Welcome to a favourite Walter tactic, the multiple replies of around
one sentence at a time, rather than try a coherent single reply.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
But it explains that the RAF was committed to bombing the Reich years before
the US left its shores to join the party.

Exactly.

And the Germans are clear that the Americans hurt them much worse than the
British did.

Walter has a few carefully selected quotes to try and "prove" this.

The latest effort is apparently to drop the comparison to the US
versus Britain, not the Commonwealth, which hives off large
sections of the non US air and ground forces attacking the Germans
in the west.

The Kreigsmarine would disagree, the Luftwaffe would look at
the long and short term effects of the Battle of Britain, and the
costs of the continued campaign against Britain before making
a call, the Heer would probably agree that some time in the third
or fourth quarter of 1944 the US Army had now exceeded in
inflicting more losses.

This leaves the economy, which was not badly hurt before the
second half of 1944, and we have the extra weight of US bombs
dropped versus things like the USSBS oil report noting the RAF
raids were on average more destructive.

"What we are doing amounts to the ONLY Allied offensive
operation against Germany at this time."

Harris almost immolated his own force. He had a World War One mindset.

Walter likes to announce this, rather than deal with the reality Harris
did care about his men and did keep changing tactics to minimise
losses.

But he -was- a 'Butcher' alright -- of his own men.

Walter has little to like about Harris, Eaker, commander of 8th
Air Force when it was sending unescorted bombers to Germany
is not treated in the same way as Harris, for example.

From June 1940 to June 1944, Bomber
Command was the only Allied force in constant combat over the Reich, drawing
resources away from Germany's countless other campaigns.

You're on a roll.

The effort the Germans had to expend to combat Bomber Command in no way
strained them the way it strained the British to support Bomber Command. The
Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses. The
British had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young men
involved. And the Germans defeated Bomber Command.

This is the Walter standard, try this rewrite,

The effort the Germans had to expend to combat the 8th Air Force bombers
in no way strained them the way it strained the US to support the bombers.
The Germans had boys, foreign soldiers, even women in their flak defenses.
The US had hundreds of very very expensive aircraft and their finest young
men involved. And the Germans defeated the 8th Air Force.

After all it was not like the crack flak gunners only came out in the day, or
that the US bombers were less expensive or had lower quality crews or
that the 8th was not defeated at some stage. Silly isn't it?

Walter prefers though to believe his fiction.

WalterM140 wrote in message ...
The context of my note, which perhaps you just
skimmed, or maybe I wasn't clear enough, was in the period following the
invasion.

Before during and after the invasion, Bomber Command was striking Germany.

After the Invasion, BC could only strike Germany because of the situation
brought on by the Americans.

We are back to the Americans, the US Army, Navy and Air Force,
ignoring the contributions of non US forces to the improvements.

If the Americans did make it better after the invasion there is a need
to explain the fact Bomber Command loss rates over Germany hit
their wartime peak in the post D day June 1944 raids.

No
heavy bomber raid was ever turned back, day or night, due to enemy action -
yes, that includes the RAF.

So what?

The British had to install cameras on their bombers to make sure the crews were
not dropping their heavier bombs into the North Sea.

No Walter, the British installed cameras to figure out bombing accuracy.
The fact some crews during a period of defeat dropped some of their
bombs in the North Sea to lighten the load, as opposed to aborting the
sortie is something Walter likes to highlight and try and pretend happened
for a long time in a large number of cases.

This was his favourite claim in an effort to "prove" Bomber Command
did not drop any 4,000 pound bombs on Germany before September
1944.

As for the Commonwealthians being unable to
continue bombing, Portal never said that - he said it was *possible* that the
situation would have gotten to that point; even as he wrote that, British
bombers were in combat. And his statement ignores the mounting Mosquito
raids that were by then causing the German leadership to remove large chunks
of hair from their own heads...

You can't gansay Portal.

The fun thing here is Portal does not say what Walter claims, people
are contradicting Walter and he cannot cope.

Mosquito raids, right.

The Germans hated them, largely because they seemed near unstoppable.

The Allied bombing campaign took on several facets
and Portal's perhaps out of context or otherwise incomplete comments

You're welcome to show that.

I keep doing so and Walter ignores it.

don't
accurately reflect the reality that American air armadas required X amount of
German assets to combat, while the night campaign required X amount as well -
often it meant they could react to a daylight threat only by taking assets
from the night war, and vice versa.

You could argue that both the daylight and night raids expended much more in
the way of blood and treasure than they returned. But the Germans are clear
that the USAAF hurt them far worse than the RAF

Junk claim number one. Try for a start Coastal Command in the mix.

and they began redeploying the
day fighter force back to Germay at a time when the average USAAF raid was
only a few dozen heavy bombers and only striking in visual conditions.

Junk claim number 2, Walter will now list the redeployments, if it is like
last time the training JG units, like JG102 will make the list and the
return of a gruppe will be made into the return of a Geschwader.

The RAF suffered greatly but didn't quit -
almost a mirror of the situation to when the Regensburg/Schweinfurt missions
made it tactically impractical for the US to continue with large scale
daylight penetrations without escorts.

The difference is that the Americans had a technological injection they could
make -- the Mustang. Due to the nature of its aircraft and techniques and
equipment, the RAF had no such fix.

Walter just simply ignores the significant drop in RAF losses just after
the capture of a Ju88G nightfighter and examination of its electronics.
He also ignores the offensive operations of the Mosquito units. He
ignores things like in October 1944 the night fighter force claimed 56
kills but lost around 54 in combat related sorties and December 1944
66 kill claims but 117 nightfigters lost to all causes. Things did improve
in 1945.

Walter also ignores the basic fact in absolute terms the USAAF losses
to enemy aircraft did not change much.

In the first four months of 1945 the USAAF statistical digest reports the
Air Forces in the European Theatre lost some 440 aircraft to enemy
aircraft, in the period September to December 1943 the losses to
enemy aircraft are put at 424, July to October 1943 the total is 406.

Aders list of Luftwaffe night fighter kill claims has the November 1943
to March 1944 figures as 1,057, November 1944 to March 1945 as
668.

The big difference is the number of allied sorties, in the later periods,
which makes the percentage losses much less. So the day loss rates
went down even as the absolute numbers remained the same.

Walter might like to contemplate how come the USAAF was less
successful in reducing the absolute numbers lost versus the RAF.
If the Mustang was such a wonder answer and all the improvement
in RAF losses were due to the Americans.

Allied bombing (not American, nor British)
accomplished the deed of forcing the Luftwaffe to its knees,

The effect on the Luftwaffe by the RAF during the run-up to the invasion was
negligible.

Just ignore the destruction of the Luftwaffe bomber force in the west.

by continually rocking the old warrior with an indefensible combination
of punches. No reason to try to demean the accomplishments of one
force to raise up the other - they were fists wielded by the same boxer.

Arthur Harris kept one hand tied behind the back of Bomber Command. it could
have been much more effective under another leader.

Walter likes to run this line, usually with a generous helping of hindsight
to the new, never named, commander.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.