Dambusters raid did help to win the war

pbehn said:

Come to the UK Adler, there is a growing body of opinion saying that the UK only ever ran slave ships. It would not surprise me if they didnt start a twitter campaign to find any living relatives of Hitler and Goering to apologise for being rude.

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well, what you do in your own country is your own business. But here we still hold that british generation in high regard and even more so when they fought in Arnhem. I always get mad when the occasional American claims they saved the world back then. Of course they this, but together with the British and not to forget the others from the Commonwealth.

Marcel said:

well, what you do in your own country is your own business. But here we still hold that british generation in high regard and even more so when they fought in Arnhem. I always get mad when the occasional American claims they saved the world back then. Of course they this, but together with the British and not to forget the others from the Commonwealth.

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Marcel I worked away from home for 29 years including two months in Dordrecht, I never had any real problems unless with people stupidly drunk and we all have them. In the UK teaching of history is becoming mainly a list of things Britain and especially England should apologise for,(I have a daughter so I know).
Back to Chastise!!!!!

One only needs a conversation with the likes of Kurfurst or Soren to understand that strong prejudices do exist, even in this place. at various times Ive been told:

1) Britain caused the war
2) Britain lost the Battle of Britain
3) Not a single Japanese fighter as lost to the RAF over Burma until the latter part of 1943
4) Spitfires were junk
5) Not a single tiger tank was lost to combat in Normandy

and lots of other claims. not an outright 'Britain did nothing to win the war", but by inference the same thing

parsifal said:

One only needs a conversation with the likes of Kurfurst or Soren to understand that strong prejudices do exist, even in this place. at various times Ive been told:

1) Britain caused the war
2) Britain lost the Battle of Britain
3) Not a single Japanese fighter as lost to the RAF over Burma until the latter part of 1943
4) Spitfires were junk
5) Not a single tiger tank was lost to combat in Normandy

and lots of other claims. not an outright 'Britain did nothing to win the war", but by inference the same thing

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You forgot.

The Royal Navy had nothing to do with the sinking of the Bismark.
All 109's could out turn Spitfires and Hurricanes but they chose not too.
RAF planes were not as strongly built as all other nations.

pbehn said:

...
In the UK teaching of history is becoming mainly a list of things Britain and especially England should apologise for,(I have a daughter so I know).
...

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Outrageous.

tomo pauk said:

Outrageous.

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It is, I expect to see a documentary soon on how operation Chastise wiped out a delicate newt colony. Any historical documentary is written as if for 5 year olds and 50% is devoted to the presenters feelings before and after getting into a Spitfire or submarine or Lancaster. Any historical drama concentrates on the leading lady getting laid well and often. UK posters will know what I mean.

Back to lancs dropping bombs and things please before I explode.

The main factor is education.

And by education, I mean presenting the facts, even if they are uncomfortable. The very concept of war is uncomfortable and by watering it down or changing a few things here and there to make some people feel good does more harm than good. This new age of politically correct apologism is a poison to the truth.

As far as those pesky and arrogant Americans goes...it's no different than any other country as they are only taught so much in school (especially nowdays) and so they come away with a bare understanding of what all was really involved.

And this leads me to the Dam-busting missions. They may not have won the war, but they were a contribution to the overall effort. This would be like saying the Doolittle's raid over Tokyo was a waste, which is furthest from the truth.

Aside from the impact on the public, it also caused a great deal of concern in the general staff and resulted in a commitment of manpower and material for area protection that could have been otherwise used in battle.

I see the British like what is going on there about as much as we like what is going on here in the U.S.A.

We keep apologizing for things that happened 150 years ago. Sorry, but whoever oppressed anyone that long ago is way older than I am. I am fed up with being "politically correct." Call something what it is and be done with it.

Instead of being up the unsanitary tributary without proper means of propulsion, I say you're up shit creek without a paddle.

The psychological impact of the dams raid on the British public should not be under estimated. This was early 1943, the British had been at war for more than three and a half years, there was no end in sight and very little to cheer about. It is no accident that the famous reconnaissance photograph showing the breached Mohne dam appeared on the front pages of British newspapers within days. This was not the normal destination of such photographs.
The raid came at a psychological tipping point during the war, it seemed at this point to many British people that we were actually winning, and, conversely to many Germans that they might actually be losing. Whilst we can put vague values on Germany's lost production and the cost of the huge effort needed to repair the dams and their infrastructure as well as the reinforcement of their defences, it is completely impossible to put a value on the confirmation for the British of the conviction that they were winning, but it was huge. Within months the British (and allies) were talking in terms of when, not if, the war is won and the Germans were being told that they were in a war for national survival, not expansion and agrandisement.
Cheers
Steve

pbehn said:

It is, I expect to see a documentary soon on how operation Chastise wiped out a delicate newt colony. Any historical documentary is written as if for 5 year olds and 50% is devoted to the presenters feelings before and after getting into a Spitfire or submarine or Lancaster. Any historical drama concentrates on the leading lady getting laid well and often. UK posters will know what I mean.

Back to lancs dropping bombs and things please before I explode.

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This saddens me a great deal, I always looked to English documentaries with great respect, always seemed they were the best at presenting facts and many times, not just from the British perspective. If this is what they have evolved into the world is truly poorer for it.

Peter Gunn said:

This saddens me a great deal, I always looked to English documentaries with great respect, always seemed they were the best at presenting facts and many times, not just from the British perspective. If this is what they have evolved into the world is truly poorer for it.

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It is sadly true. Recently there was a programme covering the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, it managed to be less informative and further from the truth than the movie. I did see a celebrity presenter (again) go through instructions on flying a spitfire (again) put on his suit and helmet (again) get into the plane and be taken for a ride (again). Almost half the programme taken up with a presenter presenting what he is paid to present, with more footage of him than the plane.

The days of great British factual programmes are long since past.

pbehn said:

The days of great British factual programmes are long since past.

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I don't think that is so, but I understand what you are saying about programmes like the one you refer to. They have become vehicles for the presenters (Guy Martin, the McGregor brothers etc) and not a vehicle for information about the subject matter. This is combined with popular writers masquerading as serious historians giving us a really bad re-hash of the facts or more usually in the case of the BoB, a retelling of the myth.
These 'documentaries' usually appear on the more popular channels and cater to an audience brought up on celebrity culture, hence the presenters, and only a passing interest in the real history. I guarantee I won't see these people, clutching their passport and a couple of household bills, applying for a reader's card at TNA
The McGregor brothers, a genuine film star whose brother is (or was) and RAF pilot must have seemed a combination too good to miss. I suspect that awful documentary was made around them, any consideration of the facts and history of the BoB being secondary.
Cheers
Steve

stona said:

Whether the return on that investment was worthwhile is something that has been, and will be, debated for years.

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I think it's quite simple; the impact beyond mere statistics was great, far greater than is often given in historical debate. The human element and the toll on lives as a direct result of bombing raids on cities was enormous, also, is there any means of measuring what might have been had the RAF not carried out its bombing offensive, much more difficult to accurately ascertain, but one thing's for sure, the war would have gone on for much longer. I think it was a worthwhile investment, although how could BC have done what it did more effectively than it did is probably a more pointed subject for debate. In the words of Churchill (not to become to teary eyed and sentimental):

"I say to the House as I said to ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."

Sums it up. Although we know it was unfeasible that Britain was going to be invaded, that wasn't the feeling of the time and Churchill knew that no remorse was to be shown, no compromise was to be made and that countless lives would be lost, but the goal was survival, no less, so despite the rhetoric, it rings true. The Nazis were very naughty and had to be smacked on the pee pee for what they did.

stona said:

These 'documentaries' usually appear on the more popular channels and cater to an audience brought up on celebrity culture, hence the presenters, and only a passing interest in the real history.

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...which is why I stick to reading books for my dose of history, although authors do suffer the same ego driven tendencies unfortunately.

nuuumannn said:

is there any means of measuring what might have been had the RAF not carried out its bombing offensive, much more difficult to accurately ascertain, but one thing's for sure, the war would have gone on for much longer.

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And that is hitting the proverbial nail on the head. Usually the wrong questions are asked about the combined bomber offensive. The question rarely asked is, what would the Germans have achieved, not just in industrial production, if there had been no bombing offensive?

The various bombing surveys hardly try to quantify the collateral effects of the bombing on the German economy, everything from compensation claims from the bombed out, to skilled labour to render damaged housing habitable to the effects of the dislocation of large sections of the urban population. The man power and resources diverted to air defence, the strain on the electronics and technological industries of providing equipment for this and other effects are hardly mentioned.The cost of the widespread dispersion of vital war industries is yet another difficult to quantify factor. There are literally hundreds of others.
The attrition of Germany's transport and communications infra structure, the effects of the oil campaign and factors more easily measured (usually because the Germans had already provided the figures themselves), like industrial and armaments production tend to remain the focus of British and American post war economists and statisticians.

One thing is certain, being bombed into next week does not make it any easier to wage a war.

British post war assessments of their own area bombing campaign tend to focus very closely on its effect on German industrial production and ignore many of the other factors. The BBSU itself says.

"The decisive and indecisive offensives may first be briefly differentiated. The initial attacks on the enemy's oil supplies and transportation systems in 1940 and 1941 were as much the failure as the 1944 and 1945 attacks against the same target systems were the outstanding successes of the whole bomber offensive.
By comparison with the latter, the area attacks against German industrial cities paradoxically reveal themselves as an inconclusive offensive. In spite of the extensive material destruction which they caused, those delivered before the early autumn of 1944 had only an irritant effect on German production."

I can almost see Professor Zuckermann, architect of the Transportation Plan and principal author of the BBSU, writing that !
The report was never reviewed by an interdepartmental board, as it should have been, and strongly reflects the views of Zuckermann and his lobby at the expense of Harris and others. This was compounded by the appointment of Tedder (firmly in Zuckermann's camp) to replace Portal as CAS in January 1946, as the report was being produced.

It is comments like this, in an official history like the BBSU that has led to a rather narrow assessment of the effects of the campaign and as a result the wider effects are often ignored.

The dambusters have suffered a similar fate. Focusing on the minimal loss of production the raid caused whilst ignoring the larger effects, cost of repairs in manpower and materiel, the shift of air defences etc does not do justice to the results achieved. Nonetheless, the raid was not a war winning one, nor did it achieve the rather optimistic objectives that were hoped for. None of that makes it a failure in any sense of the word.

Cheers

Steve

Quite apart from anything else, by 1944, fully 80% of German artillery production, not including mortars and rockets, was devoted to AA guns. Given that Germany already was heavily outnumbered in the production stakes, pareticularly in this vital area of munitions production one has to comclude the effects of bombing on the German armed forces was considerable

Ive read these articles that tend to downgrade the adverse effects on production. Franky, I find it hard to believe and I really have to put it out there and say i reject them.Im not diminishing the pschological and other effects, but it has just become fashionable to claim the bombing campaign was inneffective in material outputs. It has to be. if it wasnt there are just some figures that dont add up.

Disregarding the whole of 1945 in the following.

In 1938, Germany boasted the second highest industrial output in the world. Even though she did not move to a full war footing until the second part of 1941, Britain didnt either until March 1940. German economic management of the occupied territories was attrocious, but they still got some benefit from these countries. Britiain was saddled with a grossly innefficient shipbuilding industry and a dead albatross around their necks in the form of the Uboats. US production didnt make much difference at all until the middle of 1941.

Despite all this, to the end of 1944, the Axis total in tube artillery was 180000 units, to 914000 by the allies and soviets (516000 units by the Soviets). In 1940 they were still ahead, 11200 pieces, to just 4700 for the allies, but thereafter they were just hit out of the park. And the proportions of what they did build as AA artillery just grew and grew. Small wonder that when the allies were backing their big ground offensives with 10-20000 pieces of artillery, the Germans might field 100. Any category you care to pick in this area is the same. now i know there were other factors, but to go from a position where you were out producing your opponents, even if not by much and even if you werent really trying, to a position where the allies were wiping their dirty floors with your (German) pathetic efforts and then say bombing didnt affect that, sorry i stop listening.

The first problem is that the most often used and quoted measurement for the efficacy of WW2 bombing is the total index for armaments production as a percentage of potential production. This ignores other production and simply combines the various armament categories into one figure. This doesn't even begin to fall until the third quarter of 1943. It continues a more or less steady decline until in the first quarter of 1945 it stands at only 45%.

The second problem is explaining the results. As the combined bomber offensive got underway there was still considerable slack in the German war economy and this managed to compensate to some extent for the effects of the offensive. Speer's efforts through the last 21/2 years of the war high light this issue.
The catastrophic collapse in 1945 was not a result of the bombing alone. How much weight should be given to other factors, not least loss of territory, is yet another topic of debate. Analysis of the late war bombing tends to concentrate largely on the oil and transport plans. This is hardly surprising as the authors of the reports are often the architects of those plans. The effects of other bombing methods are ignored or under estimated.

To really understand the overall effect of the bombing offensives, and in particular the RAF's area bombing, the USSBS is not very helpful and the BBSU report is worse, even openly hostile to the entire concept, and therefore heavily biased. I believe it is this that has led to the under estimation of the impact of the offensive on Germany as a whole, these reports are the primary sources for most of what is written about the subject.

There are other sources of information which give a broader view of the effects of bombing on nations and societies. Some of the essays in 'Bombing, States and Peoples in Western Europe 1940-1945' are worth a read.

Cheers

Steve

You guys have really been hitting the nail on the head here, not much I'd add except yesterday at lunch I was scrolling through the USSBS on my phone (half my staff is out with some nasty sinus virus so lunching alone...keeping my office door closed...no visitors...I wish) saw an interesting bit. The Survey was talking about how both BC and 8AF attacks contributed greatly to absenteeism and lost/shoddy production, I'd have to go back and check to see if they were talking a specific period during the war or the war as a whole. But I think that is an overlooked issue that the constant BC attacks were also responsible for, a bit of an intangible but an important one in my book.

For wankers, I mean 'authors' who today sit in their comfy office/den/home/whatever and criticize decisions made 70 years ago in a fight for nothing less than national survival if not the survival of civilization is insulting to say the least. Especially since I doubt they would even understand it was a fight for national survival. Perhaps now a days they'd keep the Nazi's at bay by a combined apology offensive.

Somewhere I have an old collection I bought in the '80's that was a bound set of the USAAF 'Impact' magazine from WWII. In each of the six volumes they had an interview from a notable figure from the war. One volume had an interview with Albert Speer, I'll have to dig it up because in it he was talking about the fear he had that the allies would realize how fragile the power grid for the Reich was and that aerial attack could have really put Germany on the skids pronto. I won't quote from memory but will look up the interview tonight, it was either an eye opener or he was just saying something the interviewer wanted to hear.

I'm not familiar with that particular interview, but Speer consistently made similar points about the fragility of various aspects of the German economy after the war, not least in 'Inside the Third Reich'.
I'm always wary of Speer. I don't believe him to be unreliable but I do think, as you intimated above, that he had a tendency to tell his interrogators/questioners what he thought they wanted to here. He was as devious as a bag of weasels. Everything he wrote and said had a not so hidden agenda and he maintained his story almost until the end.
He did a good enough job ingratiating himself with the western allies to avoid the hangman's noose.

Gitta Sereny's 'Albert Speer - his battle with the truth' is a most revealing biography of the man.

Cheers

Steve