t really up to it. They`d forgotten to design or produce any navigation equipment, so the Wellington bomber, which was intended to be a day bomber, had to operate at night because it was so vulnerable during the day. It had virtually the same equipment that the Tiger Moth had, with one exception - the Wellington had a loop aerial. Here we were flying 500 or 600 miles over enemy territory, trying to locate a target in total blackout, often with cloud below us and a lot of industrial haze. It`s not surprising that our bombers were 5, 10 miles away. There was no bomber stream. We were largely on our own, perhaps 10 or 14 aircraft at intervals.

Bomber Command was pretty ineffective, but we didn`t realise it at the time. We thought we were finding the target and doing a good job, otherwise our morale would have been really zero. When the Butt Report was produced, we didn`t know about it at all. It was kept very secret indeed. It wasn`t until Sir Arthur Harris took over in 1942 that things began to change. By that time I had done my first tour of operations and been fortunate enough to be sent to the Central Flying School to do a flying instructor`s course. I spent two and a half years instructing before I went back on operations and during that time the whole thing had changed completely. The navigation equipment was highly organised with radar navigation. We had the benefit of the bomber stream, and the Pathfinders marking the target, and of course an enormous weight of aircraft. To fly in a stream of 500 aircraft out over Beachy Head with all the navigation lights on! Soon they were all switched off and you couldn`t see any of them. But they were all still there, a wonderful feeling of power.

John Gee,
Bomber Command pilot

Bron: www.rafbombercommand.com

The success of a bombing mission rests on three factors: the capacity to enter enemy territory while withstanding fire from anti-aircraft defences, the accuracy of navigation and target identification, and the quantity and efficiency of the bombs dropped on the target.

In 1940-1941, none of the medium bombers (twin-engine Armstrongs, Whitworth Whitleys and Handley Page Hampdens) flew fast enough, manoeuvred well enough, or was sufficiently armed to survive a bombing mission over Germany. The Vickers Wellington, on the other hand, proved rather successful and was soon viewed as the best aircraft Bomber Command could use on strategic bombing missions against the enemy. It could carry 2,900 pounds (1,315 kg) of bombs; its armament, however, was not adequate to deal with German fighter aircraft and it could not fly high enough to escape Flak.

Canadian-made Lancasters X of No 419 Squadron on the Middleton St. George air base, May 1st, 1944. The plane in the foreground marked KB 711 was shot down later that same evening during a raid over St-Ghislain.
National Defence Image Library, PL 29474.

The RAF had to use heavy bombers, rapid four-engine airplanes that could carry a significant load and had enough firepower to defend themselves against Luftwaffe fighters. The British aeronautical industry produced three such heavy bombers: Short Stirlings, Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancasters, but the quantities produced did not meet RAF requirements. In 1943, the Stirling was withdrawn from bombing mission over Germany, its flight ceiling being too low. The Halifax and the Lancaster remained for the whole duration of the war as Bomber Command’s all-around heavy-duty aircraft.

The Avro Lancaster, viewed as the best WWII heavy bomber, could carry up to 14,000 pounds (6,350 kg) of bombs. A modified version could take on the heaviest bomb ever produced for Bomber Command, the 22,000-pound (10,000-kg) “Grand Slam”. Its seven-member crew included a pilot, a flight engineer, a navigator, a wireless operator, a bomb-aimer/front gunner, a mid-upper gunner, and a rear gunner. The Lancaster Mark X was built in the Canadian shops of Victory Aircraft in Toronto, with deliveries starting in 1944; by May 1945, six Canadian squadrons were equipped with Mark X.

Radar and Navigation


No 432 Squadron armourers loading general purpose 1,000-pound (454-kg) bombs in the bomb bay of a Halifax, East Moor, February 2nd, 1945.
Gérard Pelland’s album; by kind permission of the Pelland family.

F/O Gus Utah, navigator on a 427 Squadron bomber; Ruthless Robert, the crew’s mascot keeps him company.
National Defence Image Library, PL 28520.


Night navigation was the most difficult issue: with the techniques available in 1940 – using ground features, by the stars, or by estimating time of arrival on the basis of the aircraft and wind speed – only a seasoned navigator could hope locating his target with some accuracy. Aiming in the dark and through the clouds was even more difficult when the bomber had to find its way through Flak and blinding spotlights. Scientists worked frantically on developing navigation systems that could help bombers better identify their position.

In early 1942, bombers were supplied with a Gee receiver, a system that picked up a synchronized signal from three stations located in Great Britain. By measuring the time difference between individual signals, the navigator could determine the distance from each of the stations and triangulate the aircraft’s position. The Oboe radar system was also introduced in 1942: it used radar signals from two ground stations, one keeping the aircraft along a course that passed over the target, the second signal indicating when the bombs should be dropped. In 1943, the RAF introduced the H2F radar, an airborne radar pointing towards the ground that provided a rough image of features such as rivers, lakes and cities. With those different systems, navigators and pilots could reach their target by night, provided naturally that the bomber could fly past German anti-aircraft defences. New systems were introduced in 1943 and 1944 to detect enemy aircraft, scramble their radars and saturate their communications.

Despite all this technical progress, identifying the target with precision remained a difficult task. A special force was created, the Pathfinders, tasked with locating and flagging targets with flare bombs known as “target indicators” (TI). Pathfinders would reach the target first and drop colour TIs that could easily be seen through smoke and flames. Bombers coming behind in waves dropped their bombs using the TIs as guides. All those measures helped Allied bombers greatly improve the accuracy of their operations.

Bron: www.junobeach.org