Back الأسبوع الكبير Arabic Big Week Catalan Operace Argument Czech Big Week German Big Week French Operazione Argument Italian Big Week Turkish
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| Operation Argument[1] | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Western Front of World War II | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United States United Kingdom |
 Germany | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Jimmy Doolittle Carl Spaatz Arthur Harris |
Hermann Göring Adolf Galland | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
|
US Eighth Air Force US Fifteenth Air Force RAF Bomber Command RAF Fighter Command[2] |
Luftwaffe | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
RAF: 131 bombers[3] USAAF: 226 heavy bombers[4] 28 fighters[4] Over 2,000 aircrew killed or captured[4] |
262 fighters[4] 250 aircrew killed or injured,[4] including nearly 100 pilots KIA[5] | ||||||
| c. 880 civilian deaths during the Bombing of Nijmegen,[6] 57 civilian deaths in Arnhem,[7] 40 civilian deaths in Enschede,[7] 1 civilian death in Deventer.[7] | |||||||
Operation Argument,[1] after the war dubbed Big Week,[1] was a sequence of raids by the United States Army Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command from 20 to 25 February 1944, as part of the Combined Bomber Offensive against Nazi Germany. The objective of Operation Argument was to destroy aircraft factories in central and southern Germany in order to defeat the Luftwaffe before the Normandy landings during Operation Overlord were to take place later in 1944.[a]
The joint daylight bombing campaign was also supported by RAF Bomber Command operating against the same targets at night.[8] Arthur "Bomber" Harris resisted contributing RAF Bomber Command so as not to dilute the British "area bombing" offensive against Berlin. It took an order from Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, to force Harris to comply.[2]
RAF Fighter Command also provided escort for USAAF bomber formations, just at the time that the Eighth Air Force had started introducing the improved long range P-51 Mustang fighter which gave the USAAF bomber forces more cover deeper into Germany, to take over the role. The offensive overlapped the German Operation Steinbock, the Baby Blitz, which lasted from January to May 1944.[citation needed]
- ^ a b c d van Esch 2012, pp. 256–57.
- ^ a b Hall 1998, p. 138.
- ^ Caldwell & Muller 2007, p. 162.
- ^ a b c d e Harvey 2012, p. 37.
- ^ Caldwell & Muller 2007, pp. 162–63.
- ^ Brinkhuis 1984, p. 100.
- ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference
Arnhemwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Hess 1994, p. 73.
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