As an older man, whose father served in the R.A.F. in WW II, I have collected hundreds of books on the Bomber Offensive over the past sixty years. Everything I have studied for six decades has been two dimensional, limited by both night photography and night filmography. Except for rare propaganda film clips released by both sides during the conflict, there has been nothing out there, up to now, that could give you a sense of what it was like to be flying in the night skies over Germany, and what you might see/experience. This is what makes WO Kelly's Essen video such a ground breaking piece of historical work: he has added in that heretofore missing 3rd dimension, which allows you to experience the night air war as if you were in the planes flying over Essen. I recommend it highly for anyone with an interest in the RAF Night Bomber Offensive. His bibliography at the end is meticulous and shows a wide range of informative sources, all well worth studying to get a more thorough picture of what was happening....Congrats WO Kelly, on bringing the Essen Raid to life for those of us who were not there. I look forward to your future endeavors. JJK Canada
Top Notch comment and review, John. I can't claim to have that many books on WWII aircraft but I still have a good collection. Mark from Melbourne Australia.
Thanks. Unfortunately I'm finding I can't cover them in the detail I'd like, at least for the period I am looking at right now. There are surprisingly few memoirs (in English) from the pilots, and what does exist are mostly from pilots who started flying in mid 1943 or later. The entire "Kammhuber" period (1940 to mid 1943) is very lacking from a 'Nachtjagd' pilot perspective, other than scattered accounts in books on the night air war. With the passing due to old age of the veterans who survived the war, I wonder if there are the resources anymore to tell that story. Hopefully a lot of it is just in Germany and sitting in archives waiting to be uncovered and published.
Excellent. By far the best explanation I've ever seen on the complicated topic I've read a lot about. And better than any documentary I've ever seen. Integrating all the essential things to know. Showing it from both sides. And showing the individual human cost of war. Excellent!
Thanks! Yeah, I always found the documentaries on Bomber Command never really showed how everything worked or actually seemed to talk about the actual battles that took place, so that inspired me to make this and other related videos. One of the best things about the process was learning as I went how everything worked, which I didn't have a good grasp on originally just from reading books. Very much a learn as you work project.
Very interesting video! Some minor parts in your presentation may be tightened to perfection, but the story and visualization kept me watching through the entire thing! Well done! Subscribed.
Feel free to post any suggestions, I'm always looking for ways to improve. I was aiming to be comprehensive for this video though, so I suspected it droned on in some parts. When I make my bigger bomber command series I'm aiming to be a bit more concise.
Just for my interest, could you explain quite how far apart these aircraft in the various bomber streams were. I understand your animations are just for illustrative purposes, but it set me wondering. Thank you for posting such well researched information.
Unfortunately I've never found anything to tell me that. At best I've seen books talk about the number of bombers bombing per minute. The Essen raid in this video for example, they planned to put 449 aircraft over the target within 40 minutes, so that would calculate to roughly 11 aircraft bombing every minute. Since the bomber stream tended to fly at the speed of the slowest bomber, and the bombers were flying at cruise speed, using say the Stirlings cruise speed of 320 km/h (according to wikipedia), I think that would be something like 500 meters distance horizontally between each aircraft? Unfortunately I am not entirely sure how to calculate this properly, so my math may be off. But in practice the distance was random for the most part. Each bomb group was assigned specific times to bomb, but the raid reports show many aircraft arrived early or late. As each aircraft navigated its own way to the target, any errors or unforcasted wind would throw the timing off. Also, it does seem from reading the bomber reports that the density of the bomber stream may have varied with time. Once again the Essen raid in this video, the middle of the bomber stream where the Stirlings and Wellingtons were, they also had the tail end of the Halifax wave and the front of the Lancaster wave overhead. In theory that should have been pretty dense horizontally, though it was spread out vertically as the Wellingtons and Stirlings flew below the Halifaxes and Lancasters. Unless the Halifax wave was front-loaded with aircraft, and the Lancaster wave was back-loaded, then the bombers over the target per minute would have been much higher in the middle of the wave then at the start or finish. Unfortunately I don't really have any info to shed light on why the bomber stream was setup the way it was, or what density was being aimed for. The raid reports simply give planned times for each wave. Harris in his post-war dispatches talks about place bombers in the wave depending on their vulnerability, the least capable in the center, the more capable in the front and back where it was supposedly more dangerous. However the bomber stream layout changed over time, especially when Window came in, and he may have been referring to the post-window period rather than this one. I've guessed somewhat with the Ruhr videos about why the bomber stream is laid out the way it is.
My father was a WOP in a Halifax he told me there was a microphone fitted to one of the engine cowls he would tune the radio into the germans fighters frequency he would then broadcast the engines noise to the fighters all they would hear in their headphones was a merlin engine cutting their communication
Yeah, that would be "Tinsel", one of Bomber Commands first Electronic Warfare aids which came into use in late 1942. That and "Mandrel" (jamming of German Freya Radar) was in use by the time of the March 5th Essen Raid. I'm hoping to go into detail on the Electronic Warfare part of WWII as I make more content, its very interesting stuff.
@@kellyshistory306 yes he did tell me about tinsel , but the microphone was kept quiet , maybe it was used after the war , he entered service in 1943 completed 29 ops until AC shot up April 1944 over Belgium baled out spent 3 days on the run until captured , if he was still with us I'd pick his brains about it but passed away 2019 aged 96 , one of the lucky ones
@@alanjones6359 There is still a fair amount of stuff related to Bomber Commands Electronic Warfare campaign that is classified even today I've been told, so perhaps it is related to that. 96 is a good age to live to, especially for someone who served on Bombers!
Muy buen video, con calidad en el contenido y en lo visual. Realmente haces muy buenos trabajos, la música de fondo con su estilo minimalista me recuerda el documental sobre MacNamara (Fog of War). Felicitaciones en todo caso, tu canal tiene mucho futuro y la temática ciertamente me encanta. Algún día espero que trates el tema de los derribos de los mayores ases de la Luftwaffe que muchos califican de exagerados y que ha dado origen a alguna prensa parcial de un lado y de otro.
[Translato de Google] Gracias. La música de fondo fue hecha por Kevin Macleod, y fue lo suficientemente agradable para hacer una canción similar a la música de fondo en la serie "Battlefield" de documentales de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Minimalista era lo que esperaba, y sutilmente sombre. En cuanto a las Aces Luftwaffe, podría hacer algunas cosas relacionadas con las que sirvieron en el ME262, ya que tengo recursos que puedo usar para que muestre un poco más de mala calidad de "Jet ACES".
@@kellyshistory306 estimado, lo seguire en los próximos capítulos, usted se ha especializado en derrumbar mitos. Por otro lado, su trabajo es de excepcional calidad y espero que el canal siga creciendo para que tenga la cantidad de subscriptores que merece. Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
I do want to do some 8th AF animations, but I'm still gathering sources. The daylight battles are a bit complicated to animate to the level I will want. I will have some 8th AF related content coming though, which will hopefully step me up to the level I want.
For some reasons TH-cam deletes my reply. Sorry for separate reply. You mentioned lack of sources for Nachtjagdgeschwader pilots. I can suggest some books. I'm not sure if you read them or not. "Florennes Raum Sieben" by Roland Charlier. It's about I./ NJG 4 pilots. When you go to Germany, I recommend you to get Schnaufer's radar operator (Friedrich Rumpelhardt) memoirs "Meine Geschichte und die meiner Familie" and "Der erfolgreichste Nachtjäger aller Zeiten" if you decide to make a video about Heinz Schnaufer and unit he commanded. Also can recommend "Luftkrieg bei Nacht 1939-1945 NJG2", "Die Geschichte der deutschen Nachtjagd 1917-1945", "Nachtjäger vor den Toren Hamburgs". "Nachtjäger: Luftwaffe Night Fighter Units 1939-1945" "Nachtjäger und Bomber: Deutsche Luftwaffe 1935-1945" "Theo Boiten - Nachtjagd Combat Archive".
I got a good number of those books, at least the ones that are in English (Theo Boiten's stuff in particular). I'm frankly boned when it comes to reading German, though I have a pretty good AI translation program, it only works for text I can copy and past digitally. Schnaufer's radar operator would be interesting to read, but Schnaufer wasn't that active during the "Ruhr" campaign and his kills really started to stack from mid 1943 onwards. When I get to that period Schnaufer will feature a lot more.
When I get to my big "Documentary" on the Battle of the Ruhr, I plan to talk a bit more about the German night fighter types and RAF bomber types in service.
Thanks. However, this channel is still fairly spare on content so I'm not expecting huge sub numbers at this point. Hopefulyl by the end of the year I'll be well over 100. Hoping to get a couple more videos out this year.
@@kellyshistory306 the cahnnel and content is unique, keep up the quality work, be persistent and leave it to the time. Yeah with efficiency (like being more mainstream for example) you can achieve good results, but with quality you have the chance to achieve amazing results :)... besides nowadays we crave even more for quality than ever :DD ... great work anyways.. i am sure it will be much better in time...
As an older man, whose father served in the R.A.F. in WW II, I have collected hundreds of books on the Bomber Offensive over the past sixty years. Everything I have studied for six decades has been two dimensional, limited by both night photography and night filmography. Except for rare propaganda film clips released by both sides during the conflict, there has been nothing out there, up to now, that could give you a sense of what it was like to be flying in the night skies over Germany, and what you might see/experience.
This is what makes WO Kelly's Essen video such a ground breaking piece of historical work: he has added in that heretofore missing 3rd dimension, which allows you to experience the night air war as if you were in the planes flying over Essen. I recommend it highly for anyone with an interest in the RAF Night Bomber Offensive. His bibliography at the end is meticulous and shows a wide range of informative sources, all well worth studying to get a more thorough picture of what was happening....Congrats WO Kelly, on bringing the Essen Raid to life for those of us who were not there. I look forward to your future endeavors.
JJK
Canada
Thanks!
Top Notch comment and review, John. I can't claim to have that many books on WWII aircraft but I still have a good collection.
Mark from Melbourne Australia.
As a person who is also study about Nachtjagdgeschwader Luftwaffe and night fighter RAF pilots I'm glad that I discovered your channel. 👍
Thanks. Unfortunately I'm finding I can't cover them in the detail I'd like, at least for the period I am looking at right now. There are surprisingly few memoirs (in English) from the pilots, and what does exist are mostly from pilots who started flying in mid 1943 or later. The entire "Kammhuber" period (1940 to mid 1943) is very lacking from a 'Nachtjagd' pilot perspective, other than scattered accounts in books on the night air war. With the passing due to old age of the veterans who survived the war, I wonder if there are the resources anymore to tell that story. Hopefully a lot of it is just in Germany and sitting in archives waiting to be uncovered and published.
Excellent. By far the best explanation I've ever seen on the complicated topic I've read a lot about.
And better than any documentary I've ever seen.
Integrating all the essential things to know.
Showing it from both sides.
And showing the individual human cost of war.
Excellent!
Thanks! Yeah, I always found the documentaries on Bomber Command never really showed how everything worked or actually seemed to talk about the actual battles that took place, so that inspired me to make this and other related videos. One of the best things about the process was learning as I went how everything worked, which I didn't have a good grasp on originally just from reading books. Very much a learn as you work project.
Very interesting video! Some minor parts in your presentation may be tightened to perfection, but the story and visualization kept me watching through the entire thing! Well done! Subscribed.
Feel free to post any suggestions, I'm always looking for ways to improve. I was aiming to be comprehensive for this video though, so I suspected it droned on in some parts. When I make my bigger bomber command series I'm aiming to be a bit more concise.
Very well researched and presented!
Thanks.
Just for my interest, could you explain quite how far apart these aircraft in the various bomber streams were. I understand your animations are just for illustrative purposes, but it set me wondering. Thank you for posting such well researched information.
Unfortunately I've never found anything to tell me that. At best I've seen books talk about the number of bombers bombing per minute. The Essen raid in this video for example, they planned to put 449 aircraft over the target within 40 minutes, so that would calculate to roughly 11 aircraft bombing every minute. Since the bomber stream tended to fly at the speed of the slowest bomber, and the bombers were flying at cruise speed, using say the Stirlings cruise speed of 320 km/h (according to wikipedia), I think that would be something like 500 meters distance horizontally between each aircraft? Unfortunately I am not entirely sure how to calculate this properly, so my math may be off.
But in practice the distance was random for the most part. Each bomb group was assigned specific times to bomb, but the raid reports show many aircraft arrived early or late. As each aircraft navigated its own way to the target, any errors or unforcasted wind would throw the timing off. Also, it does seem from reading the bomber reports that the density of the bomber stream may have varied with time. Once again the Essen raid in this video, the middle of the bomber stream where the Stirlings and Wellingtons were, they also had the tail end of the Halifax wave and the front of the Lancaster wave overhead. In theory that should have been pretty dense horizontally, though it was spread out vertically as the Wellingtons and Stirlings flew below the Halifaxes and Lancasters. Unless the Halifax wave was front-loaded with aircraft, and the Lancaster wave was back-loaded, then the bombers over the target per minute would have been much higher in the middle of the wave then at the start or finish.
Unfortunately I don't really have any info to shed light on why the bomber stream was setup the way it was, or what density was being aimed for. The raid reports simply give planned times for each wave. Harris in his post-war dispatches talks about place bombers in the wave depending on their vulnerability, the least capable in the center, the more capable in the front and back where it was supposedly more dangerous. However the bomber stream layout changed over time, especially when Window came in, and he may have been referring to the post-window period rather than this one. I've guessed somewhat with the Ruhr videos about why the bomber stream is laid out the way it is.
@@kellyshistory306 Thank you for such a detailed answer
Very nice video
Thanks!
My father was a WOP in a Halifax he told me there was a microphone fitted to one of the engine cowls he would tune the radio into the germans fighters frequency he would then broadcast the engines noise to the fighters all they would hear in their headphones was a merlin engine cutting their communication
Yeah, that would be "Tinsel", one of Bomber Commands first Electronic Warfare aids which came into use in late 1942. That and "Mandrel" (jamming of German Freya Radar) was in use by the time of the March 5th Essen Raid. I'm hoping to go into detail on the Electronic Warfare part of WWII as I make more content, its very interesting stuff.
@@kellyshistory306 yes he did tell me about tinsel , but the microphone was kept quiet , maybe it was used after the war , he entered service in 1943 completed 29 ops until AC shot up April 1944 over Belgium baled out spent 3 days on the run until captured , if he was still with us I'd pick his brains about it but passed away 2019 aged 96 , one of the lucky ones
@@alanjones6359 There is still a fair amount of stuff related to Bomber Commands Electronic Warfare campaign that is classified even today I've been told, so perhaps it is related to that.
96 is a good age to live to, especially for someone who served on Bombers!
Wow, well made!
Thanks!
Muy buen video, con calidad en el contenido y en lo visual. Realmente haces muy buenos trabajos, la música de fondo con su estilo minimalista me recuerda el documental sobre MacNamara (Fog of War). Felicitaciones en todo caso, tu canal tiene mucho futuro y la temática ciertamente me encanta. Algún día espero que trates el tema de los derribos de los mayores ases de la Luftwaffe que muchos califican de exagerados y que ha dado origen a alguna prensa parcial de un lado y de otro.
[Translato de Google] Gracias. La música de fondo fue hecha por Kevin Macleod, y fue lo suficientemente agradable para hacer una canción similar a la música de fondo en la serie "Battlefield" de documentales de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Minimalista era lo que esperaba, y sutilmente sombre.
En cuanto a las Aces Luftwaffe, podría hacer algunas cosas relacionadas con las que sirvieron en el ME262, ya que tengo recursos que puedo usar para que muestre un poco más de mala calidad de "Jet ACES".
@@kellyshistory306 estimado, lo seguire en los próximos capítulos, usted se ha especializado en derrumbar mitos. Por otro lado, su trabajo es de excepcional calidad y espero que el canal siga creciendo para que tenga la cantidad de subscriptores que merece. Saludos desde Santiago de Chile.
I hope you can eventually also cover the Daylight bombing campaign of the 8th air Force[USAAF].
I do want to do some 8th AF animations, but I'm still gathering sources. The daylight battles are a bit complicated to animate to the level I will want. I will have some 8th AF related content coming though, which will hopefully step me up to the level I want.
For some reasons TH-cam deletes my reply. Sorry for separate reply.
You mentioned lack of sources for Nachtjagdgeschwader pilots.
I can suggest some books. I'm not sure if you read them or not. "Florennes Raum Sieben" by Roland Charlier. It's about I./ NJG 4 pilots.
When you go to Germany, I recommend you to get Schnaufer's radar operator (Friedrich Rumpelhardt) memoirs "Meine Geschichte und die meiner Familie" and "Der erfolgreichste Nachtjäger aller Zeiten" if you decide to make a video about Heinz Schnaufer and unit he commanded.
Also can recommend "Luftkrieg bei Nacht 1939-1945 NJG2", "Die Geschichte der deutschen Nachtjagd 1917-1945", "Nachtjäger vor den Toren Hamburgs".
"Nachtjäger: Luftwaffe Night Fighter Units 1939-1945"
"Nachtjäger und Bomber: Deutsche Luftwaffe 1935-1945"
"Theo Boiten - Nachtjagd Combat Archive".
I got a good number of those books, at least the ones that are in English (Theo Boiten's stuff in particular). I'm frankly boned when it comes to reading German, though I have a pretty good AI translation program, it only works for text I can copy and past digitally.
Schnaufer's radar operator would be interesting to read, but Schnaufer wasn't that active during the "Ruhr" campaign and his kills really started to stack from mid 1943 onwards. When I get to that period Schnaufer will feature a lot more.
Great but please add detail on the german night fighter types in use as well as the RAF types
When I get to my big "Documentary" on the Battle of the Ruhr, I plan to talk a bit more about the German night fighter types and RAF bomber types in service.
Criminally under subbed
Thanks. However, this channel is still fairly spare on content so I'm not expecting huge sub numbers at this point. Hopefulyl by the end of the year I'll be well over 100. Hoping to get a couple more videos out this year.
@@kellyshistory306 the cahnnel and content is unique, keep up the quality work, be persistent and leave it to the time. Yeah with efficiency (like being more mainstream for example) you can achieve good results, but with quality you have the chance to achieve amazing results :)... besides nowadays we crave even more for quality than ever :DD ... great work anyways.. i am sure it will be much better in time...
@@kellyshistory306 I'm glad you popped up on Greg's Lancaster comments - that's how I found you.
Your methods are unique and compelling. Thank you.