The World at War (TV Series) Whirlwind: Bombing Germany - September 1939-April 1944 (1974) User Reviews

Reap the Whirlwind

[nickenchuggets · 10/10 · 29 April 2022]

One of the most famous and prophetic quotes of the Second World War can be attributed to Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, a Marshal in Britain's Royal Air Force. He said, "the Germans started this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else and that nobody else was going to bomb them." This uncompromising sentence accurately summarizes this episode of World at War. Like every other installment in the show, it combines incredible archive footage, engrossing interviews with both civilians and military personnel, and wonderful narrating to show viewers why this aspect of world war 2 was so important. This section of ww2 begins in the mid 30s, and the british RAF is experimenting with the possibility of using bombers to win any future war almost single-handedly. World War 1 had shown that planes can strike at the heart of a country and still return to their bases. The entirety of britain is now under threat of being bombed by Hitler's Luftwaffe, which was rapidly expanding. By the time the war is underway, britain tries attacking german industrial centers in the Ruhr, the industrial heart of germany, by daylight. British aircraft are easily shredded by the luftwaffe, but manage to achieve some damage. Eventually, british losses get heavier and they switch to bombing at night instead. Once the US is involved in the war, britain starts to more closely resemble an airbase than a country. From this point on, the americans attack by day against heavily reinforced german infrastructure targets, and the british attack by night. Both america and britain hoped the bombing might be so devastating, it might bring the nazis to the bargaining table. Arthur "Bomber" Harris, now leader of britain's Bomber Command, carries out more and more extremely punishing attacks on germany's industry in order to cripple their ability to fight. The bombing is effective, but it's inaccurate and crude, with tons of civilian deaths. The germans waste no time in exploiting this to make the allies look bad, such as when the nazis filmed a children's hospital being hit by a british bomb. In October 1943, the americans go one step further and decide to launch a huge aerial attack on the cities of Regensburg and Schweinfurt. It was extremely ambitious. Both are deep in southern germany, and the badly protected b-17 bombers, which america had assured everyone wouldn't need to be escorted, were intercepted by swarms of german planes and shot down. America was forced to temporarily halt its bombing campaign. An appalling 60+ planes were lost, but it partially paid off because ball bearing production was stopped in germany for 6 weeks. By 1944 germany was running out of fuel everywhere, and their planes posed less and less of a threat to allied bombing. Starting later in the year, american planes were bombing germany pretty much whenever they wanted to. The critical turning point came when america introduced their legendary p-51 mustang fighter aircraft. It represented a generational leap in fighter plane development, as it had the performance of a fighter but the range of a bomber. Bombers over germany were no longer alone, since wherever they went, mustangs went with them. With fuel running out quickly, the nazis turn to increasingly desperate measures to stop the relentless stream of bombers, including the use of the world's first operational fighter jet, the me-262. It's heavy hitting armament of 30 millimeter guns combined with a top speed 100 mph faster than the mustang comes as a nasty shock to the allies, but they are too few and too late to change ww2's outcome. This episode is one of the series' finest. Bombing missions over germany during the war were very difficult, as german pilots had a reputation for being extremely skilled opponents. In particular, Erich Hartmann, the best flying ace in the history of air combat, racked up a ridiculous 352 kills, over 90% of them being soviet planes. German pilots (including Hartmann) learned to swoop down on enemy planes undetected and only shoot at the very last moment so that the other pilot had no time to react. They would also oftentimes attack with the sun to their backs so that they couldn't be seen as easily. It says in the episode how bombers flew close together for protection, but german pilots soon learned to exploit this by flying and shooting at the planes head on. The american pilots would be so unnerved by this tactic that they'd often split up, and once the formation was separated, the planes were screwed. As usual, the interviews here are all spectacular, and might be among the best of the whole series. Among the people interviewed are Bomber Harris, who is considered a war criminal by many due to his policy of indiscriminately bombing huge swaths of germany, as well as Jimmy Stewart, who actually was in the army during the war. He's really old looking by this point. In any case, Whirlwind is an interesting and detailed look into the air campaigns that had the biggest effect on ww2's outcome.