Talk:Operation Hydra (1943)

Picture on main page
I got to this page from the discussion of Spaceship One (wonderful thought process). The picture attracted my attention first because there is no turret in the nose, so I downloaded the picture and it calls itself a Lancastrian. There must be a better picture that can be used somewhere.

Soarhead77 10:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

GA discussion
I don't nkow whether to put this on hold or not yet - is there a reason no book references were used for this article? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:38, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, simply the fact that I don't have any on this subject. The websites were chosen in accordance with the guidelines on reliable sources for 2c of the GA process, although that guideline is admittedly pretty subjective.  I will try to get my hands on some books about strategic bombing, which may contain this subject.  While they are very unlikely to say anything different to what is written here, it may give the article more verifiability.  Thanks for the preliminary look over Jeff.  Chrisfow 14:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any problems with the sources you've used, but I'm also not sure if this article is as comprehensive as it could be given the lack of non-web-based sources. It may not have much to add (my personal area of focus in college was the political side of WW2, not the military), but one never knows. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Jeff, consulted books and guess what? Came up with a lot of extra content!  Thanks for the nudge, I think it is a better article now, hope that you agree and that it can move towards GA.  While these additions may affect the "Stability" clause in the GA criteria, I would have thought that since this is 'under review' it could be counted as the same as changes during a 7 day hold period.  Anyway, hope you enjoy the new additions! Chrisfow 01:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm impressed. It looks more comprehensive and feels better, too.  I'll give it a more thorough look over shortly and I think we'll be set.  And I wouldn't worry about stability, I read that as "edit warring and other battle nonsense."  --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

GA nom on hold
I've decided to put this article on hold. It's mostly strong but I'm concerned about this sentence in the intro:


 * "Despite the attack being a success, it was too little, too late, and consequently did not stop the Germans from developing, building and using 'V' weapons against London and South East England."

As the third sentence of the article, this is obviously important. But it should be rewritten to use better prose, and also to clarify what the results were, exactly. It implies that the attack was at once "a success" but also failed in its long-term goal, which is hard to reconcile. Once this sentence is improved, the article can be placed on the Good Articles list.

As a future direction for this article, I suggest adding more information on the German reaction to the attack, which is currently sparse. Twinxor t 11:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm disappointed to see that this hasn't been changed, but it my opinion it's still a significant problem with the article. Please consider reworking this sentence and resubmitting the article as a good article candidate. Twinxor t 02:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I edited the lead section to show that the attack was a tactical success but a strategic failure, which is how the two aspects are reconciled. I have to say that I thought I had changed it more than that, so I will certainly rework it when I have time and resubmit.  Thanks Twinxor for reviewing the article, and I hope to resubmit soon. Chrisfow 12:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The raid was a success in that it delayed the introduction of the V1 until countermeasures such as the VT Fuze were ready, and this in conjunction with fighters, effectively nullified the V1 threat against the UK.


 * ....nobody in high places in London (who were aware that the invasion was planned for the summer of 1944) thought the Nazis would just give up on the V1 and V2 if Peenemunde was bombed. They just hoped to delay their use long enough for the Allies to get across the channel. What they were worried about was the V1 and V2 being used against the Channel ports the invasion fleet was being built-up in.


 * A sustained V1 attack on the Channel ports filled with ships for the Normandy Landings could affect the outcome of the war, whereas an attack on London almost certainly wouldn't. As a result of Hydra the V1 and V2 were too late. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.207 (talk) 11:11, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

General Intelligibility
In the section "Operation Hydra", subsections First Wave, Second Wave do not tell the reader what happened! The information about markers is fascinating no doubt to those whose mission was marking, but the overall mission was to bomb the plant, and we are not told anything about this. Did anyone in fact drop any bombs? Did anyone try? Did any bombs hit? Were any barracks destroyed? Ditto for the Second Wave. The third subsection does a little better but not much - we can surmise that the 5th and 6th groups were groups of bombers that must have dropped many bombs, and we are told that a few bombloads did damage. Weren't there thousands of bombs dropped? What did they hit? Maybe we'll learn this in the "Results" section, but no. There we are only told that the raid was inconclusive, two leaders were either buried alive or killed or something, and many workers were killed in some camp. Presumably this was the living quarters? Why not tell us plainly so we don't have to deduce it from thin hints? What about the rockets? This was a rocket base, were there in fact any rockets destroyed? Sorry to be a "pine" but wouldn't a Good Article tell us what happened? Friendly Person (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Book suggestion
A book that you might want to consult (although it may be a bit hard to get hold of) is "The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era" by Michael Neufeld. It certainly has some information about the bombing that isn't included in the article. Unfortunately I don't have it on hand right now so can't offer any more help than that. MLilburne 11:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

PS... and I do agree that more is needed on the German reactions to the attack, and the consequences for Peenemunde and the missile program. MLilburne 12:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks MLilburne, I can get hold of that book from my university library. Does it cover the German reaction to the attack?  I agree with Twixor that that is something for beyond GA - I will get the book as soon as practical. Chrisfow 12:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does. It is almost all about the German side of things so should be useful to you. MLilburne 12:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This one seems to be recently published, and can't but be useful: "The Peenemunde Raid: The Night of 17-18 August 1943" by Martin Middlebrook. MLilburne 12:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks again ML. I can only get hold of the 1982 version of this, not the more recent reprint, but will track it down. Chrisfow 13:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Hope you find it helpful. MLilburne 13:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Bombing of Peenemünde in World War II. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070912155604/http://www.airwarweb.net/usaaf/8af_1944.php to http://www.airwarweb.net/usaaf/8af_1944.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:34, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Bombing of Peenemünde in World War II. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20070706011932/http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/aug43.html to http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/aug43.html
 * Added tag to http://www.airwarweb.net/usaaf/8af_1944-07.php
 * Added tag to http://www.airwarweb.net/usaaf/8af_1944-08.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 05:51, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

CE
Pasted a section from a sandbox after someone showed an interest. Keith-264 (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Pasted the rest of the re-edit in despite it being incomplete, as it's taking too long. Keith-264 (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

USSBS
The article, which is dreadful, keeps obsessively citing a claim in the 1945 US Strategic Bombing Survey that the bombing was not effective. The USSBS was purely a propaganda exercise designed to vindicate US 'precision' bombing and should not be taken seriously. Jimmy Doolittle, the excellent US Eighth Air Force commander in 1944-5, told a post-war conference, 'We area-bombed "precision" targets and the British precision-bombed "area" targets and it came to the same thing.' Martin Middlebrook, The Peenemunde Raid, Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2006, ISBN 1-84415-336-3 (original edition Allen Lane, London, 1982), p.222, says that Goebbels believed the RAF raid delayed the V2 programme by 'six to eight weeks' and that Dr R.V. Jones, head of Scientific Intelligence at the Air Ministry, put it at 'at least two months'. The move of test-firings to Poland, and manufacture to underground facilities in the Harz Mountains, precipitated by the Hydra bombing (and the June 1943 RAF attack on Friedrichshafen, Operation Bellicose, which wrote off a planned V2 production line -- the British did not know this at the time, but the Germans did not know that the British did not know), were clearly large, burdensome and time-consuming undertakings. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Hydra only delayed rocket work by a couple of months and did not wipe out the scientific and technical staff - that is a fair description of 'ineffective' compared to its intent. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Luftwaffe
The article, which, again, is dreadful, claims that 'The Luftwaffe dispatched 213 night fighters,' citing Martin Middlebrook's definitive work, and this is all that the article says about that crucial matter. But as Middlebrook records, the German controller marshalled the fighters over Berlin, which seemed the obvious destination given the bombers' route, and the diversion by 139 Squadron Mosquitos dropping Target Indicators and bombs to simulate the opening of a main-force attack reinforced the controller's assumption. The controller had not surprisingly never heard of Peenemunde, never received any word that it was being bombed and never ordered his fighters there. The only fighter crews that took part in the battle did so on their own initiative, because from Berlin they could see the fires at Peenemunde 120 miles away and decided to investigate. Middlebrook, p.180, says that 'approximately thirty-five German fighters reached Peenemunde. It is believed that just seventeen of them were responsible for the twenty-eight bombers shot down here.' On the same page Middlebrook records that the RAF bombers shot down at least 'five fighters -- four Messerschmitt 110s and a Dornier 217 -- although there may have been more.' (This caveat is because German records are incomplete and the records of one fighter division are lost.) Curiously, Middlebrook fails to recognise that this means the intercepting fighters lost some 14% in air-to-air combat with the bombers, compared to the overall bomber loss of 6.7%. This was normal -- RAF bombers normally killed German night fighters at a higher proportional rate than they themselves sustained, hence Goebbels' repeated claim that the RAF enjoyed 'night air superiority' over Germany -- but tends to be ignored. In addition, of course, Wg Cdr Bob Braham's Serrate-equipped Beaufighters of 141 Squadron, patrolling over Holland to catch the enemy night fighters as they launched, shot down four (Middlebrook p.188). As regards the total Luftwaffe loss including landing accidents, Middlebrook p.215 says, 'The documented Luftwaffe casualties (there may have been a few more) were twelve night fighters destroyed -- eight Messerschmitt 110s, one Dornier 217, two Focke-Wulf 190s and one Messerschmitt 109 -- and twelve aircrew killed.' This would be 5.6% of the total force scrambled, most of which took no part in the battle. Khamba Tendal (talk) 20:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)