Did Bomber Command Lose Its War?

[BillB]

The British army was fighting in France until July 1940, not May. It had been lined up against the Germans, planning to attack when it & the French army were good & ready, since the previous year. Aircraft built in summer 1940 were ordered before the German attack on France. Wouldn't we have been better off with CAS aircraft for that planned offensive? And for resisting the German attack in May?

 

You're thinking with hindsight. You can't justify decisions made long before by the existence of a situation which those decisions had contributed to, by leaving British troops exposed to German CAS & our forces inadequately equipped to do the same to their troops. Also, you're forgetting about fighters, which we desperately needed more of, but which had taken second fiddle to bombers.

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Good post Swerve, but I thought the last British and other Allied troops & dependents were lifted from French Atlantic ports by 20 June 1940?

 

all the best

 

BillB

[Ken Estes]

The British army was fighting in France until July 1940, not May. It had been lined up against the Germans, planning to attack when it & the French army were good & ready, since the previous year. Aircraft built in summer 1940 were ordered before the German attack on France. Wouldn't we have been better off with CAS aircraft for that planned offensive? And for resisting the German attack in May?

 

You're thinking with hindsight. You can't justify decisions made long before by the existence of a situation which those decisions had contributed to, by leaving British troops exposed to German CAS & our forces inadequately equipped to do the same to their troops. Also, you're forgetting about fighters, which we desperately needed more of, but which had taken second fiddle to bombers.

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Nope, I am trying to think about what the deuce the planners thought they were doing at the time they were doing it. You are the one armed with hindsight. What CAS a/c would have executed what doctrine to qualify for their production share of 38-39? Read again. I am saying that the ramp-up from 1938-39 rearmament may have caused the numbers you and others quibble about, and it should come as no surprise that they don't cover the mid-1940 situation well.

 

The Highland Div in June 1940 hardly compensates for the departure of the rest of the BEF at the end of May-June 2, as they were soon to find out. The Brits are off the continent, the RAF fighter command remains intact and ready to defend the home islands, vice thrown into the losses in France.

 

There is no doctrinal agreement between the British army and RAF over air support of ground forces until 1943. Ironically, it is the Desert AF fighting almost alone that covers the army after the Gazala-Tobruk disasters, saving it while it slinks back to Alamein station.

[KingSargent]

The British army was fighting in France until July 1940, not May. It had been lined up against the Germans, planning to attack when it & the French army were good & ready, since the previous year.

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Errrm.... Actually the BEF was lined up with the French facing Belgium, not Germany.....

[JOE BRENNAN]

Thats the way I read it too. Harris was perfectly happy (and in fact demanded) to go on bombing cities. He believed it was the only way to make the invasion unnecessary.  Only when forced to go to invasion support did he in fact commit to it, and the first chance he got, he went back to city bombing. I get the impression there WAS a pull back from Berlin in 43, because it was so bloody expensive, but that was true by day or night.

 

2.  if the USAAF  was NOT any more accurate than Bomber command often enough to matter, then their justification for flying by day almost disappears.

 

3.  But I really do think that the myth that the RAF was always inaccurate and the USAAF was always accurate really ought to be knocked on the head.

 

1. That can certainly be debated, intentions or reasons, but the fact is RAF loss rates in early 1944 had become very high, when USAAF ones were falling to a much lower level. Not on some pure doctrinal level of "oh but that was because of escorts so it violated the original doctrine", but just as an operational fact, the losses dropped to an indefinitely sustainable level when RAF's rose to unsustainable level, 9% over Berlin and often 6+ in the *limited* RAF night raids over Germany after March but before Allied armies took down the German AD network elements outside Germany (in the fall).

 

2. if, but first it's not so and second as mentioned in the critical phase, the only time anyone can say any Allied bombing v. Germany was really effective, 1944, day raids by USAAF had a substantially lower loss rate. So surviving became a reason to bomb in daylight, besides the highly dubious claim of equal accuracy at night. Again if this wasn't so, why didn't the 20th AF believe it? they fully realized B-29 night raids would sacrifice accuracy in general, though radar bombing capablity was superior to that used in Europe. Again an exception was high radar reflectivity targets (like refineries) bombed by Eagle a/c (far superior to radars available over ETO).

 

3. I don't think there's any such myth except on some very pop TV show level or something. Day accuracy was generally considerably higher in the critical phase where bombing lived up to any significant % of its potential, late in the war, when it's loss rate was lower also. It's not the same as saying all day bombing was more accurate than all night bombing all during WWII, obviously not and nobody serious ever said so.

 

Joe

[swerve]

Nope, I am trying to think about what the deuce the planners thought they were doing at the time they were doing it. You are the one armed with hindsight. What CAS a/c would have executed what doctrine to qualify for their production share of 38-39?

<snip>

There is no doctrinal agreement between the British army and RAF over air support of ground forces until 1943.

 

Exactly. That's the problem. No CAS aircraft because the RAF didn't want to use them, so hadn't worked out a way to use them, though it was quite proficient with them back in 1918, so it had no excuse. That's what I'm criticising, so it's hardly an argument that I'm wrong.

 

Billb - my mistake. I thought the last ones hung on a little longer.

 

Sargent - come on, that's nitpicking. They were there to fight Germans.

[MarkM624]

Hi all. The gist I am getting from this thread is that Bomber Command was essentially a Politcal weapon. It's overall impact was negligible up until 1944, aside from some spectacular individual successes, yet horrendous losses were taken for basically "keeping up the side". In and after 1944, BC has a larger impact when combine with USAAF daylight bombing yet it seems to be essentially still keeping up the side for the reasons stated by Stuart and others. Sounds like WWI reasoning going on. I am not discounting those reasons but, dayum, certainly a less costly way could have been found. Heavy bomber production and missions scaled back with other uses found for the crews. (More Mosquitos!)

 

The pre-war bombing theory promised mass destruction on the enemy with minimal cost to yourself and certainly avoiding a protracted war on the Continent which no Brit planner or politician wanted. Pre-war ideals obviously did not work out so, in retrospect, Strategic bombing was (is) a rich man's game and thus probably not something Britain should have stayed with once the US daylight offensive really got going.

[KingSargent]

Hi all.  The gist I am getting from this thread is that Bomber Command was essentially a Politcal weapon.  It's overall impact was negligible up until 1944, aside from some spectacular individual successes, yet horrendous losses were taken for basically "keeping up the side".  In and after 1944, BC has a larger impact when combine with USAAF daylight bombing yet it seems to be essentially still keeping up the side for the reasons stated by Stuart and others.  Sounds like WWI reasoning going on.  I am not discounting those reasons but, dayum, certainly a less costly way could have been found.  Heavy bomber production and missions scaled back with other uses found for the crews. (More Mosquitos!)

We have done the "other means" to death. I am certainly a proponent of "other means" than SBCs, but the fact is that they happened, and there is nothing in anyone's record to give a lot of credence to the idea that money NOT spent on SBC would be spent wisely. Hell, somebody might have spent it all on pikes and matchlocks! (an exaggeration, but you get the idea, I hope)

Specifically, "more Mosquitoes!" does not stand up to examination. The Mossie was effective in pin-prick attacks primarily because German defenses were geared against the SBC threat. Had Mossies been substituted for heavy bombers to the point that the Germans had only to worry about Mossies, you can bet that they would have come up with a counter - as it was, the Mossie was a low-priority threat for them to counter.

 

 

The pre-war bombing theory promised mass destruction on the enemy with minimal cost to yourself and certainly avoiding a protracted war on the Continent which no Brit planner or politician wanted.  Pre-war ideals obviously did not work out so, in retrospect, Strategic bombing was (is) a rich man's game and thus probably not something Britain should have stayed with once the US daylight offensive really got going.

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Somehow, I can't see Churchill and the British public standing by and letting the USAAC carry the colors just because the American offensive started to show results (not to mention what I pointed out earlier, the USAAC and RAF efforts were complementary and aided each other).

 

Realistically, Britain had too much capital investment in strategic bombers by 1944 (factories, facilities, training, etc.) to simply switch to something else. They would in effect have opted out of their major war effort - which would have displeased FDR and Stalin to name only two.

[Guest aevans]

Hi all.  The gist I am getting from this thread is that Bomber Command was essentially a Politcal weapon.  It's overall impact was negligible up until 1944, aside from some spectacular individual successes, yet horrendous losses were taken for basically "keeping up the side".  In and after 1944, BC has a larger impact when combine with USAAF daylight bombing yet it seems to be essentially still keeping up the side for the reasons stated by Stuart and others.  Sounds like WWI reasoning going on.  I am not discounting those reasons but, dayum, certainly a less costly way could have been found.  Heavy bomber production and missions scaled back with other uses found for the crews. (More Mosquitos!)

 

The pre-war bombing theory promised mass destruction on the enemy with minimal cost to yourself and certainly avoiding a protracted war on the Continent which no Brit planner or politician wanted.  Pre-war ideals obviously did not work out so, in retrospect, Strategic bombing was (is) a rich man's game and thus probably not something Britain should have stayed with once the US daylight offensive really got going.

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Funny you should mention "WWI reasoning". That's precisely what the planners of the SBC were trying to avoid, by creating a force and a doctrine that could leap over the enemy lines and get at his rear. Were they able to win the war on their own, like they claimed they could? No. But nobody knew that they couldn't, and given the alterantives, it was worth trying.

 

Also -- and I never seem to find the words to articulate this thought clearly enough, but I'll try again -- it seems more than likely that the casualties and losses of material suffered by the strategic bombing forces were the minimum achievable in defeating Germany, simply because, with all of its inefficiencies, strategic bombing was still more efficient than fighting it out with the Germans on the ground, or with strictly tactical air forces. IOW, it was a form of asymmetric warfare that was very one-sidedly in our favor, whether it looked like it or not at the time, or even in certain persons' hindsight.

[DKTanker]

Specifically, "more Mosquitoes!" does not stand up to examination. The Mossie was effective in pin-prick attacks primarily because German defenses were geared against the SBC threat. Had Mossies been substituted for heavy bombers to the point that the Germans had only to worry about Mossies, you can bet that they would have come up with a counter - as it was, the Mossie was a low-priority threat for them to counter.

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Great point. All to often those that play what if mind games forget that the other side gets a vote in how things should follow. It is an all too easy fallacy to look, with hindsight at the road from A to Z that meanders through B, C, D, .... and suggest that if one just took a right turn at B they would arrive immediately at Z.

 

Hari Seldon and his band of psychohistorians are but characters in a book, AFAIK there is no way to predict the future, even if singular events in the past could be changed to alter the future. One change will inevitably lead to another unthought of change which leads to yet another and pretty soon the new future resembles nothing like the actual nor the fantasized future.

 

As a side not for those advocates of CAS in lieu of SBC. Isn't one of the faults many find of the 3rd Reich, the lack of strategic vision, in part evidenced by concentrating almost exclusively on tactical as opposed to strategic aircraft? How does, or when does, Britain, with a defensive tactical airforce figure out how to switch gears to an offensive strategic force? Or perhaps you're suggesting it does not. In any case, how can you be sure that concentrating on CAS wouldn't have some unintended consequence, perhaps even initiated by Germany?

[KingSargent]

Funny you should mention "WWI reasoning". That's precisely what the planners of the SBC were trying to avoid, by creating a force and a doctrine that could leap over the enemy lines and get at his rear. Were they able to win the war on their own, like they claimed they could? No. But nobody knew that they couldn't, and given the alterantives, it was worth trying.

 

Also -- and I never seem to find the words to articulate this thought clearly enough, but I'll try again -- it seems more than likely that the casualties and losses of material suffered by the strategic bombing forces were the minimum achievable in defeating Germany, simply because, with all of its inefficiencies, strategic bombing was still more efficient than fighting it out with the Germans on the ground, or with strictly tactical air forces. IOW, it was a form of asymmetric warfare that was very one-sidedly in our favor, whether it looked like it or not at the time, or even in certain persons' hindsight.

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You have a definite point. My point is that warfare is basically economic. If a solution costs the victor more than the loser, who won? In the opinion of many who know more economics than I, the expense of WW2 was the straw that broke the back of the British Empire - and BC and the SBC was the most expensive component of that war effort.

 

True, the deaths were less than the trench massacres in WW1, but the BC deaths were expensively-trained young men who were the cream of the Empire (at least according to the selection criteria used by the RAF).

 

Also, the options are not "SBC or No SBC," they are "total SBC effort or a mixture of air missions." The SBC could have been maintained SBC (i.e., been a threat to Germany) with the more modern RAF bombers while deathtraps like the Whitley could have been ASW a/c and a Battle substitute (the Battle was a single-engine strategic bomber in concept) for CAS. The same expenditure would have achieved a more well-rounded RAF capable of greater cooperation with other services, without totally abandoning the SBC.

 

The USAAC achieved this all-around (sort of) capability primarily because they were still part of the Army and had to pay attention to what the US Army wanted. Since 1947, the USAF has exhibited the same attitudes towards cooperation as the RAF did after 1918.

 

BTW, it's interesting that when the RAF was formed on April Fool's Day 1918, the strategic bombing efforts were the province of the Royal NAVAL Air Service, while the RFC's offensive efforts were reconnaisance and CAS. Had the Army retained control of the RFC and the RN control of the RNAS, it seems likely that the RFC would have specialized in CAS and the RNAS in naval support and SBC; and they might have done better, if only because there would only be admin overhead for two services instead of three.

[Lev]

You have a definite point. My point is that warfare is basically economic. If a solution costs the victor more than the loser, who won? In the opinion of many who know more economics than I, the expense of WW2 was the straw that broke the back of the British Empire - and BC and the SBC was the most expensive component of that war effort.

 

Losing India was the end of the empire. Besides the brits were spending what they could (or thought they could) and if they wouldn't have been spending it on a SBC they would've spent it elsewehere.

 

strategic bomber[/i]in concept) for CAS. The same expenditure would have achieved a more well-rounded RAF capable of greater cooperation with other services, without totally abandoning the SBC.

 

ISn't this what happened after the shooting started? (apart from the Battle substitute that is) and before that retaining only the 'modern' (comparitively I suppose) bombers would make it impossible to build Bomber Command up to strength for the then forseeable future.

[swerve]

Also, the options are not "SBC or No SBC," they are "total SBC effort or a mixture of air missions." The SBC could have been maintained SBC (i.e., been a threat to Germany) with the more modern RAF bombers while deathtraps like the Whitley could have been ASW a/c and a Battle substitute (the Battle was a single-engine strategic bomber in concept) for CAS. The same expenditure would have achieved a more well-rounded RAF capable of greater cooperation with other services, without totally abandoning the SBC.

 

Yes!

 

And while a decent CAS capability was built eventually, as Lev says, what I'm arguing is that it would have been better done right from the start, & would have been if the RAF wasn't fixated on strategic bombing.

 

Good point about the Battle. The Henley, conceived as a tactical attack aircraft, was relegated to target-towing because it was lumped in with the Battle when the RAF decided that single-engined bombers were obsolete. The Henley was an interesting plane, & I'm grateful to Tony for bringing it to my attention. The RAF didn't have a CAS concept, so classed it as a bomber, & didn't want it because it was too small & short-range for strategic bombing. Doh! Like refusing to buy the A-10 because the B-52 is a better bomber.

[Tony Williams]

Specifically, "more Mosquitoes!" does not stand up to examination. The Mossie was effective in pin-prick attacks primarily because German defenses were geared against the SBC threat. Had Mossies been substituted for heavy bombers to the point that the Germans had only to worry about Mossies, you can bet that they would have come up with a counter - as it was, the Mossie was a low-priority threat for them to counter.

 

Sorry, but I have to disagree with most of that. Oh, I don't doubt that if the Mossie was all they had to worry about, the Luftwaffe would adjust their equipment and tactics and would almost certainly succeed in raising the Mossie's loss rate from around 0.5% - but not to anything like the 5% BC average for the heavies, because they would be faced with some monumental problems.

 

Finding and shooting down a much faster plane presenting a much smaller visual and radar target is a far more difficult task, period. The time available for interception is sharply reduced, the chance of a night-fighter being in the right place at the right time to catch the plane also much reduced. And the Luftwaffe would have faced a dilemma in that they couldn't use the only faster planes they had - the single-seat interceptors - as without AI radar and an operator with his face glued to the screen they would stand very little chance of sighting the target (and wouldn't have had the endurance to stay up for long anyway). The twin-engined night-fighters they had weren't as fast as the Mossie until the Uhu came along, in small numbers very late. So if the Mossie had started to take over from the heavies from 1942 the Luftwaffe would have been faced with a desperate need to design, develop and produce a fast twin - no quick or easy task, and a diversion from other programmes.

 

And even when they succeeded in developing a night-fighter with the performance to catch the Mossie, their problems wouldn't be over. Since a Mossie cost a fraction of a heavy, in terms of men and materials, BC could afford to have far more of them. And a swarm of Mossies, attacking various targets from various altitudes, would be much harder to deal with than a much smaller number of heavies trundling steadily along. And a night-fighter can only deal with so many targets in a sortie, so would only be able to tackle a smaller percentage of the Mossies.

 

And when a night-fighter did at last manage to destroy a Mossie, the cost to BC would be far less than the loss of a Lanc.

 

Overall, the score-sheet for an all-Mossie force would have been: far less cost to BC, far more cost and effort, for less return, for the Luftwaffe.

 

The RAF planners certainly believed this since in a late-war study they analysed the bombing problem and concluded that the most efficient approach was night bombing with a fast, unarmed twin. However, once you have vast production lines churning out heavy bombers in huge numbers, it isn't easy to switch to a different approach, especially since the Mossie required different production technology.

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[Kenneth P. Katz]

I think that RAF Bomber Command had very little effect on winning the war but a large effect on winning the peace. Which is to say that by causing immense destruction to cities and population, Bomber Command drove home to the average German that that they lost. We know that bombing didn't break German civilian morale but the combination of total battlefield defeat, occupation and mass destruction of the homefront IMHO prepared the way psychologically for the post-war rehabilitation of Germany and its return to the community of nations.

 

At the risk of going to FFZ-land, Operation Iraqi Freedom is an example of what happens when an enemy loses on the battlefield, but is not comprehensively crushed. Because of what RAF Bomber Command did, what is going on in Iraq didn't happen Germany.

[DKTanker]

At the risk of going to FFZ-land, Operation Iraqi Freedom is an example of what happens when an enemy loses on the battlefield, but is not comprehensively crushed. Because of what RAF Bomber Command did, what is going on in Iraq didn't happen Germany.

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To the same extent. As I understand it there were not a few Germans that took exception to having lost the war and being occupied, primarily in the Soviet Zone, but not unheard of the western zones. More than that would be better said in the FFZ.

[Ken Estes]

So I agree that German morale didnt break. But thats not to say that it didnt come close, or wouldnt have suceeded  with more effective weapons. Bomber commands strategy IMHO would have worked IF they could have reliably destroyed a city when they bombed it with a firestorm. The fact that it only occured twice, and there was no nuclear weapons, meant that its chances of achieving it were small from the start. I find it interesting that post war bombing strategy (IE bomb the population rather than the industry) of SAC and Bomber command was an awful lot closer to Bomber commands strategy than the USAAFs.

 

I think that the US Strategic Bombing Survey mostly used worker absenteeism as a measure of how well civilian morale held up. Thus, local protests or demonstrations would not have registered on the guage. German work ethic probably helped, and social discipline as well. It appears that the Japanese workers did show mesurable absenteeism, in wake of firebombings of cities, and that was a lot shorter campaign. It may be that study encouraging SAC and BC to accept citybusting as an operational tenet postwar.

[Nick Sumner]

Tony Williams wrote:

 

The RAF planners certainly believed this since in a late-war study they analysed the bombing problem and concluded that the most efficient approach was night bombing with a fast, unarmed twin.

 

Do you have a reference for that Tony? It would seem to be a crucial point in that argument.

[gewing]

WHere would they have gotten enough pilots for that many more planes?

 

 

 

 

Sorry, but I have to disagree with most of that. Oh, I don't doubt that if the Mossie was all they had to worry about, the Luftwaffe would adjust their equipment and tactics and would almost certainly succeed in raising the Mossie's loss rate from around 0.5% - but not to anything like the 5% BC average for the heavies, because they would be faced with some monumental problems.

 

Finding and shooting down a much faster plane presenting a much smaller visual and radar target is a far more difficult task, period. The time available for interception is sharply reduced, the chance of a night-fighter being in the right place at the right time to catch the plane also much reduced. And the Luftwaffe would have faced a dilemma in that they couldn't use the only faster planes they had - the single-seat interceptors - as without AI radar and an operator with his face glued to the screen they would stand very little chance of sighting the target (and wouldn't have had the endurance to stay up for long anyway). The twin-engined night-fighters they had weren't as fast as the Mossie until the Uhu came along, in small numbers very late. So if the Mossie had started to take over from the heavies from 1942 the Luftwaffe would have been faced with a desperate need to design, develop and produce a fast twin - no quick or easy task, and a diversion from other programmes.

 

And even when they succeeded in developing a night-fighter with the performance to catch the Mossie, their problems wouldn't be over. Since a Mossie cost a fraction of a heavy, in terms of men and materials, BC could afford to have far more of them. And a swarm of Mossies, attacking various targets from various altitudes, would be much harder to deal with than a much smaller number of heavies trundling steadily along. And a night-fighter can only deal with so many targets in a sortie, so would only be able to tackle a smaller percentage of the Mossies.

 

And when a night-fighter did at last manage to destroy a Mossie, the cost to BC would be far less than the loss of a Lanc.

 

Overall, the score-sheet for an all-Mossie force would have been: far less cost to BC, far more cost and effort, for less return, for the Luftwaffe.

 

The RAF planners certainly believed this since in a late-war study they analysed the bombing problem and concluded that the most efficient approach was night bombing with a fast, unarmed twin. However, once you have vast production lines churning out heavy bombers in huge numbers, it isn't easy to switch to a different approach, especially since the Mossie required different production technology.

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

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[Tony Williams]

Tony Williams wrote:

 

The RAF planners certainly believed this since in a late-war study they analysed the bombing problem and concluded that the most efficient approach was night bombing with a fast, unarmed twin.

 

Do you have a reference for that Tony? It would seem to be a crucial point in that argument.

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Well, actually I would have thought that the logic in my post made a clear enough argument

 

However - National Archives (formerly the PRO) document AIR/5487, the box includes minutes of an informal meeting hald on 20 April 1944 to discuss a proposal from D.Arm.R (I think probably the Director of Armament Research) A/Cdr Patch, concerning the development of a future very heavy long-range bomber and its armament requirements, but the discussion was very wide-ranging on the subject of bomber design. The meeting was chaired by Sir George Thomson and included the D.Arm.D. (Director of Armament Development?) as well as D.Arm.R. and possibly others - I didn't note them.

 

Unfortunately my visit to the PRO was before they allowed digital cameras so I don't have a copy of the document, only my notes. A couple of my notes of the comments made:

 

"Large bombers not suitable for night work as defensive armament of little use and small bombers in large numbers are more efficient."

 

and:

 

"Much questioning of the need for big bombers - a larger number of smaller bombers more survivable (mathematical proof)"

 

This was obviously a reference to more data than I had the time to copy. However, from memory there was an analysis of the cost of delivering a given bombload to a target, taking into account the cost of making the bombers and, crucially, the expected loss rates, which were much lower for the small fast bomber. The expected number of sorties the bombers would survive was multiplied by the average bombload per sortie to give an expected lifetime bomb delivery total. This was then divided by the cost of each type of bomber to give an overall cost per ton of bombs delivered. The Mossie came out as distinctly more efficient than the Lanc.

 

The meeting spent some time discussing future day bombers. There was a view that escort fighters wouldn't be competitive with the interceptors they would have to deal with because of the need to carry a much bigger fuel load (this was long-term RAF doctrine and the effectiveness of the long-range P-51 obviously hadn't sunk in - or more charitably, as they were looking several years ahead, they may have been thinking of jet fighters which were much less fuel efficient). So day bombers would still have to carry a heavy defensive armament of large-calibre cannon to fight their way through (although there wasn't much optimism about their ability to do that). So there was an alternative view that speed was more important than a heavy defensive armament as this reduces the number of contacts (with defending fighters) even by day. So there was a proposal for a very fast medium bomber with a small 20mm gun armament.

 

It is worth noting that the first RAF jet bomber to enter service was the English Electric Canberra, which first flew in 1949. This carried no defensive armament and was in concept a 'jet Mosquito', almost uncatchable by the fighters of the time and a quite outstanding aircraft which was even bought by the USAF (and made as the Martin B-57). There are still some flying today.

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[Tony Williams]

WHere would they have gotten enough pilots for that many more planes?

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Well for a start they wouldn't have lost so many on missions so the need for replacements would have reduced. And with a crew of only 2 instead of 7 or 8 they would have had far more manpower available for potential training.

 

I don't believe that there was a problem finding enough pilots anyway. The Empire Air Training Scheme was hugely successful.

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[MiloMorai]

Well for a start they wouldn't have lost so many on missions so the need for replacements would have reduced. And with a crew of only 2 instead of 7 or 8 they would have had far more manpower available for potential training.

 

I don't believe that there was a problem finding enough pilots anyway. The Empire Air Training Scheme was hugely successful.

 

Yes, so successful that the BCATP was beginning to wind down from mid '44 because of an excess of aircrew.

 

Many that would have qualified for pilot training were sent to other aircrew trades schools after their aptitude tests because these aircrew trades had to be filled.

[swerve]

However - National Archives (formerly the PRO) document AIR/5487,

 

Unfortunately my visit to the PRO was before they allowed digital cameras so I don't have a copy of the document, only my notes.

 

National Archives have huge amounts of stuff indexed online now. Some is downloadable for a fee. e.g. £3.50 for a will. You might be able to get hold of that document again.

 

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

[Guest phil gollin]

Just some notes on various subjects on this thread.

 

WW2 started with no effective air defences, only the British were getting the Chain Home system going. The prevalant theory was "the bomber will always get through". This affected all air thinking, with the Germans being probably least affected, the Luftwaffe being more orientated towards the battlefield. This carried over into WW2, and it is unfair to judge later actions without at least bearing that in mind, inertia is a dreadul thing.

 

One thing forgotten by many people is the effect of "war experience" and especially "operational research" in changing first British and then US ideas.

 

During the Battle of Britain the Lights and some Mediums were used in anti-invasion attacks on French ports ("barge-busting").

 

There were such things as pre-war anti-submarine bombs, but unfortunately they were crap. This is one example where operational research helped specify what was required.

 

The Battle was awful, and any British dive bomber would have been a sitting duck without decent air cover, so not only do you need a base change in RAF thinking re. CAS, but one needs the transfer of more Hurricanes (and Spitfires ?) to France (with training in supporting dive bombers and Battles - was that sort of fighter support ever successful in WW2 ?) and what would the outcome be ?

 

Going onwards, someone claimed that Bomber Command took resources from CAS. This certainly didn't happen after Normandy I was under the impression that there were more squadrons available than 2nd Tactical Air Force could base on the continent.

 

The withdrawal of Bomber Command and Eigth Air Force from strategic attacks in early 1944 was at the specific order of Eisenhower to support the invasion, so neither can be regarded as a "defeat".

 

Comparing the bombing campaign against Japan with that against German is a joke, please show me the sophisticated Japanese radar system. Likewise the "Eagle" radar bombing system was better than H2S/H2X, but it was not available in many numbers (mostly B-29s used H2X) neither was it as accurate as the bombing aids like Gee-Oboe.

 

Mosquito bombers also benefited from the fact that German nightfighters were wary of Mosquito intruders, particularly after the Mark X (?) radar system was released for use over Germany.

 

British civilian morale was not all that tested by the Blitz proper, but the V-1 (not so much the V-2) did have some sort of appeciable effect supposedly due mainly to war-weariness coupled to the unfortunate timing coming after the Invasion which gave rise to false hopes of a quick end to the war. Once the V-1s stopped the Londoners seemed to just live with the V-2.

 

The worst culprit in all this is the USAAF Strategic Bombing Review which was, to put it kindly, ignorant, partial and had a definite agenda. It would be nice to see a revised edition produced, but that will only happen when pigs, as well as mosquitoes, fly.

[Colin Williams]

British civilian morale was not all that tested by the Blitz proper, but the V-1 (not so much the V-2) did have some sort of appeciable effect supposedly due mainly to war-weariness coupled to the unfortunate timing coming after the Invasion which gave rise to false hopes of a quick end to the war.  Once the V-1s stopped the Londoners seemed to just live with the V-2.

 

My understanding is that the V-2 caused a severe morale crisis, primarily because it was undetectable in approach and powerful on detonation. Apparently the "buzz" of the V-1, along with the various defensive measures and warning systems, allowed civilians to retain some sense that they could take measures to protect themselves.

[Paul F Jungnitsch]

My understanding is that the V-2 caused a severe morale crisis, primarily because it was undetectable in approach and powerful on detonation. Apparently the "buzz" of the V-1, along with the various defensive measures and warning systems, allowed civilians to retain some sense that they could take measures to protect themselves.

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I asked my grandmother about that a year ago and IIRC she at least found the V1 much more trying. With the V2 there was nothing to be done, it couldn't be heard approaching. The V1 on the other hand had that nasty approach sound and people would listen waiting for it to cut off, whereupon there was just enough time to dive under a table, etc.

 

The blast effect from the V1 was also horrific, from what I understand worse than the V2 as it was all on the surface. Houses were damaged for considerable distance around the actual impact zone. The closest hit she remembered was quite a long way away and the blast still bulged in all the windows in the house.