What Could the Allies Have Done to Stop the Holocaust?

So now we're discussing what? The Versailles Treaty? The difficult Polish-Czechoslovakian relations and the poor choices of the Polish government?

Problem is the question is basically how do you stop Hitler before he gets started, which tends to then become why/how did he get started and can we prevent that ...thus the same ToV debate

Otherwise it's how do you win WW2 faster than it was already won. so that's either how do you stop Germany early on, or stop them faster later on. The former requires not only someone willing but also able to do so, and the latter takes either a faster collapse in the east vs. the Russians, or a guaranteed earlier & successful invasion from the west.

Directly targeting the holocaust in wartime is as others have pointed out not possible
 
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The rail lines specifically only going to the 6 extermination camps are out there in remote Poland.
Ah damn. Because I had the following idea in my head for some time...

Send Mustangs and Mosquitos straffing the death trains steam locomotives, right in the boiler. This can make the locomotive explodes, destroy the rail tracks.

It was done hundred times in occupied France on non death trains and worked damn well. P-51 or A-36 pilots from RAF bases crossed into France at waves top level and once past the coast followed rail tracks until they straffed locomotives. And yes they managed to hit them right in the boiler with excellent kill results.

What happens next is more difficult. Either the resistance attacks the disabled train and help all the poor people - very difficult, insane logistics in hostile grounds, plus resistance unwilingness to help foreign jews (sigh).

At worse some resistants attack, open the doors and whoever can escape, escape. Better than Auschwitz crematoriums for alls. The heathier men and women enter the resistance and go hidding with them.

IMHO this is the only sensible way to use Wallies air power to stop the shoah.

When I read "send B-17s to bomb Auschwitz " my teeth cringe in anger. NO WAY to bomb the camp without cratering the whole place...and kill all the poor jews in a hail of 1000 pounds bombs instead of zyklon B.
Plus the nazis fuckers at Wansee and after 1942 explicitedly placed the death camps in the deep end of Poland where even B-17s couldn't reach. In the Warsaw uprising B-24 and Lancasters with containers of weapons for the insurgents come from Brindisi, in Italy, because GB was out of range. Their losses were horrific nonetheless.

Look also at the Peenmude raids, Hydra. This was a peculiar target as much as Auschwitz would have been. Through aerial reco they pinpointed important structures yet... missed them.
They killed POWs more than rocket scientists, V2 still happened... precision was abysmal.
 
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Ah damn. Because I had the following idea in my head for some time...

Send Mustangs and Mosquitos straffing the death trains steam locomotives, right in the boiler.

Apart from the issue of range, which you acknowledge in your first sentence, and the issue of crossing the most defended enemy airspace of the time...

...how do the pilots tell it's a "death train"?

It's a train made of closed cargo wagons.

If it's on the final secondary line only heading to Auschwitz, then yes, it's going to Auschwitz. And even then, it might be a train carrying food supplies. Stopping it will do no good to the prisoners.

If it's not on that terminal line, it might not be going to Auschwitz at all. It might be a supply train carrying ammunition, or food, or horses, or other military supplies to the front. So why should the pilots, having run the risk of being there, only shoot up the locomotive and not the rolling stock (valuable target in itself) and the contents?

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By the summer of 1944, there's another Ally who would have less range problems. It's the Soviets. And they have the ideal aircraft to shoot up trains (indeed, using Mustangs and Mosquitos is a waste of valuable resources): the Shturmovik.
But the Soviets will be even more ruthless than the Westerners. The Shturmovik hasn't great range, and they are all needed to promote immediate military advantages for the Krasnaya Armija on the ground. At the end of the day, a mission of say 10 Shturmovik might save some prisoners - 10? 100? - and it would typically entail a 10% loss rate assuming only light opposition. Two expensively trained Soviet air crewmen. Plus the other Soviet servicemen that might die that day, because the 10 Shturmoviks did not attack the German ground forces in front of them.
 
Apart from the issue of range, which you acknowledge in your first sentence, and the issue of crossing the most defended enemy airspace of the time...

...how do the pilots tell it's a "death train"?

It's a train made of closed cargo wagons.

If it's on the final secondary line only heading to Auschwitz, then yes, it's going to Auschwitz. And even then, it might be a train carrying food supplies. Stopping it will do no good to the prisoners.

If it's not on that terminal line, it might not be going to Auschwitz at all. It might be a supply train carrying ammunition, or food, or horses, or other military supplies to the front. So why should the pilots, having run the risk of being there, only shoot up the locomotive and not the rolling stock (valuable target in itself) and the contents?

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By the summer of 1944, there's another Ally who would have less range problems. It's the Soviets. And they have the ideal aircraft to shoot up trains (indeed, using Mustangs and Mosquitos is a waste of valuable resources): the Shturmovik.
But the Soviets will be even more ruthless than the Westerners. The Shturmovik hasn't great range, and they are all needed to promote immediate military advantages for the Krasnaya Armija on the ground. At the end of the day, a mission of say 10 Shturmovik might save some prisoners - 10? 100? - and it would typically entail a 10% loss rate assuming only light opposition. Two expensively trained Soviet air crewmen. Plus the other Soviet servicemen that might die that day, because the 10 Shturmoviks did not attack the German ground forces in front of them.

Yep, and as ever the grime maths of war might well end up being what ever numbers of death camp victims you save by directing resources away from defeating the Germans will be less than the number killed in death camps that can operate for longer if it takes longer to defeat the Germans because you directed resources away from defeating them.

(and that's not even counting the extra Russian losses incurred by prolonging the war, which will also be a factor in Russian war maths even if not our maths, and it's Russian resources we're diverting here)
 
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Thank you Michele. In passing FIY I liked your alt BoB TL a long time ago "A better show".

I picked both aircraft indeed because of their range and performance and low vulnerability - but Poland is so vast... plus it is low level flight not 30 000 ft reco or B-17 escort so yeah range is going to take a big hit.
Problem is that the Mustang can reach Poland yes but at 30 000 ft straight line escorting lumbering B-17s. In order to eyeball and straff the train it is mandatory tree top level. Yet descending straffing ascending back to 30 000 ft is going to screw the mission.

Yeah I.D the train is a major PITA. I thought about the resistance warning the wallies pilots by I.D a departing train at a station.

But the transmission chain from resistance to RAF base to P-51 is probably horribly long and unefficient. Plus the travel time navigation hasards from GB... this is not today FAC in Afghanistan where A-10 Whartogs can be above head in 10 mn to kick insurgeants shooting embattered NATO troops. Sigh.

Another idea was to straff the Vel' d'hiv trains of 1942 crossing France to Drancy and then to Auschwitz. France is closer than Poland and if you find and crush the trains out of Drancy you mail strangle the main line out of France to the death camps: Drancy was last step before hell.
Also work until august 1944 when the last train from Nice sneaked across both Overlord and Dragoon closing pincers and achieved its morbid mission against all odds. It stopped restarted took side trips adding further suffering and finally made it to Germany and Poland. fuck.
 
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