A really interesting book that simply couldn't be written now as Middlebrook interviewed c. 400 people who took part in the events of that night, most of whom will now have passed away.

The insight given by the raft of interviewees runs through the book as does Middlebrook's obvious in-depth knowledge of the subject (even if there are some minor errors even I was able to pick up). David Irvine is widely quoted, but I understand that his work on the V programme remains valid despite, as Wikipedia essentially puts it, his reputation being trashed on other matters, so don't let that put you off.

Middlebrook tries hard to cover both sides of the story and at times seems somewhat sympathetic to the Germans and in particular the rocket scientists, whose work leading us to getting to the moon appears to over-rise any other concerns the author may have. However the balance isn't too bad overall.

It's almost incredible that a book of this length can be written about a single night, but it obviously can and this is definitely worth a read for anyone with even a passing interest in the topic. ( )

Interesting on a couple of fronts. Not only does it provide a detailed discussion of the planning, execution, and aftermath of a WWII RAF Bomber Command mission, but it also has considerable bearing on a couple of books discussed earlier: A. C. Grayling’s Among the Dead Cities and The Bombing of Auschwitz.


The British had learned of the existence of Peenemünde in cloak-and-dagger fashion; just after the start of WWII, the British military attaché in Oslo got an anonymous letter offering to supply German military secrets. Acceptance of the offer was to be signaled by a code word in a BBC broadcast. The code word was duly announced, and the next day a large package showed up in the Oslo embassy mailbox with elaborate details on the German missile program. The material was so detailed that it was initially thought to be a German counterintelligence plot to distract the British. To this day nobody knows who supplied it; the best guess is Dr. Hans-Heinrich Kummerow, a German Communist scientist who died in a GESTAPO prison in 1943.


At any rate, it took a while for the information to be vetted – and, of course, the British had other things on their mind for most of that time period. In June, 1943 the decision was made to attack; the nights would not be long enough for a raid until August (nobody seems to have suggested asking the USAAF Eighth Air Force to conduct a daylight raid, although, ironically, US actions had a considerable impact on the RAF raid, and the US did attack Peenemünde later).


This was to be the first attempt by the RAF to conduct a “precision” attack since the early part of the war. COC Bomber Command Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris was strongly against “panacea” attacks and favored area bombing of German cities, but he raised no recorded objections to the raid. However, the raid had to be conducted when the nights were long enough for the bombers to make it there and back in darkness, but when the weather was clear and when the moon was bright enough to see the target.


I was surprised at how much planning went into the attack. I was aware, of course, that it wasn’t a matter of “Germany’s that way; go drop some bombs on it”, but the level of detail involved was impress, especially since none of the crews were told until 12 hours before where they were going, and even then they were told Peenemünde was a experimental radar test site.


The planners took advantage of the earlier firestorm raid on Hamburg. The BBC had been announcing ominously that “Berlin was next”. The standard pattern for a night area raid was to send in a “Pathfinder” group to mark the target with colored flares and incendiaries, and then follow up with the heavy bombers. Thus the plan was to send a small force of Mosquitoes along the north coast of Germany, then have them turn south to attack Berlin with “Pathfinder” bombs. The heavies would follow about an hour later, but would continue along the Baltic coast to Peenemünde instead of turning south toward Berlin. Thus it was expected that the Germans would keep their night fighters around Berlin waiting for the main raid. The British also sent in “Intruders”, Mosquito and Beaufighter night fighters attempting to catch German night fighters landing or taking off.


Two bombing techniques were to be used; the traditional “Pathfinder” method, marking the three main targets (the V2 experimental works, the V2 production facility, and the scientist housing area) with different colored flares while a “Master Bomber” circled the area, correcting attacks if necessary; and the “Time and Distance Method”, where the bombers would fly directly over known “waypoints” (in this case, distinctive coastline markings) while holding their speed constant, and bomb based on elapsed time from the last waypoint.


The attack was generally a success. The diversionary raid on Berlin succeeded in holding much of the available night fighter force to the south, and the disastrous USAAF attack on Schweinfurt/Regensburg the day before had drawn a number of night fighters south to act as day fighters, leaving them out of position with exhausted crews.


However, unknown to the British, they were partially victim to their own success. “Window” anti-radar chaff had wreaked havoc on the German night fighter control system, which had been stationing fighters in “boxes” and vectoring them to targets with ground-based radar control. As a result, the Germans had just switched to the “Wild Boar” method; individual fighters would seek their own targets and provide running radio commentary to bring other fighters to the attack zone. Luftwaffe pilots over Berlin eventually noticed something going on to the north, and no further attackers materializing over Berlin. Many took off on their own to see what was going on, providing radio commentary to attract other night fighters (now it was the Germans turn to partially shoot themselves in the foot; Peenemünde was so secret that none of the fighter pilots knew there was a target in the area. Most thought the British were raiding Stettin).


The Luftwaffe had also introduced a new weapon; the “Schräge Musik” cannon, installed at a fixed upward angle in a night fighter. British heavy bombers, unlike American B-17s and B-24s, did not have a ball turret underneath; until the invention of “Schräge Musik” it was very difficult for a night fighter to attack from this direction. Even though the Luftwaffe arrived late on the scene, the combination of the new tactics and new weapons resulted in the loss of 27 bombers in a few minutes over Peenemünde, and a few more on the return flight to England.


The bombing part of the raid was also generally successful, at least in the sense that the intended targets were badly damaged. Unfortunately, the first group of “Pathfinders” overshot the target and mistook a labor camp south of Peenemünde for the scientist housing area. As a result, a large number of bombs were dropped on Polish, Ukrainian, and French slave laborers before the Master Bomber noted and corrected the mistake. Even then, it was something of a tragedy; unknown to the British, most of the scientists had chosen to live in nearby towns, and the “housing estate” was instead mostly occupied by German girls serving as secretaries; many were killed. The experimental works and production works were badly damaged, and it was estimated that V2 operational production was delayed by about two months. Since the Germans were eventually able to launch about 370 V2 a month, a two month delay prevented a number of missile launches and corresponding civilian casualties. It also delayed development and production of Wasserfall and Rheintochter antiaircraft missiles.


So how does this bear on the other two books I mentioned? Grayling cites the Peenemünde raid as an example of successful RAF precision bombing, and contends that the British should have continued with this tactic rather than using anti-civilian area bombing. It’s true that Peenemünde was a success by most standards; however, the RAF had some very lucky breaks – the success of the Berlin diversionary raid and the unavailability of some night fighters due diversion to south Germany to counter USAAF raids. It’s unlikely that they would get that many breaks again, and the large number of bombers shot down by the late-arriving Luftwaffe shows what a disaster the raid could have been if the night fighters had been ready and waiting. British night bombers operated in a “stream”, rather than the mutually supporting formations adopted by the US; it was hard enough navigating at night without trying to keep clear of nearby aircraft. As it was, a Stirling and a Lancaster shot each other up by mistake during the Peenemünde raid. The “stream” approach also allowed mixed bomber types: Wellingtons, Stirlings, Halifaxs, and Lancasters; the USAAF formations were always all B-17 or all B-24, due to the difficulty of keeping different types with different flight characteristics in formation. Probably for the same reason, the British never attempted fighter escort for their night bombers, even though Mosquito and Beaufighter night fighters had the range to accompany most bomber raids; instead, the night fighters were used as intruders against Luftwaffe bases.


The Peenemünde raid was also cited as an example of precision bombing by the advocates of Auschwitz attacks; once again, it’s unlikely that an Auschwitz raid, even farther into occupied Europe, would have been successful in destroying the gas chambers without killing numerous prisoners, especially with the example of the unintentional bombing of the Peenemünde labor camp.


This is well-written and reads quickly. I liked the detailed maps of the Peenemünde area and the raid approach and return paths (with notations for every aircraft lost). There are numerous first-person quotations, from British and German military and civilian sources (I’m including the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Irish and Jamaicans and a few Americans among the British, and Poles, French and Luxembourgish laborers among the Germans). The author has published on other Bomber Command raids; I’ll be trying to pick those up. ( )

I have a friend whose mother was a Luftwaffe secretary at Peenemünde. In the wars of the late 20th century, she could often be heard to make the comment, when the news talked about 'precision bombing', that these amateurs knew nothing about precision bombing, as she'd been on the receiving end of 617 Squadron's work on the night of 17th August 1943, and they knew a thing or two about the subject!

That this book makes a point of saying that 617 Squadron - the famous 'Dam Busters' - were not involved in this raid illustrates two things: the power of urban myth, and the extent of the book's research to report facts, not supposition. Although the RAF units involved included some from 5 Group, which included 617 Squadron, they were specifically excluded so that the 5 Group commander could demonstrate that precision work was not just the preserve of an 'elite' unit but that any of his units could do it. And of course, it's possible that the Germans preferred to think that 617 Squadron were involved so as to take consolation in being attacked by "the best".

Západní zpravodajské služby v polovině roku 1943 zjistily, že v Peenemünde u baltského pobřeží působí od roku 1937 výzkumná a vývojová základna třetí říše, která pro spojence představuje vážnou raketovou hrozbu. Bombardovací velitelství Královského válečného letectva pak na příkaz Winstona Churchilla připravilo a v noci ze 17. na 18. srpen uskutečnilo operaci HYDRA s cílem tuto hrozbu oslabit. Autor nejen analyzuje plánování, průběh a výsledky operace, jíž se zúčastnilo 596 britských bombardérů, nýbrž líčí zážitky posádek letounů RAF a luftwaffe i Němců a dalších státních příslušníků, kteří na základně – mnohdy nedobrovolně – pracovali. Pokud jde o posouzení otázky, dosáhl-li nálet úspěchu, připomíná, že jediným jeho cílem bylo pozdržet vývoj, výrobu a operační použití raket V–2. Nebyl to tedy „nálet, který vyhrál válku“ – jak se domnívali někteří nadšenci na straně spojenců –, nýbrž který způsobil zhruba dvouměsíční zpoždění pokusného programu a v důsledku toho i zmenšení rozsahu raketových operací. Nemělo by se však zapomínat ani na morální stránku náletu. Sebejistí Němci a jejich vůdci získali přesvědčivý důkaz, že RAF může v Německu doletět k jakémukoli cíli a tvrdě ho zasáhnout. Tím se oslabila i ochota mnohých Němců pokračovat v boji. Zhodnocením peenemündské operace a jejího relativního vlivu na další průběh války autor svou knihu nekončí. Připomíná, že po válce americká armáda odvezla z Harcu sto dokončených V–2 a množství dokumentace, v Bavorsku pak zajala von Brauna a celý „vrcholný výkvět“ peenemündského týmu. Američané v tomto oboru posléze zaměstnali 492 německých raketových vědců a techniků. Využití jejich vědecké schopnosti a zkušenosti bylo krokem, který umožnil, aby jednoho dne člověk stanul na Měsíci. ( )