Arthur'Bomber'Harris.

It seems to me a little surprising that some here deny that city bombing was a war crime by saying how effective it was.
Or how needed it was to win the war.
Or even against who it was commited.
A crime is a crime in spite of those factors. In my view, if in war you deliberately target civilians that's a war crime. If you round them up in a street and machine gun them -nazi style- it's a crime, if you put a bomb through his roof while they are sleeping you only change the weapon of choice. And the fact that you don't see their faces.
So if we admit that the objective was to kill civilians -even if you call them factory workers of nazi voters- IMHO it is a war crime.
I am pretty sure in 1945 people did not think a lot about it. It was killing germans or japanese, not PEOPLE. But we can see it from a different point of view today.

See message 64.
 
There are two issues

One is the military alternatives. I think there are military arguments both ways.

I feel that the terror bombing campaign could only be morally justified if it was ESSENTIAL to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Actually in relation to Harris there is a strong case for prosecuting him for his actions in Iraq in the 1920s
 
If half the German fighters were defending Germany against bombers, that means there would've been almost twice as many fighters available for all the other theaters if there had been no strategic bombing because the Germans wouldn't have been keeping any more than a token force of fighters defending Germany against bombers if there were no bombers bombing Germany. I don't know why you doubt the Germans would've been able to keep many more planes operational on the eastern front if they'd been available. If you're thinking fuel, remember without strategic bombing the Germans wouldn't have had a fuel shortage. With twice as many German fighters on the eastern front, Russia would've fallen regardless of whether or not the Murmansk convoys were getting through. Whether or not bombing is strategic has nothing to do with the type of plane being used. If the Allies had used Mosquitos to bomb German factories, that still would've been strategic bombing.

Why should we assume that the Germans would build as many fighters for just the eastern front as they did for defending the Fatherland?
 
Why should we assume that the Germans would build as many fighters for just the eastern front as they did for defending the Fatherland?

More than half the planes the Germans built in 1942 were bombers. So, it's logical to conclude that strategic bombing didn't have a major impact on the type of aircraft the Germans chose to build in that year. We're talking about the spring of 1943, fairly early in the year. The Germans probably would've been building more bombers in the first part of 1943 than they did on OTL. But, there wouldn't have been time to build a lot more. Plus, with no strategic bombing, they might've been able to build more fighters too.
 
I assume you mean that Speer increased production in spite of decentralisation, not because of it, right?

Its a bit of both ... decentralisation slowed some parts of manufacturing, but the simple fact that the decentralised factories were hard to locate and bomb also made it more efficient than a centralised system would be in the german case at that point. In general though, 'in spite of' is, overall, closer to the truth
 
Decentralisation was one of the reasons the Allies bombed railways as well as factories and whatever was in their vicinity.

I have always been slightly distrustful of these production figures. Given the tendency of managers in totalitarian regimes to keep their fuhrers happy by inflating their production returns and given the shortage of raw materials, are they really accurate? Even if they were, given the dislocation did the bits produced ever "join up?" In other words, who produced these figures? If it was Speer, well, he would, wouldn't he?

There seems to be a tendency to regard everyone who ever killed a civilian as a War Criminal. Back in time immoral, the city was given the option to surrender or not - you all know what happens next. It was I think Napoleon who started the idea of putting everyone in the front line, so now everyone is at risk during war.

BTW what on earth did Harris do in Iraq in 1920? Should have thought he was a Leading Aircraftsman back then.
 
I have always been slightly distrustful of these production figures. Given the tendency of managers in totalitarian regimes to keep their fuhrers happy by inflating their production returns and given the shortage of raw materials, are they really accurate? Even if they were, given the dislocation did the bits produced ever "join up?" In other words, who produced these figures? If it was Speer, well, he would, wouldn't he?

The figures I pulled together from a wide variety of sources many years ago when I was doing my Master's dissertation. Speer was one source but not the only one.

Did they ever join up? Amazingly, most of the time they did! Although the system was by no means perfect and there were bits of half completed aircraft, tank and rifle dotted all over the landscape by May 45 :)

Both Aircraft and AFV production in Germany reached highs in 1944, but even those numbers were small compared to all the other nations. Speer was efficient relative to otehr German planners, but it wasnt exactly a high bar to cross :)
 

Larrikin

Banned
German production figures

The increase in German productivity was much lower than that of either GB or the USSR, and considering that the Germans over ran the main industrial areas of the USSR in 1941 and they had to relocate their factories completely how can you say that the strategic bombing program was a failure. While it wasn't the unqualified success that the strategic bombing proponents claimed it would be it had a massive effect on Germany's capabilities.

Every raid destroyed infrastucture that had to be replaced, many industrial shops that supplied components to factories were located within residential areas, and if the workers are without housing, etc., they are going to be a lot less effective at work. When you think of European industry during WWII don't use the American or post-War model of industrial estates and commuting workers, most workers lived within easy walking distance of the factories and shops where they worked, effectively each district was a separate village, with work, play, shopping, and housing all mixed in together.
 
But the question is, essentially, what if the bombers were used for other purposes. What? The only thing that crosses my mind is infantry support.
You might consider the effects of this for "what". There's also a political dimension, proven in China: there has to be visible defense & retaliation, to maintain public morale. (This may explain Hitler's mania for V-weaps.) There's also the Sov complaints about no 2d Front, which BC took weight for. Personally, after widespread mining, I like Redbeard's option of using Mossies. A visible retaliation as complement to minelaying?

I have damn little patience with the proposition it was area bombing or nothing, which seems to be the general thrust of the argument here, as usual. IMO, BC's efforts were no different than Haig's at Verdun: throwing forces at fixed targets, where the enemy knows you're coming, at defenses that are going to be increasingly stronger, & you know it, for years at a time. Doing that, when there was any sensible option, & clearly there were a couple, IMO is immoral. Forget the claims of "bombing innocent civilians". Civilians aren't innocent. They're supporting the enemy war effort. Attacks on enemy morale are perfectly legitimate, so comparisons of Harris to Heydrich or Himmler are specious, unjustified, & flat wrong. I'm no fan of Harris, & I think his blind adherence to area bombing to the exclusion of anything else brands him in the same category as MacArthur.

To say "war criminal" is probably accurate, too: knowingly, intentionally, ordering bombing civilians was a crime, IIRC, & Harris did it. (Whether his defense would argue the civlians weren't "undefended", as the Hague Con required, given radar, searchlights, NF, & flak, is another issue; I'd have argued they were defended.) Let's not forget Portal, Lindemann, & Churchill, the ultimate architects of the policy, would be charged, too--& they'd almost certainly be convicted in any fair trial.

In the two years needed to have the bombing offensive gain momentum a huge number of Divisions and tactical squadrons could have been trained and equipped; I would even think that a main invasion could have been succesful by 1943. It must be remembered that building and running the planes themselves was only part of the cost. The huge infrastructure needed and intense logistics was a huge strain on allied wareffort where tonnage to the last was in short supply. Short of the 60.000 KIA/MIA of Bombercommand the British effort on land in 1944 might have been quite different. Like Churchill not demanding cautious advance in Market Garden.
Take 50% BC casualties, turn them into infantry, plus triple that number in aircrews not needed (2-plc Mossie versus 10-man Lanc). Then 10-20% more, out of ground support personnel no longer needed. You've now solved UK's summer 1944 infantry crisis. Then take, oh, 50% of Merlins not needed (2 in Mossie versus 4 Lanc), & turn them over to tanks, or fighters, either or both of which you'll probably be able to build more of, too (more free production Mossie doesn't use). Of course, this presumes German industry isn't at a standstill for lack of coal at the powerplants, since the canals & rivers are shut due to mining...
Back then, you needed to drop huge bomb tonnages to have an impact.
Really not. Mossie's 4000 pd load on a powerstation could KO electric power over a wide area (& Germany's electric grid lacked the flexibility to transfer it widely, so it'd stay dark), shut production without bombing factories (let alone houses), at very limited casualties to either side.
Without strategic bombing, D-Day would've been impossible before the development of the A-bomb. It was thanks to strategic bombing that the Allies obtained air supremacy over western Europe.
Boy, are you wrong here. Most of the success of Neptune was due to tactical bombing of railyards, bridges, so on. And downing thousands of aircraft is tactical, not strategic, effort.
It seems to me a little surprising that some here deny that city bombing was a war crime by saying how effective it was.
Or how needed it was to win the war.
Or even against who it was commited.
A crime is a crime in spite of those factors. In my view, if in war you deliberately target civilians that's a war crime. If you round them up in a street and machine gun them -nazi style- it's a crime, if you put a bomb through his roof while they are sleeping you only change the weapon of choice. And the fact that you don't see their faces..
Don't be ridiculous. The Nazis were rounding up defeated people, or their own citizens. If Michael Caine's paras had landed in the Merlin engine factory & killed all the workers, would that be a war crime? If Brit commandos did it at the Messerschmitt factory in Berlin, would it be? "if in war you deliberately target civilians that's a war crime"? Civilians contribute to the survival of the regime. They produce weapons & equipment. Attacking civilians producing weapons is perfectly legitimate, & has been since at least 1862, when Springfield rifle production couldn't keep up with demand. It's easier to get new recruits than new weapons, & has been for quite awhile.

Attacking civilian morale, as a way of attacking the enemy regime, is equally legitimate. The Allies' major problem was attacking civilians without attacking the Nazi government's morale. J.K.Galbraith put it best when he told Bill Buckley once, people prefer a bad government to a bomber overhead. Had the Allies made a point of saying the bombing would stop as soon as the Nazis were gone, something Goebbels (IIRC) feared they'd do, the war could have been over much, much sooner. Had the Allies, from Chamberlain on, made a point of saying the war was against Nazis, & not against Germans, the war could have been over much, much sooner. Instead, Chamberlain made it about Germany, & Winston made it "dehousing"....
 
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Take 50% BC casualties, turn them into infantry, plus triple that number in aircrews not needed (2-plc Mossie versus 10-man Lanc). Then 10-20% more, out of ground support personnel no longer needed. You've now solved UK's summer 1944 infantry crisis. Then take, oh, 50% of Merlins N needed (2 in Mossie versus 4 Lanc), & turn them over to tanks, or fighters, either or both of which you'll probably be able to build more of, too (more free production Mossie doesn't use). Of course, this presumes German industry isn't at a standstill for lack of coal at the powerplants, since the canals & rivers are shut due to mining...

There are also other possibilities. This one is politically ASB, but feasible technically:

In Autumn 1944 the Allied advances in the West are held back due to famous supply crisis. A decision is made that Bomber Command and 8th Air Force will, instead of dropping bombs to Germany already seriously mauled, for a short duration used for supplying primarily fuel for advancing forces.

According to:

http://www.qmfound.com/pol_on_the_red_ball_express.htm

US 1st Army used some 800 000 thousand gallon a day in highly mobile operations.

British Bomber Command had by this time an ability to send out 1000 bombers for a mission and the 8th AF capability of 2000 bombers for a mission. If we count 1000 Lancaster sorties and 2000 B-17 sorties a day this means the ability to deliver 76 million pounds to "target", directly to advancing troops. 76 million pounds translates roughly to 12,4 million gallons of fuel.

True amounts might be higher or lower, as factors such as lack of defensive armament, higher mission rate to no combat damage and less crew strain, packaging etc. should be considered.
 
Much would depend on what is done instead of area bombing.

As it was Bomber Command ended up with 1000+ heavy bombers which according to British calculations from the early 40's was equivalent to building and running 25 battleships (RN had max 15 battleships in OTL WWII). I haven't got any equivalent "key" to Divisions, but it obviously would be a very high number.

The disruptive effect of bombing could be achieved by focussing on a much smaller number of fast (twin engine) bombers, trained for low altitude precision bombing - the Mosquite raids on Gestapo headquarters in Europe is the inspiration. Here a majority of the bombs actually hit the target, and not the very small fraction in area bombing. But that would of course not have Bomber Command be a major arm of its own but rather a specialist branch - which is probably also why it never got that far.

The freed resources I would recommend be used on building a creditable force to defend the Far East, or re-take it by own power (instead of relying on USA to island-jump the Pacific and nuke Japan). That gives a real chance of the Empire actually surviving the war.


Regards

Steffen Redbeard


From Max Hastings ‘Bomber Command’

The Allies possession of a heavy-bomber force was an important military asset, seen to most advantage in support of Overlord. But Churchill made a major error of judgement in the winter of 1941-42 by committing British industry to the enormous heavy-bomber programme that came to fruition at the end of 1944. The Prime Minister could have achieved his strategic purpose with a far less extravagant outlay of resources. Instead, although they were denied their ‘4,000 Plan, the airmen were allowed to embark on their own ambitious war aims. Tizard said after the war, ‘No one thinks now that it would have been possible to defeat Germany by bombing alone. The actual effort expended on bombing Germany, in manpower and resources, was greater than the value in manpower and resources of the damage caused.’

Whether or not this is precisely true, the British investment in Bomber Command was immense. Webster and Frankland suggest that the bomber offensive employed only 7 per cent of the nation’s manpower, but this figure can hardly be accepted literally, since it discounts the exceptional quality and skills of those concerned. It is difficult to compute the exact proportion of the nation’s war effort that was involved, but A. J. P. Taylor, one of the critics of the bomber offensive, argues around one third. Bomber Command took the cream of Britain’s wartime high technology, and the true cost of a Lancaster fitted with H2S, Gee, the Mark XIV bombsight and other supporting equipment must have been staggering. The fact that Britain was compelled to buy from America all its transport aircraft (and enter post-war civil aviation at a serous disadvantage (although we did make some transport aircraft and post war, British airlines seemed to adopt a ‘Buy American’ attitude despite wanting subsidies from the British taxpayer to buy and operate those aircraft (my words)), most of its landing craft, a large proportion of its tanks and vast quantities of ammunition stemmed directly or indirectly from the weight of British industrial effort committed to the bomber offensive.

[FONT=&quot]In another part of the book[/FONT]
‘Sir John Grigg, the Army Minister, said in the House of Commons in the Army Estimates debate of 1944: ‘We have reached the extraordinary situation in which the labour devoted to the production of heavy bombers alone is believed to be equal to that allotted to the production of the whole equipment of the army’.


The British Army was the bottom when it came manpower redeploying those 55,000 aircrew that were killed and all that technical manpower would have lifted the Army's performance without question.

The RN’s Fleet Air Arm was desperately short of effective aircraft throughout the war and a few hundred extra fighters; dive-bombers or torpedo bombers could have transformed the situation in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean (assuming British industry could come up with effective aircraft….)
 
This in itself says all that is needed about your views on Haig.
If I take you to mean he was a narrowminded, obsessed butcher, yes, I think it does.
British Bomber Command had by this time an ability to send out 1000 bombers for a mission and the 8th AF capability of 2000 bombers for a mission.
Considering the amount of fuel 3000 bombers used, wouldn't it make more sense to ground most of them a month or so...?:confused: Or tell Monty to stop dreaming about victory parades through Berlin until the Scheldt Estuary is cleared?:mad:
 
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MrP

Banned
If I take you to mean he was a narrowminded, obsessed butcher, yes, I think it does.

He probably means that Verdun was a strictly French Army affair, old boy. Haig, whatever his faults, can hold no responsibility - good or ill - for Verdun, since he wasn't involved. He was planning and executing the Somme offensive at the time - and for that one can criticise him. Have you read Harris' new biography of Haig?

EDIT: Incidentally, I'm really enjoying Charles Williams' biog of Pétain. Methinks I'll get his other works after this - and hide from Dad that I'm buying stuff by a Labour peer. ;)
 
The defining moment in the career of 'Bomber' Harris was surely in 1942 when there appeared to be a real chance that the UK would be starved out of the war by the wolf packs.

At a time when RAF Bomber Command was already launching 1000 bomber raids with almost 700 held in reserve it was decided that a total force of 300 long range patrol bombers would be deployed against the U-boats, a majority coming from US factories or from Coastal Command.

The response from Harris when it was concluded that a continent of bombers far smaller than what Bomber Command currently had and vastly smaller than what they would recieve in coming months can charitably be described as hysterical.

One historian suggested that seeing the response without the preceding decision might lead one to think Churchill had announced the unconditional surrender of the UK and the immediate transfer of all Bomber Command personnel to the death camps.
 

MrP

Banned
The defining moment in the career of 'Bomber' Harris was surely in 1942 when there appeared to be a real chance that the UK would be starved out of the war by the wolf packs.

At a time when RAF Bomber Command was already launching 1000 bomber raids with almost 700 held in reserve it was decided that a total force of 300 long range patrol bombers would be deployed against the U-boats, a majority coming from US factories or from Coastal Command.

The response from Harris when it was concluded that a continent of bombers far smaller than what Bomber Command currently had and vastly smaller than what they would recieve in coming months can charitably be described as hysterical.

One historian suggested that seeing the response without the preceding decision might lead one to think Churchill had announced the unconditional surrender of the UK and the immediate transfer of all Bomber Command personnel to the death camps.

Y'get some funny responses in war time. I still mean to find out whether Jellicoe's assertion in '17 that the U-boats would starve out the UK was based on fact or paranoia.
 
MrP! You're back! You're alive!:)

examines MrP carefully for signs of current or latent zombiehood

MrP! You're back! You're alive!:)
 

MrP

Banned
MrP! You're back! You're alive!:)

examines MrP carefully for signs of current or latent zombiehood

MrP! You're back! You're alive!:)

I've not been away, have I? If it's that other thing, I may be intermittent for a while yet!
 
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