Post by account_disabled on Mar 10, 2024 21:24:19 GMT -6
Orders were still orders and, to increase the impact of the operation, it was necessary to prohibit any flight that was not related to it, inform the pilots and do what was necessary to put as many planes as possible into operational status during the night. Needless to say, the night hours were hectic for the mechanics; finally the 34 Gruppen (“air groups”) were going to be able to deploy aircraft of Kampfgeschwader (J) 51 [N. Kampfgeschwader was the German name for the bombardment wing, however, the (J) added to the name indicated that, although it was originally a bombardment wing, it had been converted into a fighter wing] . According to OKW sources, within the framework of Operation Bodenplatte , 1,035 flights were carried out on January . In order to compensate for the casualties suffered during the fighting of the previous days, it was also ordered that all Geschwader ( "wings") personnel be employed in combat, including leaders and members of their staff who usually remained on the ground, which which explains the huge losses of experienced cadres that the Luftwaffe would suffer, irreplaceable losses at this point in the war.
All this to fulfill a very clear order: attack the 19 selected Allied airfields, all of them in the Netherlands, Belgium and near Metz, in France, after flying at treetop level to reach the objectives between. without being detected. To achieve this, strict radio silence was ordered to be maintained and, to alleviate the deficiencies in instrument B2B Email List navigation capacity of the German pilots, which were very serious at this point in the war, each attack group was guided by two Junkers 88 night fighters, whose pilots They still had the necessary knowledge. To return, it would be enough for them to follow the same route as when they left, or to fly east until they found an airfield in Germany.
The date of January 1, although one may think that the reaction capacity of the Allied pilots would be somewhat less after a “festive” night, had not been chosen for that reason, but rather based on the weather forecasts for the objectives. The German pilots could have found themselves in the same circumstance as their enemies, but when they got up around 4:00 and 5:00 they did so with high morale, after a night without partying since they knew the mission that awaited them. Despite the speed with which the operation was launched – just a few hours after the initial message – the preparations lived up to the high command's ambitions, although not everything went perfectly . The general in command of the 16th Flak Division received the news too late to transmit it in time to all of his 50 batteries, so not all of them would be aware that they were going to be overflown by their own fighters and would not know how to interpret correctly the colored flares fired to guide the attackers and warn the anti-aircraft of their passage.
All this to fulfill a very clear order: attack the 19 selected Allied airfields, all of them in the Netherlands, Belgium and near Metz, in France, after flying at treetop level to reach the objectives between. without being detected. To achieve this, strict radio silence was ordered to be maintained and, to alleviate the deficiencies in instrument B2B Email List navigation capacity of the German pilots, which were very serious at this point in the war, each attack group was guided by two Junkers 88 night fighters, whose pilots They still had the necessary knowledge. To return, it would be enough for them to follow the same route as when they left, or to fly east until they found an airfield in Germany.
The date of January 1, although one may think that the reaction capacity of the Allied pilots would be somewhat less after a “festive” night, had not been chosen for that reason, but rather based on the weather forecasts for the objectives. The German pilots could have found themselves in the same circumstance as their enemies, but when they got up around 4:00 and 5:00 they did so with high morale, after a night without partying since they knew the mission that awaited them. Despite the speed with which the operation was launched – just a few hours after the initial message – the preparations lived up to the high command's ambitions, although not everything went perfectly . The general in command of the 16th Flak Division received the news too late to transmit it in time to all of his 50 batteries, so not all of them would be aware that they were going to be overflown by their own fighters and would not know how to interpret correctly the colored flares fired to guide the attackers and warn the anti-aircraft of their passage.