Was RAF Bomber Command Too Afraid To Fly Daylight Missions?

[Barrett]

Agree with the assessment that the RAF was sensible more than afraid. Unless we criticize the command for fears of unsustainable losses!

The video seems to omit an important aspect: the disastrous December 1939 attack on German ships in Heligoland Bight. Lost 12 of 22, leading to a drastic change in policy. Daylight missions incurred heavy losses so Bomber Command shifted largely to night. Heaven knows, those losses were bad enough...

Battle of the Heligoland Bight (1939) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mig2830]

The answer is yes, they were just as Afraid. In fact the night war over Germany brought the RAF Bomber command so close to mutiny, that they had to cancel the first Berlin offensive due to a loss rate of close to 10% and higher.

So it wasn't much better in the day light, where the fighter did not need radar etc. to find them

 

[Maxrobot1]

In "The Destruction of Dresden" by Avid Irving (1963), the author reviews the British night bombing strategy and implimentation that led up to that raid. He passes on some information that is not brought up by others. For example, we are so used to the way American bomber raids were organized and carried out that we skip over the RAF ways. For example - night bombers were given the target and suggested flight paths, then each bomber took off on its own to find that target, hopefully designated by colored flares dropped by pathfinders who flew in while there was still some daylight, or twilight. They did not fly in formation and rarely saw another bomber in their group unless the moon was out. Often they would just see the flames as another bomber went down. This made it difficult to report back on who's plane they saw go down.
RAF crews had a derogotory name for planes that went out in the dark, dumped their bombs (not on the target) and came back. They were called Rabbits. The first serious bombing survey done by the RAF showed remarkably small amount of bombs were dropped even within 5 miles of the target.
Also, German hospitals were marked with blue lights on the roof.

 

[Maxrobot1]

A review of the book I wrote a little while ago -
The Destruction of Dresden
Avid Irving 1963 This printing, March 1968
287 pages with appendixes and index Ballantine Books NY

"The single biggest massacre in European history," according to this author, took place as a result of the triple-blow air raids over the night of February 13-14, 1945 when successive waves of British and American bombers bombed the Eastern German city of Dresden. In this book, the author covers so many aspects of the raid that I took four pages of notes.
Dresden was acknowledged as a cultural center for arts, music, and architectural beauty. There were wartime rumors that the city had not been bombed because of a secret deal with England – Germany would not bomb Oxford and the British would not bomb Dresden. Many Germans believed the city was safe from air attack since it had no factories making any particular war materials, though it did have small shops and an optical facility. Some RAF personnel questioned whether it was really the target, or had there been a mistake? The war was still raging, though the end was inevitable in February 1945. The Red Army was 90 miles from the city center. Evacuees fleeing the advancing Red Army had flooded the city; its hospitals were full while schools were being converted to handle more patients. Allied prisoner of war camps were in the suburbs. Prison camps in the East that were being moved were passing through the city as well.
The city had no massive air raid shelter, and in fact, searchlights and anti-aircraft guns had been moved to other parts of Germany in October the year before. It was undefended. (The book cover's artwork is incorrect – the AA guns had been pulled out to use as anti-tank guns elsewhere.)
The residents had seen 171 false air raid alarms before that night when the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiary bombs, plus many 4,000 and 8,000 pound blockbuster bombs, on the old historic residential part of the city (not the suburbs with the rail yards and small factories). A
And that was just the first wave that struck at 10:10 PM. At 1:30 AM the second wave struck – timed to interrupt the firefighting attempts and cause a fire-storm.
The American B-17s dropped their bombs just after 12 noon on the 14th (Ash Wednesday) but because 9/10ths cloud cover, their bombs (aimed at the railway yards) fell wide into residential sections. P-51 Mustangs swooped down and strafed columns and masses of people fleeing and rescue people heading in. Again, there was no anti-aircraft fire. No German night fighters met the bombers either.
One whole U.S. Bomb group bombed the wrong city. (They mistakenly bombed Prague, Czechoslovakia)
The result, according to this book, was the death of 135,000 people in one day. The results caused a furor in London and Washington, D.C. "Were terror raids being conducted or strategic bombing of industrial facilities?"
The book covers the grisly recovery and attempts to identify bodies. The well-organized Germans did their best under the circumstances. However, four buckets of gold wedding bands tagged from bodies for identification (the wearers initials and sometimes wedding dates were engraved) disappeared when the Red Army took them. As can be imagined, there was much finger pointing among the Allies. That too is covered in the book.
One thing to take away from reading this was my wondering how modern emergency preparedness measures would do under such circumstances.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

The number of 135,000 is almost certainly overstating things, according to what I've read.

 

[buffnut453]

The number of 135,000 is almost certainly overstating things, according to what I've read.

By a considerable margin...more than 5 times the postwar totals determined by Germany.

With Soviet forces only 90 miles from the city, Dresden was a transportation hub for German troops being brought in to try and stem the Soviet advance, with major communications axes in both east-west and north-south directions. Whatever Dresden was pre-war, by February 1945 it was anything but a worthless target bombed purely for vengeful purposes.

 

[GrauGeist]

The vastly inflated death toll was first announced by Goebbels in a press release issued literally while parts of the city still burned. A master of propaganda, his work seems to be perpetual.

Here's a well written artical that covers the event in detail:

Embers

Will a prideful city finally confront its past?

www.newyorker.com

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

By a considerable margin...more than 5 times the postwar totals determined by Germany.

With Soviet forces only 90 miles from the city, Dresden was a transportation hub for German troops being brought in to try and stem the Soviet advance, with major communications axes in both east-west and north-south directions. Whatever Dresden was pre-war, by February 1945 it was anything but a worthless target bombed purely for vengeful purposes.

Right, without trying to diminish the terror-bombing aspect, it does no service to inflate the numbers killed. It's sad that 35-40,000 were killed, and there seems to be regret even with Churchill, but hindsight is 20/20.

 

[buffnut453]

A review of the book I wrote a little while ago -
The Destruction of Dresden
Avid Irving 1963 This printing, March 1968
287 pages with appendixes and index Ballantine Books NY

"The single biggest massacre in European history," according to this author, took place as a result of the triple-blow air raids over the night of February 13-14, 1945 when successive waves of British and American bombers bombed the Eastern German city of Dresden. In this book, the author covers so many aspects of the raid that I took four pages of notes.
Dresden was acknowledged as a cultural center for arts, music, and architectural beauty. There were wartime rumors that the city had not been bombed because of a secret deal with England – Germany would not bomb Oxford and the British would not bomb Dresden. Many Germans believed the city was safe from air attack since it had no factories making any particular war materials, though it did have small shops and an optical facility. Some RAF personnel questioned whether it was really the target, or had there been a mistake? The war was still raging, though the end was inevitable in February 1945. The Red Army was 90 miles from the city center. Evacuees fleeing the advancing Red Army had flooded the city; its hospitals were full while schools were being converted to handle more patients. Allied prisoner of war camps were in the suburbs. Prison camps in the East that were being moved were passing through the city as well.
The city had no massive air raid shelter, and in fact, searchlights and anti-aircraft guns had been moved to other parts of Germany in October the year before. It was undefended. (The book cover's artwork is incorrect – the AA guns had been pulled out to use as anti-tank guns elsewhere.)
The residents had seen 171 false air raid alarms before that night when the RAF dropped 650,000 incendiary bombs, plus many 4,000 and 8,000 pound blockbuster bombs, on the old historic residential part of the city (not the suburbs with the rail yards and small factories). A
And that was just the first wave that struck at 10:10 PM. At 1:30 AM the second wave struck – timed to interrupt the firefighting attempts and cause a fire-storm.
The American B-17s dropped their bombs just after 12 noon on the 14th (Ash Wednesday) but because 9/10ths cloud cover, their bombs (aimed at the railway yards) fell wide into residential sections. P-51 Mustangs swooped down and strafed columns and masses of people fleeing and rescue people heading in. Again, there was no anti-aircraft fire. No German night fighters met the bombers either.
One whole U.S. Bomb group bombed the wrong city. (They mistakenly bombed Prague, Czechoslovakia)
The result, according to this book, was the death of 135,000 people in one day. The results caused a furor in London and Washington, D.C. "Were terror raids being conducted or strategic bombing of industrial facilities?"
The book covers the grisly recovery and attempts to identify bodies. The well-organized Germans did their best under the circumstances. However, four buckets of gold wedding bands tagged from bodies for identification (the wearers initials and sometimes wedding dates were engraved) disappeared when the Red Army took them. As can be imagined, there was much finger pointing among the Allies. That too is covered in the book.
One thing to take away from reading this was my wondering how modern emergency preparedness measures would do under such circumstances.

You do realize that Irving is a racist and anti-Semite who repeatedly and stridently denied that holocaust ever happened? Are you also aware that virtually all of his assertions in his Dresden book have been discredited?

 

[ColFord]

Maybe someone should do a little reading about RAF daytime bombing operations during WW2 before making YouTube videos. Like quite a few others who post via various forms of social media, done to get the 'outrage' going and viewer counts up to improve their statistics, without any real in depth understanding of the subject or the history of what really happened.

Good place to start,

 

[pbehn]

In "The Destruction of Dresden" by Avid Irving (1963), the author reviews the British night bombing strategy and implimentation that led up to that raid. He passes on some information that is not brought up by others. For example, we are so used to the way American bomber raids were organized and carried out that we skip over the RAF ways. For example - night bombers were given the target and suggested flight paths, then each bomber took off on its own to find that target, hopefully designated by colored flares dropped by pathfinders who flew in while there was still some daylight, or twilight. They did not fly in formation and rarely saw another bomber in their group unless the moon was out. Often they would just see the flames as another bomber went down. This made it difficult to report back on who's plane they saw go down.
RAF crews had a derogotory name for planes that went out in the dark, dumped their bombs (not on the target) and came back. They were called Rabbits. The first serious bombing survey done by the RAF showed remarkably small amount of bombs were dropped even within 5 miles of the target.
Also, German hospitals were marked with blue lights on the roof.

Didnt some of the US bombers bomb Czechoslovakia instead of Dresden on that raid? From Wiki 316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden, dropping 771 tons of bombs.[72][73] The remaining 115 bombers from the stream of 431 misidentified their targets. Sixty bombed Prague, dropping 153 tons of bombs, while others bombed Brux and Pilsen.

 

[Macandy]

Not 'afraid', just shifted doctrine to match reality.
Once the RAF had blind bombing aids, night time bombing accuracy was no worse, and often better, than daylight raids.

Its also glossed over that once the USAAF had the P-51B, a significant part of the heavy bombers mission was to force the Luftwaffe to come up and fight and be destroyed in detail over the Reich.

 

[pbehn]

Not 'afraid', just shifted doctrine to match reality.
Once the RAF had blind bombing aids, night time bombing accuracy was no worse, and often better, than daylight raids.

Its also glossed over that once the USAAF had the P-51B, a significant part of the heavy bombers mission was to force the Luftwaffe to come up and fight and be destroyed in detail over the Reich.

It sometimes had exactly the same accuracy because they used exactly the same equipment, most of the US bombers that bombed Dresden used H2X.

 

[Peter Gunn]

I skimed through some of this clip. While very informative, in my opinion the title of this clip, although a very poor attempt to be thought-provoking, is an insult to those who flew in bomber command. it's a well-known fact why bomber command operated at night. My dad used to have a saying, "so smart, but yet so dumb."

Agreed, although dad used the more biblical "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" or would paraphrase "Professing themselves to be wise, they prove themselves fools".

I've found I agree with that statement more than I'd like as I get older. Not to brag, but all four of our kids are smart cookies, we've seen to it that they know their history and can talk intelligently on it (much to the chagrin of more than one college "professor"). Their friends however... ye gods and little fishes. I once had to point out the American Civil War was NOT between the North and Nazi Germany.

 

[Macandy]

In "The Destruction of Dresden" by Avid Irving (1963), the author reviews the British night bombing strategy and implimentation that led up to that raid. He passes on some information that is not brought up by others. For example, we are so used to the way American bomber raids were organized and carried out that we skip over the RAF ways. For example - night bombers were given the target and suggested flight paths, then each bomber took off on its own to find that target, hopefully designated by colored flares dropped by pathfinders who flew in while there was still some daylight, or twilight. They did not fly in formation and rarely saw another bomber in their group unless the moon was out. Often they would just see the flames as another bomber went down. This made it difficult to report back on who's plane they saw go down.
RAF crews had a derogotory name for planes that went out in the dark, dumped their bombs (not on the target) and came back. They were called Rabbits. The first serious bombing survey done by the RAF showed remarkably small amount of bombs were dropped even within 5 miles of the target.
Also, German hospitals were marked with blue lights on the roof.

Indeed, and contemporary recollections mention the surprising number of blue on blue and other avoidable losses caused by the tactic.
Officially, you didn't record that the 'suspected nightfighter' you shot down in flames was rather obviously once it was on fire another plane in the bomber stream that had crossed your path in the dark, nor the fact you bombed the target with friendlies crossing below you.
Another surprising cause of losses was bombers going feet dry with navigation and or cabin lights on. Many pilots mentioning seeing that, but with strict radio silence enforced, you didn't call a warning.


Rabbits?
Yes, fuel tanks were checked when you came back to catch out the ones who would fly out over the North Sea and circle until near home time and head back.
Ditto 'aborted mission due to < x > problem' - the CO would ask to see the engineers report.
Eventually, all bombers were fitted with a photoflash that captured a picture of your bomb drop over the target to catch out the ones bombing en countryside.

 

[Macandy]

It sometimes had exactly the same accuracy because they used exactly the same equipment, most of the US bombers that bombed Dresden used H2X.

In clear air over California, the Norden sight could indeed hit targets with extradonary precious, but…

The endlessly bad and cloudy weather over Europe, and especially the relentless industrial smog over the Ruhr, meant that you didn't see much or any of the target over Germany in the day vs night.
Yes, the USAAF did eventually acquire H2X, because they so often either aborted or bombing through overcast by dead reckoning.
Once the RAF had refined their Pathfinder force, the main force was bombing targets with very good accuracy by night

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Well its a pretty stupid way to frame the question of bomber losses anyway, for a start, no airman in the world could refuse to fly a mission, its orders, you go.

Secondly, the people planning and ordering the missions are hardly going to be afraid, they`re not on the aircraft !

Finally, anyone going up in any bomber in wartime on any side - who wasn't afraid, must have been an idiot or a psychopath.

As a "comment"

I dont think the losses were THAT different either, bomber command was basically 46>51% death rate (depending on the source), I cant see the 8th AF losses in
deaths as the 75% or 80% quoted include those taken prisoner (which was a LOT). Probably if you remove POW from
the 8th losses, I doubt there is a gigantic difference either way. (happy to be corrected with firm data)

 

[Frog]

Carrot eating vampires?

Blueberry eating vampires.

 

[Engineman]

At the start of bombing by the RAF in WW2, they suffered very heavy casualties in daylight raids on Europe. The RAF had no fighters able to escort the bombers and the cloak of night
was then used to try and reduce loss rates. The whole RAF bombing strategy became locked within the policy of night Ops. Initially, "the Bomber will always get through" mentality
prevailed, even though the cloak of night was being used. Also, blind faith was used to pretend that accurate bombing was being achieved at night. The truth in the early years was that few bombers got within miles of their targets. Eventually, Night area bombing was used, although always claimed to be targeting industry or military targets within the target area.
Accuracy later got better with Radar, Oboe, Gee and Pathfinding. Mosquito night fighters were also used later for bomber stream protection.
The whole Allied bombing campaign is a long and bloody tale.

Eng

 

[MIflyer]

The RAF flew quite a few heavy bomber daylight missions in direct support of ground troops after 6 Jun 1944. In at least one case a daylight mission to the Cherbourg area was escorted by Mossies. Later in the war the RAF heavies flew quite a few daylight missions.

In fact the RAF started flying Mustang III tactical missions over France in early in 1944. They could have flown escorts.

It is difficult to say whether Bomber Harris focused on "dehousing" missions because he thought they would be effective in defeating Germany or because he recognized that was the main thing the RAF could do when flying night missions. After the war, Harris himself admitted the American plan to go after the German oil industry would have been the correct use of his bomber force. And even some British analysis have pointed out that the USAAF daylight raids were far more effective than the RAF night attacks because, regardless of the actual industrial damage done, they destroyed the Luftwaffe..

As for the RAF being "afraid" I recall one veteran pointed out that in addition to the RAF bombers going out, there were Luftwaffe night fighters intercepting them, RAF Serrate Beaus and Mossies going after the German night fighters, RAF jammer aircraft, RAF night intruders, German bombers and RAF night fighters after them, and various aircraft picking up and dropping off agents in the occupied countries: "It is a good thing it was night because if we had been able to see all what was going on, it would have been bloody terrifying!"