Originally posted by Seeker
I'm not sure it is.
It's a statement of what bomber command was capable of; not what they actually did.
What bomber command did was what ever they wanted to; when ever they wanted.
Flattening German cities is no measure of the achievable accuracy; because flattening German cities is exactly what Harris wanted to do. (ipso facto: target achieved).
And when Bomber command wanted to be more precise; well, then they were.
Let's be fair; I'm by no means claiming smart bomb precision; especialy in the early years; but nonetheless; Bomber command hit what they wanted; when they wanted; losses were immaterial to Harris as they were to Zukov (sp?); so long as the mission was achieved.
Almost a centuary later we can discuss strategic effectivness and moral comparisons; but they were not the issues of the day.
We Brits just wanted to kill Jerry in large numbers; and we did.
Makes you glad for the EU; no?
Well I am glad at least one Brit on this forums agrees. For the record the allies didn't even charge the Nazi's with war crimes related to the bombing of cities and civilians. However, moral relativism aside it's still a huge black mark of the western allies.
My point to you was that the three examples you gave aren't covered under the topic heading.
But since you brought them up, what do your three examples show?
Let's take them one by one:
the Dams:
The objective was to destroy the dams and knock out the electricity generated to the Ruhr industries...
What it accomplished was it killed a bunch of civilians. Ruhr industry was hardly effected.
Not only that but the loss of pilots and crews were hardly worth killing those civilians.
sub pens:
What sub pens were closed by the RAF?
Answer is none. In fact some were still in operation in France at the time of surrender.
Tirpitz:
You really think that was a 'success'? Look at all the resources that the RAF had tied up going after a single ship that was for the most part contained and posed little threat at that stage of the war.
The facts are the Bomber Command was more effective in fire bombing apartment blocks then anything else they 'accomplished'.
They didn't hit whatever they want and that which they did hit took considerable effort.
The goal of Harris was to win the war by killing as many people as possible so that the Germans give up. It didn't and it never could have happened.
I think its pretty much accepted that massive RAF raids agin German cities were in Harris's own words targetted at the German people......... he considered attacks against strategic targets a waste of time. His preferred targets were cities not factories.
Tilt is correct. When Harris was told to move resources over to help hit the transportation hubs just prior to D-day he through a fit and thought that he was wasting his effort. He felt if he was allowed to continue fire bombing German civilians he could win the war.
He learned his trade during the inter-war years when the Brits used gas bombs dropped from RAF bombers on Muslims villages to keep them in line.
His goal was to kill err... 'de-house' civilians.
I just have to wonder how bad the Axis was to let the totally
skilless, clueless American horde beat them?
This thread has nothing to do with Americans. Its entitled:
British Night bombing
Americans didn't win WW2 all by themselves regardless of what you may have seen in the movies or on the history channel.
