RAF Bomber Command....

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Status
Not open for further replies.
Nikademus said:
That BC could do little to hurt Germany is not disputed....but something is better than nothing and the veteran's point was that they had no other real options at the time.
Click to expand...

Yes, something is better than nothing but the question Britain faced after the Fall of France was not do we do something but what do do. Burn down their towns or save our merchant ships? I think saving ships would have been much more effective.

As far as the veteran´s POV is concerned he is right if he refers to 44 or 43. By that time the UK had a powerful bomber fleet but it´s gound forces were also battling the Whermacht on the continent. The introduction dates of the Lanc, Halifax and the Sterling give me the impression BC as a lot less impressive in 41 and maybe even 42(Cologne Raid).
 
Markus you are a poor student of history - or at the least the broad sweep of it - not the stats perhaps. Britain went to war in 1914 -- went to the Continent in defense of her Allies because of Germany - and German aggression. She paid a huge price - loss of Empire and bankruptcy.

If it took from 1940 to 1943 and lots of $$$$'s to build up a murderous BC - who cares? What the Churchill quote above illustrates is the degree of consensus in the British public. 1940 it was going to be different than 1914-18. Germany was going to get it. There would be no peace this time when Germany was "cornered" - before any fighting on her soil took place. Before any GERMAN cities were decimated.

Bomber Command and Mr. Harris were the reflection of the broad will of the British public - and everything on that subject since 1945 is revisionist rubbish -- progressive speculation .

BC was the fastest, most effective weapon Britain had in the build-up to the Ruhr (1943) to strike back at the Homeland, to start to TOTALLY DECONSTRUCT German life and German industry. You can play all the "stats" you want - but this isn't baseball - and in the end - British strategy worked. (And in the end "working" had nothing to do with the Norden bombsight, pickle barrels or USAAF "strategic" bombing. It worked because it was tenacious British bloody mindedness )

As for "... Bye, tail end charlie." . Childish.

MM
 
Last edited:


Markus
The North africa campaign started on 10 June 1940
the first thousand bomber raid was Cologne May 1942, hardly some bombs on some town.
the Dieppe raid was August 1942 (and was a disaster).

And BTW if the UK had limited the size of Bomber command in 1942 who would do any bombing the USAAF wasnt ready until 1944, and would the USAAF have been happy if the British were spectators to massive casualties. Both the UK and USA were under pressure from Stalin to assist the eastern front, Stalin wanted a second front but thatwasnt possible the least he demanded as an ally was maximum effort to bomb Germany.
 


Erich, thanks, (and for your previous post) but I did know that, my first post was badly worded, funny how the ommision of one word changes everything. I was just reading last night about night fighter tactics "conditioning" was damned clever and courageous.
 

No doubt it was the most effective weapon the UK had.
 
Markus said:
Yes, something is better than nothing but the question Britain faced after the Fall of France was not do we do something but what do do. Burn down their towns or save our merchant ships? I think saving ships would have been much more effective.
Click to expand...

Markus you seem to have fallen for an idea that the only thing needed to defeat the U boats was a few bombers. This is clearly nonesense. Until the USA entered the war the U boats could and did operate close to the USA coast. Even after the entry of the USA into the war it was not just closing the air gap in the atlantic that mattered things like more escort carriers, destroyers with asdic, hedgehog, centimetric radar leigh lights and breaking of the KM enigma code were needed

from wiki
quote
The Battle of the Atlantic was won by the Allies in two months. There was no single reason for this, but what had changed was a sudden convergence of technologies, combined with an increase in Allied resources.

The mid-Atlantic gap that had been unreachable by aircraft was closed by long-range B-24 Liberator aircraft. Effective employment of these aircraft required shift of operational control from the United States Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command to the United States Navy. At the May 1943 Trident conference, Admiral King requested General Henry H. Arnold to send a squadron of ASW-configured B-24s to Newfoundland to strengthen air escort of North Atlantic convoys. General Arnold ordered his squadron commander to engage only in "offensive" search and attack missions and not in escort-of-convoys. In June, General Arnold suggested the Navy assume responsibility for ASW operations. Admiral King requested the Army's ASW-configured B-24s in exchange for an equal number of unmodified Navy B-24s. Agreement was reached in July and the exchange was completed in September 1943.[16]

Further air cover was provided by the introduction of merchant aircraft carriers or MAC ships and later the growing numbers of American-built escort carriers. Flying primarily Grumman F4F/FM Wildcats and Grumman TBF/TBM Avengers, they sailed in the convoys and provided the much needed air cover and patrols all the way across the Atlantic.

The larger numbers of escorts became available, both as a result of American building programmes and the release of escorts that had been tied up in the North African landings during November and December 1942. In particular, destroyer escorts (similar British ships were known as frigates) were designed, which could be built more economically than expensive fleet destroyers and were also more seaworthy than corvettes. There would not only be sufficient numbers of escorts to securely protect convoys, they could also form hunter-killer groups (often centered around escort carriers) to aggressively hunt U-boats.

By spring 1943 the British had developed an effective sea-scanning centimetric radar small enough to be carried on patrol aircraft armed with airborne depth charges. Centimetric radar greatly improved detection and was undetectable by the German Metox radar warning equipment. Armed with radar, RAF Coastal Command sank more U-Boats than any other Allied service in the last three years of the war.[17] During the year 1943, U-Boat losses amounted to 258 to all causes. Of this total, 90 were sunk by Coastal Command, and 51 damaged.[18]

The continual breaking of the German naval Enigma enabled the Allied convoys to evade the wolf packs while British support groups and American hunter-killer groups were able to hunt U-boats that approached the convoys or whose positions were revealed by Enigma decrypts.

Allied air forces developed tactics and technology to make the Bay of Biscay, the main route for France-based U-boats, very dangerous. The introduction of the Leigh Light enabled accurate attacks on U-boats re-charging their batteries on the surface at night. The Luftwaffe responded by providing fighter cover for U-boats exiting into and returning from the Atlantic and for returning blockade runners. Still, with intelligence coming from resistance personnel in the ports themselves, the last few miles to and from port proved hazardous to many U-Boats.

Dönitz's aim, in this tonnage war was to sink Allied ships faster than they could be replaced; as losses fell, and production, particularly in the United States, rose, this became increasingly unachievable.
unquote
 
Last edited:
Markus said:
No doubt it was the most effective weapon the UK had.
Click to expand...

Last night I saw a documentary that said in 1939 the USA had the 17th largest army in the world, is that true?. In 1943 the 8th Airforce was so innefective it withdrew from the conflict to put a british engine and gunsight into one of its fighters. This cessation of activity was seen as little more than cowardice by Stalin whos airmen at times were being killed on a 10 to 1 ratio (and more)

American shipping was slaughtered by U boats in sight of the coast. The convoy system was a tragic joke with ships meeting up outside the port. The U boats would sink the ships as they travelled up the coast, the good citizens on the land helped the KM by leaving their lights on allowing merchant ships to be silhouetted against the light.
The American army took huge casualties in North Africa due to inexperience, thats where Patton got his chance
The USAAF had to stop raids due to losses/ poor equipment lack of escorts.

What were your "effective weapons" when the war started in 1939? And where were they at Pearl harbour? Every country involved in the war learned very hard lessons, your gloating does a disservice to those who learned the hard way in all services, especially your own countrymen. It was a persistent sub plot in the war that the USA was disparaging of UK methods.
Even though the USA had been a spectator for over 2 years they had no system for defending their shipping. Without ASDIC and centimetric radar it would be difficult to develop a defence. When the B17 was used in combat it was said to be unsuitable for unescorted raids by the RAF, the geniuses in the USAAF put this down to the RAF and had to re learn all the same tragic lessons. At D Day the British used a variety of equipment known a "Hobarts Funnies" which were dismissed by the USA armed forces. The need for these "funnies" was learned at Dieppe by Canadian and British troops......they would have reduced losses on Omaha beach for sure but Bradley and his commanders didnt need them, how many died at Omaha?
 
Last edited:
I have nothing but the utmost respect for any guy that took part in the air campaign over Europe and in hindsight I view this campaign as easy to pick apart both the 8th AF and BC's early efforts . \
However I have no problem slamming Harris he was the Allies WW2 version of Haig and the air battle he waged was akin to the WW1 Paschendale such questios bother me such as why did he wait for the U boat pens construction to finish prior to bombing them , why did he say Coastal Command was a waste of resources
 
Correlli Barnett ("Engage the Enemy More Closely") contains an interesting and accurate account of the U-Boat campaign particularly in the critical year of 1942.

There can be little doubt that Harris's penny pinching insofar as redirecting some bombers to ASW work was not one of his better decisions. He preferred to divert the whole of the command to attacks on the U-Boat production and logistics network (mostly direct attacks on ports and U-Boat Pens) . The reasons were twofold, firstly that the crews of the force lacked the necessary maritime skills to be effective in the maritime patrol role, and secondly there were strong pressures within the British leadership, dating back to the near admission of defeat in November 1941 (and the Butt Report) for the command to be broken up, and its assets redistributed elsewhere. BC had little to be cheery about at that time. The brilliance of Harris was his ability to turn a a defeated force into major instrument for victory in less than a year. One of his earliest achievements was to defeat the calls for the disbandment of BC. He did this by two means principally, by mounting the 1000 bomber raids and by resisting all calls for diversion of BC efforts away from its primary mission. IMO his second means to preserving BC as a force was done a little too purely. At a time when the U-Boats were decimating the convoys, Harris was refusing to allow even a few aircraft to work with CC.

Eventually however, this was done. Not all of BCs equipment was suitable to conversion to the maritime, but some of it was critical to the victory in the Atlantic. In particular, the VLR a/c (B-24s and some Wellingtons mostly).

Whilst it is justified to criticise Harris's intransigence on transferring some resources from BC to CC, it is completely another matter to argue that BC as an entity was a mistake. More of that in a minute…..how does the British experience compare with the US effort in the U-Boat war. At the time (early to mid 1942) shipping losses in the British controlled sector were quite low, and no great threat to Britain's survival. The real bloodletting on allied shipping was occurring in the US controlled sectors. The main reasons for this can be summarised as follows:

• "Uncle Ernies" refusal to institute convoys,
• "Uncle Ernies" refusal to allocate resources commensurate with the problem (the USN was still forming "hunter killer" groups, a concept that was unworkable until much later, and a concept tried and abandoned by the RN in 1939),
• A shortage of suitable escorts. The USN had badly ignored the need for dedicated ASW escorts, believing that fleet destroyers could fulfil the role, and that no special training or teamwork was needed. This was a major oversight by the USN
• An absolute refusal by Ernest King to accept any help in the developing crisis. In the agreed areas of USN operations, particularly the gulf of Mexico, he steadfastly refused any and all offers of British help.
• A similar refusal as BC was that the USAAAF refused to direct resources, particularly VLR resources to the ASW role. Just as the British wanted to maintain a potential for a bomber force, the USAAAF maintained a similar position

So, realistically, diverting the entire resources of BC would not have resulted in the decrease in the losses of shipping to any great extent at all. Later, as the focus of enemy u-Boat activity in 1943 shifted back to the British sector, enough VLR resources were available to tip the balance in favour of the british. After may 1943, the U-Boats were effectively defeated, though their presence remained until the end of the war. Diverting all the resources of BC might have had some effect in the months December 1942 through to March 1943, but would have had no effect on the battle. It would have been an enormous waste of effort to divert BCs resources to a "front" that was already under control. Worse than that in fact, since by direct action it has been estimated that in 1943 the bomber offensive reduced output of German military hardware in 1943 by 9%, and by 39% in 1940, (which by extension, means that U-Boat production was curtailed by a similar amount). And worse still the bomber offensive at that time (1943) was soaking up the resources needed to build the nightfighter forces and the flak arms. In 1943, the efforts of BC were in full swing, whereas the efforts by the 8AF did not really get seriously underway until the latter part of 1943, and whereas BC was faced by a force in excess of 1000 nightfighters, the 8AF was drawing the attentions of only about 600 SE fighters (in mid 1943)

WWII was not won by any single nation, and more pertinently, by any single weapon or offensive. The U-Boat war was important, but not the only front to worry about. The war in the MTO was important, but not the only front to worry about. So too were the battles in Normandy, and the eastern front, the underground resistance, the battles being fought on the eastern front…..and the battles in the air over Germany, by day and by night. The great strength of the allies was that they had the resources to bring the fight to the germans on multiple levels and on multiple fronts. It was the "death by a thousand cuts" under another name…….
 

I dont know when Harris said that but until the introduction of centrimetric Radar basically it was. An aeroplane could be seen/heard by a submarine in most cases before the submarine could be seen by an airplane. Covering the whole of the north sea and atlantic by patrols is a massive undertaking which yielded little until centimetric radar and many other things were introduced, see my previous post.

As for destruction of the U boat pens why not wait and let the Germans use their energy. The Germans constructed a fake decoy airfield in Holland so the RAF (informed by spies) let them build it and then a mosquito dropped a wooden bomb with "bang" written on it when it was completed.
 
Last edited:
tail end charlie said:
As for destruction of the U boat pens why not wait and let the Germans use their energy. .
Click to expand...
Its much easier to destroy when its open and you don't need grand slams and blockbusters to try and penetrate the concrete. The battle of Berlin and the raid on Nuremburg inccured losses of 8+% for the former and 12% for the latter
or a loss of 700 bombers if you include aircraft that returned but were written off
 
PBfoot

I am not an appologist for everything that Harris did but there were many raids on U boat pens, maybe they wanted to destroy U boats inside and the staff involved. Its easier to destroy something while its under construction but if you destroy it when its armour is completed you are saying dont bother building anymore.
I dont know the raids you are talking about so its just a thought.
 
pbfoot said:
The battle of Berlin and the raid on Nuremburg inccured losses of 8+% for the former and 12% for the latter
or a loss of 700 bombers if you include aircraft that returned but were written off
Click to expand...

Which is an admittedly very heavy and unsustainable loss rate. However if we are going to include write offs, then we should also include axis write offs in their loss sheets in that same period. According to Murray, losses incl write offs in 1943 were running at about 1000 machines per month. In 1944 this increased to nearly 2000 machines per month at the end of the year. These loss rates would have shrunk to nearly nothing if not for the bombers constantly attacking Germany. In the final reckoning, one also has to consider that BC was given credit for the loss in production of 9% of german output in 1943, and 17% in 1944.

I would say that whilst the price was high, and too high whilst the loss rates were above 3%, it was still a price worth paying, given what was inflicted on the Germans
 


Parsifal the bare statistics omit a vital detail.

I live near old WW2 bomber airfields and a heavy industrial area. The bombers going out on a night was a psychological boost for the whole population hearing them go to "mete out to them the measure, and more than the measure" (as Churchill said) that is impossible to measure, the fact that we were fighting back by whatever means kept the nation going. Everybody knew what a grim business it was.
 
Markus said:
Yes, something is better than nothing but the question Britain faced after the Fall of France was not do we do something but what do do. Burn down their towns or save our merchant ships? I think saving ships would have been much more effective.
Click to expand...

They did save their merchant ships. The question was what offensive action could the UK take against Hitler's Germany. You insinuated that Britian could have done something with the Navy and Army as an alternative to bombing thus the BC veteran's commentary regarding BC being their only weapon to use was "nonsense" according to you. Yet you are unable to come up with a viable and realistic alternative. All you could suggest was the the RN and/or army concern itself with Logistics (??) and that the Med offered good prospects. The former suggestion is frankly, non-sensible....the RN was already ensuring that Britian's "logistics" remained viable and was also primary a defensive action. The Navy was not capable of conducting any meaningful offensive action against Germany while the British Army at best was only capable of battlling the Italians and their small German allied contingent in a distant secondary theater. All this leaves Germany itself untouched. Despite this, you continue to portray BC's efforts negatively. (i.e. "burning towns" etc)

You also fail to address the points made regarding the 8AF's own efforts which also ultimately resorted to the same Area Bombing (or "Blind bombing" /Radar Bombing as they liked to call it)

It is also evident that you don't appreciate the value for a nation at war, with it's very survival at stake to be able to strike back directly at it's antagonist. There are political and morale issues to be dealt with here as well. Not all nations had two oceans between them as shields...yet one can easily recall the outrage and panic that ensued in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
 

Agreed.

Here's a nice blurb from Donald Miller's "Masters of the Air" regarding the missions around the time of Dresden.

The Eighth AF was never capable of precisely hitting a marshalling yard obscured by smoke or clouds. Young men died trying, but HQ was apparantly not satisfied with heroic failures. After the war, it cleansed its bombing records. During the war, Eighth AF's group commanders made no attempt to disquise what they were doing. While the targets might be designated as "marshalling yards," the after-action summaries are perfectly clear about what was destroyed. "The low squadron pattern hit in the central city area and compact residential district fully built up," read the typical mission summary, this one from the October 7, 1944 Dresden raid. Yet after the war, when anonymous Air Force historians compiled two massive statistical compendiums of American strategic bombing missions-reports still widely used by independent historians-neither volume listed "city area" as a target catagory. As Richard Davis, a senior historian with the Air Force History Support Office wrote: "The unknown hand of hands" that put together the reports "changed all raids striking city areas to 'marshalling yards' or 'port' or 'industrial areas.' And all raids on central Berlin were changed to a special catagory expressly reserved for that city, "Military Civil Government Area." It is as if the American Air Force in Europe never sent a single sortie against an enemy city.

This calculated policy of obfuscation began during the war with the press releases of the Air Force's formidable public relations machine, second to none in the services, not even that of the Marines. General Frederick Anderson cabled a worried Hap Arnold with this reassuring news: "Public relations officers have been advised to take exceptional care tha the military nature of targets attacked in the future be specified and emphasized in all cases. As in the past the statement that an attack was made on such and such a city will be avoided; specific targets will be described."
 
Nikademus said:
They did save their merchant ships.
Click to expand...

Not nearly as many as they could have saved.



Actually the BC´s offensive was worse. I dug up some stats about the amount of bombs dropped on Europe by the Brits:

40: ~16k tons
41: ~46k tons
42: ~74k tons
43: ~213k tons
44: ~703k tons

As you can see when the bomber was the only weapon with which the UK could directly attack Germany, the UK didn´t have a large bomber fleet. And when it had large bomber fleet it had an Army on the ground in Italy and another in France, meaning BC was no longer the UK´s only weapon.



First of all I strongly disagree about the RN´s success. While few convoys lost many ships and most were in fact not attacked at all shiplosses were still severe, 1124 ships with 5.3 million GRT.
Second the Med was the UK´s best option in 40/41. A few more or less charred towns in Germany are nothing compared to the Axis evicted from NA, a secure SLOC though the Med and NA as a base for threathening the Axis southern flank. That won´t hit Germany directly but by weakening Italy you weaken Germany indirectly.


It is also evident that you don't appreciate the value for a nation at war, with it's very survival at stake to be able to strike back directly at it's antagonist.
Click to expand...

If your nations survival is at stake, how about defending yourself? And when you go on the offensive wouldn´t it be nice to do so in an effective manner? The very last thing you should do is get on the offensive with an insecure line of communication. Your remark about "concerning itself with Logistics (??)" indicates you greatly underestimate the importance of logistics.
 
".... Not all nations had two oceans between them as shields...yet one can easily recall the outrage and panic that ensued in the wake of Pearl Harbor."

A very strong point.

I remember Mom's oldest brother, Richard, who served in WW1 and WW2 - in #2 he was deemed too old for combat so used to act as a senior officer for troops traveling across to GB on the Queen Mary. He described how he heard the bombers leave at night and then saw them returning at early light with engines missing, holes in the wings, limping back to Britain. Talk about moral and psychology ..... there had never been anything quite like that before in warfare (since the days of fighting outside the city walls ).

It was so very important for Britains to see first hand that the fight was being taken to the Germans relentlessly, night after night and at any price. I am NOT a big Bomber Harris fan but I would not have wanted his job.

Whatever the butcher's bill incurred by BC they were learning and I do not have the sense of utter futility about their Ops that I feel when I read about the static set-piece land battles of WW1.

A final point to consider: Britain bombed by night (for reasons we all understand here). America bombed by day. There are two entirely different bodies of photographic evidence (homefront propaganda, if you prefer ) associated with the two campaigns. And much American material was shot in colour. You just have to look at BikerBabes "WW1 in Colour" post to get the signifigance of this. There are no agonizing film clips of the wings folding up on Lancs (like B-24's) or slanting in inverted (like B-17's) just black sky and flames and a final explosion. Both day and night operations were ghastly.

Somehow I prefer those Mosquito strikes that were fast, low and stealthy .

MM
Proud Canadian
 
 
Last edited:
Markus said:
Not nearly as many as they could have saved.
Click to expand...

Speculation. What matters is that they survived. Clay Blair did argue that it would have served a better purpose had more BC bombers been assigned to Coastal Command duty....but later admited that in terms of final results it probably would not have changed things much. In the case of 1939-41 this was certainly true as the technological tools that made Air ASW so decisive were not yet in place. This remains a defensive action however which is the central point.

Actually the BC´s offensive was worse. I dug up some stats about the amount of bombs dropped on Europe by the Brits:
Click to expand...

So now it's a question of which AirForce was more effective?


Irrelevent. BC, regardless of it's strength levels was the only tool available for direct offensive action against Germany. Citing the later war situation is irrelevent to this argument because per the Allied conferences (primarily Casablanca), a full scale strategic bombing campaign by both nations was to be waged.

First of all I strongly disagree about the RN´s success. While few convoys lost many ships and most were in fact not attacked at all shiplosses were still severe, 1124 ships with 5.3 million GRT.
Click to expand...

Per Clay Blair's two volume work on the Uboat war the damage was severe but did not come close to severing Britian's lifeline. 98% of all inbound laden ships in convoy made it through. (12,057 ships in 900 convoys of which 291 were sunk) New construction added 2 million tons of shipping added to the lease or purchase of another 4 million tons of shipping. Blair showed that during the war against the UK alone their merchant fleet actually grew in size from 17.8 million tons to 20.7. In return the RN wiped out 35% of the ocean-going Uboat force (153 boats) sent to attack them. (54 boats sunk) I think they did well enough.

Second the Med was the UK´s best option in 40/41.
Click to expand...

The Med was a sideshow made possible by Italian indescretion. The Germans made it important by going there and providing force levels small enough for Britian to fight against and learn. The British did not make it happen. The Germans reinforced failure by continuing the fight with insufficient force levels to complete the job ultimately providing a training ground for the American ground forces as well.


They did defend themselves and you continue to ignore the effects on morale and civilian mindsets in regards to offensive actions of any kind. The Germans continued to bomb the British Isles even after the Battle of Britian. The only weapon of retaliation was BC. I understand logisitcs fine. I questioned your use of the term because it didn't make sense.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

N
dive bomber and torpedo bomber
Replies
2
Views
4K
tomo pauk
WWI vet / founder of RAF becomes oldest man
Replies
4
Views
3K
Crunch
C
B
looking for DO-217 bomber stuff
2
Replies
20
Views
8K
Micdrow
Enemy kills numbers for bomber crews
Replies
2
Views
2K
drgondog
Anti Submarine Command Document
Replies
1
Views
3K
Jan7
Menu
Log in
Register