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Operation Steinbock ((ドイツ語:Unternehmen Steinbock)) was a late Second World War ''Luftwaffe'' night-time strategic bombing campaign against southern England that took place from January—May 1944. It was the last strategic air offensive by the German bomber arm during the conflict. For the first years of the war German air power had not needed to invest in air defence to any appreciable degree. Foreign enemies were defeated over their own skies in the Western Campaign in 1940. It remained the case until 1942 when RAF Bomber Command returned in strength to German skies by night. By the end of 1943 the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive had taken a toll on Germany. In particular, British night attacks had done considerable damage to industrial cities. Adolf Hitler, frustrated with the failure of the ''Luftwaffe'' to defend Germany, ordered retaliatory attacks against British cities. Commander-in-Chief of the ''Luftwaffe'' Herman Göring hoped such operations would deter the British from continuing their offensive against German cities. Christened ''Steinbock'', the bombing offensive also served as propaganda value for the German public and domestic consumption. The operation ran parallel to Bomber Command's campaign against Berlin (November 1943—March 1944). Placed under the command of ''Generalmajor'' (Major–General) Dietrich Peltz, ''Luftflotte 3'' (Air Fleet 3), the Germans assembled 474 bomber aircraft for the offensive. The attacks were mainly aimed at and around the Greater London area. In Britain, it was known as the 'Baby Blitz' due to the much smaller scale of operations compared to The Blitz, the Luftwaffe's campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940–41.〔 The operation began in January and ended in May 1944. The operation achieved very little, and the German force suffered a loss of some 329 machines during the five months of operations—an average of 77 per month—before it was abandoned. Other senior Luftwaffe commanders had intended to use the bomber force against the Western Allied invasion fleet, which they predicted would land in Northern France sometime in the spring or summer of 1944. Eventually, the revenge attacks gave way to attempts to disrupt preparations for the impending Allied invasion of France, codenamed Operation Overlord, but ''Steinbock'' had worn down the offensive power of the ''Luftwaffe'' to the extent it could not mount any significant counterattacks when the invasion began on 6 June 1944.〔Boog 2008, p. 420.〕 The offensive was the ''Luftwaffe's'' last large-scale bombing campaign against England using conventional aircraft, and henceforth only the V-1 flying bomb cruise missiles and V-2 rockets — pioneering short-range ballistic missiles — were used to strike British cities.〔Boog 2001, p. 380.〕 ==Background== Since its inception in 1905, German aerial doctrine had covered most aspects of aerial warfare. The most controversial element, strategic bombing, had been a major debating point in German military circles before the First World War. The German victories in the so-called ''Blitzkrieg'', which occurred from September 1939 to late-1941 during the Second World War, were won with the German bomber arm focused mainly on close air support and interdiction operations. The failures of the ''Wehrmacht'' thereafter on the Mediterranean, Western and Eastern Fronts marked a turn in the tide of the air war also. The loss of air superiority, and even air parity, presaged a decline in mass daylight German bomber operations by the end of 1942 in all theatres. The remaining bomber strength of the ''Luftwaffe'' was directed in striking by night. In 1942 the British Royal Air Force (RAF) began a resurgent campaign against German industrial cities. The attack on Cologne in May 1942 began this cycle until the end of the war. From March to July 1943 the Ruhr was badly damaged and in that same period Hamburg was devastated by a concentrated attack. The German night fighters had inflicted significant losses but the casualties were never high enough to threaten Bomber Command's strategy or to prevent damage to German cities. The entry of the United States into the war increased the pressure on ''Luftflotte 2'' and ''3'' in the West, and later ''Luftflotte Reich''. Despite American daylight setbacks in 1943, the Combined Bomber Offensive won air superiority in daylight after Big Week in February 1944. From this date, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) was able to achieve air superiority by day with the Eighth Air Force based in England, and the Fifteenth Air Force operating from North Africa and then Italy. It was supported by the RAF Second Tactical Air Force over France and the Low Countries. The strategic dilemma facing the Luftwaffe in the winter of 1943/44 was now a serious one. The ''Oberkommando der Luftwaffe'' (OKL or High Command of the Air Force) now sought to change the ''Luftwaffe'' procurement priorities and its posture to one purely rooted in defensive air warfare. Erhard Milch—responsible to the ''Reichsluftfahrtministerium'' ("Reich Aviation Ministry"—RLM) for production—recommended doubling fighter production to strengthen defences but the rise in production was slow. The Allied attacks and the requirements of other theatres complicated these plans. The British bombing of German industries during Battle of the Ruhr caused a stagnation in German aircraft production they nicknamed the ''Zulieferungskrise'' (sub-components crisis) which delayed the increase in aircraft production until March 1944.〔Tooze 2006, pp. 597–598.〕 Worse was to follow. In July 1943 RAF Bomber Command briefly neutralised German night fighter defences, in particular the Kammhuber Line, by using tactics such as the bomber stream and technology codenamed window to overwhelm German ground and air defences. The bombing of Hamburg inflicted 26,000 casualties and destroyed large parts of the city and its industry. The overwhelming consensus in the OKL was that German air power should concentrate its resources on defensive efforts against the Allied Air Forces. After a meeting with senior ''Luftwaffe'' staff officers Adolf Galland—''General der Jagdflieger'' (General of the Fighter Force)—wrote: Never before and never again did I witness such determination and agreement among the circle of those responsible for the leadership of the ''Luftwaffe''. It was as though under the impact of the Hamburg catastrophe everyone put aside either personal or departmental ambitions. There was no conflict between the General Staff and the war industry, no rivalry between bombers and fighters; only the common will to do everything in this critical hour for the Defence of the Reich.〔Parker 1998, p. 22.〕 But it was Göring, not the staff, that took this proposal to Hitler. After an hour, the ''Reichsmarschall'' returned. Dietrich Peltz described the scene: We were met with a shattering picture. Göring had completely broken down. With his head buried in his arms on the table he moaned some indistinguishable words. We stood there for some time in embarrassment until at last he pulled himself together and said we were witnessing the deepest moments of despair. The ''Führer'' had lost faith in him. All the suggestions from which he had expected a radical change in the situation of war in the air had been rejected; the ''Führer'' had announced that the ''Luftwaffe'' had disappointed him too often, and a change over from the offensive to defensive in the air against England was out of the question.〔 After a time Göring stated that he believed the ''Führer'' to be right. Göring announced that the only way to stop such destruction was to initiate heavy retaliatory strikes at the enemy so that they would not dare risk another raid like Hamburg without the fear of similar retribution. Göring gave Peltz the authorisation to pool the necessary resources together for retaliatory action.〔Parker 1998, p. 23.〕 At the end of November 1943, ''Generalmajor'' Peltz was summoned to a conference where Göring officially informed him that he was to be placed in command of a renewed large-scale bombing operation against Britain, and London in particular.〔Beale, 2005. p. 312.〕 It was hoped that the operation would commence during December, and though this proved unrealistic, by the third week of January 1944 a force approaching 600 aircraft had been amassed by stripping five ''Kampfgruppen'' (bomber groups) from the Italian front and by rebuilding existing bomber units in the West.〔Beale, 2005. p. 312.〕 On 3 December 1943 Göring issued a directive for ''Unternehmen Steinbock'' (Operation Capricorn), with the objective of "avenging terror attacks of the enemy".〔Hooton, 1997. p. 276.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Steinbock」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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