Operation Gisela

Operation Gisela
Part of Defence of the Reich
A Handley Page Halifax HX332 of No. 10 Squadron RAF burned out in a Yorkshire field. 5 out of the 7 occupants were killed when the aircraft was shot down by Leutnant Arnold Döring. It was one of 34 aircraft damaged or destroyed by Gisela.
Date 3–4 March 1945 Location England, North Sea and northern Germany Result Operation failed[1][2]
Belligerents
Germany	United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Hermann Göring Joseph Schmid	John Whitley Edward Addison
Strength
Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 Nachtjagdgeschwader 2 Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 Nachtjagdgeschwader 4 Nachtjagdgeschwader 5	No. 4 Group RAF No. 100 Group RAF
Casualties and losses
22 aircraft destroyed 12 aircraft damaged 45 killed 11 injured[3][4]	24 aircraft destroyed 9 aircraft damaged 78 killed 18 wounded[5] 17 civilians killed 12 civilians severely wounded[6]

Operation Gisela (German: Unternehmen Gisela) was the codename for a German military operation of the Second World War. Gisela was designed as an aerial intruder operation to support the German air defence system in its night battles with RAF Bomber Command during the Defence of the Reich campaign. It was the last major operation launched by the Luftwaffe Nachtjagdgeschwader (Night Fighter Wings) during the conflict.^[1]

By March 1945 the Luftwaffe had lost air superiority over all fronts. Western Allied Air Forces held air supremacy over the German Reich and remaining German-occupied territory. German industrial cities were now subjected to intensive bombardment which inflicted enormous damage on the German war effort. The United States Army Air Forces attacked by day, while RAF Bomber Command operated by night.

Allied armies had also reached the pre-war German territorial borders and now occupied some German towns and cities. In the West the defeat in Normandy and the Allied advance across Western Europe had significant consequences for the Luftwaffe's ability to defend Germany from British night attacks. The Kammhuber Line—German air defence system—which had extended through occupied France, Belgium and the Netherlands was now broken and much of its early warning network had been lost. Along with the battlefield reverses was the inability of the Luftwaffe to produce enough experienced night fighter crews which was exacerbated by the crippling shortage of fuel at this stage in the war which contributed to the collapse of training programs and grounded combat units. Equally serious was the threat posed by RAF de Havilland Mosquito night fighter intruders operating over Germany.^[7]

To hamper British operations, a number of experienced night fighter commanders and pilots suggested restarting intruder operations over England. In 1940–41, German night fighters, lacking airborne radar sets and a means to locate them over Germany, had flown intruder sorties against British bomber bases to attack RAF bombers as they tried to land. Adolf Hitler had ordered a cessation of these activities for propaganda and practical reasons but these operations had met with reasonable success in 1941 and it was felt they might do so again.

Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, sanctioned the operation. The Germans waited for an opportunity to begin the intruder operation and one presented itself on the night of the 3/4 March 1945, when Bomber Command attacked targets in western Germany. The operation failed to achieve the results hoped for; the success of the attacking force were not commensurate with the losses sustained.