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 FlÃŧgebwerkenon, 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
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