[Simon Trew]

Again, thank you for the replies, and apologies for the delay in responding (domestic duties over the long weekend).

Tim, Chris (or any other forum contributor): please can you help me understand a little more clearly? Tim, you seem to imply that EKs were basically a form of recognition for operational experience (including participation in early-war air operations). Yet Chris, you say that they were "commonplace and not much indication of experience". This difference in perspective may be more apparent than real, but can you help me square this circle? For example, would it seem reasonable to suggest that even quite high levels of experience on one front (e.g. the Mediterranean, Russia) would not be especially helpful in preparing air crew to deal with the specific challenges of operations against a well-integrated air (and civil) defence system, in bad weather, during 'Steinbock'?

I suppose it's stating the obvious, but what I'm trying to get straight in my mind is the degree to which the failures (from the German perspective) of 'Steinbock' should be credited to the skill and achievements of the defender(s), and the degree to which they represent German 'deficiencies'. Clearly, these are not mutually exclusive and lots of things (and the relationships between these things) matter in explaining the outcome of any military operation, not just this one. It's just that I think it's reasonable to suggest that there is a tendency in some sources to push towards the 'inexperience and poor training of Steinbock air crews' explanation, and I continue to wonder if this is at least a bit of a distortion, if not inaccurate per se.

On another (albeit related) matter, and again for what it is worth, if anything:

ADI(K) reports contain information about the security-consciousness and morale of all but five of the 130 prisoners taken from among ‘Steinbock air crew. Of the 125 about whom information is recorded:

Seventeen or eighteen were said to have low morale, although this did not always equate with poor security. Several airmen with low morale appeared resistant to interrogation.

Approximately sixteen men were regarded as having medium or ‘fair’ morale. Again, some of these were quite (or very) secure.

The balance – certainly, over ninety men – were stated to have high or very high morale (some of them were also stated to be ideologically ‘fanatical’ and/or insolent in their behaviour). Almost without exception, these airmen were stated to be secure under interrogation – at least, initially.

A few impressions might be worth recording:

First, there appears to be no significant diminution in morale or security-consciousness from January to May (inclusive) 1944. In particular, those prisoners stated to have low morale and/or a tendency to be insecure were spread reasonably evenly across the months, rather than concentrated in March, April or May 1944.

The largest number of prisoners with low or only fair morale was in March. But this is also the month in which the largest number of prisoners (46) were taken (c.f. January = 22; February = 30; April = 23; and May = 9). As an overall proportion of prisoners, although there was certainly a tendency to record slightly lower morale in March compared with January or February, there is no evidence of anything resembling a ‘collapse’ in morale in March. And even if morale ‘sagged’ a little among prisoners captured in March, this was certainly not the case in April or May, when 29 of 32 prisoners were described as having high morale and/or good security.

Some crews contained prisoners with differing levels of morale and security-consciousness. There were seven cases where differences could be described as significant, meaning that at least one man in a crew was described as having low morale but at least one other from the same crew was described as having high morale (1./KG 40 F8+HH, lost 21/2 January; 5./KG 2 U5+LN, lost 20 February; 3./KG 2 U5+EL, lost 24 February; 4./KG 6 3E+AM, lost 25 March; 5./KG 2 U5+EN, lost 28 March; 2./KG 54 B3+FK, lost 28 March; and 2./KG 100 6N+AK, lost 19 April). In most cases, however, where more than one man from a crew survived to be taken prisoner, morale tended to be similar across the crew. For example, all three survivors from 3./KG 76 F1+BL (lost 22 January) were described as being insecure, whereas all four prisoners from 3./KG 54 B3+PL (lost 19 April) fell towards the opposite end of the spectrum.

‘Lone survivors’ tended not to show much evidence (in terms of low morale or tendency to break down rapidly under interrogation) of the shock of losing friends and all their immediate crewmates. They tended to have high morale and to be secure, even in cases where they bore quite serious injury. For example, the only men to survive from 4./KG 6 3E+LM (lost 21 January), I./KG 66 Z6+HH (lost 13 February), 6./KG 54 B3+MP (lost 20 February); 4./KG 30 4D+DM (lost 14 March); and 5./KG 2 U5+EN (lost 26 April) were all described as exhibiting quite or very high morale and/or security-consciousness.

Among the relatively small number of prisoners who were described as having poor morale and/or a tendency to insecurity, there is no evidence of any particular unit being ‘over-represented’. Admittedly, three of the four prisoners taken during ‘Steinbock’ from I./KG 76 were described as insecure. But all three came from the same aircraft (see above) and the morale of the fourth prisoner (from 2./KG 76 E1+AK, lost 29 January) was described as “very high indeed, and he refused all information” (ADI(K) 51). With such a small sample from this unit, and the variation in the morale among even this very limited number of prisoners, it would seem odd to draw any strong conclusions about the morale in KG 76.

All of this ‘observation’ needs to be balanced, of course, against the considerable detail contained in many ADI(K) reports. Evidently, at least in some cases, prisoners who initially showed high morale and pronounced security-consciousness later provided quite large amounts of information; the contents of the ADI(K) reports were not simply the products of the revelations of the ‘weaker vessels’ or of information revealed by monitoring reports of secretly-recorded conversations. AIR 40/2636 (‘Intelligence from Interrogation’ ADI(K) report) is of course a useful source in explaining the reasons why.

Thanks again,

Simon