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

Hop;

The Emden e.g. was towed at the dockyard in Willhelmshaven, about 200m away from the persons house - who wrote the report. I am not trying to get into a dispute about what was bombed and how far away from the coastline it was.

I had mentioned earlier on that many Germans until today believe the radio and news report from the Nazis, stating that Willhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Brunsbuettel was bombed by the RAF in September 1939, and as such outlining that the British were the first to attack/bomb Germany or targets in Germany.

Maybe I would tend to term a dozen serviceable nightfightes not neccessarily as a defense to be acknowledged as such. As for the AA, do you have any closer description to those AA units in regards to numbers and caliber - I would certaily exclude a 2cm, or 3,7 Wehrmachtsflak as air defense against bombers.

More or less the same as against bombings

I never said that there was a law against bombing cities. - only defenseless cities, and Berlin wasn't defensless at all. If Dresden had not been bombed what impact would it have had on the outcome of the war two month later? - none

Good

Well that is exactly what the allies did onto german cities for three years.

Sorry I can't follow - if the RAF is able to bomb city after city - then why not the vital targets?

Sorry can't follow - if the USAAF can bomb cities without escorts then why can't they bomb vital targets without escort?

Hop you can put it as you want - it doesn't change the fact that the bombings on Germany were a retaliation for the Blitz, a failed strategy in regards to breaking peoples will, and a faulty strategy in regards to eliminating Germany's warpotential by mostly destroying cities.

Regards
Kruska

 

At the end of the war, Galbraith was asked to be one of the leaders of the Strategic Bombing Surveys of both Europe and Japan.

 

True enough, but those areas couldn't launch any retaliation could they. And it was supposed (in the twenties) that the nation on the receiving end would be able to reply in kind. Which was why those "rules" were never adopted or ratified by the nations that would be involved in the next war.

That was the point I was trying to make, the Kaiser's Zeppelins were the first to bomb civilian centers, be in Leuttich or Antwerpen or London. It was the concept of "reply in kind" which was supposed to be the deterent.

Turns out it didn't work that way until the atomics came about, they the retailiation "in kind" made the MAD policy actually work.

 

That raid was on ships in the harbour, and the aircraft were under strict orders not to attack land tragets. Just like when 1/KG30 attacked shipping under the Forth Bridge on 16/10/39, they were under the same orders. No-one regards the latter as an attack on the towns at either end of the bridge.

 

The Emden wasn't actually bombed, a Blenheim that had been hit by flak crashed on to it.

Well, I can't vouch for what people believe, but I can point out the RAF was under strict instructions not to attack any targets on land, or too close to land.

The first authorised RAF attack on a German land target was a response to the bombing of the Orkneys, that killed a civilian called James Isbister.

It wasn't a dozen nightfighters. The RAF bombers had to fly right across Germany. 2 of them were shot down near Frankfurt.

In 1943 they didn't have the accuracy to bomb anything smaller than a city. Hamburg was heavily damaged, and industrial production greatly reduced, but the bombing at Hamburg was not accurate in fact the bombing was concentrated 2 - 3 miles away from the intended target point.

That illustrates why area bombing was so important. If you aim at an isolated factory and miss you do no damage. If you destroy the wrong part of a city, it doesn't really matter, the effect is the same.

In 1944 and 1945 the RAF did bomb precise targets. They area bombed as well, but then so did the USAAF. Some targets were more effectively hit by area attacks, and the weather sometimes meant that precise targeting was not possible.

Partly it's down to weather. Most USAAF area bombing in 1943 was carried out in poor weather using radar. Whilst the bombers couldn't see the targets, the defending fighters and flak couldn't see the bombers, so losses were lower.

But the point I was making was that the USAAF couldn't go after oil in 1943 because they couldn't carry out deep penetration raids without escort.

No, it wasn't retaliation. It was driven by experience of German bombing, both daylight "precision" and night area attacks.

What Britain found during the Blitz was that damage to the town, to the roads, railways, electricity, gas and water mains, and in particular damage to housing, did more to reduce production than damage to factories. This is part of a letter from Herschel Johnson to the US secretary of state in late 1940 or early 1941:

It's worth pointing out that the Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF all started the war believing in precision attacks. All ended up adopting area bombing.

 

Hop;

I never said that the Emden was bombed. The Gneissenau was, but three bombs didn't explode.

It is not about what people maybe believe to be true. It is a fact that Willhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Brunsbuettel were attacked by the RAF in September 1940. Westerland on Sylt was attacked on 12 January 1940 and the city outskirts were hit.

If the RAF initial targets were only to be ships, it does not alter the fact that the German papers reported that these harbour/city targets were attacked - and they were.

So the Luftwaffe attack on the Orkneys was a retaliation for the RAF attack on Willhelmshaven, Cuxhaven, Brunsbuettel and Sylt? No it was not - the Luftwaffe was also on orders only to attack ships.

What have Luftwaffe nightfighters over Frankfurt have to do with Dresden?

Still comes down to the same thing; Bomb a city as hard as possible and let's hope we got some hits on vital targets as well.

There were enough "vital" targets available, without the need of deep penetration raids.

Off course it was retaliation for the Blitz, taking experience of German bombing, both daylight "precision" and night area attacks into account in order to cause much greater destruction.

Correct, even the Nazis couldn't be bothered about their enemies civilian cassualties whilst going for industrial or military targets.

Maybe you have a google translater for this:
http://www.archive.org/stream/EnglandsAlleinschuldAmBombenterror/MicrosoftWord-Englandsalleinschuld_djvu.txt
It is a report of the German whitebook 1943 in regards to deliberate bombing of non military targets by the RAF. It also states via sources and documents the opinions and statements of the British, Polish and French towards the Luftwaffe and its bombing practices.

Regards
Kruska

 

Like Sherman's march through Georgia and South Carolina, the Allied Bomber Offensive brought 'total war' home to the supporters of the German Government of the day.

Whether it dislocated German industry or not is strictly academic. It certainly had more than the needed effect for oil and fuel, and the transportation system of occupied Europe.

As to it's effect on morale, it certainly seems to have made a deep impression. German civilians are still talking about it.

As Harris said, in the first public announcement he ever made as OC of Bomber Command, "The Germans began this war under the rather childish assumption that they were going to bomb everybody elses cities, and nobody was going to bomb theirs...."

Ulysses Simpson Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Arthur Harris and Curtis Le May are all alike in the sense that they are much maligned for their 'inhumanity'.

But their collective efforts SAVED lives by SHORTENING the respective conflicts.

"Unconditional Surrender" means just that, and you either come to terms, or we keep dropping the bombs.

Simple really....and as one wartime British 'terrorfleiger' said, "...and if old granny Schickelgruber happened to cop it at the same time, well, that was just too bad."

 

Sad but true....Subtle words but thats what happened. We were not around to apply morals to the actions of ww2. If we were I'm sure even with my resistance to bombing campaign, I would be shouting bomb the hell out of em....they bombed me. Just get on with it. We're at war.

 

Mr Adolf was not much of a precision bomber man in 1940 or later on was he...

"The other night the English had bombed Berlin. So be it. But this is a game at which two can play. When the British Air Force drops 2000 or 3000 or 4000 kg of bombs, then we will drop 150 000, 180 000, 230 000, 300 000, 400 000 kg on a single night. When they declare they will attack our cities in great measure, we will eradicate their cities. The hour will come when one of us will break - and it will not be National Socialist Germany!

Adolf Hitler Berlin on 4 September 1940

 

IMHO. Limited resources ( Even the Allies resources were limited, especially before 1944) must been applied wherever they get the best results, omitting spending policies that do not compensate the efforts wasted on them.

My apologies, Let me repeat: Galbraith was one of the leaders of the Strategic Bombing Surveys of both Europe and Japan. And he said: " Strategic Bombing was designed to destroy the industrial base of the enemy and the morale of its people. It did neither."

And I read the same in many publications (including British). So it’s probably correct. In fact there isn't a serious disccusion about it. It´s a matter of fact.

The way the western allies could have applied his resources it´s a matter of "what if" . After I read "An Army at Dawn" , "The Day of the Battle" , "Crusade in Europe" (Eisenhower) I've my own (better their) ideas about it.

I read in your post the strategic bombardements only had a real impact in 1944, so They didn´t actually shortened the war, almost not in the proportion of their cost.

Yes, Hitler was a criminal, and an idiot.

And I start to guess Harris was a war criminal after I read Hop post If it's true, the allies bomb cities to kill civilians workers, their wifes and their children too. They weren´t colateral damage.

War is hell, and I guess Harris has his own seat there.

 

Indeed, but the German bombing raids on Britain which started in 1915, with Zeppelins and later with Gotha bombers, was the worlds first strategic bombing campaign against both military and civilian targets, where the effect on civilian morale was an important part of the bombing campaign.

About the bombing campaign in Western Europe in WW2, it should be noted that the first German civilians killed in a bombing raid on a German town, were the 56 men, women and children killed when the town of Freiburg im Breisgau was attacked by three bombers on the 10 May 1940. The Nazi leadership used this attack in their propaganda to justify their bombing attacks on Allied towns and cities.
However it was later discovered that the 3 bombers in question were Luftwaffe He 111's who had mistaken Friegburg for Dijon, a town in France and their intended target

 

No, it is a fact that German warships were attacked.

I'm sure newspapers in Nazi Germany reported a lot of things that weren't true. It doesn't alter the facts, even if it alters German perceptions.

No, one of the targets in the raid on the Orkneys was an airfield. It was spillover from that that killed Isbister. The document you linked to admits the Luftwaffe was attacking airfields in the Orkneys:

They were part of the defences of Dresden. An RAF attack had to pass over all the defences on the way to Dresden, not just deal with aircraft based near the town.

No, the city is the vital target.

To give as an example, Blohm und Voss shipyard in Hamburg. It was building submarines. Just before the bombing of Hamburg in the summer of 1943 9,400 people worked there.

Blohm und Voss was hardly damaged. However, the day after the heaviest raid on Hamburg, just 300 people turned up for work. A month later 1,500 people were back in work, 2 months later it was 7,000, 3 months later 7,500. Thousands never returned to work at all. Production of submarines was down by about 25, all due to damage to the city, rather than the "vital target" of the shipyards.

And the same was true of other industries in the city. Before the raids 634,000 people worked in the war industries in Hamburg. 2 months after the raid, that was down to 331,000.

No, it wasn't done in "retaliation". No one in Britain was interested in spending lots of money and lots of young men's lives to "punish" the Germans for what they had done. They wanted to win the war, and experience from the Blitz showed that area bombing was a good way to do that.

Hopefully you'll forgive me if I don't take a Nazi propaganda document as truth.

Looking at a few dates in that, it claims the Freiburg bombing as done by the British, even though the Germans knew on the 10 May 1940 that it had been their own aircraft that bombed Freiburg, as Redcoat says.

It also claims an attack on 12 January 1940, the RAF simply weren't bombing anything in that period.

But what really struck me about that document was the first line Google translated:

That was certainly the case in 1943 when this was written. It reminded me of a passage from Bombing Vindicated, by JM Spaight. Spaight was one of the bomber barons in the air ministry, and he wrote Bombing Vindicated before the end of the war:

 

bombing alone will not win a conflict. The infantry are not the "Queen of the battlefield" for nothing.

But in terms of WW2, the Allied bomber offensive was a major contributor to the pursuance of a victorious outcome. Yes, it did not shut down German industry entirely( How can you shut down industry thats reliant on millions of slave workers, and runs these workers into the ground, figuratively and literally), and yes, it did not destroy the morale of the German people...

But it certainly helped to undermine both. And without air superiority in the skies over Europe, the infantry were not going to be the "Queen" of anything.

So, I say, thankyou Sir Arthur Harris, for having the intestinal fortitude to take that decison on your shoulders( rather than being a wishy-washy fence sitter like his predecessors), see it through to the end, and then spend the rest of your life defending your decisions without compromise, and without any political correctness whatsoever.

SIR ARTHUR HARRIS....DEFENDER OF THE REALM

 

Hello redcoat,

from what I know, it was "only" around 20 people killed in the Freiburg bombing. From where do you have this information regarding 3 He111?

AFAIK, Even the French Foreign Minister asked the British Government to abstain from foolish airraids such as Freiburg.

Regards
Kruska

 

Hop;

Yes, warships were attacked at their respective naval bases. Now if you want to seperate naval bases from its bases or naval units from the name of their location -please feel free to do so - it however doesn't change the fact that the NAVAL BASES of Willhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Brunsbuettel were attacked.

As such the German report that Willhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Brunsbuettel were attacked/bombed by the RAF is true. The reports never stated that installation, houses or people were hit.

Well so you don't like German sources - here are some British, international and statements.

Wilhelmshaven World War II bombings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
September 4, 1939 Unsuccessful RAF bombing of Wilhelmshaven
No. 107 Squadron (RAF) during the Second World War
At the start of the Second World War No.107 Squadron was a light bomber squadron, equipped with the Bristol Blenheim. It was one of the few bomber squadrons to begin active operations in 1939, taking part in the attack on Wilhelmshaven on the second day of the war.
NL GenWeb Daily News Transcriptions
British Air Squadron bombed German Naval Bases at Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven
Airminded · An early casualty of war
As , here are a couple of captures from the 1939 propaganda film The Lion Has Wings, which dramatised the RAF attack on Wilhelmshaven of 4 September 1939
Pre-US War
Sep 4. RAF attacks Wilhelmshaven and Kiel Canal.

Yes, and what is wrong with attacking an airfield? - especially a British one since Britain had declared war against Germany.

I see, Luftwaffe units around Frankfurt were part of the defenses of Dresden - Then the Luftwaffe units in Hamburg were part of the defenses of Frankfurt and RAF units at London were part of the defenses of Liverpool.

Yes off course, afterall 40,000 people were killed and tens of thousands wounded, plus half the city burned down - what other result would you expect??

May I remind you that the RAF had build up a strategic bombing force in accordance to Douhet and not the Luftwaffe. As such strategic bombing already was a prime doctrine of the RAF long before the Blitz. The RAF certainly did not need the Luftwaffe to validate the Douhet model.

Giulio Douhet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris set out in 1942 to prove Douhet's theories valid during World War II. Through four years under his command, RAF Bomber Command attempted to destroy the main German cities.

Why?? Hitler and Goering had given straight orders to the Luftwaffe not to engage on British cities in order as not to escalate a bombing war between the two countries - after all Hitler wanted to be a "nice guy" to his future Germanic/Arian allies.

Regards
Kruska

 

Warships at sea or in harbours were attacked. That is not an attack on a base. In fact, the instructions were not to bomb ships that were too close to shore.

It puts civilians lives at risk.

Don't forget, the RAF was not allowed to attack any land target, or even warships too close to land, in case civilians were killed.

It was Germany that was responsible escalating the bombing war in to area bombing of cities. First by bombing behind the lines in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, then by devastating Rotterdam, then by escalating attacks on Britain, and finally by area bombing London and other British cities. At each stage the RAF followed the practices the Luftwaffe had already established.

Of course. Just as Tempests shooting down V1s over the English Channel were part of the defences of London.

That's exactly the result I'd expect. That's why the RAF did it, not out of revenge, but out of a desire to damage Germany. Area bombing was an effective way of damaging the enemy, which is why the Luftwaffe, RAF and USAAF all used it.

Had they? The RAF had a force largely composed of Blenheims and Battles. In the whole of 1940 Bomber Command dropped a grand total of 13,000 tons. The Luftwaffe dropped over 50,000 tons on Britain in the BoB and Blitz.

It was the Germans who developed long range bombing beams to attack enemy cities, it was the Germans who had by far the more powerful bomber force at the start of the war. And it was the Germans who carried out mass bombing of enemy cities in 1939 and 1940.

And yet they bombed British cities anyway. As early as the 19 August Goering ordered a "great" attack on Liverpool, to be carried out by over 100 bombers. The German plan for air war against Britain set out as ports and food stores as the second phase of the attack, after the Luftwaffe had gained air superiority.

It was the German plan from the very start of the battle to use their bombers against British cities. Just as they had used them against Polish cities, and against Norwegian cities.

 

Try this: http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/1956_2.pdf

 

The only British town or city which the Luftwaffe was forbidden to bomb was London.
The other cities and towns in the UK were subject to night bombing raids by the Luftwaffe from the very start of the battle, small scale at first, but increasing in strength as the battle wore on.

 

Hello redcoat,

yes, that is in regards to BoB. Prior to "Freiburg" however the Luftwaffe had received the same instruction as the RAF.

Regards
Kruska

 

If I can correct you slightly; when 1/KG30 went after HMS Hood on 16/10/39 as she steamed up the Forth, they were under strict orders not to attack her if they found her docked at Rosyth by the time they reached the area. That was why they went after the Southampton, Edinburgh and Mohawk lying east of the bridge, failed to strafe a train crossing the bridge during the attack, or any land installations in the area.