The prevailing attitude to night fighting left commanders to carry out research on their own; the first occurred in Berlin, by Luftkreiskommando II from May to November 1936.

Falck was invited to the Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) to express his views to Albert Kesselring, Ernst Udet and Erhard Milch.

[10] I./NJG 1 set up base at Venlo Airfield, where it remained from 18 March 1941 to 5 September 1944, 18,000 workers laboured on the site, which measured 1,180 ha (2,900 acres).

These pilots preferred other qualities not prevalent in Zerstörer aircraft; spacious cockpits, a third man to act as lookout, longer endurance, autopilot and more powerful armament.

The Nazi propaganda machine dismissed RAF bombers as "tired old cows", but the limited range of the precise Würzburg radar, and the inability to distinguish friend from foe, left the Luftwaffe at a disadvantage.

The Helle Nachtjagd (illuminated night fighting) belt, which provided three radars per searchlight battery, covered the area from the Danish border to Maubeuge, and could detect bombers entering and exiting the zone with great accuracy, but RAF bomber pilots learned to dive upon departing the belt, accelerate past the search light batteries at low-altitudes and escape the most hazardous part of the defence zone.

[21] On the night of 19/20 July, Werner Streib, 2./NJG 1, claimed one of the first aerial victories for NJG 1; an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley shot down at 02:15 near Saerbeck.

[1] I. and II./NJG 1 experienced difficulties in locating bombers in 1940 and their failures encouraged Kammhuber to introduce tighter control-based tactics for night fighters, searchlight batteries and radar.

The system remained the same, but the accurate, long-range Freya was introduced to maintain overall surveillance and often could bring the radar-less night fighters into visual range of the bomber.

Among the pilots was Hans-Dieter Frank who would claim 55 aerial victories and briefly command I./NJG 1 before his death in a collision with a colleague while flying a Heinkel He 219.

[56] The Nazi Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, wrote in his diary on 14 May 1943 of German defences, during the night there was another exceptionally heavy raid on Duisburg.... An unspeakable sorrow and great distress has come to the sorely tired city.

[57]By the time the Ruhr campaign ended Bomber Command had suffered heavy losses to German night fighters and anti-aircraft defences.

The Nazi leadership was shaken, and Kammhuber, who resisted calls to abandon the advanced Himmelbett system, was compelled to find technical solutions to the jamming of Freya, Liechtenstein and Würzburg radars.

Viktor von Loßberg's idea was for night fighters equipped with experimental SN-2 radar to cooperate with Y-control systems and "sluice" them into the bomber stream.

[78] In November 1943 Arthur Harris began the "Battle of Berlin" in the belief the destruction of the German capital would end the war without Operation Overlord, the planned amphibious invasion of France.

[82] The Monica radar gave only warning of a fighter within 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in a 45 degree cone, while Flensburg could detect the bomber from 100 km (62 mi) away.

Gruppe under von Bonnin at Sint Truiden operated the Bf 110 and the Do 217 while Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld and Hans-Joachim Jabs commanded III.

A night fighter pilot could approach the bomber from below and fire into the fuel tanks and engines before making a violent evasive dive away from danger.

Streib's total stood at 63, Meurer 62 at his death, Schoenert 56, the deceased Frank, 55, the late Geiger 53, Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld 51, Becker, Gildner and Knacke—all of whom had 44—were killed in the year.

[93] During the following weeks Bomber Command selected southwest Germany as its main area of operations, allowing for their return over neutral Switzerland.

Harris direct route took the stream across several night fighter assembly points and the resulting battles left 95 RAF bombers destroyed.

[104] The OKL had not foreseen the collapse of its day and night fighter force and had assumed that Bomber Command would not resume deep-penetration raids for some time.

By June 1944, most night fighter units had been moved to the periphery of Luftflotte Reich in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Western Europe.

The collapse of the German front in Normandy in August necessitated NJG 1s evacuation of all Staffel from the Low Countries in September 1944 to Münster, Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Fritzlar.

[109] The Allied breakout from Normandy in August 1944 destroyed a significant portion of German early warning systems supporting the Kammhuber Line.

In II./NJG 1 pilots argued for a cannon of 30 mm calibre, only later to show a preference for 20 mms [owing to the low-muzzle velocity it required firing from short-range increasing the danger to the German crew].

Confounding operational issues further, distrust permeated between crews and ground controllers for jamming and the use of decoy aircraft made interceptions difficult.

Pilots had no choice but to follow their directions because the only long-range radars, Naxos and Flensburg, became useless by July 1944, and SN-2 was beginning to show signs it had been compromised.

The use of Neptun, or FuG 218 radar improved detection rates because of its resistance to jamming and Bomber Command crews kept their Monica sets on longer than before.

Allied forces discovered hundreds of abandoned German night fighters on airfields across Germany, unable to find the fuel to fight further.