Sir Arthur Harris-Chief of Bomber Command-War Criminal?

Sorry Kruska, but that's nonsense.
The Luftwaffe had had already bombed targets within civilian areas during the campaigns in Poland and Norway, and they had already started to bomb Dutch, French, and Belgium cities and towns as part of their campaign against France.

 

Hello redcoat,

I was refering to your statement:

Otherwise, off course the Luftwaffe bombed away, that is what you have a Luftwaffe or RAF for.

Regards
Kruska

 

When in 1942 the British Cabinet agreed to the area bombing of German cities, Harris was tasked with implementing Churchill's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively.

He'd studied new theories of area/offensive bombing developed by Germany at Guancia, Warsaw, Rotterdam etc, etc, and was convinced of the effectiveness of a concentrated aggressive approach.

The problem was that Harris became almost obsessed with area bombing to the point where he argued strongly against any of his bombers being diverted to support the Normandy landings & was convinced that the bombing & destroying of all the major German cities & towns would eventually break either will of the Germans to fight or the economy, or both, which I guess was a reasonable assumption, & in fact after 'Operation Gomorrah' the bombing of Hamburg, Speer stated that further raids of similar weight would force Germany out of the war.

But it was only the advent of a long range fighter plus targeting oil refineries & rail-marshaling yards for the coal gateways of the Ruhr that bought about the Collapse of the German War Economy.

The Strategic bombing offensive, still gets a bad rap at times especially for Dresden & the final big offensives near the end of the war when Germany was practically finished & for failing to break the morale, or the production rates of the Germans until near the of the war and sometimes is thought as not cost effective and a waste of materials and manpower.

But the U.S. Strategic bombing report done after the war sums it up pretty well, saying in part..........


''Allied air power was decisive in the war in Western Europe. Hindsight inevitably suggests that it might have been employed differently or better in some respects. Nevertheless, it was decisive. In the air, its victory was complete. It helped turn the tide overwhelmingly in favor of Allied ground forces.

The German experience suggests that even a first class military power -- rugged and resilient as Germany was -- cannot live long under full-scale and free exploitation of air weapons over the heart of its territory. By the beginning of 1945, before the invasion of the homeland itself, Germany was reaching a state of helplessness. Her armament production was falling irretrievably, orderliness in effort was disappearing, and total disruption and disintegration were well along. Her armies were still in the field. But with the impending collapse of the supporting economy, the indications are convincing that they would have had to cease fighting -- any effective fighting -- within a few months. Germany was mortally wounded.''

It's probably that the full effects of the collapse had not reached the enemy's front lines when they were overrun by Allied forces that takes away the full impact of the bombing campaign.

And it was a massive undertaking in every way, by some accounts, The U.S. spent about $27 billion dollars on the air offensive in today's money, and the British about the same.

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey states that In all attacks by Allied air power, almost 2,700,000 tons of bombs were dropped, more than 1,440,000 bomber sorties and 2,680,000 fighter sorties were flown. The number of combat planes reached a peak of some 28,000 and at the maximum 1,300,000 men were in combat commands. The number of men lost in air action was 79,265 Americans and 79,281 British. More than 18,000 American and 22,000 British planes were lost or damaged beyond repair.

Massive overall effort with tragic casualty numbers, [on both sides] but no doubt the combined bombing campaign helped shorten the war, [could have won it] and probably saved a lot more lives then they lost.

 

I think it fair to point out that Harris lost his argument against supporting the Normandy landings and that Bomber Command put a massive effort into bombing transportation prior to D-Day and tactical targets thereafter. But yes - Harris returned to Germany as soon as he could and quite possibly with hindisght it's right to say that this was misguided.

 

Yep, it mustn't be forgotten that although the vast majority of tonnage dropped by Bomber command was area bombing, the RAF also made a big contribution to the oil offensive as its abilities to attack precision targets had improved by mid 1944 & a total of some 93,000 tons were dropped on oil targets [compared to a total of just over 60,000 tons by the Luftwaffe on the whole of the UK between '40-'43] plus 107,000 tons on land transportation & over 18,000 tons on chemicals etc.

And it was real Commonwealth affair from bomber command, with thirty one percent of those killed on operations and accidents came from Commonwealth and Allied Air Forces, either serving with RAF or special national squadrons, but all under RAF Bomber Command direction, including 17.8% from Canada, 7.3% from Australia, 3.0% from New Zealand plus about 3.0% from Allies including Poles, French etc.


Oil was always Germany's Achilles heel, consumption of oil exceeded production from May 1944 on. Accumulated stocks were rapidly used up, and in six months were practically exhausted.

 

I always believed that the WWII in Europe started on 1st of September 1939. Therefore we should take on our consideration all Luftwaffe crimes committed in Poland. Strafing civilians and other refuges on roads, aerial hunting of Polish Government with its officials, and finally brutal day/night bombing of cities. For me Sir Arthur Harris is a true hero that has not been recognized as such by the British. His policies of carpet bombing lay as a response to Germany’s crimes committed in the first days of the war. Qui pro quo I would say.

Best regards,
Jackal

 

The common perception is that all BC did was area bombing, but in fact 45% of Bomber Command's tonnage went on area bombing.

 

ANZAC

I guess It was Guernica.

"Terror bombing " failed against the British, Why it would work against the Germans?

In fact that's the advisors conclusion after the war. (Galbraith)

After $27 billion dollars in today's money, and the efforts and lives of all those brave young guys. Was there another more efficient way to use those resources?

In August 1944, Antonescu was toppled and arrested by King Michael I of Romania. Romania joined the Allies

 

That's a reasonable point and one which I've thought about for some time. Somewhere in my mind is the feeling that if the production effort had gone into the Mosquito rather than the four-engined bomber a more efficient - and less costly - campaign would have been the result.

But reality is different. A decision was taken - rightly or wrongly - at a very early stage of the War to concentrate on strategic bombing using the heavy bomber. A truly colossal industry geared up to produce those bombers and built up enormous momentum. A sudden change of direction ( eg into producing tanks or, indeed, Mosquitoes ) would not have been feasible given the pressure of events and time available.

 

A nice possibility, I prefer this other what if:

The Mustang Mk X first Flight was in october 1942 the Mustang A 36 started operations in February 1942. 8 months, and then 1'5 year more for the P 51B.

If the commissioning of the plane was had made three months later perhaps it would be powered with a merlin engine in the first flight...

The P 40 (with the same merlin engine) was in production till 1944, in fact many of them loose their engines to send them to the Mustangs ...

Well, it's very easy to gamble 60 years after.

 

I don't usually do 'what ifs' - but the Mosquito could carry a 4,000lb bomb.....

 

Possibly not the best time to reply. A good family evening, lots of wine, lots of beer and..................I can't conceive of how to criticise this man.

He did what had to be done. War is hell. It's not a balance sheet.

For what's it worth I will go to my grave defending what he did.

.....that's it really.......................thank god he was on our side!!

 

And the losses were quite minimal I recall....

 

...around 3% with a two-man crew.....

 

I agree, "reality is different" and probably for good reason which even using 20/20 hindsight may not reveal completely. The "Mossie" is a favorite fighter/bomber of mine, I dearly love the thing and even the 'idea' of the thing. Sometimes its "cost" relative to its value gets slanted by fond memories.

"The cost of building a Mosquito was £9,829..."; from Britain 1939-1945: The Economic Cost of Strategic Bombing, by John Fahey. Fahey got the information from the Ministry of Aircraft Production's Wartime Price Books (which I've never seen).

Reading further in Fahey, it is pointed out that the costs given in the MAP Price Books are significantly less than what one would expect given other sources. For example, for the Lancaster, he quotes a price of £31,985, rather than the £58,974 given in other sources. Other aircraft also seem too cheap - the Halifax at £23,354 as compared to the £42,000 given elsewhere. Fahey states that the Price Books quotes may be up to 50% low, and don't reflect the true cost after government subsidies and capital grants provided to the manufacturers are taken into account, which other sources seem to do.

Given that, the true cost of a Mosquito appears to come out at somewhere in the neighborhood of £18,000 not £9,829, which seems somewhat more reasonable if the subsides are considered, and that is the case it makes each Mossie about one-third as expensive as a Lancaster. Three to one instead of a four or five to one (as per Sir Geoffrey's estimate when he was "selling" the wooden wonder), but more closely a ratio of three to one in the real world of delivered systems; DH98's to Lancasters.

I think something else should be kept in mind however. The skills to build a Mosquito aren’t the same ones needed to produce a Lancaster. In Mosquito: Wooden Wonder, Edward Bishop stated, "Freeman's staff produced a paper which explained that the Lancaster cost 2.8 times as much as the Mosquito to produce in terms of standard man-hours..."; but those man-hours of production don’t seem directly interchangeable in my mind. And the "plywood" it was made from was very special, and it was not all "glued" together either. There were tens of thousands of brass screws involved in the construction, and those are more difficult to install correctly than a "rivet".

B.IV Unarmed bomber. Like the PR.1 but with longer engine nacelles. Rolls-Royce Merlin 21 and 23 engines. Capacity for four 500lb bombs (with shortened fins) in the fuselage in place of the four 250lb bombs in the original design. Later modified to carry a 4000lb bomb (blockbuster or "cookie") with a bulged bomb-bay. The first operational sorties were made in daylight to Cologne. The first bombing of Berlin by daylight was made by B.IV's on 30th January 1943.

See:

Mosquito Variants

The normal bomb load was 2,000 lbs, not 4,000 lbs, so it really should be compared to the medium bombers not the heavies. I still and always will love the "Mossie", but sometimes we who do tend to over estimate its value as a replacement for the heavies.

 

Check out the BXVI - twice a night to Berlin with 8 Group.....

 

I'm not "dissing" the Mossie here Martin. I understand your statement completely. I simply was pointing out that producing the things wasn't a simple changeover from one bomber type to the other is all.

 

No, I know that Clint and you're quite right - which is exactly why I don't really get into 'what ifs'. So many factors have to be taken into consideration, especially the context of the times which, as time goes by, is becoming ever harder to imagine or understand.

 

I think the Mosquito British offered the Americans and they decided that was enough whith the P-38. During the war so many Mosquitos (night fighters) were delivered to the USAF as compensation for the Lend-Lease Act.

I can not imagine a country better prepared to produce the "wooden wonder" those days than the USA.