PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - History Hunters on Yesterday Grp Capt Peter Casement
Old 17th Mar 2020, 22:23
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Wensleydale
 
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To be fair to the program maker...

Harris experimented with his new Lancasters in a daylight precision raid to Augsburg: 44 Sqn lost 5 out of 6 Lancasters despatched (Nettleton won his VC in the only surviving aircraft from Waddington) and 97 Sqn who lost 2 out of 6. Not good odds. Harris followed up with a night-time precision raid against the Heinkel Factory in Warnemunde with 18 aircraft under the cover of a main raid on Rostok. The Warnemunde Raid had 18 aircraft: 44 Sqn lost 4 out of 7 despatched. In the two precision attacks, 44 Sqn lost 9 Lancasters out of 13 Despatched. Not good odds. Three weeks later, Harris tried the 1,000 Bomber Raid on Cologne with Essen the day after. Both these raids were successful: if you can't hit the small factory target without major loss, then you hit the city with the factory in it!

Area bombing was the only method available in 1942, and Harris used it. As was said later. The only moral issue would be to let Germany win the War. All else was secondary.
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