Above: Recon photo of Peenemunde taken on 18 August 1943 (the Pathfinder Collection)

The true importance of Operation Hydra: the bombing of Peenemunde

17/18 August 1943

Hitler’s rocket programme was the stuff of nightmares. German scientists had found a way of developing a weapon that could fly so high and so fast that it could not be intercepted, and the sound of its arrival would follow the explosion it would create.

Resistance fighters in occupied territories knew of the weapon and alerted the Intelligence services in London. Photographs were taken of various launch sites at Peenemunde on the Baltic where the weapons were being built and tested, and Photo Reconnaissance (PR) aircraft from the Royal Air Force confirmed the presence of a real and imminent threat. Orders were issued that the target had to be destroyed. It was given the codename – Operation Hydra.

The raid on Peenemunde on the night of August 17/18, 1943 was remarkable for many reasons, not least the incredible skill and bravery shown by the men of the Path Finder Force led, for the first time, by a ‘Master Bomber’ – Wing Commander John Searby. Rather than one single aiming point, there were three. Each target had its own dedicated wave of bombers. Searby’s role, supported by his two Deputies, was to ‘shift’ the aiming points in turn to ensure maximum destruction.

Reports at the time suggested the raid was a complete success, and certainly huge amounts of damage was done, buildings destroyed, and scientists killed. The casualty count on the Allied side had also been high, but lighter than the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Sir Arthur Harris, had feared. As such he did not have to follow up on his threat to send the boys back if they did not finish the job at the first time of asking.

Harris, however, was a realist; he said later that there was never any chance of putting a total stop to the Germans’ rocket programme. The best that could be achieved was a partial delay: ‘A single attack could only cause delay for a month or two,’ he wrote in his memoirs. ‘But in the war of the V weapons, time was everything, and every delay we could cause the enemy, however brief, was thoroughly worthwhile.’

The real success of the Peenemunde raid, however, was not so much the destruction it caused, but rather how it proved the efficacy of Pathfinding, and particularly the value of a Master Bomber. As I argued recently in an article in the VE-Day special of Aeroplane, whether contemporary military figures or post-war historians can agree on the ultimate ‘success’ of the Peenemünde raid is probably not important. The rockets did come, but later than intended and without the levels of destruction envisaged.

What everyone is agreed on is the brilliance of the Master Bomber, Searby, and the bravery of the men under his command. After Peenemunde, and further experimentation and refinement, from the spring of 1944 the role of the Master Bomber became a permanent feature in Bomber Command’s planning of every Main Force raid.

Below: John Searby

Below: Recon photo of Peenemunde taken on 18 August 1943 (the Pathfinder Collection)