Battle of Britain

[Double Zero]

I can't be the first to think this;

Call me cynical, but whether or not a Luftwaffe crew ' got lost & bombed London, causing retiliatory attacks on Berlin ' I've always felt that this was a deliberate ruse by Churchill, which Adolph swallowed hook line & sinker, switching targets.

To put it bluntly, we could afford to lose chunks of London, but couldn't sustain airfield attacks.

Don't get me wrong, I'd vote Churchill as the greatest man of the 20th century - I'd have made the same decision, in the unlikely event I was in that position and had the balls.

Any thoughts, people, or do we have to wait X years for more freedom of information ?

[PPRuNe Pop]

According to all readings of the BoB reports it was on 23rd August 1940 a German bomber accidentally dropped bombs on London - against the express orders of Hitler not to do so.

Churchill then ordered that Berlin should be bombed. It was. Hitler then ordered that the blitz of London should begin.

[Blacksheep]

Regardless of whether London was or wasn't a target for civilian bombing at the time, other British cities were certainly subjected to regular night bombing. There is a view that the switch to daylight attacks on London docks was done in the belief that the airfields had already been put out of action and the intention may simply have been a tactic to draw the remaining fighters up. Bear in mind that Spitfires and Hurricanes could operate out of any large enough piece of agricultural land - Hurricane and Battle squadrons did so well enough in France - and many squadrons were dispersed from their main base to more primitive facilities that were difficult to locate and attack.

[FlightlessParrot]

I thought that the point about (some) airfields was that the control system had surface rooms and crucial telephone lines on airfields, and that's where the critical vulnerability was.

As for the bombing of Berlin: from what I've read, standard doctrine in the UK was deterrence; that was the point of strategic bombing. There were also groups in power who were very doubtful of the legitimacy of such a strategy. In such circumstances, it would be highly credible that Churchill, and those with him who had made the choice not to negotiate a settlement in 1940, would seize an opportunity to engage in retaliation.

Personal position: not a Churchill idolator, but I think he did the world a very great service in1940-41.

[Schiller]

Current thinking between the wars was that the bombing of cities alone would be sufficient to win a war - the Drouhet doctrine. Not everyone subscribed to the concept, but it's likely that Goering did. Arthur Harris certainly did.

[Blacksheep]

So did Harry Truman.

He was absolutely right, as it turned out.