A hand reached out from the dark of the waiting room and retuned the radio to the BBC News. A waltz number finished and the news announcer came on: “Tonight our bombers struck at Cologne. In another daring raid over the German fatherland hundreds of British heavy bombers and night-fighter escorts braved everything that the Luftwaffe could throw at them. Early reports are that two targets were struck, one a decoy target was heavily damaged as the German night-fighters who initially attacked these bombers realized there was a much larger force invading their country and drew off to concentrate on the Main Force. Indications are that the Germans put up a stiff resistance and that some of our bombers are missing.”
Air Marshall Harris turned from the radio and peered down the table at his “attack team”. “Well? Are they right?” he growled. A Captain rose from the end of the table and cleared his throat, “Well, Sir. We always lose bombers …”
“HOW MANY DAMMIT CAPTAIN” shouted the Air Marshall, half rising out of his seat. He was worn-out from the 20 hour days and his temper was on a taught string.
“A lot of them Sir. We are still recovering damaged aircraft that have landed around England. Our best guess at the moment is over half of our attacking force of Lancasters. We are missing over 100. Although, the Mosquitos came off better. Lots of them made it back,” the Captain looked up smiling as though this last hopeful tidbit would mollify the Air Marshall.
Harris stared at nothing, then sunk back into his seat. “Holy mother of God. Over half? A hundred Lancasters. How? It was a solid plan?” he whispered to himself.
A Group Captain stood and tried to answer, “It seems Sir, that the Germans have seriously upgraded their radar capabilities. They likely tracked us all the way from the Frisian Islands. From our radio intercepts our aircraft were initially engaged over Holland, which we did not expect. The Decoy Force apparently drew off a lot of night fighter 110s, but they paid for it. However, the Main Force had too far to go so that the Decoy Force did not do as much as we had hoped. It sounded like the entire German night fighter force were up last night and spoiling for blood. Even with Mosquitoes providing some protection, and they reporting knocking down a lot of night fighters, the Main Force was still swarmed for several hours last night.” Not meeting anyone’s eyes he promptly sat down and stared at his papers.
Choking back his emotions Harris croaked out “To what effect?”
The GC stood again staring at his papers, “Light damage to three areas of Cologne, heavy damage to the Decoy Force target, a base we call A19.”
Harris rose and turned to the heavily curtained windows and pulled them aside, moodily staring at the new dawn. His staff rose silently and crept from the room.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lufwaffe kills: 115
RAF kills: 53
RAF Objects struck: 29
