No, the first RAF area bombing raid was on 25/26 August 1940 on Churchill`s orders, before Germany would start anything similiar over Britian, and in fact, the Luftwaffe was ordered not to target British civillian targets at all.
Source please.
"While all this was going on, however, a quite different type of operation, conforming to Portal's own convictions and drawing inspiration from the damaging German attack on Coventry on November 14/15, was being planned. Under the codename ABIGAIL, one of three designated industrial towns was to be attacked in strnegth, "without specific objective other than an industrial centre" The intention of the ABIGAIL raid was "to cause the maximum possible destruction in a selected German town", and was therefore a radical departure from the previous policy of bombing industrial objectives only."
The Right of the Line, John Terraine
"The attack on Mannheim on 16/17 December, however, marked a new departure. The aiming-point this time was the centre of the town, not any individual building or industrial feature. It was a reprisal raid, appreoved as such by the War Cabinet, in retaliation for the recent German attacks on Coventry, and other British towns."
"Mannheim was the first purely "urban area" attack, but it did not immediately inaugurate a systematic campaign of urban area bombing. Factories and other specific objectives, usually chosen because they were in industrial areas, continued to be the standard aiming-points until well into 1941. "
RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War, Denis Richards
"he two air forces operated under almost identical instructions to hit military and economic targets whenever conditions allowed. Neither air force was permitted to mount terror attacks for the sake of pure terror. The British War Cabinet issued a directive to Bomber Command early in June 1940 instructing bomber crews over Germany to attack only when a target was clearly identified, and to seek out an altenative target in case the first was obscured. If no contact was made with the target, aircraft were expected to bring their bombs back"
Richard Overy, The Battle (discussing the situation prior to the 7th September)
From a source Isegrim likes:
"The British government had been able to safeguard its secret from the day that the first area raid was launched
against Mannheim on December 16, 1940, right to the very end."
David Irving, Apocalypse Dresden (even Irving, the Nazi apologist, admits the RAF didn't carry out area ttacks until December 1940)
"The next night, 25/26 August, about 80 Wellingtons and Hampdens took off to attack precise objectives in Berlin"
RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War, Denis Richards
"In response, the War Cabinet sanctioned the first raid on Berlin. On the night of 25/26 August, the Hampdens of 49 and 50 squadrons left for a raid on Tempelhof airfield, whilst a force of Wellingtons tried to find the huge Siemens works nearby"
The Most Dangerous Enemy, Stephen Bungay
The first RAF area raid was August 1940,
No, see above.
and up to that time, there were only ca 1000 civillian casulties. You said the number before, now you changed your mind and multiplied it with 20.
No, there were about 20,000 by the time of the first RAF area raid, on the 16/17 December 1940.
Military targets, huh? Name those allaged 'military targets' in Berlin, and the source for the claim as well.
Tempelhof, Siemens, source above.
Who wants to take a bet Nashwan will skip the subject?
See above.
Funny, last time you claimed 1000 civillians for July AND august, which is what the literature also say, you now say only in August..
I don't think so, if I did I was in error.
Targets', that`s a very wide term.
Yes, the LW was boming French, Dutch and Belgian targets ie. tanks and infantry coloums, fortified positions etc.
And targets in cities.
See for example the bombing of Freiburg, when the Luftwaffe attacked that German city, killing 24 civilians (iirc), mistaking it for Dijon.
Britain of course was bombing German 'targets' from September 1939 onwards, before even Waswhaw was bombed during it`s siege.
No, only warships at sea.
Appearantly, you think that if a Stukas bombed a french fortress in Western Europe, that`s justfied the RAF`s terror raids on Germany cities..
No, I think if the Luftwaffe bombed a train station in Paris, an airfield in Dijon, a port in Calais, then that justified the RAF bombing a bridge in Aachen, a canal in Dortmund.
Because as we've seen, the RAF did not carry out area attacks until December 1940.
Provide sources please or we have to belive you are just making things up.
It's from the post raid assesments of the Rostock bombing.
But a simple google search will tell you about the Heinkel factories, in fact surely a Luftwaffe fan like yourself should
know Heinkel had factories in Rostock?
Regardless, unlike in LW raids where civillians were just collateral damage and the industries/military installation being the targets,
Of course they were, Isegrim, the Luftwaffe didn't area bomb British cities in 1940/41, or if they did they id it for the "right" reasons.
No, the LW bombed 17 of the aircraft industry facilities found in the city, the rest was unintended collateral damage.
Of course it was.
And it was minimal compared to the forces used.
Not far off 1 person killed per ton of bombs dropped, about double the RAF's average for the war.
Civillian casulties amounted only 568 killed in coventry, despite the fact that 533 tons of bombs were dropped.
My mistake, more than 1 killed per ton dropped, better even than the Luftwaffe's average for 1940/41.
Compare that to 900+ killed in Rotterdam in direct aerial support of the ground troops, performed by just 60 bombers.
Daylight raids seem to be more effective in killing people, probably because a larger numbr are caught on the streets, away from shelters.
Certainly Rotterdam, with less than 100 tons of bombs dropped (iirc) daw an average of nearly 10 dead per ton, the Luftwaffe achieved about 0.8 in their attacks on Britain, the RAF about 0.5 per ton on Germany.
There are claims of 25,000 dead in German daylight raids on Stalingrad, as well, which support the theory (as does Guernica). So too does the USAAF raid on Tempelhof on 3rd Feb 1945, which reportedly killed 25,000. I don't know the tonnage, but typically for the USAAF it was just over 2 tons per bomber, 1,003 aircraft dispatched, assuming 2,500 tons, again 10 per ton.
The RAF rarely, if ever, got as high a ratio at night. Hamburg was hit by about 8,000 tons by the RAF, about 5 - 6 per ton (assuming all casualties were caused by the RAF). Dresden received almost 4,000 tons, about 6 - 7 per ton.
Did daylight bombing of cities cause proportionatly more casualties?
So that`s why the Germans bothered sending the elite Kgr 100 marker unit as a spearhead to mark the aircraft industry plants with using radar beam as guidance, ie. the most advanced bombing methods available to them.
They marked by dropping over 10,000 incendiaries in a pattern a few miles long across the city centre.
They also carried large numbers of parachute mines, which they released from medium altitude and allowed to float to earth, completely un-aimable, and not suited for attacking a precision target.
Quite irrelevant as it`s just a general note about the possible measures. Quote the whole thing, not just parts of it. "wiping out the most densley populated workers settlements" was of course one of them, obviously, but the LW declined it and the actual orders name 17 aircraft industry facilities as target, not civillians.
No, just like later RAF area attacks, the goal was to do the most possible damage to the city. Thus they targeted not just the factories, but the city centre, and the workers housing, because they knew it would cause more damage, and take longer to repair.
"The Germans were really aiming at the factories", page 88
and page 182 :
"contrary to the tales of indiscriminate bombing soon being put about, the Germans were remarkably successful in hitting their intended targets and not a single famous name from the local Industry escaped."
Of course they didn't. The Luftwaffe area bombed the city, not much did escape. Not the cathedral, not either of the cities hospitals, not the housing (over 70% damaged or destroyed)
Classic area bombing, and the demonstration that changed British bombing policy from precision attacks to area bombing.
Peter Hincliff etc. says the same. Basically no serious British historian argues anymore that it was a terror attack as you imply,
I don't, I say it was an area attack, just like the RAF's later on in the war.
