Canadians question morality of Bomber Command

[Two's in]

This story appeared in Canada just before Remembrance Day. Apparently the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa has a depiction of Canada's role in Bomber Commands' attacks on Germany during WWII, in which a descriptive plaque questions "The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany..."

Fits right in with Tony having the sheer arrogance to attempt to apologise for things over which he had no bearing or influence, here we have history revisionists demonizing the very people who allowed Canada to be the Liberal nirvana it is today. Disgraceful, watch for this happening back in Blighty.

http://www.surreyleader.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=73&cat=23&id=768728&more=

[brickhistory]

The Smithsonian Air & Space tried something very similiar with the B-29 Enola Gay exhibit several years ago.

A very large, very public campaign finally got them to delete their editorializing and just present the bomber and its place in history.

The same should go for Bomber Command.

[MrBernoulli]

As a former member of the RAF may I say ...............

I, FOR ONE, VALUE MY FREEDOM!
HOORAY FOR BOMBER COMMAND!
HOORAY FOR KICKING SEVEN SHADES OF S41T OUT OF THE ENEMY!
SINCE WHEN WAS A WAR JUST A SOLDIERS PROBLEM?
RESOURCES THAT SUCCOUR THE ENEMY NEED TO BE BOMBED TO SMITHEREENS!
BAD LUCK IF YOU'RE ON THE LOSING SIDE!

[vigilant_spacey]

Sorry chaps, but everyone of us should question the morality of it all - carpet bombing civilian areas? Yes we won the war, and yes its why we have our freedom. Bomber Command, and indeed the allied forces, did a cracking job, and I am for one thankful. But bombing civilians can never be moral, even if it proves a necessity.

[Winco]

vs,

Whilst I have a very tiny little bit of sympathy for your concerns, the fact is 'the need' far outweighs any morale argument that may arise at all.

I hope you are not suggesting that it would be better if we were all wearing jack boots, marching funny and now speaking German, but were able to hold our heads up high and say 'Ah yes, but we fought the war with good morales' the fact we lost, well 'bad luck' or what?

Sorry, I'm with MrBernoulli on this, and thank God we were on the winnig side!

The Winco

[20driver]

The words on the plaque are quoted to be
“The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command’s aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 60,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.”

Seems like a pretty accurate statement though there is a typo on the German dead, more like 600,000. The bombing campaign was contested at the time by many, both inside and out of the military and at very high levels, for both military and moral reasons. Why pretend otherwise?

If someone goes to the musem, reads the plaque and bothers to find out a little more it has served a purpose.

Sometimes it seems it only takes a the whiff of pc to cause severe knee jerk.

20driver

20driver

[The Helpful Stacker]

Well......the Germans started it.

[blueplume]

Almost every country/nation/state, in whatever form, has started something resembling agression against another, in some cases winning, at other times being the loser and facing the winner's justice.

It's a question of time: how far back do you want to go? The British, Americans, French, Italians, Russians to name but a few have all had their asses kicked after starting wars. Nobody likes losing so it's great to tell other people how bad and inhuman they are when they lose. It's natural that no-one wants to remember their own faults and move the focus swiftly to something else. It makes people feel better about themselves even if there really is nothing to feel better about because we are all human and have the same weaknesses.

[Load Toad]

Lets see. WWII, total war across the globe. Millions are dead and dying - the better informed at the time would know that in reality the First world war had never ended it had simply moved across central Asia from eastern Europe.
As the war in the west again broke out - following the Spanish Civil War the pogroms...the Nazis storming across Europe, the war in Asia...

I guess that not having the benefit of cushy hindsight the view was that the war had to be brought to a successful conclusion as fast as possible by any means possible because the alternative was worse.

As I understand it - the Allies were having to kill in an attempt to stop the killing - the Axis powers - if they had won would have continued the killing and the persecution and the extermination.

So we are sorry innocent civilians were killed. But it was war.

[Saintsman]

Were all civilians innocent?

How many of those civilians were directly involved in making weapons to be used against the allied forces?

Just because they weren't pulling the trigger doesn't mean they were innocent. Besides, aren't soldiers former civilians?

[splitbrain]

Disgraceful, watch for this happening back in Blighty.

Oh crikey mate, I thought we invented self-loathing here in the UK. It started out as, 'learning lessons from the past' now we have the liberal intelligentsia telling us we should apologise for deeds and events that belonged to a different era when values were utterly different to todays; the slave trade, execution of deserters during WW1, the bombing of civilians in WW2.
On another forum I had a 'conversation' with someone who thinks that the remembrance process glorifies war and that by holding this 'anachronism' every year we simply make future wars inevitable. :ugh:

[dakkg651]

On another forum I had a 'conversation' with someone who thinks that the remembrance process glorifies war and that by holding this 'anachronism' every year we simply make future wars inevitable. :ugh:

So what he's saying is that all those who died to preserve the rights of free people like himself to come out with statements like this - should not be remembered.

What an ungrateful p***k

[GPMG]

Bloody amazes me that even 60 years after the war we have yet to honour some of the bravest men to fight in it. Who climbed into their Lancs/Halifax's/Wellingtons/Stirlings etc throughout the war most nights and held a rigid course all the way into the heartland of the enemy and back. Suffering the worse losses of any force. And we have yet to give a specific medal for it.

But what does the spineless left and liberal mass of this country do? They hold them with contempt, they try to ignore the huge sacrifice and the effort these people gave.

A war in which only combatants get killed is very rare and nigh on impossible. Bomber command was a means to an end, it was a huge propoganda tool and it even started to turn the tide of the war in the later stages. As soon as the first bombs fell on German soil it signalled to the Nazi's that Britain meant business. How long would the war have lasted without the efforts of Bomber Command and the 8th Army Air Force? Long enough for the V2 force to have a far bigger effect on the UK? Long enough for the heavy water technology to be perfected? Long enough for Jets to be made reliable?

Liberals? I sh1t em.

[Brakes...beer]

"the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.”

This quote is historically illiterate and unworthy of a museum. Germany had to devote vast resources to defending itself against the bombing:

8 876 powerful 88m flak guns (denied to the artillery),
900 000 men to man them (500 000 available to defend Normandy in 1944),
1 000 000 men continually clearing and repairing bomb damage,
factories devoted to producing night fighters,
30% of all artillery in production by 1944... (figures from Robin Neillands' The Bomber War)

"The strategic bomber is the cause of all our setbacks" - Albert Speer.

The bombing campaign was our only means of prosecuting the war against mainland Germany for several years. Not to have done it would have been the criminal act.

[timex]

Where would the liberals be now if we had lost? Sorry but having recently watched one of the History programmes about Bomber Command, the whole gist of the offensive was to stop German war production AND teach the German people that enough was enough.. (2 wars in 30 yrs!!)

[A and C]

Well said a post that sums up the situation.

[splitbrain]

So what he's saying is that all those who died to preserve the rights of free people like himself to come out with statements like this - should not be remembered.

Basically, he doesn't understand what the remembrance services and festival is all about. Oh he says he does, he says he knows what its supposed to be about, but to him it doesn't mean that. Unfortunately you can't argue sense into someone who is adamant they understand something that they quite obviously don't.
And this is the problem in a nutshell IMHO. Those of us in the military, or with recent connections to it, understand the need for certain actions, and operations, we understand the significance, and the poignance of the remembrance services. We take the time to consider the wider ramifications of not undertaking a particualr course of action even though it may well have had undesirable consequences at the time.
When these issues are examined with a black vs white, right vs wrong mindset, the point is quite often well and truly missed.

[Chugalug2]

8 876 powerful 88m flak guns (denied to the artillery),
900 000 men to man them (500 000 available to defend Normandy in 1944),
1 000 000 men continually clearing and repairing bomb damage,
factories devoted to producing night fighters,
30% of all artillery in production by 1944... (figures from Robin Neillands' The Bomber War)

Great post B...B. If it wasn't for the bomber offensive allied troops could not have been assured that any aircraft seen or heard on D-day would be theirs. The Luftwaffe was either on the eastern Front or defending the skies over the Reich against the round the clock destruction of their homeland. The sacrifice of these brave men shortened the war, saved Allied lives and made victory possible. So called 'Carpet Bombing' was the inevitable result of the navigational realities of the time. Despite continual technical innovation the average accuracy was no better than within 5 miles by night or 2.5 miles by day. Even so that was enough to constrain production so that it could not rise to meet the challenge from the USA and USSR. If they had been left unmolested to produce the weapons that were only at R&D stage in 1945, the Nazis would have driven us back into the sea, laid waste to the UK and bombarded the US east coast with the ABC agents to hand, as well as stopping the Red Army. High time all this was acknowledged by the award (now sadly mainly posthumously) for the Bomber Command aircrew with their own campaign medal. A scandal that they were not and that this was our earliest encounter with 'PC', by Churchill of all people, after the bombing of Dresden in 1945. War is hell.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Thank you 20driver for posting the full inscription. The fact that it "seems like a pretty accurate statement" is not the point, though. Historians and others with an understanding of strategic warfare will argue these points for years to came. New facts will come to light, similarly. It hardly seems appropriate, therefore, to present such an inscription as if the negators already have a proven point. Innocent until proved guilty is the phrase, I believe.

It still trots out the old chestnut that "the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production". While the bomber force was being constructed, crews learned their trade and techniques and tactics were being developed, we know it did. What nobody has ever been able to say is what the German output would have been without the early raids. Even the morality of the Offensive is not clear cut. As Helpful Stacker points out, in his, own words, they started it. If we ignore the bombing of civilians in Warsaw, Rotterdam etc, we could not have ignored the bombing of London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry etc. The bomber force was not used offensively against German towns until after the SEP 40 raid on London. As Arthur Harris put it himself, "They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind." The point I would make is that the "morality" can be argued from now until the last Archbishop; but it should not cast a slur of doubt on the men who did their duty.

Can't we send some of our spray paint wielding "yoofs" over there on cultural visits?

[anotherthing]

I assume I am not the only one who thinks that we have gone too lilly livered?

Blair the other day apologised for Britains part in slavery hundreds of years ago - and campaigners complained he did not go far enough!!

We have a chequered history - as most great (or once great) nations do. WE, the living, are not responsible for what happened hundreds of years ago. We may abhor it, but I, for one, certainly do not think we need to apologise for it.

This Canadian thing is just another example and to my mind belittles the heroes who risked their lives (or paid with their lives) for a just and moral cause.

[niknak]

In the late 60s,although retired from Air Force, my Grandfather through commercial contacts, entered into trade with a German businessman who was more or less the equivilant of his status during both wars. This man remained a personal and family friend until my Grandfathers death in 1990, and I kept in touch with him until he died in 1996.

It's ironic that both of them had much the same tale to tell;

1) I WW1 they were young, keen and willing to give all to the cause, which they did, and, despite the odds, managed to survive.

2) Having survived WW1, they were a lot wiser than most but didn't or were unable to make their opinions of the horrors of war public, so off they went and did their bit. On both sides, this sometimes meant taking part in bombing raids they both knew would entail deaths of perfectly innocent people, but either you believed that was the right thing to do for the greater good or you were convinced that if you didn't take part, you and your family would die from the hand of your own Government, again, that applied to both the Allies and Germany.

My experience is not just limited to this, but also having had a neighbour who was forced to be a member of the Nazi Youth Party, there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't apologise to me for things she had absolutely no control over.

So Ladies and Gentleman, before you launch into tirades of self importance about how we would now be speaking German and wearing Jack Boots, (the Nazis were far more intelligent than that - they recognised the importance of retaining national identities), just remember that the vast majority of personnnel fighting for the cause in both sides were innocent parties.

That applies to WW1, WW2 and most wars before and after.

[nigegilb]

The numbers killed are startling. Over 55,000 RAF Aircrew killed in Bomber Command. This compares with Officer losses in the Great War of 38,000, a war that is widely considered to have wiped out a generation of Britain's finest. I have read that 60,000 Britons were killed in German raids, but numbers of German civilians killed were very much higher. The city of Hamburg alone lost 118,000 this compares to losses of 40,000 in the Great War. It is interesting that the RAF chooses to celebrate the Battle of Britain but little is remembered officially about the contribution of the Bomber Command. Maybe the memory of Dresden is still too raw for many people. What is beyond doubt is the bravery of the crews; they simply did not have the technology to deliver their weaponry accurately enough to avoid civilians. I for one do not believe in targetting civilians per se, but as has been said the Germans decided to bomb our cities first.

[dakkg651]

I think the myth that the Dresden raid was purely down to Arthur Harris was a ploy by Churchill to try and distance himself from the fact that it was actually on his orders that major area bombing was recommenced at that late period in the war. Not only Dresden, but three other eastern towns, were pencilled in for the same treatment. After the Dresden raid, the loud rumblings from the strenghening Labour Party caused Churchill to slope shoulders in order to try and protect his position.
I am not trying to denigrate the great man who brought this Country through its greatest test in recent history but, with the end of the war insight, I am sure that post-war politics was foremost in his mind.

Of course, all of this mattered not one whit to the crews risking their necks over what was still a heavily defended Third Reich.

[Chugalug2]

... entail deaths of perfectly innocent people, but either you believed that was the right thing to do for the greater good or you were convinced that if you didn't take part, you and your family would die from the hand of your own Government, again, that applied to both the Allies and Germany.
...(the Nazis were far more intelligent than that - they recognised the importance of retaining national identities),

By 'the Allies' I assume you mean the USSR, or do you have knowledge of secret UK extermination camps? Either way this is typical PC moral equivalence, and contemptible for all that. Bomber command crew members who 'didn't take part' were invariably tainted as Lacking Moral Fibre and put on menial duties. Shamed yes, but suffering a fate somewhat less than if they had been serving Fuhrer or Generalissimo.
The Nazis were thugs, from before being voted into power until convicted at Nuremberg. They were more preoccupied with exterminating National Identities than retaining them. You need to get real. 'Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.'

[LFittNI]

Brakes...Beer has it entirely correct.
The Strategic Bombing Survey carried out by the US DoD just after the war is the cause of the oft-repeated myth that German war-economy was hardly affected until the very later stages.
This survey, which the (later to be highly distinguished) economist JK Galbraith had a heavy hand in structuring, has been largely discredited.
In essence, the economic models and assumptions used were too closed and inclusive, so that the results did not take account of the (truly massive) economic resources required to keep Germany functioning at all. That is in addition to the points already made in other posts regarding the diversion of military effort to defend "der Heimat".
The German reserves of gold and hard convertible currencies (a large proportion of which was of course looted) stored in Swiss banks (and there's another disgraceful episode) which were used to buy raw materials had started to run out in 1943-4. So, there were example effects such as large production figures for Me109's being rendered useless due to deficiencies such as lack of fuel to fly and train with, rubber for tyres, crystals and valves for their radios.

[blueplume]

"I for one do not believe in targetting civilians per se, but as has been said the Germans decided to bomb our cities first."

The german military/Hitler, not the civilian population. At the risk of being branded an apologist, which I definitely am not, I have to say that no population as a whole can ever be blamed for the decisions taken by the selct few at the top who confer in secret. That the german military machine bombed British cities is not questioned, it happened. It was bad. The bombing of german cities was just as bad but it helped to to bring about the downfall of the regime. This does not make it better. Such is life.

Would the Iranians be right to blame Iraqis as a whole for the bloodshed suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein because he felt justified to start a war against them?

Yes, those who died fighting to prevent an unpalatable future should be remembered and those that survived should be honoured because it was all rather difficult and unpleasant.

[You want it when?]

A different time, with different values and diferent pressures. To even have the temerity to 2nd guess the situation then is total bollocks. I don't care how well researched or how many "I was there" statements it just is not possible to judge history with todays ethics.

Having said that.

Bomber command served, and served well. They deserve kudos and not brick-bats.

I'm proud of my parentage, those who served (and died) and those who get very very very drunk before they spill the beans. My children wear their poppies with pride - currently 'cos I ask them too but soon because they will won't too. And if they don't - that's their choice too.

[PTT]

A different time, with different values and diferent pressures. To even have the temerity to 2nd guess the situation then is total bollocks. I don't care how well researched or how many "I was there" statements it just is not possible to judge history with todays ethics.

Absolutely and entirely agree. We cannot judge yesterday's actions based on today's morality. If we could, then as a corrollary we could judge today's actions by yesterday's morality, and I seriously doubt that much of popuar culture and fashion would stand up to scrutiny. :eek:

Bloody well done Bomber Command. :ok:

[endplay]

I wholeheartedly agree with the view that bomber command's sacrifice and efforts should not be demeaned by pink coloured hindsight but I have a question regarding Churchill and "The Few".
I've always taken this to be a reference to the BoB fighter pilots but this thread has led me to look at the speech in more detail. It seems to me that he was referring to bomber command in at least equal measure, arguably more so than fighter command.
Has my understanding of "The Few" been wrong for the past 39 years or has history somehow distorted the meaning of the speech. I reproduce the relevant paragraph here to save anyone the googling effort. (Apologies if this is seen as drift)

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain."

Edit: 39 years is time served by the way and not, unfortunately, my age.

[Chugalug2]

Has my understanding of "The Few" been wrong for the past 39 years or has history somehow distorted the meaning of the speech.
"but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain."

Good point Endplay, I would say that we have all been suckered into this belief. The Bombing Campaign which, like the Battle of the Atlantic, lasted throughout the entire War, became non PC in the face of the Soviet Threat and the need to be chums with our NATO partner Germany. Unlike the Battle of the Atlantic, and every other major campaign fought by the British, the Bombing Campaign was the only one not to have its own medal. This slur, together with the way the CinC, 'Bomber' Harris, has been vilified by people who should know better, is a national disgrace. At least some amends could be made by striking a campaign star now. If Suez qualifies, I'm damned sure that the huge losses and very real contribution to victory by these brave men should.

[Rheinstorff]

I assume I am not the only one who thinks that we have gone too lilly livered?

Blair the other day apologised for Britains part in slavery hundreds of years ago - and campaigners complained he did not go far enough!!



I don't know about anyone else, but I'm waiting for someone to thank me for the efforts of the Royal Navy to stop slave trading. I'm not in the RN and wasn't alive (obviously) at the time, but I think I deserve to be thanked anyway.

[GPMG]

Don't be silly Rheinstorff. You should be saying sorry to everyone you meet for us Brits using slaves a couple of hundered years ago.

You could also apologise to the French for Agincourt, the Spanish for sinking their Armada and the American Indians for inflicting the yanks on them.

In fact that last one is worth apologising for :)

About time we went back over there and whipped our offspring back into line.:ok:

[tornadoken]

“The Air Forces ought all to be abolished.”
“We have seen the last of the great Commanders. Next time the competition may be to kill women and children (civil) population generally, and victory will give herself in sorry nuptials to the diligent hero who organises it on the largest (scale. Nations believing) their life is at stake will not be restrained from using any means to secure their existence.”
It's irritating when bright young things discover morality, as if their elders and betters had never been there. 1st. quote above was (ex/again to be PM) Baldwin,10/11/32 ref. The League of Nations’ Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, meeting from 2/2/32, which after failing to outlaw bombing had sought to limit its efficacy: a maximum tare weight of 6,600lb would give range or load and our first monoplane Bombers - Wellington, Hampden - were so constrained. 2nd. was Churchill,The Great War/III, 1933.
It was precisely because we did not fund a credible Deterrent that we all suffered, 1939-1945. It was precisely because we were able to deliver CBW that we only(!) suffered HE: that is what Churchill was alluding to in his Finest Hour speech: “the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” It was precisely because we were able to deliver nukes 1946-1991 that we had no cause to do so. Maybe £32Bn. has no fixed virtue for UK Defence, maybe no one weapon is above scrutiny - let's talk about all that. But twaddling on about carpet-bombing simply displays denial: a Nation under Threat - siege - will do what it takes to breakout. As one Nation, as the EU, as NATO, as a responsible Member of UN, we do not know what lies over the hill, so we must be precisely as prepared as is tolerably affordable. Writing in 1788 of the Roman Empire Gibbon had: “No State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above (1%) of its members in arms and idleness.” Japan has thrived for 50 years on Defence at 1% of GDP. They' re talking of increasing that, now.

[Chugalug2]

Absolutely and entirely agree. We cannot judge yesterday's actions based on today's morality. If we could, then as a corrollary we could judge today's actions by yesterday's morality, and I seriously doubt that much of popuar culture and fashion would stand up to scrutiny. :eek:

Bloody well done Bomber Command. :ok:

"Here, here" to your final statement PTT, but can I gently pick up on your previous one that "we cannot judge yesterday's actions based on today's morality", a point similarly made by others on this thread, and indeed elsewhere. The implication is that if WW2 were rerun with the same players, same equipment and same technology, but with "today's" rather than "yesterday's" morality, the British conduct of the war, and in particular the use of the Strategic Bomber Force, would be different. My question is simply, in what way?. The propaganda may well have represented these missions as an "eye for an eye", "reaping the whirlwind", etc. It may well be that some, such as Harris, thought that the campaign would alone bring victory by smashing civilian morale. We now know all that was specious nonsense, but that doesn't change the basic truth that this weapon was the only one that could be brought to bear by the western allies against the enemy , other than against its expeditionary and naval forces, until the invasions of Italy and France. Further it was a successful and effective weapon, as stated in this thread, in that it made these invasions possible and prevented the development and production of strategic war winning weapon systems. In short we would have lost the war without this necessary and costly effort. The fact that we smashed whole cities, rather than specific industrial and military targets, was the unavoidable effect of the overall Bomber Force capability. So again I ask why would we do different now?

[228 OCU]

This PC Bulls**t makes me seethe and is an insult to the 55,573 aircrew lost.
To all those dogooder armchair historians, who have my utter contempt, I leave you with this poem.

My brief sweet life is over, my eyes no longer see;
no summer walks, no christmas trees, no pretty girls for me.
I've got the chop, I've had it, my nightly ops are done;
Yet in another 100 years, I'll still be 21.


God bless each and every one of you.

[debsh]

Arthur Harris was not too enamoured of the Dresden order - he insisted that it be given to him in writing. He got it and always understood that the attack on East German targets was in response to demands by Joe Stalin, benevolent overlord and mass murderer, of Soviet Russia
It was Churchill who, some argue, started the denigration of Bomber Command; his Victory Speech in May 1945 praised everybody and credited all with the Defeat of Germany except Bomber Command. The Victory Honours List tossed out peerages hither and yon but pointedly excluded Harris. Like Dowding, he didn't receive promotion when just about every other military name was getting a step up the ladder (as it happened he got his MRAF a couple of days before he left the service but that's another story).
For what it is worth, Harris claimed that he refused a peerage unless his 'boys and girls' received their own campaign medal. This was to be across the board, aircrew and groundcrew alike, irrespective of gender.
The response, in essence, was that the Aircrew Europe Star served the purpose; and that it was difficult to draw the line once non-operational personnel were involved. Is the chap in the headquarters typing out words of wisdom by the Wing Commander less worthy than the guy who froze off his nuts bombing-up a Whitley?
I'm not taking sides - just summarising.
Churchill offered Harris a peerage when he (Churchill) returned to power in 1951. Bert refused with a comment along the lines that being a Lordship in South Africa was about as useful as a hippopotamus in Trafalgar Square.
And as far as morality goes, there were a good number of people who argued against the bombing offensive - including the padre at High Wycombe. He and Bert used to have exciting arguments about it . . . .

[AngloPepper]

The quoted panel at the Canadian War Museum is merely the final product after a lot of effort by the Candian Legion to get a little less revisionist history on display. Even so, I and many Canadians are not satisfied that the fight is over, as this panel continues to suggest that the Bomber Offensive was a waste of effort and did not succeed.
B..B posted some very good points against this; here are some other thoughts to ponder and, perhaps, get the CWM to admit.
Firstly, the oft-repeated claim that German war production was hardly affected is a massive mis-direction. While this is true in absolute terms, it is VERY wrong in relative terms. Allied war production continued to climb during WW2, peaking in 1945. A key objective of the Bomber Offensive was to prevent Nazi Germany achieving the same, and in large part it did so. The naval blockade contributed, as did the Resistance, but by far the greatest impact on the inability of German industry to expand was allied bombing.
Secondly, the dispersion of German indisutry left munitions more vulnerable to disruption of transportation. Attacks on infrastructure and fuel not only prevented free movement of German forces, it also badly affected industrial efficiency and destroyed finished materiel before it reached the front. The Russian and Italian Fronts benefitted from the disruption of transportation just as the western front did.
Thirdly, the contribution of a strategic campaign boosted allied morale, assured the Russians that the western allies were trying to do something, and allowed Russian industry to concentrate on tactical aircraft.
Fourthly, given the limitations of technology, the choice to bomb area targets at night was the only logical choice that Bomber Command had. Only by Bomber Command taking the fight to the enemy was the 8th AF given the breathing room to develop daylight precision bombing to the point where it was both effective and had acceptable losses. Had anyone tried unescorted daylight bombing into Germany without working up an effective escort capability, the bomber fleet would have been crippled.
Finally, a contrary note. The contribution of materiel and personnel to the bomber offensive was probably not a zero-sum game. As B..B noted, the Germans put a huge amount of personnel and equipment into defence of the Reich, but many of the AA crews were old men and boys (and girls) who could not be deployed to the front. Flak guns were a lot cheaper than bombers and had a lower attrition rate. But most importantly, bomber crews were made up of the the cream of the men available, and trained for up to 2 years before operational deployment. The cost of training these men so comprehensively for so few sorties has to be questioned; what impact on the war could 55000 elite men have had using, say, more tactical air power?
However, the skill and gallantry of those who flew in Bomber Command is beyond reproach. Their motives for taking such risks should be above question not only from a logical review of history, but more so out of respect.

[Chugalug2]

But most importantly, bomber crews were made up of the the cream of the men available, and trained for up to 2 years before operational deployment. The cost of training these men so comprehensively for so few sorties has to be questioned; what impact on the war could 55000 elite men have had using, say, more tactical air power?
However, the skill and gallantry of those who flew in Bomber Command is beyond reproach. Their motives for taking such risks should be above question not only from a logical review of history, but more so out of respect.
Thoughtful and comprehensive post AP. Since you pose the question above, may I attempt an answer? The main impact for the 55000 men themselves, I suspect, if they had been utilised in a Tactical role, would be that they would not all have perished as they did flying over Germany. But the Luftwaffe Air Fleets dedicated to the Defence of the Reich would also have been released, possibly to France, the Low Countries and Italy, as well as the Eastern Front. Fuel shortages and industrial disruption, caused by the Bomber Offensive, would not now have restricted their numbers or capability, and they would surely have maintained Air Superiority in those skies. No Italian or French landings could have succeeded. Meanwhile the Red Army would have faced an invigorated foe in terms of numbers and quality of aircraft, tanks and supplies. Finally Hitler's Scientists would have had the research and production capability to churn out the jet fighters, bombers, rockets as well as Atomic, Biological and Chemical Agents that he might have felt 'obliged' to rain down on the Soviets, ourselves, and even the US itself. In short he might have obliged us to do what we were too obstinate to do in 1940, sue for peace. Your intriguing question seems to me to emphasise the debt that we all owe to those 55,00 men, whose death was not a 'zero sum' but crucial to our freedom!