Cliff.Booth said:

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Gotta say, the scene where Egan walks past a bombed out London apt and sees a mother screaming for her dead child was one of the most poignant yet. Having to confront the reality of what these area-bombings inevitably resulted in, that was gut-wrenching.

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Or stiffened his resolve. After all, Germany started the war and the German people overwhelmingly supported it.

The Brits seemed to have no issues bombing entire cities just to level them.

"The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death"

The Germans started the war by mass, indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, and they continued doing it throughout the war.

The V-1 and V-2 rockets, for example, had only rudimentary guidance systems and were simply designed to hit somewhere in a large city such as London.

My memory is that the British tried daylight bombing but found it was suicidal to continue it, and so they went to bombing at night. The British did not have an infinite supply of airplanes and airmen to continue suicide attacks.

The American Air Forces came in to Britain and tried to rely on "precision" daytime bombing.

It was clear to most people that there was very little precision about it, but the US, with a larger supply of aircraft and airmen, continued with what amounted to a suicide campaign against Germany for quite a while.

The theory was that until a ground war against Hitler could be mounted, something had to be done to show we were actually risking something in the war, especially given the slaughter that our allies the Russians were enduring.

The losses got so horrific, of course, that the US pulled back on its missions until fighter planes became available that could provide cover all the way into Germany.



The architect of the British bombing campaign against Germany, "Bomber" Harris, offered a number of pertinent defenses of the bombing:

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The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.


We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go on with the war. That is our object; we shall pursue it relentlessly.

In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method. For one thing, it saved the youth of this country and of our allies from being mown down by the military as it was in the war of 1914-1918.

Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. It therefore seems to me that there is one and only one valid argument on which a case for giving up strategic bombing could be based, namely that it has already completed its task and that nothing now remains for the Armies to do except to occupy Germany against unorganized resistance.

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Harris's logic doesn't hold up. Attacking civilians did nothing to shorten the war.

Reading or listening to the audiobook before hand really helps on this series.

When he made the phone call to base, that was discussed in the book and described the call and language used.

A whole other reason was the Lancaster Bomber couldn't survive daylight bombing. It was a good bomber, but it was nowhere near as durable as the B-17. The B-17 could take absolute punishment and still make it back to England. Usually if Lancaster took damage, it was probably going down.

In 1932, Stanley Baldwin said "the bomber will always get through". This seems to be the foundation of the idea of mass bombing raids against enemy targets, that such raids will inflict enough damage to win a war. Of course, we know now that was incorrect, but at the time, they certainly believed it.

jwoodmd said:

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AgLA06 said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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Allies believed that SOMETHING had to be done to take the war to Germany.

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This is ultimately it. Hard to watch your citizens you can't defend get pummeled night in and night out and stand by and do nothing. Hitting German (even if not exactly effective) at least let the average civilian know the SOBs doing it to you were getting their share in return and they aren't suffering "for nothing".


And although weather played as much into whether the US daytime bombings were "precision" or not, at that point in the war, they were just about the only ones that had the ability to hit specific targets without spray and pray carpet bombing. And by all accounts doing so along with the navies blocking supplies to the Axis shortened the war with Japan and German as lubricants, oil, and the ability to make needed to equipement were severely impacted.

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The Luftwaffe also lost lots of planes, but more importantly, pilots that they couldn't replace.

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Both Germany and Japan were sending up pilots on the equivalent of a 1 way mission in the last months of the war. Many had only ground training and had no actual experience in flying or landing, let alone fighting.

Japan at least tried to get some value out of sending pilots to their deaths through the divine wind. Then again, before anyone jumps in with how horrible that it is, we weren't far off with sending daylight mass bombing raids like the bloody 100th in the beginning either.

Germany also tried suicide pilots near the end of the war that were told to ram their planes into the bombers

Sapper Redux said:

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aTmAg said:

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Cliff.Booth said:

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Gotta say, the scene where Egan walks past a bombed out London apt and sees a mother screaming for her dead child was one of the most poignant yet. Having to confront the reality of what these area-bombings inevitably resulted in, that was gut-wrenching.

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Or stiffened his resolve. After all, Germany started the war and the German people overwhelmingly supported it.

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Most soldiers are not fans of killing civilians, regardless of who supported what.

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Germans had no problem with it. Which is why what Egan and his ilk did during WW2 were 100% in the right, and why it would strengthen his resolve.

(And where did I say or imply stiffen his resolve to kill civilians anyway?)

Yep, its usually the little things, like in "Inglorious Basterds" when the guy orders three drinks signaling with index, middle and ring fingers instead of the german way with thumb, index and middle finger.

Bombing to start a war is vastly different to bombing to end a war. The former costs lives, while the latter saves lives (by shortening the war). That is why Pearl Harbor was a negative and Hiroshima/Nagasaki were positives. Even though the former was a military target and the latter were entire cities.

aTmAg said:

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AgLA06 said:

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jwoodmd said:

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AgLA06 said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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Allies believed that SOMETHING had to be done to take the war to Germany.

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This is ultimately it. Hard to watch your citizens you can't defend get pummeled night in and night out and stand by and do nothing. Hitting German (even if not exactly effective) at least let the average civilian know the SOBs doing it to you were getting their share in return and they aren't suffering "for nothing".


And although weather played as much into whether the US daytime bombings were "precision" or not, at that point in the war, they were just about the only ones that had the ability to hit specific targets without spray and pray carpet bombing. And by all accounts doing so along with the navies blocking supplies to the Axis shortened the war with Japan and German as lubricants, oil, and the ability to make needed to equipement were severely impacted.

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The Luftwaffe also lost lots of planes, but more importantly, pilots that they couldn't replace.

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Both Germany and Japan were sending up pilots on the equivalent of a 1 way mission in the last months of the war. Many had only ground training and had no actual experience in flying or landing, let alone fighting.

Japan at least tried to get some value out of sending pilots to their deaths through the divine wind. Then again, before anyone jumps in with how horrible that it is, we weren't far off with sending daylight mass bombing raids like the bloody 100th in the beginning either.

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It's quite a bit far off. We weren't sending pilots to die on purpose. At first, it was thought that the guns on the B-17s were sufficient, and later that we could improve with better tactics. They continuously strove to improve the odds through additional guns, technology, and escort planes. We didn't sent them on intentional suicide missions. Hell LeMay flew on the missions himself.

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From what I've read and remember, he flew because he knew they were suicide missions and his conscious wouldn't let him sit and wait. He was resolved to keep bombing them into submission and flew lead to see first hand the issues, come up with new ideas, and implement them himself.

I know many people don't like him, but one can't say he didn't lead by example or that his innovation wasn't important.

It's still argued that while the atomic bombs were decisive, they may not have been needed as LeMay's efforts to eliminate Japanese cities with this firebombing would have had the same effect in short order as they were nearly as effective after he took over SAC Pacific late in the war.

OldArmy71 said:

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How effective the bombing campaign was is a matter of debate which we probably need to step away from to avoid more of a derail.

However effective it was, the British (and Americans) THOUGHT it would be effective. The British in particular had researched the issue and had all sorts of theory and planning to back up their campaign.

It is not very convincing or fair to claim decades later that it was a bad plan when at the time it seemed logical to believe that it WOULD work and that the Allies believed that SOMETHING had to be done to take the war to Germany.

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I won't derail further, but at the time London was getting the crap bombed out of it and never once did the British consider surrendering or divert their military resources because of it. It actually saved their Air Force. Same thing in Soviet cities with casualties far exceeding what happened in Britain. The evidence that terror bombing wouldn't work was already plain to see during the war.

AgLA06 said:

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aTmAg said:

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AgLA06 said:

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jwoodmd said:

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AgLA06 said:

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OldArmy71 said:

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Allies believed that SOMETHING had to be done to take the war to Germany.

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This is ultimately it. Hard to watch your citizens you can't defend get pummeled night in and night out and stand by and do nothing. Hitting German (even if not exactly effective) at least let the average civilian know the SOBs doing it to you were getting their share in return and they aren't suffering "for nothing".


And although weather played as much into whether the US daytime bombings were "precision" or not, at that point in the war, they were just about the only ones that had the ability to hit specific targets without spray and pray carpet bombing. And by all accounts doing so along with the navies blocking supplies to the Axis shortened the war with Japan and German as lubricants, oil, and the ability to make needed to equipement were severely impacted.

---

The Luftwaffe also lost lots of planes, but more importantly, pilots that they couldn't replace.

---

Both Germany and Japan were sending up pilots on the equivalent of a 1 way mission in the last months of the war. Many had only ground training and had no actual experience in flying or landing, let alone fighting.

Japan at least tried to get some value out of sending pilots to their deaths through the divine wind. Then again, before anyone jumps in with how horrible that it is, we weren't far off with sending daylight mass bombing raids like the bloody 100th in the beginning either.

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It's quite a bit far off. We weren't sending pilots to die on purpose. At first, it was thought that the guns on the B-17s were sufficient, and later that we could improve with better tactics. They continuously strove to improve the odds through additional guns, technology, and escort planes. We didn't sent them on intentional suicide missions. Hell LeMay flew on the missions himself.

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From what I've read and remember, he flew because he knew they were suicide missions and his conscious wouldn't let him sit and wait. He was resolved to keep bombing them into submission and flew lead to see first hand the issues, come up with new ideas, and implement them himself.

I know many people don't like him, but one can't say he didn't lead by example or that his innovation wasn't important.

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From what I read and remember, he flew, not because he thought they were suicide missions, but because he thought AC commanders were giving up on targets too easily. That him being personally present would ensure that the missions were carried out. Scrubbing missions forces subsequent crews to endure the same 500 mile German gauntlet to bomb the same targets at a later date. And that would be when the Germans were more prepared and informed to defend it. That he understood that it would save lives to just press on and bomb targets when you are 90% of the way there already. LeMay wasn't suicidal. He just wanted the job done.

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It's still argued that while the atomic bombs were decisive, they may not have been needed as LeMay's efforts to eliminate Japanese cities with this firebombing would have had the same effect in short order as they were nearly as effective after he took over SAC Pacific late in the war.

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People who argue that are delusional. The firebombing of Tokyo took place in early March 1945. Yet Japan waited until August 15 to surrender. That is not short order. The mere 6 days they waited after Nagasaki was nuked certainly was, however.

The atomic bombs are basically extensions of that same doctrine though and not really a new and separate idea. In fact, the decades and decades of Cold War era "Mutually Assured Destruction" might as well be called "The missile will always get through"

JJxvi said:

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The atomic bombs are basically extensions of that same doctrine though and not really a new and separate idea. In fact, the decades and decades of Cold War era "Mutually Assured Destruction" might as well be called "The missile will always get through"

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My point is that our doctrine was and is 100% morally justifiable. If we nuked/firebombed Japan out of the blue during peacetime, then that would be evil. But the fact that we did so to end the war before it came to invasion million more deaths is what makes it the right and just thing to do.

The same with Sherman's march, and many other examples.

Make no mistake: the British fire bombed Hamburg and Dresden purely out of revenge for the Germans bombing London. They knew it would not affect the war.

Southlake said:

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Make no mistake: the British fire bombed Hamburg and Dresden purely out of revenge for the Germans bombing London. They knew it would not affect the war.

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They thought bringing the fight to the civilian population would lower German morale and foster an internal revolt in Germany. Dresden was right before the western invasion of Germany itself.

This primary source gives insight into the thinking of the intended effects