Lincolnshire Air War

By Martin King Lear

Lincolnshire Air War - Lancaster PB476 - The story of a 12 Squadron Lancaster Bomber during Operation Gisela. This book tells the tragic story of the crew of Avro Lancaster PB476, call sign ‘Y’, of 12 Squadron RAF Bomber Command and the Luftwaffe’s final large scale attack on England named Operation Gisela.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Printing UK
• Release date: Aug 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911596240

Book preview

The Luftwaffe

Operation Gisela

The Luftwaffe had realised by late 1944 that it could not prevent the huge Allied raids reaching targets deep inside Germany. RAF Bomber Command had been targeting German fuel production, reducing it from 175,000 tonnes in April 1944 to 7,000 tonnes the following September 1944. By February 1945, only 5 per cent of the Luftwaffe fuel requirements were met, reducing their operations and ability to train new aircrew.

By March 1945 the Luftwaffe had lost air superiority over all their battle fronts. Allied air forces had air supremacy over the German Reich and the rapidly shrinking German-held territory. The vast majority of Allied bombers were still getting through, with United States Army Air Forces attacking by day and the RAF Bomber Command by night, inflicting heavy damage on crucial targets.

During 1940 and 1941 German night-fighters had been reasonably successful in destroying RAF bombers as they returned from their operations. In late 1944, in a desperate attempt to improve the failing situation of the Luftwaffe and hinder British operations, a number of experienced night-fighter commanders and pilots suggested restarting intruder operations over England.

A simple plan was agreed, to launch a large force of night-fighters in one simultaneous operation against eastern England on a night when there was a massive Allied raid on Germany. This Luftwaffe intruder force would patrol the English coast and wait for the Allied bombers to return from their mission. They would then join the streams of Allied aircraft straggling back, thus confusing radar detection, and attack them as they approached their home bases. If the Luftwaffe could succeed in this it would be a devastating blow against British Bomber Command.

The plan was arranged with crews being briefed under great secrecy on 1st December 1944 and a suitable occasion sought when it could be put into effective operation. The code word given to this proposed Luftwaffe operation was ‘Gisela’. When the designated night-fighter stations received this code word they would know the operation was to take place on that night.

Despite the high security of this operation, it was soon discovered by the Allies. On the 1st of January 1945, after participating in Operation ‘Bodenplatte’ to support the German Ardennes Offensive, a German medium bomber, Ju.88 aircraft (code D5+PT), flown by Unteroffizier (Corporal) Lattoch belonging to Luftwaffe night-fighter wing 9./NJG 3, landed in Allied-occupied Luxembourg by mistake. Lattoch had been present at the Operation Gisela briefing and was taken as a prisoner of war and interrogated by the US 9th Air Force.

Preliminary interrogation information obtained in Luxembourg was signalled to the Air Ministry on the 5th January 1945 and the following day the prisoner was flown to England for further interrogation. This revealed that the operation was to take place on the ‘next moonless period.’ In preparation, special maps were issued marked with the airfields to be attacked as well as the known defences such as anti-aircraft gun sites and balloons.