Re: Bombing accuracy (rather lack thereof)

Yep. I remember one of Dad's friends talking about daylight bombing missions early in the war saying "on one raid to Berlin they could see bombs falling from Berlin all the way back into the English Channel, hundreds of miles away." I am sure he was mostly joking... but Churchill / Bomber Command at one point put a complete halt to all raids into Axis territory, accuracy was so bad. (A complete waste of aircraft, crews, fuel and bomb loads...) Thus the research and development projects on bomb sights, HS, G, Oboe etc., then the decision to send RAF bombers on night "terror" raids into Germany for the rest of the war. Yes, Lancasters and Wellingtons had a better chance of surviving fighter attacks at night, but the truth was the RAF could never bomb consistently-accurately, leaving daylight precision bombing to the USAAF with their B-17's Norton bombsight and overwhelming defensive firepower using their "Fortress" formations and fighter escorts.

Anyhow, my Dad's friend went on to 9 Sqdn, which with 617 (Dambusters) did the vast majority of the RAF precision bombing from then on... and he thought it was a bad joke on 9 when his crew was attached to 9! (He was, like my dad, the crew's navigator, so he could off load at least a bit of the blame on the bomb aimer...)

But don't forget that flak accuracy increased during the war, with Axis development of radar attached to flak groups (not to mention fighters.) He said that bombers were frequently hit over cities (that's what flak batteries were protecting) and that crews would take desperate measures to avoid bombing residential areas. Burning and / or crippled airplanes routinely had very, very little time and would, for safety / survival requirements, dump the load as soon as they were clearly over open (farm) land. There are many, many recorded cases where the crew chose to go down with the plane rather than dump on population centers - given no other option. Also note that bombs would often release inadvertently or hang up and fall out later.

Brave, brave boys.* We honour their memories and salute their courage.

RAF Bombers typically carried a mix of:
a) bombs designed to shatter buildings, and:
b) incendiary bombs designed to burn the rubble intensively and then spread to surrounding buildings.
These incendiary bombs were susceptible to catching on fire if hit by flak, machine gun bullets and/or canon fire. The crew would then have the horrific challenge of trying to stop the spread of the fire to the remaining bomb load - thus the minimal time to proceed to a safe bomb-dumping area.

When, as a last resort or by accident, bombs were inadvertently dropped on "friendly" residential population areas, it made "headline news" on both sides of the war. The RAF was up-front about this and would publicly apologize, often sending special flights to drops leaflets apologizing for the error. So there is historical record of these incidents.

Don't forget there were many battles within battles going on throughout the war. There were giant leaps in technology vs counter-technology. There was also the battle of wits. The RAF would send missions on torturous, gas guzzling routes to avoid known nests of Flak and fighters. The Axis would then quietly move masses of defences into a hitherto safe zone / route and wait for an opportunity to inflict horrific losses on Bomber Command. A real cat and mouse game.

* NB: They really were just boys.
26 years old and you were likely drummed out of Bomber (and fighter) command(s)
Young boys had the necessary reaction time at the controls. 26 and you were too old and slow. Hard to grasp, 60 years later - considering all they did and went through.