Bombing of Swansea
The General Staff of the Luftwaffe were very much of the opinion that they
would be able to wage a strategic bombing campaign against any enemy they
wished and that they would be successful in that campaign. Their
counterparts in the Royal Air Force and the US Air Corps believed
precisely the same thing. Between 1935 and 1939, all the great powers
drew up lists of strategic targets in each other's countries. These
usually consisted of key industries, food stores, grain mills, port
installations, power stations, munitions plants and a host of other
categories.
Destruction of these targets would deal a 'knockout blow' to
the country's ability to fight a war and thus ensure a speedy end to the
conflict and victory to the best air power. Thus the scene was set for one
of the most enduring tragedies of the Second World War, the attacks on
cities and the death of thousands of civilians and the destruction of
hundreds of European towns and cities.
Swansea was identified as a valuable target by both the German navy and
the air force. The German navy planners realised that Swansea would become
an important port for food and munitions as it had in the First World War.
The German navy were to make detailed preparations for prosecuting a trade
war in the late 1930s. The main element of their attack would be the
complicated magnetic mines that could be laid by submarine in the shipping
lanes of the Bristol Channel. The story of the u-boat offensive against
Swansea and the South Wales ports is explained here.
The German realisation that they would have to fight a strategic air war
over Britain emerged in August 1938 when senior Luftwaffe planners
embarked on a wargame simulating likely air war operations. The
identification of Swansea as a likely target probably emerged at the
Luftwaffe's spring planning conference of 1939. General Felmy (Commander
of Luftflotte 2) devised a strategy to attack Britain's food, munitions
and weapons centres. The strategic effort that Felmy planned was remarkably
small. It was widely believed that the small bombers of the 1930s would be
adequate to fulfill a campaign of 'strategic' attacks. No-one in any
country envisaged the massive amount of money, manpower and resources
necessary to wage a strategic war. The planners in both Britain and
Germany believed that a town or city could be destroyed from the air and
the spirit of the inhabitants broken very quickly.
The role of Swansea in World War One was understood by both sides. Swansea
was not and never has been a vital port. In the Bristol Channel that role
was played by Bristol. It is ironic that in the months of Swansea's
heaviest air attacks in January and February 1941, the port was under
serious threat of closure by the government because of severe congestion
and a lack of transport (see the ports at war). However, Swansea was known
to be a very useful port with good repair and oil processing facilities.
In the strategic review of Britain that was conducted by Luftwaffe war
planners in the spring of 1939, Swansea would have featured in a number
of general categories of target.
The first and undoubtedly the most
important was food storage. The Germans were acutely aware of the success
of the Royal Navy in blockading German food imports during the 1914-18 war.
The resulting food shortages led to food riots in the German cities and
the eventual collapse of the German war effort by October 1918. It was no
secret that Britain was even more reliant on food imports than Germany.
An attack on food was seen as a way of achieving a quick result. The
Weaver's Flour Mills in Swansea and the Spiller's Mills at Roath Dock
in Cardiff were a long way up the target order. The top of the list was
the Avonmouth Dock and food storage complex which recieved massive amounts
of Luftwaffe attention throughout the war.
Another important element on the list was ship repair. As a maritime power,
Britain needed a large amount of ship building and repair capacity. Ant
port that boasted drydocks would be a target. Allied to these types of
target would be electricity and gas supplies as these are crucial to
industrial output. Again the emphasis was to try and find crucial or
significant installations which could be attacked and destroyed to have
a significant effect on the nation's war effort.
The following table is a list of the Luftwaffe targets for Swansea and
the surrounding area. You can see that the targets are very specific and
have a clear value. Most of these targets are clearly identified in the
Luftwaffe reconnaissance photographs contained in the Eye of the Eagle
book. There are no general population targets, the Luftwaffe did not
identify residential areas for attack in the way the RAF did later in
the War. Some commentators have strived to explain the bombing of Swansea
as an attack on the general civilian population but this is not the case.
Each Luftwaffe mission had a definite aiming point or centre of effort
and in Swansea's case it would have been selected from the list below.
The fact that the bombing of Swansea resulted in a seemingly random
spread of bombs across the whole of the Swansea area and ultimately the
destruction of the town centre in a mini firestorm, reflects the chaos
and tragedy of the air war. Precision bombing of targets was not possible,
all air raids ended up in a chaotic mess of missed targets and almost
random destruction. Sometimes we have to accept that we cannot make sense
out of something that is senseless. If this target list had been drawn up
later in the War (e.g. after 1943), it is likely that housing and
residential targets would also be listed as by this time both sides
accepted the validity of waging war directly against the civilian
population.
