How did the Brits do it?

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
I think back to the war and the RAF heavies on their night missions.
Missions
flown in the winter usually were in atrocioius weather where there was no
view
of the gound and the sky above was overcast. There was no way to shoot at
star
fix or take a dirft reading from the ground. Working dead reckoning from
England deep into Germany and any change in wind dorection or velocity
that
went undetected made dead reckoning navigation a hit and miss
proposition.
Often it was not just miss, it was gross miss. Knowing all this how could
the
RAF ever hope to pull off these winter night missions successfully? What
was
the logic that made them keep flying under these hopeless navigation
conditions? Anyone know?

As I understand it Art, you and your fellow Americans bombed by day, the RAF
by night. This was to concentrate efforts of the two doctrines, precision
and area bombing. The British began unintentional area bombing when they
switched to night attacks, mitigating the heavy losses associated with deep
attacks into Europe with ill defended bombers in airspace without air
supremacy. I guess this was somewhat justifiable to the British Public given
the Blitz on Britain's cities in '40-'41. Yet the USA - which had not been
on the receiving end of a bombing campaign on it's own soil, directed at
it's own civilians - opted for precision daylight attacks.

The biggest advocate of Area Bombing was Lord Cherwell. He devised a very
rudimentary calculation to justify the area bombing principal based on the
anticipated bomber production, average tonnage of HE dropped by a bomber
before being shot down, average number of homes destroyed per ton of HE etc.
Essentially, if 200,000 tons of HE fell on German cities (half of that
expected to be dropped over Germany) 30 million households should be
destroyed. You remove the industrial workforce, you remove the capacity to
produce war materiel. Simple....

.... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Something in the region of 55,000 RAF aircrew of Bomber Command were killed
in action in the war. I can't even begin to comprehend that loss, as many
died in six years of Bomber Command as there are currently in the RAF. Sadly
it's both terrible and tragic.

Jim Doyle

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In message , Jim Doyle
writes

snip

... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.

As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
Hitler transferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a
"uzel
svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".

Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin
for
relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
counter-offensive.


Mike
--
M.J.Powell

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Jim Doyle
writes

snip

... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to
the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there
are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.

As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
Hitler transferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a
"uzel svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".

Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin
for relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
counter-offensive.

Dresden posed a military threat, granted.

The horrific firestorm created by the incendiaries and napalm killed 100,000
civilians - 1 in 6 of the inhabitants (given there were a large number of
refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army). The message was clear to Stalin,
even if the assault was at his request.


Mike
--
M.J.Powell

In message , Jim Doyle
writes

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Jim Doyle
writes

snip

... if only it worked! British tactics against Germany were optimised to
the
conditions of the day, with the subsequent development of nav aids, dead
reckoning was superseded and bombing became much more accurate and
aggressive.

In the latter stages of the war, in my opinion, Area Bombing became
unjustifiable before it ceased. Dresden is a prime example, though there
are
many who believe this to be a show of strength to the Russians, it just
simply didn't deserve the tremendous volume of bombs metered out.

Letter to the Sunday Telegraph. I forgot to note the date.

As a correspondent pointed out, Dresden was bombed because it was a
military target. (Letters Feb 20). The city's destiny was sealed at the
Yalta conference (on Feb 4 1945) and, as Winston Churchill's
interpreter, I heard and watched Stalin with his deputy Chief of Staff,
General Antonov, urgently ask us to bomb roads and railways to stop
Hitler transferring divisions from the West. Antonov stressed the
importance of Dresden as a vital rail junction, saying there was a
"uzel svyazi" - literally, "communications knot".

Churchill and Roosevelt had to agree as they were indebted to Stalin
for relieving pressure on our front during the German Ardennes winter
counter-offensive.

Dresden posed a military threat, granted.

The horrific firestorm created by the incendiaries and napalm killed 100,000
civilians - 1 in 6 of the inhabitants (given there were a large number of
refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army). The message was clear to Stalin,
even if the assault was at his request.

I think he got the message much earlier, after Hamburg et al.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

Subject: How did the Brits do it?
From: "Jim Doyle"
Date: 3/10/04 7:41 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Something in the region of 55,000 RAF aircrew of Bomber Command were killed
in action in the war. I can't even begin to comprehend that loss, as many
died in six years of Bomber Command as there are currently in the RAF. Sadly
it's both terrible and tragic.

Jim Doyle


Their heroism is beyond comprehension. and rarely equalled in the annals of
war. To take off on a mission knowing how small the odds were that you would
ever return takes the ultimate in courage..


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer