3 September 1939. First RAF Bomber Command operation against Germany.
12 May 1944. First effective RAF Bomber Command attack on hydrogenation plants.
If hydrogenation plants were so easy to bomb then why did the RAF require 56 months to seriously impair production of German aviation gasoline?[/
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In 1939 germany did not suffe from critical shortages of oil. it had large prewar reserves, access to Rumanian Oil, some access to neutral oil and the hydrogenation plants.
There was an embargo on strategic bombing until after the invasion of france, and for much of the summer the RAF was fully preoccupied with bombing targets thought to be of immediate impact to the battle of france. BC was concentrating at that time on communications....a poor choice of target but legitimate.
The real bombin effort against strategic targets in Germany did not begin until november 1940, and then at a miniscule level and at night . for that first year of the campaign, to november 1941, the night bombing campaign was undertaken on the assumption that night bombing could be undertaken as a precision bombing campaign. Oil was a legiti
mate target but was not the priority......main focus of this early campaign was still communications, followed by u-boats there was also some priority given to electrical generation from memory. As is well known, there was a spectacular lack of success in precision targets, moreover oil was still not the priority for the RAF.
1942 was the first oil crisis suffered by the German army and air force....brought on by a shortage of certain kinds of fuels and a shortage of transport to the front rather than a shortage of actual crude oil. the shortages were real enough and had a tangible effect on Axis strategy and war potential. The italian fleet and to a lesser extent the german heavy fleet were severely constrained by oil shortages, the luftwaffes ability to train and exapand wa limited, the ability of Rommels army to exploit local successes was also constrained by fuel limits, the ability of the armies on the east front to undertake a front wide offensive was constrained, and lastly german strategic decisions were by now being greatly influenced by fuel shortages. i dont know how much effect british actions were affeecting this shortage, but it is at least arguable that the naval blockade, the diplomentic isolation of germany and of course the effects of bombing were all playing some part in that strangulation of the german war effort. it certainly wasnt doing it any good.
it was, however, the US decision to concentrate their daylight offensive on oil from January 1944 with fully escorted raids all the way to the targets that proved decisive. germany by then, in terms of oil reserves had staged a partial recovery, though not without cost. She had severely curtailed bomber production, reduced training for aircrew to dangerous levels, curtailed and cut back on the size and usage of her fleet. sure, all these things were also due to other issues, but oil shortages were playing their part as well into this descent.
So, ther are two things to say in response to your claim. the first is that far from being made fireproof from oil shortages prior to 1944, germany had an ongoing and chronic problem that appears to have been exacerbated by the activities of the allies (which for practical purposes were the activities of the british and the CW rather than the Us up to that time). The second is that once the hydrogenation plant became the focuss of a credible threat from a properly protected and sizable precision daylight force, it folded very rapidly. German resistance was shortened by at least a year as a result of US precision bombing of oil targetes (joined belatedly by the RAF from about September)