Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris

[KingSargent]

All this talk about US vs British bombing accuracy ignores Japan, where the USAF bombing policy was to lay waste residential areas with incendiaries.

Yes, because the B-29 couldn't hit squat. Spraying incendiaries at night was the only way the 20th AF could be useful. Well, that and mining, but they really weren't all that interested in mining.

[KingSargent]

Yes, tell us once more about the 'pickle barrell' accuracy.

 

Don't know much about British bombing, do you?

I never claimed any "pickle barrel accuracy." That was another lie of the airmen.

 

As a matter of fact, I do know quite a bit about British bombing.

[KingSargent]

Yes, but if you had a bombing effect like that which happened in the attacks on Dresden and Hamburg (overlooking the obviously horrific loss of life) then industry destruction by means of area attack clearly was workable. An area attack that took in civilian targets would not be necessarily excluding industrial ones anyway for that reason. Have you a specific example in mind, because if you have one that shows the RAF clearly excluded a industrial target in favor of a housing one, Id be very interested to read about it.

OK, explain to me the industry in Dresden that required the bombing treatment it received. Somehow it seems a bit of overkill for a railroad marshalling yard. It was terror bombing pure and simple, and at that stage of the war contributed essentially nothing to Allied victory.

 

I am familiar with the theories that Dresden (in the future Soviet Occupation Zone) was obliterated to show the Soviets what happened to cities if the US and UK were mad at them.

[Junior FO]

...

Edited September 19, 2024 by Junior FO

[Slater]

I don't think that burning Japan to a cinder with B-29 fire raids kept too many Americans awake at night. There was that whole Pearl Harbor thing, after all.

[KingSargent]

Funnily enough we got hit a few times by US daylight raids but never by UK night ones. Most were on or North of the Rhine, which is kind of understandable, however some bombings also occurred South of the Rhine, which is slightly more mysterious.

The first civilians killed by the RAF in WW2 were Danes - in Denmark. The RAF couldn't find Germany.

[Mote]

Have you a specific example in mind, because if you have one that shows the RAF clearly excluded a industrial target in favor of a housing one, Id be very interested to read about it.

 

I don't have any specific examples, I was recalling something I read recently (don't remember where) that said that the German industry was located mainly in the suburbs, but Bomber Command was hitting the medieval centers of town, due to ignorance or mistaken assumptions rather than malice.

[RETAC21]

The first civilians killed by the RAF in WW2 were Danes - in Denmark. The RAF couldn't find Germany.

 

But at the time Harris was not in charge, so you can hardly charge him with that. OTOH you can credit him with a number of innovations intended to improve accuracy, like pathfinding, Oboe, H2S (good enough to be put on US bombers), the creation of the elite squadrons like 617 intended for pin-point targets... Truth is, for a Hamburg there's a Tokio and Dresden was a joint thing. The combined bomber offensive was a waste until they started fuel and transportation targets as well as tactical objectives, both of which with great reluctance. Strategic bombing only came to age with the A bombs. Now, that was the realisation of the Douhetian dream.

[MiloMorai]

Interesting that the first bombs that were to be dropped on Dresden were to be from USAAF a/c.

 

The firebombing campaign was to have begun with a USAAF Eighth Air Force raid on Dresden on February 13, but bad weather over Europe prevented any USAAF operations.

 

Later on February 14, from 12:17 until 12:30 311 USAAF B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden, with the railway yards as their aiming point.

The Americans continued the bombing on February 15 dropping 466 tons of bombs.

 

The rail yards were relatively untouched which seems strange because of the so-called American precision bombing.

 

Almost 200 factories were damaged, 136 seriously (including several of the Zeiss Ikon precision optical engineering works), 28 with medium to serious damage, and 35 with light damage

[Old Tanker]

All this talk about US vs British bombing accuracy ignores Japan, where the USAF bombing policy was to lay waste residential areas with incendiaries.

 

About the time of the Battle of the Bulge the U.S. attitude againist terror bombing changed 180*.

Probably the attitude of Aug. '44 " The war will be over by Christmas " was found to be a Fairy Tale and a no holds barred attitude quickly emerged.

[rmgill]

Yeah, because the British targets were whole cities, the US targets were buildings.

 

If one shooter scores 100% hits in the broad side of a barn and another shooter scores 50% hits in a knothole in the barn, who's the better shot?

 

You mean like the Prison at Aimens or the Gestapo offices in The Hague and Copenhagen? Becaus the US opinion on the Little De Havelland bomber was that "the airplane has sacrificed serviceability, structural strength, ease of construction and flying characteristics in an attempt to use construction material which is not suitable for the manufacture of efficient airplanes"...

 

So where do the Mosquito, damn busting and Tirpitz raids by 617 squadron fit into the "missing targets" and same old pattern?

[MiloMorai]

The FB.VIs were also active in attacks on the launch sites for V-1 flying bombs in Northern France. The V-1s had been photographed at Peenemunde, and then on 28 November 1943 a PR Mosquito spotted the first French launch site. Both the RAF and the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) began to bomb the sites on 5 December 1943.

 

The campaign lasted into the fall of 1944, and statistics compiled later showed that the Mosquito destroyed one site for each 36.4 tonnes (40 tons) of bombs dropped, as opposed to 150 tonnes (165 tons) for USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, 158 tonnes (182 tons) for Martin B-26 Marauders, and 200 tonnes (219 tons) for North American B-25 Mitchells.

 

Another fine example of American precision bombing.

[KingSargent]

But at the time Harris was not in charge, so you can hardly charge him with that. OTOH you can credit him with a number of innovations intended to improve accuracy, like pathfinding, Oboe, H2S (good enough to be put on US bombers), the creation of the elite squadrons like 617 intended for pin-point targets... Truth is, for a Hamburg there's a Tokio and Dresden was a joint thing. The combined bomber offensive was a waste until they started fuel and transportation targets as well as tactical objectives, both of which with great reluctance. Strategic bombing only came to age with the A bombs. Now, that was the realisation of the Douhetian dream.

I was not commenting on Harris specifically, but on the PTB (Air Staff, Bomber Barons, whatever) who claimed to have a war-winning weapon so powerful that the other Services were unnecessary and then failed to train the men manning that weapon to find the target.

[KingSargent]

I don't have any specific examples, I was recalling something I read recently (don't remember where) that said that the German industry was located mainly in the suburbs, but Bomber Command was hitting the medieval centers of town, due to ignorance or mistaken assumptions rather than malice.

More probably because the targeting radar could find the center of the city, but not a specific area of the suburbs.

 

Also, Harris was not aiming for the factories as for the workers. Disrupt the workforce = disrupt the factory. And the workers' housing tended to be in the older parts of town, ie near city centers.

[RETAC21]

I was not commenting on Harris specifically, but on the PTB (Air Staff, Bomber Barons, whatever) who claimed to have a war-winning weapon so powerful that the other Services were unnecessary and then failed to train the men manning that weapon to find the target.

 

But even then that's a bit unfair, as the circumstances in which the bomber was "always going to get through" changed in the late 30s with the appearance of high performance monoplane fighters and radar, not to speak about the switch to night bombing. Note that the Germans, who were trained in such attacks, only managed to pull out one Conventry and suffered many of the problems of Bomber Command in finding and hitting their targets (the accidental bombing of London in the BoB springs to mind).

 

If you want to accuse one individual, the finger must point to Peirse, who knew he was getting meager results and did little to change them.

[KingSargent]

Well that was certainly one theory Neillands contends, that Germany had up till that point in history been happy to destroy the rest of Europe and suffer no comebacks. As a means of pacifying Germany once and for all (Unified Germany had after all only existed for some 70 some years, and count the wars) and by this means ensured that Germany would never try it again. Its got something to commend it, the problem is that no official documents have arose to prove it. It may have existed in the minds of Churchill and the American and British high command though.

 

The other theory Neillands contends is that by that stage of the war, by NOT bombing there would have been an uproar among the civilian populace in the Uk. Many of their sons were in the drive into Germany, and by not Bombing were were obviously not bringing Britains full military capablity to bear in what was obviously a total war. By not doing so we would have been putting them at greater risk. To not bomb just for the sake of an enemies population would have been deeply politically unpopular, and its not like Germany ever stopped bombing Britain until very nearly the end of the war for us to reciprocate. Additionally not bombing would have been unpopular with the Soviets who may have assumed we were about to form a seperate peace with the Germans, and at least in their minds would have put their troops at greater risk for the same reasons our troops would have been. By not bombing, it would have released a large number of AA crews who could have either served as infantry or Antitank crews. So not bombing despite being a popular idea 60 years on, was not a realistic idea according to Neillands. I think he is right.

I have no problem at all with continuing the bombing campaign on worthwhile targets, but what made Dresden a worthwhile target?

 

As for Dresden, Harris has been the popular hate figure to hand out to the Germans, and obviously overlooks the Americans bombed the place by day as well. This operation appears to have been an idea that arose from above Harris, and whilst he agreed with it, is obviously unfair to blame him for it. Its also popular to believe that there were NO military facilities in Dresden. I gather that was not the case. There were German naval weapons developed there I gather, and whilst admittedly that was a pretty low order of importance at that stage of the war, there were still plenty of Type XXIs on the slipway. The date of the end of the war looks obvious to us now, there was no such timetable existing back then.

I never said the Americans did not participate. That is a red herring - although not especially yours.

I have never (that I recall) seen it in writing, but I suspect that the Americans joined in the area bombing because - between damage done and dispersement of industry - they had run out of precision targets. That was the excuse for fire-bombing Japan, that the dispersed nature of Japanese industry made it impossible to locate and target specific factories so wrecking any city with an industrial output was the only answer.

 

I would ask you King, what would have been the USAAFs tactics if they had been forced to use the B29 in Germany? Would they also have been forced to use the only tactics they could, against the tactics they wanted to use?

The B-29 MIGHT have been more effective in Europe. The problem with high-altitude bombing in Japan was unpredictable winds the dispersed the bomb patterns. Watch those wartime 'bomb baay camera' films and you can see the bombs being blown back and forth off course almost from the moment of dropping. Photos of European bombing show nice neat patterns, both falling from the bomber and in damage photos on the ground. Now the damage photos show that many of those nice neat patterns missed, but the mechanism for "precision bombing" was demonstrably present even if the skills weren't.

Also as mentioned above, by the time the B-29 would have deployed in Europe they would have had the problem of dispersed industry making worthwhile precision targets hard to find.

 

I always think the morality of the Bombing campaign falls apart when you look at a simple point. If the RAF had the atomic bomb in 1942, they would clearly have been right to use it and ending the war would have saved millions of lives. In that aspect the problem with the RAFs area attack wasnt the massive damage they did or the lives they took. It was that they didnt cause enough damage to warrant the attack used except on 2 occasions. If they could have caused a firestorm every time they went out, they would have ended the war 2 or 3 years early and saved millions of lives. Harris failed in his main objective, but he was still right to try it, and should have got more support from the USAAF command who morally copped out. Pinpoint bombing APPEARED to be a valuable war winning asset. Yet how is it that after a major campaign such as big week which made German aircraft production its central effort, German production figures went up?

Ah, but the Germans couldn't replace the PILOTS they lost during Big Week. Once the fighter could accompany the bombers all the way, the bomber streams became analagous to convoys in ASW warfare - as bait to lure the enemy into one place where he could be found and destroyed by escorts. And it is better to destroy a plane in the air rather than on the ground, because a plane shot down kills or at least scares the shit out of the pilot/crew, while a plane strafed on the ground leaves the aircrew intact to man replacement a/c.

 

Its a damn shame Le May wasnt in charge in the ETO. With both RAF and USAAF performing area attacks the strategic effort might have been successful. As it was, it was a fractured approach that didnt work. Not that it wasnt a valuable contribution to the final effect though.

There is much in what you say, although the "misguided morality" of the USAAF effort was a doctrinal thing emerging from H.H. Arnold & Co. in CONUS and not entirely up to Spaatz and others on the spot.

 

As for your views on early war bombing King, I think you are completely right, and that bomber command was clearly a waste of space up till 1942. But from that point on im going to be tough to convince they didnt perform a valuable role.

But was the role worth the cost? Bomber Command suffered 50% losses over the course of the war. That effort might have been better used in other ways.

But that is another question, not germane to a discussion of Harris or any other commander given a weapon and told to get on with it.

[KingSargent]

You mean like the Prison at Aimens or the Gestapo offices in The Hague and Copenhagen? Becaus the US opinion on the Little De Havelland bomber was that "the airplane has sacrificed serviceability, structural strength, ease of construction and flying characteristics in an attempt to use construction material which is not suitable for the manufacture of efficient airplanes"...

 

So where do the Mosquito, damn busting and Tirpitz raids by 617 squadron fit into the "missing targets" and same old pattern?

Ah yes, and those raids are famous because of their rarity. Had the whole RAF been capable of such navigational and bombing accuracy, I would have problem cheering the RAF on. And the fact that such accurate raids DID occur after much training of aircrews IMHO indicates the fecklessness of a staff that did not give such war-winning and life-saving training to the whole of Bomber Command.

 

As for "US opinion of the Mosquito", the initial assessments of the MG42 and StG44 were that they were worthless stamped-out pieces of junk that showed how desperate the enemy was getting.

[patteng]

The FB.VIs were also active in attacks on the launch sites for V-1 flying bombs in Northern France. The V-1s had been photographed at Peenemunde, and then on 28 November 1943 a PR Mosquito spotted the first French launch site. Both the RAF and the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) began to bomb the sites on 5 December 1943.

 

The campaign lasted into the fall of 1944, and statistics compiled later showed that the Mosquito destroyed one site for each 36.4 tonnes (40 tons) of bombs dropped, as opposed to 150 tonnes (165 tons) for USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, 158 tonnes (182 tons) for Martin B-26 Marauders, and 200 tonnes (219 tons) for North American B-25 Mitchells.

 

Another fine example of American precision bombing.

 

 

A genuine question - what does that work out to be in aircraft sorties? Fewer tons may just reflect a smaller bombload.

[Briganza]

No, it was more like the RAF, specifically Bomber Command, had sold the British politicians a Douhetian con-job, and had to at least PRETEND they were making good on their pre-war promises.

 

Trenchard had seen in WW1 the effects that the Zeppelin raid had had on the morale of the people. He saw the strategic effect of terror bombing on his own population and how it could win wars. See many pre war films on how war was to be waged and what had happened in Spain. Harris was a disciple of Trenchard. Up till the start of the war the RAF was not a strategic force but an arm that supported the RN and army. Both navy and army had won wars on their own. The RAF wanted a place with the big boys so that they could get a bigger part of the budget. Fighter command could argue this as they could protect the country from the bombers so that the bomber would not always get through. Unfortunately the RAF at the start of the war did not have the tools to do the job but could convince others that they could if the tools were made available. Harris is now preaching to a commander who is seeing the effect bombing is having on his own country. Harris is now into a mind set that the RAF can win the war on it’s own and it is only now after proving that you still need troops on the ground has the AF (US and UK) seen that it does not work. You can’t get a better example than shock and awe.

 

At the time Bomber Command was the only offensive weapon the UK had.

[KingSargent]

Trenchard had seen in WW1 the effects that the Zeppelin raid had had on the morale of the people. He saw the strategic effect of terror bombing on his own population and how it could win wars. See many pre war films on how war was to be waged and what had happened in Spain. Harris was a disciple of Trenchard. Up till the start of the war the RAF was not a strategic force but an arm that supported the RN and army. Both navy and army had won wars on their own. The RAF wanted a place with the big boys so that they could get a bigger part of the budget. Fighter command could argue this as they could protect the country from the bombers so that the bomber would not always get through. Unfortunately the RAF at the start of the war did not have the tools to do the job but could convince others that they could if the tools were made available. Harris is now preaching to a commander who is seeing the effect bombing is having on his own country. Harris is now into a mind set that the RAF can win the war on it’s own and it is only now after proving that you still need troops on the ground has the AF (US and UK) seen that it does not work. You can’t get a better example than shock and awe.

 

At the time Bomber Command was the only offensive weapon the UK had.

The RAF HAD the biggest part of the defense budget throughout the BTW period.

 

As for the RAF not being a strategic AF prior to 1939, who did they have to be strategic against? RAF combat operations BTW involved Imperial Policing duties. It's hard to have a strategic bombing campaign against, say Pushtuns on the NW Frontier.

 

That Bomber Command was the only offensive weapon that the UK had shows that the RAF propagandists were efficient con men and the UK PTB were pretty stupid BTW.

[Briganza]

The RAF HAD the biggest part of the defense budget throughout the BTW period.

 

Interesting can you give any figures on that as according to Hasting between 1920-38 the RAF got an average of 17% of the British defence budget. In 22 it fell to a low of 11m and never passed 20m until the rearmament in 35.

 

Bomber Command, Max Hastings p40.

 

As for the RAF not being a strategic AF prior to 1939, who did they have to be strategic against? RAF combat operations BTW involved Imperial Policing duties. It's hard to have a strategic bombing campaign against, say Pushtuns on the NW Frontier.

You could say that about any part of the British military. The RAF was very effective in Iraq and was a cheep weapon compared to an expeditionary force on the ground. Many bombing methods were tried in this area.

 

“The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.”

Wing-commander Harris.

 

Aerial bombardment had proven to be a satisfactory method of mass killing. Jonathan Glancey (The Guardian, 19 April 2003) recalls: "Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war and air, estimated that without the RAF, somewhere between 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would be needed to control Iraq. Reliance on the airforce promised to cut these numbers to just 4,000 and 10,000. Churchill's confidence was soon repaid". Glancey reports that the RAF "flew missions totaling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines".

 

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/AVbombertheory.htm

 

Seems like a strategic use of force to me.

 

That Bomber Command was the only offensive weapon that the UK had shows that the RAF propagandists were efficient con men and the UK PTB were pretty stupid BTW.

 

What other offensive force did the UK have that could hit Germany in 40.

 

What does PTB mean?

[Olof Larsson]

A genuine question - what does that work out to be in aircraft sorties? Fewer tons may just reflect a smaller bombload.

 

I don't know what specific ordnance the Mossies carried against V-1 sites,

but Lancasters stereotypicaly seems to have carried 1x4000 pound cookie

and up to 18x500 pound MC or GP bombs (i.e. up to 13000 pounds) during No-BALL-missions.

 

The Mossies might have gone in with a 4000 pound cookie or 6x500 pound MC- or GP-bombs.

 

The B-25's and B-26's probably carried 4000 pounds,

but the B-25 at least could carry as much as 6000 pounds.

The B-17 (F and G-versions) to carry up to 12x500 pound bombs internaly,

but they could carry 2000 pounds externaly as well.

 

The USAAF do seem to have used 1600 pound bombs against V-1 and V-2 sites as well,

and that way the B-17 could (in theory) carry as much as 17600 pounds (i.e. 11 bombs)

 

The difference in bombload can't explain how much more effective the Mossie used its bombs.

My guess is that the Mossie simply bombed at higher speed (making the aircraft less vulnerable to FlaK)

from lower altitude and and therefore dropped the bombs closer to the target.

[KingSargent]

Interesting can you give any figures on that as according to Hasting between 1920-38 the RAF got an average of 17% of the British defence budget. In 22 it fell to a low of 11m and never passed 20m until the rearmament in 35.

 

Bomber Command, Max Hastings p40.

Can't at the moment. Broad figures that stick in my mind were RAF 50%, RN Ca. 40%, Amy ca.10%. Also budget figures in dollars (or pounds) simply indicate that nobody as getting much.

 

What other offensive force did the UK have that could hit Germany in 40.

They didn't, that's my point. The RAF got money to be the war-winning strategic arm and it didn't work. IMHO the money could have been better spent on a naval air force/Coastal Command, Close Air Support, and battlefield interdiction force. IOW, force multipliers for the other services rather than a strategic force that didn't work.

 

What does PTB mean?

Powers That Be - IOW the makers and shakers.

 

BTW (By The Way), BTW also means Between The Wars. Which I mean is usually clear from the context.

[Briganza]

Can't at the moment. Broad figures that stick in my mind were RAF 50%, RN Ca. 40%, Amy ca.10%. Also budget figures in dollars (or pounds) simply indicate that nobody as getting much.

 

They didn't, that's my point. The RAF got money to be the war-winning strategic arm and it didn't work. IMHO the money could have been better spent on a naval air force/Coastal Command, Close Air Support, and battlefield interdiction force. IOW, force multipliers for the other services rather than a strategic force that didn't work.

 

I would agree with you on that.

Powers That Be - IOW the makers and shakers.

 

BTW (By The Way), BTW also means Between The Wars. Which I mean is usually clear from the context.

 

 

 

That is my point the RAF wanted an offensive arm that was important and could stand-alone. Being second fiddle to the others arms would see the RAF as nothing more than a home defence force. Would you want that for the RAF if you were in charge?

 

But if the salesman is selling you a car and you can have any colour as long as it is black, you get a black car. The PTB did not know that you could also get blue at a better price. BC came with a way of fighting back that would be good for morale which is what was needed at hte time.

 

I understood BTW thanks.

[Yama]

They didn't, that's my point. The RAF got money to be the war-winning strategic arm and it didn't work. IMHO the money could have been better spent on a naval air force/Coastal Command, Close Air Support, and battlefield interdiction force. IOW, force multipliers for the other services rather than a strategic force that didn't work.

 

But they did have CAS and interdiction aircraft - those awesome Battles and Lysanders... IIRC, RAF even ordered more Battles than any other aircraft prior the war.

 

RAF was of course not the only air force catching the douhetism fever - Soviets for example put priority on complex & expensive DB-3, even minor nations insisted having force of bombers.