Searching a good book about A-20 actions at the "Battle Of The Bulge"

[pirate_smee]

Hello,
do anyone know a good book(s) about the ground attack mission in the Netherlands and Ardennes between 1944-1945 of A-20 or other light bombers like the Mosquito or B-25.
I want to know more about the missions, tactics etc.

 

[MIflyer]

Best book I know of about air actions in the Bulge is "To Win The Winter Sky," I don't recall if it covers the A-20's.

There is another one about Operation Bodenplate and I think it is by the same author, but I can't lay my hands on it right now.

In general there does not seem to be much available about the A-20, B-26, and A-26 operations in the ETO

 

[pirate_smee]

Thx, for the quick answer. I living in Aachen, part of those operations and it for me sometimes quite shocking to see the old news reels where I can identify the street and buildings they are fighting so I want to learn more on the subject.

 

[MIflyer]

As described in To Win The Winter Sky, the USAAF pulled an interesting "dirty trick" during the Bulge. When the weather cleared enough for ground attack aircraft to attack the Germans, and knowing that the Germans would use all of their available fighters to try to keep the attacks from being successful, the USAAF would pick out a nearby German City. Heavy bombers from England would attack the city at the same time that the Allied fighter bombers were hitting the German troops in the Bulge. The Luftwaffe was faced with being unable to both stop the fighter bomber attacks and defend the city. The militarily correct choice would have been to try to intercept the fighter bombers and at least get them to jettison their bomb and rocket loads. But at the time the Luftwaffe was having trouble being able to hold its head up in public. They were often told things like, "Yesterday 500 American bombers hit our city and the Luftwaffe was no where to be seen." In reality the Luftwaffe was up there, too, trying to defend the city while being outnumbered 10 to 1 and taking huge losses, but on the ground it was not apparent they were even in the game. So the Luftwaffe would have to assign some fighters to defend the city, even though it would not aid the ground battle..

 

[pirate_smee]

I don't think that the government in Berlin care anything about the civilians. Here in Aachen when the city was surrounded with enemy troops and the mayor wanted to evacuate the civilains the orders where to shoot every one that leave the city. Fortunately some disobey the orders and some people could leave the city in the night. The mayor was arrested. I knew an old British bomber pilot that was living here in Aachen, he told me after the war he wasn't able to return to England because he felt guilty of what he had done, not to the military, but the city bombing, he sadly pasted away several years ago.

 

[taly01]

because he felt guilty of what he had done, not to the military, but the city bombing

Most governments are happy to fight to the last civilian, but it seems WW2 was the first time all sides made civilians the main casualty. I don't think it will ever happen again like that, it was a combination of a large supply of highly destructive and low accuracy weapons (heavy bombers). Its possible that WW2 heavy bombers killed as many innocents as any concentration camp or gulag system did (once you include the war in Asia with Europe).

about the ground attack mission in the Netherlands and Ardennes between 1944-1945 of A

P.S. I have also been looking for in-depth information of the air war during Battle of the Bulge, but haven't found much detailed on it at the mission level either. It was quite a short period of time over a long war. Check out books on the British and American Tactical Air Forces and it covers the tactics and planes used. I never realised there was such a specific command of air forces until I was researching D-Day

 

[MIflyer]

I was surprised by the information in the book "The Bombers and the Bombed."

The RAF in the British home islands was designed as an air force focused on two things:
1. The defense of the home islands.
2. Strategic attacks on enemy cities.

Now, given how close things are in Western Europe, this is understandable. With most countries small enough to all fit into Texas at the same time, everybody was vulnerable to attack from everyone else. It sure looked like it would be easier to bomb Berlin - or for that matter, Paris - than it would be to attack armies in the field. No wonder the RAF was so crummy at interdiction and CAS when the war broke out.

Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris was devoted utterly to the idea of forcing a German surrender by "dehousing" the German population. He resented any use of Bomber Command for any other purpose, even attacking German industries. The RAF night attacks on German cities were not exactly a waste of time but never came close to being a war winner. The Germans were always more afraid of their own government than they were the Allied bombs.

Not until after the war did Harris admit, "The Americans had it right. We should have gone in with them and focused on German oil supplies and production."

And since then even some British historians admitted that the American daylight attacks were far more effective in that their "side effect" was the destruction of the Luftwaffe.

 

[pirate_smee]

The bombing of civilians doesn't helped at all.
After the massive attacks of Hamburg of July 1943, the population volunteered to defend their city. Hamburg was part of the Hanse and very world open before.
Also the bombing of Dresden with large amount of refugees, was playing in the hands of the Nazis. Also it was a waste of human lives of the bomber pilots.
I hope we get a time where there is no war at all.
"Dulce bellum inexpertis": War is pleasant to those who not tried it.
Found it in the book "Focus on Europe" Squadron 544 aPUR Mosquito unit of 41 pilots 30 where killed.

 

[taly01]

Not until after the war did Harris admit, "The Americans had it right. We should have gone in with them and focused on German oil supplies and production."

I never could understand that after enduring the Battle of Britain in 1940 the English could think that attacking housing destroys moral when they found the opposite was true with themselves. It seems logical to have given preference to military or production centres but the "Bomber Lobby" inflated their own ability, although sadly they were proven right by the end of WW2 where 1000 bomber raids and A-Bombs could destroy cities. The "Luftwaffe-Hitler" were no better with their spiteful V1 and V2 programs.

The bombing of civilians doesn't helped at all.

I would allow for short term tactical use but otherwise it seems ethically unsupportable, and like you said actually hardens the population against you.