Why did 10./JG 2 bomb a school in Catford?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

It's not my expertise, Nick.
But it is yours.

Tony

1. The files of MI5 are entirely outside my expertise (if indeed I have any).

2. As with so much else about the Luftwaffe, we lack documentation of the reasoning behind many command decisions. For what it's worth though, I don't think there are many instances in the history of air warfare where a force switched from day to night bombing because the former was going so well.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by John Vasco

They are two different things...


And how about answering my points in my post #47?

I disagree. As far as M.I.5. is concerned the easiest way to establish reputation is by reference to what a person has published.
I'm sure M.I.5. would not let any Tom, Dick or Tony Colvin have access to their files, but John Vasco, Chris Goss, Nick Beale and Jimmy Burns would receive every consideration.
So go for it!

To "answer" the points in your post #47;

1. You object to the statement; “The full flowering of the fashion for Jabo occurred in early 1943”.
While ErpGr.210 and II./ZG 76 using Me 109 and 110 in 1940 might at a stretch be called an early Jabo flowering, the classic Jabos - FW 190, Yak 9, Hurricane, Spitfire and Whirlwinds did not come into service until 1942/3, and it was not until late 1943/4 that 2 TAF's Typhoons and 9 USAAF's Thunderbolts graced the skies of Europe. At that point the Jabo concept could be said to have enjoyed its full flowering with all doubts about its effectiveness dismissed by the air forces involved.

2. You object to the statement; “The next development was Goering's face-saving order that fighters fitted with bomb-racks be used to replace day bombers over England”.
The experimentation of ErpGr.210 of course led to II./LG 2's surprise daylight attack on London on September 20, which in turn led Kesselring to equip one third of the Me 109 force with bomb racks to become “light Kesselrings”. Real bombers then attacked only at night. In other words the testing by a "certain fighter-bomber unit" led to the next development that was bitterly denounced by Dolfo.

3. You object to the statement; “The Jabo was therefore the V0, to be replaced by the V1 and V2.”
It was agreed on this thread that the January 20, 1943 raid was a “Terrorangriff” (Chris Goss), “and it meets the standard pattern of Terrorangriffs” (Brian Bines). I never questioned this was the ostensible rationale for the raid, but hypothesised a deeper significance.
As early as June 29, 1940, Army Ordnance chief Leebe and Walther von Brauchitsch advanced a terror-bombing rationale for developing the A4 rocket, according to Michael Neufeld in “The Rocket and the Reich”. By 1943, when the V1/V2 should have been in service, Hitler itched to answer Harris's terror raids with his own massed rocket terror attacks on London. The Catford Raid was therefore a stop-gap Terrorangriff by the only means at the GAF's disposal. A POW from 10(JABO)/JG26 stated this raid was a reprisal for (terror) raids on Berlin (Brian Bines).
I therefore fail to comprehend why calling the FW 190 Jabo a V0 in this context should be dismissed as 'bollocks'.
(By the way, North Americans don't know this word, and there is a car in Toronto, which I have seen, licensed as "BOLLOX".)

Tony

[John Vasco]

Now, now, tcolvin, I didn't 'object' to anything. I merely countered certain points that you posted.
1. By the end of the Battle of Britain the fighter-bomber/Jabo concept was well established, as you might know if you have read extensively. The Luftwaffe had introduced single Staffeln 'Jabo' units; had begun the move to equip all three Staffeln of Erprobungsgruppe 210 with 'Jabo' Bf 110s (ultimately moving the Bf 109 'Jabo' 3. Staffel to JG 51), and moves were afoot for the RAF to introduce their first fighter-bombers.
By the way, if you think II./ZG 76 was a 'Jabo' unit in 1940 then I seriously suggest you update your 'Battle of Britain' library in a big way... (please don't tell me II./ZG 76 carried out Jabo attacks in early September 1940; I'll be falling off my chair laughing!).

2. As I stated in my earlier post, the fighter-bombers of Erprobungsgruppe 210 were operating in daylight when the Luftwaffe standard bombers were also operating in daylight. Is that plain enough? No 'replacement'. They were operating side by side over the same territory. By the way 3./210 with Jabo 109Es were over London on 7th September 1940, nearly two weeks before II./LG 2 on 20th September. II./LG 2 weren't the first 109 Jabos over London, but perhaps 3./210 were not noticed in the mass of Luftwaffe fighters on 7/9/40.
That standard bombers reverted to night bombing is not in question.

3. Show me the documentation that describes fighter-bomber aircraft as 'V0'. That's all I ask. Quite simple really. The legal tenet: 'he who asserts must prove' surely applies in this case. Or are you simply adopting your own 'poetic licence' to call them that?

I don't give a shit if North Americans don't know the word 'bollocks'. Their loss.

Maybe you should just admit that you were wrong in what you posted.

Perhaps all those years of interviewing veterans of Erprobungsgruppe 210, and interviewing veterans of SKG 210 and ZG 1 who served on fighter-bombers in Russia and the Med, and interviewing Wolfgang 'Bombo' Schenck probably more intensively than anybody else (you have heard of him, haven't you? He led 'Kommando Schenck', the test unit for the 262 Jabo among other tasks he carried out during the war), has addled my brains over the years. Hell, what do I know about fighter-bombers...?

P.S. If I ever go to MI5, the first thing I'll ask is to see my own file, thank you!

[Maximowitz]

What's German for "Ouch?"

[Brian Bines]

This one does go on, still an interesting topic which get plenty of response. It occurs to me if the Jabo raids get the unofficial V0 classication where does this leave the Steinbock attacks in the V listing. These bomber attacks of 1944 I thought come about on Hitlers orders partly because of the failure to get the V1's operational in 1943.

[John Vasco]

Brian,
As most people know, 'V' classifications were given to all aircraft types in their initial stages of development and testing. You only have to look at one of the appendices in the Petrick/Mankau book on the 110/210/410 to see loads of examples.

In my opinion to introduce a V0 classification and tag it to all fighter-bombers pre-V1 and V2 is simply ludicrous.

[tcolvin]

It's not the German for “Ouch” that I need, Maximowitz, but rather the German for “Sigh”.

John.
I've checked again what I wrote. It was clearly broad-brush and not fine-detail, but it does conflict in one respect with what you have written, and where you are right and I was wrong.

We can perhaps agree that the experiments of Erprobungsgruppe 210 with Me 109 and 110s alongside daylight bombers, while preparing for the delayed Stuka replacement, influenced the way that the GAF implemented the adoption of fighter-bombers, rather than the decision itself.

We can, I think, agree that the peculiar requirement of the German system to allow the Heer operational command of GAF assets in an emergency, again came into play in 1940. Kesselring had preempted it in Poland during the emergencies on the Tucheler Heath and Bzura, where Grabmann's Me 110s of I./LG 1 were committed to ground attack, and when it was belatedly realised that bomb racks would increase mission effectiveness.

We can surely agree that Kesselring's reaction to the crisis over southern England was again to divert his fighter force to ground attack, but this time, rather than Tiefangriff, by using the 'light-Kesselring' Jabos in the ways demonstrated by ErpGr.210. But, to repeat, this was not a new development but rather a refinement/improvement of what had been done in Poland.

So we can agree that (in your words) “by the end of the Battle of Britain the fighter-bomber/Jabo concept was well established”, while in Poland it had been in its nursery stage.

I was, therefore, wrong to suggest that the driver for the adoption of Jabos was replacement of the bombers when they were switched to nights. Rather, the introduction of Jabos was the Luftwaffe's answer to the Wehrmacht's emergency, and designed to provide help to the Heer and Kriegsmarine.

That covers points 1 and 2, and I thank you for the correction.

Re point 3, please take note of the word “therefore” in my sentence; “The Jabo was therefore the V0, to be replaced by the V1 and V2”.
Eric Brady was nearly killed by the FW 190 Jabo, and then terrorised by V1s and V2s. In his book, which is well worth reading, Eric became convinced that the Germans were targeting him personally. In hospital he was sure that German soldiers were concealed in a store-room. A convalescing British soldier in the same ward spent an hour checking every inch of the storeroom for signs of a concealed tunnel.
For Eric, therefore, the FW 190 was the first of three weapons that terrorised him personally. The word 'V0' is my gloss on Eric's book, which is the documentation you ask for, John.

Tony

[Brian Bines]

John,

Fully agree with you I was just trying to make the point if such a classification exsisted for manned raids there would be a lot more of them ie Steinbock, Baedekker raids of 1942, or even the London bombings of 1940.
While the double agent theory does not seem applicable to the original theme of this thread although Tony does not agree, I did read about it if reference to the V1 attacks. It was claimed a double agent working for Britain sent false information about where the V1's were landing so the Germans shortened the range so they fell before hitting the Capital ( Wikipedia Eddie Chapman ). One assumes this would only work in the short term because the Germans must also have had a lot of info. from neutral sources to check against what their agents double or otherwise sent.
Was the V used in aircraft development a different word to that for the V of V1/V2 Versuch ? as opposed to Vergeltungs (my German is pretty limited ). Once again to agree with your point the term Vergeltungswaffe applied to the V1/V2 indicates a revenge weapon not a revenge campaign,

Regards

Brian Bines


PS anymore books on the way, was anything produced from your interviews with Wolfgang Schenk ? If one has its one I missed

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

... during the emergencies on the Tucheler Heath and Bzura, where Grabmann's Me 110s of I./LG 1 were committed to ground attack ...

... Kesselring's reaction to the crisis over southern England was again to divert his fighter force to ground attack ...
Tony

Surely there is a valid distinction to be drawn between the use of fighters (with or without bomb racks) in the battlefield support role; the use of such aircraft to attack tactical targets away from the battlefield (radar stations, aerodromes); and generalised harassment attacks against the enemy's home front? Aggregating these scenarios as "ground attack" is not all that helpful.

[tcolvin]

'Helpful' in what way, Nick?
What would be the purpose of making these distinctions?
Are you suggesting different uses had different origins?

'Ground attack' is a catch-all phrase for anything that is not air-attack for air superiority purposes, although Heinz Knoke of JG 1 famously turned his Me 109 into a Jabo to bomb a formation of B24s attacking Wilhelmshaven on March 22, 1943 - making it a unique (?) non air-superiority air attack.

2 TAF Jabos distinguished only between ground attack over the battlefield and ground attack beyond the battlefield in the 'rear areas', when they were on armed recce (freie Jagd) or specifically targeted.

Jabo use morphs into that of the Schnellbomber (Mosquito/Pe 2/Ju 88/Ar 234) or even the Yak 9B Jabo which was a different design from the fighter and carried its bombs internally, vertically behind the pilot.

Or am I missing something in your comment?

Tony