Carpet Bombing in WWII

[naut]

I've read up on this topic and seen some stuff on the History Channel and it has got me thinking. :help:

I'm still confused though, who was the first to impliment the tactic, was it the Luftwaffe???

Was it nessecary for the outcome of a Allied Victory???

Was it a tactic used by the Allies out of spite and vengence???

[Aenlic]

It was considered necessary; although a case can be made that things like Dresden weren't required to win. The intent was to dim the will of the Germans to fight. This was the exact same intent of the Blitz, however. Both sides engaged in tactics designed to destroy the other side's morale. And, of course, the ultimate carpet bombing took place at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As for who did it first, I'd say that the first intentional carpet bombing was the bombing of Berlin by the RAF in retaliation for the accidental bombing in August 1940 of a suburb of London by Luftwaffe bomber group which was supposed to be targetting a manufacturing plant in Thames Haven.

It's really a chicken and egg sort of thing. Although not technically carpet bombing, the air attack on Belgium during the initial stages of the Blitzkrieg wasn't particularly discriminate in where the Stukas dropped their loads. Both sides did it at one time or another during the war. Plenty of blame to go around.

I'm sure we'll shortly hear from the rah-rah cheerleading jingoists denying that their homeland ever did any such thing, from both sides. You know, the usual other guy is evil, we're the good guys stuff.

[AggonyDuck]

If I remember correctly, the first carpet bombing was done by the Condor Legion against Guernica in the Spanish Civil War.

[KrooK]

Yes - later they did it into some cities in Poland.
Carpet bombing was useful tactic, especially into Japan.
Bombers won war on pacific - Japan lost almost all industry and they have no possibility to rebuild it.
Into Europe carpet bombing has not been so useful due to different contructions of houses (more steel less wood). But it helped a lot - Germans had to leave thousands of fighters into Germany instead of sending it on front. Furthermore they had to help people who lost their homes and they wer forced to move most of their facilities on the east.
All in all - it was simply good job.

[ShadesPanther]

Into Europe carpet bombing has not been so useful due to different contructions of houses (more steel less wood). But it helped a lot - Germans had to leave thousands of fighters into Germany instead of sending it on front. Furthermore they had to help people who lost their homes and they wer forced to move most of their facilities on the east.
All in all - it was simply good job.

Germany's industry increased its output in 1944 though.

It is debateble wheather it was effective or not. It was was useful for propoganda purposes, for both sides. It seems in some cases it didn't demoralise the people as much as expected.

It is strange though that the Germans can commit all kinds of attrocities on the Russians and Jews which is counted as war crimes but the Firebombing of Tokyo is not seen as a war crime.


From Wiki.

The aftermath of the incendiary bombings lead to an estimated 100,000 Japanese dead. This may have been the most devasting single raid ever carried out by aircraft in any war including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city was destroyed in the fire storm.

[Papewaio]

Considering the accuracy of the bombers at hitting a target saturation bombing had its place. However it was probably more of a positive propaganda for the attacker and the attacked then anything else. It allowed the attackers to go "Look we gave them a blood nose" and the attacked to join in solidarity "Look all they can do is give us a blood nose".

[Atilius]

Bombers won war on pacific - Japan lost almost all industry and they have no possibility to rebuild it.

This is a very strange assertion. The first strike by US land-based bombers against Japan wasn't attempted until June 15, 1944. In this raid, 68 B-29s based in China managed to hit a steel plant in Yawata on Kyushu with a single bomb. The last great carrier battle (the battle of the Philippine Sea) was concluded within a week of this. No effective attack by land-based bombers on Japan was made until December 18, 1944. By this time, most of the Imperial Japanese Navy and merchant marine were at the bottom of the ocean.


It is strange though that the Germans can commit all kinds of attrocities on the Russians and Jews which is counted as war crimes but the Firebombing of Tokyo is not seen as a war crime.

The murder of several million Jews, many of whom were German citizens, had absolutely no military utility. Strategic bombing at least had the goal of destroying enemy manufacturing, transportation, and war material.

Daylight precision bombing was so costly that inaccurate night-time area bombing was adopted by the US in Europe, although daylight bombing was never completely abandoned. The choice was to attack at night and inflict large civilian casualties or not to attack at all.

It should be noted that this approach was also adopted with regard to non-German civilians in occupied Europe. Prior to the Normandy invasion, a plan for air attacks on transportation facilities in France (to slow the arrival of German reinforcements to the battle area) encountered difficulty because it was believed that the plan might cause 20,000-40,000 French civilian deaths. The objections were overruled by Churchill and Roosevelt; fortunately, no more than 12,000 frenchmen were killed.

By the time Tokyo was firebombed on the night of March 9-10, 1945, the city as a whole was considered the target, but destruction of industry remained the aim. This was still due in part to the continuing high cost of daylight bombing and inaccuracy of night attacks, but reinforced by the fact that Japanese manufacturing was remarkably decentralized. Curtis LeMay (I will stipulate he is not an objective party) wrote in his memoirs:


...I'll never forget Yokohama. That was what impressed me: drill presses. There they were, like a forest of scorched trees and stumps, growing up throughout that residential area. Flimsy construction all gone... everything burned down, or up, and drill presses standing like skeletons.

Other sources testify to the Japanese practice of farming out piece-part industrial tasks to individuals who performed them in their own homes, even before the war.

The bombing was an ugly thing, but it can be plausibly argued that it ended the war sooner and saved as many lives as it took. The same can not be said about killing the Jews.

[naut]

Thanks for the replies! Very insightful.

Also does anyone know of any good books on the topic. I've looked at Wiki etc.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I'm still confused though, who was the first to impliment the tactic, was it the Luftwaffe???

Was it nessecary for the outcome of a Allied Victory???

Was it a tactic used by the Allies out of spite and vengence???

First city bombing is often said to be a RAF response raid to a German bomber accidentally dropping bombs over London when the bombers returned from a military mission against an airfield or something like that, some problem with the bomb hatch or similar. The first massively employed city carpet bombing strategy was the Blitz by Luftwaffe. Goring thought bombing London would bring out the last hidden RAF reserves, which turned out to be a fallacy. He also thought it would demoralize the British, but that too turned out to be a fallacy. The British probably thought the late war carpet bombing of German cities would demoralize the Germans and make them surrender earlier, but that too turned out to be a fallacy. It's probable that there was rage on both sides affecting the decisions to carpet bomb, because both sides must have seen how little effect it had on themselves when the other side did it. Spite and vengeance existed on both sides who carpet bombed as far as I can see.

To be exact, Luftwaffe actually bombed Warsaw in 1939, so the Blitz wasn't really the first occurences of city bombing. However the raids didn't become large bomb carpet raids until during the Blitz. The early bombings of the war used something like less than 100 planes or so, while the real carpet bombings used up to 1000 planes :sweatdrop: :skull:

The earliest RAF city bomb raids, and the Soviet carpet bombing of Berlin in 1941 seem to be the only instances of carpet bombing that were really useful at damaging morale, because the RAF raid showed that Germany wasn't invulnerable, and the Soviety raid happened so early during Operation Barbarossa that it similarly broke the rumour of German heartlands being invulnerable. But more important were probably the Soviet bombings of the Ploesti oil fields at almost the same time as the Berlin raid.

The first nuclear bomb (over Hiroshima) seems to have been successful in giving the Japanese an excuse to stop fighting even though their honor code would normally forbid them to. It was difficult to argue that it was honorable to fight to the death against such a weapon that was impossible for the Japanese to counter.

I don't think carpet bombing was crucial to the victory of any side. Perhaps the carpet bombing affected how all countries after the war got a strong desire to work for peace and make sure it wouldn't happen again, but that probably applies to both sides equally. As for the Japanese theater, it wasn't crucial for victory, but it saved a lot of allied lives, probably also Japanese lives as odd as it might seem, by making it possible for the Japanese leadership to surrender and prevent massive starvation of millions of Japanese civilians, which was imminent at the time (on the other hand historians don't seem to agree on whether the Japanese would have surrendered or not at that time even if the nuke hadn't been dropped). The second nuke is more controversial though.

What can be said is that unfortunately both sides overestimated the effectiveness of the carpet bombing strategy, with the horrible consequences that both sides ended up using massive carpet bombing.

[English assassin]

Also does anyone know of any good books on the topic.

I very much recommend Air Power by Stephen Budiansky.

IMHO most books on military aviation are just porn for plane spotters. This one is different, and in particular the clear presentation of the flyboys claims, since the very beginning, to be a strategic weapon capable of winning wars, is very clearly contrasted with the evidence showing just how strategically useless they have been (until now. Possibly.)

He's also very good at the underlying theories of air power, which will give you some answers on "carpet bombing", both terror bombing per se and supposed strategic bombing that happened to be by way of bombing the civilian population.

I found out, for example, that the RAF were touting the idea of "air policing" the empire, (which meant bombing villages that didn't pay taxes,) and actually got to try this out in Iraq. They said it was much ceaper than paing for troops on the ground. None of this nonsense about collateral damage in the RAF in the 1930's it seems. Now if we had asked "which 1930's European air force advocated using bombers to destroy vilages that did not pay their taxes" would we have guessed it was those jolly good chaps of the RAF?

[naut]

Originally Posted By English assassin
I very much recommend Air Power by Stephen Budiansky.

Cheers! I'll have a look for it.


Originally Posted By English assassin
IMHO most books on military aviation are just porn for plane spotters.

Ha, LOL. Too true. :laugh4:

[KrooK]

Americans simply had to bomd Japanese cities;
1)Japanese army commit much more crimes than german army. So bombing Tokyo or Jokohama was just a justice.
2)Japan industry first was similar to european but after first bombings has been moved from big factories to small factories into cities. If Americans want hit these factories, they had to destroy cities.
3)Without view of burning cities Japan emperor would have never forced his generals to peace. He stopped war when he saw that Japan can be simply burned.
4)If Americans did not bomb Japan and invade island, loses would be much bigger.
All in all - if was bloody, terrible for pps who lived into that cities but...
Japan got what they wanted.

[cegorach]

The 'tactic' to target civilians was used from the very first minute of the war on 1st September at 4.40 a.m German bombers attacked small city called Wielun which was without ANY military installations. Most of its citizens were asleep whe it was started ( noone expected it) and first bombs were dropped on a HOSPITAL marked with a huge red cross.

Germans crews were not told it is a defenceless small city of no military value and it was chosen as a target to test terrorist airstrikes on a typical european city ( town holl in the middle etc). Later German crews have chosen civilians as moving targets apparently from boredom. Similar 'tactics' were used by Soviets in Finland.
So if you start something prepare for consequences...:book:

[naut]

The 'tactic' to target civilians was used from the very first minute of the war on 1st September at 4.40 a.m German bombers attacked small city called Wielun which was without ANY military installations. Most of its citizens were asleep whe it was started ( noone expected it) and first bombs were dropped on a HOSPITAL marked with a huge red cross.

Germans crews were not told it is a defenceless small city of no military value and it was chosen as a target to test terrorist airstrikes on a typical european city ( town holl in the middle etc). Later German crews have chosen civilians as moving targets apparently from boredom. Similar 'tactics' were used by Soviets in Finland.
So if you start something prepare for consequences...:book:

Yeah, I read that / saw that in a documentary. Very scary stuff :shame:, the evil it, it makes me sad.

[AntiochusIII]

Americans simply had to bomd Japanese cities;
1)Japanese army commit much more crimes than german army. So bombing Tokyo or Jokohama was just a justice.
2)Japan industry first was similar to european but after first bombings has been moved from big factories to small factories into cities. If Americans want hit these factories, they had to destroy cities.
3)Without view of burning cities Japan emperor would have never forced his generals to peace. He stopped war when he saw that Japan can be simply burned.
4)If Americans did not bomb Japan and invade island, loses would be much bigger.
All in all - if was bloody, terrible for pps who lived into that cities but...
Japan got what they wanted.Yeah...

Point 1, define Justice.

Point 2 taken. I've remembered that too.

Point 3, I must request the source. That sounds like a dramatization or at least simplification of the whole thing.

Point 4, as much as military planners agree with you, the underlying nature of logic states that it did not happen so it is not necessarily true.

Last point, what do you mean by "what they wanted?"

...

Back to topic: so, do we count the Spanish Civil War as part of the whole thing?

[Mount Suribachi]

Also does anyone know of any good books on the topic



Tail End Charlies (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0141015047/qid=1149588509/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/203-8521593-8641503) by Tony Renell & John Nichol (yes, that John Nichol). Unbelievably moving book, had me in tears a couple of times. Looks at the war from the Human perspective of the crews (Bomber Command & 8th AF). Also does a good job of reclaiming the reputation Bomber Harris - basically he did what the politicians told him to do, and did it very well. Then when the war was over - in fact before it was over - they tried to distance themselves from him. It presents a very "warts and all" biopic of him, showing how he was often his own worst enemy when it came to his reputation, and refused to admit he was wrong when he clearly was (eg over supporting D-Day, or attacking oil installations) yet to the men of Bomber Command, he remains a hero, their hero. There is also a whole chapter devoted to Dresden, which refutes much of the propaganda that is spread about Dresden - most illuminating is the quote from a pamphlet published during WW2 by the city boasting of the many vital war industries based in the city. I'm also particulary fond of the quote by one RAF POW


We hadn't been fed for 5 days. A blast from the bombing loosened the doors sufficiently for us to get out and eventually find some potatoes to eat. We were marched through the still burning city and that is one of the happiest memories I have of 3 years captivity by one of the nastiest and most poisonous nations ever to seek to rule the world

The book also goes into the detail of the arguments put forward during the war both for and against strategic bombing, and it also highlights something I was never aware of, the number of bomber crewmen murdered by German civilians when they parachuted out. By their own admission, bomber POWs never felt truly safe until they were being gaurded by the Luftwaffe (who often risked their own lives to protect the POWs from the mob).

Also recommended, but not as good as the brilliant book above is Bomber Crew (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034083871X/qid=1149589488/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/203-8521593-8641503) which came out at the same time as the Ch4 TV series. It doesn't go into the for and against arguments as much as TEC, focusing more on the training & experiences of the crews, but an interesting read nevertheless.

[Franconicus]

Most things are already mentioned. Just some comments:

If you talk about carpet bombing you talk about bombing of cities, not troops, right?

The theory of massive air strike against towns was developed after WW1. Douhain wrote, that in the next war big air armies would fly over the immobile armies and directly attack the cities. No country would stand these attacks. The people would revolt against their government. It was an idea of a strategic and psychological air war.

Many nations adopted the idea, for example Britain and the US. For Britain it seamed to be the perfect strategy. They sat save on their islands and could attack the continent without the extreme casualties they had payed in WW1. On the other side Britain had to protect itself against air attacks. So they had a strong focus on air defence and strategic bombing.

The Axis countries never implemented a strategic bombing. The Germans decided to build the Luftwaffe as a close support weapon for the Heer, completly tactical focus. The idea was to beat the other countries in a series of seperated lightning strikes. This was the German concept after the lessons of WW1. I guess the Italians did not develop strategic bombers because they had not the capacity to build the bombers.

Before WW2 the effect of cty bombing was overrated, as well as the strentgh of the luftwaffe. Hitler coulf threaten the Austrian and Czechoslovakian governments with potential air strikes against their capitols.

In the beginning the Germans used city bombing only because of terror. They thought that their enemies would accept the uselessness of any resistance. (Warzaw, Rotterdam). However, city bombing was not a central part of the German strategy.

When the Germans finally had reached the Channel, they simply did not know what to do. Hitler had never thought of the necessarity to attack England and neither the Army, nor the Luftwaffe or the Marine hasd any plan. They started to bomb southern England. However, the targets were strictly limited to military objectives, factiries and ships. There were several orders from Hitler to avoid bombing of civilians.

He changed his position when he saw that his attacks against military targets did not bring peace and that the Brits bombed Berlin. He hoped that the Brits would give in as soon as the bombs would hit their capitol. So the target was terror. However, the bombing did strengthen the will of the British to fight on.

After that the British started their bombing against Germany. They had to find out that the accuracy of the bombing was much worse than expected and that the casualties were very high. So they had to change their strategy from attacking military targets at day to attacking civilians at night. In my opinions they changed their strategy because they had to do something (it was the only way to attack the Germans) and made a jusstification for it later. They openly said that the target was to kill as many Germans as possible. This would reduce the manpower at the front and in the industry.

When the US entered the war, they first followed the concept of daylight bombing, with some success. Later they changed to terror bombing too.

There are two basic issues left:

1) Were the attacks justified?
2) Were they usefull?

1) In my opinion - no. Attacking civilian is never justified, regardless if it is done by Germans or British. It is a war crime!
P.S.: This does not say that the Germans did not do other war crimes and other crimes (mass murder).
2) They had impact on the German production. However, they also wasted a lot of resources from the allies. I think the Allies could have used their resources much better. For example to dominate the Med from the very beginning. To Japan: I still believe that Japan would have had to capitulate just by cutting off the sea connections. Japan has no natural resources and pruduces not enough food. So why attacking the civilians?

[KrooK]

Have you heard about Wielun or Guernica?
Germans simply didn't have good strategic bombers because of fools into Luftwaffe high command.
Warsaw has not been forced to surrender because of bombing. But it's true that german pilots used signs of red cross as markets. Telling that building houses for 100.000 people after one good carpet bombing didn't cost much resources is LIE.

[Franconicus]

Dear KrooK,

Have you heard about Wielun or Guernica?

I heard of Guernica. However, I do not know exactly why it was bombed. In Wikipedia they write that the Spanish Army asked the Germans to do so.
Wielun. Why did they bomb the town?

Anyway, both are examples of an (in my opinion criminal) attack against civilians. However, they hardly proove that the Germans had a strategy for strategic bombing of cities.


Germans simply didn't have good strategic bombers because of fools into Luftwaffe high command.
That is wrong. Germans decided to focus on dive bombers. They seemed to have maximum effect on military target at lowest cost. German military always knew that the resources were low. It would have been silly to try to build a bomber fleet with several thousand long range bombers. The Luftwaffe was designed for close combat support and tactical support. It fulfilled this task. It was not build for strategic bombings.

Warsaw has not been forced to surrender because of bombing. But it's true that german pilots used signs of red cross as markets. Telling that building houses for 100.000 people after one good carpet bombing didn't cost much resources is LIE.

Did I say that? By the way, did the Germas rebuild the houses during war. Certainly the bombig had an effect on the German capability to make war; I just think that the Allies could have done better if they had used their resources and their bombers in a different and maybe more military way.

[English assassin]

The cost effectiveness of the Allied strategic bombing campaign is hard to quantify. You can only compare it to hypotheticals.

The scale of resources devoted to Bomber Command is really remarkable. What would have happened if those resources were diverted into, say ASW (total pwnage of all U boats is what) or more armoured divisions? On the other hand, Max Hastings points out the enormous numbers of AA guns and crew kept in germany as a result of the campaign: what might have been the effect of many thousands more 88mm guns being available to the german land forces? And, although everyone knows war material production actually peaked in 1944 under Speer, that does not show that it might not have hit a higher peak withoutn the bombing.

What is unarguable is that prewar theories of strategic bombing, namely that either there was a relatively small completely vital target that could be destroyed that would paralyse an enemy's whole war effort (the archetypal ball bearing factory) or that civilian populations could not withstand repeated bombing, turned out to be completely false.

Without wishing to be all macho about it, I don't agree that attacking a civilian population is necessarily a war crime. The fact is in WWII the civilians of both Britain and Germany were closely associated with the war effort, either as potential recruits, as workers in munitions factories, or as simply supporting the economy that paid for the war ot the government that directed it. The days when combatants wore brightly coloured clothes and could be shot at, and civilians did not and could not be, ended with Napoleon.

(NB of course civilains in areas you have occupied are no longer contributing to the enemy war effort, so actions against them should be considered war crimes)

[Grey_Fox]

When the Bombers began concentrating on Germany's oil production in 1944, petroleum production fell from 927,000 tonnes in March to 715,000 tonnes in May to 472,000 tonnes in June. Luftwaffe supplies of aviation spirit fell from 180,000 tonnes in April to 50,000 tonnes in June and 10,000 tonnes in August. Germany needed 300,000 tonnes of fuel a month to fight the war, but by September 1944 they were getting only half that amount.

It should also be remembered that due to massive casualties amongst the Allied Air Forces (bomber crews suffered an average of between 5% and 7% casualty rates per raid meaning most flyers would be dead within 2 weeks of joining their unit) bombing raids only gathered real momentum between September 1944 and April 1945 where 800,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Germany, a grand total of 60% of all bombs dropped since the start of the war.

Yes, it is true that German arms production went up during 1943-45, and yes, it is true that German arms manufacturing reached it's peak in September 1944. But it is ridiculous to assert that the massive damage caused to the German war infrastructure didn't affect the amount of weapons produced, especially since Albert Speer himself informed Hitler in January 1945 that due to the bombings the Germany war economy was within weeks of collapse.

From Spring 1944, Germany expended immense resources upon defending itself from the bombers, including 10,000 of the dual purpose 88mm guns which would otherwise have been used to devestating effect on the battlefields.

I would hesitate to call the allied strategic bombing of Germany a 'war crime', after all, look what Germany did to Poland. To be sure there was mismanagement and follies throughout the bombing offensive, but it was a military operation designed to hasten the end of the war, which it did, and it stopped the instant Germany surrendered, unlike the Germans who killed people that posed no threat to them, just for the sake of killing them.

[Franconicus]

Fox,

your numbers show, that the raids against the oil industry were very effective. I think the attacks against the German railraod system were too. The attacks against the cities, however, had not an impact that was comparable to that. The German fighters could not fly because the oil industry was ruined and because the transport system was blocked, not because hundred thousands of civilians had been killed or millions of houses had been ruined.

From Spring 1944, Germany expended immense resources upon defending itself from the bombers, including 10,000 of the dual purpose 88mm guns which would otherwise have been used to devestating effect on the battlefields.

Right! But look at the resources the Allies put in that program.

I would hesitate to call the allied strategic bombing of Germany a 'war crime', after all, look what Germany did to Poland. To be sure there was mismanagement and follies throughout the bombing offensive, but it was a military operation designed to hasten the end of the war, which it did, and it stopped the instant Germany surrendered, unlike the Germans who killed people that posed no threat to them, just for the sake of killing them.

I am not going to defend what the Germans did. How could I? However, that does not mean that the bomb raids were justified.

And of course did the Allies kill people that posed no threat to them. Further more I always had the feeling that at least some of the Allies commanders wanted to kill as many Germans as possible.

[Mount Suribachi]

I agree with most things you say here Franconius. Just a couple of points.



2) They had impact on the German production. However, they also wasted a lot of resources from the allies. I think the Allies could have used their resources much better. For example to dominate the Med from the very beginning.

Like you said, the US & UK had to do something against Germany whilst they built up the forces for the eventual invasion of Europe. They were under enormous pressure from Stalin to hit the Germans any way they could, indeed he called into question the courage of Britain & America more than once. Britain was too weak to invade on their own, indeed they struggled with maintaining their presence in the Med & Far East as it was. And America needed time to build up their forces. So bombing it was.

Unlike you, I don't think it was wasted. However, there is no question in my mind that this powerful weapon was not used anywhere near effectively as it could have been. But I still think it scored four notable successes

1) It did disrupt German industry. Shadespanthers quote that Germany's industry increased its output in 1944 though.
is misleading. Prior to 1942 Germanys economy was not on a war footing to anywhere near the same level as Britain, Russia & the USA. Hitler forbade women from working in the factorys, beauracracy & red tape were rampant, and German weapons had a tendancy to be over-engineered and therefore expensive & difficult to make. 1942 saw the appointment of Albert Speer as armament minister, and Speer possesed a quality that was distinctly lacking in the Nazi hierarchy - competance. He reformed the German ecomony & war industry, thus making 1944 the most productive year. But he was unequivacal in his belief that the allied bombing campaign was crucial in undermining the German war effort. Between the end of the war and the Nuremberg trials he held talks on this subject. He declared that after the Hamburg raid of 1943, similar attacks on 6 other German cities would have "crippled the will to sustain armament manufacture and war production, and brought about a rapid end to the war". After he wrote his memoirs, he sent a copy to Bomber Harris, and signed it "to the man who caused me so many sleepless nights of despair". If anyone knows the effect allied bombing had on the German war ecomony, surely its Speer.

2) It caused the German war industry to shift focus. As Germany was pounded day & night from the air, resources had to be diverted to protect it. Fighters (and their pilots) that were sorely needed on the Eastern Front were defending German cities. 75% of all 88mm guns produced during the war were based in Germany, pointed at the sky. The 88mm was one of the truly outstanding weapons of the war, how much damage would all these extra guns have done in Russia, combating those thousands of T-34s? One of the reasons Dresden was so heavily hit was that all the 88s had been removed to combat the Russian army which was approaching the city (IIRC the RAF only lost 5 aircraft over Dresden). On the Kahmhuber line in Germany there were over 40,000 AAA pieces.

3) The destruction of the Luftwaffe. Under increasing pressure from the RAF & USAF, the Luftwaffe was virtually wiped out in the west once the Mustang arrived in numbers in 1944. Escorted all the way to Germany and back, free to attack German airfields and other targets of opportunity, coupled with Mosquito night-fighters loitering around German airfields at night, the Luftwaffe was only able to put up sporadic resistance. When they did (eg Operation Bodenplatte) they paid a heavy price. Allied air supremacy was critical to succes on the western front.

4) The shortage of oil. Bitterly opposed by Harris (though he later admitted he was wrong) the focus on German oil production critically undermined the German Armys mobility & the luftwaffes abilty to train pilots, let alone fly sorties in the last year of the war.

Like I said earlier, I don't think Strategic Bombing was used as effectively as it could have been. The idea to focus on key industries (such as oil) came very late in the war, and wasn't implemented very widely. There was very little co-operation between the RAF & the USAAF, rarely did they concentrate on one target at the same time. When they did, it was effective. Bomber crews were under-trained; as the Americans found out in Vietnam, an aircrews chance of survival soared if they got past their first 5 missions, new aircrews were given next to no instruction or tips or help from the veterans, they were just more fuel for the fire.

Then there is the argument over the effective survivability of aircraft such as the Lancaster. Undefended from below, they were shot down in droves by nightfighters that approached from underneath and this fatal flaw was never corrected. A Lancaster with all its turrets removed (& associated aircrew & equipment) was faster than an Me-110 nightfighter. Mosquito crews were adamant that an all-Mossie bomber force would have been better. Faster, with a higher ceiling, yet still carrying a heavy payload, the Mossie used half the number of valuable Merlins, and only carried 2 crew rather than 7.

Finally, RAF Bomber Command failed to achieve the objective that Harris so confidently & louldy predicted it would - the destruction of the will of the German people to fight. The German people carried on to the end, wearily, for a variety of reasons.


To Japan: I still believe that Japan would have had to capitulate just by cutting off the sea connections. Japan has no natural resources and pruduces not enough food. So why attacking the civilians?

But Japan already was cut-off, the US Navy had a virtual blockade in place. This argument is regularly put forward in opposition to using the A-bomb, but is always fails to take into account one crucial fact - the military controlled the cabinet of the Japanese government. It took not one, but TWO atomic bombs to force the Japanese surrender, and even then the militarists tried to stage a coup to prevent it. Whilst civilian members of the cabinet knew the war was over and were looking for a way to surrender, it didn't matter. The military were in charge, and as far as they were concerned death - for all Japanese, not just them - was preferable to surrender. The World At War episode on the A-bomb is particularly enlightening in this regard, featuring as it does interviews of (civilian) members of the cabinet who basically say "it didn't matter what we wanted, the military was in control".

[English assassin]

@grey fox and MS, excellent posts chaps, thats what I wish I had said ~:)

One other point on the A bomb vs blockade point, if the concern is civilian casualties and suffering, a blockade would have been worse, surely? For the Japanese themselves, and far, far worse for POWs and internees.

[naut]

Wow, some really specacular knowledge here!

Wait I'm a bit confused about the 88mm guns, so did the Nazis shift the guns back from the front lines to the cities?

[nokhor]

if one argues that the american bombing of japanese cities was justified because it helped shorten the war and save japanese lives, then wouldn't you have to argue that the german bombing of hospitals and civilian centers in poland was justified during their invasion because it helped to end that war and save polish lives?

[Grey_Fox]

if one argues that the american bombing of japanese cities was justified because it helped shorten the war and save japanese lives, then wouldn't you have to argue that the german bombing of hospitals and civilian centers in poland was justified during their invasion because it helped to end that war and save polish lives?

Different context. After Poland was taken, the Germans began a systematic campaign of extermination in Poland. The western Allies didn't.

May I also point out that the Allied bombing of German urban centres meant that most armaments factories suffered a 20% absenteeism rate?

[cegorach]

if one argues that the american bombing of japanese cities was justified because it helped shorten the war and save japanese lives, then wouldn't you have to argue that the german bombing of hospitals and civilian centers in poland was justified during their invasion because it helped to end that war and save polish lives?


This ironic answer is very far from its intended target.

THe war waged by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union had completely different reason than the one fought by the Allies. Germany started the merciless war of extermination for more space, slaves and glory, that one fought by the Allies was much the opposite.:book:

[nokhor]

so if your enemy is evil and barbaric it is then morally justified to also behave in such a manner to stop him?

[Avicenna]

This ironic answer is very far from its intended target.

THe war waged by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union had completely different reason than the one fought by the Allies. Germany started the merciless war of extermination for more space, slaves and glory, that one fought by the Allies was much the opposite.:book:

So now the Soviets don't count as allies, do they?

[Grey_Fox]

so if your enemy is evil and barbaric it is then morally justified to also behave in such a manner to stop him?

Germany murdered between 6 million and 11 million civilians and POWs in their slave and extermination camps. The Allied bombing campaign against Germany killed about 600,000 German civilians throughout the war. War is not about choosing between good and evil, it's about choosing the action that is less evil to win.

The German army of WW2 was the greatest fighting force of the 20th Century, you do not beat such a thing by being magnanimous, you do it by doing as much as possible to destroy it's infrastructure and war ecomy.

The reason the Blitz failed was because Germany signally failed to attack the three things that make fighting a war possible: industry, power supply, and road and rail networks, and also because it was not carried out in sufficient strenght. The Americans and British realised this and set about to correct it. Unfortunately many of these three targets are located in urban centres, and since there was no such thing as 'precision bombing' it was necessary to use saturation bombing to ensure destruction of these targets.

So now the Soviets don't count as allies, do they?

The war the Western Allies fought was in order to free Poland (and the other nations that were conquered) from German rule. The war the Soviets fought was to repel an invader and to conquer as much territory between Russia and Germany as possible in order to secure it's borders from future German (and capitalist) invasions.

[ShadesPanther]

so if your enemy is evil and barbaric it is then morally justified to also behave in such a manner to stop him?

Germany murdered between 6 million and 11 million civilians and POWs in their slave and extermination camps. The Allied bombing campaign against Germany killed about 600,000 German civilians throughout the war. War is not about choosing between good and evil, it's about choosing the action that is less evil to win.
The Allies didn't know about slave and extermination camps until after the war. There were rumours sure, but there was no evidence.



The war the Western Allies fought was in order to free Poland (and the other nations that were conquered) from German rule. The war the Soviets fought was to repel an invader and to conquer as much territory between Russia and Germany as possible in order to secure it's borders from future German (and capitalist) invasions.
The soviets are usually considered part of the allies but slightly different.
Well The Russians/Soviets had been invaded through Poland many times over the last few centuries, They wanted a buffer zone and they got it.

[Pontifex Rex]

Wait I'm a bit confused about the 88mm guns, so did the Nazis shift the guns back from the front lines to the cities?

Not really,...but probably some. German AA guns were deployed in Luftwaffe flak regiments attached to armies and corps and in the German army's flak battalions in their motor/mechanized divisions. The bombers did not prevent 88s from be deployed to the army (The panzer and Pz Gren divs normally had there two or three batteries) but did redirect the units of the Luftwaffe ground units (flak regiments). Caution needs to be used about the 88s though. Because there was a bomber offensive, more 88s were produced to defend the cities,...but.

It begs the question. Had there been no bomber offensive, would the Germans have built so many 88s in the first place? Probably not, resources would have/could have gone to other projects.

[Rodion Romanovich]

A few points:
- the massive city bombing wasn't what diverted Lutwaffe attention from the front. It was the city bombing at all that did it.
- remember that also allies suffered from city bombings. It's not just a war crime carried out by the allies.
- it's possible that the massive city bombings from the allies after 1944 (and at the very least the city bombings in 1945 shortly before surrender) delayed German surrender, because it scared German leadership that the surrender wouldn't be met with mercy. It helped those nazis that were punished in the Nurnberg trials convince low-level commanders and regular privates that the allies would show no mercy on surrender even to low level commanders and privates, something that made it more difficult to obtain massive local surrenders, desertions and mutinies before the official surrender. However this is not certain.
- the effectiveness of hurting economy that many thought that city bombing gave is way overestimated. Economy was weakened more by losses in equipment at the front. Also - in hot war resources temporarily become more important than money until after the ceasefire. Money is a strategic weapon used to acquire a strong army before a war, not something that matters much in actual war (at least not in a total war like ww2). Weakening the economy of an opponent in a war is not necessarily that useful. Bombing logistical keypoints such as railway stations, bridges, and factories for military equipment is more useful. In fact, lack of money isn't that much of a problem for a nation at war - just look at the Lend Lease treaty that Great Britain could get even though they were getting economical problems due to Luftwaffe bombings of British cities.
- small city bombings we've established could have some usefulness, but systematic city bombing was hardly that useful. The only time a more massive city bombings could be useful is if the enemy moves all weapons factories into cities, like the Japanese did. Or when the enemy refuses to give up even after clearly strategically losing the war badly, like was the case for the Japanese. In fact, city bombing was what lost Luftwaffe the air war over Britain (it would perhaps still have been lost, but not as early as the early winter 1940), what made Stalingrad such a splendid ground for snipers (again not crucial to the outcome, but it probably helped the Soviets) and IMO it delayed allied advance on Berlin quite a lot. The allies had little else to do in 1941-1944, so there it probably had some usefulness, but the city bombings after D-Day were IMO only hurting the advance. As shown in the Falaise gap battle, even though ww2 bombers were inaccurate, they could wreak havoc as a tactical weapon by bombing rear elements of an army - artillery positions, bridges, railways, supply lines, roads etc., while using limited city bombings (maybe once every second week on average) to divert enemy units from the frontlines. Using the bomb carpet principle against tactical targets worked quite well. Surely not all missions would succeed, but since the targets were close to the own front and own airfields it wouldn't have been so difficult to even carry out several missions a day to compensate for it. Also remember that such bombings cutting off retreat logistics often forces the enemy to leave a lot of equipment in the retreat. One tank is worth at least fifty men from a military perspective, and one tank taken over means two tanks change in relative strength ratio.
- bombings of oil fields and industry itself hurt economy more than actual city carpet bombings. It's easy to see at the time when factories weren't in cities. When factories were moved into cities of course city bombing became more useful for hurting economy and above all strategic strength because then the key strategical targets were in cities. But the actual terror bombing of civilians had little positive impact for whoever did it.
- both sides overestimated the usefulness of the city bombings. The British and Soviets benefitted from being city bombed - it strengthened British morale and helped them understand that it was worth fighting the Germans (the concentration camps were more of rumors than known fact at that time so they couldn't as effectively as the city bombings convince the British that Hitler's rule was insane and ruthless). The Soviets got ideal sniper terrain in Stalingrad.

[rory_20_uk]

- remember that also allies suffered from city bombings. It's not just a war crime carried out by the allies.

Were any as costly as the firebombing of Dresden for example?

- it's possible that the massive city bombings from the allies after 1944 (and at the very least the city bombings in 1945 shortly before surrender) delayed German surrender, because it scared German leadership that the surrender wouldn't be met with mercy. It helped those nazis that were punished in the Nurnberg trials convince low-level commanders and regular privates that the allies would show no mercy on surrender even to low level commanders and privates, something that made it more difficult to obtain massive local surrenders, desertions and mutinies before the official surrender. However this is not certain.

I thought that the Western Allies to refuse the German surrender to only them couldn't have helped.

- the effectiveness of hurting economy that many thought that city bombing gave is way overestimated. Economy was weakened more by losses in equipment at the front. Also - in hot war resources temporarily become more important than money until after the ceasefire. Money is a strategic weapon used to acquire a strong army before a war, not something that matters much in actual war (at least not in a total war like ww2). Weakening the economy of an opponent in a war is not necessarily that useful. Bombing logistical keypoints such as railway stations, bridges, and factories for military equipment is more useful. In fact, lack of money isn't that much of a problem for a nation at war - just look at the Lend Lease treaty that Great Britain could get even though they were getting economical problems due to Luftwaffe bombings of British cities.

It helped, as it helped focus workers on the key industries. The German's failure to streamline their production and designs probably meant that they fought with a distinct material advantage.

- both sides overestimated the usefulness of the city bombings. The British and Soviets benefitted from being city bombed - it strengthened British morale and helped them understand that it was worth fighting the Germans (the concentration camps were more of rumors than known fact at that time so they couldn't as effectively as the city bombings convince the British that Hitler's rule was insane and ruthless). The Soviets got ideal sniper terrain in Stalingrad.

Hitler was not insane. And compared to Stalin he was not ruthless.
Loosing a city to make sniper terrain seems excessive. Snipers don't need that level of destruction to function.

It may have already have been said, but Bomber Harris should have been tried for warcrimes.

~:smoking:

[cegorach]

The soviets are usually considered part of the allies but slightly different.
Well The Russians/Soviets had been invaded through Poland many times over the last few centuries, They wanted a buffer zone and they got it.


Not really they wanted SATELITE state not a buffer zone because imposing a government you have to sustain using large army based on its territory is not the greatest idea to have a buffer - rather to fuel hatered and rebellion - the SU was never interested in buffor states it was interested in conquest so their citizens had nowhere to run away or to compare with.:book:

[Kraxis]

The Allied bombing campaign against Germany killed about 600,000 German civilians throughout the war.
I'm not going to jump into such a deep discussion... not fully.

But I will comment this use of figures.

600,000 killed Germans is what is certain... You know, when people have been found dead, identified and buried (or what else has been done). What every historian I have spoken to about this subject agree on is that most of the dead have never been found.
For instance the most pessimistic sources claim 50,000-70,000 killed in Dresden. That is from the sources of citizens of the city.
What most people tend to forget is that the city of about 500,000 had a population estimated to have been just above 2 million at the time of the bombings.

How? Well, Dresden was obviously an important junction, if not very vital. It was the perfect spot to drop refugees from Poland and East Prussia off. Also, the weakening of the citydefences (as well as the lack of any heavy industry) actually led the local leadership to belive that the city would be spared. After all, it had been far more important earlier and not been bombed, why should it now?

In any case the city was crammed full of civilian refugees living in the streets. The shelters and basements could not house them (were already occupied).
I doubt I need to inform you what happens when a firestorm is added to the mix.
A particularly nasty piece of info I got from a survivor (from a program abou bombing) was that he and other people were trying to flee from the firestorm, but they could not get away. They were pinned by the wind. Then a woman with a baby tried to shift position, but horribly the wind yanked the baby from her arms and... well again no need for explaination.

And since we are on about the firestorm in Dresden, how about the fact that the Allies changed tactics this time, and actually had two waves closer together than before. First wave with the initial firebomb/HE mix, the next wave with a pure HE load. The theory behind this was that the first wave would start fires (but perhaps not a firestorm), firefighters come out of their burrows to fight the fires. In other cities they were perhaps not able to kill the firestorms, but they prevented their spread.
This time however the next wave caught them out. Wether they stayed and got killed or fled, the result was the same, the firefighters were out of the picture (in the second case because their equipment was lost). The firestorm could now engulf the entire city unopposed.

The continual bombing of the city also forced people to stay in their cellars and the shelters. Well, with the spreading firestorm they could not survive there. These were the ones to be found afterwards (killed by lack of oxygen).

The bombing of Dresden was the most perfect bombing ever. The most systemized, most determined and most likely the most 'effective' ever.
Nobody knows how many died in Dresden, but I have heard figures as high as 500,000, for as it was argued, afterwards the refugees were gone. Couldn't be in the city, the surrounding area was relatively empty, and the options to get away with trains and such was lost in the first raid. They had simlpy ceased to exist.
Refugees are of course not very easy to work with as they are not properly organized or counted (at least not with this amount). That is why they often vanish from calculations.
Nobody knows how many German refugees were killed by Red Army soldiers, run over by tanks, gunned down by fighters ect ect. The only figure that can be said is 'a lot'.
Go to the thin peninsula by Gdansk (Danzig)... There you will still find remnants of the dead people... Even bones. I have been there, and the atmosphere is quite unpleasant, not the city of course.

And do not forget that while the Germans were not very nice, and certainly attacked the hospitals and the like as mentioned, the Allies were not any better.

The old people in southern Jutland (in Denmark) still curse the Allied Jabos... They, an occupied people got strafed in the fields, on the roads, whereever. Luckily not many died from this as most attention was in Germany. But the simple fact that fighter/bombers attacked obvious civilians in an occupied country is apalling! Maybe they thought they were Germans? But that doesn't make it much better.
Nor the factthat Danish Red Cross convoys got shot up every time they tried to get to the Danish prisoners in German camps in last months... Real clever by the fighter/bombers!
Added to their almost patholigical overestimations of their kills on tanks and equipment I have a strong dislike for them.

I guess I did join the discussion...

[ChewieTobbacca]

On the case of Japan:

Aerial bombing wasn't the biggest reason for Japan's capitulation - though the atomic bombings certainly hastened the surrender and prevented an invasion of the Japanese mainland. The biggest reason for Japan's fall was the U.S. Navy (and, namely the Silent Service - the submarines, which accounted for 55% of Japanese tonnage sunk in WW2 despite being 2% of the Navy's personnel). Japan, being an island nation, had to import its resources and food and simply could not do so (having nearly its entire fleet and aviation at the bottom of the sea certainly was also important).

On carpet bombing:

What is known now, though, is that carpet bombing does not bring the same results as theorized: that it would bring about swift surrender of the enemy. Whether it was necessary or not, in the end, we did learn, and since WW2, cases of carpet bombing have decreased dramatically. As pointed out, when we realized that crippling Germany's oil and rail industry was important, we targetted those places and we saw results on the battlefield. With the advent of more accurate bombing and weapons, we have bombed strategic targets and civilians less.

That today the air forces of the world do not see carpet bombing as a main strategy is a sign that they understand its actual effects.

And for infantry, it might be a blessing to not have to enter a city in ruins where every piece of rubble can be a strong point of defense.

[Kraxis]

Indeed... Which was the most effective airattacks in WWII? Here I'm speaking of attacks that had an impact on the war itself.

I'll mention those I consider the best (against Germany, I don't know enough about Japan):

The Dam Bust.
While it's effect was limited in the long run it showed that a small pinpoint attack could very well create a huge effect. What the RAF failed to do wa a followup attack after three weeks when the dams had been rebuilt.
Speer himself has mentioned in memoirs that such an attack would likely have left the Germany industry out of the fight for half a year or so.
So the attack was correct but the doctrine was faulty (further attacks of te like were scrapped because the Germans rebuilt the dams so fast).

Schweinfurt and Regensburg.
That is a very controversial one, I know. Often mentioned as a case of what not to do by historians.
But once more they have been hugely singleminded. They look at the losses to the bombers, which were absolutely huge! Again doctrine failed, or the will to suffer the losses needed.
The effects on German ballbearing capacity was astounding. 50% decrease if not more. The first attack had only limted impact, but the second caused a huge disruption. The already weakened plants got almost flattened. Very effective.
If another raid had been launched a week or so later while other raids targeted the other ballbearing plants, Germany would have been crippled. She wouldn't have had enough time to spread out the capacity and change to glidebearings (they managed to use that in around 10% of all the bearings after the attacks).
Again Speer consider this a huge mistake by the Allies that they didn't follow it up properly, but the effects were still good, though they were made up for within reasonable time (the German stockpiles of ballbearing just managed to keep her going).

The synthetic oils strikes.
Of course this has to be mentioned. Hugely effective campaign, somethign that should have been put into effect right away and with all the resources possible. If done correctly it could perhaps have crushed German capacity to fight even before D-Day.

The raids on Ploesti.
Similar to Schweinfurt in that what could possibly have crippled Germany, but for some reason was not carried out with the needed 'oompf'.

Looking over the list it becomes clear that the Allies lacked patience, seeking the one KO punch that would finish the war. This one-eyed approach blinded them to the possible results of sustained attacks.
Had these attacks been carried out withthe proper force I have little doubt that Germany would not have lasted to Christmas 1944.
No power to the industry, no fuel an no bearings to keep her machinery working. It would have been early 1945 right after D-Day. Infantry facing proper armies.

[Mount Suribachi]

Also, the weakening of the citydefences (as well as the lack of any heavy industry) actually led the local leadership to belive that the city would be spared. After all, it had been far more important earlier and not been bombed, why should it now?


One of the great myths about Dresden is that is was never bombed before the infamous attack. Not true, the USAAF & the RAF had both attacked it previously. As for the attack in question, it was actually instigated by the Russians who were closing in on the city and wanted it bombed.



The bombing of Dresden was the most perfect bombing ever.

RAF crews who participated on the raid regarded it as the "perfect" mission - but not for the reasons you state. Everything went right. The weather was just right in every way, all the spoofs & feints worked to perfection, fooling the nightfighters. Most of the cities 88s had been removed to defend against Russian tanks. IIRC the RAF only 6 bombers that night.

As for your 500,000 death toll, its clearly fanciful and based more on anti-bombing hysteria than the facts. Even David Irving, author of the highly controversial Dresden retracted his 200,000 death toll in a letter to The Times, and accepted the official death toll of 18,375, with an estimated "grand total" of around 25,000. Thats still a lot of dead people I grant you though.

At this point I shall also throw in the mix the 4,000 political prisoners held just outside the city who had dug their own graves the morning of the Dresden raid. They were all due to be executed the next day. The raid on Dresden saved their lives.