Big Week: Six Days That Changed the Course of World War II by Bill Yenne Read Free Book Online Page A

proven invincible. They based their planning on the correct assumption that the Germans would try again to crush the Soviets in the spring of 1942, and the very plausible fear that the Soviet Union could be knocked out of the war before the Anglo-American Allies could launch any kind of land assault on
Festung Europa
.
    The Soviets, naturally, shared this fear. As a consequence, they demanded, and continued to demand at every opportunity, that the Americans and the British launch a “second front” against the Germans sooner rather than later. No one knew better than the Arcadia conferees that this would be impossible in 1942. Instead, they agreed to Operation Bolero, the buildup of forces necessary to launch a second front against
Festung Europa
in 1943. The date for this invasion of Europe by way of northern France, code-named Operation Roundup, was originally set for April 1943.
    As the German army seemed all-powerful, in the air the Luftwaffe commanded an equivalent fear and respect. Even though the Royal Air Force had challenged them successfully in 1940 over Britain, they still controlled the skies over Europe.
    That which concerned the men most about Germany—the elephant in the room, so to speak—was the might of German industry that had made all this possible. There was no way that the Anglo-American Allies could challenge Hitler’s mighty war machine on the ground in Europe so long as the mighty German industrial machine continued to churn out the tanks and aircraft that had thus far proven unstoppable.
    The men in the room also knew that the
only
way to do anything to impact the mighty German industrial machine was with strategic airpower.
    The Combined Chiefs of Staff found themselves facing the situation that Billy Mitchell had predicted.
    The RAF needed no convincing when it came to strategic airpower. Arnold and Spaatz, longtime advocates of Mitchell’s strategic vision, found kindred spirits in the commander of RAF Bomber Command, Air Marshal Arthur Travers “Bomber” Harris, and his boss—and predecessor as head of Bomber Command—RAF commander Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles “Peter” Portal. It was only a matter of coordinating the effort.
    The ABC-1 report from early in the year had already concluded that “US Army air bombardment units [would] operate offensively in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, primarily against German Military Power at its source.” The emphasis on “German Military Power” was reiterated in AWPD-1. The foresight of AWPD-1, which had gone beyond its mandate of merely calculating production numbers, had given the USAAF the operational framework that was so badly needed.
    As for the basing of the Anglo-American strategic force, Britain was the only viable option. As with the existing and planned British bombers, the range of the Flying Fortress and the Liberator dictated that targets in the German industrial heartland could be attacked only from bases in southeast England.
    Of course, in early 1942, any kind of sustained air offensive was merely theoretical, because of the small number of heavy bombers available. British production of four-engine bombers was moving at so slow a pace that the Brits were still anxious to continue receiving Flying Fortresses and Liberators from America. Meanwhile, the USAAF now had fewer Flying Fortresses than they’d had on December 6.
    The USAAF was also spread very thin. Even though the Allies had adopted the “Germany first, contain Japan” approach at the Arcadia Conference, the USAAF still had commitments in the Pacific. The British, though impatient to strike a major blow against Hitler from the air, understood. The rapid movement of Japanese forces threatened their interests as well—especially Australia and their great bastion at Singapore. When the latter was, in fact, captured by the Japanese in February, it underscored the fact that, while the Pacific Theater might be secondary to the European Theater, it could not be