Transcript The Royal Canadian Air Force

The Royal Canadian Air Force
 Its
role
 Its significance
 Did the massive growth of the RCAF
obscure the wide variety of roles it
played--and the many problems it
faced?
1
RCAF: created in 1924
 pre-war
role: fire fighting, aerial
photography, coastal and customs
surveillance
 August 1939: 4061 all ranks
 20 squadrons: 8 regular/12 reserve (all
understrength)
2
17 December 1939: British
Commonwealth Air Training
Plan
 $1.6
billion
 131,553
graduates (pilots, gunners,
engineers)
 72,835
Canadian graduates
 “Aerodrome
for Democracy”
3
The Harvard Trainer
‘The Yellow Peril’
4
Wartime Roles
 BCATP
 Fighter
Command
 Ferry Command
 Coastal Command
 Transport Command
 Bomber Command
5
1940: Canadians fly in the
Battle of Britain
 November
1939: 242 (Canadian
Squadron) RAF formed with Canadian
pilots and British groundcrew
 February 1940: 110 (later 400
Squadron) RCAF formed with Canadian
pilots flying Hurricanes
 26 August 1940: First RCAF Unit in
action
 Will Canadians fly with the RAF, or
RCAF?
6
 Hawker
Hurricane (left)
 Supermarine Spitfire
7
Fighter Command
 Fighter
Command/Tactical Air Force
(Defence of Britain; raids over Europe;
supporting the troops in Europe)
 84 Group, RCAF. How effective were
they?
The Typhoon
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Ferry Command
 Problem?
How to get aircraft to Europe?
 1919-1939: Less than 100 successful
trans-Atlantic plane flights
 (50 failed attempts)
 November 1940: The first trans-Atlantic
ferry service begins
 By 1945: aircraft were dispatched across
the globe
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Transport Command
 getting
The Dakota Transport
(or Dak) was first
used in 1943 and continued
service in the CAF until 1988.
the goods
there
 435 and 436
Transport
Squadrons (RCAF)
flew in India and
Burma
 How Many
Canadians in the
RAF?
10
Bomber Command
 Fighting
the air war over Germany;
support of ground troops
Halifax Bomber
Lancaster
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The Debate
Was it to win the war by itself?
– Was it to demoralize civilians?
– Was it to weaken the industrial war
effort?
– Was it moral?
–
12
A Reluctant Policy
 to
May 1940: RAF confined to attacks
on German naval units at sea
 15
May 1940: permission granted to
bomb the Ruhr
 Is
precision bombing possible?
13
June 1941
 First
mission for No. 405 (RCAF)
Squadron
 one crew did not take off; another
returned
 3 Canadian crews claimed they hit the
target from 7500 to 10,000 feet
 Many ‘guessed’ when they were over
target
 Results meagre
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July 1941
 Bomber
Command Directive
 I am to request that you will direct the
main effort of the bomber force, until
further instructions, towards
dislocating the German transportation
system and to destroying the morale of
the civil population as a whole, and of
the industrial workers in particular.
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Butt Report, September 1941
 Navigation
so poor that aircrews not
capable of finding target areas, let alone
targets
 Churchill’s
response: “The only plan is
to persevere.”
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1941-1942: The Bomber
Offensive begins
 The
–
–
dilemmas of strategic bombing
daylight bombing: accurate but
defenseless
nighttime bombing: safer, but far less
accurate
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February 1942: The Gloves
Come Off
 Bomber
Command directed to shift
attacks to specific “industrial areas”
 Churchill,
March 1942 “The weight of
the war is very heavy now, and I must
expect it to get steadily worse for some
time to come.”
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Canadianization
 September
1941: 4500 Canadian
aircrew overseas
 Just
500 in RCAF squadrons
a
promise to create 25 overseas RCAF
squadrons
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‘Canadianizing’ the Air Force
 January
1943: No. 6 Bomber Group
(RCAF) becomes operational
 Air Vice-Marshall G.E. Brookes, CO
 13 squadrons (many quickly pulled
together)
 Many flying “old” Lancaster II aircraft
 Consequence: early problems: lack of
experience, high loss rates
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Canadianization: its Costs?
 January
1943: No. 6 Group (Bomber
Command) created in England
– 13 Squadrons, many quickly pulled
together
 High
–
losses throughout the year
flying old aircraft, Wellingtons or Lancaster
II’s.
 100
aircraft lost between March and
June 1943
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Did efforts at Canadianization
make sense?
 Was
No. 6 Group created for Strategic
or Political Reasons?
 1944: Canadian aircrew in RCAF
overseas: 10,200
 1944: Canadian aircrew in RAF
overseas: 16,000
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Hamburg, July/August 1943
 Operation
Gomorrah
4
intensive raids intended to destroy
the city and demoralize the population
 Allies
use Window to great effect
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Gomorrah
 27/28
July 1943: 787 crews, 78 crews
from No. 6 Group, RCAF
 firestorms created
 41,800 civilians died
 900,000 homeless/1.7 million
population
 A Secret?
 “Hamburg Ceases to Exist” Kitchener
Daily Record, 31 July 1943
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Bomber Command
 1942:
3 percent of built-up areas under
attack were devastated.
 1943: 38 percent
 December 1944: devastation at 42
percent
–
But German industrial production also
increased
 Cost:
one third of bombing crews
could expect to survive a 30 sortie tour
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The Lancaster Bomber
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1944: Operation Pointblank
(in support of the invasion of
Europe)
A
diversion from the bombers’ true
role?
 In defence of the Allied invasion
 No. 6 Group: A Dramatic Reversal
–
–
January 1944: worst loss rate in Bomber
Command
May 1944: best loss rate in Bomber
Command
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Mynarski’s Lancaster
 --Pilot
Officer A.C. Mynarski, Victoria
Cross
–
419 Squadron
Attack over Cambrai, 12 June 1944
Mynarski won the VC trying to free a crew
member from his burning Lancaster. Mynarski
died from his burns, but the man he tried to save
survived the plane’s crash to tell the story.
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29 1944
Halifax Bombing a V-weapon site,
1945: Armageddon over
Germany
 560,000
dead/675,000 wounded
 By 1945, Bomber Command: 67
squadrons
–
–
–
–
-daily 3,000 heavy bombers/thousand
fighters a day
--Monthly average of sorties:
5400 in 1943;
14,000 in 1944
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A Final Verdict?
"Although the Combined Bomber Offensive against
Germany did not begin to meet its objectives--the
progressive, if not sudden, decline in enemy war
production and, later, civilian morale--until the last
months of 1944, four full years after it began in earnest,
it is also true that, bit by bit, bombing at least played
some part in slowing the rate of expansion in the
German war economy and so contributed to the Allies'
already significant material superiority. Precisely by
how much, however, is difficult to determine." Official
RCAF History p. 866-867
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The Cost
 RCAF/40
home defence squadrons/48
squadrons overseas
 250,000 personnel
 94,000 overseas
 25% of RAF crews were Canadian
 17,000 fatal Canadian casualties
 10,000 in Bomber Command
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Reichswald Forest War
Cemetery, Cleve Germany
7654 graves, including
4,000 airmen
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Coastal Command

Coastal Command (War vs. the UBoats)
 Bridging the Atlantic in 1943
Short Sunderland Flying Boat
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