World War II in the Air (HM6)

Before the start of , the military already had put thought into how to use the new-fangled airforce, but even during the war, there was a lot to learn.
On September 25th/26th, the started the first area bombing of . As it became the norm for , their "stuka" bombers started the attack with loud sirens to scare the population into submission. Although Nazi propaganda spoke of a great victory, they had actually lost hundreds of machines, not to mention competent pilots. That's why the attack in the west ("Fall Gelb") had to be postponed several times, until finally happening on May 10th in 1940.
On December 18th, the air battle over the German bight happened. 50 Messerschmitt fighters stood against 22 British Vickers Wellington Bombers. Not surprisingly, the RAF lost fifteen machines, the Luftwaffe only four. As a result, the RAF mostly quit day attacks.
Along the western front, there were barely any airfights initially. The British government was committed not to attack civilian targets, and the French worried about German retaliation. Which was justified, because their airforce had few modern fighters, no radar stations like Britain, and suffered from a chronic lack of spare parts - less than half of the planes was acutally useable. Only on March 31st 1940, the RAF flew an attack against Emden.
On May 14th, a German bombardment on Rotterdam destroyed most of the historical city. After that, Britain found it was justified to strike German cities with tactical bombings. Still in May, they made attacks against , Bremen, Hannover, and several cities of the northern Rhine/Ruhr area. And an additional one against Freiburg.
In early June, the French bombed for the first time, and the Brits did the same to . In late June, the Brits used a bomb of 2,000 pounds for the first time - on the harbor city of Kiel.
During the fights in the , the Luftwaffe had lost hundreds of machines as well.
After the advancement of the Germans in and Northern , people in worry that the Luftwaffe might bomb now, without being able to defend it effectively, which'd break the Morale of the population in turn.
The ese air forces in were much stronger than their opponent. Hence, it didn't seem to matter that they had weaknesses as well, like the fact that part of their airforce was under command, and the rest under the Navy.
During the war, many new aircraft types were developed, e.g. the MiG-1 in the and the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 „Condor“ C in Nazi Germany. And on May 13th in 1940, the first free flight of Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter was made.
Cryptography mattered much for this part of the war too: On May 19th in 1940, the analysts at cracked the "Red" code which was used by the Luftwaffe liaison officers to coordinate ground support.
As a precautionary measure, since the start of the war 1.5 Million people were evacuated from the biggest cities in Great Britain, sometimes even to other states of the Empire - mostly Kids and Mothers of younger kids. Organisations (like the ), art treasures and more than 2,000 Tons of Gold were moved to comparable safety as well.
Meanwhile, US president Roosevelt has established a phantastic-sounding target of producing 50,000 military aircraft a year. This will take some time though...
Category:World War II
Category:World War II (HM6)
de:Zweiter Weltkrieg zur Luft (W6)