ArtKramr wrote:

Subject: #1 Jet of World War II
From: Guy Alcala
Date: 7/23/03 7:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

bombs and dropping from higher up, but it's by no means certain that's the
case
(unlike some on the NG, I don't rule out the possibility, but the only way to
find
out for sure would have been to actually try it, and that didn't happen).


I guess it is possible to destroy Berlin one house at a time, But that isn't
the best way to get the job done.

That assumes that destroying German houses was our (the U.S.A.A.F.) avowed policy
and doctrine. It wasn't, although as a practical matter the U.S. stopped worrying
about doing area bombing with the heavies from the fall of 1943 on to the end of
the war. If we could see to bomb visually, great; otherwise, we'd bomb by radar
or other radio navaids with a 2 or 3 mile CEP, which is area bombing by anyone's
standard. Of course, even when the heavies could bomb visually, 'precision' was
relative. Here's Elmer Bendiner, a B-17 Nav. in the 379th BG(H), talking about
the June '43 mission against the I.G. Farben synthetic rubber plant at Huls, in
the Ruhr. Writing some 35 years later, he says:

"Our losses, including those of the main and diversionary forces, amounted to 20
planes, two hundred men, roughly ten percent. Nevertheless, our superiors were
pleased with us because we had dropped 422 tons bombs and, according to the
reconnaissance photos, only 333.4 tons had been wasted on homes, streets, public
parks, zoos, department stores and air-raid shelters. This passed for precision.

"Actually Huls might have been put out of comission permanently if there had been
a follow-up. After our mission the city went almost unscathed right to the end of
the war. We had devastated buidlings and shaken morale, but tire production,
although on a limited scale, was resumed within a month. Synthetic-rubber
production suffered perhaps six months but soon was reaching new peaks. I have
searched the records and find no explanation for our failure to return and finish
the job. The Germans were astonished at the time. After the war American
scholars of our air strategy were surprised, but nobody nitpicks a victory. A
cold analysis of the balance sheet at Huls indicates that the lives lost that day
-- American and German, in the air, on the ground, and in shelters underground --
had not brought closer the end of the war or of Hitler. But at the time we did
not know the price and thought we had a bargain."

As Bendiner writes, the Huls raid was considered by us at the time to have
achieved excellent bombing results. IIRR, "Impact" devoted an article to the
mission.

Guy