I saw this on the BBC website and never realised they would light up before the end of the War. I thought the blackout would have held out till the end. Has anybody got any diary entries or recollections of this event?
My friend, Old Hickory, mentioned that in January 1945, they were able to drive back to Heerlen, The Netherlands from La Glieze, Belgium with the vehicle headlights on. When they arrived, the small city was lit up and they did not have to observe blackout conditions while there. They were less than 100 miles from the front at that time. The Roer River had not been crossed yet.
This date coincides with the standing down of the Home Guard. What was to come was the intruder raids of early March 1945 with towns not subject to the black out,resulting in easy civilian targets of opportunity.Not as though that there would be any street lighting.
This date coincides with the standing down of the Home Guard Exactly what I was going to say! Here's a question though...did the Home Guard Stand-down include those in AA Command??? Up to a third of the nation's AA guns - still then clustered in the south-east corner of the country against the V1 - were manned by the Home Guard by then; IIRC the AA Command didn't "de-cluster" until the end of the airlaunched V1 raids...
This date coincides with the standing down of the Home Guard. What was to come was the intruder raids of early March 1945 with towns not subject to the black out, resulting in easy civilian targets of opportunity. Not as though there would be any street lighting. I have no idea what is meant by "intruder raids". I have never heard such an expression, and no knowledge of any air raids as late as March 1945. Blackout had ceased precisely because Germany no longer had the capacity to mount air raids. It is correct that street lighting was not immediately restored. One problem was that street lights had not been regularly maintained, and renovation and refurbishment was necessary. In many places gas lighting was used in streets, depending on manual turning on each evening, and turning off in the morning.
Intruder raids was a feature of tactics used by both sides throughout the war. The Luftwaffe intruder raids were mounted around Bomber Command bases in the east of England catching aircraft take off and returns off guard at times when aircraft lighting might be found in service.Early warning radar and night fighters equipped with AI,along with the ROC input were put against these intrusions.However the Luftwaffe,throughout the war enjoyed a measure of success when they were able to penitrate British air defences by getting under the early warning radar systems.The worth of the ROC to participate in identifying these low flying enemy aircraft was demonstrated in the support they gave to the night defence control centres.For this reason the ROC was not stood down until the end of the war. The Allied air forces for their part enjoyed a greater measure of success as the war progressed in intruder raids.The Mosquito intruders enjoyed rich pickings against Luftwaffe bases,hanging around to intercept Luftwaffe movements on their airfields as soon as the airfield lighting was turned on or navigation lights were left on while taking off.I remember seeing a record of an American, flying Mosquitos with a RAFsquadron who had a number of kills against ME 262 aircraft at night by simply being patient,hanging around known bases and waiting for intended victims. Regarding the Luftwaffe intruder raid of March 1945,research into Operation Gisella on the night of 3/4 March 1945 will reveal the sting in the tail of the Luftwaffe which caught out British night defences.On that night,the Luftwaffe used a force of 200 night fighters to catch returning B.C aircraft over their bases.This resulted in the loss of 20 B.C aircraft for the loss of 3 Luftwaffe fighters which crashed from flying too low.
There was also a long low-intensity lowlevel daylight campaign 1941-44 of small 2-4 aircraft "jabo" raids against coastal towns along the south coast of England, although the risk of these diminished greatly through the autumn of 1944 for obvious reasons! I haven't yet seen a good study of this constant thorn in the air defence of the UK....but instead it's possible to see them written up in a lot of local county and town histories
Yes,these hit and run raids by the Luftwaffe were directed at places such as Torquay and Bournemouth, which spring to mind. At these south coastal resorts the majority of hotels had been requisitioned by the Government,Torquay had its share of hotels used by the Air Ministry for technical training and it seems strange that these coastal resorts could be chosen for these tasks on the sole basis of requisitioned accomodation. Torquay also was the site of a large military hospital as it was during the Great War and was badly hit during a Luftwaffe raid in the Second World War.
Intruder/Tip & run raids are not new to me I discussed this matter on the BBC WW2 People's War site and Peter G came to my aid with further research on the subject. On the 9th of March, 1943 I was stationed in Hove, Sussex. My unit, at that time, was the 112th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment and its 40 mm Bofor Guns were providing defence against Luftwaffe incursions into England via the English Channel. As part of our air-cover the guns were spread out along the Hove promenade between HMS King Alfred (a Naval Officer’s Training Establishment) and the nearby coastal town of Portslade. On this particular day I was off duty as a wireless operator and was sunning myself next to one of the guns that was sited on what used to be the kids paddling pool in Hove. Without any prior warning whatsoever, 'something' came hurtling along the front, travelling from my left to my right, firing its machine guns as it swept along the promenade. I estimated its height as being no more than two hundred feet directly above me. The Bofor gun crew had no chance at all to ‘lay on’ to their target but fired ineffectually at the rapidly disappearing Jerry fighter plane. Everyone, including myself, thought it exceedingly funny (we were much younger in those days) and for the rest of the day we were bragging to all and sundry about how we had scared the living daylights out of the raider. This then was my vivid memory of that particular attack and (as my wartime diaries of 1942 and 1943 had gone missing over the years) the event was un-recorded but filed away purely in my mind. I also had no idea whatsoever what type of plane had attacked us on that occasion. That was the situation until a few days ago when I had occasion to send an e-mail to Peter G and mentioned this air attack. To my immense surprise he told me that in fact there were many such low level attacks and all were well documented: locations, dates, etc. and that the raids were known as the 'Tip and Run' campaign of 1942-43. He went on to say: The Jagers used the Focke-Wulf 190 and were very effective. The best book I know on this is "Luftwaffe Fighter-Bombers over Britain - The Tip and Run Campaign, 1942-43" by Chriss Gross, with Peter Cornwell and Bernd Rauchbach.The fighters concentrated mainly on the south coast and would fly over the channel at top speed at 100 to 500 feet under the radar screen. The tactic was to drop the single bomb on a designated target and then to strafe targets of opportunity and pull out fast. It was highly dangerous and required great skill. All attacks are fully documented in the book. A subsequent e-mail from Peter confirmed that a Focke-Wulf 190 of 10/Jg 2 strafed Hove at 4.50 PM on 9 March 1943, coming in from Worthing along the coast and that the plane I had seen in action was from a crack fighter unit, a Focke-Wulf 190 from 10(Jabo)/Jadgeschwader 2 'Richtoven' (i.e., 10 (Fighterbomber)/Fighter Group/Squadron No. 2 'Richtoven'), their insignia was a cartoon of a red fox holding a broken ship in its jaws. They were stationed at Caen-Carpiquet. It has taken sixty-two years for this last piece of a jigsaw puzzle to be fitted into place. Thank you Peter Ron
Talking about intruder raids.At the height of the B of B, the Lufwaffe enjoyed some luck in using the weather and low cloud as cover, to strike inland into North Lincolnshire. Such an incident was related by a North Kelsey farmer's wife who one morning,saw a low flying twin engined aircraft heading directly for the farm.She stood and could see the crew and as it passed overhead, waved to the gunner and he waved back.When her husband returned from the fields for dinner,he told her about a German aircraft that had flown over low that morning and asked had she seen it.She said she had and nearly fainted.(As told to Sid Finn and recorded in his Lincolnshire Air War 1939-1945) .
There was also a long low-intensity lowlevel daylight campaign 1941-44 of small 2-4 aircraft "jabo" raids against coastal towns along the south coast of England, although the risk of these diminished greatly through the autumn of 1944 for obvious reasons! I haven't yet seen a good study of this constant thorn in the air defence of the UK....but instead it's possible to see them written up in a lot of local county and town histories There is - and it's a very good book -even has photos taken from the FW190s by the pilot as he straffes coastal towns! http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Luftwaffe-Fighter-Bombers-1942-1943/dp/0947554971/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332259174&sr=1-2
