Free Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Harald Welzer, Sönke Neitzel

time. 101
    Just as important as visibility were all the myriad improvements in bombingaccuracy. A first lieutenant related in 1940:
    It is as if you threw a 250 Kg. bomb at the side of a ship. That makes quite a big hole. In case of one ship, at dusk, we were able to see it ourselves. It struck amidships; it went down with a huge column of smoke. 102
    Another example came from a major: 103
    I set fire to the tanks atT HAMESHAVEN , that was between 15 and 16 hours. I counted 12 myself … Yes, a “Gruppe.” When I first started for this target, I thought over whether I should not change my objective, as I had seen two tankers at P ORT V ICTORIA which were just being unloaded at the quayside, and there are a good many oil tanks there. I got special mention in dispatches for that undertaking that was the best exploit during the whole battle of E NGLAND . It is pleasant when your success is immediately recognized; flying over L ONDON is no review flight. 104
    Along with detailed discussions of technical questions, the visible aesthetic accompanying individual soldiers’ destructive prowess was perhaps the most central theme of German airmen’s conversations.
    Interlocutors told stories of attacks and successful kills in the greatest possible detail and vividness of language:
    F ISCHER : We were over the T HAMES estuary in a “190” and we fired at every boat we spotted. We hit the mast of one of them and off it came; it was quite a small ship. When we were flying with bombs we used to bombfactories. Once I was flying ahead, and the second pair were coming along behind me. It was nearH ASTINGS ; there was a huge factory right beside the railway-line almost on the beach. The other man flew towardsthe town and dropped his bombs there. I saw the factory and thought how nicely it was smoking; I dropped a bomb, and bang! Up it went.
    Once we bombed a station atF OLKESTONE just as a long passenger train was drawing out; down went the bomb right on to the train—oh boy! (Laughter.) Then alongsideD EAL station there was a huge shed we bombed that, and I never saw anything like the flame that shot up—there was a terrific explosion. There must have been some highly inflammable stuff in the warehouse. Great bits flew up into theair before us, higher than we were flying ourselves. 105
    This is war as witnessed from above, from the perspective of bomber crews and, in particular,fighter pilots. War looks very different from the ground, where the destruction is actually taking place, where people are running, fleeing, and dying. The GermanLuftwaffe also suffered significantcasualties, more than 1,700 from August 1, 1940, to March 31, 1941, 106 but that contributed to the sporting character of airmen’s missions and their aesthetic experience of destruction.
    Risk was an essential part of war, and it took particular skill and control over one’s machinery if one was to have any hope of surviving:
    AtH YTHE there’s an aerodrome right on the coast but there are no aircraft there. The Oberleutnant said to me one Sunday morning at ten o’clock: “Come along: we’re going to do a special job together.” We went across, each with the two 250-kilogram bombs underneath, and damn it, we ran into fog. We flew on and came out of the fog, and there was the aerodrome: and suddenly the sun came out and shone brilliantly. We saw the barrack buildings and the soldiers all sitting out on the balcony; we flew up to them, and zoom! Bang! the barracks shot into the air and the soldiers went whirling all over the place. (Laughter.) Adjoining the barracks there was a big hut, and another big house in front of it; so I thought we’d have a crack at those. Everyone was running for their lives, the hens were fluttering about, the hut caught fire—boy, did I laugh! I’ll say we gave those guys a packet. 107
    Another conversation explicitly focuses on the fact thatair attacks were filmed—a further element in visible destruction. At the