Author Topic: British Night bombing  (Read 4496 times)

Offline Wotan

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British Night bombing
« Reply #105 on: June 27, 2005, 02:15:12 PM »
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Sound like the problem the Brits had, and the Yanks, only the Brits were doing it at night, NOT in broad daylight.


This thread has nothing to do with the Yanks or the Germans.

This has nothing to do with unintended collateral civilian casualties that are the inevitable result of war and in particular of level bombing...

The main points Nashwan and I are discussing is the purposeful and deliberate strategy of targeting civilians by BC and Harris.

I don't know what your last post has to do with any of that. Since you concede that the LC and Italian targets in Guernica were militarily viable then why are you bringing that up?

BTW I can posts instances of USAAF and BC multiple attacks on fixed daylight targets and having missed to the same degree that LC and Italians did in Guernica.

 If your point is to show how the German and Italian crews were inexperienced and less skilled I could careless. It has no bearing on the discussion at hand.

Offline Seeker

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British Night bombing
« Reply #106 on: June 27, 2005, 02:57:24 PM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
I agree...

Churchill would have never capitualted even if Britain were invaded.



Its not forgotten, its just not part of the discusssion. Its also not the same as BC's strategy built on the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

Guernica, much like those other cities Nashwan claimed:



wasn't to kill civilains.

I will concede Leningrad and throw in Stalingrad and we may have something to discuss...

But this thread is so far off topic and almost impossible to follow that I won't contribute to topics that move the discussion even further away from the original post.



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Originally posted by Wotan

But this thread is so far off topic and almost impossible to follow that I won't contribute to topics that move the discussion even further away from the original post.
Quote


I understand; but be fair.If BC command is discussed; then so will BC's moral foundation; and the moral foundation of the Douhet (SP?) also be discussed; along with the industrial powers application of it. To think otherwise is a bit naive.

I think this thread is evolving into a comparison of ruthlessness. In this; I have a subjective feeling that the German people were a bit ruthless than the British; but that the British leader was perhaps more ruthless than the German leader.

But the original question was:

“British Night bombing
how accurate was the British bombing at night ?

and did it realy hurt Germany in anyway?


and what was the method for finding and hitting the target?

this is something iv not heard much about”

And the answer is:

In the early days; not very accurate; as night bombing relied more on navigation than target acquisition. German navigational use of radar was as ahead of British radar as British fighter command was ahead of the LW with it's use of radar as a virtual battlefield.

Later; as radar and tactical technique improved; BC's bombing was at least as accurate as anyone else's, and; as the more famous Dam buster and Tirpitz raid showed; and in extreme   cases could pinpoint the target to an astonishing degree.

It did have an enormous effect on Germany; but it's open to discussion wither the resources used in the bombing campaign could have been more effective spent else where.
Pretty much anything else in this thread is moral hindsight. (And I can say that 'cos we won).

Offline MiloMorai

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British Night bombing
« Reply #107 on: June 27, 2005, 05:04:56 PM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
This thread has nothing to do with the Yanks or the Germans.

This has nothing to do with unintended collateral civilian casualties that are the inevitable result of war and in particular of level bombing...

The main points Nashwan and I are discussing is the purposeful and deliberate strategy of targeting civilians by BC and Harris.

I don't know what your last post has to do with any of that. Since you concede that the LC and Italian targets in Guernica were militarily viable then why are you bringing that up?

BTW I can posts instances of USAAF and BC multiple attacks on fixed daylight targets and having missed to the same degree that LC and Italians did in Guernica.

 If your point is to show how the German and Italian crews were inexperienced and less skilled I could careless. It has no bearing on the discussion at hand.


And how experienced were Brit crews?

The point being, since unable to see the target the LK and the Ities went on and bombed civilians using bombs that they knew full well would do no damage to a stone bridge.

In 1935, German General Erich Ludendorff published Die Totale Krieg (The Total War) in which he presented the view that in war, no one is innocent; everyone is a combatant and everyone a target, soldier and civilian alike. Italian General Giulio Douhet further suggested an enemy's morale could be crushed by air-delivered terror. Such theories intrigued Nazi Germany's new Fuhrer, but they needed testing. Spain seemed to be the perfect laboratory.

The Commander of the Condor Legion was Lt. Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of Manfred von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron of World War I. It was Von Richthofen who earmarked Guernica for bombardment, on behalf of Franco. At precisely 3:45 PM, Monday, April 26, 1937, the first German bomber took off. Three-quarters of an hour later, the first bomb fell on Guernica - a direct hit on the plaza at the center of town, a full quarter mile from the targeted bridge.


Nice statement, in 1935, by the German Ludendorff and you have a bleeding heart over Harris?

Though it can't really be proven, Guernica was Basque country and Franco's request would help with his Basque troubles.

Offline Guppy35

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British Night bombing
« Reply #108 on: June 27, 2005, 05:44:44 PM »
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Originally posted by Squire
Btw...

I just finished "Overlord" and "Armageddon" by Max Hastings, both very interesting books. A good read for anybody thats into WW2 history. Not so much nationalism (anybodys), and more hard research than many.

He wrote one on Bomber Command as well, I will have to find it.


It's a very very good book.  If limited to only one on RAF Bomber Command, the Hastings book on Bomber Command would be it.

I really liked Martin Middlebrook's book "The Nuremburg Raid" as well.

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Offline Wotan

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British Night bombing
« Reply #109 on: June 27, 2005, 06:32:32 PM »
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n 1935, German General Erich Ludendorff published Die Totale Krieg (The Total War) in which he presented the view that in war, no one is innocent; everyone is a combatant and everyone a target, soldier and civilian alike. Italian General Giulio Douhet further suggested an enemy's morale could be crushed by air-delivered terror. Such theories intrigued Nazi Germany's new Fuhrer, but they needed testing. Spain seemed to be the perfect laboratory.

The Commander of the Condor Legion was Lt. Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of Manfred von Richthofen, the infamous Red Baron of World War I. It was Von Richthofen who earmarked Guernica for bombardment, on behalf of Franco. At precisely 3:45 PM, Monday, April 26, 1937, the first German bomber took off. Three-quarters of an hour later, the first bomb fell on Guernica - a direct hit on the plaza at the center of town, a full quarter mile from the targeted bridge.


First off you don't present any direct statement as you claim.

Second, do you even know who  Ludendorff is?

Why don't you spell out his roll in planning the KL roll in Spain in 1935?

You are more the moron with every post...

Offline MiloMorai

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British Night bombing
« Reply #110 on: June 27, 2005, 06:56:57 PM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
First off you don't present any direct statement as you claim.

Second, do you even know who  Ludendorff is?

Why don't you spell out his roll in planning the KL roll in Spain in 1935?

You are more the moron with every post...


:rolleyes:  Oh an insult, just like your good bud does when he is presented with facts that does not suit his agenda.

Ludendorff, of WW1 fame, participated in both the Kapp Putsch (March, 1920) and the Munich Putsch (November, 1923). The following year he became one of the first Nazi Party members of the Reichstag (1924–28). :)

He railed at the new Republic and his new enemies, the Jews, Jesuits and Freemasons, whom he blamed for stabbing Germany in the back.

Offline Angus

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British Night bombing
« Reply #111 on: June 27, 2005, 07:11:52 PM »
Hey hey hey. (or hay ;)=)

Go back to the spanish war, you will find that the LW used heavy bombing power, unique in the world at the time, to brutally bomb supposedly important targets.

Go to WW2, that's what it's all about, and it is clear as the blue sky. Try to bomb your enemy into chaos, it may well work.
Evidence? Well, Poland for starters, also the France-Netherlands campaign.

I have taken the effort of looking into the "stairway" of "bombing each other" in the period from aug. 23 to sep 10th or so, 1940.

Some quick points are that the first London casualties occured on the 23rth of august by a mistake bombing. On aug 25th the British do a similar error and dump bombs on the center of Berlin. (leaflets included). No casualties. On the 28th the first 10 Germans die in a raid on Berlin (Navigation once again). OK, on the 30th the LW starts dumping incendiaries on London. (No navigation problems I suspect). Brits raid back (guess they passed each other) and hit nicely, such as the Siemens Works.
August civilian deads from air-raids are 1075 in the UK.


Yet not there....


to be continued................

:D
It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Tony Williams

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British Night bombing
« Reply #112 on: June 28, 2005, 04:58:28 AM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
This thread has nothing to do with the Yanks or the Germans.

This has nothing to do with unintended collateral civilian casualties that are the inevitable result of war and in particular of level bombing...

The main points Nashwan and I are discussing is the purposeful and deliberate strategy of targeting civilians by BC and Harris.


Yes, they did that.  So did the Luftwaffe. What do you suppose the Blitz was all about, or the Coventry raid, or the Baedecker raids I've already mentioned? And of course the development of the V-1 and V-2 which were so inaccurate that they could only ever have been area weapons.

As has been pointed out in this thread, by others as well as myself, WW2 was an all-out war. It was not a nice tidy war restricted to armies, navies and air forces - it was a battle to the death between cultures. That was decided by Hitler and his genocidal Nazi thugs who not only started the war, but did so with the aim of conquering and destroying other countries and oppressing - or worse - their peoples. To win that war the Allies had to use almost all of the means at their disposal.

Yes, with the benefit of hindsight you can suggest ways in which the Allies could have done things differently (I've done that myself, in some detail, in my novel 'The Foresight War'). But to try to suggest that Allied motivations and actions were morally equivalent to the Nazis' isn't even a bad joke, it demonstrates an appalling lack of moral awareness.

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Offline Angus

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British Night bombing
« Reply #113 on: June 28, 2005, 06:41:39 AM »
Nice nice.

Ok, here comes a brief summary of how the Brits and Germans started bombing each other, or rather each other's cities:
(Some of this I have already listed)
1940
August 23: Germans mistakedly bomb London. 9 dead. Tension that night was very high, in the night the British set ablaze their "wall of fire" on the channel coast.
August 25: First bombs fall on Berlin when the RAF misses an armament factory in the northern part of the city. Propoganda leaflets were a part of the cargo. No casualties.
August 26: The LW has a really bad day over the channel with several formations (all but one?) forced back.
August 28: 10 Berliners killed in a RAF raid (6 in a single 100 lbs blast). The raid was not aimed at civilians.
August 30: Fierce fighting over southern England. The LW gets spanked in a raid of Biggin Hill. 900 LW aircraft participated that day. Some got to London and dropped incendiaries on the City. Enter the Blitz...
Brits strike military targets in Berlin again, and hit for instance the Siemens works.
Sept 2: Further night raids on London
Sept 4: Hitler declares that if the Brits increase their attacks on German Cities, he will raize theirs to the ground.
Sept 7: LW hits the London Docks with 300 bombers, escorts were 600. 337 tonnes were dropped, although the docks were the target, civilian deaths were 448. British now expect an invasion, - code word "Cromwell" was sent to military stations.
Sept 8: LW strikes railway lines and power stations in London, but suffer high casualties. Residental areas get hit. East enders amongst them. Eventually (but not on that day) it was close to a revolt.
Sept 9: Raeder speaks to Hitler. The outcome is that Hitler thinks it highly probable that a victory can be achieved even without invasion. Hitler orders London to be bombed. Göring takes his train to the command post at pas de Calais and takes over.
Sep 10: After the summary of LW's "quite indiscriminate" bombing of 2 previous nights, Bomber command aircraft are now instructed not to return home with their bombs if they failed to locate the targets they were detailed to attack. The bombs should be dropped anywhere. In the night Berlin was raided and Göbbels got a bomb into his garden.
Sept 12. Raids continue, LW hits London, Liverpool, Swansea and Bristol at night.
Sept 14 Hitler sais: "The preconditions for the invasion of Britain are yet not at hand. Nevertheless the Bombings would continue. If eight million people go crazy, that can lead to catastrophy"
Sep 15: BoB day.
Sep 16: RAF successfully strikes the docks at Bologne.
Sep 17: Hitler postpones the invasion of Britain until further notice.

Now, day and night, Britain was bombed untill the 4th of October. But the attrition was high for the LW, and on that day, Hitler ordered the daylight raids to end.
The night raids were of course heavier afterwards, and heavily hitting residence areas.
I have some more on this, like the RAF bombing campaign in the early stages. What boggles me is why they didn't just start firebombing several German cities right away. Instead, they kept clenching on the idea that the German industry could be destroyed with precision bombing at night.
The first really bloody bombing from the hands of the RAF on a German City for instance, is yet unknown to me. But in the autumn of 1940 it seems to have been minimal.
It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Wotan

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British Night bombing
« Reply #114 on: June 28, 2005, 09:24:28 AM »
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But to try to suggest that Allied motivations and actions were morally equivalent to the Nazis' isn't even a bad joke, it demonstrates an appalling lack of moral awareness.


Tony,

I own some of your work and have a good deal of respect for it and yourself.

However, I would ask that you refrain from inserting words into my mouth that I did not say. I am not sure how much of this thread you have read but please point out to me where I attempted to suggest that BC's targeting of civilians is 'equivalent to the Nazis''.

Along with Nashwan you seem to be constructing some strawman fallacy rather then address my points as presented.

I have not made any moral comparisons at all. In fact I went as far to point out in a reply to Nashwan:

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You are making the comparisons not me.

I can judge individual acts by themselves. The context in which my judgments and points are presented in this thread aren't wrapped around what the Nazi's, or American's, or Soviet's, or Japanese did. Those are other topics for other threads.


It's Nashwan and others who are using some moral relativism argument in defending the strategy of BC.

Nashwan denies that BC and Harris set upon a deliberate strategy based on the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

quoting from Directive No, 22 again:

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It has been decided that the primary objective of your operations should be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular the industrial workers.


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I suppose it is clear that the Aiming Points are to be the built up areas and not the dockyards or aircraft factories.


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You are accordingly authorized to employ your forces without restriction.


Nashwan would have you believe that the above doesn't really mean the civil population or the workers themselves but just 'the city where they live'.

On the one hand he argues that BC didn't target civilians and on the other he use the moral relativism argument of 'so what if they did' (reap the whirlwind and all that).

This discussion isn't a comparison of 'evils' nor is there any claim of moral equivalence by me between BC and the Nazi's.

To continue I think we first need to establish what it is we are discussing:

My points are clear but I will restate them:

The deliberate strategy of  the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by BC and Harris was wrong.

It was wrong because it did not achieve what it was sold to do.

It was wrong because it was a waste of resources and lives of the crews.

It was wrong because of the civilian death toll.

These points are independent of anything the Nazi's did. If you want to discuss the evil Nazi's we can in another thread.

The points I raised aren't just hindsight as there was considerable debate and dissension at the time this type strategy was put into place.

Nashwan claims:

1. BC didn't target civilians.

Do you agree with that?

I think I have shown that BC did in fact target civilians.

2. BC selected the only viable strategy available to it?

Do you agree with that?

Nashwan presents his argument as if there were only 2 options available to the British. Area bombing or nothing.

I think this is nonsense.

Quoting from the review Milo posted of Max Hastings book BOMBER COMMAND: THE MYTHS AND REALITY OF THE STRATEGIC BOMBING OFFENSIVE 1939-45

*EDIT

This review comes from the website of the Institute for Historical Review an organization renown for its holocaust denial. I will leave the quote because it does show some valid (at least imho) alternatives to area bombing.
[/i]

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Hastings rejects that specious assertion and points out alternatives, a third choice being "to persist in the face of whatever difficulties, in attempting to hit precision targets" and a "fourth and more realistic alternative: faced by the fact that Britain's bombers were incapable of a precision campaign, there was no compulsion upon the Government to authorize the huge bomber programme that was now to be undertaken. Aircraft could have been transferred to the Battle of the Atlantic and the Middle and Far East where they were so urgently needed, and many British strategists would have wholeheartedly defended the decision to move them... There were alternatives to the area campaign, albeit at great cost to the amour propre of the RAF."


3. So what if there were civilian deaths, the Nazis started it (reap the whirlwind).

Do you agree with that?

Given my answer to the first two questions I think that it was well within BC's capability to limit the needless deaths of civilians especially later in the war.

All other diversions aside...

Regards,

Wotan

Offline Angus

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British Night bombing
« Reply #115 on: June 28, 2005, 09:53:35 AM »
Pfffttt!!!!

From Wotan:
"The deliberate strategy of the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by BC and Harris was wrong.

It was wrong because it did not achieve what it was sold to do.

It was wrong because it was a waste of resources and lives of the crews.

It was wrong because of the civilian death toll. "

Given the hindsight, you're right.

However, given the effectiveness of the work by the LW early in the war, given the grim and gritty losses of lives on all fronts, given the ineffectiveness so far of strategic bombings, and being confronted with the circumstances, I think it quite rational from the allied commanders point of view, that Germany would buckle from fierce air raids on their population.
Warshaw buckled. Rotterdam buckled. (well, they would have been overrun quickly anyway), Britain almost buckled. (London went close to a civilian uprise at one point)
So, before the allies went to this resort, the possibility had already been proved, - by the Germans.
There was more in the algorythm.
Through Ultra, the allies were quite aware of what Gerry was up to in many places, such as Poland. They still only knew a part of the wicked total. Still enough to infuriate the quietest of people.
At sea, the losses were high, on the eastern front, the blood was flowing at an incredible rate, and so on.
To cut it short, there was practically no mercy. They stopped at gas, - it was too wicked, and Gerry could have paid back, but to bomb them as they did before themselves, - well, yes.
As sad as it is.
And it was a close guess. Had the Hamburg raid been repeated like two times, - say once on Frankfurt, and once on Essen, and then Köln as a bonus (They all got bombed heavily anyway), in a close period of time, Germany might have resigned.
This was definately a thought, and occured on both sides. It didn't work, it was perhaps not that far off though.
So, in the heat of the moment, what would you have done?
It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. (Werner Mölders)

Offline Squire

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British Night bombing
« Reply #116 on: June 28, 2005, 10:56:12 AM »
A few thoughts on the matters raised above.

I think it would do all sides well to admit that every air force that possessed an air arm capable, attempted "area bombing" of cities to bring about victory for their side.

The LW was the 1st to use it in a "large scale" campaign. September 1940-May 1941 (The Blitz, 150+ major raids against British cities), and even after Sealion was postponed, the night bombing continued, only petering off when Barbarossa was launched and the LW KGs were mainly transferred East.

The RAF (starting at the same time as the LW on a small scale and working up through 1942), and the USAAF was next. Bombing both Germany and Japan.

Italy and Japan did not possess a fleet of bombers to the task, so they didnt get the chance. It wasnt through any moral superiority.

The V-1s and V-2s were designed soley as area weapons, and by 1944 this was the only way the LW could hit back. So they did.

Say what you want about bombings in WW2, they did all share one thing. They had, in the end, strategic military objectives, to bring about the end to the war. Thats true for the LW, the RAF, and the USAAF.  

As Tony Williams said, WW2 was total war, and all sides fought accordingly.

The only reason gas was not deployed was the fear of reprisals on either troops or populations. Considering the scale of the war its still somewhat surprising gas was not used.

Both sides developed atomic technology for the purpose of a weapon, and anybody that thinks it was "ok" for the USAAF to deliver atomic attacks to Japans cities to force them to surrender is certainly in total agreement with the "Bomber Harris" strategy.

The difference was Japan surrendered, thus sparing its population an invasion. Hitler refused, and even when Berlin was threatened with direct assault by the Soviet armies, and with no hope of winning the war, cared nothing for its people by preparing it as a fortress and forcing a seige.
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Offline Oldman731

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British Night bombing
« Reply #117 on: June 28, 2005, 11:21:39 AM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
3. So what if there were civilian deaths, the Nazis started it (reap the whirlwind).

Do you agree with that?

(looks around nervously)

...er...I think I do....

- oldman

Offline Tony Williams

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British Night bombing
« Reply #118 on: June 28, 2005, 01:48:22 PM »
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Originally posted by Wotan
Tony,

I own some of your work and have a good deal of respect for it and yourself.

However, I would ask that you refrain from inserting words into my mouth that I did not say. I am not sure how much of this thread you have read but please point out to me where I attempted to suggest that BC's targeting of civilians is 'equivalent to the Nazis''.


That comment was not specifically aimed at you and I apologise if it seemed that way. I was making a general response to some of the acknowledged anti-British and apparently Nazi-apologist comments elsewhere in this thread.

Quote
My points are clear but I will restate them:

The deliberate strategy of  the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by BC and Harris was wrong.

It was wrong because it did not achieve what it was sold to do.

It was wrong because it was a waste of resources and lives of the crews.

It was wrong because of the civilian death toll.


I would say that BC went through three phases: first, they tried to hit specific targets and failed because their navigational equipment and training were inadequate to the task. So they switched to the only way they had of hitting a target, which was to target whole cities. Later in the war, they developed the capability to hit precision targets but by then Harris was locked into the area bombing philosophy.

You may argue that if BC couldn't hit specific targets they shouldn't have attacked at all, but this is where strategy rather than tactics comes into play. For four long years, the British had no means of attacking Germany, and specifically of supporting their initially hard-pressed Soviet ally, other than by bombing. It was a political necessity. Stalin was constantly pressuring Churchill to invade northern Europe and establish a second front (which would have been disastrous if tried before 1944) so the massive bombing campaign was the only available way of responding to his complaints and appeals, and reassure him that he wasn't being left to do all the fighting himself.

I agree with you that once BC had acquired the capability to hit precision targets at night (sometime in 1944, I believe) then they would have been better advised to focus on that, simply because it would have been more efficient. However, Harris was too inflexible (if you've read 'The Foresight War', you would know that Harris does not get command of BC...).

However, precision bombing, by day or night, depended on clear weather, and more often than not that was not available. That left BC - and the USAAF - with the choice between sitting on the ground doing nothing, or going in and bombing by radar, which was area bombing. In the last nine months of the war, the USAAF used radar bombing for no less than 70% of their raids, because the visibility was too poor for visual bombing. Presumably, conditions at night were no better.

With ferocious fighting going on in the Eastern and Western Fronts, was it acceptable for the Allies' only way of striking at Germany to sit on the ground for night after night doing nothing because the weather was cloudy? No, it wasn't. So they went in and bombed. You don't like it, I don't like it, but it was the necessity of the time.

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Offline Nashwan

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British Night bombing
« Reply #119 on: June 28, 2005, 08:52:49 PM »
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It's perfectly valid because it not only captures the tone and intent of BC's strategy, it is backed up by the fact that its what BC actually did...


So it's actually your interpretation of BC strategy, which you try to legitimise by putting quotes around it, and claiming it's from an Air Ministry directive?

Don't be silly, Wotan. The purpose of quotes is to show what a person actually said, not what you think they meant.

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Its not a distortion, it reflects the real policy and strategy implemented by BC and Harris.


Of course it's a distortion. You claimed:

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He goes on to state that the Air Ministry's estimates on the effects of area bombing on the German populace were:

quote:a prescription for massacre, nothing more nor less.


What you should have said was:

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He goes on to state that the Air Ministry's estimates on the effects of the plan for 5,000 bombers in BC were:

quote:a prescription for massacre, nothing more nor less.


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it reflects the real policy and strategy implemented by BC and Harris


No, it reflects a policy BC and Harris didn't implement, for 5 - 6,000 bombers, 1.25 million tons on Germany in 1943.

In fact, the RAF dropped half that on Germany in the entire war. (and they were overestimating the casualties as well)

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That quote didn't' originate with me and its 100% accurate in describing the policy and strategy of BC.


So now you're saying you didn't make it up, someone else did?

In that case, a: you should have checked your sources better. I spotted it for a fake immediately becuase I've heard all the arguments before, and something that juicy would have come up before.

And b: you should have admitted the mistake, rather than try to defend it.

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Nonsense the British had practiced terror bombing during the inter-war years


Guernica?

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That statement is 100% accurate as well. BC strategy was to kill civilians to disrupt war production and de-moralize the populace.


Source please.

Bomber Command's policy was to bomb cities, destroy them, and damage German production. German civilians were not the target.

Perhaps you can find some sources that show BC targeting civilians? Rather than the sources that show them targeting housing etc? (and if you do, check them, they are almost certainly as false as your earlier quote, because no-one else has ever found them either)

Read again the Herschel Johnson letter earlier in this thread, and the view of how effective damage to housing was at reducing production. Nowhere does it say the dead civilians caused problems with production.

That's because there weren't enough dead civilians. The Luftwaffe killed about 0.8 people per ton of bombs dropped on Britain in 1940/41. The RAF did somewhat worse during the war, at about 0.5 people per ton.

That's not an efficient way to wage war, and I don't think anyone thought it was.

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Even if we believe your 25% absenteeism claim German war production increased until such a point that the situation on the ground led to a collapse inthe German economy. This collapse wasn't brought on directly by the bombing campaign but was due to the situation on the ground.


No, it was also brought on by the bombing campaign. From the USSBS:

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The German experience suggests that even a first class military power -- rugged and resilient as Germany was -- cannot live long under full-scale and free exploitation of air weapons over the heart of its territory. By the beginning of 1945, before the invasion of the homeland itself, Germany was reaching a state of helplessness. Her armament production was falling irretrievably, orderliness in effort was disappearing, and total disruption and disintegration were well along. Her armies were still in the field. But with the impending collapse of the supporting economy, the indications are convincing that they would have had to cease fighting -- any effective fighting -- within a few months. Germany was mortally wounded.


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The bombing campaing never achieved its what it was tasked with and it wasn't until late in the war that the bombers could even come close to its goals.


That's true. The effectiveness of bombing was overestimated, or rather the difficulties of repairing bomb damage were overestimated.

It wasn't until 1944 the bombers had sufficient strength to begin to destroy Germany. But that's true of the western allied armies, too.

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Thats what I said not only in this reply but previously. The point at which the bombing campaign began appraoching its potential the situation on the ground had nearly collapsed the Germany economy despite the efforts of the bombers.


Despite? That's just silly.

What's true is that victory in spring 1945 came from both the ground and the air. It's speculation that without the air forces the ground forces would still have achieved victory at the same time. (and there's little to support it)

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German production increased through '43 into '44.


Germany only shifted to a total war economy in 1943. Production was bound to increase as they introduced extra shifts, imported slaves from all over Europe, etc.

But production in 1944 was way below target. It was way below what it should have been for Germany's size.

In 1944, Britain, with just over half Germany's population, produced a greater weight of aircraft, and more aero engines, than Germany.

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Not much need for 'pin point accuracy' with the Hamburg raids.


No, there wasn't. It was area bombing, pure and simple, and it was also the most devastating bombing attack Germany suffered.

From Middlebrook, The Battle For Hamburg:

"However, for once, here is a clear-cut
Allied success.  The raids on Hamburg in July and August 1943 were immediately recognized and have since been confirmed by historians as being an outstanding Allied victory in the bombing war."

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Hamburg's most important war industries, particularly her U-boat yards, were not seriously damaged. The RAF bombing had never been directed on to the areas in which such industries were situated, and the Americans were hampered by smoke and had not the numbers of bombers available to achieve the complete destruction of such targets.


Middlebrooks says that atendance at Blohm und Voss shipyards (the main U boat manufacturer) was down heavily. Out of the ormal workforce of 9,400, 300 reported for work on the morning following the heaviest raid. By 1st August, 1,500 were back at work. By 1st September, more than a month after the raids, half were back at work, half still absent.

By 1st November, 3 months after the raids, 20% of the workforce was still not back at work.

Middlebrook also says that production of submarines was dow by 20 - 27 because of the raids, and that attendence in Hamburg's war related factories was down, on average, by 50% for 3 months after the raids.

The whole point of area bombing is that the damage it inflicts on the infrastructure of a city is worse than the damage inflicted on factories. Read the Herschel Johnson letter again.

Read that figure again. Hamburg, the largest armaments centre in Germany, lost 50% of production for 3 months after the raids. Not a particular factory, an entire city's factories.

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John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that Hamburg raids:


John Kenneth Galbraith is a left wing economist. That's what he wrote some 40 or 50 years after the end of the war.

At the end of the war, he was a member of the USSBS, and that's not at all what they concluded. I quoted their conclusions above. That's what Galbraith signed his name to shortly after the war, I think that holds more weight than what he wrote in a book decades later.

Galbraith was also heavily against bombing Vietnam, even Kosovo. In fact he predicted that bombing Serbia would lead to a Serbian victory, and the destruction of Nato.

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The resources and efforts expended in the bombing campaign could have been better utilized and contributed far more to 'victory' then killing civilians.


Of course they could. Killing civilians would have been hugely inefficient. That's why it was never the aim. That's why destruction of infrastructure was the aim, and that was very efficient.

That's why every air force with a strategic bomber fleet adopted it as a strategy.