Talk:Battle of the Heligoland Bight (1939)

Start
Page under construction. Dapi89 (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Clarification
The following should be made clear: Drutt (talk) 09:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What was the purpose of the British raid? To sink German ships, test the defenses, or just be a nuisance?
 * The British did not bomb ships close to land, but strafed the Flak gunners on them, and on the shore?
 * No attacks were made on ships at sea? Was this because none were found?
 * Were any ships sunk or damaged?
 * It will be. I've willfully neglected the article. I am going to give it a shot in the arm now. Dapi89 (talk) 12:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thread necromancy: As far as I know, both the Germans and the British were very reluctantduring the first months of the war in letting the air war escalate. Both had strict regulations about valid targets. For example: Warships on sea and on road were viable targets. Warships moored at a quay were not, due to the risk of hitting civilians. There were several attack runs which got aborted because the crews weren't allowed to drop their bombs (on both sides). Well, in this case they coudn't drop their bombs but I guess they thought it would be ok to fire back at AAA. ~MadCat — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.54.159.81 (talk) 00:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The intention was to bomb German warships reported by reconnaissance. No bombs were dropped because the warships were in harbour and both the British and the Germans had signed up to President Roosevelt's moratorium on bombing civilian targets (though the Germans delayed signing until they'd finished devastating Warsaw). Both sides did this because, ultimately, they were scared of reprisals from the other side. Wg Cdr Kellett could not bomb warships in harbour because civilian dock workers and civilian property might be hit. The British repudiated the moratorium in May 1940 when the Germans invaded France and Churchill, newly installed at No.10, authorised night bombing of oil targets in the Ruhr. However, the British still emphasised military targets. Later that summer a German aircraft mistakenly jettisoned its bombs over London, the RAF raided Berlin in response and the Germans repudiated the moratorium altogether and embarked on the outright and overt terror bombing of British cities. As it turned out, the Germans made a catastrophic error in agreeing to unrestricted air warfare, because the Luftwaffe was only prepared for a short, tactical war with medium bombers, whereas in 1939 the RAF was already committed to the expansion plan that would produce dozens of heavy-bomber squadrons and the aircrew to man them by 1943. The Germans short-sightedly and vainly embarked on the war in 1939 convinced that they would only have to deal with the 1939 RAF that they could see before them. Their intelligence was bad and they knew nothing about the training and procurement plans, already in hand, which meant that the RAF of 1939 was only the egg from which the terrible eagle would hatch in 1943. In effect the Germans made the classic playground error picking a fight with a bigger boy. So half a hundred Nazi cities burned. As British soldiers like to say when some idiot gets his head blown off, 'This is what happens when you don't pay attention.' Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:32, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Location map.
Decent location maps of the Heligoland Bight area seem to be rather scarce. The current image in the article has empty space where the Heligoland Island is. I can probably put together a map of a similar scale with better detail if desired.

Perhaps the map to the right, or a derivative, would also be of use. It can be used with a template to show where the Bight is, and also gives a good idea of where to battle took place compared the UK and Germany.

( Hohum  @ ) 21:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A better suggestion than my clumsy efforts. Cheers. Dapi89 (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

"Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany"
"Great Britain" is wikilinked to United Kingdom. You might get away with "Britain" as that's often used, but Great Britain is emphatically not the same thing as the UK: Northern Ireland is (and was in 1939) part of the latter but not the former. 81.158.2.195 (talk) 02:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

CE
Rm duplicate wikilinks, redn size of maps photos, rv as desired.Keith-264 (talk) 23:24, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

First kill
I have never heard of a family name Heolmayr (Holmes 2010, p.71). The letter combination "eo" is rather uncommon in German, except for loanwords. I assume this is a reading or writing error. Perhaps that Unteroffizier from around Bavaria went by the name Hoelmayr, Hollmayr or Heilmayr. --Kolya (talk) 16:05, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Steinhoff not Squadron Leader
Steinhoff was not a Squadron Leader (Major), just a Flying Officer. --2A02:908:1222:C020:959B:EA6B:B5E7:7A37 (talk) 16:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * perhaps you're confused. Major is a rank, it has nothing to do with the title of Squadron leader (Staffelkapitän) which is not a rank in the Luftwaffe (it is a rank in the RAF). Dapi89 (talk) 16:25, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

End of daylight operations?
The article is misleading

It says "The battle led the RAF to abandon daylight missions in favour of night bombing as daytime casualties were too high. In the build-up to the war, the RAF had adopted the mantra that "the bomber will always get through" but in daylight the Heligoland battle had shown this was not the case and it forced a reappraisal of bombing operations."

The idea that the reappraised daylight missions is not in dispute. What is relates to the idea that they abandoned daylight operations altogether. They did not

Wiki provides an article (page) "Royal Air Force daylight raids, 1940–1944" that details those raids

The attack on the Tirpitz HAD to be undertaken in daylight

Montalban (talk) 12:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)