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The Roar of the Sky - German Flak and the Allied Bombing Campaigns of WWII

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The Roar of the Sky - German Flak and the Allied Bombing Campaigns of WWII 2

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00:00The Roar of the Sky, German Flak and the Allied Bombing Campaigns of World War II

00:04During World War II, Allied bombers soaring over Nazi-occupied Europe braved more than just enemy fighter planes.

00:12They had to fly through deadly skies lit up by bursts of flak, short for Flügebwerkenon, the German word for anti-aircraft guns.

00:20These cannons, whether stationed on rooftops, city outskirts, or towering concrete fortresses known as flak towers,

00:26formed the backbone of Germany's air defense.

00:30At a time when missiles didn't yet exist to intercept high-speed aircraft,

00:34these ground-based guns were a city's first and often only shield against bombing raids.

00:39Among the most feared of these weapons were the 88mm Flak 36 and Flak 41.

00:45These powerful guns could unleash up to 25 shells per minute, many of which exploded at preset altitudes,

00:52scattering lethal fragments in all directions.

00:55Picture a grenade bursting mid-air, that's flak.

00:58Not only did the blast damage planes, but the flying shrapnel could tear through wings, engines, and cockpits.

01:06Types of flak shells, flak rounds often combined explosives with incendiary materials and came in two early types.

01:12Impact shells, which exploded upon direct hit, were common in smaller guns, 20-40mm.

01:20These fired so rapidly that precise timing wasn't practical.

01:24Timed shells, used in larger guns, 75-120mm, were set to detonate at specific altitudes or ranges.

01:32Filling the sky with deadly fragments even without a direct hit, timed rounds were generally more effective,

01:39especially when it was hard to hit fast-moving aircraft directly.

01:43But they weren't perfect.

01:45If a bomber veered off course even slightly, the shell might explode too early or too late.

01:51This challenge led to the development of proximity fuses by the Allies,

01:56smart fuses that exploded when an aircraft came within a certain range, greatly increasing accuracy.

02:02While Germany developed over 30 such designs, none were deployed in time, black smoke, and danger.

02:09When flak shells exploded, they left behind dramatic plumes of black smoke,

02:14visual warnings that Allied pilots had entered a danger zone.

02:17These plumes helped bombers estimate how close they were to ground defenses before starting their bombing runs.

02:24To direct this storm of firepower, German crews used an advanced fire control computer called the Kommandadgerat.

02:31Introduced in the 1920s and upgraded throughout the war,

02:35it could synchronize multiple guns with impressive accuracy.

02:39One command team of just five men could aim an entire battery of guns at a single target,

02:44eliminating the need for trained operators on every weapon.

02:47Spotting and aiming, flak crews relied on optical instruments,

02:52radar, and even sound detectors to track enemy planes.

02:56While German radar couldn't precisely guide the guns,

03:00it was good enough to help line up optical targeting systems during the day.

03:04At night, radar guided searchlights to find planes,

03:08and the rest of the aiming was done by eye.

03:10Crews tried to create what they called a PFLAK box,

03:13a deadly trap of bursting shells in a bomber's path.

03:17They calculated where enemy planes would be using radar, observation, and intelligence,

03:22then fired ahead of their projected course.

03:25If time just right, a bomber would fly straight into a cloud of deadly shrapnel,

03:30the fortress guns,

03:31flak towers,

03:32Germany built towering concrete bunkers known as hockbunker,

03:36or high bunkers,

03:38also called flak towers.

03:40Some rose six stories high and housed groups of heavy guns in four-gun configurations,

03:46each aimed with a device called a predictor,

03:48which calculated a plane's future position.

03:51Each gun was paired with searchlights and sound locators,

03:54which could detect engine noise up to 6,000 yards away.

03:57However, sound took time to travel,

04:01so targets were often located about a mile behind where they really were,

04:05something gunners had to adjust for.

04:08When crews spotted an aircraft,

04:10they fired salvos,

04:11groups of shells intended to explode in a 60-yard diameter sphere.

04:16A single 88-millimeter shell could climb as high as 20,000 feet

04:20and destroy a plane within a 30-yard radius.

04:23Even outside that,

04:25shrapnel could inflict serious damage up to 200 yards away.

04:29To boost firepower,

04:31Germany increased battery sizes,

04:33sometimes from four guns to eight.

04:36In high-priority areas,

04:37they built gross batterine,

04:39massive groupings of up to 40 heavy guns.

04:42These used deadly box barrages,

04:45rectangular spreads of exploding shells that no bomber wanted to fly through,

04:48a single fire control system could direct up to 18 guns at once.

04:54As the war went on,

04:55even heavier guns appeared,

04:57105 millimeters and the enormous 125 millimeters,

05:02the largest of them all.

05:04The Wall of Steel,

05:05by 1942,

05:07Germany had deployed over 15,088 millimeters guns,

05:11forming dense flak belts stretching across bombing routes

05:13into the Reich's industrial heartland,

05:15from the Netherlands through Belgium and into western Germany.

05:19In places,

05:20these belts were up to 20 kilometers thick,

05:22to avoid being hit,

05:24Allied bombers tried flying at higher altitudes

05:27and only dropping down when approaching targets.

05:30But the higher they flew,

05:31the easier they were to spot,

05:33and German gunners became extremely skilled at hitting them anyway.

05:37Later,

05:37American bomber crews began weaving,

05:39changing direction every 15 seconds.

05:42Since flak shells took around 20 seconds to reach bomber altitude,

05:47this made them harder to predict.

05:48Still,

05:50as Germany lost territory,

05:52flak guns became concentrated into smaller areas,

05:55creating terrifying zones of near-constant explosions.

05:59The battle for Luna,

06:00no place symbolized the threat of flak more than the massive chemical plant at Luna,

06:04Germany's most heavily defended industrial site.

06:07On July 28, 1944,

06:10over 600 US B-17s attacked it.

06:14Despite flying high,

06:16seven bombers were shot down,

06:17and 217 were damaged by the intense flak barrage.

06:22Flying bombers became one of the most dangerous jobs in the war.

06:26While damaging or downing aircraft was important,

06:29the main goal of flak fire was to force bombers to drop their payloads from higher altitudes,

06:35reducing their accuracy.

06:37Every successful deflection helped protect German industry,

06:40casualties,

06:41and fear.

06:42The US 8 Air Force assigned crews to 25 missions,

06:46but most never made it to their fifth.

06:48In 1944 alone,

06:50flak destroyed 3,500 American planes,

06:54just 600 fewer than those lost to enemy fighters.

06:57The psychological toll was immense.

07:00Flight surgeons documented symptoms like sleeplessness,

07:03irritability,

07:04sudden rage,

07:05blurred vision,

07:06and dramatic weight loss among returning crews.

07:10The constant threat of being torn from the sky haunted every mission.

07:13On the night of March 24, 1944,

07:16over Berlin,

07:17German flak downed 50 of the 72 RAF bombers.

07:22In another attack on Merzburg in November,

07:2456 B-17s were destroyed or crippled by flak alone.

07:29The RAF bomber command reported a staggering 44% death rate,

07:33with thousands more wounded or captured.

07:37In the end,

07:38flak was more than just a physical weapon,

07:40it was psychological warfare.

07:43It darkened the skies with smoke,

07:45terrorized the men in the air,

07:46and stood as one of the most formidable barriers faced by Allied forces

07:50in their mission to bring Nazi Germany to its knees.

07:53The

07:56war

07:58of the

08:01war

08:02of the

08:03war

08:03of the

08:04war

08:05of the

08:06war

The Roar of the Sky - German Flak and the Allied Bombing Campaigns of WWII 2

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