Why not use more Mosquitos

[Angus]

RRAM:
"I don't think anyone in Britain ever had the slightest suspect on what was going on in Auswitch by mid-1943...the time of the Hamburg week long bombings which costed more than 40.000 lifes, and more than three times that numbers in injured.

It's not a valid argument. And it isn't even with the holocaust horror in the western allies' minds (I insist that the "they are worse" argument holds no legitimacy from my point of view). But for all those area bombings prior to the discovery of the horrors of the holocaust, its' even less an argument."

You can think what you want, but they were aware of mass executions at least from the autumn of 1939.
The very knowledge of what Nazi Germany was about was sometimes more available to the British than the bulk of German people, and definately played a big role in Britain NOT being game to Hitler's "Appeal to Reason" in July 1940.
And Birkenau was not the only camp....nor a source of information as an only thing. Actually the actual things discovered by the Russians when they caught it shocked even the British. They knew it was bad, and the mess was all over, just not THAT bad.
YOu know, when you're fighting a bully, and find out that he is much worse than you thought, well, you land your punches where they hurt the most, - or just anywhere, you want the creep down.

[Nashwan]

I'd like to know if that calculation was made after the end of hostilities - I'm assuming it was. If so, the economics (lack of a better word) change radically when compared to those of Autum '43 or Spring '44.

It's definitely post war, it includes a table showing the tons dropped by type per year, up to and including 1945.

Using the figures in Max Hastings' book, the overall loss rate for Bomber Command from the start of the war (admittedly, this includes the early sorties by Hampdens and the like) stood by my reckoning at 4.2% (FTR and crashed on return). By May 1945, the figure, again calculated from the start of the war, stood at 2.7%, and benefitted from the increased Mosquito sorties.

I think the problem with any accounting is that late war was much easier than early and mid war, for all types, and that the offensive was so heavily weighted to late war. Bomber Command dropped half it's bombs after August or September 1944.

This is not true. His actions against the Jews, expoliation of occupied territories, etc were charges he was found guilty of. But, he was also found guilty of commanding an air force.

Only in connection with planning an aggressive war. He was found guilty for planning to use his airforce to attack neutral countries, not for actually using it to bomb ones Germany was at war with.

If Göring was a criminal because the bombings of Rotterdam, Coventry, London, and many more (and he was found guilty of war crimes because of it, so conducting area bombings on cities targetting civilians WAS a crime according to Nüremberg),

I don't seem to recall Harris being trialled, much less being found guilty (which he was), of this same charge.

Harris was not in the same situation as Goering. Sperrle or Kesselring are much closer in situation to Harris, being air commanders who carried out bombing of cities.

Kesselring and Sperrle who killed 50,000+ British civilians between them were not charged for bombing, either. Kesselring was charged over the murder of hostages he had taken in Italy, Sperrle was charged (and acquitted) of using prisoners of war for prohibited labour and using slave labour,

[Yarbles]

I think its great the way these debates develop through the interpretation of competing facts mixed mixed reasoned opinions. It is apparent that people form moral positions on the basis of limited knowledge and I dont conemn them for that but at the same time it is always a good idea to keep at least something of an open mind.

I personally think Harris was acting with the best of intentions but like so many people who get into a position of power he was driven by a certain amount of blinkered fanatacism. We should also remember that people of Harris's generation were traumaticied by the experience of the first world war's wholesale slaughter with no end in sight on a relatively static battlefiled. A true war of attrition. Harris would have countenaced almost anything that would bring a swift conclussion and in the process save lives.

Remeber the country which suffered most in WW2 was Poland in a per capita sense and Soviet cassualties were at least 4x those of the Germans.

Anyone who judges Harris a war criminal is opperating out of context. I believe Harris was tragically mistaken at worst.

[Angus]

Some of the heads on this thread have much better and wider knowledge than just limited.
As for the Polish, yes they had the beating. Warshaw was the most mauled and destroyed city of WW2 by the way!
As for the Russian casualties, they were horrendous. Some 22 millions? Much more than the Germans lost, however...a much bigger nation.
And to Harris:
"We should also remember that people of Harris's generation were traumaticied by the experience of the first world war's wholesale slaughter with no end in sight on a relatively static battlefiled. A true war of attrition. Harris would have countenaced almost anything that would bring a swift conclussion and in the process save lives."
I'd settle for that. Which brings me again to my point on the status of the war when the real bombing goes off. Per day, the bombing victims are...:
1. All from the enemy...i.e. German.
2. Numberwise, a joke compared to the whole deal.

So, - exactly that for the bomber-guys mindset. Use any mean possible to end this crap, and especially with mr. nasty on the receiving end.

[Scherf]

Scherf, Tilt.

Yes, Oboe had limitations in the number of aircraft it could guide to a target, and in the distance of the target to be selected. But against precision targets, pathfinding was still useful (and in fact used quite some times by mossie's night bombing operations against precision targets in belgium) so in fact the number of aircraft limitation meant little. And for long range operations Gee still could be used, and H2S could still be used. Both systems when used in close operation worked very well for accurate bombings.

In fact, the aircraft limitation meant everything with Oboe. You complain about German civilian casualties - Oboe would have done nothing to prevent them beyond the Ruhr. Any civilan casualties within the Ruhr past March '43 also would have been down to Oooe. Truly, you would have expected the RAF to put 6 aircraft per hour over Krupps as a total effort?

Gee could NOT be used as a bombing aid. It was used as such and failed miserably - see "Pathfinder Force, A History of 8 Group" for details. Further, H2S could tell you when there was a city below, assuming there were sufficient waterways, coastlines etc. to provide contrast. It could NOT pick out individual factories or other targets. See the same book (or any other one on the subject, for that matter) for the kind of ground picture the system produced.

From March '43 pathfinding (route marking, target illumination, target marking etc) was the norm. All the civilian casualties you complain about resulted from raids in which 8 Group or 5 Group were pathfinding and marking targets. So let's not equate pathfinding with precision raids.

God, what else in this thread is bollocks? Mossies to Berlin - yes, they carried 4,000 lb-ers there, the numbers have already been posted. Yes, they did so with greater survivability - between January 1 1945 and the end of the war 3,900 Mosquito sorties were dispatched to Berlin. 3,695 of those aircraft attacked, 14 failed to return ("Mosquito", Sharp & Bowyer). Someone else can post figures for the heavies in the Battle of Berlin, I'm going to eat breakfast.

Can we get the subject away from Harris and back to RAF policy decisions around the Mosquito? I'm really, really hoping that other book has got something to say, since judging from the table of contents and the index shown on Amazon, it ranges far and wide across WWII.

[Angus]

Well, the air ministry's initial policy about the Mossie was suspicion, so the aircraft was designed, built flown and tested up to their standard as a private effort 

[Yarbles]

Can we get the subject away from Harris and back to RAF policy decisions around the Mosquito? I'm really, really hoping that other book has got something to say, since judging from the table of contents and the index shown on Amazon, it ranges far and wide across WWII.

I would say based on the information and evidence provided so far that the Mosquito was vastly underestimated and utilised in the precision role which itself was underutilised and I am not convinced that it would not have performed better than the lanc as an area bomber.

Because of the fear generated by the apallingly low surviveability of heavy bomber crews allot of creep back was obseved in area bombing where crews released early percieving this to be the period of greatest danger hence lower accuracy. Additionally sorties aborted earlywere particularly chronic where squaddrons went for long periods without a crew surviviving a tour.

Lancs certainly couldnt carry a full load to Berlin I think max about 10,000 lbs and by 1944 Halifax's were carrying incendiaries only to help redress their poor performance. The idea of area bombing was to overwhelm a target in one go e.g. fire fighting services etc overwhelmed fires burning out of control.

Two surviveable accurate Mossies for each Lanc or Halifax makes more sense and they would still be around to come back tommorow and the next day and the next. With shorter flight times they could area bomb for more of the year as shorter nights would be less of a problem.

[Scherf]

This may serve you:

"The right of the line"
John Terraine
Wordsworth Military Library
ISBN: 978-1853266836

Right. So, I've got the book in front of me.

Now, you're going to tell me where it discusses policy around the Mossie, and where it explains how "Harris wouldn't have it." Because I can find no such reference.

[RRAM]

.

Right. So, I've got the book in front of me.

Now, you're going to tell me where it discusses policy around the Mossie, and where it explains how "Harris wouldn't have it." Because I can find no such reference.

There are no judgements in the book, just facts. There are no pages treating what people DID NOT DO...but there are a lot about what people actually did.
There are quite some passages pointing about Harris' insistance in attacking with massive bomber raids on german cities, not on the mossie. The book won't say "Harris didn't want the mossie", but it clearly points out that Harris wanted the largest formation of the largest bombers Britain could give to conduct his bombings. The Mossie was seen as a pathfinder, as a good plane for small raids, even while it had the potential to be quite more than that.

As such Harris never gave a thought about increasing its production at the cost of the bombers. Neither he would've had it witha sustitution of the Lancaster by the Mossie. Yes, the book doesn't say "Harris said no to substituting lancasters by mosquitoes" But it's implicit for anyone reading the narration that what Harris wanted wasnt at all a fleet of mosquitoes and that had a proposal been raised for that purpose, he would've turned it down.

About the parts of the message you asked reference for, about Harris' fixation about area bombing, saturation attacks, and his almost resignation when Bomber Command was forced to cooperate in Overlord preparatives (which involved quite a deal of precision bombigns), the book tells the whole story.

You asked me for a reference, I gave you that book. Read the whole strategic campaign parts (the book chapters are ordered by time, so you might have to jump between chapters to keep the whole bomber command history as is told by it). If when you're done reading it you don't share my impressions then we're reading different books.

Bit pressed of time right now to comment more, but will do later when back at home. I'ts been a while since I last read the book and would need to have it near to quote passages, pages ,etc.

BTW I also encourage some ppl here to read R.V. Jones' "most secret war". Gives quite a picture of what the british could hit and could not by night, and with how much precision.

[Scherf]

So, in short, you've attributed to Harris decisions which you cannot demonstrate he took. When asked for a source, you cite a book which does not even touch the subject. Further, you've attributed to Gee, H2S and Oboe attributes which were demonstrably beyond their capacity.

[Yarbles]

So, in short, you've attributed to Harris decisions which you cannot demonstrate he took. When asked for a source, you cite a book which does not even touch the subject. Further, you've attributed to Gee, H2S and Oboe attributes which were demonstrably beyond their capacity.

Could you be more specific? especially in relation to the former.

[Tilt]

I think the point was that Harris thought Lancs were the best tool to achieve the area bombing he wanted.


We may or may not agree with him or his strategm but history records both his objective and his considered choice of aircraft.

[Yarbles]

I think the point was that Harris thought Lancs were the best tool to achieve the area bombing he wanted.


We may or may not agree with him or his strategm but history records both his objective and his considered choice of aircraft.

Agreed though it doesnt add much to the debate.

[RRAM]

So, in short, you've attributed to Harris decisions which you cannot demonstrate he took.

Please, list those decisions I've attributed to him which I cannot demonstrate he took, with the book I named as a source.

I can demostrate why he didn't take some decisions, too. The book does a nice job in summing up how Harris thought and acted with Bomber Command all through the war. How he did insist in certain issues strongly. And that's enough to know he would've opposed certain measures with all his strenght because he didn't believe in them. Precision bombing was one of those (and the book covers it). Changing the main bomber of the Command from the Lancaster to the Mossie was other (the book doesn't say so, because it was never proposed. But with what you read in the book is plain to see he would've had opposed any proposal like that, had it happened)

When asked for a source, you cite a book which does not even touch the subject. Further, you've attributed to Gee, H2S and Oboe attributes which were demonstrably beyond their capacity.

I'll talk about later of that with more detail. But short version: Using Gee as navigation aid and H2S to pinpoint bombing locations, the british were able to carry on very accurate bombings by night without Oboe. And when Oboe was used, Pathfinding principles were usable even if just the first few mossies carried the system on board. There were instances of this of Mossie night attacks vs Belgium. To enter more deeply into it I would need some books I have not here nor at home right now (they are at my parent's house), so I can just talk about them but without listing exactly page and paragraph of the books I'm basing on.

anyway, please list the decisions I say harris took that aren't covered by the book.
About the MOssie I said Harris would've never accepted the substitution of the Lancaster by the Mossie as main bomber, and that's plain to see if you've read the book ,as even when it doesn't explicitly say it, it's implicit in the way Harris thought and acted with Bomber Command.

[Yarbles]

It seems that the fact remains Harris did not explicitly make a decision not to adopt the Mosquito. As I have argued earlier his thinking was fairly short term working with the tools he already had at his disposal, Was it Harris who proposed a 4000 strong force and if so what was the projected time frame.

I suspect high loss rates were experienced as a result of deep penetrationby which time the battle was already in full swing so to speak. I think in other words it is correct to say Harris never had the information at his disposal at a time when he could have made a meaningfull decision.

In hindsight my question is would Mossies have been better in all roles and I have seen no evidence that proves they would not have been.

This was the original proposition.