I wrote:
I read your review on the WSJ of "A Long Way to Bombs Away".
It's true as far as it goes to say that, for a time, 63% of B-17 crew failed
to
complete their tours. It's true that the USAAF largely joined the RAF in
terror
bombing in 1945.
Incorrect, once the USAAF adopted radar as a method for dropping
bombs their accuracy became comparable with the night bombers
on those raids.
I didn't say anything about that (at least in my post that you quote). What are
you talking about?
This review in the WSJ was a serious over-simplification of what really
happened.
As you show below, you have little of substance to add.
The USAAF started using radar in late 1943, initially
with less accuracy than the Butt reports figures for night bombers in
1941, the sort of expected result as the new idea was tried.
As for terror raids the answer is up to the individual, the bombers
hit things and people.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
It is also true:
That the Germans are clearly on record that the USAAF hurt them far
worse than the RAF did.
Walter has a careful selection of quotes from a few Germans to "prove"
this.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That during 1944 over 1/3 of 8th AF bombs hit within 1,000 feet of the
aiming
point using visual means.
Walter likes to highlight what he perceives as the best USAAF results,
if this means ignoring the problems or using non typical raids so be it.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
Percentage of bombs dropped by the 8th Air force using visual sighting,
1943 56.5
1944 41.2
1945 41.5
overall 42.1
So you don't disagree with what I said.
100% of the bombs dropped by visual means were dropped by visual means.
And over 1/3 of those bombs landed within 1,000 feet of the aiming point during
1944. The USAAF was capable of some pretty fair accuracy for the time. Again,
this review in the WSJ gave a poor and false impression of what happened.
In good visibility according to the USSBS, 8.5% of bombs dropped over
3 miles from the target in the period September to December 1944.
And for the year 1944, over 1/3 did land within 1,000 feet of the aiming point.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That B-17's made made up a very important part of a "strike package" to
which
the Germans could find no answer.
In 1943 the Germans found the answer, the USAAF response in 1944
inflicted a defeat on the Luftwaffe day fighters, in 1945 the Luftwaffe
response was really beginning to worry the USAAF, the Me262.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That the Germans denuded other fronts of day fighters to combat the
unescorted
B-17's, when the 8th AF was only sending a few dozen on any given raid.
Walter likes to run this line, last time he tried to do this he simply
counted the Luftwaffe training units in Germany as proof of the
concentration of fighters.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
The first 8th Air force raid on Germany sent 72 bombers, apparently
6 is "few", the next was 91 bombers sent, both in January 1943, so
the claim is the Luftwaffe "denuded" the "other fronts" around January
1943.
Ninety-one bombers are a few dozen, last I checked.
The March 18, 1943 raid to Vegesack included IIRC, 73 B-17's and 24 B-24s.
I'd say that's a few dozen. The fact is that the Germans began returning their
day fighters to Germany when USAAF raids consisted of just a few dozen heavy
bombers.
"In the course of the year 1943 the accent of the Reich defense shifted more
and more toward action against daylight raiders. Even though numerically the
British were still stronger than the Americans and were undoubtedly a great
trial for for the civilian population, the American precision raids were of
greater consequence to the war industry. They received priority attention
over the British raids on our towns."
"The First and the Last" p. 178, Adolf Galland
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That on three days during May 1944, the USAAF reduced German synthetic oil
production by 50%.
Walter does not like to actually look at the Speer reports that
shows the first group of USAAF synthetic oil raids cut avgas
production from around 5,850 tons/day to around 4,850 tons/day.
I don't see a source for that.
My source says the -Americans- knocked out 90% of German aviation fuel
production, and produced a 50% reduction in --three days--.
"But now in May 1944 all that changed. Eighth Air Force's attacks against the
synthetic oil industry in the Reich complemented raids by the Fifteenth Air
Force out of Foggia in Italy against Romanian refineries and production
facilities. The first strike from Britain came on 12 May; 935 bombers sortied
against the synthetic oil plants at Zwickau, Merseburg-Leuna, Brux,
Lutzkendorg, Bohlen, Zeitz, and Chemnitz.
Allied bombers and escorting
fighters encountered severe resistance. The results, while encouraging, were
not decisive. The great Leuna plant, though damaged, lost only 18 percent of
its capacity. Speer was, nevertheless enormously worried.
....After feverish
efforts, production had come close to regaining preattack levels by the end of
May. On the 28th, Eighth returned to attack oil targets throughout Germany.
Over a two day period, it lost 84 bombers, but this time it badly damaged the
petroleum industry. Combined with fifteenth Air Force's raids on Ploesti,
American attacks cut petroleum production in half.
[exactly as I said]
The impact of the raids was apparent almost immediately...May's attacks were a
prelude to punishing raids over the succeeding months. After a two-week pause,
during which Allied bombers supported the invasion, the Americans staged a
series of new attacks that knocked out 90 percent of aviation fuel production,
so that by the end of the month total production had sunk to a miniscule 632
tons."
-"A War to be Won" p. 328-29 by Murray and Millett
Even if what you said were true (instead of being a lot of blue smoke and
mirrors) it shows that the USAAF was capable of very great accuracy. I mean
--three days-- of raids for the reduction you suggest? That would be fabulous.
Especially when you consider what the various bombing surveys found after the
war for the effects of five and half years British bombing -- that the
British bombing of Germany was useless.
In any case, this review in the WSJ gave a very skewed view of what was
actually accomplished.
The second group of strikes cut production from around 5,550
tons/day to around 2,800 tons/day.
This is avgas, all not synthetic oil. Walter likes to simply ignore the
difference.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
By September, largely due to raids by USAAF heavy bombers,
the Luftwaffe was receiving 1/15th of its required fuel allocation.
The Speer reports reproduced in the RAF history give the daily
avgas output for May, June, July and September 1944. They
show production drops after RAF and USAAF raids, for example
after the RAF attack of 12 June avgas production drops from
around 2,100 tons/day to 1,100 tons/day, the RAF raids of 22 June
dropped production from around 1,250 tons.day to 600 tons/day.
And so on for the various raids, the drop in production to 120 tons/day
in late July 1944 was after a group of USAAF and RAF raids.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That without this havoc wreaked largely by the USAAF, RAF Bomber
Command could not have operated over Germany at all.
Walter ignores the reality RAF Bomber Command was operating
over Germany long before the USAAF appeared.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
He has a careful
selection of quotes that tries to "prove" his claim.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
Arthur Harris' despatch on operations has a graph of missing rate
for heavy bombers sorties against targets in Germany. The war peak
is in June 1944, there is a dramatic drop in mid July, after the capture
of a night fighter showing the latest Luftwaffe radar and radar homing
devices, and another dramatic drop as the coastal radar network
and associated western airfields were lost in September 1944.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
That B-17's are offically credited with shooting down more German aircraft
than
all other USAAF aircraft types COMBINED (including fighter types). Though
B-17
gunner claims were wildly inflated, they were still very deadly and
dangerous.
When I ran a basic back of the envelope calculation it looked
like in 1943 the Luftwaffe lost 2 fighters shot down by the bombers
per 3 B-17/24 it shot down. In early 1944 the ratio was 1 to 2.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
At least two high scoring German aces were killed in combat with B-17's. A
high scoring night fighter ace, whose aircraft had not been touch in months
in
combat with the RAF, was killed in his first combat with B-24's.
Apparently this is all the justification to claim the USAAF bombers
were really heavy fighters in disguise.
So you don't disagree with what I said.
Without a fleet of B-17's in place in England at the start of 1944, no
invasion
of Europe would have been possible. This because the Germans showed
they would only fight for the type of targets that could only be struck by
B-17's,
and her stablemate, the B-24.
Walter likes to have the B-17 in the spotlight alone if he can. He simply
ignores the reality that either the Luftwaffe fought for control of French
airspace in early 1944 or it would not be able to intervene effectively
against the invasion.
The Germans did not generally fight over France in early 1944. They fought
with, were engaged by, and were defeated over German targets by "strike
packages" that included B-17's and B-24's.
Unless it could keep the allied air forces away
from its airbases it could not conduct effective operations. So either
the Luftwaffe does not fight, and the result is basically as per history,
or it does fight, and therefore loses more quickly because more allied
fighters could make it to France than Germany.
In the event British fighters played a limited role in this because they simply
didn't have the range to get to areas the Germans were determined to defend.
As Dr. Russell Weigley notes in "Eisenhower's Lieutenants", during the
spring
and summer of 1944 the Allies held victory through air power in their grasp,
but did not persevere for the kill.
This gives an idea of Walter's search for quote, Weigley wrote a history
about the land campaign, but it is such a nice quote Walter will keep
repeating it.
See, Sinclair, this is when your bias and lies are most easily exposed. Dr.
Weigley (who recented passed away) didn't write an account of the "land
campaign", he wote an account about Eisenhower's --lieuttenants--. This
included Spaatz and Doolittle, and also Montgomery, Tedder, Leigh Mallory, and
for a time Harris also.
Dr. Weigley may have meant to evoke with that title the mamouth work of Douglas
Southall Freeman, "Lee's Lieutenants".
But you are trying to denigrate Dr. Weigley's work as a history of the land
campaign. Too bad that any fair minded person can see that the Allies -did-
hold the key to victory to airpower in their hands. And a big part of that key
squatted on hardstands in East Anglia while the crews slept in underheated
Quonset huts in East Anglia. That was the B-17/B-24 force.
Max Hastings suggested much the same thing as Dr. Weigley.
But that is no fault of the B-17/B-24's or their crews.
However later on Walter will attempt to denigrate the crews by over
claiming their successes, rather than accurately recording what they
did or could do.
I have shown what they can do. The Germans knew:
"The Americans' attacks,
which
followed a definite system of assault on industrial targets, were by
far the
most dangerous.
It was in fact these attacks which caused the
breakdown of the
German armaments industry. The attacks on the chemical industry would
have
sufficed, without the impact of purely military events to render
Germany
defenseless.--Albert Speer"
--"Luftwaffe War Diaries" p. 355 by Cajus Bekker.
Back in December 2003
a) Walter managed to write the words "Err Staff" instead of air staff.
b) accused me of writing them
c) decided someone who wrote such a word invalidated themselves
as a source on the air war in question.
I don't recall ever using the term "err staff". I Thought you did. You don't
much like what they said, since they were critical of the sainted Arthur
Harris. If you didn't first use that tem, I wont make that point any more.
The fun thing about it is
a) Walter is at best either completely confused about what he says or
at worst is into rewriting history, and too foolish enough to realise how
he keeps presenting the evidence against himself.
So you don't disagree with what I said. Or rather, you can't gainsay what I
said.
b) Unable to correct the record when shown to be wrong,
c) Is manufacturing the most trivial excuses to try and avoid coping
with the gap between reality and his preferred fiction. Think about it,
a totally trivial complaint, after all Err will pass through a spell
checker.
So you don't disagree with what I said. Or rather, you can't gainsay what I
said.
"I don't know that these city strikes were launched on bad weather days.
You don't either. What I do know is that the Err Staff thought Harris was
not
properly applying his force, and they -did- know the weather day by day."
By the way the Air Staff complaint was in January 1944, Walter was
trying to prove it related to the third quarter of 1944.
I couldn't find the post that would show that you used this term first. I do
know that the moderator of the WWII group who is from Australia has a serious
hard-on over me. He sent me a very nasty e-mail. Maybe he made that note of
yours disappear, the way so many of the notes I sent just disappeared.
Well, this is not the moderated WWII group.
And as I suggest above, you can't gainsay anything I said. You've only made a
fool of yourself.
Walt
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