quote:

The Butt Report was profoundly important

Cottar,

Thanks for that link. Very useful and interesting.

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We bomb today with greater accuracy but define targets much more widely. So when the serbian TV station in Belgrade is bombed as a legitimate target, the action is, to use Sellars & Yeatman's terminology, 'a good thing'. When terrorists attack the twin towers in New York, it is, again using the same terminology, 'a bad thing'.

this is the "means to an end" argument. does it make jus as bad as them if we use certain methods? But whereas the terrorist takes out human life for the sake of killing them, modern western states take out infrastructure with greater precision. It's not fullproof but it's much better than what it was. And the intention isn't to kill as many civilians possible, it's to neutralise the enemy's means to attack back. I'd prefer to see technology that would discriminate a rifle from a man. but that isn't available yet.

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For me, it highlights the need for western governments to be very clear in their explantion of why they take actions in our name. Any falsehoods, propaganda or spin is, especially today, very quickly identified and seized upon.

I think that's true. Also the media needs to be careful in the propaganda it prints. This is of course a question of modern warfare and perhaps deserves another thread.

But as far as WW2 is concerned practicalities and the need just to survive played a major role in early bombing tactics.

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Key to the question on area bombing is the size of the target and the size of the area to be saturated with bombs. If precision isn't possible, is it necessary to bomb and entire city in order to hit one railway junction? What purpose does an incendiary bomb serve in hitting steel railway lines? Churchill used the word 'pretext' and the railway junction was only a pretext for bombing an entire city. The intention was to kill as many people as possible.

Hi Harry

Well indeed if one hit railway marshalling yards all the Germans had to do was fill up the holes and repair the tracks. Similarly with a factory bombs would not destroy the machine tools - so it was a question of clearing away the rubble and debris and getting back into production again. This is even without the fact that the Butt report had shown conclusively that precision targets could not be found at night.

The importance of the 14th Feb, 1942 directive has been correctly identified in this discussion - it was the mandate for the area offensive. The capabilities of the RAF were radically different when that policy was being formulated in late 41 or early 42 compared with Aug 43, or Sept 44 or Feb 45. Therfore one has to discuss the area bombing policy in the context in which it was formulated. This was that everything else had failed miserably and that it looked very likely that Britain would go under.

As then it wasn't possible to find - let alone destroy key targets - the policy shifted to that of wrecking the industrial cities of Germany by fire essentially. This was on the by no means implausible assumption that a modern society and industry was so interdependent in terms of labour, services, subsiduary factories that widescale destruction would cause sufficient dislocation to throw the German war machine out of gear - by making it impossible for war production to be continued. Here the most vulnerable element was considered to be the industrial workers, and the policy to be pursued was to make it impossible for them to continue to work by burning down their houses. In other words to bring the means of civilised life to a dead stop in the German cities. It was thought - or hoped - that with the 4 engined heavies coming into service then it should be possible to mount an attack on sufficient scale to meet these objectives.

With Hitler rampging across Europe, it was a seductive notion

"I also find it hard to believe that it was beyond the means of the allies to produce better precision bombing techniques. What was lacking was the desire to do so."

It is a matter of historical fact that the RAF had given little no thought to this question. Disabused of the notion that they could fly by day they persisted in the notion that they could target find by night without navigational aids. It was crass organisational myopia.

When eventually the inconvienient fact that they were achieving nothing in return for rising losses could no longer be avoided, there was a push to develop such aids.

The first of them - "Gee" was a big improvement, but it was not accurate enough for precision bombing. "Oboe" was successfully employed, as I mentioned, when a small force of Mosquito's successfully marked Krupp's at Essen - though most of the sets failed, that was May 1943. But oboe only got as far as the Ruhr because of the curvature of the earth.

Later on much greater precision became possible because when the allies had landed in Normandy, and moved forward, oboe stations could located on the continent, and so increase the range of the device, and other aids were coming on stream - plus the Germans were deprived of some of their early warning chain

"A V Roe's in Chadderton was hit by 3 bombs dropped by a single german bomber in 1941. The bombs hadn't been fused correctly and failed to detonate. But is anyone seriously suggesting that if the germans could, in broad daylight, hit the factory where the Lancasters were being constructed in 1941, that we could not have developed techniques, equipment and tactics to do the same?"

Certainly - very many Blenheim crews died flying in broad daylight. The casualties incurred in the Augsburg raid of 1942 also shows that this simply wasn't possible. The bombers were simply too vulnerable, their .303 machine guns pitifully inadequate compared to the cannons of the Luftwaffe fighters

"Many of the arguments posted in this particular thread are similar to arguments used today by terrorists."

That's true, harry

But it doesn't make them go away

"Thanks for that link. Very useful and interesting."

glad you find it so, this below is useful for context - it was simply not possible to go on with "precision" bombing policy at the time, it was a fiasco - and a tragically expensive one at that.

"These losses were rapidly swinging the balance against Bomber Command - indeed, no air force could sustain this amount of losses for any length of time and, in an attempt to rebuild the Command's confidence, less well-defended targets were chosen for future attacks. In four months, Bomber Command had lost the equivalent of its entire frontline strength, 526 aircraft, and morale on the squadrons was low.

On the 13th, the Air Ministry dropped the bombshell to the Command's AOCinC, Air Marshal Sir Richard Pierse, that the bomber offensive in its present form was to be stopped whilst the future shape and tactics of Bomber Command was debated. With the exception of a few minor raids in the following months this is exactly what happened and, by early January, Pierse had been posted from his position."

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/diary1941_3.html

On the previous page the Butt report is described as "infamous", in a one sentence comment - so it seems that even today its conclusions are not welcome to the RAF!

quote:

this is the "means to an end" argument. does it make jus as bad as them if we use certain methods? But whereas the terrorist takes out human life for the sake of killing them, modern western states take out infrastructure with greater precision.

decrypted,

I know what you mean but with our record and with things that happen today such as civilian deaths in Iraq etc, we are open to the charge of hypocrasy, rightly or wrongly. Not everyone makes these fine distinctions.

Imperfect as it is, I can see how at a national level, western governments do try to minimise civilian casualties. But, it's not the way everyone sees it and we do need to recognise that fact. Whenever we take one step forward we need to realise that if we get anything wrong, we take two steps backwards.

quote:

That's true, harry

But it doesn't make them go away

But how can these arguments be maintained for the latter half of 1944 and 1945?

"But how can these arguments be maintained for the latter half of 1944 and 1945?"

Germany - Nazi and Imperial - was the most dangerous enemy Britain ever faced. It was natural in the circumstances of the time that the Germans, as a whole, should be regarded as enemies. Modern notions of the iniquity of "collective punishment" are simply redundant in the historical context, such was the intensity of the emotion generated by total war.

As I pointed out area bombing was conceived at a time when Britain was battered, almost on its kness and in danger of going under. Once the bombing machine was up and running though - effectively from about May 1943 - the machine that had been created tended to take over and follow its remorseless logic.

This reflected the national mood. I was looking at the pocket book issued to British soldiers about to occupy Germany in 1945(published - in Borders). It contained such sentiments as "the Germans are brutal when they are winning but they whine for sympathy when they are beaten". The troops were told that they would find vast destruction in Germany, but that was simply payback for what the Germans had done in many other countries. They were informed that there were anti-Nazi Germans but not to worry too much over what they said by way of justification. All this is perfectly understandable in the circumstances.

Churchill said that the Germans were either at your feet, or at your throat. Sir Arthur Harris, in autumn 1944, was not the man to slacken off with the enemy at his feet.

quote:

Originally posted by Lett328:

quote:

Originally posted by Tomus:
Without the bombing campaign what precisely were we to do? JUst sit and take it?

A more sensible option would have been to concentrate on fuel supplies, in particular the Romanian oil fields. Whilst losses in attacking this target were high so were the losses in the area bombing campaign which I believe were something like 75,000 aircrew.

Without fuel the German army would have ground to halt. Remember, the Battle of the Bulge was lost because the Germans could not press their initial advantage home because the tanks had run out of fuel.

Mobility and supply were key in WW2 as the Soviets found out with the benefit of American built trucks.

Sorry I know the reply is outdated, but we tried precision bombing, it failed and so night time was the only possibility. Hitler took the war to the people and as a result so did we.

quote:

Germany - Nazi and Imperial - was the most dangerous enemy Britain ever faced. It was natural in the circumstances of the time that the Germans, as a whole, should be regarded as enemies. Modern notions of the iniquity of "collective punishment" are simply redundant in the historical context, such was the intensity of the emotion generated by total war.

Hi Cottar,

Any argument along the lines 'that was then, this is now' will not be accepted by everyone. In fact, as some of the more extreme muslim groups point out, we are still doing it. It may suit our purposes to make fine distinctions but if we kill non combatants, there will always be those who will retaliate in kind.

In the Battle of the Bulge the Germans were also relying on poor weather to neutralise the Allies air superiority. When the clouds cleared and the Typhoons and Thunderbolts etc could get stuck into the Panzers again they knew the game was up.

Harris believed bombing alone could win the war and held onto to this belief right to the end. He opposed diverting aircraft to the Battle of the Atlantic and wanted to close down Coastal Command, he didn't want his bombers used to support D-Day which he considered a waste of effort and had to be over ruled by Churchill. My feeling is he realised the war was drawing to close and the bombing of Dresden was the last chance he'd have of proving his theory and bombing the Germans into surrender. It didn't work.

Harry - the difference being that we resorted to those reciprocal tactics in order to bring about peace as quickly as possible. Those terrorists are using it to stir up anarchy and destruction.

quote:

the difference being that we resorted to those reciprocal tactics in order to bring about peace as quickly as possible.

decrypted,

That is one view, the preferred view. It's not a view shared by everyone, nor should we expect everyone to share it. It's a tactic we used 20 years before in Iraq when the RAF gassed the Kurds and that certainly wasn't reciprocal. I maintain it was a policy based on a doctrine.

quote:

Those terrorists are using it to stir up anarchy and destruction.

Destruction yes, that was our stated aim also. We also added in 'fear of death'.

Anarchy? I doubt it. Most militant muslims I have heard use the term that you use above, 'reciprocal'.

As I said earlier, the distinctions you use are very fine distinctions but we should not assume that everyone will accept them. Why do we expect that others must always accept our justifications? Simply because we are British?

A little more evidence to support my contention that this was a military doctrine. During the troubles in Iraq at the start of the 1920s, Wing Commander J A Chamier (1921) suggested concentrating bombing on the:

"most inaccessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected the attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle."

The then, Squadron Leader Harris, reported that:

"The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means. Within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape."

The bombing campaign over germany in WW2 has little to do with excuses that we were unable to bomb precisely. There had been little effort to achieve that aim before the war. Area bombing and the killing of civilians was accepted well before WW2 ever started.

"Any argument along the lines 'that was then, this is now' will not be accepted by everyone."

Well that's up to those who don't, harry - I have merely tried to place matters in their historical context. And it is up to those who disagree to try to refute this.

The alternative to strategic bombing, formulated in a myopic fog before the war, was to raise a great British army to fight the Germans on the Continent - or having been driven out in 1940 to have launched a second front in 1942 or 1943. The consequences of this would probably have been quite disasterous - and a very important consideration is that Bomber Command enabled a policy of aggressive delay here.

In any event the choice that was ultimately made was that it would be German civilians who would die in great numbers - and not conscript British soldiers. That seems an understandable choice in the circumstances. Churchill said that we should never apologise for what we did to Germany during the war, and so effectively draw a line under it.

Kitchener said that "we make war as we must, not as we would like". In the event RAF bombing policy came down to practicalities - before you can hit the bullseye you must first learn to land the arrows on the board.

But, as it happens, RAF Bomber Command did make an important contribution to winning, as has been pointed out upthread.

As I said harry, if it had not been for the bomber offensive it is certain that Rommel's army in Normandy in 1944 would have been stronger in manpower and in artillery. Would you have been prepared to accept the consequences of that?

If we had a statement of apology by HM Gov't, or a truth and reconcilliation committee led by Rowan Williams in full flowing beard and regalia, what would be the point? Where would it go?

The comparison with Iraq in 2003 fails for starters because the war was totally one-sided - one can hardly say that of the German war. For the first half they held the upper hand, very much so.

I doubt that muslim extremists are much exercised by area bombing of Germany in WW2 myself.

"The bombing campaign over germany in WW2 has little to do with excuses that we were unable to bomb precisely. There had been little effort to achieve that aim before the war."

Not only could the RAF not bomb precision targets, as they thought they would be able to -they couldn't effectively area bomb either.

from the link above


"That night, 373 aircraft (a new highest total) were involved in operations - 152 to Nuremberg, 99 to Bremen, 90 to Hüls with 32 on minor operations such as minelaying. The Nuremberg raid highlights the problems of navigating by dead reckoning with a changeable wind as bombs were reported from Stuttgart, 95 miles west of the target and Lauingen 65 miles away."

It is nonsense to say that the RAF did not develop navigational aids because they wanted to kill civilians. They firstly hoped that they would be able to fly in daylight. This was an absolute disaster - for instance 12 out of 24 Wellingtons were shot down trying to attack the German fleet at Wilhemshaven in December 1939. They did not actually drop any bombs because they had been told to avoid civilian casualties - and the ships were considered too close to the shore by the raid leader. The Germans, non-plussed, thought it some kind of suicidal training mission.

The author Max Hastings records that in 1940 a Blenheim crew was taken off operations because they had bombed a steelworks on their own initiative, and they might have caused civilian casualties.

Anyway daylight operations produced disasterous casualties so they had to fly at night, as indeed some RAF officers had realised would be the case.

The scientist RV Jones commented that "I was astonished by the complacency that existed regarding our ability to navigate at night. The whole of our bombing policy depended on this assumption, but I was assured that by general instrument flying, coupled with navigation by the stars, Bomber Command was confident that it could find pinpoint targets in Germany at night, and there was therefore no need for any such radio aids as I had proposed."

quote:

A little more evidence to support my contention that this was a military doctrine.

There isn't any evidence to suggest that Gov't or RAF policy, pre-war or early-war, envisaged the indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Germany. Planning was on the basis of bombing specific targets - oil plants, industrial plants, transport facilities etc. Crews who could not identify the target were then told to bring their bombs home. An Air Ministry directive of June 1940 stated that; "in no circumstances should night bombing be allowed to degenerate into mere indiscriminate action, which is contrary to the policy of HMG".

It's true that the RAF senior officers hoped that the bombing would have great effects on morale along with the physical destruction to oil plants and factories etc they fondly imagined would occur. But to say on that basis there was a pre-war "doctrine" by which German civilians would be targeted as such is not historical.

Incidentally on the point about RAF "Air Control" in Iraq during the twenties - I understood that it was common practice to drop warning messages some hours before.

quote:

Originally posted by cottar:

The author Max Hastings records that in 1940 a Blenheim crew was taken off operations because they had bombed a steelworks on their own initiative, and they might have caused civilian casualties.

In the early part of the war there was also an aversion to bombing such targets because they were private property.

I remember reading the memoirs of a bomber command navigator who tried to work out the position of his airfield using the standard RAF sextant used to take star sights. He couldn't achieve an error of less than 1.5 miles and that was on the ground and not in a pitching, vibrating aircraft somewhere over enemy territory.

quote:

He couldn't achieve an error of less than 1.5 miles and that was on the ground and not in a pitching, vibrating aircraft somewhere over enemy territory.

quite - Max Hastings: "on a clear night it was possible to shoot the stars with a sextant if the pilot was able and willing to fly straight and level for long enough" But then inaccurate weather forecasts, varying wind speeds, and cloud meant that the net result was;

"Germany was genuinely unaware that Bomber Command had been attempting to attack a specific target, or even a specific region. There was merely a litter of explosives on farms, homes, lakes, forests and occasionally - on factories and installations from end to end of the Reich".

quote:

if it had not been for the bomber offensive it is certain that Rommel's army in Normandy in 1944 would have been stronger in manpower and in artillery.

Cottar,

How do you know for certain? Earlier on, you were claiming that they would be on the eastern front. None of these things can be certain.

quote:

If we had a statement of apology by HM Gov't, or a truth and reconcilliation committee led by Rowan Williams in full flowing beard and regalia, what would be the point?

Why mention this? I haven't.

quote:

The comparison with Iraq in 2003 fails for starters because the war was totally one-sided ......

I doubt that muslim extremists are much exercised by area bombing of Germany in WW2 myself.

No, they aren't making the comparison with WW2, but surely you accept that they cite the number of civilian casualties.

We see the same now in the Lebanon. I am not against Israel undertaking military action because of the rocket attacks by Hezbollah but the question of exactly what they should requires care. Get it wrong and you make the situation worse. A response steeped in dogma may prove disasterous.

And, within days what do we see? A formerly anti hezbollah lebanese population turning to them for support. I'm not saying the answers are easy or obvious, but that some very careful and calculated thinking by cool heads is required.

quote:

Not only could the RAF not bomb precision targets, as they thought they would be able to .....

Thought they wouldn't be able to or didn't try hard enough to develop the tactics or techniques which would enable them to?

From the Strategic Bombing Survey:

"Although the Eighth Air Force began operations August 17, 1942, with the bombing of marshalling yards at Rouen and Sotteville in northern France, no operations during 1942 or the first half of 1943 had significant effect. The force was small and its range limited."

Why were individual bombers from the luftwaffe able to hit single targets by flying under the radar in broad daylight and yet we decided we couldn't do it?

We could do it with the Tirpitz and the Mohne and Eder dams, all accurately targetted, but it required vision and training.

From the Strategic Bombing Survey:

"The German power system, except for isolated raids, was never a target during the air war. An attack was extensively debated during the course of the war. It was not undertaken partly because it was believed that the German power grid was highly developed and that losses in one area could be compensated by switching power from another. This assumption, detailed investigation by the Survey has established, was incorrect."

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It is nonsense to say that the RAF did not develop navigational aids because they wanted to kill civilians.

Of course that was the intention after the area bombing directive. One week after its issue, Harris was appointed. If the intention wasn't to kill civilians, why did Churchill propose the use of gas to the chiefs of staff in July 1944. It was rejected of course but the chiefs of staff were under a great political pressure to use "any other method of warfare we have hitherto refrained from using."

The instances mentioned by the likes of Max Hastings posted by yourself and Fil2's 'private property' are quite correct but politicians determined to have their way will dismiss those who will not do their bidding and replace them with those who will do their bidding.

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"in no circumstances should night bombing be allowed to degenerate into mere indiscriminate action, which is contrary to the policy of HMG".

Get rid of those who think like that, issue the area bombing directive and appoint Harris.

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Incidentally on the point about RAF "Air Control" in Iraq during the twenties - I understood that it was common practice to drop warning messages some hours before.

These were hardly messages showing concern:

"If you don’t pay your taxes, if you don’t abide by government laws, we’re going to bomb you".

To be fair, the RAF pilots were issued with 'goolie chits' promising anyone returning a crashed pilot without cutting his balls off would be rewarded.