Bomber Boys- BBC 1. [Archive]

Rail Engineer

5th Feb 2012, 23:08

The programme concentrated on Lancasters presumeably because it's the only airworthy bomber & so would make the most interesting television......these programmes are made for the consumption of the general public and so they're pitched at an appropriate level - 'Brother of Obi Wan flies the Lancaster!' - if you want a true historical perspective on Bomber Command then there are better documentaries to watch. Absolutely agree.

I watched the programme with mounting dismay as "facts" were presented in a disingenuous way, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusion, which would inevitably be wrong as a result. For example, the "facts" about area bombing would leave someone unaware of the true facts to believe that area bombing arose solely from Arthur Harris, which is not completely correct. Fortunately we did not get the usual spin about Dresden, although the reference to Churchill's now infamous memo did not reveal it had been withdrawn shortly afterwards.

The so called "surgical bomb aiming" is complete rubbish, for a whole host of reasons that anyone who has read even a small selection of books on Bomber Command in WW2 will know, and the comparison with the conditions and technology in WW2 and modern day Afghanistan are mind numbing and appear only to have been invoked simply to reinforce a left-wing perspective that the whole campaign could have concetrated on "Factories". Munitions workers are part of the armed services support - something that was sadly ignored.

The really sad thing is that there were some positives and had there been proper research it would have been potentially a very god programme but the whole thing was spoiled in my opinion by failure to present all of the facts honestly and correctly. The leaving of certain key issues in the air, presumably to allow viewers to draw their own views based on partial truths, and thus perpetuate the usual myths I find deeply offensive to the memories of those who can no longer defend themselves.

All in all yet another lost opportunity to produce an honest and accurate account of happenings which need to be seen against attitudes and conditions 70 years ago rather than against some distorted, disingenuous and completely alien Leftist-focussed agenda of the type now seen daily on the BBC.

Flying Lawyer

5th Feb 2012, 23:10

Any historian will confirm that it was a IX(B) Sqn Lancaster that dropped the bombs that sank it!Perhaps any IX Sqn historian would. ;)
Can someone please enlighten me then as to why Sqn Ldr (Retd) Tony Iveson DFC would not be telling the truth??
After all, he is ex 617 Sqn and was on the Tirpitz raid.
Or is this a Sqn rivalry thing .....You've answered your own question. It's not a matter of 'truth'. Nobody knows so veterans of both squadrons can (and do) make the claim.
The rot started well before the Tirpitz bit, comparing the bombing of Hamburg with the Nazi Extermination Camps I agree. That comparison was absurd.
I was also uncomfortable about the poorly researched and unfair references to Bomber Harris.
these programmes are made for the consumption of the general public and so they're pitched at an appropriate level. True.
The media obsession with 'celebrities' strikes yet again. :rolleyes:

BEagle

6th Feb 2012, 08:10

How would you have used Bomber Command differently to Harris?

Once H2S was in service, by switching to the bombing of counterforce rather than countervalue targets.

Heliport

6th Feb 2012, 08:30

Although Harris followed through the city bombing campaign with dogged determination, he did not conceive the idea or have any part in its discussion. The plan to switch targeting priority from precision bombing of specific targets to the area bombing of industrial centres was conceived by Air Ministry planners and supported by Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s Chief Scientific Advisor who justified the policy as the ‘dehousing’ of industrial workers. Area bombing came about as a result of the technical difficulties of precision bombing at night at that time. The policy was endorsed by Churchill and orders to carry it out were formally issued to Bomber Command before Harris (who was in America at the time the policy was decided) had taken up his command.

In fact, Harris himself did not personally believe that city bombing would affect German morale, but he did believe that by destroying German industrial cities, the Germans would eventually be unable to continue waging war.

Harris has also been criticised by his detractors for continuing city bombing when others were pressing him to concentrate on more specific strategic targets such as German oil production at a time later in the war when technical developments had made precision bombing possible. Harris did not believe that bombing specific targets like oil was the quickest way to win the war. However, he did follow his orders and put considerable effort into bombing oil refineries when weather permitted (for instance, in December 1944 and January 1945 Bomber Command dropped twice as many tons of bombs on oil targets as the USAAF). He also continued the bombing offensive against cities. This campaign was supported by Churchill and the War Cabinet until almost the end of the war and culminated in Churchill’s demand that Bomber Command attack Berlin and other large cities in East Germany.

The eastern cities of Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden were identified as targets. Bomber Command had not bombed Dresden before, despite the fact that Harris had been authorised to attack the city several months previously. He had become reluctant about the idea as he felt the long distance to Dresden, particularly in winter, would put his crews at unnecessary risk. There was also little information available about the target and its defences. However, when the specific order to bomb Dresden came through via the Air Ministry from the headquarters of General Eisenhower, the overall Allied commander, Harris was obliged to carry it out, although the fact he requested the order in writing reveals his true feelings about the operation.

Both the RAF and USAAF bombed Dresden causing a very high level of destruction and casualties. Later, Churchill issued a memo criticising ‘acts of terror and wanton destruction’ in reference to the attack. The Air Ministry and Harris were stunned by this, as it had been Churchill himself who instigated the raid. Churchill withdrew the memo but it was a sign of things to come.

Excerpt from:Commanders | Bomber Harris (http://www.rafbombercommand.com/people_commanders.html)

Jumping_Jack

6th Feb 2012, 08:37

Well, I enjoyed it for what is was, and loved the shots of the Lanc in her natural environment. The programme wasn't produced for the likes of some on here, it was produced for normal individuals...:}

Oldlae

6th Feb 2012, 08:59

Having been bombed when I was very young at Yeovil, the bombers came over in broad daylight, Junkers I think. My Dad was manning an AA gun protecting Westlands, I can still remember our house shaking when the house next but one received a direct hit.

So I never really worried about German casualties and I now see Dresden as being a victim of the shock and awe tactics of the time.

ShyTorque

6th Feb 2012, 09:00

The squabbling about "sinking" Tirpitz between the two RAF bomber squadrons always bemused me somewhat. Years before I joined the RAF I had read about the earlier disabling of the ship by midget submarines. This may have been the end of her career in any case, because she may already have been sitting on the bottom before the RAF got involved at all.

PTR 175

6th Feb 2012, 09:11

I personally enjoyed the program for what it was, as others have said it was not a documentary about the Lancaster.

The only thing which was glossed over, in my opinion, was the first two years of the war i.e before the Lancaster. The bombing was carried out by, as, one poster has said already, Stirlings and Halifax. One aircraft not mentioned at all if my ears did not let me down was the Wellington. It may have only had 2 engines but it did a great job for Bomber Command throughout the war. In fact I believe it was the only bomber built for the duration. The punishment it could take was also legendary, thanks to its structure.

Chugalug2

6th Feb 2012, 09:22

Beagle:
Once H2S was in service, by switching to the bombing of counterforce rather than countervalue targets.
For all the scientific aids that BC had at its disposal, it was from start to finish a very blunt instrument. The reason that it bombed cities was because it could find them at night, with luck. Crews survived an average of as little as 7 missions so the more experienced ones that beat that statistic led the others as Pathfinders using Oboe, H2S etc, to mark the target. Even so it was a crude but effective weapon, fit for smashing cities, de-housing and killing the population and hence disrupting war production. It meant at least that on D-Day the Allies could wade ashore unhindered by the Luftwaffe which would otherwise have made a closely run thing a disaster. It is very easy for us these days to suggest that they should have switched targeting, been more precise, been more effective. Harris knew that he had been given a club to wield. He used it as such.

Whenurhappy

6th Feb 2012, 09:22

I watched last night with mixed feelings. Although it had a good 'narrative', supported by great imagery, it was also selective, with only one en passant mention of the other 'heavies' (and no mention of their proportionately higher casualty rates). This compares with the Battle of Britain Spitfire myth. Moreover, I was a little disturbed at the moral equivalency of comparing the death camps with the area bombing campaign. After all, it was total War, and as one of the AGs stated, 'they started it!'.

Coincidentally, I was back in the UK last week and picked up a copy of Sir Arthur Harris's 'Bomber Offensive' which he wrote in 1947 (Oxfam - GBP 2.99). It is a cracking read - his description of pre-war and waritme inter-service rivalries would ring true today. He also gives particular attention to the merits of area bombing (well, he would, wouldn't he?) by describing the industrial dislocation that the campaign caused (and backed up by OPRE and the US Strategic Bombing Survey). It cross-references well with the post war interrogations of Speer and Goering, amongst others (see Richard Overy's chilling book 'Interrogations'). One point to recall (again, hardly mentioned last night) was that this was a Combined Bomber Offensive, with the aims and objectives agreed by the US and UK. Having spent time in Germany and researched some of the local aspects of the CBO, I soon learned that the dislocation spread to the remotest parts of the country, due to huge population and industrial displacement - and the concommitant load on the assailed transport infrastructure. I also spoke with one old dear who 'preferred' to be bombed at night by the RAF - as she claimed these raids were more accurate in Upper Bavaria than daytime USAAF raids (supported by the evidence on the round-the-clock raids on Memmingen night-fighter clusters, for example).

Poltergeist

6th Feb 2012, 09:27

I also enjoyed the programme and the arguments about the morals of bombing in war I will leave to those who feel it will make a difference now - I will oly add that I believe that what was done was done in the belief that it was the way to proceed with what was available.

I think it is shameful however, that it is only now that the crews get recognition for what they did in the countries name. Churchill was wrong to exclude them and no memorial for such a long time is a national disgrace IMHO

1.3VStall

6th Feb 2012, 10:16

Poltergeist,

I'm with you.

People may debate the rights and wrongs of the bombing campaign with the benefit of 100% hindsight until the cows come home.

However, what needs never to be forgotten are the deeds of young men who went out night after night into peril knowing their chances of survival were minimal. That it has taken so long to honour them, and in particular the 55,573 who perished, is a national scandal. I look forward to the opening of the memorial later this year.

And, by the way, it was IX (B) Sqn that sank the Tirpitz - the "junior squadron" was merely in attendance!

Pheasant

6th Feb 2012, 10:45

Get real guys. The film was about the McGregors and the people that flew the aircraft, the rest was infill accurate or not.

Was the campaign controversial? - yes
Was Bomber Harris controversial? - Yes
Was the programme controversial (for some)? - Yes

So what.

Re recognition - be grateful, had a monument been built earlier it would probably have been a small plinth somewhere. You now have an f-ing great thing that takes up half of Picadilly right outside the RAF Club - Bomber would be impressed.

PS My late Dad was in Bomber Command during the war and decorated for it. He was not proud of what he did to civilians in any sense and would be horrified at what is being built in London. He would say it should have been built at the National Arboretum.

langleybaston

6th Feb 2012, 11:00

Very few of those of us on the ground in England during the war saw, and now see, much wrong with carrying the war to our equivalents in Germany.

Our previous house [we moved a few miles just before war] was flattened, I spent many nights in shelters and in village halls, I was personally shot at by a front gunner on a tip and run, and my father flew his barrage balloon [Fighter Command oddly enough] over Coventry during the infamous raid. He saw sights that night that scarred his dreams for the rest of his long life.
Later in the war I was without my father for three years [North Africa] and I saw more V1s going past than you could shake a stick at.
When D Day came and the armadas flew over, there were people crying with joy in the street. We made no distinction between Germany and Nazi Germany, and it is a somewhat artificial distinction: until the bombs fell in the major cities, I believe the German on the Potsdam omnibus was all for knocking off little England.
War is war, scruples are for afterwards. I feel that, if you weren't there, you don't have a valid viewpoint.

Flightmech

6th Feb 2012, 11:16

Who does "Brother of Obi-wan" currently fly for in the commercial world? Enjoyed the programme but most disappointed that at no point did Charlie Boorman appear carrying Ewans bags or helping him zip into his flying suit.:E

Chugalug2

6th Feb 2012, 11:38

Pheasant:
Get real guys. The film was about the McGregors and the people that flew the aircraft, the rest was infill accurate or not.
I profoundly disagree with you. The Brothers McGregor may think it was about them just as many people seem to think it was about the Lancaster. Both were merely a means to an end, to peddle 66 year old propaganda that far outweighs anything that Goebbels or Lord Haw Haw could have come up with in terms of pernicious falsehood. A generation brought up on GPS in mobile phones can have little concept of the challenge that night navigation for Main Force was. Ewan's minute out at a lighthouse in broad daylight gives the slightest idea of the difficulties faced by those very young men.
As to your patronising comment that we should be grateful for "a f...ing great thing that takes up half of Picadilly", personally I'm grateful to Robin Gibb, without whom we would still be waiting a century after the event I suspect.

F14

6th Feb 2012, 11:45

The BBC program makers fell into the classic trap of all Bomber/WW1 & WW2 documentaries in the last 20 years. Trying to use late 20th/21 century "moral values", to judge the actions of 70 years earlier. I wonder what the lads of bomber command would have thought of the effectiveness of our efforts in Afghanistan over the past 10 years.

Stick to "The World at War" format, leave the viewer, if he wishes to reflect on the moral implications.

Last night would have been much better to deal with the brief story of the development of bomber command & interviews with the veterans (not the usual BBC, "You fought in WW2, how did it feel" type questions). Maybe a more detailed look at how the developments led to modern aviation safety systems. ATC, radar, low vis landing systems, search and rescue. I always think of Leonard Cheshire as interesting character of the time who deserves some of the limelight, his contribution to the Bomber Effort and his charitable efforts after the war. Even Churchill fell foul of this in the 5/7/1945 General election losing 190 seats....

Also I never heard of Sir Charles Portal last night. I have always been under the impression area bombing was his idea? And Harris was merely in charge of the Operations of RAF Bomber Command in european theatre. He took the can after the war due to political naivety, historically common with wartime figures.

On a positive thought, it was beautifully shot in HD and the McGregors did a good job linking it together.

And as a final thought, what was the "inserted" section about Afghanistan for? :ugh:

millerscourt

6th Feb 2012, 12:05

I was apalled when McGregor was speaking to the Tornado Flight Commander in Afghanistan who said that when they encounter the insurgents they fly low over them in order to show them that our dog is bigger than theirs. Surely there is no point in not attacking them as otherwise they live to fight another day. I thought we were supposed to be killing the insurgents? Have I missed something here?

Wycombe

6th Feb 2012, 12:13

Ah, but being gentlemanly chaps (...ruled over by politicians would rather talk about our chaps in such tones), the "show of force" is a neat way of saying "we warned you we were here, so what follows next is of your own choosing".

It's the British way, isn't it?

MMHendrie1

6th Feb 2012, 12:25

Bomber Boys seemed to me to be aimed at giving long overdue recognition to the RAF Bomber Command aircrew who were treated shamefully by their country. Their losses were appalling: 55,573 out of the 125,000 aircrew who served in the Command. And the manner of their passing was often frightful.

Shown on prime time television, the programme was aimed at a largely lay audience to highlight the sacrifices of young men charged with a terrible duty. They were trained to do a job which they did to the very best of their abilities knowing the risks and their chances while suspecting the appalling reality of their likely end.

For much of World War II, it was RAF Bomber Command that was the only realistic means of taking the fight to an enemy who knew only Total War and who waged it unmercifully.

Yes, it would have been nice to hear a little more about the Battles and the Blenheims, the Hampdens and the Wellingtons, the Stirlings and the Halifaxes, but perhaps this was not the programme to tell that story. If it had tried to it may not have had the same wide appeal to the public at large.

The reality is that for countless numbers of people the Lancaster will always be associated with the Bomber Offensive just as the Spitfire will always be credited with ‘winning’ the Battle of Britain. And as far as who did what to the Tirpitz, then that discussion is best continued at Happy Hours at Lossiemouth or Marham, or between the RAF and the RN. And I am sure that it will be for many years to come.

Last night’s story was about the sacrifice of a generation of young men, many of them in their teens. It was not meant to fuel or to close a debate about the merits of the area bombing of German cities during WWII versus so-called precision bombing of targets in Germany, which was often nothing of the sort.

But for those of us who have relied upon the comfort of a nuclear umbrella, under successive governments, it seems slightly hypocritical to seek the moral high ground when discussing area bombing.

For me, Bomber Boys was not about a bloke called Harris or someone called Churchill, or even about Ewan McGregor (although both brothers eloquently told a long-overdue story). Bomber Boys was about some ordinary blokes who were called upon to do extraordinary things. And then they were forgotten.

I say well done the BBC, and the McGregors, for remembering such a generation.

F14

6th Feb 2012, 12:27

The Afghan BBC propaganda piece shouldn't have been there. Strange that this week BBC also reported 9% increase in civilian deaths from air attacks.

BBC News - Afghan civilian deaths rise for fifth year, says UN (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-16883917)

Must have been the americans again or hacked drones :oh:

Lower Hangar

6th Feb 2012, 12:47

Enduring image (not seen it before) that Lanc ploughing on at hi-level with its stbd inboard engine clearly ablaze

goudie

6th Feb 2012, 12:48

We made no distinction between Germany and Nazi Germany, and it is a somewhat artificial distinction:

I agree LB. I get annoyed when no mention is made of just ordinary Germans waging war. They are referred to as either Nazi's, Nazi Germany or Hitler's Germany, as if they were a particular breed of German. In fact, the majority of Germans were supportive of the Nazi's even if they were not actual members of the Party, at least when it looked as if they might be successful. When the war turned against them they somehow became 'victims' of and evil regime and the consequences of it's warring policies.
Furthermore if the Allies had not been able to stop them, the V2's had the capability to totally destroy London and beyond. And, given the chance, the Germans would have done just that with no qualms whatsoever.

Tankertrashnav

6th Feb 2012, 12:52

Blimey, post 50, and so far no-one's brought up the old chestnut about Bomber Command being "denied a medal" after the war. Seems like the fact that no such denial ever took place is finally getting through.

Haven't seen the programme yet, but got it recorded. Having read through the thread I have a fair idea of what to expect and I'm in no particular rush to watch it - it can wait for the next wet Sunday. That said, the interviews with Bomber Command veterans will, I am sure, be worth watching.

Pontius Navigator

6th Feb 2012, 12:56

Show of Force is a gentle way of doing it.

It is not new.

Miss PN. studying air power, found an IO's report asking for a pilot to be courts martialled.

The ROE required that no ordnance be expended at a particular village unless there was a request for CAS or they were known hostile.

The pilot's report said he saw obvious signs of preparation for an ambush but had no way of warning an friendly column approaching the village. He gave a SOF overflying the village at very low level. Eventually, after 2 1/2 hours they shot at him and he bombed them.

The IO wanted him CMd for breaking ROE.

That was in Mesopotamia in the '20s.

P6 Driver

6th Feb 2012, 13:05

Apart from the aerial shots, which I enjoyed a lot and were well filmed, for me the real stars of the programme were the veterans themselves.

We should bear in mind that age is catching them up fast and they won't be around for much longer in the big scheme of things. It doesn't seem long ago that many people were talking about the last surviving WW1 people - we will soon be saying the same relating to WW2 survivors. Make the most of these people while we can...

Flightmech

6th Feb 2012, 13:08

"A blob on the knob means d-mob". The old vets chuckled at that one;)

26er

6th Feb 2012, 13:16

A couple of months back I had a decorator working in my house. He told me his father in law had been on 617 Sqn in 1944. The following day he produced his logbook and DFC. He was a W.O. bomb aimer and had flown on two raids against Tirpitz; the first was unsuccesful and they had operated from Murmansk. For the second try his logbook was annotated "one Tallboy - direct hit" for which he was awarded the DFC, or at least he received it shortly after. He seemed not to have flown again after the end of December 1944. By that time he had completed one and a half operational tours. Neither my decorator or his wife knew much about the man as he hadn't spoken of his wartime experiences and this information came to light after he had died.

He had entered several holiday flights in his logbook, naming the captains, coincidentally a couple of whom had been colleagues of mine. I suggested that the current 617 guys might be interested but whether that was acted upon I don't know.

seafuryfan

6th Feb 2012, 13:24

The heading used by one of the veterans in the program is constantly in the back of my mind when I study the period:

'Total War.'

The sacrifices and destruction resulting were understood by most of the population at the time, all the more so after the raid on Coventry.

I felt the programme did a good job in contextualising events for the younger generations.

Climebear

6th Feb 2012, 13:37

millerscourt
I thought we were supposed to be killing the insurgents? Have I missed something here?

You may well have missed the evolution of COIN doctrine from bitter experience (or having forgotton the previous lessons of Malaya etc). Our role is not to kill insurgents but to assist in the provision of a political settlement that will lead to stability. Just killing every insurgent is counter-productive to this aim.

Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40 Security and Stabilisation: The Military Contribution (http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/C403A6C7-E72C-445E-8246-D11002D7A852/0/20091201jdp_40UDCDCIMAPPS.pdf) (published on the internet) provides more context - some relevent quotes:

The military may have been guilty, too, of failing to appreciate the wider contributions made to stabilisation by civil agencies. Stabilisation campaigns require endurance and patience. At times observing and shaping, rather than engaging in aggressive operations, may be the best approach. This can be difficult for a military which expects to deliver rapid, ideally decisive results; just one of the paradoxes that these types of conflict present.

Militaries have a bias for high-tempo, kinetic operations to defeat the enemy. Such approaches, critical to success in war, can be counter-productive in stabilisation. Properly applied force, however, can gain moral and physical ascendancy over an adversary. As operations to secure the support of the people must necessarily be conducted amongst them, risk that would normally be mitigated by the use of force may be unavoidable. The consequences of collateral damage can erode any advantage gained by a military strike against a hostile group. Commanders will need to manage this risk by balancing three competing demands: limiting military casualties by stand-off and high levels of force protection; engaging with the population in order to develop understanding and trust; and implanting in the mind of the adversary a sense of personal risk and uncertainty.

It is better to modify behaviour by coercion than by using force. This needs a subtle combination of threats and incentives that allows the commander to retain control without losing the initiative or public support. Demonstrations of force, without resorting to its use, can also have a powerful deterrent effect. This may allow us to secure areas without fighting.

Gas_Monkey

6th Feb 2012, 14:37

Flightmech, why don't you ask him? He is on here.

Flightmech

6th Feb 2012, 14:40

Gas Monkey, I would have if i had known.

millerscourt

6th Feb 2012, 14:46

Climebear

What applied in Malaya against Communists is totally different in my view against the Taliban as they are not interested in a political settlement no matter how many we kill or just frighten momentarily with a low pass in a Tornado, which is why we should not be there in the first place. Just looking at the history of Afghanistan should tell you that.

If the Taliban had not given Bin Laden a refuge to set up training camps then they would have been in power still as they were supported by Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia and they would have been left to their own devices.

Blacksheep

6th Feb 2012, 14:54

Just a quick return to the Dresden controversy, this is the brief summary of a research paper I once submitted on the subject. . .

Since 1945, Dresden has been used to beat the RAF about its conduct of "terror bombing" during WW2. Many sources claim that Dresden was merely a quiet peaceable little medieval town going about its business and waiting for the war to end. In fact it was a major industrial centre and rail junction. As it was stated in the Dresden City Council Yearbook of 1942 - “Anyone who knows Dresden only as a cultural city would be very surprised to be made aware of the extensive and versatile activity that make Dresden one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich”.

There were 127 factories in the Dresden municipal area, most of which were converted to war production from their former peace time use. Some examples: Zeiss turned out bomb sights, u-boat periscopes and time fuses. A former typewriter and sewing machine factory made guns and ammunition and a catering machine factory switched to producing torpedoes for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. Arts and crafts workshops in the old town were making tail assemblies for V-1s. Other factories were turning out searchlights, aircraft components and field communications equipment. From the Dresden Chamber of Commerce in 1944 - "The work rhythm of Dresden is determined by the needs of our army." (The famous “Dresden” China was, as it always has been, made 12 mile away in Meisen).

During the Yalta conference in February 1945, at the Chiefs of Staff meeting, General Antonov specifically asked that the Dresden railway junction be bombed. Records held at the Public Records office in Kew confirm this request. General Antonov wanted Dresden attacked because it was a German base of operations against Marshall Koniev`s left flank that stood in the way of his advance into Germany. The troop reinforcement and transport centre shifted 28 troop trains a day through the marshalling yards. This is also confirmed in intelligence reports held in the Public Records office in Kew. Besides the physical contribution to the Eastern front, Dresden was a communications centre through which most telephone and telegraph lines connecting High Command to the southern flank of the Eastern front passed.

Finally, and most convincingly, captured German High Command documents from Berlin in 1945 state that "Dresden is to be fortified as a military strongpoint, to be held at all costs." British wartime records that were only recently de-classified reveal that this was known to the British and Russian commanders, as the orders to the German local defence commander were intercepted and deciphered by Ultra at Bletchley Park.

If you look at a satellite view of Dresden you will see that the enormous railway junction is, somewhat unusually for such facilities, slap bang in the middle of the city. You can call it carpet bombing of a purely civilian target if you wish to incriminate those responsible, or you can research it yourself and determine if Dresden was in fact a legitimate military target. The facts, when you look them up properly, support the latter conclusion.

500N

6th Feb 2012, 15:13

langleybaston

Your description is exactly like my Grand mother described it,
shelters, bombings etc. She was also shot up by a Stuka in Croydon, it saw her and my Aunt, came down low but luckily put the bullets either side of them.

Blacksheep
My Grand parents said that although Dresden was not nice, they
just pointed out all the houses around where they lived - Croydon
that were flattened by bombers or V1's as well as the rest of the
City of London.
.

Brian 48nav

6th Feb 2012, 15:13

I was going to post the story behind a painting I had admired in an exhibition at Shaftesbury some 15 years ago,but the artist Ron Homes, the pilot of the Lancaster, tells it so eloquently himself.

Google Ronald Homes artist and read it for yourselves. Click on 'A night to remember'.

I've met Ron a few times at exhibitions, particularly as my wife has exhibited with him, and he is a typical man of that generation,quiet and unassuming. I first saw the painting before he had a website and had to drag the story out of him.

Amazing that after WW2 he went back to art school. He kept in touch with all of his crew for the rest of their lives, I believe the first member to pass away was about the time we met Ron in the late 90s.

Pontius Navigator

6th Feb 2012, 15:43

TTN, nawty boy, now go and sit at the back of the class.

A generation brought up on GPS in mobile phones can have little concept of the challenge that night navigation for Main Force was.

Ah, the joys of automatic airplot. Imagine if you will the aircraft performing a number of corkscrews until hopefully slipping back towards target or home. The Navigator plotting a wind vector from the API to establish a DR position. Then trying to spot something for a pinpoint or construct an MPP from a solitary G-line.

The evasive manoeuvres would have played havok with the compasses.

Final observation though, at the end he said of AFG Collateral damage is not acceptable. In my Cold War talks I conclude Collateral damage was a bonus.

500N

6th Feb 2012, 15:54

Brian
Thanks for that. An inspiring read.

Re "Originally Posted by Chugalug2 http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/475640-bomber-boys-bbc-1-a-post7002828.html#post7002828)
A generation brought up on GPS in mobile phones can have little concept of the challenge that night navigation for Main Force was."

Most have little idea of navigation full stop, let alone night navigation.
If a nice female computer voice isn't telling them when and which was to turn,
they get lost ! LOL

Tankertrashnav

6th Feb 2012, 16:24

TTN, nawty boy, now go and sit at the back of the class.

Please sir, why sir, what did I say sir? ;)

Earlier in the thread, bnt compared Ewan MacGregor's performance as equivalent to overshooting Berlin by 20 miles. Quite frankly I am sure that earlier on, before the introduction of the Pathfinder force equipped with Oboe and H2s, navigation errors such as this would have been commonplace. Having practised "night limited" navigation in the Victor with nothing but a sextant as a navaid, I have on occasions managed not a lot better than this in a very stable platform with nobody trying to shoot me down. Factor in lower level turbulence, flak and night fighter avoidance then such errors after several hours of night flying over hostile territory do not seem at all remarkable. I have the highest regard for the skills of that generation of navigators and think they achieved some amazing results with the equipment available.

foldingwings

6th Feb 2012, 16:29

the "show of force" is a neat way of saying "we warned you we were here, so what follows next is of your own choosing".

It's called a harassment mission and we've been doing it for decades. Op PULSATOR (Buccs over Beirut) was a classic example but we used to 'harass' ships in the ASuW role and in the 2ATAF scenarios in Germany too!

On the subject of Dresden, having recently visited the city and read the book 'DRESDEN, 13 February 1945' by Frederick Taylor I believe that I am right in saying that Dresden was never on the target list until the Soviets (as stated last night on the programme) asked for it to be brought into the list to ease pressure on the Eastern Front by stemming the flow of reinforcements eastwards through Dresden railhead. (By the way, all the Gothic architecture destroyed has been rebuilt by the communist East Germans - not the Russians who told their new puppet regime that they had got what they deserved on 13 Feb 45!).

Foldie:ok:

Scruffy Fanny

6th Feb 2012, 17:18

The trouble with all these Forums is no one ever seems happy what ever you do. I for one was moved to tears- Those guys were so brave it begs belief. I went to Brooklands 3 weeks ago and met a Hampden/ wellington Pilot he ws in his 90s what a humbling experience i could have sat all day and chatted to him i just wanted to know what it was like. For me i thought the brothers were fantastic although i am a bit perplexed. A DC3 probably flies 120kts and if Ewan was 60 seconds early surely he would have been out by 2 miles???- I know my time at 6 FTS was nearly 30 years ago but surely I'm not going mad ??

Pontius Navigator

6th Feb 2012, 17:35

Please sir, why sir, what did I say sir? ;)

Blimey, post 50, and so far no-one's brought up the old chestnut

I am sure that earlier on, before the introduction of the Pathfinder force equipped with Oboe and H2s, navigation errors such as this would have been commonplace.

Having read some of our sqn 540, the errors early on were +/-5 miles if you were lucky and also subject to creep back. In 1944, as a Lancaster pathfinder sqn the accuracy was 400 yards.

We must remember though that their night nav was wholly different from the V-Force. The V-force was a 24hr a day mission whereas Bomber Command then could largely chose the time and place. Early on they had to pick clear moonlit nights looking for shine on water features. Only with the advent of electronic aides and sky marking could they bomb through cloud and navigate on dark nights.

BEagle

6th Feb 2012, 17:39

Lightening the mood a tad - Foldie, did you try the Sophienkeller? After visiting the stunning restoration of the Dresden Frauenkirche (which is a must), a good session in the S-keller is to be recommended!

See http://www.sophienkeller-dresden.de/download/2012/Speisekarte_SK-ZH_2012.pdf

Georgeablelovehowindia

6th Feb 2012, 18:04

"Remember that these crews, shining youth on the threshold of life, lived under circumstances of intolerable strain. They were in fact - and they knew it - faced with the virtual certainty of death, probably in one of its least pleasant forms. They knew, well enough, that they owed their circumstances to the stupidity, negligence and selfishness of the older generation who since 1918 had done little to avert another war and even less to prepare for it."

ARTHUR HARRIS

Part of his introduction to Enemy Coast Ahead.

foldingwings

6th Feb 2012, 18:38

Fitter2

6th Feb 2012, 18:41

As I understood it, he said a 1 minute error on that leg length equated to a 20 mile error at Berlin.

BEagle

6th Feb 2012, 18:42

And he of a Scottish education too!

Surely an oxymoron?

Did I hear right? Did Ewan MacGregor actually say that (at 120 kts) one minute early would equate to a 20 nm error!!!

He did indeed say that, although I think he meant statute miles. Mark you, he also kissed his own brother :yuk: on TV.

Courtney Mil

6th Feb 2012, 18:43

Bloody brave blokes, did what they were told (as we should) by people that thought they were doing the best for our country (as they should). Too late to second guess them. Just enjoy the series.

Wensleydale

6th Feb 2012, 18:45

Did I hear right? Did Ewan MacGregor actually say that (at 120 kts) one minute early would equate to a 20 nm error!!!

He did you know, and nobody picked him up on it! And he of a Scottish education too!

Foldie:rolleyes:

Yes, but a trip to Berlin was 10 times further than the leg that he had just flown, so the error extrapolates to 20 nm from 2 nm.

Listen up there at the front!

PPRuNe Pop

6th Feb 2012, 18:52

According to 617 Squadron Operations from 1943 - 1945. There is no doubt that she was sunk by 617 Sqdn - on 11th/23rd September and on 28th October she was hit again, this time with 4 tallboys. Tony Iveson was involved in all three raids. He had two hits.

Tony Iveson joined the RAF in 1939(?) and was a sergeant pilot in 616 and 92 Squadrons during the BoB. He reached the rank of S/L whilst serving with 617.

I was of an age when I could realize what was being done to us here on the ground in the war. All I 'wanted' then was the RAF to give something back the Germans would remember. There was enough in abundance and I shall be forever grateful to these guys in the air. ONE THIRD of a whole air force to be lost as a volunteer takes some thinking about.

That Bomber Command memorial in Green Park will say it all I am sure.

foldingwings

6th Feb 2012, 19:37

As I understood it, he said a 1 minute error on that leg length equated to a 20 mile error at Berlin.

Only if he never took another fix, which would be an unlikely scenario with Gee available and pinpoints on coast in even at night!

Beags: acknowledged fact! Anyway, I thought the definition of an oxymoron was a flying instructor in Oxfordshire! Yah, Boo, Sucks to you!!

Foldie:p

BEagle

6th Feb 2012, 19:45

You can be SUCH a bitch, Foldie....:p

Hope you enjoyed Dresden - a few years back I spent many a day there working at Elbeflugzeugwerke.

Pontius Navigator

6th Feb 2012, 19:56

According to 617 Squadron Operations from 1943 - 1945. There is no doubt that she was sunk by 617 Sqdn

They would say that, wouldn't they?

M R-D :)

WarmandDry

6th Feb 2012, 21:14

First wave on Tirpitz 617 Sqn, second wave IX Sqn. Bomb camera film from 9 Sqn clearly show the Tirpitz still firing. Evidence, evidence!

PPRuNe Pop

6th Feb 2012, 21:19

PN no they wouldn't. It is written in Squadron Operations. As for 9 Squadron I haven't got a clue. I will try to find something. Can't take the glory, well a small amount of it, if they did can we.

TheWizard

6th Feb 2012, 21:26

War is war, scruples are for afterwards. I feel that, if you weren't there, you don't have a valid viewpoint.

Not really much more can be said than that IMHO.

fernytickles

7th Feb 2012, 01:36

Finally managed to get the gadget to work & watched the program this evening. Really enjoyed it - listening to those lovely engines start up, listening to the gentlemen who flew in the plane, and the one who shot at them. Very moving.

Blacksheep

7th Feb 2012, 06:57

Barnes Wallis sank the Tirpitz. The Lancasters were his delivery system. ;)

airborne_artist

7th Feb 2012, 07:44

All that said, it was great to hear the old boys talking about the war. I just wish they had been given more air time because, as we on Pprune know, they have so much more to say!

What was left on the cutting room floor would have filled another 20 hours I suspect, and would have been riveting to hear.

stickandrudderman

7th Feb 2012, 07:56

I enjoyed it very much.
here's why:
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/289542-rare-sight.html#post3498855

Incidentally, the chap who's name I couldn't remember was Jack Hawkins.

Jumping_Jack

7th Feb 2012, 08:03

I sank the Tirpitz....and so did my wife! :rolleyes:

Bubblewindow

7th Feb 2012, 08:18

I sank the Tirpitz....and so did my wife!
:}

Hope Im not stepping on toes here but from a total outsiders point of view regards to the Tripitz. Shouldn't it be the outcome that's celebrated rather than who pushed the bomb release that's argued?

BW

glojo

7th Feb 2012, 08:21

My own thoughts are that I usually enjoy watching documentaries but I am wise enough, old enough and ugly enough to accept that they will usually frustrate those that have a detailed knowledge of that specific topic

Is it fair to suggest that:

a) This program MUST be entertaining

b) It will be shown in a way that will reflect the opinion of those making the program

c) Experts or anaroks that watch this item will tear it to pieces

d) Licence is usually used in descriptions, images or names... I watch documentaries depicting Naval events and we regularly see footage of ships that were the wrong class, the wrong country or even the wrong time era. I know that but Mr Joe Public would not and they still enjoy watching the program.

d) Bottom line is that I usually find them entertaining and it provokes me into researching the topic to get a better in sight

ENJOY the program for what it was and forgive those that may have got certain parts of it incorrect. At least they called the aircraft by its right name and always showed the correct type

As an outsider looking in, I enjoyed the program, I certainly did NOT get the impression it was critical of anyone.

Rather than post a link I have copied this message as it deserves a second hearing.

Bomber Boys seemed to me to be aimed at giving long overdue recognition to the RAF Bomber Command aircrew who were treated shamefully by their country. Their losses were appalling: 55,573 out of the 125,000 aircrew who served in the Command. And the manner of their passing was often frightful.

Shown on prime time television, the programme was aimed at a largely lay audience to highlight the sacrifices of young men charged with a terrible duty. They were trained to do a job which they did to the very best of their abilities knowing the risks and their chances while suspecting the appalling reality of their likely end.

For much of World War II, it was RAF Bomber Command that was the only realistic means of taking the fight to an enemy who knew only Total War and who waged it unmercifully.

Yes, it would have been nice to hear a little more about the Battles and the Blenheims, the Hampdens and the Wellingtons, the Stirlings and the Halifaxes, but perhaps this was not the programme to tell that story. If it had tried to it may not have had the same wide appeal to the public at large.

The reality is that for countless numbers of people the Lancaster will always be associated with the Bomber Offensive just as the Spitfire will always be credited with ‘winning’ the Battle of Britain. And as far as who did what to the Tirpitz, then that discussion is best continued at Happy Hours at Lossiemouth or Marham, or between the RAF and the RN. And I am sure that it will be for many years to come.

Last night’s story was about the sacrifice of a generation of young men, many of them in their teens. It was not meant to fuel or to close a debate about the merits of the area bombing of German cities during WWII versus so-called precision bombing of targets in Germany, which was often nothing of the sort.

But for those of us who have relied upon the comfort of a nuclear umbrella, under successive governments, it seems slightly hypocritical to seek the moral high ground when discussing area bombing.

For me, Bomber Boys was not about a bloke called Harris or someone called Churchill, or even about Ewan McGregor (although both brothers eloquently told a long-overdue story). Bomber Boys was about some ordinary blokes who were called upon to do extraordinary things. And then they were forgotten.

I say well done the BBC, and the McGregors, for remembering such a generation.

green granite

7th Feb 2012, 09:07

Well said and quoted glojo

saudih

7th Feb 2012, 09:18

:ok: Ay to that Glojo.

Whilst IX and 617 will never agree on who sank the Tirpitz, IX Sqn do have the honour of being the only Tornado Sqn to have lost the "Bulkhead".

:E

1.3VStall

7th Feb 2012, 10:02

Saudih - but only because the staish at the time was ex-OC 6 foot seven and allowed an "inside job".

saudih

7th Feb 2012, 10:18

Allowed an Inside Job?

It took the RAFP 2 days to discover the window that was missing in the crewroom.

By which time the Bulkhead was in the UK, the tools used were back in the Dutch hire shop, and OC 617's NO 1 was pressed and ready for his pending interview....

pontifex

7th Feb 2012, 12:03

Having just read this thread from start to finish in one go, I have to say that I am impressed at the small degree of thread creep. Even the Tirpitz issue can be excused as it was featured in the programme.

I think one of the more telling comments is that it is pointless to compare contemporary opinion with current PC thoughts. I, too, grew up during the war, and in Croydon too. I can still vividly remember cowering in the Anderson shelter during a raid with my father pacing up and down outside muttering "bastards - bastards ------" whilst my mother and I were beseeching him to get inside. I, too was shot at on the way to school by a marauding aircraft. Lousy aiming - it killed a horse in a nearby field! And I can remember being paniced by a salvo of V1s on the way home one day. No-one in my family had the slightest doubt that our bombing offensive was the way to go and that the more Germans that perished the better. Later when I was training in Canada and came in contact with some or the new Luftwaffer pilots doing jet conversions (all ex wartime pilots), I found that they were good guys and just like us. When I told my father he came close to disowning me.

I have had the priveledge to have flown both currently flying Lancasters and to have spent a great deal of time with ex wartime bomber aircrew at their sqn reunions. I have found them all to be wonderful men and I cannot say too strongly how glad I am that they are finally getting some belated recognition for the sacrifices they and their colleagues made. Not once did I detect a hint of PTSD; I guess they were made of sterner stuff in those days. It is a sober reflection that (this was in the 80s) old sqn associations were still strong (some of those units may only have been in existence for 6 months or so as their losses were so huge that they were subsumed into another) whereas others still current have difficulty in keeping an association going.

Yes, there were issues that we in the business could carp about in the programme, but it was on prime time TV. A purely historical piece would have been on BBC4 at some unpopular hour. It achieved its aim to inform the Great British Public about the enormous losses incurred on their behalf; and if it helps fund raising for the Bomber Command memorial I will have no complaints.

Jumping_Jack

7th Feb 2012, 14:28

Pontifex.

Spot on. :D

Waddo Plumber

7th Feb 2012, 16:36

I thought the bulkhead had moved between the two squadrons on more than one occasion. When IX came back from Cyprus to Waddington in the mid 70s, OC IX and a party of his men put it into the small arms bay in the station armoury. I remember being amused by their being so paranoid that they padlocked it to the radiator. It stayed there until it was built into their new crewroom. If I recall, it had a painting of the ship in stormy seas, and the legend "Gegen Engeland" which seemed like a mix of Dutch and German.

TomJoad

7th Feb 2012, 17:47

Same sort of skulduggery and deception went on when it arrived at Lossie - happy days. Thought the programme was excellent, every now and again the BBC pull of a little gem and remind us what we pay the licence fee for. The two McGregors were good choice, worked really well.

jindabyne

7th Feb 2012, 17:57

For what it's worth, I thought that the programme was very dis-jointed.

First, what on earth did the inclusion of Cliff Spink bring to it – nothing. What did the ‘training’ of the two brothers bring to it, nothing – especially the DC3 bits, other than to pan the time out; and the navigation piece, I thought was, and almost certainly to the viewer, pointless, The appearance of one of the brothers (shirt out/jeans/ unkempt hair/unshaven, giggly) was, in comparison, to others in the programme, rude. Their dwelling upon cruelty to the German populace was in my view misplaced: they rightly referred to Dresden as a scene of terrible destruction in the latter part of the war (overly concentrating on its moral awfulness, with which I only partly agree), but strangely choosing to visit Hamburg (instead of Dresden) and stressing that city’s plight, although it was an earlier war target, and probably more justifiably so in its time and place (and certainly so in comparison to the programme’s description of Coventry). By so doing, the producers, to me, purposely hyped up their popular moralistic message.

That said, the historical video clips were, again, unique, and the veterans were truly amazing.

A production for those of today, some reality, some modern morality, and some lack of understanding of what it meant to be bombed the f8ck out of in London and many other cities.

Overall, a very weak and shallow production, in my opinion of course!

Stitchbitch

7th Feb 2012, 21:35

First, what on earth did the inclusion of Cliff Spink bring to it?

Continuity, he taught Colin to fly tail draggers for the Spitfire bit in the brothers Battle of Britain program and as an avid aviation historian, ex BBMF pilot and current warbird flier I expect he also bought a lot of knowledge to bear.:ok:

Jane-DoH

8th Feb 2012, 00:56

Skittles

The fact that Dresden was razed in 1945 puts end to that perspective. Even the staunch Churchill himself questionned the nature of the attack (admittedly having approved it previously).

Churchill questioned the nature of the attack, and advised about concerning attacks to military only targets as a means of distancing himself from the raid. Churchill may have been a wartime leader, but he was also first and foremost a politician.

Politicians, as we know are masters at ordering people to do all sorts of things -- some of them morally bankrupt; then distancing themselves from the orders they give. The blame was placed squarely on Harris (who deserved part of the blame, but certainly not all of it)

Chugalug2

So what are you saying Beags, that the RAF should not have killed German civilians, or that it should not have killed so many?

The problem with the way Bomber Command was used was that civilian deaths weren't an unfortunate result of the bombing; they were largely the primary goal. Sure by burning down a whole city you'd wipe out some industry, but as Winston Churchill said, they were bombing cities largely for the sake of increasing terror under a pretext.

Most of this was inspired by General Giulio Douhet who felt that to win a war, one should bomb cities and population centers, destroy industrial targets and kill lots of civilians and terrorize them so they'd rise up, overthrow their leaders; then surrender.

It's kind of ironic that the international laws such as the Hague Conventions were created to reduce civilian casualties in war and people like Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, Arthur Harris among others sought to maximize them.

seafuryfan

The sacrifices and destruction resulting were understood by most of the population at the time, all the more so after the raid on Coventry.

How many people died at Coventry?

RUCAWO

8th Feb 2012, 06:40

Coventry 1250

Belfast April 41,where the Luftwaffe attempted a firestorm, the first target being the waterworks on the Antrim Rd cutting off water supplies to the city ,900 killed, 1250 injured with half the houses in the city damaged.

London blitz 20,000 with around another 18,000 killed elsewhere.

V1 ,V2 attacks from June 44 ,9000 in London.

500N

8th Feb 2012, 06:48

" The problem with the way Bomber Command was used was that civilian deaths weren't an unfortunate result of the bombing; they were largely the primary goal."

Interesting, I wonder what the the primary goal of the bombing of London (and some other cities) was aimed at ?

Certainly from my families perspective it was civilians who were targeted.

BBOWFIGHTER

8th Feb 2012, 07:04

pontifex

Very interesting indeed, but I was just wondering if your quoted age of 74 is correct because it would make you 2 or 3 at the time of the Battle of Britain.

Load Toad

8th Feb 2012, 07:21

Possibly by the spring of '44 Harris could have been replaced with a commander who could use the bomber force....more efficiently. Less targeting of whole cities - more of specific militarily important targets, for example.

However it was 'of its time' where not just equipment or tactics or personalities but public opinion, convenience, mind-set, feedback from the raids in terms of losses, analysis...trying to give a black & white answer now is pointless; it was total war - learn from it.

500N

8th Feb 2012, 07:27

BBOWFIGHTER

"pontifex
Very interesting indeed, but I was just wondering if your quoted age of 74 is correct because it would make you 2 or 3 at the time of the Battle of Britain."

Because of the closeness to my families experience and what I had written on here, Croydon, Anderson shelter, being shot up, V1's and V2's, I noticed that as well but decided not to say anything.

My uncle who was the youngest during the war doesn't remember that much as he was only 4 or 5.

500N

8th Feb 2012, 07:31

With the V1's, they used to give false reports as to where they landed
so German spies passed the information back, the fuel was adjusted
and of course it meant the V1 more likely to miss it's target.

With all this deception and misinformation, is there a record of exactly
how many died to V1's and V2's ?

RUCAWO

8th Feb 2012, 07:44

All here FlyingBombsandRockets,V1,V2,Rockets,Flying bombs, (http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/)

500N

8th Feb 2012, 08:06

Thanks

I didn't realize that Croydon copped more than any other borough !!!
141 V1's.

goudie

8th Feb 2012, 08:11

Interesting that when discussing who was to blame, (if blame is required) for the mass destruction of German cities, no mention is made of Hitler and his cronies.
Towards the end of the war many evacuated families returned to London, as mine did, believing the worst was over. We spent quite a few nights in the anderson shelter and experienced a V1 exploding a few streets away, causing several deaths. Blew all the windows out in our house and many others too.

classjazz

8th Feb 2012, 08:32

I watched the Bomber Boys programme and thought it was well balanced.
As an ex member of the BBMF it was interesting to see that it is deemed necessary nowadays to wear bone domes when flying the Lanc.....however.

I thought the most telling point about the programme was that although the fighter aircraft defended Britain, it was the bombers who attacked and turned the situation around.
The anti Harris feeling existed up to and beyond his death in the 80's. I was at his funeral and the fact that I as a member of the Air Force my presence was to be kept "under wraps" was very telling.

Chugalug2

8th Feb 2012, 08:39

Jane-Doh:-
The problem with the way Bomber Command was used was that civilian deaths weren't an unfortunate result of the bombing; they were largely the primary goal. Sure by burning down a whole city you'd wipe out some industry, but as Winston Churchill said, they were bombing cities largely for the sake of increasing terror under a pretext.

Most of this was inspired by General Giulio Douhet who felt that to win a war, one should bomb cities and population centers, destroy industrial targets and kill lots of civilians and terrorize them so they'd rise up, overthrow their leaders; then surrender.

It's kind of ironic that the international laws such as the Hague Conventions were created to reduce civilian casualties in war and people like Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, Arthur Harris among others sought to maximize them.

The one thing that Bomber Command could hit consistently with Main Force were cities. The reason that Harris targeted them is because he was ordered to do so by the War Cabinet (headed by Churchill), via the Air Board. All WWII adversaries who had the means to target cities did so, and for the same reasons (the USA included!). As with all weapons of war, the 1940's bomber was both terrible in its destructive power and yet very limited in practice. You can read all the books that have been published on the subject, but you would have had to be a young inexperienced crew member to know the sheer challenge it was to fight your way through the night in the company of hundreds of other bombers that you could not see (or even follow!), try to stay on track and hence find the target, let alone manage to hit it, fight your way home and safely land on your own runway (if you could find it). No modern aids, those that you had could and would be subverted by the enemy, just an air plot, a compass, and a stop watch to fall back on. Despite all that, this was indeed a terrible weapon that killed hundreds of thousands, mainly civilians.
WWII was a peoples war, for the very reason that (with the exception of the USA) it was brought to and fought by its civil populations. It doesn't matter what Douhet, Trenchard, Harris or their US counterparts (who you omit to mention) thought or said, the Strategic Bombing of cities happened because it could happen, endex. It was a weapon of war in a total war, just as Mr Maxim's was in an earlier one. The Allied Bombing Campaign had a profound effect on the outcome of WWII, to the extent that there would have been no second front without it (or rather it was indeed a second front in itself!) nor a German defeat on the Eastern Front, in my opinion. The reason that such statements became utter heresy is not for moral reasons, for war is immoral anyway, but for expediency as old enemies became allies and vice versa. The victims of that expediency are the old boys that people profess to admire so much. Just tell them that what they did, though so terrible, was so necessary. I would have thought that little enough to ask, especially of their modern counterparts!

500N

8th Feb 2012, 08:45

It was a shame all the bitching over Bomber Harris during or after the war.
His sole aim was to win the war.

To carry it on until the 80's is crazy.

In view of the fact that others wanted the strategy changed from bombing cities,
what are people's views on would the alternative have been better.

Can anyone argue that Bomber Harris's strategy didn't work ?

Load Toad

8th Feb 2012, 09:30

There's been many books suggesting that ultimately it would have been better to say target 'oil' or transport & suggesting that some aspects of German industry because it was spread to smaller satellite factories etc...

And maybe that is so.

But as others have explained well on this thread and countless times before - it's pointless; at the time it was considered the best way to wage & win the war though certainly it was not without its critics then...or now.

Frankly the simple thing that amazes me is lads less than half my age had the courage to get into a bomber at all and to fly off into that hell. I have no words to express enough my admiration or thanks.

And finally - the Nazi's reaped what they sowed & they were still trying to win with terror weapons as long as the war went on.

Pontius Navigator

8th Feb 2012, 09:37

Pontiflex's age is correct. Now I am 6 years younger and obviously was not around for the BoB but I do remember from the perspective of a babe in arms some of the fear.

I don't know how old I was, probably 18 months, but my mother missed her bus stop in the blackout. I remember the bus was brightly lit, white inside, with blacked out windows.

The bus arrived at the end of its route were all pasengers were expected to get off before it returned to the depot. My mother was ordered off the bus, where she knew not, in the dark, in a strange part of Birkenhead.

The bits I remember vividly was the inside of the bus and my mother's distress and it being pitch black. I have no other recollection from that time. Later I knew it was a quarry turning area at Bidston a short distance from Claughton.

My point is that if an event has sufficient impact then it can be remembered at an early age. I also remember my father coming home when I was still less than 2. I could crawl and I knew enough to stay up. He arrived in the living room in a trench coat. I was 4 and walking when I saw him again when he returned from Japan.

On justification, he visited Nagasaki and thought the bomb had been wonderful. He marvelled at glass bottles crushed, shadows burnt in the concrete, stalks of wheat driven through tree trunks. He certainly didn't think it had been wrong.

angelorange

8th Feb 2012, 11:54

For those that think being PC is the same as morality - think again - Morality started 1000s of years before the current generations.

It was partly through moral outrage at the behaviour of Hitler in Poland that Britain entered the WW2. Perhaps with hindsight more could have been done in the inter war years. In that sense, Harris was right to state it was the Bomber Pilots forebears that were to blame for allowing a second war to begin.

That generation had seen the development of hyperinflation in Germany after WW1. They knew German reparations (mostly demanded by the French) were falling short. Reports were published about rioting in the Ruhr upon the French army invasion/occupation of 1923-25. The facts regarding the subsequent de-humanising of immigrants and german jews by the nazi party were available to the outside world.

The Bomber Boys programme was well filmed and made relevant to modern viewers. Yes it lacked many things but all films only show you what the lens/director can "see" - rather like a telescope only pics up a few galaxies or closer planets above us. If anything the suffering by both Allied aircrew and german civilians was played down.

Yes, I totally agree the allies had to stop Hitler's war machine. Yes the Allies had to hit back and Bomber command was one tool that was used.

In the 1940s, "total war" as a justification for carpet bombing residential areas or the later unthinkable nuclear option was only possible by de-humanising the enemy (talking of infrastructure, ships, railways) or at least hoping the result would bring a complete end to the madness -as in the case of Hiroshima.

Hitler's bombing of the UK (BB and later V1 and V2s) did little to change the resolve of the British people under threat. The same is also true in Germany where much production went deep under ground.

It is often forgotten that many Germans felt they were on the wrong side long before 1939 and many of those bombed in Hamburg and Dresden were foreign workers (forced labour). Indeed, a high proportion of the Jews killed in Nazi Concentration camps were Germans - many had fought for Germany in WW1. Ohrers struggled from inside Germany to bring down Hitler.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/bonhoeffer/?content=2)

So there are no easy answers from a moral perspective on the campaign. It is wrong to generalise and say all germans were nazi supporters or all football fans are hooligans. Generalisations and stereotypes serve to mis-inform.

My english architect grandfather built RAF Pillboxes, RN Sea defences/ AA Gun emplacements. On my in-laws side several worked with RAF BC.

My german grandfather refused to use his plastics factory near Dusseldorf for the nazi war machine (he was part of the same Lutheran Church as Bonhoeffer). Unlike Bonhoeffer he was not executed but taken away from his family and business to occupied France. He was captured by the Allies after DDay and spent years malnourished in a French POW camp till the late 1940s.

Both sets of my forebears were bombed by the air force of the other - such is war.

Expressions such as total war or to say soldiers were just carrying out orders doesn't let us off the hook. Some workers under the nazis were under pain of death doing the same.

What we can take away is at least two fold:

1.We can praise the bravery of the bomber crews of the RAF in WW2 for contributing towards freedom we now have, but also our servicemen and women who face daily troubles in Afghanistan.

2. We can learn from history that the de-humanising of of people by politicians/ the media/ even pseudo science (eugenics) is the pre-cursor to our mutual destruction. Destruction not only for those de-humanised individuals but also our own moral fibre.

Chugalug2

8th Feb 2012, 21:05

angle orange, a well balanced and thoughtful post. Thank you! With both English and German family you are either better or hopelessly worse placed than most to see the woods for the trees here. The former I think! You talk about dehumanising, by both the enemy (ie the Allies?) and the regime (the Nazis), but might I suggest that all you need to do that is war itself?
Once you have a tyranny in power, bad things follow. We have seen the bravery of people in East Germany, Russia, Romania, the Balkans, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria that is needed as a consequence. Many say that the first population to be occupied by the Nazis were the Germans themselves. Christabel Bielenberg, an Englishwoman married to a German diplomat, memorably described in the World at War series having to ask a Jewish couple that she illegally sheltered for two nights to leave for fear of endangering her own family. "I suddenly realised", she said, once she discovered that they had been arrested and transported "that Hitler had made me into a murderer". A harsh self verdict, but a hint of the conflicting emotions present when living under such a regime. Her obituary is here:
Christabel Bielenberg - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1445835/Christabel-Bielenberg.html)
If Europe, including the Germans themselves, was to be free of this tyranny then the Allies had to be victorious. The only weapon available to the UK to take the fight to the enemy was Bomber Command. The only way it could prevail was by night bombing, for daylight bombing was soon found to be suicidal. The only targets that could be consistently hit at night by main force's young and mainly inexperienced crews were German cities, and even then they were often missed or the wrong ones bombed. That was the awful reality of war, to prevail you have to do terrible things, but you must prevail or suffer the tyranny yourself. That is what I mean by total war. God forbid we ever have to fight it again!

Jane-DoH

9th Feb 2012, 02:49

RUCAWO

Belfast April 41,where the Luftwaffe attempted a firestorm, the first target being the waterworks on the Antrim Rd cutting off water supplies to the city ,900 killed, 1250 injured with half the houses in the city damaged.

Is this where the RAF got the first idea of starting firestorms? Or was that an older idea?

Coventry 1250

And this was the justification for Dresden?

500N

Interesting, I wonder what the the primary goal of the bombing of London (and some other cities) was aimed at ?

Certainly from my families perspective it was civilians who were targeted.

It was aimed at the civilian population. In fact, Hitler specifically ordered the Luftwaffe to break the British's will to resist.

I think everybody acknowledges this was fundamentally wrong, and a war-crime (the Hague conventions specifically prohibited the targeting of civilians)

Load Toad

Possibly by the spring of '44 Harris could have been replaced with a commander who could use the bomber force....more efficiently. Less targeting of whole cities - more of specific militarily important targets, for example.

That would have been better, but you have to keep in mind that would require people like Winston Churchill to have been willing to replace him. He had no inclination to do this.

Churchill basically felt that their militaristic culture (which proceeded Nazism) needed to be pulled up by the roots. His attitude was that the Germans were either at his feet, or at his throat.

goudie

Interesting that when discussing who was to blame, (if blame is required) for the mass destruction of German cities, no mention is made of Hitler and his cronies.

Isn't that self-evident?

Chugalug2

The reason that Harris targeted them is because he was ordered to do so by the War Cabinet (headed by Churchill), via the Air Board.

The fact is that the RAF wanted to employ these kinds of attacks before WW2. The poor success of the bombers earlier in the war, Churchill's personal desires, and the London Blitz (and the resulting desire for revenge) basically greased the skids. What was previously political impossible, now became politically acceptable.

All WWII adversaries who had the means to target cities did so, and for the same reasons (the USA included!).

Of course, after all they basically got their doctrine from the same exact groups of people. The Germans got the idea from Douhet; the British got it from Trenchard and Douhet; the US from Douhet, Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell.

their US counterparts (who you omit to mention)

The US counterparts would predominantly be Billy Mitchell who got his ideas from Trenchard and Douhet. During WW2, personalities included H.H. Arnold, Max Andrews, Ira Eaker, Curtis E. LeMay and so forth.

, the Strategic Bombing of cities happened because it could happen

Actually that sounds suspiciously similar to my motto which is a variation of Murphy's law: If it can go bad, it will go bad; if it does go bad, it will do so in the worst possible way.

The reason that such statements became utter heresy is not for moral reasons, for war is immoral anyway

There are degrees of immorality. That argument effectively says that because war is immoral, that we can act like complete amoral psychopaths. Bomber Harris tried the same argument and asked if it was immoral to drive a bayonet into a man's belly among other things.

The fact is, if I was a soldier, I'd rather stick a bayonet into an enemy soldier any day of the week than firebomb a city loaded with civilians. The hypothetical soldier is an enemy of mine, he's attacking me. The civilians bombed in these raids were not fighting, yet they were firebombed as a primary objective in what could be described as little more than acts of terrorism.

orca

9th Feb 2012, 03:28

I have questioned the Combined Bomber Offensive for some time and have tried to read as much as possible into it. A point that many miss is that Mr Churchill could point to the offensive as proof that we were pulling our weight when Russia and the USA were making incredible sacrifices.

I think the bravery displayed is staggering. I also believe that both during the war and to the present day a high proportion of people have struggled with certain fundementals of the campaign.

I am not a WW2 veteran, but I have been to war and have dished out kinetics and been on the receiving end of AAA and IDF. That doesn't mean I have an absolute right to an opinion but it does set me aside from some.

My opinion of the RAF and USAAF campaign is that it was not discretionary, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't proportional, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't humane. (Some would argue that HE is humane, none could argue that a firestorm is). It was, however, when viewed as the only offensive weapon we had at the time, arguably, necessary.

I therefore find myself in a strange position. I support the boys who did it, I hail their courage and I think that on balance the campaign was justified. But I honestly believe that out of the four principles of LOAC I took to war it fails on three.

I would rather that we were bold enough to stand up not only for the boys who did it, but to correctly identify what they did. 'It was total war' is inadequate. So, to me, is describing cities as the targets. We deliberately targeted civilians. We did so because some believed it to be the right thing to do, and in any case they were the only thing we could target with the only offensive weapon we had. In the circumstances, in a time when great evils simply had to be conquered, it was the right thing to do.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 04:30

I see Le May was mentioned. His strategy of fire bombing Japanese cities was the equivalent of Dresden. From past readings, a fair amount of discussion was held on it shortening the war.

.

Load Toad

9th Feb 2012, 05:11

Is this where the RAF got the first idea of starting firestorms? Or was that an older idea?

I swear to god that that I saw a book in Page One a while back about the German raids during WW1 and the experiments they carried out making various incendiary devices eventually developing the thermite / magnesium firebomb - that was the same type later used by the British during WW2.

- And even in WW1 the Germans were trying to create fires during their bombing attacks.

Load Toad

9th Feb 2012, 05:26

Pontius Navigator

9th Feb 2012, 06:40

Some would argue that HE is humane, none could argue that a firestorm

How can one form of killing be described as humane compared with another?

It may be true to say that sudden death from HE is better than a slower death from oxygen starvation. OTOH a slow death from crush injury or being entombed under rubble may be less preferable to sudden incineration from a firestorm.

On the carpet bombing in Japan, I have a vague recollection that they used a lot of cottage industry rather than larger factories for some things so a wide bombing was necessary.

beamer

9th Feb 2012, 08:08

Rich boys playing in old aeroplanes - dull as ditchwater

Chugalug2

9th Feb 2012, 08:51

Jane-DoH:-

, "the Strategic Bombing of cities happened because it could happen"
Actually that sounds suspiciously similar to my motto which is a variation of Murphy's law: If it can go bad, it will go bad; if it does go bad, it will do so in the worst possible way.
and your response sounds suspiciously like passing the buck. The modern bomber (as was in 1939/45) existed, it had been invented, it was where technology had got to, it was a fact! The RAF first tried to use it in the way that you would insist upon, used by day to attack pinpoint military targets. It was suicidal, mainly because the modern monoplane cannon equipped fighter also existed. In one raid alone all 11 aircraft were shot down. The solution, as our own fighters lacked the range to escort our bombers to strategic enemy targets, was to fly at night. Immediately there was a problem, pinpoint enemy targets could no longer be located let alone destroyed. The only targets that could be located, ie navigated to, were enemy cities which contained vital communications and production centres. They also of course housed the workers that manned those facilities. Striking at cities would thus disrupt the enemy war effort. Blaming all that on Douhet and/or Trenchard and/or Mitchell is up to you. Personally I see it as a fait accompli, we turned to area bombing because that was the only way to take the war to the enemy. You don't win wars by picking at the periphery, but by going for the jugular. It's crude, it's inhumane, it's war! I was one of the children that you see as victims in that cruel calculation. My mother, alone as most were because their men were at war, moved us from Clacton, where German bombers tended to coast in to follow the Thames to London and to often jettison their bombs there if having to abort their missions, to Bournemouth just in time for the tip and run raids of the Fw190's;-) Again, like many others, her man didn't come back and she had to carry on alone. There are no nice wars, 20 million Russians died in WWII, and unknown millions more Chinese. War is hell, not just for soldiers but for all. In many ways that has been our salvation, that "MAD" kept the peace through the Cold War for fear of the effects of a Hot one! I doubt if our luck will hold forever, and as we know all too well the "limited" wars continue unchecked. No doubt the perspective is different on the otherside of the pond as your homeland was hit by nothing more than paper balloon bombs, but I would remind you that substantially more hardware was being developed in Germany to correct that anomaly. If the Russians had not prevailed at Kursk, if the Western Allies had not got ashore on D-Day, that anomaly would have probably been corrected. Both successes can be attributed to the round the clock bombing of Germany. Ponder upon the thought of a dirty radiation bomb or two dropped on New York and other East Coast cities and perhaps the efficacy of winning the war in Europe ASAP can be better appreciated.

Pontius Navigator

9th Feb 2012, 09:18

I agree with Chug and I think Beamer has hit the nub of the matter.

There have been many excellent programmes and indeed series in the past. There is also a genre on the channels such as History that meld the images and old programmes with the recollections of the survivors. Better that than the Brothers Kamarov playing in aircraft.

They showed how inaccurate he was in his timing in a Dakota. Better we had been shown the equipment and techniques actually available in 1943.

The RD Jones (4-fee Jones) programmes on the electronic war would be well worth recovering and adding the human element.

Lancasters dropped window; how did Lancasters drop window?

Lancasters had Fishpond; did Fishpond work? If Fishpond worked it would have detected the schrage musik fighter; were any so detected?

Problem there is you need a trained and skilled researcher to ask the right questions.

Duncan D'Sorderlee

9th Feb 2012, 10:34

Personally, I think that, notwithstanding some of the issues pointed out previously, if it was not for the fact that Ewan McGregor had wanted to make this programme, it would either remain an idea or have been should on BBC4 at 0400 one Wednesday. Because of his participation in this programme, there may be some people who have been made aware of the sacrifices of Bomber Command during WW2. That can't be a bad thing.

Duncs:ok:

Molemot

9th Feb 2012, 11:00

I can recommend the book "the First Blitz"...review below, from the "Mail Online"

1914 bombs over London

THE FIRST BLITZ by Neil Hanson

By Christopher Hudson (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Christopher+Hudson)
Trains in Liverpool Street were blown apart. Buildings toppled into clouds of dust.

Londoners ran frantically through burning streets, seeking shelter in basements and Tube stations, while ambulances collected the dead and dying.

Death came so suddenly. A man in a cafe had his arm blown off as he was raising a cup of tea to his lips; in the same second a caretaker's wife looking out from a nearby window was beheaded by broken glass.

Enlarge http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/08/article-1033369-01E3367300000578-178_468x286.jpg (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/08/article-1033369-01E3367300000578-178_468x286_popup.jpg)
BRITISH MEANS PLUCK: London schoolchildren are taught about the dangers of zeppelins, 1916
A group of people passing the Albion Clothing Store in Aldgate were blown to bits, indistinguishable from the shop-window dummies.

As the German bombers turned back, unloading their remaining cargo, one bomb dropped over a school in the East India Dock Road, plunging through to the kindergarten in the basement, where the class was making paper lanterns.

Weeping parents clawed at the rubble with their bare hands: 18 children were killed, 30 more were seriously injured and scores of others wounded.

More...

The 1940s bombing raids over London have taken such a powerful grip upon our imagination that the existence of an earlier Blitz, in World War I, will come to many readers as a complete surprise. Yet as Neil Hanson, author of The Unknown Soldier, demonstrates in this gripping and well-researched book, it was in many ways more terrifying.

The bi-plane which dropped a bomb on Tommy Terson's cabbage-patch in Dover on Christmas Eve 1914 represented the first attack on mainland Britain for centuries.

Although the German bombers and their bombs were to become enorshortly mously more powerful, Field arshal Haig clung to the belief that reconnaissance could be done 'immeasurably better' by cavalry. The War was nearly over before either Haig or his air chief Trenchard accepted that strategic bombing could win wars.

London and the South-East, therefore, remained almost defenceless against attacks, first by Zeppelin airships and then by bombers.

The Royal Flying Corps's handful of flimsy bi-planes was no match for them, and the anti-aircraft batteries, organised by the monocled, moustachioed Brigadier 'Splash' Ashmore, were of more danger to Londoners from falling shells and shrapnel than they were to enemy aircraft.

These raids were launched, from 1917 onwards, by the England Squadron, whose sole purpose was to reduce London to jelly.

Germany's military commander Ludendorff made its purpose clear: 'The moral intimidation of the British nation and the crippling of the will to fight'. In this, the Squadron — brought to life through some eloquent memoirs — came close to succeeding.

For men, women and children at home, it was as if they had suddenly been drafted into the front line, where death and mutilation were dealt out randomly.

Unaccustomed to high explosives, a number of Londoners caught in bomb raids died of fright; others went mad. Bad weather in 1917 cancelled many raids, but one week in mid-June, known as the Blitz of the Harvest Moon, nearly brought the capital to its knees.

Air raid warnings back then consisted of policemen on bicycles ringing their bells — followed by the rumble and then roar of gun batteries, the whine of shells and the shuddering crump of bombs, while searchlights cut through the darkness in sword-blades of light.

People rushed into Tube stations: on the second night, 120,000 Londoners crammed into the Underground, by then filthy with urine and excrement, taking their bedding, baskets of food, even their pets. Thousands more fled from the city into the fields, or bedded down in parks or factories.

Six raids in the space of eight days left 69 people killed and nearly 400 seriously injured.

Winston Churchill predicted that up to four million people would leave the capital under another such onslaught. A worried government promised reprisal raids against the enemy, but the attitude of Haig and Trenchard meant that scarcely any British aircraft capable of strategic bombing existed.

The English Squadron had what it called The Fire Plan. By dropping incendiary bombs it would create firestorms across London, triggering mass panic which would force the British to sue for peace. The problem was that its incendiaries were too primitive to have this effect.

Not until late 1918 did German scientists perfect what they called the Elektron bomb, a magnesium bomb which burned in air and water alike with a ferociously hot flame.

Tiny enough to be dropped in their thousands, they were able to penetrate attic roofs; a single bomber could turn the whole of

London into an inferno. Hanson provides a last-minute ending which shows how close we came to disaster. If a single bomber was to penetrate London's much improved defences it could have changed the course of the War.

Thirty-six bombers were prepared for what their pilots knew would be a suicide mission.

In August and early September, orders to launch the Fire Plan were twice issued and twice countermanded by commanders who feared British retribution now that they could see the war was lost. Britain's wettest September followed, and on the 28th Ludendorff sued for peace.

A quarter of a century later, Elektron bombs would be used in a British Fire Plan, against the people who invented them.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 11:12

Not sure if anyone else has seen this program.

A British TV series is being shown here about the various effects of WW11 bombs on houses etc.

They built two rows of houses and over the series detonated the equivalent of the various bombs nearby to show the effects. As the bombs got larger, the buildings gradually fell apart.

They also showed how the inccendary bombs worked, getting caught in the roof and setting fore to the beams etc.

All in all, I thought it was quite informative.

Pontius Navigator

9th Feb 2012, 11:46

500N, not that I am aware of. However I had seen a training film of the 60s that showed the stength of the Victorian terrace houses and shops and their potential for surviving levels of nuclear blast.

The main strength of the shop was the iron columns supporting the upper floors. The strength of the house lay in the bedroom floor construction. In both cases the frint could be blown out but the building would hold together. Obviously this only applied to blast and not to a direct hit.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 11:56

Found it. It's called the Blitz Street TV Series

Must have been Ch 4 in the UK
About , Series & Episode, Pictures and Articles can be found on the following link
Blitz Street - Series 1 - Episode 1 - Blitz Street - Channel 4 (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/blitz-street/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1)

More Video, photos and information here
Blitz Street TV Show - National Geographic Channel - UK (http://natgeotv.com/uk/blitz-street)

Blitz Street tells the story of the Blitz as it has never been told before. This two-hour special aims to highlight the true horrors of the ferocious and constant bombardment of the Blitz, and to explain why, ultimately, it failed.
Blitz Street itself is a row of terraced houses, specially built on a remote military base. The 'Street' will be subjected to a frightening range of large-scale high explosive bombs and devices similar to those used by the Luftwaffe. With precise measurements of the supersonic blast waves and flying shrapnel, this programme reveals the devastating impact of real explosives on bricks and mortar, allowing scientists to study the awesome power and anatomy of Second...

PPRuNe Pop

9th Feb 2012, 12:06

Yes, it has been shown here - quite a while ago now. In SOME ways it was true in others it was wrong. They did, in fact, miss the point and did not cater for blast in the way it ACTUALLY happened. They missed out badly.

Depending on the type of bomb used, incendiary, HE, butterfly, or aerial mines they each had their own power. I recall one instance a couple of hundred yards away. A HE fell on a house, which fell in on itself from the explosion while a part of each house either side was damaged - there was no loss of life.

I saw many incendiaries 'laying around' as were butterfly bombs, designed to explode as people and children picked them up - usually with severe injury to hands and face. This was indiscriminate bombing of the populace living in newly built property for the overspill of eastenders. It took some time for the penny to drop that we were NOT the target but merely the victims of bomb disposal by German crews who were happier to go home than to engage night fighters, though there was precious few of those at the time.

The blitz on London was entirely another matter. That was sheer deliberate murder at the hands of Goering and Hitler. It was that that made youngsters like me, wished like no other wish, that the RAF knocked nine skittles out of Germany, and its people got the same as we did - 10 fold, 100 fold the more the better. The RAF and our bomber boys did us proud and with no small measure they did themselves proud too. It is tough enough today to remember that ONE THIRD of BOMBER COMMAND crews were killed. Its bringing tears to my eyes just to think of it. What makes it even more gratifying is that each one of them was a VOLUNTEER. They did what they did for this country of ours and for ME.

I hope there are a lot of ME people in Green Park at the dedication of the memorial to join these wonderful and brave men. It will be sad that not ALL of them will be there - simply because this memorial is very very late in coming. BUT........it will be there for people to visit and remember the Bomber Boys long after we have gone.

God bless every single one of them.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 12:17

PPruNe
Thanks for the insight. I can only compare it to what my Grand Parents street was like (Croydon), a hell of a lot wider than the one in the show with trees and a whole load of other things to affect / deflect the blast.

I thought that the way they detonated the bombs, height, distance, way it was packed etc was sometimes iffy, however of course they wanted the buildings to still be standing for the next episode so that probably made TV production hard and of course they didn't have real bombs.

My grand parents said that lots of kids were injured picking up bits and pieces of bomb casings that turned out to be small bombs and things.

All in all, it was quite interesting and the slow motion replay of the explosion / shockwaves were good.

orca

9th Feb 2012, 14:44

PN,

Humanity is a fundemental of LOAC. You seem to disagree. Would you say that there was no difference morally from using a clinical weapon e.g. bullet to temple and one that caused a painful death e.g. lowering you into a meat grinder? I would say that the difference was clear. So does the law.

Examples deliberately chosen to be left and right of arc.

The point stands. Both in practice and in law one weapon system is indeed more, or less, humane than the next.

I think your point is that to kill is to kill, which is valid to a degree.

Pontius Navigator

9th Feb 2012, 15:02

orca, you misunderstood. I expressed no preference for HE or Incendiary and I would agree that a bullet to the brain is more humane than a meat grinder but we were not talking about bullets and meat grinders or clean kill over messy kill.

A bullet may indeed kill instantly if it hits the brain. If OTOH is causes a debilitating wound with death from bleeding or later perhaps from gangrene you could not then argue that a bullet is a clean kill.

My point was that HE is by no means a clean kill any more than death by incendiary is necessarily messy. Both HE and Incendiary may achieve an instant kill but equally both may result in a prolonged and agonising death. Now do you see my point?

pontifex

9th Feb 2012, 15:46

BBOWFIGHTER/500N

Yes, I was only 2or3 duringthe BoB but you may remember that the war lasted a few more years. I cannot, at this remove, remember exactly when the Anderson shelter incident ocurred but getting shot at was probably at the time of the tip and run raids. I was a bit too young to actually identify the aircraft. All I know is that it came over the hill and all the adults dispersed sharpish so I did too and just heard a few bangs and then it was all over. Caught the bus too. To put things in perspective, I can remember going out with my mate from over the road the morning after a raid looking for shrapnel. Never actually found any! Mate's name was Geoff Baldock - anyone remember him?

waco

9th Feb 2012, 17:13

PPRuNe Pop

Excellently put thank you.

Tifosa

9th Feb 2012, 17:22

Le May had to resort to bombing 'areas' / cities in Japan I think in part because it proved impossible due to the effect of the jet stream that the B-29's flew in, to bomb accurately with the bombing computers then available.

Just finished reading The Man Who Flew The Memphis Belle, by Col. Robert Morgan (Ret.) USAFR

The latter section of the book deals with Morgan's return to combat, flying B-29's in the PTO. The subject of Le May and the firebombing raids does come up, as do the difficulties of high level bombing in the jet stream over Japan.

A change of tactics to low-mid level bombing was required to improve accuracy, but the fire bombing was not begun as a counter to inaccurate bombing, but because a couple of hundred B-29's dropping incendiary bombs on cities built primarily from wood could completely and utterly raize anything from 5-25 square miles of a city, with damage spreading much further.

Japanese cities tended not to have industrial and residential districts either, with industrial targets often literally right next door to densely populated residential areas.

Combined with the projected casualties of an Allied invasion of the mainland (1 million+), and the knowledge that more or less the entire population would sacrifice themselves in the defence of the homelands, firebombing was seen as the most effective strategy for the bombing campaign over Japan.

As others have stated, applying 21st century morality to 1940's warfare is neither fair nor right. As I was born over 30 years after the end of WW2, I shall leave the "right or wrong" debate to those who were there.

Chugalug2

9th Feb 2012, 17:48

Orca:
Humanity is a fundemental of LOAC.
Sorry old chap, didn't quite catch your lingo. Using Google I see that LOAC can stand for "Law of Armed Conflict". This seems to fit into the context. Is that what you meant? In your exchange with PN you seemed to infer that raising a Firestorm, whether intentional or not, by use of incendiaries would be contrary to that "law". Is that what you meant? Did that law exist in WWII? Does it exist now? Is that why Typhoons of 617 Squadron now make low passes to "intimidate" the enemy instead of killing them? Is that what they should have done in WWII? Or is this all a fluffy new way to exercise airpower when the enemy has none, and how long would it last if he did? Was this the point that Colin McGregor was making in his chat with his brother one hour into the prog? Was it indeed he and not Ewan who was "on message" throughout? I am genuinely mystified by the arm's length that the modern RAF seems to keep from its WWII Bombing Campaign. Is LOAC the reason why?

orca

9th Feb 2012, 18:18

Chugalug,

Yes indeed, Law Of Armed Conflict is what I meant. The basic building blocks of which are Necessity, Humanity, Proportion and Distinction.

One must make the distinction between military and civil targets, one mustn't use inhuman methods to kill (killing in itself is fine), one must be proportional and attack sensible targets, not wipe a race off the planet when only a few would do. One must only attack those things that are actually necessary to achieve the aim.

Now, this is of course modern thinking. I have no idea what the guys were briefed at the time, or what the law was. I only offer the above as that is what I was briefed and what I adhered to when it was my turn to employ HE on Her Majesty's foes.

I cannot speak for the RAF as I am not a part of it, but in my opinion, when measured against this contemporary yardstick, the combined RAF/ USAAF bombing campaign falls short on three out of four counts. That would, in my opinion and in today's environment, make the campaign a war crime, pure and simple. I still support what they did. They didn't do it today, they did it in a time of incredible evil and absolute necessity.

I honestly believe the problem has always been one of honesty. Attacking civilians because you can't accurately target anything more meaningful, or targeting civilians knowingly as part of taking on a target set within a city is, quite simply, attacking civilians. We shouldn't try to skirt the issue with handy catch alls like 'Total War'. We should be bold enough to commemorate and appreciate what the boys did, because in the (fairly exceptional) circumstances, they did the right thing.

PN,

Yes I do get your point and you make it well. I think my personal distinction is that using a HE warhead to kill people with blast and fragmentation is a different proposition to deliberately using HE/ incendiaries to start a firestorm. Just my opinion.

orca

9th Feb 2012, 18:24

PS 617 (actual Dambusters, probable/ possible Tirpitz killers) fly the Tornado. Well, half of them do, the other half just watch from the back. The Typhoon isn't doing Shows of Force over anyone. Outside Lincolnshire.;)

The show of force is used more as a way of showing the enemy that the friendlies have air available and is used when collateral considerations, ID criteria or commander's intent preclude kinetics.

If drawn right back to LOAC basics one could argue that there was no necessity for an attack if non-kinetics could achieve the same aim. Saves a lot of paperwork too, although it's not quite such a rush.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 18:30

pontifex

My apologise for questioning you.

Re the Tip and run raids, After the Stuka that shot up my grand mother + aunt,
she said they ran home (it wasn't far) and not long after the phone rang and it was someone calling to tell her that the Stuka that shot at them had been shot down.
It flew over the AA gun that was at the top of the hill in the park / golf course.
I can't remember the name.

Danny42C

9th Feb 2012, 18:41

Chugalug2 (#125) is absolutely right. He's said it all.

Of course, "Jaw, Jaw" is better than "War, War". (Churchill), and we had far too much of that during the thirties.

But there comes a time when:

"Talking time was ended
And fighting time was come". (Kipling)

And Shakespeare warned:

"Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in
Bear it that the opposed may beware of Thee!"

When it is forced upon you, War is War. You have to hit your enemy as hard as you can with everything you've got. Harris had a Club (what a brilliant analogy!). He would have liked a Rapier (think of the crews that would save). But he didn't have a Rapier. There were no rapiers then. There were tales of a bomb in a pickle barrel from 30,000 ft (with the new US Norden bombsight). Some folk believed in fairies too. Harris simply did his best with what he had, and you can't blame him for that. That he has subsequently vilified for doing so is a national disgrace.

War is War, and it's not nice. When the scrap metal starts flying about, innocent people, men women and children, are going to get hurt as well as the combatants. That is sad, but it is so, and always will be so. In the night bombing attacks on German cities, it was a miracle if a bomber crew could find the target city, never mind pick out "military targets". What does a "military target" look like on a dark night? How about a black cat in a coalcellar at midnight? Really, the debate over whether "area bombing" was moral or not was pointless: it was the only possible kind at night. (Are the Germans exercised with any guilt over their "area bombing" of London and twenty other places?)

And how about the Far East. Was Truman justified in authorising the use of the Bomb? Or Colonel Tibbets in dropping it? Think of the appalling suffering that entailed. Yet I and many others were profoundly grateful for it. The alternative would almost certainly been an invasion of the Japanese islands, and that was a fearsome prospect, given what was known about the fanatical capability of the Japanese soldier in defence. It was soberly estimated that such an operation would cost a million Allied lives. The majority of these would be American (Jane-Doh to note). I would probably have been one of the British. The Home Army would fight to the last man and the last round. Civilian casualties would be horrendous, as experience in Okinawa had shown.

Three years before, Harris had declared: "People say that aerial bombing alone cannot win a war. I would say that it has not been tried yet, and we shall see". Now we saw. The War was over. Were Truman, Colonel Tibbets and (by extension) Harris, all wrong?

orca

9th Feb 2012, 19:13

Danny. I completely agree with you. Collateral damage is inevitable (to a greater or lesser degree, mitigated by the targeting process) when attacking the military.

We appear to disagree only on one fundemental point. The combined bomber offensive did not kill civilians as a by product of attack on military targets. They were the target. Let's be big enough to say so.

Chugalug2

9th Feb 2012, 19:48

Orca:
I honestly believe the problem has always been one of honesty. Attacking civilians because you can't accurately target anything more meaningful, or targeting civilians knowingly as part of taking on a target set within a city is, quite simply, attacking civilians. We shouldn't try to skirt the issue with handy catch alls like 'Total War'. We should be bold enough to commemorate and appreciate what the boys did, because in the (fairly exceptional) circumstances, they did the right thing.
You know, you took the very words out of my mouth! I couldn't have put it better myself! Of course bombing and burning cities kills civilians. It also wins wars, well it did that one anyway. I truly and firmly believe that, and I think that is where we pros and cons differ. If we could have won the war within the same timescale, or even quicker, without doing it then it was wrong practically, never mind LOAC. I do not think that we could though. Indeed I believe that either the Swastika or the Hammer and Sickle would have been worn on arm bands from here to Siberia to this day. If I am right, then it was of "Necessity, Humanity, Proportion and Distinction" so to do. The RAF used to be of the same opinion, well the bit that ran it did anyway. Now it doesn't. Why?
It seems to me that you could apply LOAC to any weapon system that fundamentally changes the practise of war, the submarine, the machine gun, the rifled barrel, gun powder....I believe that the Admiralty had an attitude about the first, but they were all absorbed into the various military manuals in turn as have bombers of course. Now I know that the point is not the weapon but what use is made of it, and that will always be whatever wins wars. So submarines were used by all sides to sink merchant ships and their civilian crews, the machine gun to swing the balance to the defensive and prolong the butchery of WW1, the rifled barrel to do likewise previously, and gun powder to break down city walls leading to the rape and pillage that followed. You see where I'm going with this? I'm afraid I see LOAC as a thing of its time. When you have all the hi-tech gizmos of course you can afford to be picky about what you use and how you use it. When you have a World War that you MUST win then you have to use everything that will enable you to do so. Had BC not done so and we had not won, then it would have violated LOAC, not only for its own population but for every other one that remained unliberated. How it applies to wars that you want to win but can bear losing I don't know, but then justice goes to the victors of course (unless they be Brits it would seem).
Thank you for explaining modern thinking, oh and please forgive my confusing the Typhoon with the Tornado. Perhaps on reflection that is the one thing I will not be forgiven though;-)

As Orca says he cannot speak for the modern RAF vis a vis its attitude to the WWII Bombing Offensive, is there anyone who can? I suspect that Danny42C would share my interest in that. He's a bit of a new kid on the block, a bit wet behind the ears as it were, but as he speaks with direct knowledge of events back then we might all learn something if we pay attention to him.

Danny, great to see you posting here as well as on the WWII Pilots Brevet thread. Thank you for your kind words and the pithy way you tell it as it is. For what it's worth I much prefer that approach than the jargon and sound bites that wrap up everything these days, but as Orca says we shouldn't skirt issues but tackle them head on. So lets get on and do so.....

Jane-DoH

9th Feb 2012, 22:49

orca

A point that many miss is that Mr Churchill could point to the offensive as proof that we were pulling our weight when Russia and the USA were making incredible sacrifices.

The United States was making large sacrifices because were fighting in two theaters (Atlantic/Europe, and Pacific).

The Soviet Union was taking the greatest beating from the Germans. They were sneak-attacked, and then you had SS units exterminating everybody in mass-graves. Then you have Stalin himself who mobilized the whole population to fight, and had his snipers shoot any soldiers who attempted to retreat (in battle it is sometimes necessary to retreat, and then regroup)

I also believe that both during the war and to the present day a high proportion of people have struggled with certain fundementals of the campaign.

Of course, it was aimed almost squarely at civilians. Sure, there was a desire to gut German industry, but there was definitely a desire to basically pound the snot out of civilians.
"The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive and the part which Bomber Command is required by agreed British-US strategy to play in it, should be unambiguously and publicly stated. That aim is the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers and the disruption of civilised community life throughout Germany.

It should be emphasised that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
-- Air Marshall Arthur T. Harris

Technically the whole claim of "de-housing the working population" was basically a pretext to engage in all-out attacks against the civilian population whether they be worker or not. Winston Churchill effectively admitted to it whether he intended to or not.
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror though under other pretexts should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of allied bombing. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives rather than the mere acts of terror and mass destruction, however impressive."

It was, however, when viewed as the only offensive weapon we had at the time, arguably, necessary.

One could argue that at first at least, but for that to hold water, Bomber Command would have had to have started switching to specific targets once improved navigation and targeting systems were developed. That generally didn't seem to be the case; instead most of these things were simply employed to make area-bombing attacks more devastating.

We deliberately targeted civilians.

Which is a war-crime under the Hague conventions which existed at the time.

500N

I see Le May was mentioned. His strategy of fire bombing Japanese cities was the equivalent of Dresden.

Actually, there were some significant differences

DRESDEN

Weather was clear on the night of 2/13/45 and the early morning hours of 2/14/45 and target area was clearly seen.
There were industrial sites located on the outskirts of town
There was a railway marshaling yard, it was outside the target area
There was a railway bridge of which destroying could have been halted traffic for months
The industrial sites were not on the bomber-crew's maps
The railway marshaling yard was outside the RAF target-area
The railway bridge was outside the target area of the RAF, and probably the USAAF
Dresden was targeted for incendiary attack from the get-go.
The RAF aiming point was a large stadium which was known to have large amounts of wood in it's construction and it was believed (correctly) that it would burn well.
The USAAF was sent to attack the center of the city (though evidently some crews were told they were to attack the railway yards)*
The B-17's were were carrying an unusually high load of incendiaries (40%) which was typically used by the RAF for fire-bombing (The USAAF generally used a much higher percentage of HE); the bombs were set to land 250-feet apart, effectively resulting in a scattering, rather than a salvo release (which would be consistent with hitting a specific target).

Tokyo

Initial attacks against Tokyo (and other cities in Japan) were done from high-altitude using the Norden bombsight.
There was generally a stiff jet-stream over Japan resulting in aircraft achieving either extremely high ground-speeds (faster than the bombsight could keep up), or extremely slow ground-speeds
Weather was frequently cloudy over Japan making it hard to spot targets
High altitudes typically employed by B-29's effectively reduced the effectiveness of the Norden bombsight as it was not particularly effective above 20,000 feet.
Tokyo was known to have a large, decentralized industrial base which would have made traditional bombing difficult (though there were some large factories IIRC)
Flying at low-altitude at night was effective because the AAA fuses set for those altitudes, and the Japanese didn't have many night-fighters
Incendiaries were used because the city was largely constructed out of wood, paper and so forth, and burned very easily.

Load Toad

I swear to god that that I saw a book in Page One a while back about the German raids during WW1 and the experiments they carried out making various incendiary devices eventually developing the thermite / magnesium firebomb - that was the same type later used by the British during WW2.

So incendiary attacks predated WW2 by a long-shot.

Chugalug2

The RAF first tried to use it in the way that you would insist upon, used by day to attack pinpoint military targets. It was suicidal, mainly because the modern monoplane cannon equipped fighter also existed. In one raid alone all 11 aircraft were shot down. The solution, as our own fighters lacked the range to escort our bombers to strategic enemy targets, was to fly at night.

Actually there were people in the United States and probably Great Britain that felt that fighters were useful. The problem was

There was a commonly held attitude that a fighter with sufficient range to escort a bomber would cease to be a fighter. This was clearly wrong, and knowledge of the day existed to show it. It was called the Breguet Range Equation. The greater the fuel fraction, the greater range provided specific fuel consumption, L/D ratio, and thrust/weight ratio remain the same. One could also carry drop-tanks to further augment range. Drop-tanks can also be carried to augment-range
There were some people who simply felt the bomber would always get through and could defend itself without any trouble. There were a few who realized otherwise. They were either too low of a rank to influence things in a direct fashion, or got themselves into trouble (Billy Mitchell for example got demoted for rocking the boat too much, then court-martialled when he shot his mouth off after an airship crashed).

The RAF had other problems however in that their bombsights weren't as good as ours and even if they had a fighter-escort they couldn't have put the bombs as effectively on target. Eventually, they would develop SABS, which was similar to our Norden bombsight, but by this point there was no desire to bomb accurately and maximizing civilian deaths was the primary objective.

In many ways that has been our salvation, that "MAD" kept the peace through the Cold War for fear of the effects of a Hot one!

I would hardly consider MAD to be peace. What MAD did was maintain a balance of terror. I don't even know how many people went to bed praying to whatever god they believed in for the Russians not to nuke us.

Molemot

Germany's military commander Ludendorff made its purpose clear: 'The moral intimidation of the British nation and the crippling of the will to fight'.

Which is a warcrime under the 1907 Hague Conventions. I'm surprised nobody moved to try him for war-crimes and get him hanged?

orca

I honestly believe the problem has always been one of honesty. Attacking civilians because you can't accurately target anything more meaningful, or targeting civilians knowingly as part of taking on a target set within a city is, quite simply, attacking civilians. We shouldn't try to skirt the issue with handy catch alls like 'Total War'.

Agreed, just admit what was done

We appear to disagree only on one fundemental point. The combined bomber offensive did not kill civilians as a by product of attack on military targets. They were the target. Let's be big enough to say so.

Especially since nobody's going to be tried for it.

R.C.

* According to a B-17 pilot, they were told they were to attack the railway yards; according to the 1st Bombardment Division Commander they were to bomb the center of the city (wikipedia).

RUCAWO

9th Feb 2012, 23:10

The United States was making large sacrifices because were fighting in two theaters (Atlantic/Europe, and Pacific

And the British weren't?

Just how many US cities were bombed with 3-400 plane raids and how many US citizens were killed in these raids?

The Germans started with bombing cities with a mix of HE and incendieries in WW1 , they continued at Guernica, then Rotterdam etc in WW2 then the blitz attacks on London, Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow , Belfast etc even neutral Dublin ,possibly a mistake but a 100mile navagation error:confused:

Nazi germany got everthing it deserved, if the war in Europe had continued a couple of German cities would have been turned into glass carparks ,possibly by B-29s flying from Northern Ireland.

500N

9th Feb 2012, 23:15

Jane-DoH
I meant in terms of huge numbers of people / civilians killed,
not how the bombing was carried out.

Chugalug2

10th Feb 2012, 06:40

Jane DoH:
The RAF had other problems however in that their bombsights weren't as good as ours and even if they had a fighter-escort they couldn't have put the bombs as effectively on target. Eventually, they would develop SABS, which was similar to our Norden bombsight, but by this point there was no desire to bomb accurately and maximizing civilian deaths was the primary objective.

My turn to hand my homework in it seems. I think that the best I can do here is to quote a veteran, Danny42C:-
There were tales of a bomb in a pickle barrel from 30,000 ft (with the new US Norden bombsight). Some folk believed in fairies too.

USAAF bombing was more accurate than BC's it is true. Our average error was 5 miles, theirs 2.5 miles. Both had aiming points, or targets if you will, and neither was told to simply bomb anywhere within a city. The difference wasn't the bomb sight, the difference was day versus night. I understand that the bulk of USAAF bombs were released by "Toggleteers" who had no bombsight but released on cue from the lead bomber that did, with inevitable "creep back".
All that aside, I take it that you consider the USAAF as guilty of the war crimes that you accuse BC of, or do you perhaps not?
MAD kept the peace in my book, for I am content with defining it simply as the absence of war!

500N

10th Feb 2012, 06:53

RUCAWO

Re "Nazi germany got everthing it deserved, if the war in Europe had continued a couple of German cities would have been turned into glass carparks ,possibly by B-29s flying from Northern Ireland."

Question is, why "from Northern Ireland" and not from one of the airfields in the UK ?

Pontius Navigator

10th Feb 2012, 07:28

targeting civilians knowingly as part of taking on a target set within a city is, quite simply, attacking civilians

In the cold war one target set was counter-value - Leningrad for Birmingham. Even where the target was very clearly a city with the DPI in the centre it was always stated that the target was 'the HQ of the Western TVD' or some such military target which we all knew was as good as naming Soboran Barracks in Lincoln as justifciation for bombing Lincoln.

We all knew the military would not be there by the time we bombed the place and it was known that collateral damage was the bonus.

I guess it was written that way even then as legal justification. Even in WW2 the target for tonight might have been 'Cologne' but this would have immediately been amplified to identify the military importance of the target.

Turning to Jane,

The best the pathfinder force achieved was 400 yards and that was similar to the Vs in the 60s. The main force would then bomb the marked target. The main force just did not have the expertise of the pathfnders as many crews would be on their first missions and creep back remained an issue until the end.

If you look at contemporary film of B17 raids you will see that they were not attempting pinpoint accuracy either. The master bomber might be leading the run but the formation would drop on command with the formation spread spreading the load.

Tankertrashnav

10th Feb 2012, 11:33

I was thinking about replying to Jane - Doh's latest post, but I started losing the will to live about half way through :bored:

Instead

PS 617 (actual Dambusters, probable/ possible Tirpitz killers) fly the Tornado.Well, half of them do, the other half just watch from the back.

You mean the man/woman in the front drives the aeroplane to where it is needed then the one down the back takes over and does the tricky stuff? ;)

Pontius Navigator

10th Feb 2012, 11:57

You mean the woman in the front drives the aeroplane to where it is needed then

did the strafe. I watched in admiration as she continued her 'day' strafe long after we could not see the strafe panels. I imagine the GIB had her eyes locked on the altimeter.

RUCAWO

10th Feb 2012, 12:22

Question is, why "from Northern Ireland" and not from one of the airfields in the UK ?
http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/statusicon/user_offline.gif http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/buttons/report.gif (http://www.pprune.org/report.php?p=7015328)

The airfield identified to me was Millisle ,it had not been completed and was to be a USAAF replacement crew training unit, it had an exceptionally long runway and the whole area could be sealed off by closing six roads . Also most of the mainland airfields were rather crowded and busy, thankfully it never came to that but with the main NI fighter station eight miles down the road it is the perfect spot.

Seldomfitforpurpose

10th Feb 2012, 12:30

You mean the man/woman in the front drives the aeroplane to where it is needed then the one down the back takes over and does the tricky stuff? ;)

That cannot be right, surely the fact that the guy/girl in the back had proved conclusively during the selection process he/she was not good enough to sit up front proves that the really tricky stuff is in fact done by drivers airframes :p

Pontius Navigator

10th Feb 2012, 13:19

That cannot be right, surely the fact that the guy/girl in the back had proved conclusively during the selection process he/she was not good enough to sit up front proves that the really tricky stuff is in fact done by drivers airframes :p

B*ll*cks, some of us opted for nav. Your statement is only true of those that were chopped pilot.

Tankertrashnav

10th Feb 2012, 13:31

Question is, why "from Northern Ireland" and not from one of the airfields in the UK ?

Small point, but last time I looked, Northern Ireland was part of the UK!

500N

10th Feb 2012, 13:34

PN

Good point !

I am sure you know what I meant.

hval

10th Feb 2012, 13:55

Jane,

The United Kingdom, Commonwealth nations and other allies were fighting in Europe (on multiple fronts), providing support to the Russians, fighting in Africa, The Middle East, Asia, Australasia. I have probably forgotten some theatre of operations.

WW II was a Total War. This means the destruction of all assets. It also means that there aren't really any civilians as all are assets are mobilised with the aim of winning the war. All sides at the time understood this.

For those interested in why Bomber Command used some of the tactics that they did might I suggest a bit of reading up on the Operational Research department.

Seldomfitforpurpose

10th Feb 2012, 17:43

B*ll*cks, some of us opted for nav. Your statement is only true of those that were chopped pilot.

Yeah right, opted for Nav :p:p:p:p:p

Pontius Navigator

10th Feb 2012, 19:14

SFFP, you are a mere youngester. At least I got out of training and on to proper flying pay a good year ahead of many of those that took the 23 Gp route.

In those days proper aircraft even had wireless operators and throttle jockeys as well as pilots, airframe.

Exnomad

10th Feb 2012, 19:24

Comments on the inaccuracy of early raids I can believe. Prior to GEE and H2S, navigation would have been by visual , Astro and dead reckoning. Forecast winds could have been way out. I trained as Navigator in early 1950s on mainly wartime aids. Astro in turbulent skys could be very inaccurate

Tankertrashnav

10th Feb 2012, 21:00

Astro in turbulent skys could be very inaccurate

In some navs' hands it wasn't always that brilliant in dead smooth conditions :O

Jane-DoH

10th Feb 2012, 23:21

Chugalug2

USAAF bombing was more accurate than BC's it is true. Our average error was 5 miles, theirs 2.5 miles.

I'm well aware of the fact that the Norden couldn't put a bomb in a pickle-barrel from 30,000 feet -- in fact (I think I mentioned this before), it wasn't even particularly useful over 20,000 feet.

Regardless, as I understand it the CEP at the start of the war was around 400 yards, another source said their bombs generally landed within an area of either 600 feet or 600 yards.

Both had aiming points, or targets if you will, and neither was told to simply bomb anywhere within a city.

Yeah, but as I understand it, the USAAF (at least from 1942-1944) generally tried to nail factories, railway yards, bridges, stuff like that; The RAF from what it appeared, simply hit targets that they thought would set off huge blazes that would burn a whole city down.

All that aside, I take it that you consider the USAAF as guilty of the war crimes that you accuse BC of, or do you perhaps not?

I would say that I believe the USAAF or RAF committed war-crimes when they purposefully targeted civilians (which did happen on both sides). In some respects, the USAAF might have done something the RAF didn't (not sure here) -- using low-altitude fighter attacks to strafe civilians.
"Atrocities were committed by both sides. That fall [1944] our fighter group received orders from the Eighth Air Force to stage a maximum effort. Our seventy-five Mustangs were assigned an area of fifty miles by fifty miles inside Germany and ordered to strafe anything that moved. The object was to demoralize the German population. . . It was a miserable, dirty mission, but we all took off on time and did it. . . I remember sitting next to Bochkay at the briefing and whispering to him: "If we're gonna do things like this, we sure as hell better make sure we're on the winning side.""
- Chuck Yeager

You'll note the statement demoralize the German population was used -- not the German military -- that means strafing civilians as well as military targets. It's one thing to strafe military targets, and accidentally get a civilian here and there if it's an accident -- when it's deliberate -- it's a war-crime.

MAD kept the peace in my book, for I am content with defining it simply as the absence of war!

So you think it's right to live in constant fear of annihilation?

Pontius Navigator

In the cold war one target set was counter-value - Leningrad for Birmingham. Even where the target was very clearly a city with the DPI in the centre it was always stated that the target was 'the HQ of the Western TVD' or some such military target which we all knew was as good as naming Soboran Barracks in Lincoln as justifciation for bombing Lincoln.

We all knew the military would not be there by the time we bombed the place and it was known that collateral damage was the bonus.

Well, I think it would be more correct to say that collateral damage was the goal, and the military target was a bonus :}

I guess it was written that way even then as legal justification.

Also, it probably makes the idea of bombing cities off the map and boiling away a couple of million people in a mushroom cloud somehow seem more palatable.

If you look at contemporary film of B17 raids you will see that they were not attempting pinpoint accuracy either. The master bomber might be leading the run but the formation would drop on command with the formation spread spreading the load.

I know after 1944 when Doolittle took command of the 8th AF, they simply switched to area-bombing. Strangely the CEP was about 900 feet at this point.

Tankertrashnav[/b

I was thinking about replying to [b]Jane - Doh's latest post, but I started losing the will to live about half way through :bored:

Perhaps you should continue to read it now that you're in a better mood -- maybe you could learn something useful.

hval

WW II was a Total War.

Yes it was. It really amazes me how no matter how good an argument another person makes somebody always has to throw out the "Total War" trope as if it was some kind of trump-card that always wins the argument and makes any atrocity acceptable?

Fact is, targeting civilians was a war-crime even back then. It was since 1907 with the Hague Conventions. It's one thing when civilians die as a result of collateral damage, it's another when they are actually a target.

It also means that there aren't really any civilians as all are assets are mobilised with the aim of winning the war. All sides at the time understood this.

Sounds like a good argument except for the following facts

The RAF, and some personalities within the USAAS/USAAC wanted to bomb civilian centers and terror bomb civilian populations into submission long before WW2 even started.
This was largely due to the combination of ideas from people such as Giulio Douhet (Italy), Hugh Trenchard (UK), and Billy Mitchell (US)
UK's experiences with Zeppelin bombing and unrestricted submarine warfare in WW1
As I understand it, Germany didn't impose total war until early 1943, a couple of months after the UK imposed an area-bombing policy.
The desire to wage all out war on noncombatants existed long-before WW2 even started.

R.C.

Pontius Navigator

11th Feb 2012, 08:25

Of course targetting civilians takes two forms.

There is the strafing of a refugee column with the sole purpose of creating mayhem and blocking a road; of shooting then population of a village pour encourager les autres; of torpedoing a passenger ship taking POW and civilians away from the war zone.

There is the collateral killing where the civilians happen to be in a target area; where civilians are crewing ships carrying war materials.

In the former the victims had no choice and no chance.

In the latter the civilians had free choice. Merchant seamen could have opted out; civilians could have evacuated the target areas.

In the former civilan deaths was NOT collateral damage; in the latter it was deliberate to a point but still technically collateral.

Brian 48nav

11th Feb 2012, 08:50

My first choice was nav! So there!

As I once explained to PN, having seen 'Dr Strangelove', where it was obvious the nav was the cool dude in the B52 and the captain was a raving idiot - remember him waving his hat,sat astride the nuke leaving the bomb bay?

TTN

With you on 2 counts - even with a periscopic sextant my astro could be crap! Did find Gan on a few occasions though; 700 mile range NDB helped.

Some of the posts on this thread make me want to slash my wrists. Having in my short flying career flown with lots of guys who had fought in WW2 ,I will never criticise what they did,not only for our country, but to save western Europe too.We could have just pulled down the shutters and sat there after the BofB. If Hitler hadn't been so stupid as to declare on the USA it's debatable whether they would have ever entered the European War.

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 09:12

Jane-Doh:
I'm well aware of the fact that the Norden couldn't put a bomb in a pickle-barrel from 30,000 feet -- in fact (I think I mentioned this before), it wasn't even particularly useful over 20,000 feet.

Regardless, as I understand it the CEP at the start of the war was around 400 yards, another source said their bombs generally landed within an area of either 600 feet or 600 yards.

Please Miss, PPRuNe just ate all my Homework! So here goes again:
The best USAAF got was a radius of 2 miles by day. BC started out at 5 miles and got it down to 3 miles by night. I would place 400 yd "CEPs" and 600 yd "areas" in with Danny's Fairies!
The USAAF started out with the pre war concept of long rang bombers (B-17s) sinking enemy naval targets (Japanese warships) with high level precision bombing (Norden bombsight). In reality of course that task was carried out by carrier borne Torpedo and Dive Bombers. The B-17s were sent to Europe for the much easier task of bombing land-locked strategic military targets. The loss rate was so horrific that they withdrew until long range fighters evened the odds. Their success in precision bombing thereafter is quoted above. They may well have:
generally tried to nail factories, railway yards, bridges, stuff like that;
the reality was that, like the RAF, they flattened cities and killed civilians. So on the one hand the Brits flattened cities at night, killed civilians, and are guilty of war crimes. On the other hand the USAAF aspired to bomb precision targets by day, resulting in flattened cities and killing civilians, but are not? Yer 'avin a larf, aintcher? Either that or you must be a lawyer. As Brian 48Nav says, they both saved Western Europe, as well as in all likelihood their own nations, and the freedom of people like you to count the number of Fairies on pin heads!

Pontius Navigator

11th Feb 2012, 09:36

Chug, I posted the 400 yard CEP figure. This was in our 540 on 35 Sqn when they were a Pathfinder sqn so is completely accurate and unbiased, same as the sqn that sank the Tirpitz.

For the uninformed, the CEP is the radius in which HALF of the bombs separately aimed at the target landed. So for 100 that landed within 400 yards 100 could have landed anywhere in Germany or beyond!

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 10:18

Thanks PN, but that makes it all the more disingenuous of Ms Jane-DoH to quote it in a discussion about main force accuracy. It was the efforts of the PBI of main force and their toggleteering USAAF counterparts that we were talking of. Those of the pathfinders such as your own 35 Sqn were of a different order, though Colin McGreggor's 617 might claim an even better one vis a vis the Tirpitz;-) Oh, sorry I forgot, please don't mention the Tirpitz! I just did but I think I got away with it....

PPRuNe Pop

11th Feb 2012, 10:57

Try the Bielefeld Viaduct. 30yds.

The Saumur tunnel. In the hole - front AND top.

Dortmund Ems canal - bingo!

The Brest U-boat pens. One Grand Slam right in the middle, might not have been on a sixpence but half a crown might be fair. :E

But.........the bomb sight was an absolute beauty and they bombed from 20,000 feet, which gave the Grand Slam its optimum effectiveness.

All breathtaking really. It would be true to say that our star bomb aimers were the creme a la creme.

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 11:39

PRRuNe Pop, excellent examples of daylight precision bombing by precision bombing specialists. But the vast majority of main force and 8th USAAF were not, and main force had the disadvantage of night bombing to boot. That is why I do not understand the ambivalent attitude of the modern RAF to the WWII RAF's Bombing Campaign. It is not enough to simply applaud the veterans while disowning the campaign itself, either disown both or stand by both. Jane-DoH is typical of those that even in war-time challenged the campaign while suggesting no other viable war winning strategy (specific targets such as oil, transportation, ball bearings, etc, were often proposed by the "precision specialists" but as often as not still involved the bombing of cities or otherwise very heavily defended targets, such as Ploesti that resulted in unsustainable losses). The RAF Bombing Campaign (and that of 8th USAAF) was a war winning one. Others will contest that I know, but without it I am convinced we could not prevail. That is why it was necessary and that is why the modern RAF should stand up and be counted in support of it.

Pontius Navigator

11th Feb 2012, 11:52

But not by night.

The imagery also shows that one hit needed an awful lot of misses.

On the FI thread there is mention that Mike Beavis said it would require 50 Vulcans to neutralise Stanley airport. That would equate to 75 Lancasters.

Remember too that the precision attacks in AFG are conducted in a largely benign environment.

airborne_artist

11th Feb 2012, 12:31

Nothing to do with mass bombing of civilian areas, but can I suggest reading up on Operation Bulbasket?

labrador pup

11th Feb 2012, 12:44

I get heartily fed up with the argument that bomber crews took off with the sole objective of killing civilians. My reading of books from the 50's and 60's suggest that each crew had a specific military or industrial target. They made their own way there, and later in the war when better navigation aids became available, were given a specific time over target, so as to minimise the risk of collisions and maximise the bomb concentration.

Has anyone asked the veterans if they went out to deliberately kill civilians or to bomb military/industrial targets?

glojo

11th Feb 2012, 12:47

Nothing to do with mass bombing of civilian areas, but can I suggest reading up on Operation Bulbasket?Good afternoon Airborne was that comment linked to my questions if so then that Operation took place in 1944 and must surely fit into the category of:

I just feel it is so wrong to act as judge and jury regarding historical events fought in a different era. Where does it end, do we go back to the conduct of the Vikings?

Your post refers to a despicable act but it does not do anyone any favours to open up these wounds. It was not the first example of how our commando units\Special Forces were treated in that way, but I will NOT post any links as it is now just a very sad part of a distasteful period.

pr00ne

11th Feb 2012, 13:57

labrador pup,

You are so wrong in your assertion. Do the most basic research into Bomber Command operations, particularly the latter half of the war, and you will see that you in fact have no grounds whatsoever for being so 'heartily fed up.'

Each crew did not have a specific military or industrial target. The crews in fact had very little involvement in what they were actually bombing, that came from the Air Ministry and Bomber Command headquarters and was based on target reconnaissance coverage of previously bombed targets. They were targeted at unburnt and unbombed areas of the cities, individual facilities did not come into it.

In point of fact they were most usually aiming for specific target markers dropped by the target marking force and guided onto the relevant colours by the Master Bomber. He would move the aim point from, say, red to green target markers, or "bomb south of the green" or bomb to the east of the red" according to the areas of the city not on fire.

On the Dresden raid industrial and military areas were not even marked on the crews maps, they were merely aimed at zones of the city. The point at which the marker flares were aimed was a wooden sports stadium in the middle of the city. The railway marshalling yards, perhaps THE most militarily and industrially important target in the whole of Dresden, were not even in the target area.
The target was the city and the population of Dresden.

Harris was no war criminal, he was merely wrong. He was convinced, and made the statement many times, that strategic bombing of cities would win the war, it didn't. It certainly contributed massively to it, but that wasn't the claim made by Harris, he claimed that there was NO NEED for the D-Day landings or the Battle of the Atlantic, that strategic bombing alone would win the day. It didn't.

Prior to the Battle of Berlin he made the claim. "I will wreck Berlin from end to end. It will cost me 500 bombers, it will cost Germany the war."
He was wrong on both counts. It cost him 1500 bombers, Berlin was never wrecked from end to end, and it never cost Germany the war. The Battle of Berlin was lost by Bomber Command and it didn't cost the Germans the war.

He was also opposed to panacea targets, and in this he consistently argued and fought with CAS and Director of Bomber Operations at the Air Ministry. He didn't want to concentrate on oil or ball bearing targets, as proposed by the Americans, he even opposed the Dams raid. He was totally focused on a campaign of dehousing and destruction of CITIES.

At the end of the war German industrial output was still rising and there was no shortage of material or equipment. What there WAS was a massive shortage of oil and ball bearings. The Americans were right, Harris was wrong.

Canadian Break

11th Feb 2012, 14:16

Re post 164: please define your understanding of the term "Total War".

Pontius Navigator

11th Feb 2012, 14:45

Harris, he claimed that there was NO NEED for the D-Day landings or the Battle of the Atlantic, that strategic bombing alone would win the day. It didn't.

Harris would have argued that his bomber offensive was diverted from his aim. You might argue that without D-day Harris might have had 2,000 bombers. IIRC a figure of 5,000 was mentioned. All I would say is that you cannot deduce Harris was wrong.

He was also opposed to panacea targets, and in this he consistently argued and fought with CAS and Director of Bomber Operations at the Air Ministry. He didn't want to concentrate on oil or ball bearing targets, as proposed by the Americans, he even opposed the Dams raid. He was totally focused on a campaign of dehousing and destruction of CITIES.
A classic application of some of the principles of war - selection and maintenance of the aim, concentration of force and economy of effort.

Harris did not, I believe, set the aim but certainly attempted to maintain it hell or high water.

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 14:45

There are a couple of points worth making in this argument, which so far no-one has pointed out

1) the "civilians" in the bombed city were to a large extent the workforce of the target factories, and therefore legitimate targets themselves. BY bombing the cities, you destroy or harass the workforce, and destroy much of the infrastructure which makes the work possible: the roads, buses, trams, power and water supplies
2) much of this derbate seems to assume that german industry was built in discrete isolated industrial sites. That wasn't the case. Just as in the UK, the industrial development of the 1800's had brought manufacturing into the towns, with houses filling the gaps in between. Go into a British town like Widnes, or Manchester, and see how the metal-bashing and chemical plants were cheek-by-jowl with the housing. OK, there were some dedicated plants e.g. the Ruhr steel works, but in the main, most German industrial production took place withing the cities, alongside the workforce. You could not destroy one without destroying the other
To attempt to suggest that bombing could be kept to "industrial targets only is pure nonsense. The towns and cities WERE the manufacturing factories, there was no way not to hit them. Any pretence otherwise is just muddled thinking by modern bleeding hearts liberals who have never taken the time to actually look at the history of manufacturing industry and the industrial revolution

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 14:56

pr00ne, you can quote Harris all you like, but it isn't what he said that counts so much as what he did, and that was to carry out the directives of the Air Board. Dowding believed he could communicate with his deceased pilots, so what? He ensured that Fighter Command won its decisive battle. Harris's battle lasted years, not months, and had to be fought by night. Try taking out ball bearing factories, critical railway junctions, or isolated oil facilities by night in WWII, it would result merely in wasted bombs and wasted crews. BC wasn't exactly going to make a point of the fact that the only target it could be relied on to find and hit was cities, so it was dressed up as a virtue in its own right, de-house and de-moralise the population and you disrupt war production. Of course you did, and it was worth it for that alone, but it would have been better of course to target the factories, rail junctions, warehouses, fuel storage tanks, etc etc specifically. He couldn't, but at least there was a fair chance of hitting a lot of those if he went for the cities anyway. By putting in so many attacks, night and day, the Allied Bomber Offensive tied down huge German resources to defend the cities which could otherwise be sent East. In that way alone they ensured Russian success there. As for the old canard of German Wartime Production rising, that was scarcely surprising, the factories initially worked one 12 hour shift. They only had to make that 24 hours to double production. They only had to mobilise women to increase it still further. They only had to transport large numbers of people from the occupied territories as slave/guest workers to push it up even more. They only had to work concentration camp prisoners to death for yet higher output still. The limited and unbalanced increased output that Speer did manage is a result of, not a failure of, the Bomber Offensive. As Danny 42C rightly says, Harris and BC would have prefered a rapier. They were handed a club, but wielded it to great and devastating effect. We should commend them, not only for their courage but in ensuring that success in the East and the West, and hence Victory, was possible. Like all aspects of Air Power, that is not immediately to be seen, but should be upon reflection, and certainly by those whose profession it is.

pr00ne

11th Feb 2012, 15:12

Milo Mindbender,

Not sure what your point is but I do basically agree with most of your salient facts. Though is has to be pointed out that it is partly disingenuous to describe the civilian population of a city as "the workforce" and therefore legitimate targets. Those 'civilians' certainly included the workforce, but they also consisted of millions upon millions of children, old age pensioners, the sick, the ill and the infirm and those many folk engaged on non warlike activities. The German economy was extremely late and lax in its mobilisation to a total war economy and was still turning out consumer goods in 1944.

Your industrial area point is also valid but I would suggest more so in that very emotional city that we all like to use as a justifier, Coventry. (my home town)
Coventry was unique as an industrial city in that its progression from silk weaving, through watch manufacture to cycle manufacture, motor cycle manufacture and on to automotive, aircraft and general metal bashing produced an entirely unique industrial environmant. As so much of the very early manufacturing in Coventry was in skilled workers houses and extended watch makers premises, the development of later manufacturing led to the actual Medieval heart of Coventry being extremely industrialised.

Thus, when it was raided in November 1940 the Luftwafe WAS aiming for individual industrial targets and used its elite target marking and pathfinder force to lead the raid.
The Coventry blitz was no indiscriminate raid, it was a precision raid, or as near as you could get to precision with 1940 technology.

Undoubtedly there were similar towns and cities in Germany but there were also huge totally industrial area: Essen, Krupps, Wuppertal to name just a few.

But where you really lose it is in the use of the ridiculous phrase

"Muddled thinking by bleeding heart modern liberals"

WHAT does that mean?

There was wide spread opposition to the mass bombing as early as 1943. It was raised in the House of Commons and it was raised in the House of Lords. It was raised by the Church of England and it was raised by certain Bomber Command crews.

You can be proud of what those young crews went through, you can be proud of their sacrifice and their heroic and stoic endurance. I find it inconceivable that anyone can be proud of what they actually did.

IT WAS the way to hit back in the early 1940's and there was a place for it in the Allies strategy.
By late 1944 it was ineffective, not needed, counter productive and plain WRONG.

Two wrongs do not a right make.

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 15:52

My point is simple - that all the previous comments trying to differentiate between industrial and civilian targets is just plain claptrap. In the main - at the time - the two were one and the same, with the exception as you noted of the Krupps and similar plants. But - as with your comment re Coventry - most of the manufacturing capacity was integrated into the towns and cities. Differentiation of targets was not possible, so claiming it was is a total misrepresentation.
As regards "Muddled thinking by bleeding heart modern liberals", in view of your comments regarding complaints at the time, I'll change that to "Muddled thinking by bleeding heart liberals".
With the exception of the children, those people living in the cities were living in a valid target area. Even if they were not directly employed in munition work, they would have been supporting those that were: working on transport, catering, offices. If they didn't want to be bombed they had the choice to get out. Many did

Remember ot was Goebbels who said ""TOTALER KRIEG — KÜRZESTER KRIEG"

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 16:11

Pr00ne:
There was wide spread opposition to the mass bombing as early as 1943. It was raised in the House of Commons and it was raised in the House of Lords. It was raised by the Church of England and it was raised by certain Bomber Command crews.
It was frequently raised indeed by Bomber Command's Head Chaplain, and it is a tribute to Harris, IMHO, that he allowed him to do so instead of having him replaced by someone more amenable. But none of the worthies that you mention said what should be done with BC in place of the Night Bombing Offensive. Aspirations are all well and good, but practicalities dictate what can and cannot be done. I repeat, BC Main Force bombed cities by night because it could. In doing so it paved the way to Victory and, perhaps more importantly for Western Europe, frustrated Germany doing the same thing. It was a terrible and awful thing to do, but not doing it would have been worse. We would all (possibly even including the USA) be living under tyranny to this day.

Gufair

11th Feb 2012, 16:29

I had the great pleasure of meeting Squadron Leader Tony Iveson a few years ago at his home, I was repairing his television if i remember correctly.At the time he was doing a talk for the Imperial War Museum I think, regarding his wartime experiences,he asked whether I could make quite a few tape copies of the talk for him which I happily did on the understanding could I keep one for myself,he agreed. A fascinating man to listen to and a true gentleman I hope he and all involved get the recognition they deserve. Sadly during a house move the said tape was lost a great pity. Stu holland

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 16:41

Gufar
these by any chance?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysuWN2G6cPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8negb-EwV4&feature=related

Gufair

11th Feb 2012, 16:50

Thank You Sir :)

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 17:09

"Freedom is not for free". Simple words that demand such a terrible price. Thank you M&M (if you'll permit me ;-). Good to see Robin Gibb at the dedication ceremony. The RAF should honour him in some way, as he has ensured that its 55,573 fallen are to be honoured at last.

orca

11th Feb 2012, 17:43

In Max Hastings' book on the campaign (which is in storage so i can't refer directly) he reminds us that BDA for the raids was done using houses destroyed or acres of housing destroyed as the metric.

That, to my mind, puts paid to the line that industry was the target.

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 18:01

not really
they just needed an easily available metric. Houses are a constant of reasonably uniform size and distribution so easy to measure. Given that industry would be dispersed within the housing (or more accurately, housing provided the infill between factories) then using the standard house as a unit of destruction seems reasonable.
Think what the London east end was like prior to the war with the warehouses surrounded by back-to-back terraces

Jane-DoH

11th Feb 2012, 20:45

500N

I meant in terms of huge numbers of people / civilians killed,
not how the bombing was carried out.

But the motives for why the bombing was carried out play a big role in determining the justifiability/criminality/heinousness of the attack.

From what it appears, regardless of death-toll, Dresden was a far more heinous attack due to the fact that it was not done to hit targets of value, but simply to smash and burn a city down and kill lots of people. That's why Dresden has been much more of controversy than say Hamburg.

Pontius Navigator

Of course targetting civilians takes two forms.

There is the strafing of a refugee column with the sole purpose of creating mayhem and blocking a road

From what it seems, that happened in Dresden...

of shooting then population of a village pour encourager les autres

What does pour encourager les autres mean? I don't speak French.

Chugalug2

So here goes again:
The best USAAF got was a radius of 2 miles by day.

You're just giving me numbers -- I could throw around numbers. Where are you getting your numbers from.

the reality was that, like the RAF, they flattened cities and killed civilians. So on the one hand the Brits flattened cities at night, killed civilians, and are guilty of war crimes. On the other hand the USAAF aspired to bomb precision targets by day, resulting in flattened cities and killing civilians, but are not?

What goes into factoring criminality into an act isn't just the act itself, but the intention of the act. If the intention was to flatten cities and kill civilians -- then it's a war-crime. If the intention wasn't to -- it isn't. It's the same reason that manslaughter gets a lighter sentence than say premeditated murder.

The RAF's aim was to flatten cities and, uh, "de-house the working population" which was basically a pretext for attacking civilians. Of course, any time the USAAF was operating with the intention of flattening cities and killing civilians en masse -- then it would too be a war-crime.

Either that or you must be a lawyer.

I'm not a lawyer, but I suppose you'll probably think I have the mindset of one. Of course there's a difference in that I'm not simply out to win the argument -- I'm simply pointing out the difference in intent and result.

Pontius Navigator

Chug, I posted the 400 yard CEP figure.

I saw that number elsewhere as well, but I failed to take into account regardless that it means that half the bombs fall within that figure.

pr00ne

On the Dresden raid industrial and military areas were not even marked on the crews maps, they were merely aimed at zones of the city. The point at which the marker flares were aimed was a wooden sports stadium in the middle of the city. The railway marshalling yards, perhaps THE most militarily and industrially important target in the whole of Dresden, were not even in the target area.
The target was the city and the population of Dresden.

Yeah, it was just a mission to kill huge numbers of civilians under the idea that it would terrorize the German people into rising up against their government and replacing it with one that would end the war. That didn't happen.

In fact I'm not even sure that happened with the nuclear-bombing against Hiroshima or Nagasaki -- if I recall the government simply surrendered.

Harris was no war criminal

No, he was. A war-crime is a violation of international law. The Hague Conventions (1907) specifically forbid the targeting of civilians.

It certainly contributed massively to it, but that wasn't the claim made by Harris, he claimed that there was NO NEED for the D-Day landings or the Battle of the Atlantic, that strategic bombing alone would win the day. It didn't.

He basically believed that if he smashed enough cities to rubble and killed enough civilians they'd rise up in terror and in an effort to preserve themselves, would overthrow their governments and replace them with one that would terminate the conflict.

Of course, the problem was that Harris was so convinced (and one could argue deluded) that this was the way to win, that even when it didn't work -- he simply figured they next time it would.

Winston Churchill basically felt that Germany's Prussian militarism, which was around since the 1700's had to be completely uprooted. So, he was fine with Harris bombing city after city off the map.

He didn't want to concentrate on oil or ball bearing targets, as proposed by the Americans, he even opposed the Dams raid. He was totally focused on a campaign of dehousing and destruction of CITIES.

Correct

At the end of the war German industrial output was still rising and there was no shortage of material or equipment. What there WAS was a massive shortage of oil and ball bearings. The Americans were right, Harris was wrong.

Yeah, and there are still people who hail him as a hero.

R.C.

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 21:10

"At the end of the war German industrial output was still rising"
How on earth can you claim that? At the end of the war Germany was smashed.. Its industrial output was minimal - thats why we were able to beat them. They rebuilt quickly after the war, mainly due to the investments of Marshall plan
As for the rest of your diatribe, its full of rubbish
They bombed what they could using the technology available. With a very few exceptions of the Ruhr chemical and steel plants, German manufacturing was embedded within the cities with housing filling in the gaps. Most towns and cities did not have defined industrial areas - there were no separate trade or industrial zones.
To bomb the site of production you had to bomb the whole city
Theres was no middle way - you either bombed or didn't, and you took what tragets you could

As to the question about the french phrase, read the wiki page on Admiral Byng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng
Napoleon coined the phrase when he heard of Byng's execution for the failure to defend Minorca.. Roughly translated, what he said was "The English, they execute an Admiral every now and then to encourage the others (to fight)"

Pontius Navigator

11th Feb 2012, 21:19

Strange that no one has mentioned the V word yet.

What does pour encourager les autres mean? I don't speak French.

Correct, it's French, Google, from Voltaire Candide.

Milo Minderbinder

11th Feb 2012, 21:40

Byng, executed 1757
Candide, published 1759 ( talking about Byng)
How well did Napoleon know Voltaire? I've seen the attribution to Napoleon several times

Chugalug2

11th Feb 2012, 22:45

Jane-DoH:

What goes into factoring criminality into an act isn't just the act itself, but the intention of the act. If the intention was to flatten cities and kill civilians -- then it's a war-crime. If the intention wasn't to -- it isn't. It's the same reason that manslaughter gets a lighter sentence than say premeditated murder.

The RAF's aim was to flatten cities and, uh, "de-house the working population" which was basically a pretext for attacking civilians. Of course, any time the USAAF was operating with the intention of flattening cities and killing civilians en masse -- then it would too be a war-crime.

What a pathetic position to take. Even Nuremberg convicted on actions taken or orders given rather than announced grandiose intent. If you think that defence would have counted (not that any would have of course) in a War Crimes trial conducted by the victorious Nazis you would have been very much in error. The announced policy of the USAAF Strategic Bombing Campaign of precision bombing flew in the face of what it actually did as exampled in the figures that you query, which appear on p321 of "The Bomber Offensive" by Anthony Verrier, pub Batsford 1968. For goodness sake, what kind of precision are you going to get with all but one bomber in a group releasing their bombs after they see the lead bomber drop its? Get real about USA dropping accuracy and get real about the real world. You keep quoting the Hague Conventions of 1907 as though they restricted the conduct of war thereafter. Submarines began their operations by inviting the crews of Merchant Ships to abandon them prior to sinking by shellfire. The real world soon put paid to that nicety. WWII was indeed total, ie it directly involved the mobilisation of entire populations be they civil or military, not because Douhet or Uncle Tom Cobbley had forecast it, but because technology made it possible. That is the real world that we live in now. You asked me if I was content to live in a world faced with instant annihilation. No, of course not, but I am realistic enough to realise that unlike 1907 that is where we are now. Just because wars post WWII have been limited ones, it does not mean that we are finished with total ones. Time will tell. Let us all pray that we are spared that, but conventions certainly wont do it, only the balance of power (a pretty way of saying MAD) will. You may be sickened by the way WWII was won by us, personally I am simply sickened by war period. If it cannot be avoided, you fight hard from the start to finish it as soon as possible and do not let up until you have won. That is how Harris fought the Bombing Campaign. Supposing he had eased off in 1944, because " the war was obviously won", and Hitler had been able to get the V5 and even later vengeance weapons operational, not against the Allied Armies, or even England, but against the US East Coast cities which were their target? Would you still be sure that Harris was now right instead of condemning him for fighting to the end? To my mind that would have been the real war crime, but hey, they're your cities not mine.

Surrey Towers

11th Feb 2012, 23:40

Jane-Doh

Everything you are pontificating about is nothing short of one eyed blindness.

The RAF's aim was to flatten cities and, uh, "de-house the working population" which was basically a pretext for attacking civilians. Of course, any time the USAAF was operating with the intention of flattening cities and killing civilians en masse -- then it would too be a war-crime.

I seem to recall on the nights that we were being bombed that the Luftwaffe were intent on bombing large areas of London that included an immense amount of civilians. Then they bombed Coventry which had NO strategic value, other cities too. Civilian casualties were high but then again you weren't here were you. That was a deliberate and murderous act.

This country was the subject of a battle which we alone had to defend, it was called the Battle of Britain, have you heard of that? Daily unprovoked attacks and our RAF defended England alone. It is true that several nationalities came to our aid, including Americans, but they were still RAF.

What you appear to be doing is deliberately 'choosing' your subject for effect. Dresden for example. It was the Germans that put up figures of civilians killed as a minimum of 60k but likely to have been 100k. That was just propaganda. After the war, long after, the true number given was 26k but even then it was changed to a lower figure much later.

Then you refer to war crimes by bombing. What was Germany doing to us then? Germany committed war crimes that amounted to millions NOT thousands. Have you not thought, while you were writing about the Hague Conventions how many times a day the German 'broke the rules?' All you are doing is mixing up the numbers to suit any argument you fancy without thought, and ignoring the reality of the time.

Harris was not a war criminal, and it is stupid to say he was. For example: would you have him not do any bombing? Also a stupid thought. His thoughts of Germany reaping the 'whirlwind' was just what WE over here wanted. If you were to suffer the nighttime raids for 18 months you would not be wasting your time in trying to justify bombing. The bombing we did was in response to that we received - just as we the sufferers wanted. Oh, there were people like you around even then but they were ridiculed as you are now. By the way, Harris thought of as a hero.

Of course, we don't forget Pear Harbour, when the Americans started to get a taste of what we got - well Hawaii did. But then again the Luftwaffe didn't bomb America every night - and as matter of fact neither did the Japanese.

Then America joined the war and they bombed Germany, killings civilians, which was, put simply, just a result of war. Are you excusing the Americans too? Le May used his bombers with the intention of killing civilians, he like Harris had no other choice. So, American attacks killed thousands of civilians and that is war. Conventions are almost null and void at times as a result.

I suggest you re-think your attitude and understanding because it is clear that many on this thread think you need to - including me.

Milo Minderbinder

12th Feb 2012, 00:02

I'd argue that Coventry WAS a valid target in view of its long history of precision engineering, much of which was carried out on a cottage industry basis - see pr00ne's last post above.
However what were clearly civilian oriented terror attacks were the later so-called Baedeker raids. This alleged quote (taken from Wiki) is telling::
"The cities were reputedly selected from the German Baedeker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker) Tourist Guide to Britain, meeting the criterion of having been awarded three stars (for their historical significance), hence the English name for the raids. Baron Gustav Braun von Stumm, a German propagandist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda) is reported to have said on 24 April 1942 following the first attack, "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide."[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baedeker_Blitz#cite_note-Grayling-51-2)"

PS sorry about all the embedded hyperlinks but I don't have the time or patience to edit them all out
And before blaming Harris for the direction of the campaign take a look at the Wiki page regarding the Area Bombing Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive
Note
"The Area Bombing Directive was a directive from the wartime British Government's Air Ministry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Ministry) to the Royal Air Force (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force) which ordered RAF bombers to attack the German industrial workforce and the morale of the German populace through bombing German cities and their civilian inhabitants......
" The objective of the directive was "To focus attacks on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular the industrial workers. In the case of Berlin harassing attacks to maintain fear of raids and to impose A. R. P. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Raid_Precautions) measures".......
"The day after the directive was issued (on 15 February), the Chief of the Air Staff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_of_the_Air_Staff_%28United_Kingdom%29) Charles Portal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Portal,_1st_Viscount_Portal_of_Hungerford) sought clarification from the Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Vice Marshal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Vice_Marshal) Norman Bottomley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bottomley) who had drafted it: "ref the new bombing directive: I suppose it is clear the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned in Appendix A. This must be made quite clear if it is not already understood."

So there you have it Harris was not making policy, he was following direct orders from the Air Ministry

Danny42C

12th Feb 2012, 00:30

First, thank you Chugalug2 (#145), and others for your kind words.
(Chugalug, I accept your strictures with good grace).

Before I put my oar into this thread again, I had better make my locus standi
clear, otherwise you good people may ascribe an authority to me that I don't possess.

From late 42 to early 46 I was in "far away places with queer sounding names"; the European War was a long way from our daily concerns. So I know little more about the Bombing campaign than an informed civilian back home. My "ops" were relatively safe, most folk did their 60-80 sorties without a scratch. Much of my knowledge is derived from the many BC veterans who served with me post-war.

To business: the question seems to centre on the legality and morality of the area bombing policy. Oddly, only one of the Posts so far (#178 from Pontius Navigator) refers to the "Principles of War". There were ten of them, No.2 was "Maintenance of Morale", as I recall.

Churchill said: "Hitler knows he has to break us in these islands, or lose the War - he meant break our Home morale. (Hitler didn't break us, and he lost the War).

If it was vital to keep up our civilian morale, then clearly it was equally essential to destroy theirs any way we could. The only way found so far was to kill as many of their civilians as possible. Our leaflet-dropping was ineffective. They had no success with Lord Haw Haw. They couldn't invade us, we couldn't invade them (until 1944). We couldn't starve them out, they couldn't starve us out. Anyone with a better idea? It had to be mass bombing - that didn't work in practice either - on both sides, civilian morale held up till the final military collapse - but it was all we had at the time.

Of course it was official policy on both sides! How could it not be? No one made any bones about it at the time. And it fitted in nicely with our capability. Civilians live in cities, so hit the city. Most industrial units work in cities, so hit the city. Most War production takes place in the cities, so hit the city. What is the only thing big enough (in the circumstances) for our Navigators to find, and too big for our Bomb Aimers to miss - a city! It was a "no-brainer", wasn't it?

Now we come to the difficulty of the 1907 Hague Convention. What had the delegates of those days in mind? I rather think it was of bayoneting civilians one by one - the "Frightfulness" which we attributed to the Germans in Belgium in 1914. Things had moved on. We were now prisoners of our own technology, we had to do our killing wholesale. We knew about all the other international agreements to which we had committed ourselves in times of peace.

Nothing less than our survival was now at stake. We did what had to be done.

I was a bit puzzled by prOOne (#176)

Quote: "Harris.......was convinced, and made the statement many times, that strategic bombing of cities would win the war. it didn't".

True as regards Europe. But although it was not of his doing, his idea was vindicated at Hiroshima. Emperor Hirohito threw in the towel ten days later, on 15th August 1945 - much to my relief and that of thousands of others!

Danny42C

Robert Cooper

12th Feb 2012, 02:10

Dresden was a legitimate target. As the war closed in, it was the strategic location of Dresden along rail and road lines of communication that determined its fate.
By Feb. 2, 1945, the Russians were near Frankfurt, but Moscow’s drive now formed a bulge 400 miles long at its base with northern and southern flanks over 100 miles deep. This salient was vulnerable to flank attacks from areas still held by the German Army. Dresden was a major rail junction controlling German movement on that front.
At Yalta on Feb. 4, 1945, Gen. Alexei Antonov, Red Army chief of staff, briefed Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill on the Russian offensive and asked for US and British help. He wanted them to speed up the advance in the west, crush the Ardennes salient once and for all, and weaken German ability to shift reserves east.
The Russians wanted to begin a new phase of advance in February. To do so, Antonov wanted air forces to pin down German forces in Italy and to paralyze junctions in eastern Germany. That meant Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden.
According to historian Fredrick Taylor, Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Jan. 21, 1945, report put it bluntly: Germany might be able to reinforce the Eastern Front with up to 42 divisions. The JIC recommended “that any assistance which might be given to the Russians during the next few weeks by the British and American strategic bomber forces justifies an urgent review of their employment to this end.”
Thus, it was a race between Russian offensive operations and the arrival of German reinforcements. Half a million men pouring eastward was the last thing the Allies wanted. More alarming, the JIC laid out a timetable predicting the Germans could complete the reinforcements by March 1945. The JIC’s research was backed up by Enigma-code intercepts.
All told, Bomber Command dropped 1,477 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,181 tons of incendiaries on Dresden on the night of Feb 13. Pathfinders dropping flares from 800 feet marked the targets accurately.
The tonnage was not high by Bomber Command standards. For example, Cologne, Hamburg, and Frankfurt-am-Main had all been bombed with mixes including 3,800 to 4,100 tons of incendiaries, more than triple Dresden’s totals. The total of 7,100 tons of bombs of all types dropped on Dresden during the war hardly compared to the 67,000 tons of bombs that fell on Berlin or the 44,000 tons on Cologne.
The next day, Feb. 14, 1945, 316 bombers from Eighth Air Force attacked Dresden’s marshaling yards outside the city center. The mix was 487 tons of high-explosives and 294 tons of incendiaries. Another 200 bombers of Eighth Air Force returned to hit the same target the next day.
When Dresden was bombed, the Russian salient was only 70 miles from the city. Russian positions were still vulnerable to German counterattack, and, indeed, counterattacks elsewhere on the Eastern Front cost the Russians very heavy casualties. There was no way the Allies could let the Dresden rail and communications nodes open the gates for German reinforcements.

Bob C

Jane-DoH

12th Feb 2012, 03:49

pr00ne

Though is has to be pointed out that it is partly disingenuous to describe the civilian population of a city as "the workforce" and therefore legitimate targets. Those 'civilians' certainly included the workforce, but they also consisted of millions upon millions of children, old age pensioners, the sick, the ill and the infirm and those many folk engaged on non warlike activities.

Correct

Thus, when it was raided in November 1940 the Luftwafe WAS aiming for individual industrial targets and used its elite target marking and pathfinder force to lead the raid.
The Coventry blitz was no indiscriminate raid, it was a precision raid, or as near as you could get to precision with 1940 technology.

Entirely accurate.

"Muddled thinking by bleeding heart modern liberals"

WHAT does that mean?

It's just a nice way of trashing those who disagree with him.

There was wide spread opposition to the mass bombing as early as 1943. It was raised in the House of Commons and it was raised in the House of Lords. It was raised by the Church of England and it was raised by certain Bomber Command crews.

I never knew there were Bomber Command aircrews that objected to the bombings…

I find it inconceivable that anyone can be proud of what they actually did.

Oh, and you'll be wrong…

Chugalug2

The announced policy of the USAAF Strategic Bombing Campaign of precision bombing flew in the face of what it actually did as exampled in the figures that you query, which appear on p321 of "The Bomber Offensive" by Anthony Verrier, pub Batsford 1968.

I never read that book, and until you just mentioned it, I didn't even know it existed.

You keep quoting the Hague Conventions of 1907 as though they restricted the conduct of war thereafter.

No, but I can state that violations of those conventions are war-crimes…

Supposing he had eased off in 1944, because " the war was obviously won", and Hitler had been able to get the V5 and even later vengeance weapons operational, not against the Allied Armies, or even England, but against the US East Coast cities which were their target?

That isn't what I said at all. If you actually read what I wrote, you'll note that I said once more accurate means of bombing and navigation came into existence they should have been used more liberally to help hit specific targets rather than to firebomb cities off the map.

There were various targets which Harris rejected as being of any value such as

Oil-refineries
Ball-bearing plants
Dams

He also felt that there was no need for the D-Day landings

Surrey Towers

I seem to recall on the nights that we were being bombed that the Luftwaffe were intent on bombing large areas of London that included an immense amount of civilians.

And we recognize these acts as being wanton acts of mass-destruction, terrorist-acts, and war-crimes. Why is that?

Then they bombed Coventry which had NO strategic value

Wrong

This country was the subject of a battle which we alone had to defend, it was called the Battle of Britain, have you heard of that? Daily unprovoked attacks and our RAF defended England alone. It is true that several nationalities came to our aid, including Americans, but they were still RAF.

Yes, I've heard of the Battle of Britain

Dresden for example. It was the Germans that put up figures of civilians killed as a minimum of 60k but likely to have been 100k. That was just propaganda. After the war, long after, the true number given was 26k but even then it was changed to a lower figure much later.

Well, if I recall correctly the initial estimates were in the 20,000 figure, which the Germans inflated to 200,000 for propaganda purposes. Somewhere along the way there was a figure of 135,000 which I think came from the USAAF.

In the early 1980's a British author (Alexander McKee?) talked about the figures most likely being around 25,000 to 35,000, but speculated that it could easily be about twice that judging by the fact that the city had a lot of refugees in it.

What was Germany doing to us then?

We all agree that Germany committed war-crimes in it's bombing attacks on Germany -- that's obvious. We all know that.

Germany committed war crimes that amounted to millions NOT thousands.

Of course, there was the Holocaust; the Germans also systematically exterminated Russians as they plowed into the Soviet Union.

Harris was not a war criminal, and it is stupid to say he was.

No it's not. A war-criminal is a person who violates international laws which govern the conduct of war. He violated them, therefore he's a war-criminal. Now you can argue whether his actions were necessary, but he did violate the laws.

For example: would you have him not do any bombing?

Didn't say that

His thoughts of Germany reaping the 'whirlwind' was just what WE over here wanted. If you were to suffer the nighttime raids for 18 months you would not be wasting your time in trying to justify bombing.

I'd like to note that the justifications are kind of shifting around all over the place.

1.) It was the only way to strike at Germany: An argument which makes the act a necessity under the circumstances.
2.) It was revenge: That's a different scenario entirely -- it's one thing to protect yourself and stop an opponent -- revenge though is about making them feel the pain and suffering and terror that you experienced.

I'll just sit back and let you spin all over the place trying to justify the act. In the U.S. we had (probably still have) a major issue with torture apologists and somebody even wrote a chart about it (http://4.bp.********.com/_akLbxNKanGc/SiVkthmewVI/AAAAAAAACpA/Unq6iSEUWoM/s1600-h/Torture+Apologia+Chart6.jpg) showing all the arguments that were made. The arguments were always made from a conclusion -- the person already had made up their mind they were right and were not interested in facts so the arguments basically formed descending denials.

It often flowed along these lines
1.) What we did was not torture
2.) Even if it was torture, it was legal
3.) Even if it was illegal, it was necessary
4.) Even if it was unnecessary, it wasn't our fault.

Danny42C

The only way found so far was to kill as many of their civilians as possible.

Which is a war-crime…

Of course it was official policy on both sides!

I can't argue with you there. The Luftwaffe did it pretty much from the get-go, the RAF did it after '42; and the United States is the first and only nation in history to drop a nuclear bomb on another country in anger.

True as regards Europe. But although it was not of his doing, his idea was vindicated at Hiroshima.

I should note that the policy under this logic only had a 50% success rate…

Emperor Hirohito threw in the towel ten days later, on 15th August 1945 - much to my relief and that of thousands of others!

Well, he did throw in the towel, but the whole idea of bombing enemies into submission didn't exactly work the way people like Douhet figured it would -- the civilians would rise-up, and overthrow their government and replace it with one who'd end the war.

That didn't happen -- Japan simply surrendered. Nuclear bombing didn't win by terrorizing the civilian population -- it won by causing so much destruction so quickly that it demoralized the enemy government into surrender. Later on it would also be used to deter other nations from war by using the fear of utter annihilation to keep the leaders of the nations in line.

There is a difference.

Robert Cooper

Maybe you should read this page, and the few pages proceeding it -- I explained why it was not a legitimate target.

R.C.