[FONT="]From Max Hastings ‘Bomber Command’
[/FONT] 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.’
[FONT="]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 rue 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[/FONT][FONT="] (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]
[FONT="]In another part of the book[/FONT]
[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’[/FONT]
However, if Bomber Command had been used more effectively....
Target: Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit
Apart from the oil plants and transport network, there were other weak points in the German economy, which would have been very worthwhile targets for attacks by the Anglo-American strategic bombers. These were plants producing key war chemicals such as synthetic nitrogen, methanol (synthetic wood alcohol), tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber. Nitrogen was vitally important in the manufacture of explosives and V2 rocket fuel; it was also essential in the production of agricultural fertilizer. Tetraethyl lead was an indispensable ingredient of aviation fuel; without it the Luftwaffe’s fighter aircraft would have been deprived of 40 per cent of their engine power and have been hopelessly outclassed in combat. With the almost complete cessation of imports of natural rubber from overseas on the outbreak of war, the production within Germany of synthetic rubber, needed for many types of wheeled vehicle, assumed great importance.
In the case of some of these products, for example nitrogen, the plants that manufactured them were very few in number and of large capacity. Direct attacks on them would probably have had an even more crippling affect than the raids on the oil installations. Although, the Western Allies know a great deal about German industry even before the war began, the military leaders did not appreciate the crucial importance of the chemical industry or of the close interdependence between certain branches of production, as between the manufacture of oil, chemicals, synthetic rubber and explosives. This information came to light only after the war, when American and British survey teams carried out post mortem investigations in Germany into the effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing.
None the less, manufacture of the above key items was greatly hampered as a by-product of the oil-offensive, although this fact was not fully realised at the time. When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.
Now its easy to say 'benefit of hindsight' but how much effort was put into seeing just how vulnerable Germany was to disruption in supply of certain materials.
[/FONT] 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.’
[FONT="]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 rue 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[/FONT][FONT="] (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]
[FONT="]In another part of the book[/FONT]
[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’[/FONT]
However, if Bomber Command had been used more effectively....
Target: Hitler’s oil, Allied attacks on German oil supplies 1939-45 by Ronald C. Cooke and Roy Conyers Nesbit
Apart from the oil plants and transport network, there were other weak points in the German economy, which would have been very worthwhile targets for attacks by the Anglo-American strategic bombers. These were plants producing key war chemicals such as synthetic nitrogen, methanol (synthetic wood alcohol), tetraethyl lead and synthetic rubber. Nitrogen was vitally important in the manufacture of explosives and V2 rocket fuel; it was also essential in the production of agricultural fertilizer. Tetraethyl lead was an indispensable ingredient of aviation fuel; without it the Luftwaffe’s fighter aircraft would have been deprived of 40 per cent of their engine power and have been hopelessly outclassed in combat. With the almost complete cessation of imports of natural rubber from overseas on the outbreak of war, the production within Germany of synthetic rubber, needed for many types of wheeled vehicle, assumed great importance.
In the case of some of these products, for example nitrogen, the plants that manufactured them were very few in number and of large capacity. Direct attacks on them would probably have had an even more crippling affect than the raids on the oil installations. Although, the Western Allies know a great deal about German industry even before the war began, the military leaders did not appreciate the crucial importance of the chemical industry or of the close interdependence between certain branches of production, as between the manufacture of oil, chemicals, synthetic rubber and explosives. This information came to light only after the war, when American and British survey teams carried out post mortem investigations in Germany into the effectiveness of Allied strategic bombing.
None the less, manufacture of the above key items was greatly hampered as a by-product of the oil-offensive, although this fact was not fully realised at the time. When the oil plants at Luena and Ludwigshaven were temporarily put out of action, Germany was deprived of 63% of its current output of nitrogen, 40% of its synthetic methanol and 65% of its synthetic rubber production.
Now its easy to say 'benefit of hindsight' but how much effort was put into seeing just how vulnerable Germany was to disruption in supply of certain materials.