At the risk of rehashing a topic that’s been brought up before, I’d like to ask you
aircraft forum members out there your opinion on one of the more controversial
aspects of WWII, & indeed of all military history, the allied strategic bombing campaign. The dominant trend in postwar historiography was to portray the
allied effort largely as a failure, or at best as a bag of mixed results. I think that in the last 5 years or so historians have started to re-evaluate the results of the
round the clock bombing of Germany & now these scholars are beginning–correctly, I believe–to assign a greater degree of importance to the effort (at least
to the USAAF contribution). However, the British night area bombing stategy still
seems to remain a source of unease & contoversy in Britain, Germany & the U.S.; the postwar guilt complex over the bombing of civilian targets has still not
lifted from the anglo-saxon conscience after 60 years of peace. Similarly, we might consider the fire-bombing of Japanese cities & the deployment of the 2
atomic bombs in the same discussion. The air war against the Japanese homeland still elicits strong moral reactions from Americans on both sides of the issue. How do you forum members see this particular aspect of WWII history? Was the bombing of Germany (& Japan) a success or a failure, justified or unjustified? I hope this thread is not to controversial for admin, but as a former academic I’ve long wanted to see just how the average guy on the street perceives this historical issue. The discussion is welcome to all comers.
Weigh in!
moby,
It seems you have opened a contversial subject but a good one. It is a proven fact that air superiority in war is the ultimate goal. Without the bombing of the industrial sites you have no way to slow down the enemies ability to wage war. It took a long time to remove the NAZIs ability to wage war and it was the bombing effort that did it. I agree with the effort the USAAF put into winning the war which is the only way to go. I must admit that the loss of civilian life is regretable. But in those days of dumb bombs it was difficult to destroy targets without using masses of bombs over an area to ensure the target was destroyed. Regarding the A-bombs in Japan was an agonizing decision to make. There is no telling how much loss of life there would have been on both sides should the Japanese homeland had been invaded. So much of this is the “hind sight is 20-20” and what if? It was done. It is all now historical fact. Right? Wrong? We all as individuals have to make that decision within ourselves and whatever that decision is will not change history. But it can be and is being used today to wage war differently.
Richard
Interesting topic. If you read John Keegan or Basil Liddell Hart, I think one would get the sense that the campaign results are indeed mixed. Total warfare like that of WWII was basically invited by Sherman in his march through the Confederacy. Back then it was such a novel idea that it worked on many levels- physically, financially, morally disheartening both the populace and the troops far away. By WWII I think the evidence shows that the Brits remained stalwart, and the Germans to a lesser extent did too, despite extensive bombing. I don’t know about the Japanese civilian populace.
From years of casual reading and research, it seems to me that strategic bombing cost too much in a grand strategic context ( as espoused by Lidell Hart), but was successful otherwise until the Germans in particular started putting factories underground, etc.; one can point to the stats that German fighter aircraft production kept going until the very end. It would be interesting for an academic to study the relatively efficient ( interms of Allied costs) strangulation effect of the WWI blockade which reduced the Germans’ MORAL willingness to fight on at the end of the Great War, and their physical ability to do so, with comparable effects of the strategic bombing campaigns of WII.
I for one have never doubted that the atomic bombing of Japan was worthwhile- it saved MANY more Allied and Japanese lives that it would have cost in an invasion of the Japanese homeland. In a grand strategic effect, it was very worthwhile in that it showed the world the horrendous effects of a nuclear explosion, and so helped prevent flashpoints like 1961 Berlin and the Cuban Blockade from going nuclear.
As a final note it was interesting to hear Robert McNamara muse in the recent documentary ‘Fog of War’ that, had the Allies lost WWII, as architects of fhe stategic Japanese air campaign he and Curtis “Bombs AWay” LeMay would have been correctly tried for war crimes.
Strategic bombing did shorten the war. That was its objective. The Germans moved their tank and aircraft factories into the woods as its fixed factories were destroyed. Germany produced more tanks and aircraft in the last five months of the war than they produced in the first two years of war. They could not move their oil refineries which were almost destroyed causing loss of production. That is what led to their defeat. They had plenty of aircraft and tanks but no fuel to operate them.
Another factor was the fighter aircraft would escort the bombers on a bombing mission, would be releaved by more fighter allowing the first group to go hunting. They would destroy parked aircraft, trains, anything that moved would be a target. Nothing on the roads or tracks would be safe.
In Japan, the use of the atom bombs did cause them to surrender. I read an account written by planners from the war department that stated it would cause a million US casualties to defeat the Japanese in an evasion of the homeland islands. Given the nature of Japanese resistance they prodicted it would take till '49 or '50 to fully secure the islands. The result would be total devastation of their cities and towns. Japanese casualties would have been in the millions. They realized that conventional bombing would not work and an evasion had to be undertaken to fully derfeat the Japanese.
Strategic bombing worked in Europe but did not in the Pacific.
As for “historians” and their opinions, it depends who’s book you read. The bombing was effective to a great degree(as far as target value) but in my opinion the greatest reward was the psychological aspect of the bombing and the effect on the moral of the countries being bombed. The Axis powers at the beginning of the war thought they were beyond the reach of reprisals to their homelands, along came the bombers and all that changed, now the agressors were becoming the defenders, tying up precious personnel and equipment defending the homeland. Such personnel and equipment was inturn not used against the Allies.
In the Summer of 1945, strategic bombing had almost entirely destroyed Japan’s warmaking ability. US battleships and heavy cruisers were cruising off the coast of Japan, shelling coastal targets. They were protected by US carrier-based aircraft flying CAP. US submarines were cruising Japanese home waters on the surface, machine-gunning sampans for want of better targets.The Japanese navy and merchant marine had, to all intents and purposes, ceased to exist.
This being so, Japan would, sooner or later, been starved into submision. in any event, by Summer 1945, Japan’s influence on world affairs was nil, so she had, to all intents and purposes, already been defeated.
From the US’s point of view, the problem was not so much the number of US casualties which they would have suffered in a blocade campaign, which would have been unlikely to excede a few thousand, but the amount of Chinese territory which the Soviets would have occupied before the Japs threw in the towel. There was also the distinct possibility that the Soviets would have, by then, invaded and occupied Hokkaido; Joe Stalin was rather less squeamish about incurring casualties than Harry Truman.
It is widely accepted, therefore, that the US nuclear bombing of Japan was not so much a necessary part in the defeat of that country, but more the first act in the Cold War. Insofar as it encouraged Stalin to not occupy large parts of China, or to ignore the arrangements made at Yalta, it must be judged a success.
Chris.
While I do agree with Chris that it was a success as far as limiting Soviet invasion and occupation of Japan. I also believe that the atomic bomb was essential in saving lives both for the Japanese and Americans. It prevented an invasion. Everyone should read about Operation Downfall the planned Allied invasion of Japan and Ketsu-Go the planned Japanese defence of their islands. Reading both plans it can be seen that US planners underestimated the Japanese by a great deal and that the invasion would have been even deadlier than predicted. Its an extremely albiet long read! Some have said the war wouldnt’ve ended until around 1950 without the atomic bomb. Even at the time the US slogan was “Golden Gate in '48” meaning they planned victory by 1948. The Japanese slogan of the time was “One Million will die for the Emporer”. My Granddad (10th anniversary of his death btw) and my Great Uncle have both told me many times that the atomic bomb saved their lives. Other veterans Ive talked to have told me the same. Im inclined to believe them, I know I wouldnt want to be in the first wave invading mainland Japan. In addition to the quick surrender it also prevented, as said earlier, Soviet invasion and occupation. With Stalin’s forces on the ground and in Japan it would have been very hard to prevent occupation. Im sure many millions of Japanese are living much better lives now than they would have in a “Democratic Peoples Republic of North Japan”, it would have been a parallel to North Korea and East Germany… we all know those places weren’t/aren’t great places to call home.
What this all boils down to is a question of ethics. Which ethics do we apply to the way we wage wars? A risk with re-evaluating historical decisions is always that we apply today’s ethics to historical decisions. The people deciding whether to bomb cities at the time did not have the luxury of freely contemplating their options. They had to make sure they won this war or the consequences (in human lives and other costs) would be great. The thousands of allied casualties already sustained before the bombing campaigns began would not have made planners see the world in a very philanthropic way either. With the First World War (with its mass killing on the ffrontlines) fresh in their memories, people were probably more inclined to see large numbers of casualties as a necessary part of warfare (by the way: this seems especially true for the Japanese and Russians who were willing to accept millions of casualties, albeit for different reasons I suppose). Of course, the technical possabilities (like precision bombing) to avoid collatoral damage weren’t there yet. These factors put together make a choice to use the nuclear bomb (for instance) look almost logical. The problem is, that the effects of dropping the bomb(s) were not known before they materialized. In that light the decision to bomb Hiroshima was a decision to wipe out an entire city of civilians with the least possible friendly casualties. A technical, but barbarous decision.
Fact is that the decision (on whatever grounds it was taken) did infuence use of nuclear weapons in the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence only worked because these bombs had been dropped. In a twisted way one could say that the Hiroshima bomb was the most important reason the Cold War never turned hot. That’s the benefit of hindsight: you can rationalize anything.
To get back to the ethical question: nowadays we regard loss of civilian life as something we want to avoid in warfare. We (the Western world in particular) go to great (technological) lengths to avoid collatoral damage. We target enemy soldiers, arms and installations, but we try not to destroy a whole country. These are today’s Western norms. These are by no means the only norms applied to warfare today though. The obvious exception being the Al Qaeda bombing of the Twin Towers for instance. And they are not the only ones with a different view.
If you take today’s western norms and apply them to the decision to bomb Nagasaki (or Dresden to name another controversial one), there’s no question it would be labelled as absolutely unacceptable. As I said, we have the luxury of hindsight. Plus our evaluation doesn’t affect the question whether our country still exists tomorrow…
My [2c]
All,
There is no doubt that the American contrubution to the allied bombing campaign has huge and effective, but let’s not forget that until 1943, the US was not even involved in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations) in terms of bombing factories and airfields.
For 3 years Britian and her commonwealth allies were the only thing standing between Hitler’s armies and the rest of the free world. The RAF carried out the first raid on Berlin in the early 40’s, and the 1st 1,000 bomber raid on Germany involving the air forces of britian, canada, australia, new zealand, and so on and so forth. beleive it or not, at the end of the war, it was estimated that 50% of Canadian casualities were amongst bomber crews, somewhere in the 40-50,000’s but i’m not exactly sure as i write this.
British involvement in the bombing campaign also lead to the 1st major radar counter measures, another significant step towards victory in the allied campaign. Without small contributions such as these, the casualities among allied air crew would have been much higher.
I have an extremely large amount of respect for all veterans, particularily those who served in the air force of any nation. I myself had family member who served with RAF bomber command, my grandfather as a flight engineer with 9 sqn RAF, and my great uncle a tail gunner with the RCAF. I am aware of the fact that many of you have relatives who served, and maybe you served as well.
But there is one final note i must make (I feel I will take alot of heat for saying this). The americans were not the only ones that did anything of signifigance. I am sick and tired of always hearing on documentaries and films that american aircraft such as the B-17, B-24 and so on were the onlt affective bombers used during the campaign. All this garbage about how they were the only effective aircraft that did anything important during the war. let’s not forget the thousands of aircrew who flew in the lancasters, halifaxes, wellingtons, stirlings, blenheims, and many other aircraft that played just asan important role in the air war as the americans.
So please, take a second to think about the sacrifice not only made by the americans, but for the british and commonwealth nations as well.
Lancaster_Lover
We are not saying the Americans did all of the strategic bombing. The U.S. forces bombed by day and the British by night. Toward the end of the war the Canadian, British, and all allied forces were bombing Germany day and night. This was made posssible by having complete control of the air. It wasn’t only American but commonwealth forces that sent fighter aircraft deep into occupied Europe to defeat the German fighter arm.
It was a combined allied force that defeated Germany, just as it was a combined allied force that defeated Japan. No one country could have done it alone. The United States has always relied on its allied friends in the past, as well as today, and even in the future.
As an aside I’d like to state that the Russians won the war in the ETO. Germany had been losing the ground war against Russia from Stalingrad onwards. The ensuing Russian offensives proved unstoppable to the Germans, and would have defeated the Nazis even without the Normandy, Sicily and Southern France landings. If this had happened, I´d probably be typing this in Russian though… The strategic air war is another matter of course, which is the main topic of this thread. I´m not deminishing the sacrifices made by Allied soldiers /I wouldn´t dream of doing that/, just putting another perspective on it.
btw± a lot of my keys are producing different sybbols in this post… sorry about that, don´t know what´s wrong![:O]
Filbert & co.: Picking up on this Russian theme, I’ve heard it said several times over the last few years (on TV documentaries, I think) that the Russian air force dropped more tons of bombs on the Germans in WWII that did the combined US-British effort. I’m not entirely sure of the veracity of this statement, or even if I heard it correctly, but to me that seems like a truly amazing fact if indeed it is true. I would think that the bombing would have been mainly tactical rather than strategic. Did the Soviets even make a strategic bombing effort? As all of you can see, the air war on the eastern front is not one of my stronger areas. Does anyone have the skinny on the Soviet bomber program in WWII & it’s contribution to the Allied victory?
Also, yeah, I’d have to agree with Filbert on the assertion that the Red Army played the decisive role in defeating the Wehrmacht by attritting it’s numbers for three years before D-day ever took place. The great bulk of German soldiers killed during the war died on the Russian steppe, at a cost of over 20 million Soviet dead. In contrast I think the principal American contribution to the defeat of Germany was being “the arsenal of democracy”, the great producer of war material for the allied effort.
And I’d also have to agree somewhat with Lancaster in that the British night bombing effort often gets overlooked. The American daylight campaign usually seems to grab all the glamour & glory, in large part because we chose to slug it out with the Luftwaffe by daylight in rather spectacular fashion while the British night effort was more low key & less sensational, although just as important.
Considering that the Russians did not engage in a strategic bombing campaign against Germany, I find it hard to beleive that they dropped a greater tonnage of bombs on the Germans than did the RAF, RCAF, RAAF, RNZAF & USAAF combined, especially when one considers they did not enter the war until the middle of 1941.
I agree that Bomber Command’s night offensive often gets overlooked, and I think this is partly due to the fact that no bones have been made as to the intent of this offensive, ie to destroy Germany’s ability to wage war by not only destroying her industry and infrastructure, but also by the annihilation of her civilian population. The USAAF always worked on the principle of precision bombing in an attempt to minimise civilian casualties, but considering that in an age of laser guided weapons, colateral damage is still with us, was this realistic, even if it was perceived as more honourable? I am not denigrating anyone’s efforts here, as I cannot even come close to understanding the bravery of those involved in the bombing campaign, and therefore beleive that what our forebears did, they did in the belief that it would shorten the war.
I have no doubt that it did, as Germany ground to a halt in the winter of 1944, starved of the fuel necessary to continue effective defensive and offensive operations, as shown by the Ardennes offensive where the Wehrmach were dependent upon the capture of American fuel dumps to keep their armour moving.
Karl
We also need not to forget the military significance of the strategic bombing efforts by the U.S. and Britain. Firstly, the bombings were effective in the destruction or at least reduction of the production of military weapons by the Japanese and Germans.
But they were also effective on several other levels. Although I question how effective the bombings were in breaking the moral of the people, it certainly did slash into the people’s way of lives, cutting off more of the already scarce food supply for them, limiting their ability to do war supporting work by forcing them to take cover or do defensive/rescue/clean-up jobs in their own areas, etc. etc.etc.
Strategic bombing also prevented the Germans/Japanese armies from being able to make war, by destroying their ability to move, communicate, and shoot (i.e. destroy their ammunition production). This was highly important, and a fact not to be overlooked. By combining the bombings with the advances of the Allied armies, the Allies kept pushing in on the Axis, and prevented them from being able to regain their military strength, and from continuing to produce new tachnologically advanced weapons underground, which very well could have happened if bombing was used alone.
A fact that ties in with this, and often ignored ( at least it seems to me) is that were it not for this combination of ground assault and strategic bombing, the Germans would have been able to put into full scale production, some of the most powerful and technologically advanced weapons at the time. These would have included attack helicopters, super tanks like the E-100, and the Maus, jet aircraft which could have riped apart Allied bomber formations, and even worse, the first modern-size ICBM ( Intercontinental Ballistic Missle), armed with a nuclear warhead, and aimed at American East Coast cities, in particular, New York City.
As for the bombing of Japan, it was effective in disrupting communications, some of the transportation, destroying much of the raw materials necessary to wage war, and knocking out a good portion of Japan’s production capability. It wasn’t very effective in destroying the moral of the Japanese, who just became even more willing in many cases, to die for their diety, their emporer. It also wasn’t effective it destroying other portions of Japan’s industrial base, which, especially in aircraft and secret weapon productions, was simply moved underground, in some cases deeper underground than the German’s were able to dig, and into large volcanos. In fact, when Army intelligence arrived in Japan, they found whole factories underground, which were already beggining to churn out the first production of the Japan’s secret jets, including bombers and fighters, along with the suicide aircraft. These would have made any invasion or even blockade a very costly measure for the Allies, as they would have been able to out fly any of America’s current fighters at the time, just as the Germany’s secret jets would have if they had got the chance.
Dropping the two nuclear bombs on Japan was a necessary measure, which as several other posts have stated, saved millions of American and Japanese lives, and brought the war to a much quiker end than what it would have been should the U.S. have invaded. And as another post said earlier (I’m sorry I can’t remember your name) it was an important deterent in stopping Stalin from entering into China and Japan proper.
I’d also like to add, that one shouldn’t forget about German and Japanese bombing tactics, liek the Japanese bombing raids on the Chinese populace, or Germany’s bombing of Rotterdam, and firebombing of Coventry.
The Second World War saw the greatest, and bloodiest use of strategic bombing in history. It was a major part of the Allied plan in forging their way to victory. It also took many lives in the process. Overall, I’d have to say that Allied effort of strategic bombing was effective and necessary in winning WWII. It was more effective in Europe, where it was able to do more damage against German factories and ground forces. It was also effective in Japan, but it still took the dropping of nuclear weapons to bring her leaders to surender.
This is my opinion of the Allied strategic bombing campaign in World War II.
-Matt
This is a common claim, but in my opinion the simple fact is it was a joint effort, without the factories of the USA and Canada churning out thousands of vehicles, weapons and supplies, the Soviets, the British, ANZAC and the free units of the occupied countries would not have had the material needed to defeat the Germans. The Soviets received thousands of tanks, trucks, and aircraft from the USA, Canada and Britain (Stuarts, Shermans, Lees, Valentines, Churchills, Matildas, Studebaker trucks, Bazookas, P39s, B25s etc) which helped them survive long enough to get on thier feet.
Just the threat of an Allied invasion in Italty, Southern France or the channel tied up huge resources that could have been used against the USSR. The British night bombing campaigns kept German crews from getting a break, their airfields were busy 24/7, the US daylight raids forced German industry to hide and resulted in many shortages, while it is true that the German production was greater at the end of the war compared to the beginning, there was also a change of management (Speer) who is credited with much of this increase, also consider what German production may have been without the strategic bombing campaign, consider all the resources used to defend against the bombers, not just FW190’s, Me109’s and 88’s but all the night fighters, radar equipment and searchlights used against the British.
After Normandy the German’s stashed a huge amount of equipment, men and supplies for the Ardennes offensive (Battle of the Bulge) these were resources that would have gone to the East front against the Soviets, I’ve seen estimates that this diversion shortened the Soviet drive to Berlin by 6 months to 1 year. Without the landings in Normandy this would have been available to use against the Soviets. Prior to the landings the Germans also could use the units guarding suspected invasion points as a place to rest and refit units after time on the East front, after the invasion or Italy and Normandy there was no place to send troops for a rest, certainly there were better and worse places to be but none of those fronts could be considered restful.
The British held the line in North Africa until the US could get its feet wet, it is possible that without the experience of the British the US could have been driven out of Tunesia, instead North Africa became a training ground that helped the US catch up on the lessons the other combatants had been learning for several years already.
I think any study of one part of the war without considering all the other factors is doomed to get a wrong conclusion, how can you accurately study the US daylight bombing campaign without considering the resources diverted to combat the British at night, the Soviets success without the effects of Lend Lease and the second front, or the Sherman vs Tiger without the number of tanks available (nearly 50-1 in favor of the Sherman).
If there is one thing I think you could point to as a “failure” of the strategic campaign is more of a what if, what effect would there have been if 25% or more had been committed to tactical air which suffered through the whole war at least among the western allies much as it still does today (the old A-10 vs F-18 close support argument).
This has been fun, now I’m back to talking about the models [:)]
Moby:
Call me Joe Sixpack. No, don’t. Going back to the beginning, I’m probably far too arrogant to accept the title Man-on-the-Street, and as a (print) journalist, always refused assignments to go out, find him and interview him. And everyone has thoroughly, sanely and quite admirably touched the subject on what is, after all, a modeling site. I like to see it diverge from time to time into more serious historical aspects of what we all study with the tiny lenses through which modelers all look.
But I’d just like to comment on how this string has played out overall. On a purely emotional level, I personally consider the Japanese firebombing campaign was the most horrifying and, if the word has any relevence in this context, morally questionable thing we did in WW II. And, if it is not a completely facetious thing to say, I make that judgement after considering the nuking of the two cities. And yet, in every debate by Westerners about the strategic bombing campaigns, LeMay’s firebombing of Japan is the last thing mentioned. I’ve read the most thorough popular histories (Marin Caiden’s classic “A Torch to the Enemy” comes to mind) and some academic studies of it. But even in the revisionist histories we still hear about Dresden first, and if there is time left over, as we have seen in this string, we’ll talk about B-29s burning every strand of organic material in Tokyo. I saying this from the point of view of a baby-boomer WASP. And am perhaps being too vague, being cautious in choosing words in this magazine’s web site. But if it makes it clearer, I believe our discussions of the morality AND the strategic effect of our bombing campaigns have to start in Japan, not end there. Or perhaps the “effectiveness” of bombing Japan is an easier question to answer than that of Europe. I believe history’s modern tendency to downplay the effectiveness of the European bombing campaign has been too informed by the self-serving opinions of ground commanders (both modern and wartime) and wartime-generation Germans, who would have us believe that strategic bombing in Germany was a waste, as well as immoral (sorry, I won’t accept having my forebears being deemed immoral by anyone from the other side of that conflict). History, in this case, has been too tainted by nothing more than parochialism in the infantry generals and national pride in Germans.
This is one for the aspirin bottle and, like sorting out which sparks torched off the American Civil War, won’t be decided in our lifetimes.
P.S. I was born on a SAC base, the son of one of LeMay’s B-47 pilots. My father idolized the man. I do not. History is in the process of judging him. He is not coming out well.
First just a disclaimer: I haven’t read all of the posts above, I will eventually, but only when I’m less sleepy… [:p] So forgive me if I mention anything that was already aired. Oh, and the following is all IMHO derived from books that I’ve read on the subject.
I think the Strategic Bombing in the ETO during WWII was a major contributing factor to the Victory in 1945. The fact that we are speaking of Strategic bombing operations means that the repercussions are not as immediate as if it were a tactical strike. Ex: the effect of bombing an armaments factory is not as rapidly felt as destroying an enemy tank advancing on friendly troops. This however means that strategic bombing is no less important.
It is a known fact that Nazi Aircraft production actually increased after the bombing. What few people know is that Nazi Germany wasn’t producing at full capacity. Factories only used to work one 8-hour shift. It was only in 1943 (if I remember correctly) that they adopted a 3 8-hour work schedule, thereby running the factory around the clock. The question that should have been asked is: how many planes would the Luftwaffe have had, had the allies not bombed the factories.
Additionally, the bomber campaign opened up a new “front” in the war long before the first ground troops touched French soil. The front stretched from England to Norway all the way to Romania. And to defend this massive front, the Nazi party had to set up stationary flak batteries around cities that were possible targets. The fact that flak guns like the '88 (which was equally effective against tanks when fitted with AP rounds) weren’t used to halt the Russian advance, etc… is a major contribution in itself. Also, the Luftwaffe had a large part of its manpower manning these flak guns, manpower that could have been diverted to other uses such as factory production, or enlistment in the army.
With regards to the moral implications of area bombing, let me ask one question: why is it immoral to shoot a boy wearing school clothes, but completely the reverse when he’s in an army uniform? Under normal circumstances, shouldn’t both cases be immoral? Unfortunately, the state of War is not a normal circumstance. There was a war on. Isn’t the destruction of the means of producing of weapons just as valid as destroying the weapon itself? The sad fact of the matter is that the people who work in the factories churning out U-boat engines live around the factory; and by dislocating them, you are disrupting the production of weapons.
Area bombing is a consequence of inadequate technology, not of some warmongering hatred of the enemy. Early in the war, the RAF had a hard time finding the correct city, much less bombing anything accurately. The technology just wasn’t available in quantity at the time to bomb precisely, and didn’t come to pass until the creation of the Laser-guided Bomb (but even that has limitations, and has been know to miss from time to time). The RAF knew this and saw the limitations of the bomber, and opted to operate at night, when there were far fewer risks from fighter attacks.
Ironically, it was the RAF that “perfected” precision bombing in the Second World War. 617 squadron and the raid on the dams in the Ruhr valley proved this. There were other missions that required a precise hit, and more often than not, 617 squadron delivered. At the same time, towards the end of the war, the USAAF (known for its stand on “precision daylight bombing”) started using Bomb Through Overcast radar (a.k.a. BTO, Mickey or H2X) to drop their bombs, because the main limitation to precision daylight bombing was that you had to see the target in order for you to employ the Nordon Bombsight. So by war’s end the tables have been turned with more and more RAF “precision attacks” taking place, and heavy reliance by the USAAF on blind bombing techniques.
There are more issues yet to be discussed (especially since people have written entire books about this), but I think I’ve rambled on enough for today.
[:D]
Guys: a few of you mentioned in the above posts that German war production remained effecient well into the last months of the war while my college professors always said that it peaked much earlier, in June of 1944. Has there been a rethinking on the issue or do we have to distinguish between the production of various kinds of war material (i.e. airplanes vs. tanks vs. oil vs. steel, etc.). Or were my college professors just wrong? Certainly in the case of aircraft production, & concerning the Me-262 in particular, the picture of a waning
industrial effort after the first half of 1944 seems to be accurate. Your thoughts?
All technicalities aside, we didn’t started but we put and end to it, we didn’t go looking for it, but once pushed the bullies got their butts kicked. As for morality in war, COME ON, there’s brutality on every side. I hate it (war) but I’m willing to do what’s necessary to defend my country. The sad part is the innocents that are made to suffer by the megalomaniacs throughout history. Ask the Germans or the Japanese if their not better off today than during Hitler and Hirohito. Heck we pulverized them then rebuilt them…so much for American ethics.
Regards
Manny
IMHO…
Strategic bombing was successful in many ways, but I think robbing the German army of their fuel supply was the most important and successful. These oil field raids were also some of the most costly (ie… Polesti). I have read that towards the end of the war the German army was more and more reliant on horse drawn transportation. Without fuel: tanks, trucks, and other machinery of war is useless. That being said there were some areas where it wasn’t quite so apparent how successful the bombing was.
I would like to look at this from the opposite point of view though. The Luftwaffe who were lacking in the area of true strategic bombers were unable to affect the Soviet industrial engine once it was moved to the Urls. If they’d have had a “Url Bomber” perhaps they could have slowed the Soviet advance and bought enough time to get some of those technilogically advance weapons into production. This may have turned the tides enough to at least allow for some “bargaining chips” at the peace table.
As for the civillian cost… I read in the Stephen Ambrose book “Wild Blue” about a raid into Germany in which George McGoverns B-24 had a bomb hang up. On the way back towards base the crew attempted to dislodge the stuck bomb so as not to have to land with it. It just so happend that the bomb came loose just as they passed over a small farm in the countryside… the entire farm was destroyed. McGovern looked at his watch and noticed it was noon… lunch time on a farm… the whole family would have been sitting down to a meal. McGovern felt an overwelming sense of guilt for this incident for years. Many years later after relating this story on television, during a visit to Germany, the station was contacted by that farmer. It turns out that they had seen the bomber coming and hidden in a ditch. The farmer, who hated Hitler, had decided that if the destruction of his family’s farm ended the war even a minute sooner, then it was worth it being destroyed.