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Night Fighters in the European War

The Battle of Britain in 1940 was a rude awakening. At first, German aircraft struck at England by day and night, the few night missions scheduled only because Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Göring wanted an all out, around-the-clock, effort. After losing nearly 1,700 aircraft in three months to British defenses by day, however, Göring switched his bombing attacks to the night in October 1940. This change in strategy also coincided with his decision to target British morale, better attacked in the uncertainty of night, with lighter losses.

Unfortunately, the British were woefully unprepared, with only eight squadrons of obsolescent night fighters (Defiants and Blenheims). Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots had to rely on newly developed long-range ground radar for warning and assistance with interception. This radar system, however, had been built with day missions in mind. Ground controllers could get day fighters to within five or ten miles of the bomber formations, where the pilots’ eyes took over. At night, directions to within five or ten miles of the target meant that the pilots might as well have stayed on the ground. The results were devastating: over Coventry on the night of 14/15 November 1940, 165 RAF sorties failed to bring down any of the 437 attacking Nazi bombers.

By 1941 the British had discovered how to use German navigation radio beams to determine where enemy bombers would attack. When this technology was combined with radars mounted in the intercepting aircraft, nighttime defenders began to claim an increasing number of enemy bombers. Still, in the last mass raid of the Blitz, hundreds of night fighter sorties resulted in only seven of the 507 attacking bombers shot down. In May 1941 Hitler began shifting Luftwaffe units to the east preparatory to the assault on the Soviet Union. The British had won the Night Blitz, not because of the success of their night fighters, but because of the Führer’s capriciousness. German losses to British night defenses and to all other causes during the Night Blitz never exceeded four percent.

U.S. officers sent to England to observe the Battle of Britain experienced the terror of night bombing and learned the lessons of night fighting firsthand. Col. Carl A. Spaatz, future head of the U.S. bombing campaign against Germany, reported the need for a night fighter aircraft high on the list of requirements for building a U.S. combat air force. In later talks, British and U.S. officials agreed that the United Kingdom would assume primary responsibility for night defense, with the RAF to produce 4,380 night fighters and the United States 1,687.

Spaatz and other U.S. observers returned to the States with lessons learned by the British: crews needed special qualifications; night fighting required special training; muzzle flashes and tracers could blind the night pilot; and ground control of intercepting aircraft by radar and radio was essential to success. But the most important lesson was that groping around in darkness looking for a moving airplane would most likely end in failure.

Developing a True Night Fighter

The United States, comfortable in the knowledge that British airmen would carry the brunt of night combat for the time being, could afford to develop its night fighters slowly, under peacetime priorities. Wartime priorities, on the other hand, forced the British to take a fast, off-the-shelf U.S. attack bomber, the Douglas A-20 Boston, and convert it to a night fighter equipped with the Mark IV airborne radar.

For the long-term, the Air Corps wanted a specially designed night fighter, built according to Muir Fairchild’s guidance from the early 1920s. The original request for proposals called for a “Night Interceptor Pursuit Airplane.” In response to a proposal from Northrop, the Army Air Corps ordered two XP-61 prototypes in January 1941 for $1,367,000.

Hungry for its first night fighter, the Air Corps ordered thirteen YP-61s two months later for service testing. The prototype was an all-metal, twin engine, three-place monoplane with twin tail booms and a fully retractable tricycle landing gear. Its revolutionary slotted flaps and perforated spoilers allowed it to close on a target very quickly-up to 362 miles per hour (P-61A version)-and then to decelerate rapidly to only 70 miles per hour so as not to overshoot the target.

Nicknamed the Black Widow, the P-61 had many teething problems, which prevented the first prototype from flying until May 1942, a service test model until February 1943, and a production model until October 1943. The Black Widow made its public debut in January 1944 during a mysterious night flyover of the Los Angeles Coliseum, rapidly appearing out of the dark like some gigantic bat, and then just as strangely disappearing, with only the roar of its engines testifying that it had flown over the surprised crowd at a halftime celebration.

The P-61’s long-delayed development forced the AAF to seek an interim solution. Since the British had been converting Douglas Boston attack bombers to night fighters since 1940, it seemed logical to fill the gap left by the “Night Interceptor Pursuit Airplane” project with the night version of the Boston, known as the Havoc. The RAF had also fitted some Havocs with a powerful searchlight to illuminate enemy aircraft and allow accompanying Hurricane day fighters to attack. Renamed the Turbinlite, these aircraft proved ineffective because the searchlight blinded everyone in the area, friend and foe alike.

In October 1941 U.S. airmen installed in Douglas Boston attack bombers their version of the Mark IV airborne radar, initially the handmade AI-10 and later the manufactured SCR-540. Thus modified and redesignated the P-70, sixty of these aircraft became available at Douglas’s Santa Monica plant when supercharged engines needed for the bomber version could not be allocated. Armed with four 20-mm cannons and airborne radar, the P-70 could carry up to two thousand pounds of bombs on night bomber missions. However, the absence of superchargers and therefore a diminished high-altitude capability guaranteed their failure as night fighters.

The desperate need for anything that would fly at night nonetheless warranted orders for 65 more combat versions and 105 trainers. By September 1942, 59 P-70s were ready for combat, with about half going to training schools at Orlando, Florida, and the other half to operational units defending the Panama Canal (24th Fighter Squadron) and Hawaii (6th Fighter Squadron).

Meanwhile, the P-61 Black Widow faced mounting technical problems: aerodynamically-induced tail-buffeting, a move of the cannons from the wings to the belly, a requirement for additional fuel capacity, Plexiglas nose cones that melted in the sun, and delays in receiving remotely controlled gun turrets (in demand for the B-29) slowed production even more. Labor problems and material shortages also contributed to delays at Northrop’s Hawthorne, California, plant, which built only 34 in 1943, 449 in 1944, and 199 in 1945. Only 100 Black Widows were overseas by D-Day, June 6, 1944.

But what a technical marvel! Two 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp engines powered the P-61, two-speed General Electric turbosuperchargers boosted performance at altitude, and four 20-mm cannons and four .50-caliber machine guns provided killing power. Though the Black Widow was designed for a crew of three (pilot, radar operator [R/O], and gunner), the gunner sometimes did not fly in combat because the remote-controlled gun turret was either deleted or fired by the pilot. Armor plates protected the crew from machine gun fire. The pilot could use 5.8 power night binoculars mounted in the cockpit and connected to the optical gunsight. Four illuminated dots on the gunsight allowed the pilot to determine the enemy’s range. The R/O sat backwards, unable to see what lay ahead, his eyes trained on the radar scope between his knees.

The P-61 was perhaps the first “stealth” technology to fly for the United States. Following tests at the National Defense Research Committee, Northrop painted the night fighter glossy black to help it hide in darkened skies by reflecting light away rather than down to the ground. Baptized the Black Widow, certainly one of the most apropos nicknames ever, the P-61 (including the version with water injection) could fly up to 370 miles per hour in level flight at 30,000 feet, reach an altitude of 41,000 feet, and climb to 20,000 feet in 8.5 minutes. Fully loaded, it weighed only as much as an empty B-17 Flying Fortress. The seven hundred Black Widows built were, by any terms, the most sophisticated and advanced piston engine-powered, propeller-driven aircraft of the war.

All this performance came with a high pricetag. With Northrop’s assembly line in full gear, a completely equipped P-61 cost $180,000 in 1943 dollars, three times the cost of a P-38 fighter and twice the price of a C-47 transport. But, unconcerned with cost, the men who flew the Widow loved it. According to one, it was “fun to fly” and especially suited for its role of flying by instruments because of its stability. The P-61 pilot manual said: “When the Black Widow takes to the night sky, sticking her long nose into whatever trouble lies there, she is hard to see, hard to hit, and hard to beat.” Its full-span landing flaps and retractable ailerons afforded great maneuverability. Some pilots believed the plane needed more speed, but what fighter pilot has not asked for greater speed? Others criticized the multiple ribs in its canopy that obstructed vision. Still, any aircraft that could bring down an Me 410 flying 375 miles per hour at 24,000 feet and a Ju 52 flying 90 miles per hour at 1,000 feet in the darkness of midnight was obviously a successful fighter.

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The Germans soon learned what the Black Widow could do and endeavored to collect one. Pilot 1st Lt. Paul A. Smith and R/O 1st Lt. Robert E. Tierney followed a bogey (enemy aircraft) to the ground, the German plane playing a game of tag, always staying safely ahead of the P-61, but never attempting to lose it either. After nearly thirty minutes of chase, Smith and Tierney found themselves at low altitude flying through a “killing field” of light German antiaircraft guns supported by searchlights. Having lost their port engine, the 422d Night Fighter Squadron (NFS) crew nursed the damaged Black Widow back to their home base. Though the P-61 bore eighty-seven holes, the Germans were unable to claim their prize.

AAF Col. Phineas K. Morrill laid the groundwork for a major controversy in September 1943, when he requested that all of the night fighter squadrons trained by his 481st Night Fighter Operational Training Group be equipped with twin-engine British Mosquitoes rather than American P-70s or P-61s. The proposal received little attention until June 1944, when Maj. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Deputy Commander in Chief of Allied Expeditionary Air Force in Europe, added his weight to Morrill’s request. Considering that “neither the P-61 nor the P-70 type aircraft are suitable night fighters . . . and that little success can be expected,” Vandenberg wanted U.S. night fighter squadrons to switch to British-provided Mosquitoes.

To resolve the controversy, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz, Commander of United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, ordered a July 5, 1944, flyoff at Hurn, England, pitting the P-61 directly against Vandenberg’s choice, the British Mosquito. Lt. Col. Winston W. Kratz, director of night fighter training in the United States, bet $500 that the Mosquito could outperform the Widow. According to the 422d NFS historian, the competing P-61, “tweaked” to get maximum performance, proved faster at all altitudes, “outturned the Mossie at every altitude and by a big margin and far surpassed the Mossie in rate of climb.” All in all, the historian noted, “a most enjoyable afternoon-Kratz paid off.” The official report concluded that the “P-61 can out-climb the Mosquito due to the ability of the P-61 to operate indefinitely at military power without overheating,” critical to closing on a bogey.

Despite this impressive performance, the Black Widow lacked the speed advantage necessary to intercept some high-flying enemy bombers. At Leyte in the Pacific, chagrined Army pilots had to ask for help from single-engine Marine F6F-3N Hellcats to stop nightly Japanese high altitude intruders. The AAF had tested its own single-engine and single crew night fighters in 1944 over France, sending two P-51s and two P-38s on twenty-one sorties with a RAF night squadron. Their lack of success, at a cost of one P-38, prematurely ended the AAF’s experiment with single-engine or single-crew night fighters. U.S. airmen were convinced that such aircraft should be twin-engined and carry more than a single crewman-the P-61 Black Widow would have to do the job.

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:
www.usaaf.net/ww2/night
Conquering the Night by Stephen L. McFarland
www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com

On this day In history

Birthdates which occurred on January 16:
1728 Niccolò Piccinni Italian composer (Buona Figliuola)
1807 Charles Henry Davis Rear Admiral (Union Navy), died in 1877
1815 Henry Wagner "Old Brains" Halleck Major-General (Union Army)
1834 Albert Lindley Lee Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1907
1837 James Phillip Simms Brigadier General (Confederate Army), died in 1887
1853 André Michelin France, industrialist/tire manufacturer (Michelin)
1874 Robert Service England, Canadian poet (Cremation of Sam McGee)
1878 Harry [Henry Dewitt] Carey Sr Bronx NY, US actor (Informer, Aces Wild, Border Cafe, Air Force)
1890 Lloyd Bacon San Jose CA, actor (Charlie Chaplin)
1902 Eric Liddell China, English 400m runner (Olympics-gold-1924)
1908 Ethel Merman stage & screen actress (Anything Goes, Call Me Madam)
1910 David McCampbell US pilot/captain (WWII-Pacific-downed 34 Japanese planes)
1911 Eduardo Frei (Christian Democrat), President of Chile (1964-70)
1911 Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean HOF baseball pitcher (St Louis Cardinals)
1917 Buddy Lester Chicago IL, actor (Nick-Phil Silvers Show)
1918 Stirling Silliphant screenwriter
1928 John William Fozard aircraft designer
1928 William Kennedy US writer
1929 Allard Lowenstein radical (Students for Democratic Action)
1930 Norman Podhoretz Brooklyn NY, author/editor (New York Post)
1933 Susan Sonntag writer
1944 Jim Stafford Eloise FL, singer (Spiders & Snakes, My Girl Bill)
1944 Ronnie Milsap Robbinsville NC, country singer (Any Day Now, Legend in My Time)
1947 Dr. Laura Schlessinger Brooklyn, NY, TV/radio host/author (Go take on the day)
1948 Cliff Thorburn Victoria BC, champion snooker player
1948 Anatoli Yakovlevich Solovyov Riga, cosmonaut (TM-5,9,15,26, STS 71)
1948 John Carpenter Carthage NY, director (Halloween, The Thing)
1974 Kate Moss Addiscomb Surrey England, model (Calvin Klein)
1976 Trisha Stillwell Miss Oklahoma-USA (1997, top 10)

Deaths which occurred on January 16:
0308 Marcellus I Catholic Pope (-308), dies
0429 Honoratius of Arles bishop/saint, dies
1343 Robert of Anjou king (Naples), dies
1595 Murad III sultan of Turkey (1574-95), dies
1794 Edward Gibbon historian (Decline & Fall), dies in London at 56
1893 Johan Philip Koelman painter/sculptor/architect, dies at 74
1938 William Pickering pioneer US stellar spectroscopist, dies
1942 Carole Lombard actress, (Bolero), killed in plane crash (along with her mother & 20 others) at 32
1943 Franz Courtens Flemish painter (Sunny Lane), dies at 88
1945 Dennis Donnini British rifleman (Victoria Cross), dies in battle at 19
1957 Arturo Toscanini Italy, American conductor, dies in New York City NY at 89
1967 Robert J Van De Graaff US nuclear physicist, dies at 65
1968 Robert R "Bob" Jones founder (Bob Jones University), dies at 84
1969 Jan Palach protesting Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, self immolates at 20
1979 Ted Cassidy Pittsburgh PA, actor (Lurch-Addams Family), dies at 46
1979 Fred Elizalde composer, dies at 71
1993 Glenn Corbett US actor (Shenandoah, Chisum, Midway), dies at 63

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1966 HOLLINGSWORTH HAL T.---GRACE ID.
1966 NETH FRED A.---FORT SCOTT KS.
1966 SCHOONOVER CHARLES D.---INDIANAPOLIS IN
1966 WOOD DON C.---PROVO UT.
[POSS CAPTURED IN ID'D IN PL FILM]
1967 KERR MICHAEL S.---SAN DIEGO CA.
[03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE 99]
1967 MASTIN RONALD L.---BELOIT KS.
[03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1967 STOREY THOMAS G.---KANSAS CITY MO
[03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1967 WELCH ROBERT J.---DETROIT MI.
1968 BIGGS EARL R.---MATHENY WV.
[REMAINS RETURNED, ID 1/17/90]
1968 COOLEY ORVILLE D.---RANGE WY.
1968 GEE PAUL STUART---MANITOWISH WATERS WI.
1968 MORELAND WILLIAM D.---MONTEBELLO CA.
1968 MOE THOMAS N.---ARLINGTON VA.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1968 PARRISH FRANK C.---CLEBURNE TX.
[01/72 REMAINS RECOVERED]
1968 REEDY WILLIAM HENRY JR.---MERCED CA.
1968 THOMPSON WILLIAM JOSEPH---KANSAS CITY KS.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0308 St Marcellus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1325 Laure de Noves, beloved of Petrarch, marries Hugues de Sade
1493 Columbus returns to Spain on his 1st trip
1531 English Reformation parliament's 2nd sitting
1547 Ivan IV the Terrible (17) crowns himself 1st tsar of Russia
1556 Emperor Karel appoints his son Philip II, king of Spain
1581 English parliament passes laws against Catholicism
1756 England & Prussia sign Treaty of Westminster
1759 British Museum opens in London
1765 Charles Messier catalogs M41 (galactic cluster in Canis Major)
1776 Continental Congress approves enlistment of free blacks
1777 Vermont declares independence from NY
1780 Battle at Cape St Vincent admiral Rodney beats Spanish fleet
1863 Cruise of CSS Florida
1864 Heavy fighting takes place near Dandridge TN
1865 General William Sherman issues Field Order #15 (land for blacks)
1865 Drunken sailor attacks munitions at Fort Fisher NC, 40 die
1868 Refrigerator car patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit
1870 Virginia becomes 8th state re-admitted to US after Civil War
1871 Jefferson Long of Georgia sworn in as 2nd black congressman
1877 Color organ (for light shows) patented, by Bainbridge Bishop
1879 January record 13" of snow falls in New York City NY (broken Jan 7, 1996)
1883 Pendleton Act creates basis of US Civil Service system
1889 128ºF (53ºC), Cloncurry, Queensland (Australian record)
1897 John Dewey's essay "My Pedagogic Creed" appears in School Journal
1905 Baseball outfielder Frank Huelsman traded for 6th time in 8 months
1909 British explorer Ernest Shackleton finds magnetic south pole
1911 Pandora becomes 1st 2-man sailboat to round Cape Horn west to east
1913 British House of Commons accepts Home-Rule for Ireland
1919 Prohibition ratified by 3/4 of the states; Nebraska is 36th
1920 18th Amendment, prohibition, becomes the law of the land - one year after ratification; it is repealed in 1933
1920 1st assembly of League of Nations (Paris)
1920 Georgia declares independence
1925 General M Froense replaces Trotsky as People's Commissioner of Defense
1925 Leon Trotsky dismissed as CEO of Russian Revolution Military Council
1936 1st photo finish camera installed at Hialeah Race track in Hialeah FL
1936 Screen Actors Guild incorporates with King Vidor as president
1936 Spanish socialists/communists/anarchists form Unidad Popular
1938 Benny Goodman refuses to play Carnegie Hall when black members of his band were barred from performing
1939 Comic strip "Superman" debuts
1941 War Department forms 1st Army Air Corps squadron for black cadets
1941 US vice admiral Bellinger warns of an assault on Pearl Harbor
1943 German 2nd SS-Pantzer division evacuates Charkow
1943 Red Army recaptures Pitomnik airport at Stalingrad
1944 General Eisenhower took command of Allied Invasion Force in London
1945 Scottish 52nd land division/1st Commando brigade-assault at Heinsberg
1945 US 1st & 3rd army meet at Houffalise
1948 35 Haganah members are ambushed & killed in Gush Etzyon
1949 KNBH (now KNBC) TV channel 4 in Los Angeles CA (NBC) 1st broadcast
1949 WTOP (now WUSA) TV channel 9 in Washington DC (CBS) 1st broadcast
1953 Egyptian Premier General Naguib disbands all political parties
1954 "South Pacific" closes at Majestic Theater New York City NY after 1928 performances
1956 Egyptian President Nassar pledges to reconquer Palestine
1957 3 B-52s leave California for 1st non-stop round the world flights
1961 Russian espionage ring detected in Great Britain
1962 Suit accuses New York City NY Board of Education uses "racial quotas"
1963 Khrushchev claims to have a 100-megaton nuclear bomb
1964 AL owners vote 9-1 against Charlie Finley moving Kansas City A's to Louisville
1965 Searchers' "Love Potion #9" peaks at #3
1966 Harold R Perry becomes 2nd black Roman Catholic bishop in US
1967 Lucius Amerson, becomes 1st southern (Alabama) black sheriff in 20th century
1969 Jan Palach immolates himself to protest Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
1970 Colonel Kadhaffi becomes premier of Libya
1970 Curt Flood files a civil lawsuit challenging baseball's reserve clause
1973 NBC presents 440th & final showing of "Bonanza"
1974 "Jaws" by Peter Benchley is published
1974 New York Yankees Mickey Mantle & Whitey Ford elected to Hall of Fame
1978 5th American Music Award Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac & Conway Twitty
1979 Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran flees Iran for Egypt
1981 Protestant gunmen shoot & wound Bernadette Devlin McAliskey & husband
1981 Boxer Leon Spinks is mugged, his assailants even take his gold teeth
1988 Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder fired from CBS for racial remarks
1989 Police arrest writer Vaclav Havel in Prague
1990 2 Bank of Credit & Commerce members plea guilty to money laundering
1991 Operation Desert Storm begins - US & 27 allies attack Iraq for occupying Kuwait (air war begins January 17 at 2:38AM (local time) or January 16 at 6:38PM EST due to an 8 hour time difference, with an Apache helicopter attack)
1996 The first fragment of the comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into the planet Jupiter beginning a series of spectacular collisions each unleashing more energy than the combined effect of an explosion of all the Earth's nuclear arsenal.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

US : Martin Luther King Jr Day (1929) (Monday)
Virginia : Lee-Jackson Day (Monday)
Florida : Arbor Day (Friday)
US : Hat Day
US : Good Teen Day
US : Man Watcher's Week (Day 6)
Fungal Infection Awareness Month.

Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : Feast of St Henry
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Marcellus I, 30th pope [308-09], martyr
Moslem : Night of Remembrance (Moslem feast); Sha'ban 14, 1415 AH

Religious History
1545 Death of Georg Spalatin, 61, German reformer and friend of Martin Luther. Spalatin's court life allowed him to give secular government a better understanding of Luther's ideas.
1604 At the Hampton Court Conference in England, John Rainolds presented to King James I the motion '...that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible.' Approved the next day, Rainolds' motion led to the 1611 publication of the Authorized (King James) version of the Bible.
1740 English revivalist George Whitefield wrote in a letter: 'If I see a man who loves the Lord Jesus in sincerity, I am not very solicitous to what...communion he belongs. The Kingdom of God, I think, does not consist in any such thing.'
1786 The Virginia Legislature adopted the Ordinance of Religious Freedom, which guaranteed that no man would be forced to attend or support any church. This mandate later became the model for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1982 Great Britain established full diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Fame is proof that people are gullible."

Question of the day...
Why is abbreviation such a long word?

Murphys Law of the day...(MP Laws)
Don't stand, if you can sit - don't sit, if you can lay down - if you can lay down, you might as well take a nap.

Astounding fact #57,812...
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.