Masters of the Air - The German Reaction to US Bombing
What was the German reaction to the bombing by B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator during World War 2? Join me as I explore the reaction of the Luftwaffe from fighter planes, to tactics, anti-aircraft defenses and the bombing itself.
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- Sources -
Boog, Horst (2001), “Strategicher Luftkrieg in Europa und Reichsluftverteidigung 1943-1944“ in Boog, Horst, Gerhard Krebs and DetlefVogel (Ed.) Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg: Das Deutsche Reich in der Defensive, DVA.
Boog, Horst (1982), Die deutsche Luftwaffenführung 1935-1945, DVA.
German Military Archive; Files: various. Available upon request (e.g. trade/cooperation).
Miller, Donald (2006) Masters of the Air, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
Westerman, Edward (2001) German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, University of Kansas Press.
- Timecodes -
00:00 - Master of the Air
01:26 - German Fighter Strength
04:24 - Reaction to B-17 Flying Fortress
06:09 - Fighter Tactics
09:03 - FLAK: Anti-Aircraft Defenses
13:06 - Bombing Germany
- Audio -
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound
On a scale from B-17 to 8th Air Force, how excited are you for Masters of the Air?
I am at U.S. Army Air Forces.
Generally, my major interests are rather private.
We are very excited about Masters of the Air. My father-in-law was a decorated navigator/bombardier in a B-17F aircraft in the darkest part of 1943, partaking in 25 missions, including those against both Schweinfurt and Regensberg. He was chosen to be lead navigator on several missions, which was considered a high honor, as the entire formation would follow his lead. It was common early in the war for the non-pilot officers to be trained in both the navigator and bombardier roles to serve as backup to each other. However, it was also common that the most skilled navigator take that role on most missions. During that bombing run, the bomb shackles on the B-17 had hung up. When this happened, it was the responsibility of the acting bombardier to enter the bomb bay and free the shackles, allowing the bombs to drop. Doing so requires the brave flier to remove his parachute to enter the narrow entryway and stand on a 6 inch wide beam whilst grappling with what were likely 500lb. bombs. The bombardier fell off that beam and managed to grab onto one of the lowest bombs, hanging partially out in the slipstream. My father-in-law, the acting navigator, removed HIS parachute, entered the bomb bay, climbed down the bomb/shackle arrangement and managed to grab the hapless bombardier by the collar of his flying suit and haul him back into the aircraft. A massive adrenaline surge no doubt assisted him. Witnessed by the pilots, he was recommended for and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor for these actions. My son, his grandson will be watching with me. If she can stomach the violence, my wife will also be watching, BTW, this was a very informational video. Please keep up the great work. Both families (Hitz and Hufnagel) are proud of both our fathers' roles in WW2 as well as our shared German heritage.
About Mosquito cruising aĺtitude ;)
I'd like to but I'm going to wait until (or if) it is released on DVD because I don't watch television on principal.
My mom was born in Mannheim in 1936. I grew up listening to tales of day and night time air raids, tales of "Christmas Trees" and strafing fighters. Long, terrifying nights in bomb shelters. Her dad and brother used to go up to the roof of their apartment building to watch the daylight raids. A tough time to be a German civilian in an industrial city. She's 87 now and can still recall those days with amazing clarity.
My mother was born in Danzig In 1938. What was leftover of her family fled west as the Soviets approached. She never got over it. Especially, when tornado warning sirens went off here in the United States.
Your mother was testimony to the fact that German citizens maintained a great will to survive in the face of dreadful amounts of ordinance being dropped on, not only Mannheim, but other cities with industry, transportation and military importance. The Ruhr valley, from which came 1/2 of my family, although heavily defended, was flattened and was flooded by the English dam bombings. To observe it rise from its literal ashes to once again thrive reminds me of the futility and madness of war. Instead of rattling sabres and invading neighboring countries, we should be stuggling to learn to live in peace. It seems far more difficult than bombarding and bombing!
@@papadopp3870 We see this madness in the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. For the efforts and cost in lives and materiel, if the Russians had instead invested in industry and improving their own standards of living they would have been dramatically better off. It comes down to allowing demagogues to come to power - if citizens paid more attention to the pathologies of some leaders, we'd save a lot of death and destruction...
Same for my parents
@@davidg3944And American attitudes eh💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
My uncle's B 24 lost two engines to flak over Munster. The fighters jumped on it because it couldn't stay in formation. US fighters would drive them away but would have to rejoin the formation. The plane hit the sea off Holland. Divers found the plane about 15 years ago.
Harrowing... I hope that you know the specifics because your uncle survived, not from other pilot's reports.
That's an interesting story. Do you have any more specific information? I can perhaps find a news article or something about the recovery of the wreckage online. Several B-24s have crashed in and around the Netherlands, one in a forest near the town where I currently live. Unfortunately there were no survivors of that crash, but a monument was erected to commemorate them.
@davidg3944 yt keeps removing my response. Mission no.7, 5 Nov. 43. Plane The Drip. Site is b 24 do* ne*. He did not survive.
@@MrLBPug it's in a Dutch scuba diving magazine.
@@Bob.W. My condolences to your family. There were thousands of brave bomber crew that gave their lives for us, we need to remember them in how we maintain our civil society. Keeping America strong and a beacon of Democracy is my suggestion to honor the lost soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
I toured a B-17 on my 24th birthday, and it scared me to death. I suddenly realized that the crew could not hide from the flack bursts, or from the cannon shells being fired at them from German fighter aircraft. The man next to me looked like he was about 60 years old then (1984) and I asked him, "How did they get people to ride on these? There is no place to hide from the bullets!" The man replied, "They were drafted." That day I saw for the first time how deadly war was, and continues to be.
What you describe is extremely common. Just see what is going on in Ukraine. Men obeying orders and walking straight into death. That is what men do. You would too and so would I if we were drafted
My father grew up in Germany and lived through the War. He only once spoke to me about the American bombers but what he told me I will never forget. He said that watching them fly over head, the sheer number of them was overwhelming and that it would take hours from seeing the first one to seeing the last one fly over and that they covered the whole sky. That is a lot of bombers. I am not sure how factual that is as he was around ten years old at the time, but it is quite a stark memory to have of the American bombing campaign.
An old lady that was my patient around 20 years ago told me she had been a Flakhelfer as a teenager. She was still somewhat proud of the fact that "a single airplane at 5000 m in daylight had no chance of escape" when trying to pass overhead. The "fun" ended when fighter-bombers started strafing her battery and things actually became dangerous for the crew. She survived the war unscathed. Make of her claim what you will, 8000 rounds per airplane sounds quite different to me. But those were her words.
My grandmother lived in the occupied Netherlands, on the south-western coast, during the war. She was 12 years old during the German invasion, so around 15 when the USAAF bombing campaign started attacking Germany proper. Her stories somewhat confirm your father's. She told me that you could hear the drone of the engines of the bomber formations long before they would actually appear in the sky overhead. By the time they crossed the Dutch coast they would be at very high altitude, so almost too small for the naked eye to see, but you could see the contrails behind the aircraft: long white lines across the sky from west to east. That's what she remembered most vividly, along with the motorcycle-like noise of V-1 flying bombs that the Germans used to attack Antwerp when that came under Allied control. She lived relatively near that port, on the Dutch-Belgian border and almost directly under the programmed flight path of the V-1s. Some bombs didn't make it and exploded in the countryside between her home and Antwerp.
My mother who would have been 9 in 1945 said when the Bombers flew overhead it darkened the ground as they flew by overhead and it went on for a long time. She was from a small village but I suspect the target was Magdeberg which had a nearby Junkers Jet engine plant.
To give you an idea how big the formations were...when the " 1000 bomber raids" went to Berlin...by the time the first squadrons were established over the target, the trail units were still out over the English channel.
@@viggotannhauser7251 I remember reading somewhere that it was estimated that it took something like 8,000 rounds of "wasted" ammunition on average to finally hit and take down a plane. So, if 10 planes were shot down, they probably went through 80,000 rounds to accomplish that. I do not remember the actual numbers, but it was something in the thousands.
The bravery of these young men on both sides is remarkable. As I got older, instead of celebrating “enemy deaths”, would often think of the loss of husband, father, son, brother….
future teacher, doctor, musician, scientist, writer, ...... :(
@@darrel7589. The whole point of the comment is that a large portion of young men on both sides were either professional soldiers or conscripts who were expected to do their duty. The comment is intended to highlight at the human individual level how lives were sacrificed for government of the day ideals. It’s a warning also if anyone can climb down from narrow opinion, how easy it is for people to be manipulated by media of a totalitarian regime
Older often equals wiser and sadder. It doesn't seem to matter the nationality.
that's the sad truth of war. The truly awful people, at least if you can consider one side of the war "evil", are at the top of the ladder. Most grunts are just fathers, husbands, sons... It's why Putin's war is so horrendous. All those people with a future ahead of them were snuffed out for nothing. In an alternative universe where putin never got into politics, russia is a friend of everyone the way Kazakhstan is, and all those boys are still alive...
@@moonasha But those in power want more power, so the young must pay for them to get more power. War is hell, which damns us all when so many want it now.
The Mark I Eyeball was over-engineered and forced into production too soon.
Agreed. It failed me completely accessing the threat level of both my ex wives.
I used to drive a city bus for 24 years. One of my most memorable passengers was an older gentleman who served as crew chief and top turret gunner on a B-17. We had several discussions during his rides with me. He told me of one of his most poignant times, when he lost a good friend who was shot to death in the ball turret. He himself wound up bailing out over Germany.
The 8000 FLAK shells per aircraft goes a long way towards explaining why the Allies prevented the use of Proximity fuses over land for so long.
Except that with the so-called Oslo Report delivered to the British Embassy in Oslo in November 1939 there was a prototype proximity fuse. Germany did understand why such a device mattered and, according to R.V. Jones, the prototype worked better than the equivalent British devices at the time.
@@rjs_698 Everybody knew it was a good idea, The British fuse of 1939 wasn't ready for deployment, neither was the German, but the allies stuck with it as a priority project and John Hopkins University eventually had a reliable volume manufacturable design in 1942. The Japanese had a viable fuse by the Wars end.
@@rjs_698 The German fuse was the acoustic one right? Kind of a dead end and never used either during the war or after. If it was so important to them you would think they would actually get it working.
@@rjs_698Except the Germans never managed to get any proximity fuse into a viable weapon system. The British had functional proximity fuses by 1940. The problem they couldn't overcome was making them hardy enough to survive being fired out of artillery, so it could only be used on things like the "unrotated projectile" launchers. By 1942 the Americans had solved that and the proximity fuse was ready for combat. The US also had the electronics industry to mass produce them, something nobody else could do. Now the question of if the Germans could reverse engineer the fuse and produce enough to matter is a big thing as to whether it was a good decision to hold them back. I suspect not on a large scale and the refusal to use them likely ended up costing lives, but it was probably a reasonable decision from their knowledge at the time.
Curtis LeMay was trained as an artillery officer and understood how many shells it took for a French 75 to hit a target. He ordered crews not to take evasive action on bomb runs. Losses did not increase accuracy did increase.
Very excellent Chris. No one theater ended ww2. The Atlantic, bomber campaign, D-day, not even millions of Russians. Bf109 is still the most produced fighter aircraft ever, from a "losing ", country. Boggles the mind about the resources blown away and burned up , in ww2.
It was insane
And lets not forget that in addition to the production of the Bf-109, the Third Reich produced thousands of FW-190s of various types, Me-262s, V-1s, V-2s, Tiger Tanks, Panthers, PanzerFaust, PanzerSchrek, Uboats, and so much more. They were really into the fight to win.
@@sztypettto Never never forget that they enslaved whole Europa by using at their own advantage and stealing the industry and agriculture of occupied countries to a more or less forced workforce and slaved from concentration camps hired from the SS, in their factories ...when you say that they were really into the fight to win, not exactly till the defeat of Stalingrad and from there the need of the so called "total war".
But only the east crushed Germany, the rest were valuable distractions of resources, but American steel, Russian blood, the Great Patriotic War defeated Hitler.
@@sandhill9313 Not wrong but too simplistic to be 100% convincing...and that forgets the fact that the early Nazis victories, before Barbarossa, owe a lot to Stalin's USSR.
As a retired Air Force officer (not a pilot), I'm very interested in seeing this series and how it compares with what I learned in classes and from reading about the history, as well as comparing it with more recent movies like Red Tails and earlier movies like Twelve O'Clock High, which largely used actual combat footage. Getting insights from the German perspective really helps fill in the picture.
I, too, am a retired USAF officer and not a pilot, but a student of history, especially WW II. Chris, it’s great to see you expand your presentations and skills. I am always glad to see an objective, fact based presentation. And the view from “the other side” gives insight and reflection. Thanks
There is minimal German perspective in the movies or the media. The US perspective is so distorted that Germans look almost ridiculous except at the moments when the suffering and the losses of the US crews need to be overemphasized. In reality, German crews (both ground and air) were superior in practically every aspect of combat, tactics, support and air kills
@@gdiwolverinemale4th except that with all that superiority they still lost. In any competition proficiency plays apart but sodas random chance. Don’t believe me? Look at something like the Olympics where only top athletes from a country reach the final competition and in that final competition there are still winners and losers Often it’s not the expected favorite who comes out on top.
@@nealskrenes2612 My point is not getting across. The kill ratio was in favor of the Luftwaffe. But they were fighting a numerically superior enemy. If you fight two or three men at the same time, you are unlikely to win. The outcome of WW2 was very much in line with expectations
The Luftwaffe pilots did well especially at the beginning of the war when their aircraft were far technically superior to those they were attacking, due to austerity programs crippling the air arm of the governments who failed to keep up with modernization and expensive training. However as time went on more modern Allied aircraft became available, And many of the more experienced German pilots became killed or disabled. Once American fighter aircraft were detached from protecting bombers in a defensive mode and instead went on the offensive attacking Luftwaffe airfields and aircraft wherever they could find to find them off was in serious trouble. At the start of the Big Week Campaign of February 20, 1944 in week of air combat, the US 8th and 15th Air Forces lost about 20% of their planes. But the Luftwaffe lost about 30% of their pilots and about 90% of their flyable airplanes. On D-Day itself, Allied aircraft flew 14,000 sorties, while the Luftwaffe managed a mere 260.
Hi Chris, another great video, we lost a great uncle in WW2, he was an Observer with Coastal Command. He wasnt in a B17 he was in a RAF Liberator mk3a, which was basically a B24D in RAF colours. Through researching his death in a flying accident I found your channel and I've been reading a lot about the aircrews. I am amazed at how brave all these young airmen/aircrew were. It doesn't matter what side they were on they all showed courage that we can only dream of. Like you I look forward to this series, I only hope it does these men justice and respects them for their service and the ultimate sacrifice many of them made. Keep up the good work Chris and best wishes to you from NZ.
I started my flight training as a teenager in 1997. The chief instructor pf the school was a gentleman who had been a B-24 Navigator across North Africa and the Mediterranean theaters. He was sent home in 44 to train crews and was sent to Pyote Texas to learn the B-29. He then went to Tinian in May of 45 and flew raids on Japan until the surrender. We had a group of foreign pilots come over the summer of 1998 to build time as flying is far cheaper in the US. One of the gentlemen was a Japanese surgeon who was 6 when the war ended. He saw the B-24 and B-29 photos in the school and told stories pf seeing humdreds pf B-29s flying over his home on bombing raids and the terror. He and the instructor got to talking and it turns out that this mans father was a laborer at a garment factory in Okazaki that had a distinctive blue roof. That roof was a known waypoint for bomber crews heading in to bomb Nagoya. Because ot was a waypoint and not a facility making weapons pr armor, ot was actually "kept safe" as ot were by the crews so they could use ot for future missions. It was neat to hear the stories from both men and realize that this Japanese mans father likely survived the war because of a coat of paint.
Don't let the victors define morality - Hiroshima was always indefensible In fact, United States, Navy, chief of staff said that if we lost the war, we be charged with war crimes after the drop to nukes in Japan
@@kochj0713 No rational person can state that the use of nukes didn't actually save lives in the long run. Operation Downfall, if necessary, was estimated to have 3 million or more casualties, the bulk of them civilian. If Russia has entered into the invasion of Japan, it may have "only" been 2 to 2.5 million. In August of 45, given all the scenarios, the two bombs WERE the lesser of all evils.
@@ParkerUAS 100% true.
@@ParkerUAS : Con tu argumento LES DAS LA RAZÓN A HITLER y sus generales para aplicar los Einzatsgruppen y la "Orden contra los Komisars" soviéticos solo que en este caso de los "malvados nazis" sus directrices estaban basadas en las Convenciones de Guerra vigentes, lo cual no puede aplicarse para justificar los ataques aéreos terroristas sobre Alemania y menos a los bombardeos atómicos sobre Japón ...
Great story. The odd things in life that save us from harm.
Thanks Chris. My Opa was a batteriechef on an 88 battery and then transitioned to the Wurzburg radar. As Flak crews were transferred to the Luftwaffe ground forces where they were chewed up he always said the radar saved his life. He started the war on the first wave of Sealowe and was thankfully spared when that was cancelled. Oddly, my cousin was a B-17 waist gunner shot down on second Schweinfurt. Both men survived.
Crazy stories. Curious, how did the Wurzburg radar pass accurate targeting data to the flak guns? Kinda wondering how that killchain went down. I know later on, the Allies tried to make heading and altitude changes to throw off the Flak batteries.
My Mother was born in Hannover, one of the most heavily bombed German cities, in 1940. She remember the daytime raids (would have been American) and being able see the bombs actually dropping out the aircraft and young boys whose job it was to beat out incendiaries with brooms. By the end of the war her and my Grandmother had been bombed out of their dwelling twice. The second was very near the end of the war when they were sheltering in the building’s cellar and it took a direct hit. The whole building was on fire and they only managed to escape because my Grandfather, who was at home having been wounded out of the by a bullet in the legs on the Eastern Front, managed to break their way through with an axe into the neighbouring cellar. She was only 5 years old at the time but to this today (now aged 83) my Mother has never ever again set foot inside a cellar in her whole life.
I remember one Luftwaffe pilot saying that - the turn into 20 Fortresses lets all the sins of ones life flash before his eyes.
Oberleutnant Franz Stigler said at first they were vectored climbing to the back of the B-17 formation where the closure rate was slow (a long time to shoot at each other) and a hundred guns opened fire on the lead BF109...his. His cannon/guns and their 50s had the same range because of the poor position and wind going with the 50s. He admitted he just fired everything and got out of there. Later, he favored coming down from above from an aspect where the bomber looked the largest (easier to hit) and he could flash by quickly. Later still in an ME262, he had more freedom to choose attack direction. He had 26 confirmed kills including 5 four engined bombers. He had to bail out 6 times. Reportedly, he gave away claims to his pilots who did not survive their first encounter. Junior pilots were NCOs. Stigler is the German pilot in the 'Charlie Brown incident.'
The book “A Higher Call” by Adam Makos is an absolute must read about the life of Franz Stiegler. He was wounded in the head by a .50 cal but miraculously survived
@@rzr2ffe325 - amazingly so was Saburo Sakai the Japanese ace.
My granpa was a grand crew member for BF 109ers in Hungary (Hungarian Royal Airfoce). He also had some stories how allied fighters killed the German and Hungarian pilots on parashutes… When my grandparents refuged to Austria their convoy was machinegunned by American Lightnings and my grandma told that she had a kind of intution to move out from the hideout and she was right. Whoever remaind in the same spot were killed during the air raid…
@@hakapeszimaki8369 There are stories of fighter pilots from all air forces shooting at parachutes. Sometimes the rage of battle was too much for them and they gave in to it.
I studied German at high school and university in Australia because I was good at it and to understand the other side of ww2. What I learned was the horror of war and how conflict brings out the very best and the very worst of human nature. Lets hope the majority of the world always remembers this. I'm glad I've never had to go to war.
true words
Well said. I can love military history/history but still abhor the misery that war brings.😢
In high school in the late 70 s, I had a teacher named Busyer Copp. One leg was shorter where a German projectile took some of his femur. He was also mom's math teacher. Sent to New York to recover he bought an old car and drove it home to Grapevine Texas. He used an axe handle to work the clutch and slept in the car on his way home.
Typically well done with much objectivity. Sidebar: I was fortunate to know Gen. Johannes Steinhoff a bit more than casually. We worked together on two history panels and a radio program. I asked him if the Luftwaffe considered the USN type overhead gunnery pass against bombers and he said the advantages were well known. (Bigger target perspective and difficult for bomber gunners to counter.) But the GAF never had the fuel for training adequate numbers in the technique. He said that if it had been done, daylight bombing could have ended in 1943. No less an authority than Adm. John "Jimmy" Thach agreed with him.
@BTillman48 : La clave del declive y posterior derrota alemana fue la CRECIENTE FALTA DE COMBUSTIBLE ....no se dice abiertamente porque es una prueba contundente contra la narrativa holocaustófila ...
As I recall reading Johannes Steinhoff's nickname was Mackie and he was horribly burned in an attack late in the war (1944).
Yes, but I never asked him or anyone else about origin of "Macki" however spelled. He spent years of painful surgeries that never fully repaired his scars. But beneath that ruined face was an active, agile mind. He was engaged in art and music and conversed knowledgeably on both. One of the most impressive people I've ever known.
@@terryswartz960burned when his Me-262 had a failed engine on takeoff, he managed to get out of the burning machine with burns to his face and hands. Considered to be the most handsome man in the Luftwaffe prior to his accident. His book Messerschmitts over Sicily (also titled Straits of Messina) is a nice account of the struggle in the Mediterranean in 42-43
Thanks again, Chris. Very insightful as always.
Thanks, great to hear you enjoyed it!
How is your comment 7hrs old when the video is only 4hrs old?
@@EinfachFredhaftGaming Because he's really, _really_ good at KZhead.
I have become unstuck in time. This morning, I was in the Ardennes in Dec 1944, later I was on the planet Tralfamador with a friend.
I believe it is also important to consider the large parts of Luftwaffe in the Mediterennean and how much of it was lost in 1943 also.
Regarding losses until mid-1943, yes. Lots of LW planes shot down on the trailing edge of 1942 and beginning of 1943 over the MTO. After that, less so - LW fighter strength drops to under 100 fighters in the MTO by end of 1943 and stays there. Operational numbers lower than force numbers of course. From the top of my head, comparative fighter strength is is about 5-10% of the available numbers.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory exactly. The point was that for the war effort in general, the large losses of fighters (and bombers and transports - Tunisgrad) down there are really important as a lot of effort and gdp goes into buillding airplanes that drown in the Med.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Just curious, what were the total losses of the Luftwaffe up to the German surrender in Tunisia in May-43?
The issue was never the materiel it self. It was the lack of trained/ skilled pilots. The interview with the Bf-109 pilot says it all.
@@kleinerprinz99 while you are certainly to a certain extent right, I would say it is a very narrow view of things. Had the Allies not waged the Mediterranean Campaign and the Bombing Campaign, less planes and pilots would be needed to be regenerated. Which would have meant something in the East. My point being that the Western air forces sucked a disproportionate large part of German GDP and war production out of the total, which was very good for The Red Army.
I think one thing is overlooked ver often. All those losses the Luftwaffe took, in Russia, in the Mediterranean and in the west, they could at no time in the war really replace them. Germany constantly lacked oil, and what was available went to the army or existing Luftwaffe Squadrons, not to the training. The egde Germany held over its opponents, its well trained and experienced pilots, vanished the more losses they took
Chris also made a video about the topic you mention. Check his video archive!
@@Anon15297 : Realizas MUCHA GIMNASIA RETÓRICA para evitar mencionar que la logística del combustible le puso fecha de expiración a la eficiencia de la Luftwaffe ....
One of numerous must have is the very humbly and cleverly written book from Julius Meimberg "Feindberürhung" (Enemy contact) who ended the war as Group commander of II./JG54 . In the last month of the war when his unit was engaged in the so called Defense of the Reich in the SW part of Germany, he always met the newcomers talking to them the need to be very disciplined to try to survive the very first missions and he ordered too that photographs of these novice pilots were taken so they could keep track of them after their very short career in the group had ended .
You are absolutely correct. The US and UK movie culture has completely distorted the reality whereby most of the Luftwaffe was fighting in the East, thus allowing the Western Allies to fly with near impunity
Excited for the show, and also for your commentary!
You sort of touch on it, but I find the fact that Reich Defence was a battle from which the Luftwaffe could not withdraw of paramount importance. Unlike the Western, Mediterranean and even Easten fronts where it could disengage from unfavourable contests - and often did in 1942.
Most of the Luftwaffe was fighting on the Eastern front. Otherwise, the Western Allies would not be able to fly even paper planes into German airspace. As always, Hollywood targets the stupid and the ignorant
Chris, thanks for this project you are going to do. This will a great companion to the series. I am looking forward to all you produce!
My recently deceased neighbor (Ben Lupica) flew 24 or 29 bombing raids over Europe. He mentioned that he must've been one of the luckiest SOBs to ever walk this Earth. Lived to be 99.
Wonderful! Since history is “ written by the victors” this is so very important to get the German Luttwaffe perspective. My father was a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot during the war, and after over a year of training in 1942, arrived in England in April of 1943. Of the 100 in the original fighter group he arrived with, he and 3 others were alive in May 1945. And as our family immigrated from the Rhineland/ Palatinate and his grandfather still spoke only German, he had many things to wrestle with. So good to get the German perspective.
No, I’m pretty sure there are history books mentioning WW2 written by Germans, Japanese, Italians, Croats, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, slovakians…they were all losers.
Not true at all. The German Official History Volumes !!??? A huge amount has been written by German historians also. Lazy claim.
I served in the army in 1976-1979 on the depot in Giessen, Germany. I made many friends there and they were kind enough to help teach me about how the war was in “die Stadt”. The exchange rate when I was there was 3 mark 65 phenning to the dollar. This means that I was able to go to the Bahnhof and visit Wetzlar, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg, just to mention a few areas. You do an excellent job of explaining this aspect of history. Thank you Chris!
Super stoked for this series, but worried over how CGIy many scenes in the trailer looked. Loved this video!!
I like that the show portrays the anti aircraft gun crew wearing the accurate luftwaffe uniforms instead of many movies and tV shows in the past using Wehrmacht uniforms.
Great historical accuracy in a TV drama. Returning from a mission a shot up B17 bomber has to make an emergency landing in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Later in the episode we see the B17 pilot phoning his base in Norfolk from a house where a party is in full swing with his crew being entertained by the locals. He tells his station commander “The people are really swell and they’re looking after us. It turns out they don’t like the English much either.” 👍🏴
Thanks as always for another great video. I'm looking forward to the series.
I’m really looking forward to your video series going forward, as well as watching the MoTA series itself. Thanks!
Excellent video! Clear, concise and informative.
Thank you for the start of this new series on your Military Aviation History channel. The Luftwaffe point-of-view will be an extremely interesting perspective - and one that has intrigued me. I bought a paper back version of the book to read for the third (or fourth?) time - just to highlight and sticky-note it and compare to the upcoming Apple TV series. (Did not want to mark up my original hard copy.) I also have been looking forward to the Masters of the Air series on Apple TV. We all shall see if the Band of Brothers and Pacific creators stay true to the facts/data and are true to history. I hope you continue to provide your historical insights as the series is published and viewed using your excellent investigative history approach. We must never forget.
The production value on this video was 10/10. I enjoy the presenter, very intelligent in his presentation.
Great video as always, I really like how you look into the actual Luftwaffe reports, that is awesome. Soooooo excited for Masters of the Air, looking forward to more videos
That was very interesting, informative and enjoyable. Thanks. Can I request that you leave your information graphics on screen for, say half as long again, to give time to read and digest the details while keeping up with the visuals. I had to pause and skip back several times to get everything fully. Apart from that, and my shared intention to not use Apple TV, as others commented, you did your usual thorough job 👍🏻
It's probably apocryphal, but I remember reading about a FLAK unit commander addressing his charges thusly: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades, Boys, and Girls."
Maybe not, HitlerJugend, BDM , and the Volkssturm were all involved in FLAK units.
Thank you for this fascinating and informative video. So well presented and paced perfectly.
Back for a rewatch & damn, well done Chris! You're continuing to cut through all the noise & ruckus with solid work. It was 200 views last time I checked lol. Danke aus Australien!
That was a an excellent commentary, I learned so much.
Excellent documentary! The narrator is well spoken & very thorough. He covers multiple aspects of the bombing campaign, especially the German situation.
Loved the video with Bo today, also thank you for this interesting view of the war.
Great video, thanks for taking the time to research, do the graphics, and present!
Fascinating video. Really interesting to hear the German story of what happened, rather than the much more publicised allied side. It dispels many myths. Keep up up the great and very interesting work! 👍👍👍
As usual Chris, your analysis is balanced and accurate. I'd watch but I'm allergic to Apple anything so I'll give it a pass until it is in general release.
Thanks, Bob
You can always sail.Hope it is as good as Prehistoric Planet,that series kicked ass.
Thanks for another outstanding video. Really looking forward to "Masters of the Air"
Looking forward to the series and watching your video when I get home
Chris,thanks for another interesting video.Although you mentioned British and Commonwealth forces you didn't elaborate on that point Any chance that you will in future?
There was something else at play during WWII that hindered the Luftwaffe. Explored in great detail in Calum E. Douglas's excellent book, The Secret Horpower Race. Too complicated to go into detail here, but worth reading to understand the handicap German pilots had to overcome.
Do you mean the issue of the lack of high octane fuel?
@WALTERBROADDUS It's true that towards the end of the war, their refineries were bombed day and night. But the problem started in the 30's when their frontline engines were in the design stage. And later, when those engines had to be mass produced. Really, I'm not trying to be mysterious. But this is not the forum for the answer. I would strongly suggest reading the book. I'm not affiliated with Mr. Calum, nor do I get a kickback from anyone. It's a technical nerd's dream come true.
@@ericbouza854 it's one of the Untalked about reasons the allies had better performance.
Fun fact: Chris did a whole episode on that book a while ago. Check out his video archive 😁
@@MrLBPug Thanks, I will.
Love the research you did for this!
Hi Chris, I love the channel and the content. Good work
My father’s brother was trained to fly B-17’s, then B-29’s. Deployed too India. Died there
Must have been flying the Hump or the tall mountains over North India. Most of the Missions were supplying war materials from India to China
@@ruthnaswamy4741 …. His obituary says he died of poliomyelitis. In India. My father never said much about his brother.
Enjoyed your presentation Chris, so good to hear a perspective from the German side. I think the British had a plan to kill Hitler, but it was decided that Hitler was doing such a good job of hampering his own war effort that these plans were shelved. ME262 seems relevant in this case. I encourage younger viewers to watch the "World at war" documentary series from the 70s, a lot of the protagonists involved in the conflict at that time give their own personal recollections. The German ace Werner Schroer comes to mind, he recounts telling his younger pilots to close their eyes when attacking the large American formations, so they wouldn't be put off by the large amount of incoming 50 caliber. My neighbor here in Canada lost his leg baling out of a Halifax over Hannover, it was certainly a brutal time, both for military and civilian alike.
I have just discovered your KZhead channel in time with the last 2 episodes of Masters of the Air. I will rewatch the series many times so as to enjoy the information and data that you’ve provided in this video. Thank you very much for your Site and I will be returning often. I especially like Chris’ wit and humor! Now I am going to search for the previous video with Chris showing all the positions and data for the B-17 bomber ( my favorite heavy bomber, to go along with the F4U Corsair as my favorite fighter). I have seen many WWII era fighters at air shows near my home in Southern California. I hope to one day witness a close view of a B-17 flying over. I have seen one and a distance but would like to see one close up and especially if I can tour the plane like Chris has done. Salute! Greg C.
Very good. I'm reading "A Wing and a Prayer" at the moment so this provides excellent context.
So a question for you to address some day. It's understood that the initial 8th Air Force tactics, which emphasized the ability of formations of B-17/B-24, each with about 10 50-cal machine guns, to defend themselves even without escorts, was 'optimistic'. I am grateful, for example, that my father's unit started its missions in June 1944, by which time effective escort fighters and tactics were helping a lot. But I very seldom hear about the degree to which the gunners on those B-17s/B-24s were effective in (a) shooting down or (b) warding off Luftwaffe fighters.
Seconded! So many questions. I read that in 1943 gunners would actually get training via "drone" aircraft - presumably P63s the US used as OP force - but how did that actually work? Rubber bullets? Also, in the gun camera footage I've seen, you never see tracers coming from the attacked bombers. Did they just not use tracer ammo? Also, in a lot of this footage, the fighters approaching from behind do not seem to have much of a speed advantage. To the bomber gunners, they must have been nearly static targets, and yet such attacks could be made. Why? I get that in some instances the bomber gunners were not in a position to shoot anymore, but not all. So yes, loads of questions...
@@tripod222 But they actually fired at incoming German fighters , and it is said it logically led to overestimated kill numbers .
As a gunner in 10AA Regiment SADF flying target deltas for the guns i can tell you that accuracy plays second fiddle to a wall of lead. 35mm Rheinmetal and 20mm Oerlikon are very accurate, but the ZU23-2 is a beast.
This 23 mm twin cannon you mentioned, were in use in Finnish armed forces too, with a nickname "Sergei". Originally it was developed by Germans, for use as wing-root cannon in the Long-nose Focke-Wulf 190 D fighter airplane. So, it is a further developed Soviet weapon, used even to-day.
Great video. A lot of interesting informations. Fantastic "delivery". Thank You for Your work. Regards from Poland!
Thanks for sharing Chris much appreciated 👍
My father lived in Grossenhain during the war. He remembered the B-17s and RAF bombers flying over on their way to bomb Dresden. Terrible fighting in the air and on the ground had a profound impact on him.
The effect of war on society from those who survive it, is really not a well publicized topic. How does that trauma get passed down to future generations by having detached, abusive, alcoholic and otherwise psychological damaged parents?
My High School Germany teacher was a young girl near Frankfurt during the war. Her trauma caused her for sometime to run from the school and into a ditch during fire drills. The children thought this quite entertaining. Years later as a man now in my 60s I have read enough to actually weep for her and the others. I lost contact with her years ago. Wishing I could let her know that I understand!
Yummy time tonight! Hope the series will be able to even remotely approach the standards you set for yourself Chris ^^
Nice video of a second viewpoint and bringing more understanding of the Air War. Well Done Chris.
Excellent video. Good work on the primary sources.
Looking forward to it.... HOWEVER, having seen the trailers, I really hope they didn`t sacrifice accuracy for Hollywood drama too much. Also CGI might be a dealbreaker. Sometimes the movements of the aircraft are so unrealistic (red tails for example) that it`s hard to keep my eyes on the TV. While I totaly understand, that it`s not really possible to realise the movies with real planes like they did in the past (BoB, Memphis Belle), I do hope they do their homework and don't sacrifice realistic flying for action scenes.
I am hoping the hollywood-esqueness of the trailers is mainly to rope in a larger audience, with then a focus on the main elements in the series, We will see soon enough, might still be worth it
_Memphis Belle_ used early CGI to show the large formation. It was bad. The model work for the ramming of _Mother and Country_ looked bad then and still does. A B-17 was destroyed during the filming. Everything has a cost/ benefit. I saw it in the theater back in October of 1990.
@@markwilliams2620I know, of course they used effects. But the flying was mostly real planes.
Well done video. Im hoping its as well done as previous series. I HATE that its on apple plus only as i dont use apple junk and dont need another streaming service
So stoked i found this channel. Very well done!
Excellent analysis Chris! really enjoyed this video.
Had a flight engineer who used to tell me experiences. He would break down crying when toward the end of the war and ran out of targets and they just bombed citys with women and children. Sad to see he carried that for so long
There were more civilians killed in the fire bombings of Bremen than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The Allies weren't the righteous heros we were taught.
Those of us that study ww2 understand that. War is a dirty buisiness. Biggest question to me is the atom bomb. WE will never realy know whether it saved lives or was just a statement to russia.
It was Dresden not Bremen. @@jtmachete
@@jtmachete No, but the Germans started it with terror bombings of Poland and then the intentional bombing of civilians in London and other British cities.
There's always a lot of talk about the B-17, while everyone ignores the B-24, which was absolutely crucial plane in the bombing campaign...
A bit like the Hurricane and the Spitfire. Some get all the credit.
That is because ''Masters of the Air' focuses on the 100th Bombardment Group, a unit equipped with several B-17 variants for the duration of the war in the ETO. However, as a general overview, not focussing on any particular aircraft, Chris' video gives enough information outside the scope of that particular aircraft.
@@MrLBPug I don't mean just this video, or just this book. I mean everything. The amount of attention B-17 gets is about 10 times bigger than what B-24 gets, even though B-24 was produced in greater numbers.
@@Zereniti77Brits liked the B24, read more British stuff
Very informative. Thank you for these historical insights.
Great video. Loved Masters of the Air. It was a pretty amazing series.
Thanks for the excellent video. It confirms what little I have learned in my own reading, both in English and auf Deutsch. I think the head on attack acquired such a reputation because of the sheer audacity of the act. My understanding is it was seen as enough of a threat so as to elicit modifications in the B-17 to add more forward firing machine guns. Maybe those guns were added as much for bomber crew morale as anything else. But the head on attack certainly became overemphasized in history. One tactic, used a few times, was promoted as THE reason why the Luftwaffe could cause such heavy losses for US bomber crews in 1943. By the way, your English, always good, is becoming absolutely superb.
It's barely noticeable to me as a native English speak.
Already looking forward to the series version of *Das Boot*
Nice job! Great information.
Great video. Very well researched and interesting on several fronts. Thank you.
Thanks for another fine feature! For the German perspective on the battle over the Reich I would highly recommend "The Luftwaffe War Diaries" by Cajus Bekker to get an understanding of just how hopeless the situation was after U.S. escort fighters arrived in increasing numbers.
This was very interesting. I really enjoyed your perspective.
Great video!! It is good to know this other part of the view!! Thank you for sharing this!!!
Takes me back to researching the decline of the Luftwaffe and naively assuming that it took place in late 1944 only. I think the most shocking thing for me was the proportion of luftwaffe losses against the western allies - i remember seeing statistics for i think fighter losses for the 2nd half of 1943 that suggested that the med and the eastern front were about even, eith the west and germany being 50% higher. Absolutely fascinating
For the Soviets, pilot training in general was really poor. KZhead's "Gregsairplanes" recently made a video on the IL-2 manual and it is full of coloured pictures of the most basic stuff (walk around the airplane and check it before take-off) that western pilots would have learned in basic flight school. (His channel has some great, if often very technical, info on air warfare and air combat) And among the air force pilots, fighter pilot training was especially poor. Combine that with absolutely staggering losses in the air - there's a reason Germany had hundreds of pilots with 100+ air-to-air kills - and you start seeing why the Soviet air force's mass of fighters far outstripped the actual losses it inflicted on the Luftwaffe.
Is there any records of Luftwaffe pilots having differing opinions and tactics on different types of bombers? I've heard a few stories of American crews being more intimidated by the Fw-190 verse the Bf-109, so is there something similar on the opposite, like if the pilots got up there and saw it was a squadron of B-25s or B-26s verse B-17s or B-24s, did the tactics change at all or keep the same, and would pilots prefer attacking one type over the other?
A very impressive analysis. Thank you.
WOW! Great lesson! Thank you for this analysis. Very well done.
Great content as usual. My one nitpick would be audio levels being quite low again. There may be a technical reason which I don't know about but it is quite jaring compared to other videos.
Roger, thanks for letting me know. Been pushing it up in recent videos but this one seems to have slipped me
Sound Level is fine for me
What really made me think about how wars shape language was when I first heard the English expression "To catch some Flak". "Oh, but zat is easy!“, I thought to myself, "it is just a stationary gun, it cannot run from you!" Then I realized that to the Allied bomber crews, "Flak" was the total of the shrapnel-spewing explosions of the German AA shells, and the unnerving puffs of smoke that hung in the air after the detonation. P.S: If anyone reading this is ever in Vienna, I urge them to check out the famous Augarten park and take a photo in front of the massive Augartenflakturm.
You can also visit the Haus des Meeres aquarium in the Mariahilf neighbourhood of Vienna, which is housed in a Flak tower.
@@MrLBPug Haus des Meeres is only an L-Turm ('Leitturm', i.e. control tower) though; the Augarten has both an L-Turm and the much more imposing G-Turm ('Gefechtsturm', i.e. combat tower). Then again the Haus des Meeres has all sorts of adorable aquatic critters in it, which is a definite plus.
The American expression "the while 9 yards" is another one from ww2 . 9 yards was the length of a 50cal machine gun belt on fighters.
@@fazole The whole nine yards. 👍
I enjoyed the content of this video. Thank you Chris.
I'm impressed with your research and dedication...thank you!
My father was a flight engineer on a B-24 in the Pacific. I heard many stories about his 50 missions. I got a ride in a B-24 several years ago. I am a member of a glider club in Canada now. We had many first generation Germans in our club. While I enjoyed the friendship of one of the German members, I thought that he had some strange ideas about many subjects such as the Holocaust, new German medicine, and politics. I always wondered what was in his past that had such an effect on his thinking. About a year before he died, I found out he was five years old and lived in Dresden when it was fire bombed. I think this explained a lot to me. I don't know how you could live through something like that and not be affected. I am watching "Masters of the Air".
Yeah, "New Germanic Medicine" is absolute nonsense. It basically puts the blame on being sick on the one being sick. According to their theories, all sickness is rooted in unresolved conflicts. Weird stuff. Also, too many Germans around Dresden still have a hostile view on the allies for bombing the city. The same holds not true for alle the other cities that were bombed. The Germans around Dresden are "special": leaning into right-wing extremism and conspiracy theorists. (Of course not all of them and probably not even the majority. But too many). They have a bad reputation among liberal and progressive Germans.
Let's hope it will be a good exciting and historical correct series. That would be awesome.
I really appreciate your channel , well reseached concise , far too many channels spout bs . Plus the footage you show matchs whatever aircraft you are, talking about ,again thanks.
Fascinating. Many thanks for this perspective.
It’s good to remember that the primary goal of the US daylight bombing, was the destruction of the Luftwaffe (meaning pilots). The air over western Europe had to be clear of the Luftwaffe before the invasion of Europe could be attempted. Any destruction of ground targets was a plus to that goal. However the targets had to be of high importance to the Germans so that a maximum response from the Luftwaffe would result. Also most people think the P-51 was the first fighter that could escort the bombers all the way to Germany. This not correct. The P-47 had large drop tanks available that would have allowed them to escort the bombers as early as ‘43. However the US commanders still believed at this point in the war that “the bomber will always get through”. As a result, these larger drop tanks were never shipped from the US to England. So rather than being slaughtered in raids like Schweinfurt, the bombers could been escorted by the P-47. By the time these issues were realized and changes were implemented, the P-51 was available.
These drop tanks had been designed by Republic on their own initiative in part as Ferry Tanks. They were no pressurized and this limited the altitude at which they could be used to about 22,000ft. Nevertheless some way could have been found for their use. They would have allowed the aircraft to takeoff, form up as a squadron and climb and perhaps cross the enemy coast.
Your comments brought to light something I don't see often discussed -- Long ago, I had the privilege of attending a talk given by General Curtis Lemay. One of the many topics he covered in that talk shocked me and stayed with me all these years -- [summarizing] "the daylight bombing campaigns were primarily to bring the Luftwaffe off the ground and in the air where we had a better chance of eliminating them." Let that sink in. The bomber crews were basically "wild weisel" efforts to eliminate the enemy. His other topic that stuck with me - [summarizing] "saturation bombing wasn't that effective against German industrial production". I kept thinking "what if those bomber crews ever knew they were actually sacrificial offerings?". My uncle was a B-24 pilot; my Dad was 1st armor. They never talked of the carnage, because it was that terrible. To me, the movie "Catch-22" captured the insanity those men faced going up for 25 missions knowing the odds of returning were not good. On a postive note, a book I found very interesting is "A Higher Call" by Adam Makos, Larry Alexander -- getting both sides of the air war in a book with an upbeat ending was a nice change. Anyway, your comments are spot on, and I rarely hear this perspective discussed. The human sacrifice and carnage was incredible on all sides.
@@nickdapice3071 I doubt this is correct. The Allied combined bombing campaign cut German Munitions production by 40%. It annihilated StuG III production entirely, prevented Panther production reaching 600/month. It languished at around 200/month else Panther production might have been 10000 not 6000. It destroyed the BMW 801R with two stage inter cooled supercharger. The allied bombing campaign destroyed 90% of German fuel production prior to d day with Speer warning it would lead to a total collapse. It destroyed the TeGo Film factory that prevented German production of wooden aircraft such as the Ta 154 and He 162. The allied bombing campaign destroyed the sanitas factory preventing the German from deploying microwave radars by eliminating magnetron production. There are dozens more cases
To show the effect of Allied airpower, let's shift to the 1950s. The new leaders of the Bundes Luftwaffe had to decide on which nation to model it's new air force. The decision was quick and unanimous. Unlike their Army counterparts, the veteran pilots of WW2 realized they had been soundly defeated in every aspect by the US Air Force. They were not able to turn back a single American bomber raid by military action (thou weather aborts were frequent). Also, they are unable to protect their own troops on the ground with close air support. So the Bundes Luftwaffe asked the USAF for help in building an air force for Germany. For at least the years 1955-1960 the Luftwaffe was a virtual branch of the USAF with enlisted airmen, officers and pilots attending schools led by USAF personnel and using translated USAF manuals.
Not really convincing. The Germans were outnumbered by the Americans who had more planes, more personnel, more fuel, more raw materials, a more powerful economy, etc. Apart from these facts, who else should they have asked for help after the war?
@@tjb7284 the Brit’s?
@@evanpilot The Marineflieger (German Naval Air Arm)in the 1950's used British Aircraft and worked with the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm with training in the UK. Hardly surprising seeing that the majority of the coastal area of West Germany was in the British Zone.
Weird Story, not very conviencing. The allied airpower was just about numbers. With just the top hundred German aces picking more than 10.000 planes out of the sky, I would guess it was rather the other way around.
Puppet state ask puppet master, not surprised
Amazing work, thank you for the video. There were very brave young men on both sides of the air war.
I just subscribed to apple tv ONLY to watch that series masters of the air. Took me one day to get thru the entire series. 3 days later and I've watched it twice...... Amazing what them boys went thru on a daily....
I was in the Army in 1989 and was touring Trier Germany. We stopped in a bar with a small hotel above it. We drank with older German men and one of them asked what we did (mlrs rockets) He said he had been in the Hitler youth and had been in a AA battery. I didnt know what to say so I asked him "well did you hit anything?" He thought his unit had perhaps taken down four aircraft. He had never gotten old enough to be drafted into the Army. I think he would of been 16 at the wars end. He wasnt boastful just was very proud of what he had done. I guess I would of been the same as him in his place. Probably a massively exciting thing for a kid to be doing. Firing cannon miles into the sky trying to hit hundreds of Airplanes with search lights lighting up the sky planes catching on fire and burning to the ground.
As an Austrian who was in the front lines at Monte Cassino at 16, my father’s enthusiasm for the war was pretty much wiped out… along with most of his gymnasium class in the first day… months later he was transferred to Normandy just waiting for the Americans and Brits… he got tired of waiting and started to “walk home” just a couple of days before D-Day… had he been picked up by the Germans he would have been shot. Luckily, he was picked up by Americans just a couple of years old and - speaking English, knowing Baseball, Movies, and New York City, he became a translator and ended up getting sponsored by the officers to come to the US right after the war… never even stopped by Vienna to see his mother off… He also volunteered and fought in Korea… for “the RIGHT side”
I worked with a man who was a bombardier on a b17. He flew out of North Africa and was shot down on his 2nd mission that was over Linns, Astria. He eventually wound up in a POW camp in Germany where he became friends with a guard named Frank. Frank was a FW190 pilot, but as my friend told me, he never flew his fighter. Frank even showed my co- worker a picture of his plane, explaining "we have plenty of planes, plenty of pilots, but the allies keep bombing their oil refineries. My co-worker was liberated when Gen Patton's tanks rolled into town and through the camp' front gate. Several weeks before Patton's arrival the guards informed the POWs that the allies would be there soon, and to stay at the camp untill they arrived. The camp guards then left.
THANK YOU, Chris, not only for your thorough research, but your superb analytics, assessments, and applications of the material! One comment on this series: Stephen Abrose's The Wild Blue mentioned that as the Reich contracted ('44-'45), the defenses became more dense because it had the same or more guns and personnel defending a progressively smaller area. Thus, bomber missions in 1945 were some of the most dangerous with regard to flak. I wonder if this dynamic shows up in this series' overview?