United States Strategic Bombing Survey
Posted: 2008-04-11 09:17pm
Okay; on one of my recent visits to UMD; while I was looking for random stuff in the D7xx series Folio Stacks (aka WW2) I found a whole bunch of books labelled "Focke Wulf Blah blah" etc; and I didn't pay them much attention at first; until I picked one on tank production at random.
I was thinking that they were in German Language; so I had ignored them at first.
Well, Imagine my surprise to find out they were US Strategic Bombing Survey Reports!
[edit] Now full one is up [edit]
CONFIDENTIAL
UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
AIRCRAFT DIVISION
AIRFRAMES
PLANT REPORT NO 5
FOCKE-WULF FLUGZEUGBAU GmbH
(FOCKE-WULF AIRCRAFT INC)
(COMPLEX)
BREMEN, GERMANY
Dates of Plant Survey:
5 March - 16 May 1945
Date of Publication;
26 SEP 1945
COPY NO 34
CONFIDENTIAL
--------------------
CONFIDENTIAL
AIRCRAFT DIVISION
AIRFRAMES PLANT REPORT NO 5
FOCKE-WULF AIRCRAFT INC
BREMEN, GERMANY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I SUMMARY
II THE PLANT AND ITS FUNCTION IN ENEMY ECONOMY
III ATTACKS
IV EFFECTS OF BOMBING
V INTELLIGENCE CHECK
EXHIBITS
- A - Dispersal map
- B - Management chart
- C - Employee chart
- D - Bomb plot, Bremen airport, 17 April 1943
- E - Bomb plot, Bremen airport, 8/9 May 1944
- F - Bomb plot, Marienburg, 9 October 1943
- G - Bomb plot, Hastedt, 6/12 October 1944
- H - Production graph, Focke-Walf complex
- J - Production graph, Focke-Wulf and licensees
- K - Photographs No 1 to 20 inclusive
1. SUMMARY
1. The Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, producers of the FW-190, one of Germany's foremost fighters, was orginally located in Bremen. By the war's end, however, through wide dispersal, it had become one of Germany's largest aircraft manufacturing complexes. Focke-Wulf had dispersed their facilities by 1943, prior to the launching of the Eighth AF daylight attacks. Four separate self-contained plants were erected, each with duplicate facilities, making a total of eight aircraft assembly plants in the complex. These were located at Marienburg, East Prussia; Posen/Kreising, Poland; and Sorau and Cottbus in Brandenburg province, southeast of Berlin. In addition, FW-190 production was allocated to licensees such as Arado, Fieseler, AGO, and Dornier.
a. The output of the Focke-Wulf company's Bremen plant for August 1944 formed 13.2 per cent of the total of single-engine fighters produced by the German aircraft industry, and 24.9 per cent of the FW-190s produced by Focke-Wulf and their four lincensees during that month.
2. Between 22 June 1940 and 21 March 1945. there were 61 RAF and Eighth AF attacks affecting Focke-Wulf company plants. These included 34 attacks on the Bremen plants, two on Marienburg, four on Posen, three on Cottbus and two on Sorau, which were the main production centers. The most effective of these attacks (those which resulted in the greatest losses in production) were the 9 October 1943 attack on Marienburg; the 9 April 1944 attacks on Marienburg and Posen; the 11 April 1944 attack on Sorau and the 29 May 1944 attacks on Posen, Cottbus and Sorau, all by the Eighth AF.
3. Air Ministry planned production was scheduled to reach 450 aircraft per month by the fall of 1944. but this figure was never attained. August 1944 was the peak month, when 367 aircraft were produced. Focke-Wulf estimated their productive capacity to be 300 aircraft per month.
a. The Eighth AF attacks were extremely effective. The general production manager said USAAF daylight attacks were much more destructive than were the night attacks by the RAF.
b. Production for the year 1944 fell 27 per cent under the planned production figure. A total of 3,026 planes was actually delivered, against the 4,125 planes that were to have been produced in 1944. Thus, the German air force was denied 1,099 urgently needed planes. By 1945, the steady bombing of component plants, which caused raw material shortages and bottlenecks, and of the German transportation system, resulted in a virtual collapse of Focke-Wulf production.
Only 30 planes were delivered in March 1945. During the first quarter of 1945, Focke-Wulf dropped 66 per cent under planned production.
c. One raid on Posen, 29 May 1944, was so disastrous that the plant was non-productive until 1 August.
d. With a few exceptions, such as the attack above, Focke-Wulf was able to recuperate rapidly and resume production soon after attack.
4. As a general rule, pre-raid intelligence was found to have been accurate in regard to building identification and assessment of damage, but was optimistic in estimates of recuperation. It is the team's opinion that the one vital segment of the Focke-Wulf company was the jig assembly plant at Gassen, which was attacked but once. A determined follow-up attack might have been crippling to production, inasmuch as Gassen was Focke-Wulf's sole supplier of jigs. Also, Focke-Wulf's successful dispersion and ability to continue production through a duplicate facility system was underestimated.
II THE PLANT AND ITS FUNCTION IN ENEMY ECONOMY
1. product of the plant and Importance in Enemy Economy.
a. The Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, producers of the FW-190, one of Germany's foremost fighters, had a planned productive capacity of approximately 450 airplanes per month in the last half of 1944. This figure was the goal set for the company by the German Air Ministry in August 1944. During that month, the complex completed 367 FW-190s.
b. Focke-Wulf production at Bremen 13.2 per cent of the total single-engined fighters, including the Me-109, Me-163, He-163 and FW-190, built by the Germans in August 1944, and represented more than 24.9 per cent of FW-190 production during that month, to which the capacities of four other large aircraft firms contributed.
2. Physical Description of the Plant.
a. Due to the fact that all the information of the Focke-Wulf company factories was collected in Bremen, which was away from the actual manufacturing sites, and that the factories composing the system were, with but one exception, inaccessible to the field team, this report must confine itself to a description of the system rather than to the physical details of any particular plant.
b. The firm of Focke-Wulf, with main offices in Bremen, was a widely dispersed "complex," or group of primary factories, located generally east of Berlin. These included the final assembly plants at Marienburg, East Prussia; Posen Kreising, in Poland, and the Cottbus and Sorau plants in Brandenburg province, southeast of Berlin, as well as numerous small feeder plants. At all but the Marienburg factory component assembly work.was undertaken in addition to final assembly of complete FW-190s. (See Exhibit A, which indicates geographical locations.) The complex also included an equipment and tool plant at Gassen, a plant for production planning at Sommerfeld/Lausitz and several design and mock-up plants.
c. Dispersal of Focke-Wulf production to factories in eastern Germany began in 1940. The Bremen plant was too vulnerable to air attack. According to the production manager of the firm, even the eastern points could not be considered entirely safe, so centralization of assembly plants was avoided. In order to meet the company's order for 300 fighters per month, four assembly and flight test points were established, each charged with the production of 125 planes. Focke- Wulf production was centered around four assembly points:
(1) The MARIENBURG works was to build fuselages, but due to "circumstances" (eg, bombing) this could not be accomplished.
(2) The main fuselage shops were located at COTTBUS, where there was equipment for finishing small parts, a sheet metal shop and a tube bending shop with the necessary presses.
(3) Most of the machine work was done at the SORAU plant. A fuselage shop was to have been added
(4) The POSEN plant was the main source for large component parts. From there, fuselages, wing and tail assemblies were delivered to the assembly points. (Exhibit B)
d. For each of the primary plants, the German Air Ministry established the policy of planning production on the basis of 70 per cent of full tool capacity in order that an overload could be absorbed immediately just by moving in operating personnel.
e. The high concentration of American daylight attacks forced further dispersal within factory areas. Fearing further attacks, Focke-Wulf, together with the other aircraft firms building FW-190s (Arado, Fieseler, AGO and Domier), established duplicate manufacturing facilities to offset the losses in production which would result from the destruction of one or more of the primary plants. The stand-by facilities, containing reserve tools, were located near the primary plants. Should an attack damage the main plant, the salvaged tools and aircraft parts could be set up in scattered small shops to overcome the loss of the primary plant quickly.
f. In addition, there were at least two sources for each item of production in each of the four FW-190 complexes. An exception was the tail assembly manufacture at Posen for the Focke-Wulf company group. When this source was destroyed in May 1944, it was necessary to borrow from the Fieseler and Arado systems.
g. On 1 October 1944, a reorganization took place in the Ministry of Armament regarding the manufacture of aircraft in the Reich. A consolidation of the main airframe and equipment committees was placed under Director-General Frydag (of the Heinkel firm.) Sub-committees were established for:
(1) Single-engined fighters
(2) Jet-propelled fighters
(3) Bombers
(4) Special airplanes
Both Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf participated in the single-engined fighter group. These subcommittees were further subdivided into work committees (Arbeitsausschuss), which were responsible for repairs and the shipment of aircraft to the front.
h. As a result of the work of the committees individual firms were still further decentralized, and were divided into many small factories, some firms having as many as 40 or 50 shops. No manufacturing process other than final assembly of aircraft was permitted within one and one-fifth miles of airfields. Since the Focke-Wulf company had four primary plants, each of which was dispersed to at least two different places, the firm had eight or more different sources of supply. If one or two of these places was destroyed, it was possible still to maintain approximately the same level of production or even, by using salvaged aircraft parts from bombed plants, to show an increase, it was only after the shortage of materials became so acute through the systematic destruction of all transportation facilities that production had to be curtailed seriously. In February and March 1945, in western Germany, there were huge quantities of accumulated material which could not be shipped out.
i. All transportation from subcontractors, as well as within the Focke-Wulf factory system, was, with slight exceptions, done by railroad. In special cases, when the delivery schedule dictated it, faster means of transportation, such as motor trucks, were used.
3. Ownership and Management.
a. The Focke-Wulf group was under the directorship of Dr. Kurt Tank, who, in addition to the management of all work pertaining to technical and scientific research of the firm, had as his main activity the conception and design of airplanes.
b. Among those interviewed were the general production manager, Engineer Hans Schubert, who also managed the design offices at Gassen for tools, fixtures and jigs; the commercial director, Dr. Werner Naumann; the chief of engineering design, Erwin Meissner; the procurement agent Paul Reifenrath; the director of air-raid precaution systems, Maj. (retired) Bartholdy; the works managers of the Sorau plant, Fritz Ruter, and of the Cottbus plant, Wilhelm Gieschen, and Oskar Steinbach, the government representative of the subcommittee for Focke-Wulf production of the Ministry of Armament. (Exhibit B presents the production management plan for the Focke-Wulf company, covering the primary plants and listing their functions.)
c. The principal figure interviewed by the field team, who contributed most to this report, was the production manager. He was the leader of the group of Germans who worked under his direction in gathering the data for this report. He took credit, and there appeared no reason to doubt him, for most of the policies and methods which permitted the Focke-Wulf company to overcome, to remarkable degree, the considerable obstacles which confronted it.
4. Employees and Work Shifts.
a. The total number of employees was approximately 30,000, 23,000 of whom were productive workers. They worked in three shifts of eight hours each. (Exhibit C shows the number of plant personnel at each factory.)
b. At the beginning of the war, employment turnover was quite heavy, but later over 50 per cent of the employees was slave labor, and employment turn over became a minor factor in production schedules. The greater number of workers were French, Danes and workers from other occupied western countries. These were on personal contract for one or two years, and during 1941 and 1942 they were permitted to return home or transfer to such other employment in Germany as they chose. Later, Berlin issued instructions that the management would no longer honor time limits on such contracts, and the workers were held.
(insert bomb fuzing table)
IV. EFFECTS OF BOMBING.
1. Physical Damage.
a. Following is a record of attacks for which specific data were obtainable. Two sources are quoted; one, that supplied the production manager, who stated the US daylight precision attacks were much more destructive than were the RAF night attacks; and, secondly, that which the team was able to extract from official plant records. Bomb plots have been included for attacks wherever available.
b. Bremen Airport.
(1) 13/14 September 1942 (RAF). Production dropped 50 per cent on 15 September, but the original level was quickly attained. Three FW-190s and two FW-44s were destroyed.
(2) 17 April 1943 - 10 FW-190s destroyed, 12 FW-190s damaged and four engines damaged. About 50 per cent of the factory was destroyed. (Exhibit D is a bomb plot of this attack.
(3) 8/9 November 1943 - Exhibit E is a bomb plot of this attack.
(4) 29 May 1944. Hangars badly damaged (Exhibit K9 Photo 1).
(5) 5 August 1944. Hangars 2,3 and 4 totally destroyed.
(6) 17 September 1944. Hanagar 9 destroyed.
(7) 26 September 1944. Buildings 7, 9, 16 and 18 were hit (Photos 2 and 3) 20 per cent production loss.
c. Adelheide.
(1) 13/14 September 1942. Two FW-190s damaged. One FW-191 damaged. Production dropped 50 per cent on 13 September. but the original level was quickly attained.
d. Bremen/Hemelingen
(1) 13/14 September 1942. Fifty per cent production loss on 15 September. The original level was quickly attained.
(2) 26 September 1944. Total loss of production for six weeks, thereafter 50 per cent for undetermined time.
(3) 6 October 1944. Fifty per cent of factory buildings producing spare parts was destroyed.
(4) 13 March 1945. Production on one night shift was interrupted.
e. Marienburg
(1) 9 October 1943. The plant was taken by surprise, since no warning was given. All personnel were at work and casualties ran high: 114 dead and 76 injured. The attack was carried out by a force of American bombers, which attacked in five waves of 17-19 planes each. Buildings 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 were totally destroyed as well as stores of material. A large part of the power units was burnt. Fifteen FW-190s were damaged. Exhibit F is a bomb plot of this attack. (Exhibit K-Photos 4.5, 6,7, 8,9.)
Absenteeism was great. Out of a total of 669 German workers, only 100 were present on Sunday, 10 October 1943. On Monday out of 497 men only 208 were present, and out of 172 women only 39 reported for duty. After one whole week the personnel was completely accounted for.
f. Langerhagen.
(1) 18 October 1943. Destruction of power units caused a 40 per cent decrease in production.
(2) 9 March 1944. One FW-190 destroyed. Six fuselages damaged. One stablizer damaged, one FW-190, type TA-152, damaged.
(3) 8 April 1944. All power units severely damaged.
(4) 3 August 1944. Hangars 2, 3 and 4, as well as a large part of machines totally destroyed.
g. Hastedt.
(1) 6 October 1944. 70 per cent of the production facilities destroyed.
(2) 12 October 1944. Large part of assembly hangar destroyed. Exhibit G shows combined bomb plots for the two attacks (Exhibit K; Photos 10, 11, 12, 20.)
(3) 21 March 1945. 20 per cent production loss for five days.
h. Cottbus.
(1) 29 May 1944. 50 per cent of the assembly and test-flight facilities in the factory at the airport were destroyed;, crippling production., Production was recommenced after a short time at 60 per cent capacity. (Exhibit K; Photos 13, 14).
i. Neuhausen.
(1) 16 January 1945. 14 FW-190, type TA-152 destroyed, one FW-190 destroyed. 2 TA-152s damaged.
j. Sorau.
(1) 11 April 1944. 50 per cent of various production facilities were destroyed.
(2) 29 May 1944. The plant was 50 per cent destroyed and the workers' dwellings were heavily damaged.
k. Posen.
(1) Posen (Messegelande) 9 April 1944 attack (Two attacks in eight min.)
(a) Sheet metal forming shop,, responsible for total component production of the FW-190, was totally destroyed.
(b) Building for aileron and wing flap assembly was totally destroyed.
(c) 80 per cent damage in assembly of fuselages.
(d) Rubber press (3,000-ton) and other machinery totally destroyed. Hollerith machine destroyed.
(e) Water tower destroyed.
(2) 29 May 1944. Heavy damage to buildings. Total of 115 hits on hangers. The work's Messehalle was attacked at the same time and Hangars 9 and 10 were destroyed by incendiaries, as well as a number of smaller buildings.
The two attacks on Posen were of such total destructive power that machines and machine tools were completely destroyed. New equipment had to be ordered, and a considerable amount of time was lost. The plant was out of production until 1 August.
2. Production Loss.
a. The planned monthly FW-190 production program for 1943, when the bombing offensive which was directed against the German aircraft industry commenced, was unobtainable. However, the program for 1944 and the first quarter of 1945 was given the investigators, and the effect of the numerous attacks upon the Focke-Wulf complex is clearly evident. Exhibit H is a planned vs actual production graph for the Focke-Wulf company's four assembly plants. Actual deliveries are shown for the years of 1943, 1944 and 1945. Planned production was not available for 1943. Exhibit J is a similar production graph, combining the Focke-Wulf company and their licensees. No figures were obtainable for 1945.
b. The table below analyses monthly and quarterly production schedules as compared with actual aircraft deliveries.
(Insert Table)
c. The attacks during April and May hit the Focke-Wulf complex very heavily and the results were felt immediately. A total of 719 aircraft was delivered as compared to the planned figure of 1050 aircraft. Thus, the enemy was denied 331 aircraft - a loss of 32 per cent from planned production - during the second quarter of 1944.
d. Recovery was attempted during the next three months. Production, which fell to 218 delivered aircraft during May. rose to a total of 367 during August, which was the peak production month for the year. A total of 987 aircraft was delivered - a loss of 257 aircraft, 20 per cent off-schedule - during the third quarter.
e. Attacks in October caused another precipitous production drop, when only 233 aircraft were delivered, almost 50 per cent less than planned and, although production increased during November and December, Focke-Wulf ended the year with the poorest quarterly production record, 493 aircraft off-schedule, a loss of 37 per cent.
f. Instead of delivering 4,125 Focke-Wulf-190s to the German air force during 1944, only 3,026 reached operational units, a denial of 1,099 aircraft (27 per cent loss.) By 1945, conditions became chaotic as a result of plant bombing, non-delivery of component parts and the collapse of the German transportation system. Production fell 66 per cent, a denial of 795 aircraft, during the first three months, and production virtually ceased by March, when only 30 aircraft were delivered.
g. In October 1944, plans were made to produce a new aircraft, the TA-152, the latest FW-190. This initial schedule called for the delivery of 10 planes in March 1945, 35 in April, 75 in June, 150 in July, and by October, 400 were to be produced monthly. The TA-152 was a development from the FW-190 and parts were interchangeable.
h. Large-scale production of the TA-152 never got under way, and there is no question that Allied bombing prevented the development of the program. Records were found which indicated the tremendous confusion and uncertainty experienced by various plants. The Deutsche Asphalt A G plant, which were to manufacture wing construction machine tools, were unable to meet schedules because the Focke-Wulf company was late with shipment of patterns. Bombings, which resulted in absenteeism, caused further delays. Machine tool subcontractors were tardy in deliveries and they, in turn, reported to Deutsche Asphalt that contracts could not be fulfilled as they were unable to get necessary materials. Towards the end of the war, transportation broke down and the entire program collapsed.
i. The production manager said it was often necessary to introduce time-consuming material changes due to non-delivery of vital component parts. These changes resulted in lowering of quality. When the Gottingen elastic stop nut plant was destroyed it became necessary to change to ordinary nuts and safety they with prick punches. After the Schweinfurt plants were attacked, ball bearings became a critical item, and Focke-Wulf had to substitute plain bearings in the control system. The redesigning consumed considerable time (how much, not given).
3. Recuperability
a. Dispersal was undertaken at the direction of the German Air Ministry, in charge of Focke-Wulf production, and was successfully carried out by 1943, before the heavy Eighth AF attacks commenced. The production manager and the commercial director told the team that dispersal, in their experience, was costly and inefficient, as a plant which is subdivided into many sub-units, feeder plants and small shops cannot possibly manufacture as economically as can one large integrated unit. Below are some of the factors which contributed to the production manager's estimate that dispersal increased Focke-Wulf production cost 20-30 per cent:
(1) Large control system with many non-productive workers.
(2) Duplication of non-productive departments, such as fire prevention, first aid, social and recreational activities.
(3) Substantial increase of supervisory personnel.
(4) Impossibility of duplicating highly specialized single-purpose machinery and equipment.
(5) Transportation problems of employees. Necessity of providing narrow gauge railroads to transport workers from town to factory.
(6) Necessity of drawing on other companies for supplies, machinery and building material
b. To protect machine tools, impregnated bundles of branches were placed around various units. This precautionary measure was quickly abandoned after early raids showed they would not resist US type of incendiary bombs, and machine tools were rearranged and separated by brick blast walls. By isolating sections, the plants were made much less vulnerable to incendiaries. Examples of blast wall construction are shown in photos 15 and 16. That this method of protecting machine tools was effective is shown in the production manager's statement on an attack on Sorau. The machine tool building was hit by many incendiaries, and even though the building appeared to be a total loss, only five per cent of the machinery was destroyed.
c. The production manager said 50,000 man-hours were lost during 1944 because of debris clearance and plant repairs. Focke-Wulf trained selected workers as plant firemen, police and first-aid men. This constituted a waste of man-power, as 300-400 stood by in readiness of further attacks and did not participate in production.
d. Losses through absenteeism were not high, and averaged two-three days after each attack.
e. The Focke Wulf Sorau machine tool plant manager reported an example of extreme speed and resourcefulness on the part of the Speer Ministry in assisting individual plants which had been attacked by our daylight raids.
f. On a given afternoon in 1944, the Sorau plant was raided. A flying squad of several cars of energetic men arrived from Berlin at 1900 hours and worked all night. They immediately rounded up military personnel, available civilian labor and volunteer forces to help clean up, aid in casualty rescue, etc, and analyzed the damage. By morning a plan was set up, listing the required machine tool replacements necessary building repair materials and man-power, emergency tarpaulins, etc. By 0800 hours a fleet of trucks left to pick up requisitioned machine tools available in the immediate area, according to a machine tool inventory on file in the offices of the local Rust-ungs Kommando (Speer Ministry Agency.) As a result of this quick action by fresh personnel not shocked out of commission by the raid, the machine tool plant was back in operation 48 hours after the raid.
4. Vulnerability
a. Focke-Wulf experienced many production bottlenecks which were caused by delayed deliveries of vital component parts. Specific instances were:
(1) Semifinished light metal parts.
(a) The slow deliveries of semifinished products made by Vereinigte Leichtmetallwerke, Bonn and Hanover, which could not meet schedules because of destructive air attacks.
(2) Semifinished steel parts.
(a) The delays caused were due to the attacks on Geisweider Eisenwerke., Geisweid; Eisen und Huttenwerke, Bochum; Harkort Eicken, Hagen. Deliveries were held up for eight weeks. By re-routing orders to other firms and by switching over to other types of material, these difficulties were overcome.
(3) Screws and miscellaneous standard parts.
(a) The difficulties with these parts were due to damage suffered by the foillowing firms: Bauer & Scharte, Neuss/Rhld: Nurnberger Schraubenfabrik, Nurnberg. By reducing the number of varied standard parts to a minimum, and borrowing from other aircraft factories, difficulties were overcome.
(4) Steel forgings and light metal pressings from the vicinity of Solingen.
(a) The firms in Solingen and vicinity were heavily damaged. Despite this fact Focke-Wulf would not have suffered if transportation had been normal. This made it impossible for Focke-Wulf to transfer the prepared material and dies to firms kept in reserve for such eventualities.
(3) Undercarriages and landing gear parts.
(a) The damage caused to Opel, who manufactured wheel axles, resulted in irregular deliveries.
(6) Cockpit enclosures.
(a) The destruction of the plexiglass factory, Rohm &Hass, Darmstadt, caused a very serious production problem. It became necessary to salvage waste material for reprocessing.
(7) Electrodes and welding rods.
(a) The destruction of Union, Hamm, Westphalia, which manufactured all the prime materials for electrodes, produced very serious difficulties. Since the production facilities for making wire were very limited, no quick remedy of this situation was found.
(b) Summing up the heavy raids on the industrial target of Focke-Wulf, the production manager said, "Our many production disturbances and lags were due mainly to the daylight attacks of the American air forces. These attacks were characterized by an extraordinary accuracy. The English attacks, that were usually carried out at night, did not in the least disrupt the production of Focke-Wulf. It cannot be said by us whether the bombing and burning of sections of the towns had any indirect effect on production".
(c) Focke-Wulf's recuperation after attacks was rapid, due to dispersal, until the heavy attacks of 9 April and 29 May 1944 on the Posen plant. By borrowing parts from the Focke-Wulf licensees, the Focke-Wulf company was able to reattain its pre-attack production level by the second month after the raids. However, the Posen plant was so badly smashed in the 29 May attack it did not get back into production until August.
(d) The jig and fixture manufacturing plant at Gassen was attacked 11 April, 1944. Further attacks would have crippled production as, not only was it a highly concentrated target, but the sole source of jig supply for the Focke-Wulf complex.
V INTELLIGENCE CHECK
1. The pre-raid Intelligence of the plants was quite accurate.
However, the choice of final assembly and flight hangars as targets was not as damaging to production as would have been the jig manufacturing plant at Gassen. This was not dispersed. There seems to be no doubt that the choice of component parts factories as a target was a good one. However, the wide dispersal largely negated their value as major targets. The overall picture of the value of targets chosen, final assembly and flight hangars, power units and component parts factories;, shows that dispersal, duplication of facilities and excess capacity did much to negate their value as targets.
a. The identification of buildings by Allied Intelligence seems, for the most part g to have been very accurate. Most discrepancies are found in the differences between flight or final assembly hangars which did not materially affect the overall production picture. Considering the wide dispersal of plants and the careful camouflaging. Intelligence did an excellent job in identification.
2. In most instances damage assessment was fairly accurate. However, on various occasions, it has been noted that aerial reconnaissance indicated severe damage to a building, but damage was only superficial. It appeared severe because although incendiaries burned out the combustible roofs and rafters, the machinery and basic buildings were left virtually intact. Operations could continue without repair and little production loss occurred.
a. Intelligence reports on production loss were found to be accurate. Intelligence reports were accurate in their statement that no definite bottlenecks were created by bombardment of the Focke-Wulf plants.
3. Intelligence reports were highly accurate in appraising the recuperative power of the Focke-Wulf company. However, they failed to report and evaluate the extent of dispersal and speed in clearing debris and repairing bombed factories. Because of these two factors, the recuperative powers of the Focke-Wulf company were very high.
a. Intelligence data on the value of the targets after our raids was very accurate. However, this was partially negated by the selecting of flight and final assembly hangars as top priority targets. Actually, a definite bottleneck of troublesome difficulty could have been achieved by a heavy raid on the Gassen jig site. One other location, Sommerfield, the production control center, was not listed in Intelligence files.
I was thinking that they were in German Language; so I had ignored them at first.
Well, Imagine my surprise to find out they were US Strategic Bombing Survey Reports!
[edit] Now full one is up [edit]
CONFIDENTIAL
UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY
AIRCRAFT DIVISION
AIRFRAMES
PLANT REPORT NO 5
FOCKE-WULF FLUGZEUGBAU GmbH
(FOCKE-WULF AIRCRAFT INC)
(COMPLEX)
BREMEN, GERMANY
Dates of Plant Survey:
5 March - 16 May 1945
Date of Publication;
26 SEP 1945
COPY NO 34
CONFIDENTIAL
--------------------
CONFIDENTIAL
AIRCRAFT DIVISION
AIRFRAMES PLANT REPORT NO 5
FOCKE-WULF AIRCRAFT INC
BREMEN, GERMANY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I SUMMARY
II THE PLANT AND ITS FUNCTION IN ENEMY ECONOMY
III ATTACKS
IV EFFECTS OF BOMBING
V INTELLIGENCE CHECK
EXHIBITS
- A - Dispersal map
- B - Management chart
- C - Employee chart
- D - Bomb plot, Bremen airport, 17 April 1943
- E - Bomb plot, Bremen airport, 8/9 May 1944
- F - Bomb plot, Marienburg, 9 October 1943
- G - Bomb plot, Hastedt, 6/12 October 1944
- H - Production graph, Focke-Walf complex
- J - Production graph, Focke-Wulf and licensees
- K - Photographs No 1 to 20 inclusive
1. SUMMARY
1. The Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, producers of the FW-190, one of Germany's foremost fighters, was orginally located in Bremen. By the war's end, however, through wide dispersal, it had become one of Germany's largest aircraft manufacturing complexes. Focke-Wulf had dispersed their facilities by 1943, prior to the launching of the Eighth AF daylight attacks. Four separate self-contained plants were erected, each with duplicate facilities, making a total of eight aircraft assembly plants in the complex. These were located at Marienburg, East Prussia; Posen/Kreising, Poland; and Sorau and Cottbus in Brandenburg province, southeast of Berlin. In addition, FW-190 production was allocated to licensees such as Arado, Fieseler, AGO, and Dornier.
a. The output of the Focke-Wulf company's Bremen plant for August 1944 formed 13.2 per cent of the total of single-engine fighters produced by the German aircraft industry, and 24.9 per cent of the FW-190s produced by Focke-Wulf and their four lincensees during that month.
2. Between 22 June 1940 and 21 March 1945. there were 61 RAF and Eighth AF attacks affecting Focke-Wulf company plants. These included 34 attacks on the Bremen plants, two on Marienburg, four on Posen, three on Cottbus and two on Sorau, which were the main production centers. The most effective of these attacks (those which resulted in the greatest losses in production) were the 9 October 1943 attack on Marienburg; the 9 April 1944 attacks on Marienburg and Posen; the 11 April 1944 attack on Sorau and the 29 May 1944 attacks on Posen, Cottbus and Sorau, all by the Eighth AF.
3. Air Ministry planned production was scheduled to reach 450 aircraft per month by the fall of 1944. but this figure was never attained. August 1944 was the peak month, when 367 aircraft were produced. Focke-Wulf estimated their productive capacity to be 300 aircraft per month.
a. The Eighth AF attacks were extremely effective. The general production manager said USAAF daylight attacks were much more destructive than were the night attacks by the RAF.
b. Production for the year 1944 fell 27 per cent under the planned production figure. A total of 3,026 planes was actually delivered, against the 4,125 planes that were to have been produced in 1944. Thus, the German air force was denied 1,099 urgently needed planes. By 1945, the steady bombing of component plants, which caused raw material shortages and bottlenecks, and of the German transportation system, resulted in a virtual collapse of Focke-Wulf production.
Only 30 planes were delivered in March 1945. During the first quarter of 1945, Focke-Wulf dropped 66 per cent under planned production.
c. One raid on Posen, 29 May 1944, was so disastrous that the plant was non-productive until 1 August.
d. With a few exceptions, such as the attack above, Focke-Wulf was able to recuperate rapidly and resume production soon after attack.
4. As a general rule, pre-raid intelligence was found to have been accurate in regard to building identification and assessment of damage, but was optimistic in estimates of recuperation. It is the team's opinion that the one vital segment of the Focke-Wulf company was the jig assembly plant at Gassen, which was attacked but once. A determined follow-up attack might have been crippling to production, inasmuch as Gassen was Focke-Wulf's sole supplier of jigs. Also, Focke-Wulf's successful dispersion and ability to continue production through a duplicate facility system was underestimated.
II THE PLANT AND ITS FUNCTION IN ENEMY ECONOMY
1. product of the plant and Importance in Enemy Economy.
a. The Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, producers of the FW-190, one of Germany's foremost fighters, had a planned productive capacity of approximately 450 airplanes per month in the last half of 1944. This figure was the goal set for the company by the German Air Ministry in August 1944. During that month, the complex completed 367 FW-190s.
b. Focke-Wulf production at Bremen 13.2 per cent of the total single-engined fighters, including the Me-109, Me-163, He-163 and FW-190, built by the Germans in August 1944, and represented more than 24.9 per cent of FW-190 production during that month, to which the capacities of four other large aircraft firms contributed.
2. Physical Description of the Plant.
a. Due to the fact that all the information of the Focke-Wulf company factories was collected in Bremen, which was away from the actual manufacturing sites, and that the factories composing the system were, with but one exception, inaccessible to the field team, this report must confine itself to a description of the system rather than to the physical details of any particular plant.
b. The firm of Focke-Wulf, with main offices in Bremen, was a widely dispersed "complex," or group of primary factories, located generally east of Berlin. These included the final assembly plants at Marienburg, East Prussia; Posen Kreising, in Poland, and the Cottbus and Sorau plants in Brandenburg province, southeast of Berlin, as well as numerous small feeder plants. At all but the Marienburg factory component assembly work.was undertaken in addition to final assembly of complete FW-190s. (See Exhibit A, which indicates geographical locations.) The complex also included an equipment and tool plant at Gassen, a plant for production planning at Sommerfeld/Lausitz and several design and mock-up plants.
c. Dispersal of Focke-Wulf production to factories in eastern Germany began in 1940. The Bremen plant was too vulnerable to air attack. According to the production manager of the firm, even the eastern points could not be considered entirely safe, so centralization of assembly plants was avoided. In order to meet the company's order for 300 fighters per month, four assembly and flight test points were established, each charged with the production of 125 planes. Focke- Wulf production was centered around four assembly points:
(1) The MARIENBURG works was to build fuselages, but due to "circumstances" (eg, bombing) this could not be accomplished.
(2) The main fuselage shops were located at COTTBUS, where there was equipment for finishing small parts, a sheet metal shop and a tube bending shop with the necessary presses.
(3) Most of the machine work was done at the SORAU plant. A fuselage shop was to have been added
(4) The POSEN plant was the main source for large component parts. From there, fuselages, wing and tail assemblies were delivered to the assembly points. (Exhibit B)
d. For each of the primary plants, the German Air Ministry established the policy of planning production on the basis of 70 per cent of full tool capacity in order that an overload could be absorbed immediately just by moving in operating personnel.
e. The high concentration of American daylight attacks forced further dispersal within factory areas. Fearing further attacks, Focke-Wulf, together with the other aircraft firms building FW-190s (Arado, Fieseler, AGO and Domier), established duplicate manufacturing facilities to offset the losses in production which would result from the destruction of one or more of the primary plants. The stand-by facilities, containing reserve tools, were located near the primary plants. Should an attack damage the main plant, the salvaged tools and aircraft parts could be set up in scattered small shops to overcome the loss of the primary plant quickly.
f. In addition, there were at least two sources for each item of production in each of the four FW-190 complexes. An exception was the tail assembly manufacture at Posen for the Focke-Wulf company group. When this source was destroyed in May 1944, it was necessary to borrow from the Fieseler and Arado systems.
g. On 1 October 1944, a reorganization took place in the Ministry of Armament regarding the manufacture of aircraft in the Reich. A consolidation of the main airframe and equipment committees was placed under Director-General Frydag (of the Heinkel firm.) Sub-committees were established for:
(1) Single-engined fighters
(2) Jet-propelled fighters
(3) Bombers
(4) Special airplanes
Both Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf participated in the single-engined fighter group. These subcommittees were further subdivided into work committees (Arbeitsausschuss), which were responsible for repairs and the shipment of aircraft to the front.
h. As a result of the work of the committees individual firms were still further decentralized, and were divided into many small factories, some firms having as many as 40 or 50 shops. No manufacturing process other than final assembly of aircraft was permitted within one and one-fifth miles of airfields. Since the Focke-Wulf company had four primary plants, each of which was dispersed to at least two different places, the firm had eight or more different sources of supply. If one or two of these places was destroyed, it was possible still to maintain approximately the same level of production or even, by using salvaged aircraft parts from bombed plants, to show an increase, it was only after the shortage of materials became so acute through the systematic destruction of all transportation facilities that production had to be curtailed seriously. In February and March 1945, in western Germany, there were huge quantities of accumulated material which could not be shipped out.
i. All transportation from subcontractors, as well as within the Focke-Wulf factory system, was, with slight exceptions, done by railroad. In special cases, when the delivery schedule dictated it, faster means of transportation, such as motor trucks, were used.
3. Ownership and Management.
a. The Focke-Wulf group was under the directorship of Dr. Kurt Tank, who, in addition to the management of all work pertaining to technical and scientific research of the firm, had as his main activity the conception and design of airplanes.
b. Among those interviewed were the general production manager, Engineer Hans Schubert, who also managed the design offices at Gassen for tools, fixtures and jigs; the commercial director, Dr. Werner Naumann; the chief of engineering design, Erwin Meissner; the procurement agent Paul Reifenrath; the director of air-raid precaution systems, Maj. (retired) Bartholdy; the works managers of the Sorau plant, Fritz Ruter, and of the Cottbus plant, Wilhelm Gieschen, and Oskar Steinbach, the government representative of the subcommittee for Focke-Wulf production of the Ministry of Armament. (Exhibit B presents the production management plan for the Focke-Wulf company, covering the primary plants and listing their functions.)
c. The principal figure interviewed by the field team, who contributed most to this report, was the production manager. He was the leader of the group of Germans who worked under his direction in gathering the data for this report. He took credit, and there appeared no reason to doubt him, for most of the policies and methods which permitted the Focke-Wulf company to overcome, to remarkable degree, the considerable obstacles which confronted it.
4. Employees and Work Shifts.
a. The total number of employees was approximately 30,000, 23,000 of whom were productive workers. They worked in three shifts of eight hours each. (Exhibit C shows the number of plant personnel at each factory.)
b. At the beginning of the war, employment turnover was quite heavy, but later over 50 per cent of the employees was slave labor, and employment turn over became a minor factor in production schedules. The greater number of workers were French, Danes and workers from other occupied western countries. These were on personal contract for one or two years, and during 1941 and 1942 they were permitted to return home or transfer to such other employment in Germany as they chose. Later, Berlin issued instructions that the management would no longer honor time limits on such contracts, and the workers were held.
(insert bomb fuzing table)
IV. EFFECTS OF BOMBING.
1. Physical Damage.
a. Following is a record of attacks for which specific data were obtainable. Two sources are quoted; one, that supplied the production manager, who stated the US daylight precision attacks were much more destructive than were the RAF night attacks; and, secondly, that which the team was able to extract from official plant records. Bomb plots have been included for attacks wherever available.
b. Bremen Airport.
(1) 13/14 September 1942 (RAF). Production dropped 50 per cent on 15 September, but the original level was quickly attained. Three FW-190s and two FW-44s were destroyed.
(2) 17 April 1943 - 10 FW-190s destroyed, 12 FW-190s damaged and four engines damaged. About 50 per cent of the factory was destroyed. (Exhibit D is a bomb plot of this attack.
(3) 8/9 November 1943 - Exhibit E is a bomb plot of this attack.
(4) 29 May 1944. Hangars badly damaged (Exhibit K9 Photo 1).
(5) 5 August 1944. Hangars 2,3 and 4 totally destroyed.
(6) 17 September 1944. Hanagar 9 destroyed.
(7) 26 September 1944. Buildings 7, 9, 16 and 18 were hit (Photos 2 and 3) 20 per cent production loss.
c. Adelheide.
(1) 13/14 September 1942. Two FW-190s damaged. One FW-191 damaged. Production dropped 50 per cent on 13 September. but the original level was quickly attained.
d. Bremen/Hemelingen
(1) 13/14 September 1942. Fifty per cent production loss on 15 September. The original level was quickly attained.
(2) 26 September 1944. Total loss of production for six weeks, thereafter 50 per cent for undetermined time.
(3) 6 October 1944. Fifty per cent of factory buildings producing spare parts was destroyed.
(4) 13 March 1945. Production on one night shift was interrupted.
e. Marienburg
(1) 9 October 1943. The plant was taken by surprise, since no warning was given. All personnel were at work and casualties ran high: 114 dead and 76 injured. The attack was carried out by a force of American bombers, which attacked in five waves of 17-19 planes each. Buildings 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 were totally destroyed as well as stores of material. A large part of the power units was burnt. Fifteen FW-190s were damaged. Exhibit F is a bomb plot of this attack. (Exhibit K-Photos 4.5, 6,7, 8,9.)
Absenteeism was great. Out of a total of 669 German workers, only 100 were present on Sunday, 10 October 1943. On Monday out of 497 men only 208 were present, and out of 172 women only 39 reported for duty. After one whole week the personnel was completely accounted for.
f. Langerhagen.
(1) 18 October 1943. Destruction of power units caused a 40 per cent decrease in production.
(2) 9 March 1944. One FW-190 destroyed. Six fuselages damaged. One stablizer damaged, one FW-190, type TA-152, damaged.
(3) 8 April 1944. All power units severely damaged.
(4) 3 August 1944. Hangars 2, 3 and 4, as well as a large part of machines totally destroyed.
g. Hastedt.
(1) 6 October 1944. 70 per cent of the production facilities destroyed.
(2) 12 October 1944. Large part of assembly hangar destroyed. Exhibit G shows combined bomb plots for the two attacks (Exhibit K; Photos 10, 11, 12, 20.)
(3) 21 March 1945. 20 per cent production loss for five days.
h. Cottbus.
(1) 29 May 1944. 50 per cent of the assembly and test-flight facilities in the factory at the airport were destroyed;, crippling production., Production was recommenced after a short time at 60 per cent capacity. (Exhibit K; Photos 13, 14).
i. Neuhausen.
(1) 16 January 1945. 14 FW-190, type TA-152 destroyed, one FW-190 destroyed. 2 TA-152s damaged.
j. Sorau.
(1) 11 April 1944. 50 per cent of various production facilities were destroyed.
(2) 29 May 1944. The plant was 50 per cent destroyed and the workers' dwellings were heavily damaged.
k. Posen.
(1) Posen (Messegelande) 9 April 1944 attack (Two attacks in eight min.)
(a) Sheet metal forming shop,, responsible for total component production of the FW-190, was totally destroyed.
(b) Building for aileron and wing flap assembly was totally destroyed.
(c) 80 per cent damage in assembly of fuselages.
(d) Rubber press (3,000-ton) and other machinery totally destroyed. Hollerith machine destroyed.
(e) Water tower destroyed.
(2) 29 May 1944. Heavy damage to buildings. Total of 115 hits on hangers. The work's Messehalle was attacked at the same time and Hangars 9 and 10 were destroyed by incendiaries, as well as a number of smaller buildings.
The two attacks on Posen were of such total destructive power that machines and machine tools were completely destroyed. New equipment had to be ordered, and a considerable amount of time was lost. The plant was out of production until 1 August.
2. Production Loss.
a. The planned monthly FW-190 production program for 1943, when the bombing offensive which was directed against the German aircraft industry commenced, was unobtainable. However, the program for 1944 and the first quarter of 1945 was given the investigators, and the effect of the numerous attacks upon the Focke-Wulf complex is clearly evident. Exhibit H is a planned vs actual production graph for the Focke-Wulf company's four assembly plants. Actual deliveries are shown for the years of 1943, 1944 and 1945. Planned production was not available for 1943. Exhibit J is a similar production graph, combining the Focke-Wulf company and their licensees. No figures were obtainable for 1945.
b. The table below analyses monthly and quarterly production schedules as compared with actual aircraft deliveries.
(Insert Table)
c. The attacks during April and May hit the Focke-Wulf complex very heavily and the results were felt immediately. A total of 719 aircraft was delivered as compared to the planned figure of 1050 aircraft. Thus, the enemy was denied 331 aircraft - a loss of 32 per cent from planned production - during the second quarter of 1944.
d. Recovery was attempted during the next three months. Production, which fell to 218 delivered aircraft during May. rose to a total of 367 during August, which was the peak production month for the year. A total of 987 aircraft was delivered - a loss of 257 aircraft, 20 per cent off-schedule - during the third quarter.
e. Attacks in October caused another precipitous production drop, when only 233 aircraft were delivered, almost 50 per cent less than planned and, although production increased during November and December, Focke-Wulf ended the year with the poorest quarterly production record, 493 aircraft off-schedule, a loss of 37 per cent.
f. Instead of delivering 4,125 Focke-Wulf-190s to the German air force during 1944, only 3,026 reached operational units, a denial of 1,099 aircraft (27 per cent loss.) By 1945, conditions became chaotic as a result of plant bombing, non-delivery of component parts and the collapse of the German transportation system. Production fell 66 per cent, a denial of 795 aircraft, during the first three months, and production virtually ceased by March, when only 30 aircraft were delivered.
g. In October 1944, plans were made to produce a new aircraft, the TA-152, the latest FW-190. This initial schedule called for the delivery of 10 planes in March 1945, 35 in April, 75 in June, 150 in July, and by October, 400 were to be produced monthly. The TA-152 was a development from the FW-190 and parts were interchangeable.
h. Large-scale production of the TA-152 never got under way, and there is no question that Allied bombing prevented the development of the program. Records were found which indicated the tremendous confusion and uncertainty experienced by various plants. The Deutsche Asphalt A G plant, which were to manufacture wing construction machine tools, were unable to meet schedules because the Focke-Wulf company was late with shipment of patterns. Bombings, which resulted in absenteeism, caused further delays. Machine tool subcontractors were tardy in deliveries and they, in turn, reported to Deutsche Asphalt that contracts could not be fulfilled as they were unable to get necessary materials. Towards the end of the war, transportation broke down and the entire program collapsed.
i. The production manager said it was often necessary to introduce time-consuming material changes due to non-delivery of vital component parts. These changes resulted in lowering of quality. When the Gottingen elastic stop nut plant was destroyed it became necessary to change to ordinary nuts and safety they with prick punches. After the Schweinfurt plants were attacked, ball bearings became a critical item, and Focke-Wulf had to substitute plain bearings in the control system. The redesigning consumed considerable time (how much, not given).
3. Recuperability
a. Dispersal was undertaken at the direction of the German Air Ministry, in charge of Focke-Wulf production, and was successfully carried out by 1943, before the heavy Eighth AF attacks commenced. The production manager and the commercial director told the team that dispersal, in their experience, was costly and inefficient, as a plant which is subdivided into many sub-units, feeder plants and small shops cannot possibly manufacture as economically as can one large integrated unit. Below are some of the factors which contributed to the production manager's estimate that dispersal increased Focke-Wulf production cost 20-30 per cent:
(1) Large control system with many non-productive workers.
(2) Duplication of non-productive departments, such as fire prevention, first aid, social and recreational activities.
(3) Substantial increase of supervisory personnel.
(4) Impossibility of duplicating highly specialized single-purpose machinery and equipment.
(5) Transportation problems of employees. Necessity of providing narrow gauge railroads to transport workers from town to factory.
(6) Necessity of drawing on other companies for supplies, machinery and building material
b. To protect machine tools, impregnated bundles of branches were placed around various units. This precautionary measure was quickly abandoned after early raids showed they would not resist US type of incendiary bombs, and machine tools were rearranged and separated by brick blast walls. By isolating sections, the plants were made much less vulnerable to incendiaries. Examples of blast wall construction are shown in photos 15 and 16. That this method of protecting machine tools was effective is shown in the production manager's statement on an attack on Sorau. The machine tool building was hit by many incendiaries, and even though the building appeared to be a total loss, only five per cent of the machinery was destroyed.
c. The production manager said 50,000 man-hours were lost during 1944 because of debris clearance and plant repairs. Focke-Wulf trained selected workers as plant firemen, police and first-aid men. This constituted a waste of man-power, as 300-400 stood by in readiness of further attacks and did not participate in production.
d. Losses through absenteeism were not high, and averaged two-three days after each attack.
e. The Focke Wulf Sorau machine tool plant manager reported an example of extreme speed and resourcefulness on the part of the Speer Ministry in assisting individual plants which had been attacked by our daylight raids.
f. On a given afternoon in 1944, the Sorau plant was raided. A flying squad of several cars of energetic men arrived from Berlin at 1900 hours and worked all night. They immediately rounded up military personnel, available civilian labor and volunteer forces to help clean up, aid in casualty rescue, etc, and analyzed the damage. By morning a plan was set up, listing the required machine tool replacements necessary building repair materials and man-power, emergency tarpaulins, etc. By 0800 hours a fleet of trucks left to pick up requisitioned machine tools available in the immediate area, according to a machine tool inventory on file in the offices of the local Rust-ungs Kommando (Speer Ministry Agency.) As a result of this quick action by fresh personnel not shocked out of commission by the raid, the machine tool plant was back in operation 48 hours after the raid.
4. Vulnerability
a. Focke-Wulf experienced many production bottlenecks which were caused by delayed deliveries of vital component parts. Specific instances were:
(1) Semifinished light metal parts.
(a) The slow deliveries of semifinished products made by Vereinigte Leichtmetallwerke, Bonn and Hanover, which could not meet schedules because of destructive air attacks.
(2) Semifinished steel parts.
(a) The delays caused were due to the attacks on Geisweider Eisenwerke., Geisweid; Eisen und Huttenwerke, Bochum; Harkort Eicken, Hagen. Deliveries were held up for eight weeks. By re-routing orders to other firms and by switching over to other types of material, these difficulties were overcome.
(3) Screws and miscellaneous standard parts.
(a) The difficulties with these parts were due to damage suffered by the foillowing firms: Bauer & Scharte, Neuss/Rhld: Nurnberger Schraubenfabrik, Nurnberg. By reducing the number of varied standard parts to a minimum, and borrowing from other aircraft factories, difficulties were overcome.
(4) Steel forgings and light metal pressings from the vicinity of Solingen.
(a) The firms in Solingen and vicinity were heavily damaged. Despite this fact Focke-Wulf would not have suffered if transportation had been normal. This made it impossible for Focke-Wulf to transfer the prepared material and dies to firms kept in reserve for such eventualities.
(3) Undercarriages and landing gear parts.
(a) The damage caused to Opel, who manufactured wheel axles, resulted in irregular deliveries.
(6) Cockpit enclosures.
(a) The destruction of the plexiglass factory, Rohm &Hass, Darmstadt, caused a very serious production problem. It became necessary to salvage waste material for reprocessing.
(7) Electrodes and welding rods.
(a) The destruction of Union, Hamm, Westphalia, which manufactured all the prime materials for electrodes, produced very serious difficulties. Since the production facilities for making wire were very limited, no quick remedy of this situation was found.
(b) Summing up the heavy raids on the industrial target of Focke-Wulf, the production manager said, "Our many production disturbances and lags were due mainly to the daylight attacks of the American air forces. These attacks were characterized by an extraordinary accuracy. The English attacks, that were usually carried out at night, did not in the least disrupt the production of Focke-Wulf. It cannot be said by us whether the bombing and burning of sections of the towns had any indirect effect on production".
(c) Focke-Wulf's recuperation after attacks was rapid, due to dispersal, until the heavy attacks of 9 April and 29 May 1944 on the Posen plant. By borrowing parts from the Focke-Wulf licensees, the Focke-Wulf company was able to reattain its pre-attack production level by the second month after the raids. However, the Posen plant was so badly smashed in the 29 May attack it did not get back into production until August.
(d) The jig and fixture manufacturing plant at Gassen was attacked 11 April, 1944. Further attacks would have crippled production as, not only was it a highly concentrated target, but the sole source of jig supply for the Focke-Wulf complex.
V INTELLIGENCE CHECK
1. The pre-raid Intelligence of the plants was quite accurate.
However, the choice of final assembly and flight hangars as targets was not as damaging to production as would have been the jig manufacturing plant at Gassen. This was not dispersed. There seems to be no doubt that the choice of component parts factories as a target was a good one. However, the wide dispersal largely negated their value as major targets. The overall picture of the value of targets chosen, final assembly and flight hangars, power units and component parts factories;, shows that dispersal, duplication of facilities and excess capacity did much to negate their value as targets.
a. The identification of buildings by Allied Intelligence seems, for the most part g to have been very accurate. Most discrepancies are found in the differences between flight or final assembly hangars which did not materially affect the overall production picture. Considering the wide dispersal of plants and the careful camouflaging. Intelligence did an excellent job in identification.
2. In most instances damage assessment was fairly accurate. However, on various occasions, it has been noted that aerial reconnaissance indicated severe damage to a building, but damage was only superficial. It appeared severe because although incendiaries burned out the combustible roofs and rafters, the machinery and basic buildings were left virtually intact. Operations could continue without repair and little production loss occurred.
a. Intelligence reports on production loss were found to be accurate. Intelligence reports were accurate in their statement that no definite bottlenecks were created by bombardment of the Focke-Wulf plants.
3. Intelligence reports were highly accurate in appraising the recuperative power of the Focke-Wulf company. However, they failed to report and evaluate the extent of dispersal and speed in clearing debris and repairing bombed factories. Because of these two factors, the recuperative powers of the Focke-Wulf company were very high.
a. Intelligence data on the value of the targets after our raids was very accurate. However, this was partially negated by the selecting of flight and final assembly hangars as top priority targets. Actually, a definite bottleneck of troublesome difficulty could have been achieved by a heavy raid on the Gassen jig site. One other location, Sommerfield, the production control center, was not listed in Intelligence files.
*digs in* That's got to be cool.
