August 24th 1940 - German bombers don't accidentally bomb London, no civilian bombing?

[RMcD94]

"The Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the financial heart of London and Oxford Street in the West End, probably unintentionally as the German bomber pilots had likely made a navigational error and did not know they were over the city. Winston Churchill was outraged at what he perceived to be a deliberate attack and ordered the RAF to bomb Berlin in retaliation"

"The RAF bombed Berlin for the first time in the war. Damage was slight and nobody was killed, but it came as a loss of face for Hermann Göring, who had boasted that Berlin would never be bombed.[37] Hitler authorized the bombing of London in retaliation"

Alternatively someone on either side contacts the other to resolve the issue before it gets out of hand. As Hitler had previously ordered to avoid civilian targets and has no desire to get bombed he'll want to resolve that.

Assuming that it's sorted, what is the outcome? If no one breaches this line do we see significantly less city bombing? What would the impacts of this be on the war? Dresden not fire bombed? Germany better off at the end of the war?

 

[pompejus]

There had already been a major city bombed: Rotterdam*. It caused the Dutch to surrender. I suspect that even without this mistake (assuming it was a misstake), cities will soon be targeted anyway.

*and I believe also some Polish cities, not too sure about that though.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

No. The move to start bombing London was part of the Luftwaffe's ADHD strategy to defeat fighter command and achieve the desired air superiority in order to allow for their being any possibility of Operation <Redacted> to be carried out and to therefore bring the British Government to seek terms.

As the previous 'strategies' had failed to defeat Fighter command but with poor intel giving the Luftwaffe the false impression that they were actually winning despite the heavy losses they were incurring and so the move to bomb London would very likely have taken place anyway in order to finally defeat the RAF and defeat Britain by destroying its morale.

So I do not see this small pod having much of an impact if any.

 

[nbcman]

There had already been a major city bombed: Rotterdam*. It caused the Dutch to surrender. I suspect that even without this mistake (assuming it was a misstake), cities will soon be targeted anyway.

*and I believe also some Polish cities, not too sure about that though.

It goes back to the terror bombings during the Spanish Civil War such as at Guernica and Madrid to demoralize the defenders. The Germans were bound to return to a strategy of terror to attempt to break the will of the UK when they failed to win the BoB in preparation for their USM attempt.

 

[cerebus]

I think Churchill's "outrage" is over stated. The British expected cities and London in particular to be bombed from the start of the war. The Germans had bombed London in the First world war, Spanish cities during the civil war and Polish, Dutch and Belgian Cities. However the British overestimated the German bombing capability partly due to German propaganda.
I think the Germans saw city bombing as an adjunct to army operations with the intent to cause refugees, block transport routes, lower morale and punish the country for not surrendering, while the British saw it as a basically economic weapon so many tones of bombs affect production by such a percent. Both sides overestimated the impact at the start of the war.

By Summer of 1940 the UK was up against the wall and knew it. While Hitler wanted to hurt the UK for not surrendering. These different view points made any unstated "gentleman's agreement" not to bomb major cities very unstable. The Germans would bomb London if S-- L--- became imminent or if it was obviously aborted and the RAF would bomb German cities because that was what they had planned and built up their forces for at the slightest excuse.

Imagine two men having a fist fight where each is holding a dagger in one hand, they could fight for some time but sooner or later the knives will be used.

Add in the inherent inaccuracy of 1940 high altitude bombing and I bet we have city bombing within the week.

 

[sonofpegasus]

When the Luftwaffe made their first organised daylight raid on central London on the seventh of September 1940, it was a deliberate change of target intended to force the "final few RAF fighters" to be committed to the battle and destroyed by the all powerful Luftwaffe in preparation for the sea mamal. The delusional view of the Luftwaffe intelligence department was that they had reduced Fighter Command to it's last few squadron and one big battle would wrest air supremacy for the Luftwaffe. Basically the Germans believed their own propaganda and inflated kill claims. As an example on the 15th of September the Luftwaffe claimed a total of 51 spitfires, 26 hurricanes and 1 Blenheim were claimed. Whereas actual Fighter Command losses were 26 aircraft.

 

[fastmongrel]

It must have been a surprise to the residents of the many towns and cities up and down Britain the LW bombed before Aug 24th that the LW were avoiding civillian deaths. Not to be one sided but the RAF had been killing civillians in German towns at the same time they just werent as good at it as the LW.

 

[RMcD94]

Well that's unfortunate, I've read a lot that bombing civilians wasn't even worth it economically, or morally so if it could be avoided it would be good for both sides.

It seems to be that the allies were at least much more prolific terror bombers than the Axis, if only because of their ability. Certainly far more civilians died for the Axis by bombing and the destruction of German or Japanese cities had no equivalents in allied territory. While Allies still have an enormous moral high ground it'd be nice if they didn't have that blood too, especially if it wasn't even worth it.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

It must have been a surprise to the residents of the many towns and cities up and down Britain the LW bombed before Aug 24th that the LW were avoiding civillian deaths. Not to be one sided but the RAF had been killing civillians in German towns at the same time they just werent as good at it as the LW.

What year is this? By the end of the war, the Allies had killed a lot more civilians than the Germans with strategic bombing.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

There had already been a major city bombed: Rotterdam*. It caused the Dutch to surrender. I suspect that even without this mistake (assuming it was a misstake), cities will soon be targeted anyway.

*and I believe also some Polish cities, not too sure about that though.

This had occurred on small scale in Spain. The bomber wing was actually very small.

Warsaw was under large scale air attack for a week. Including fire bombs. Rotterdam was the next big one. It was actually waived off by the ground commander, but thesignals were missed. A portion of the bombers did get the abort signal & diverted to attack Belgian targets.

Dunkirk was heavily bomded. So was Calais & LeHarve, Brest & other evacuation ports. Tho the German bombers we're spread thin in this the aggregate destruction was as bad as Warsaw or Rotterdam.

 

[Michele]

The bombing of London was not accidental. It was part of a standard German strategy at the time; send bombers to a legitimate military target that just happens to be very close (the Thameshaven oil terminals in this case) or right there inside the city (the Rotterdam docks) you want to terrorize. The point was to have the air raid sirens sound in London, warn the Londoners the war was coming to their bedrooms. The Germans themselves say so in their negotiations with the Dutch: surrender or your cities will be razed. They say so in their diktat to the Czechs, too. It was no stray bullet.

The Germans achieved what they wanted, only they also reaped all they had sown and more. Bound to happen, once you can no longer only bomb countries that lack a bomber force that can hit back (the Germans had done this to the Spaniards and the Poles already, but they couldn't retaliate).

 

[fastmongrel]

What year is this? By the end of the war, the Allies had killed a lot more civilians than the Germans with strategic bombing.

1940 as it says in the title

 

[Crowbar Six]

There had already been a major city bombed: Rotterdam*. It caused the Dutch to surrender. I suspect that even without this mistake (assuming it was a misstake), cities will soon be targeted anyway.

*and I believe also some Polish cities, not too sure about that though.

The Germans hammered Warsaw in 1939 and attacked Rotterdam despite there being a ceasefire. The Germans had form given their attack on Guernica in the Spanish civil war. The Germans not bombing British civilian targets would have been more of a surprise than doing it, besides that is where all the big defence plants and docks were. They couldn't shoot the RAF down in big enough numbers or wreck the airfields so they needed to hammer the source of all that annoying kit.

 

[King Augeas]

This is one of the many myths of the BoB. The Germans always intended to bomb London, it had been planned for months.

 

[oberdada]

Bombing cities was planned for a long time.
Retaliation was considered and expected.

Wilhelmshaven was widely expended during the 1930s as mayor navy city.
The roads are extremely wide, with front yards and small bike lanes.
Planned so that bombed houses would not block the streets, or that those could at least be easily made usable again.
Other plans for city development included air raid shelters as normal part.

This kind of warfare was not an accident or happened by chance.