falaise pocket
The retreat of the German army towards the River Seine in order to
escape encirclement in the Falaise 'Pocket' in August 1944 also
provided the Allied tactical air forces with an abundance of targets,
and great claims of destruction were made. On 18 August RAF 2nd TAF
alone claimed 1 159 vehicles destroyed and 1 700 damaged together with
124 tanks destroyed and 100 damaged. On the same day the Ninth Air
Force claimed 400 vehicles destroyed.
During the period of this retreat nearly 9 900 sorties were flown by
the RAF. Destruction was claimed of 3 340 soft and 257 armoured
vehicles or some 36 targets destroyed for every hundred sorties. The
USAAF claimed 2 520 soft and 134 armoured vehicles destroyed during
nearly 2 900 sorties, or some 91 successes per hundred. Overall claims
therefore amount to a successful strike approximately every second
sortie.
Shortly after the pocket had been closed No.2 ORS conducted an
extensive investigation in the area to determine the German losses
caused by air attack and the effectiveness of air-to-ground
weapons.The principal roads taken by the Germans were patrolled in
three areas; the 'Pocket' itself around Falaise, the area at the mouth
of the pocket near Chambois and referred to as the 'Shambles', and the
area known as the 'Chase' which led to the Seine crossings. The result
of the investigation is shown in the following tables:
Of the 133 armoured vehicles of all types located by the ORS in the
'Pocket', only 33 had been the victim of any form of air attack. The
remaining hundred had been destroyed by their crews or simply
abandoned. Air attacks were far more effective against soft-skinned
vehicles. Of 701 cars, trucks and motor cycles found in the 'Pocket',
325 had been the victim of attack from the air, and of these 85 per
cent were hit by cannon or machine-gun fire - a testament to the
effectiveness of this form of attack. The fact however remains that of
a total of 885 vehicles of all types lost by the Germans in the
Falaise pocket nearly 60 per cent were destroyed or abandoned by their
crews rather than as the direct result of attack from the air. The
large number of armoured and motor vehicles abandoned or destroyed by
their crews is hardly surprising in such a retreat, and it was thought
many of those destroyed by air weapons had already been abandoned. Air
attack, though, was considered responsible for much of the abandonment
as a result of causing disorganisation; moreover, destroyed vehicles
had completely blocked roads. Cannon and machine gun attacks had
proved to be extremely effective against the densely-packed motor
transport. Such vehicles hit by cannon or machine gun rounds were
invariably burnt out, and the report noted that where pock marks of
strikes appeared in the roads a burnt vehicle was usually found.
In the 'Shambles' so many German vehicles were found that it was
impossible to examine each in detail; they were classes either as
burnt or unburnt as an indication of wether they had been hit by air
weapons or abandoned. A total of 1 411 tanks and vehicles were classed
as burnt, and 1 380 as unburnt. Of the 187 tanks and SP guns found in
this area, 82 were examined in detail, of these only two were
destroyed by attack from the air and eight by ground fire, while all
but one of the remainder were either burnt by their crews or merely
abandoned. There was no evidence - such as rocket craters - to suggest
that any appreciable number of those burnt tanks and SP guns not
examined had been destroyed by air weapons. A sample of 330 of the
softskin vehicles, and 31 of the lightly armoured vehicles, found in
the 'Shambles' were also examined in detail. Of the softskin vehicles,
110 were found to have been destroyed by air weapons and 135 abandoned
intact, while of the lightly armoured vehicles 6 were credited to air
weapons and 13 were found abandoned intact. The effectiveness of
strafing against soft-skin and light armoured vehicles was again
confirmed, this being the greatest known cause of destruction.
The 'Chase' area yielded a count of 3 648 vehicles and guns, and of
3 332 light armoured and soft-skin vehicles, 2 390 were classed as
burnt and 942 unburnt. The ORS were unable to cover every road in such
an extensive area, so the absolute number of vehicles and guns was
unknown but thought to be less than twice that recorded. Of the 150
tanks and self-propelled guns 98 were examined. None were found to
have been destroyed by rockets, nor were there any craters to suggest
rocket attacks had been made in the area. Most, amounting to some 81
per cent, had been destroyed by their crews or abandoned.
To allow for the possibility of German vehicles and guns being missed
in wooded terrain or along unchecked roads, No.2 ORS estimated that
the Germans had lost some 10 000 vehicles and guns during the retreat,
a figure not thought to be in error by more than 2 000 either way.
This was broken down as 1 500 in the 'Pocket' area, 3 500 in the
'Shambles', and 5 000 in the 'Chase'. As it was estimated that the
Germans must have had a total of some 30 000 vehicles it was
considered that two-thirds, including about 250 tanks and SP guns, had
escaped across the Seine. This was regarded as the result of the air
forces attempting general destruction rather than trying to achieve
interdiction by attacking key 'choke' points, a charge strongly
refuted by 2nd TAF as taking no account of weather, flak levels, or
bomblines set by friendly ground forces. In fact No.2 ORS
overestimated the number of German tanks that had escaped, as on 22 -
23 August the German Army Group B, reporting on the state of its eight
surviving Panzer divisions, listed only some 72 tanks.
The retreat to the Seine clearly reveals the limitations of Allied
air-to-ground weapons against tanks, particularly the 3-inch rocket.
Only ten out of 301 tanks and SP guns examined, and three out of 87
armoured troop carriers examined, were found to have been destroyed by
this weapon - these figures must be compared with 222 claims of armour
destruction made by Typhoon pilots alone. In contrast is the marked
effectiveness of cannon and machine guns, and to a lesser extent
bombs, against soft-skin transport vehicles. By destroying large
numbers of these, thus blocking roads and increasing congestion, the
fighter-bombers indirectly caused the abandonment of many tanks.
Moreover, many of the tanks and SP guns were found abandoned without
petrol, not least because trucks carrying their fuel had been shot up
from the air. German prisoners described how the threat of air attack
restricted movement to the hours of darkness until congestion and
haste compelled movement by day. They also told how whenever aircraft
appeared crews stopped to take cover and vehicles were driven off the
main roads into side roads which in turn became blocked. In effect,
the almost continuous fighter-bomber attacks in daylight, within a
restricted area upon retreating troops, caused a great deal of
demoralization and delay which prevented many tanks and vehicles
escaping.
font: Ian Gooderson's 'Air Power at the Battlefront'
pd: snack one and count ten
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