The Attack on German Aircraft Plants

The heavy losses over Schweinfurt caused an important revision in the tactics of daylight bombing. Until then it had been believed that unescorted bombers, heavily gunned and flying in well designed formations, could penetrate this deeply over the Reich. At least, so far as a small force was concerned, this was proven wrong. For the remainder of 1943 after the Schweinfurt raids, daylight penetrations beyond fighter escort were sharply circumscribed. Meanwhile the U. S. heavy bomber force increased substantially in strength. In December of 1943, the P-51 (Mustang) long-range fighter first became available and in the early months of 1944 the numbers increased. With this plane, in some respects the most important addition to Allied air power during the European war, augmenting the P-47 (Thunderbolt) escorts which in the meantime had materially increased their range, daylight operations in depth were again launched.

The attack on the German aircraft industry -- primarily on airframe plants -- was opened in the summer of 1943. The German aircraft industry had been well distributed over the Reich with a view to the possibility of air attack. Isolated raids early in 1941 and 1942 had caused some further shift in production to eastern territory but only limited steps had been taken to disperse individual plant units in order to reduce their vulnerability. The industry was found to have had substantial excess capacity. The efficiency of the industry was low. Unlike other armaments, procurement was not under the direction of the Speer Ministry but under the Luftwaffe.

Production in the early years of the war was small, primarily because Luftwaffe requirements were modest -- in 1941 according to captured minutes of German staff conferences, General Jeschonneck, then chief of the air staff, opposed a suggested increase in fighter plane production with the remark that he wouldn't know what to do with a monthly production of more than 360 fighters. However, in the autumn of 1943 plans then current called for a steadily increasing output of fighters.

In the 1943 attacks, 5,092 tons were dropped on 14 plants, primarily on airframe plants. The records show that acceptances of the Me-109, Germany's standard single-engine fighter, dropped from 725 in July to 536 in September and to a low of 357 in December. Acceptances of Focke-Wulf 190's dropped from 325 in July to 203 in December. As a result of the attacks the Germans began a more vigorous program of subdividing and dispersing aircraft plants and this caused part of the reduction in production. A further but undetermined part was the result of poor weather which cut down acceptance flights; it is probable that some planes produced but not accepted during these months were added to acceptance figures in the months following. The Germans as a result of these attacks decided to place increased emphasis on the production of fighter planes.

The culminating attacks on the German aircraft industry began in the last week of February 1944. With the protection of long-range fighter escort, 3,636 tons of bombs were dropped on German aircraft plants (again, airframe rather than engine plants) during that week. In that and succeeding weeks every known aircraft plant in Germany was hit.

Detailed production data for this period, as for others, were taken by the Survey, and German air generals, production officials, and leading manufacturers, including Messerschmitt and Tank (of Focke-Wulf) were interrogated at length. Production was not knocked out for long. On the contrary, during the whole year of 1944 the German air force is reported to have accepted a total of 39,807 aircraft of all types -- compared with 8,295 in 1939, or 15,596 in 1942 before the plants suffered any attack. Although it is difficult to determine exact production for any single month, acceptances were higher in March, the month after the heaviest attack, than they were in January, the month before. They continued to rise.

Part of the explanation was the excess capacity of the airframe industry which, as noted, was considerable. Excess capacity in airframes was considerably greater than in engines. Studies of individual plants by the Survey show that although buildings were destroyed the machine tools showed remarkable durability. And the Germans showed capacity for improvising their way out. Immediately after the attacks, responsibility for production was shifted from the Luftwaffe to the Speer Ministry. A special staff was organized for the reconstitution and dispersal of the industry. This staff (the Jaegerstab or Fighter-Staff) appears to have done an effective job of mobilizing unused capacity and undamaged machines, reorganizing inefficient managements, reducing the number of types of planes and, most important of all, in subdividing production into small units that were comparatively immune from attack. It was aided by previous plans for expansion and it cut sharply into available inventories of parts. Although the testimony on the point is conflicting, the Jaegerstab may have sacrificed quality and an adequate complement of spare parts, for quantity production. Nevertheless the attack on the aircraft plants, like the attack on the ball-bearing plants, showed that to knock out a single industry with the weapons available in 1943 and early 1944 was a formidable enterprise demanding continuous attacks to effect complete results. Recovery was improvised almost as quickly as the plants were knocked out. With the shift in priority for strategic attacks -- first to marshalling yards and bridges in France in preparation for invasion, immediately followed by the air campaign against oil -- the continued attacks on the aircraft industry were suspended.