In your obituary of Freeman Dyson (Theoretical physicist and mathematician with far-fetched ideas about the future, Journal, 4 March), you note correctly that Bomber Command “ignored” the 19-year-old Dyson’s proposal, in 1943, to remove the gun turrets from Lancaster bombers. But it was – like some of Dyson’s later wheezes, such as powering a spaceship with nuclear bombs, or planting trees on comets – an unsound notion.
Dyson claimed that the Lancaster would gain 50mph in cruise speed, but experience with unarmed Lancasters on the transatlantic mail route showed that the actual gain was just 15mph-20mph, not enough to stay ahead of German night fighters. (Dyson may have been misled by the high eastbound ground speeds of the mail Lancasters, but these were assisted by the prevailing winds. The westbound flights were slower.)
In addition, Luftwaffe records later showed that half of all night-fighter interceptions failed because the Royal Air Force gunners saw the fighter coming and enabled the bomber to evade.
If Dyson’s suggestion had been adopted, the fighters would have doubled their success rate and destroyed Bomber Command in short order. As it was, Lancaster losses totalled only 2% from 156,000 sorties and the monthly intake of new Lancasters and crews was, as a rule, twice the loss rate. In only one month, January 1944, at the height of the battle of Berlin, did Lancaster losses exceed production, and then only by five units.
On the other hand, monthly production of the main German night fighter, the Messerschmitt 110, was below the loss rate as often as not, and the non-accidental losses were usually due to RAF air gunners. Dyson’s modest proposal is much cited, but it was foolish, and Bomber Command was right to dismiss it.
Hugo Barnacle
London
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