Peter Hinchliffe

This book is probably the best thing we will receive as a biography on Heinz Schnaufer. The basics of his life are well researched and covered in the book. What should have been a 5 star review was cut short to 2.5 stars because of the unnecessary rhetoric pertaining to the "(((muh six million goy)))". A single mention of the Holocaust and Schnaufer lack of knowledge while serving would have been sufficient but to bring it up repeatedly throughout numerous chapters was redundant. In fact, the author's virtue signaling regarding the Holocaust would have been acceptable had he not repeatedly rationalized Bomber Harris and the Royal Air Force's committing of War Crimes by the senseless attacking of German civilian targets as morally correct and a rational application of force to defeat an enemy. The book would have been more appropriately titled as Schnaufer (Ace of Diamonds) and the Holocaust!… (mehr)

The author of this exceptional book, Peter Hinchliffe was a navigator with Bomber Command in 1944 and after the war he was a Flight Controller and worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with frequent visits to Germany where he interviewed ex WW2 Luftwaffe personnel of all levels.

Put this all together and the reader gets an unmatched combination of first hand accounts of engagements and strategic and tactical considerations seen from both sides with excellent technical explanations of the spiralling cycle of measure/ counter measure.

The “Other Battle” was the WW2 bombing of German targets by RAF Bomber Command under cover of darkness, with the challenge for the British being the accurate location of targets and setting up countermeasures against German fighters (hiding the location of the British aircraft and providing adequate defensive armament). The challenge for the Germans was the location of the approaching bomber streams (ignoring decoys) and having sufficient correctly equipped aircraft “on station” with the necessary electronic/ communications capability to find the aircraft in the dark.

Both sets of requirements were by no means easy and the opposing sides stretched their scientific/technological abilities to the limit, making a fascinating account of measure/ counter measure in an accelerating “scientfic war”.

It's one of those books that goes into sufficient detail to oblige a fairly knowledgeable reader to seriously recalibrate their understanding of events. This reviewer for example didn't know that due to the curvature of the earth, Oboe was much less effective on longer range missions over Germany (eg. Berlin) than for closer targets.

Equally I wasn't aware that the Germans tried so hard without success to build a high speed wooden frame aircraft like the Mosquito to stop its vital Pathfinder role (marking targets at low level with flares) or the effectiveness of the German infiltration of the bomber stream with heavy aircraft (eg Junkers 88 “Tame Sau”) in contrast to the single seater fighter operations over the target (eg FW 190 “Wild Sau”), or the serious degrading of German tracking ability resulting from the loss of France based radar installations after the invasion of Europe.

Basically its a great book showing all sorts of factors finally pulling down the sophisticated German defence, such as lack of fuel, lack of trained pilots, daylight attacks on airfields, industrial disruption, inability to stop the Mosquito and the stupid waste of resources in attacking UK airfields.

The book also shows that CinC of Bomber Command,Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris was wrong in thinking that his attacks on cities would break the German spirit. They didn't in the same way that the Blitz only increased the resolve of the British. It was the Commander of the United States Strategic Airforces in Europe, Carl Spaatz whom was proved correct in that precision attacks on industrial targets, especially oil, would accelerate the defeat of Germany.… (mehr)