Bomber Boys- BBC 1.

[Pontius Navigator]

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]

Bomber Boys

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]

Astro in turbulent skys could be very inaccurate

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

[Jane-DoH]

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.


[b]Tankertrashnav[/b

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

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]

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]

SFFP

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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

[labrador pup]

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]

Originally Posted by Airborne Artist

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]

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]

Total War

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

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by pr00ne

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]

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]

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.