Jeschonnek flew out to Luftflotte to get the feel of Citadel,
Richthofen sat around Rominten. “They’re at the trough all day
long here,” he observed caustically. He tagged along that after-
noon to the Wolf’s Lair with Göring, who conferred à deux with
Hitler. Hitler firmly squelched the idea of exchanging Jeschon-
nek for Richthofen, and reverted to the major war problems.
“No time to raise the less immediate issues,” recorded Rich-
thofen, disappointed, “as major problems overshadowed all
else.” However, he did add this: “Führer and Reichsmarschall
are hugely optimistic about the future of the war,” and there
were reasons for this cautious optimism. During the night Major
Herrmann’s experimental flight had shot down a dozen RAF
bombers over Cologne. “You just have to hang around their
flare clusters,” Herrmann reported on July . He voiced the
opinion that a proper force of such “free-lance” night fighters
could destroy eighty bombers a night.
The defense of the Reich began to dominate Göring’s sig-
nals, as the British intercepts reveal. “The Reichsmarschall,” said
one, sent in July to every fighter squadron, “has laid down for
the purpose of awarding decorations the following ratio for air-
craft shot down by day: destroying one four-engined bomber
equals destroying three twin-engined bombers.” An angry signal
to Colonel Galland expressed astonishment at his protracted so-
journ in sunny Italy: “The Reichsmarschall expects you to re-
turn as soon as possible.”
Further intercepts revealed to the Allies unwelcome news
that “twenty more Me s are re-equipping at Erding with
cm” the formidable Nebelwerfer air-to-air rocket and that
the bomber Geschwader KG was equipping one squadron of
Do s with the rocket-propelled Hs anti-convoy missile
and another squadron with the wire-controlled Fritz , an ar-
mor-piercing bomb for attacking heavy warships. That month,