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

[tcolvin]

Could Eric Brady in the attached article be correct in thinking that Hauptmann Heinz Schumann of 10./JG 2 (and later of IV./SKG 10), together with 27 other FW 190s, bombed six schools in London, including Sandhurst Road School in Catford, because they were being used by aircraft design teams?

Was this "information" supplied through the Double Cross System, I wonder.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...on-school.html

Tony

[Chris Goss]

I suggest the author of this piece should read my book 'Tip & Run'-perhaps then they would have got the facts right! It would appear that perhaps she cherry picked parts of the story to sensationalise-never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

[tcolvin]

That's interesting, Chris, but I'm not sure I'm following you.

I have just consulted your book, 'Luftwaffe Fighter-Bombers Over Britain” that deals with the raid.

The raid is categorised as a “Terrorangriff, bombing anything that they saw”, and that the German pilots “dropped their bombs and strafed buildings before heading south”.

Your book also quotes Eric Brady, but without any mention of his suggestion, made in the Daily Mail, that; “Twenty-eight German Fokker planes ......... targeted six different schools - possibly because they believed this is where aircraft designs were being drawn up.”

Is Eric Brady correct when he says they targeted six schools? There is no mention of that in your book.

And can you throw any light on Eric Brady's suggestion that the GAF might have believed the schools housed aircraft design bureaux?

This suggests a rational motive rather than the popular view, held by Molly Linn, that “the evil of the pilot who set out to kill children” was just another example of German frightfulness.

The Germans might have been fed the design bureau idea through the Double Cross System which was always looking for plausible 'facts' to pad out their 'reports'.

It seems to me that if the Germans risked everything to attack London in a Terrorangriff, then they would have gone for 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace and the House of Commons rather than school children.

Tony

[Brian Bines]

Reports on the raid gave that eight bombs landing in Lewisham, two on Poplar and a further twelve in in Deptford, Bermondsey and Greenwich. As well as the Sandhurst Rd School other places mentioned were a Pub in Deptford deing destroyed, a Gasholder at Sydenham being set alight and a house at the Royal Naval College being destroyed. The Home Office report states 8 Key points and 5 Railways were affected and apart from a warehouse at the Surrey Commercial Docks damage to these was not substancial. It also says that a further 43 incidents were reported in Sussex, Surrey and the Isle of White, with Southern Railway reporting slight damage at 3 points.
A POW (not always reliable) from 10(JABO)/JG26 stated the raid was a reprisal for raids on Berlin, with no specific objectives being named. German loss returns say either a Jaboangriff or a Tagesangriff on London.
In a radio broadcast Schumann is reported to have said the bombs fell just where we wanted them to. With the killing of 38 children and six teachers at the Catford School there were calls to put him on trial as a War Criminal if he fell into British hands.
Whether while bombing at low level and high speed the German pilot thought he was attacking a factory rather than a school will probaly never known for certain.
As already asked does anybody know if five other schools were hit in this attack, could not find any reports mentioning these.

[Chris Goss]

First things first, Fokkers flew in ther First not Second War. Second, no evidence at all to support schools were targets as they "housed aircraft design bureau" if that were the case, there would be no schools left standing in the jabos regular town targets. The attack was simply a massed attack on that part of London using the jabos usual modus operandii of get in/out quick and within range of the massive fighter escort off the coast. It was dreadfully unfortunate that the school was hit, simply that-it was not the first such instance and would not be the last.

[tcolvin]

Chris.

Why do you dismiss without mention the information supplied in the Daily Mail by Mike Brady and Lawrence Watkins, that the school had been used by the Ministry of War, and that the pilot made two approaches to ensure hitting the school.

These should be added to the information given by Brian Bines above that Schumann is on the record boasting that only targets were hit. For Schumann, therefore, the school was not the collateral damage which you categorically say it was.

"My father, Eric Brady, who was interviewed for this article, has researched the background to the attack in detail and catalogued the sequence of events that led to just one of the six schools targeted being hit. As he mentions, the schools had been used while the children were evacuated by the Ministry of War - and by coincidence my grandfather was a despatch rider during the war and delivered documents to Sandhurst Road School during this time. My father, like many other children, had only just been recalled from evacuation in Wales a matter of months before their reopened school was bombed." - Mike Brady

"My mother i (sic) remember telling me that the aircraft made a roof top high first run and she could clearly see the pilot, the second run dropped the bomb. He also returned and straiffed (sic) the play ground." - Lawrence Watkins

Tony

[VtwinVince]

Agree with Chris's synopsis on this incident, which is going on today in other parts of the world. Demonize the enemy, then it's easier to kill him.

[tcolvin]

Are you saying, VtwinVince, that the Germans attacked the school in Catford to encourage the British to demonize, and thus facilitate killing, Germans?

Surely Chris is rather arguing for the random/cockup theory of war, which is what we hear all of the time today - that omelettes require egg cracking.

Tony

[Bombphoon]

Originally Posted by VtwinVince

Agree with Chris's synopsis on this incident, which is going on today in other parts of the world. Demonize the enemy, then it's easier to kill him.

'Demonize the enemy?' Would the Luftwaffe really have needed 'demonizing' to British civilians after this incident or what they had previously wreaked on London, Coventry, Bristol etc?

The suggestion that, at this stage of the war, or indeed any stage of the war, that British black propagandists/MI6/MI5 would have tried to 'rig' the school being bombed and set up schoolchildren to be deliberately killed for propaganda purposes is quite frankly ridiculous, baseless, and dare I say, quite offensive to those involved.

I have often wondered the reason 'why' about this incident.

Chris' book 'Fighter-Bombers Over Britain' is one of my top 5 favourite books. Although it doesn't dwell much on the Sandhurst Road incident, the research and photos are quite astounding: the cockpit view photos of straffing ground targets are breath-taking. They aren't gun-camera shots but literally one hand on the stick and the other holding the camera! Chris's book has several of these photos and they have recently appeared in Britain at War magazine.

And there, I believe, is a possible answer to why the school was bombed. Several of the photos in Chris's book show what appears to be random straffing of 'large buildings' - they appear to have no more reason for being targeted than they are 'large buildings': some are clearly civilian dwellings. By this date the German spy network in Britain was pretty much disabled and I find it hard to believe that the Germans would be able to find out/have spies report what individual civilian buildings had recently been requisitioned for. Sandhurst Road School was a large building: whether it could have been mistaken for a factory I would not like to say.

Several Daily Mail readers/apologists (?!) seemed to have pooh-poohed the idea that it would have been possible to see the pilots' faces. Having just attended a 2-day airshow at the Victory Show this weekend with Spitfires, Mustangs and Hurricanes flying low, I can quite definitely say the pilots faces CAN be seen through the perspex when they flew low, even at speed. I suppose a lot of it must also be to do with how good the individuals' eyesight is.

There is also the possibility that the pilot DID deliberately bomb the school in revenge: German schools, hospitals etc were regularly being hit in Allied daylight heavy bomber raids (although I have never seen evidence to say that the Allies ever deliberately targeted German schools).

Austin

[tcolvin]

Austin.

The hypothesis is that information about aircraft design bureaux operating in these schools, which is possible given Eric Brady's testimony, was passed through the Double Cross System to the Germans, who acted upon it in this raid with the resulting massacre of the innocents.

To get up to speed on this subject, read the Wikipedia article on the System - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Cross_System - which explains how it worked.
I draw your attention especially to the section, "Methods of Operation";
"A crucial aspect of the system was the need for genuine information to be sent along with the deception material".
And again in the section, "V-Weapons Deception";
"When the Cabinet learned on August 15 of the deception, Herbert Morrison said that they had no right to decide that one man should die while another should survive, but the deception was approved to continue."

According to the section titled "Revelations" in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cecil_Masterman , JC Masterman excluded a dozen passages from his book.
The hypothesis is that the attack on the Sandhurst Road and other schools is among the 12 expurgated passages.

On the other hand we have the hypothesis put forward by Chris Goss that it was a successful Terrorangriff with unfortunate loss of school-children's lives.

Tony