Unternehmen Bodenplatte

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Operation Bodenplatte
partof=Battle of the Bulge, World War II


caption=Overview of the operation.
date=1 January 1945
place=Belgium, Holland and France
result=Pyrrhic German tactical success, German strategic failure.
combatant1=flag|United States|1912
flag|United Kingdom
flagicon|Canada|1921 Canada
flagicon|New Zealand New Zealand
flagicon|Poland Poland [Peszke 1980, p. 134] [Agreement #4 of the 11 June 1940 between the United Kingdom and Poland recognised the Polish Navy and Army as sovereign but that of the Air Force was refused. Agreement #7 reversed this decision in June 1944, and the Polish Air Force was "returned" to full Polish jurisdiction (with the exception of combat assignments, although the Poles retained the right to veto).]
combatant2=flag|Nazi Germany|name=Germany
commander1=
commander2=flag|Nazi Germany|name=Germany Generalleutnant Joseph Schmid("Luftwaffenkommando West")
Major General Dietrich Peltz ("General Kommando II. Jagdkorps")
strength1=flagicon|United States|1912 Eighth Air Force
flagicon|United States|1912 Ninth Air Force
flagicon|United Kingdom 2nd Tactical Air Force
strength2=About 1,035 aircraft, including 929 fighters and fighter bombers. [Manrho & Pütz 2004, pp. 276–277; figures from Luftwaffe order of battle strength report, 1 January 1945. records]
casualties1= 305 aircraft destroyed, 190 damaged;figures from Allied loss records [Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 272] A further 25 Allied Aircraft were shot down.Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 290: 31 Allied aircraft were lost. However four ran out of fuel, one was lost through engine trouble and another was lost to friendly fire]
casualties2= Aircraft: 271 Bf 109s and Fw 190s destroyed and 65 damaged, 9 Ju 88s destroyed and 4 damaged
143 pilots killed, 70 as Prisoners of war, and 21 wounded.Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 273] [13 Kommodore, 5 Kommandeure and 14 Staffelkapitäne were lost.]

Unternehmen Bodenplatte (German: "Operation Baseplate" or "Operation Ground Plate"), launched on January 1 1945, was an attempt by the "Luftwaffe" to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries of Europe during World War II. It was a last-ditch effort to keep up the momentum of the German Army ("Heer") during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge ("Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein"). The operation was a Pyrrhic success for the "Luftwaffe" as the losses suffered by the German air arm were irreplaceable. The losses of the Allied Air Forces were replaced within weeks. The operation failed to achieve Air superiority, even temporarily, and the German Army continued to be exposed to air attack. This operation has mistakenly been referred to as Operation Hermann ("see below").

Bodenplatte

The plan

On 14 December "Generalleutnant" Dietrich Peltz of the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe ("Luftwaffe" High Command) initiated plans for a major blow against the Allied air power in northwest Europe. This plan was worked out with the help of all of the Luftwaffe's "Jagd-Geschwaderkommodore". It was originally scheduled to support the Battle of the Ardennes, the German Army's offensive, which began December 16 1944. However, the same bad weather that prevented the Royal Air Force, United States Army Air Force, and other Allied air forces from supporting the ground troops, also prevented the "Luftwaffe" from carrying out the attack. It was, therefore, not launched until 1 January 1945 in an attempt to help regain the momentum of the struggling ground troops, supporting the second phase of the offensive, Operation North Wind ("Unternehmen Nordwind").

The plan of Operation Baseplate called for a surprise attack against 17 Allied air bases in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. The object was to destroy or cripple as many Allied planes, hangars and airstrips as possible. Every fighter and fighter-bomber unit currently occupied with air defence along the Western Front was deployed, and additional units of Junkers Ju 88 and Junkers Ju 188 night-fighters and bombers acted as pathfinders. The strike planes themselves were mostly single-engined Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf 190 fighters. It was hoped that the speed with which the attack could be carried out would offset the relatively small bomb loads such aircraft could carry. It was also hoped that by flying low and fast to the targets maximum surprise would be achieved. The attack was timed to be carried out at 0920 hours.

In a major oversight, the planners had set flight paths which took many units over some of the most heavily defended areas on the Continent; namely the V2 launch sites around The Hague. These sites were studded by large numbers of Flak units, none of which had been warned about the operation. As a result many of the German fighter units lost aircraft to "friendly fire" before the attacks could be initiated. [Caldwell, 1991, p. 311]

Another problem was the fact that many of the Luftwaffe pilots were very poor marksmen and lacked flight skills. By late 1944 there were no safe areas in which pilots could be trained without the possibility of air attack. Aviation fuel supplies were at a premium and there was a lack of experienced instructors. Many of the training units (eg JG 104) were forced to fly front-line operations in order to bolster the front-line Jagdgeschwader. Allied personnel who witnessed the attacks frequently remarked on the poor aim of the strafing aircraft, and many of the Luftwaffe aircraft shot down by Allied anti-aircraft fire were caught because they were flying too slow and too high. Wing Commander Johnnie Johnson:: The shooting was atrocious, and the circuit at Evere reminded us of more of a bunch of beginners on their first solos than pilots of front-line squadrons." Johnson, "Wing Leader", pp. 272–3.]

The units deployed and their targets

In all, 1,035 aircraft were deployed [Situation report entry for January 2, 1945 in the Wehrmacht War Diary, ISBN 3-88199-073-9] from several "Jagdgeschwadern" (JG - fighter units) "Kampfgeschwadern" (KG - bomber units) and "Schlachtgeschwadern" (SG - ground attack units);For Luftwaffe unit designations and content see Luftwaffe Organization] of these approximately 900 aircraft were fighters and fighter-bombers. Facing the German aircraft were the (predominantly British) Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF) and the American strategic Eighth and Ninth Air Forces. Most of the airfields used by the Allied air forces had been previously built and used by the Luftwaffe, as a consequence of which the layout of them was well known.

The targets for the various units were:

Total German losses

German casualties related directly to "Bodenplatte": [Girbig, pp. 229–230.]

chlachtgeschwader 4

Losses as a result of "Bodenplatte". [Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 284.]

The unit lost a further 2 Fw 190F-4s destroyed. "Unteroffizers" George Rischbieter and Hermann Gottschalk crashlanded in German held territory, the former as a result of engine failure. Both survived uninjured. [Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 284.]

Galland's alternative - the "Big Blow"

Adolf Galland, holding the office of Commander of Germany's Fighter Force ("General der Jagdflieger"), argued strenuously against Operation Baseplate. Galland envisioned striking a "Big Blow" ("Großer Schlag") against the Allied bombers, which he saw as a greater threat and less replaceable by the enemy. Throughout 1944, Galland strove to accumulate a large reserve of men and aircraft to attack the bomber raids in massive waves. Galland argued this would cause far fewer pilot casualties then the offensive sweeps of Operation Baseplate, as German pilots forced to bail out or crash land would do so over Germany, and therefore be able to fly again. In late 1944 and early 1945, the main concern of the "Luftwaffe" was not a lack of aircraft, it was a serious shortage of experienced pilots.

Following the operation, Galland and other high-ranking pilots and commanders of the "Luftwaffe" joined in the so-called "Fighter Pilots Conspiracy", in which they protested the pointless sacrifice of so many valuable men and machines. They were also protesting against the constant barrage of abuse being unjustly thrown at the pilots of the "Jagdwaffe" by their Commander-In-Chief, "Reichsmarschall" Hermann Göring. The high-ranking officers who joined in this protest were mostly removed from their positions and either sent back to combat units or sent into exile out of the front lines. Galland himself was removed by Göring as Commander of Germany's Fighter Force and, after having to endure a couple of weeks of forced leave, was reluctantly offered a posting as a front-line fighter pilot in command of an Me 262 unit, which Galland was to call JV 44. [ Note: An account of the "Conspiracy" and its aftermath can be found in Forsythe, 1996. pp. 47–93.]

Operation Hermann

Following the raids, the Allies retrieved several log-books from crashed German aircraft. In several of these, the entry "Auftrag Hermann 1.1. 1945, Zeit: 9.20 Uhr" was translated as "Operation Hermann to commence on 1 January 1945, at 9:20am." This led the Allies to believe the operation itself was named Hermann, and named for the Commander-in-Chief of the "Luftwaffe", Hermann Göring. [Johnson, in "Wing Leader", goes so far as to presume Göring himself planned it, p. 269.] In fact, the word "Hermann" was a standard term for the time of the attack, similar to the term "H-Hour" in Allied terminology.

References

Notes

Bibliography

*Bekker, Cajus. "Angriffshöhe 4000". ISBN 3-453-87098-0
*Caldwell, Don."JG 26; Top Guns of the Luftwaffe". New York: Ballantine Books, 1991. ISBN 0-8041-1050-6
*Forsythe, Robert. "JV 44; The Galland Circus". Burgess Hill, West Sussex, UK: Classic Publications, 1996. ISBN 0-9526867-0-8
*Girbig, Werner. "Start im Morgengrauen". Germany: Pietsch-Verlag Paul Pietsch Verlage GmbH + Co, 1997. ISBN 3-613-01292-8
*Manrho, John, Putz, Ron. "Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe's Last Hope–The Attack on Allied Airfields, New Year's Day 1945". Ottringham, United Kingdom: Hikoki Publications, 2004. ISBN 1-902109-40-6
* Peszke, Michael Alfred. "A Synopsis of Polish-Allied Military Agreements During World War Two", "Military Affairs", v 44, n3 (Oct. 1980), pp. 128–134.
* Prien, Jochen & Stemmer, Gerhard. "Jagdgeschwader 3 "Udet" in World War II". Atlgen, Germany: Schiffer Military History, 2002. ISBN 0-7643-1681-8
*Weinberg, Gerhard. "A World At Arms", Cambridge University Press: 2 edition, 2005, ISBN 978-05216182-6-7
*Zaloga, Steven J., Gerrard, Howard. "Battle of the Bulge (2)". London: Osprey Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-84176-810-3

External links

* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3897/is_200502/ai_n9477885 Operation Bodenplatte article from Flight Journal, giving two pilots view of the events.]
* [http://www.rcaf.com/439squadron/1a.htm Squadron Log 1 January 1945]