HIS 241 Southern New Hampshire University Allied Bombing Campaign Against Europe Discussion Discussion: Schalchthof-fünfOne of the key debates regarding th

HIS 241 Southern New Hampshire University Allied Bombing Campaign Against Europe Discussion Discussion: Schalchthof-fünfOne of the key debates regarding this period of the war was the nature of the Allied bombing campaign against Europe. From your readings in the text and associated articles, assess the effectiveness of the bombing campaign on the overall war effort. Do you think it was, overall, a useful war effort or a waste of resources?https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/lib/snhu-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3300332Sources are link above and (2) attached. The Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II: Costs and Accomplishments
Author(s): Kenneth P. Werrell
Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Dec., 1986), pp. 702-713
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Organization of American Historians
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1902984
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The Strategic Bombing of
Germany in World War II:
Costs and Accomplishments
Kenneth P. Werrell
As interest in World War II increases, it releases what seems to be a never-ending
flood of literature. While the volume of this material is staggering, gaps and controversial areas remain. One especially troublesome subject is strategic bombing.
Although much has been written about the bombing, few studies merit either
the term “analytical” or the term “scholarly.” First-person and journalistic accounts
of derring-do predominate. Perhaps in no other field of history do so many “feel”
and believe so much, rely on so little analysis and proof, and yet write so much.’
The following is a summary and assessment of the strategic bombing efforts in
Europe during World War II. It focuses on the costs and accomplishments of the
bombing, on what bombing did and did not do. Other aspects of the bombing,
such as lessons, morality, and criticisms, are left to other studies.
The Development of Strategic Bombardment Theory
The long and costly deadlock on the western front during World War I called conventional warfare into question. Soldiers desperately sought a better way to wage
war, a way that would restore decisiveness to warfare. New technology, especially
aircraft, provided the principal hope. While most military men proposed traditional roles for aircraft, some espoused much grander doctrines. Bombing proponents, such as Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and William “Billy” Mitchell,
helped to develop a revolutionary doctrine of strategic bombing based on the b
that “the bomber will always get through.” The theorists held that the bombers
would hit cities and civilians with devastating attacks of gas and high explosives,
which would overpower the home front and thus decide the next war. Because the
offense had such an advantage, the only “defense” against the bombing offensive
Kenneth P. Werrell is professor of history at Radford University.
I David MacIsaac, ed., The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (10 vols., New York, 1976), I, vii. For an
overview of the literature on the strategic bombing offensive in Europe, see Kenneth P. Werrell, Eighth Air Force
Bibliography. An Extended Essay and Listing of Published and Unpublished Matenals (Manhattan, Kans., 1981).
702
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Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II 703
was a deterrent or counteroffensive. In that way strategic bombing would be decisive, rendering armies and navies unnecessary.
This revolutionary bombing concept captured the imagination of soldier and civilian alike.2 However, the reality of war proved different from the bomber proponents’ predictions. The three major combatants in the west tried strategic bombing
and encountered considerable difficulties. To each in turn . . .
Combat Operations: 1939-1944
During the early years of the war, the Germans achieved great success with tactical
aviation. The Blitzkrieg, tactical aviation coupled with fast-moving tanks and motorized infantry, won quick and cheap victories in 1939 and 1940. When the
Germans reached the English Channel, however, a new problem emerged: a crosschannel invasion.
In the ensuing Battle of Britain, the German Air Force (GAF, or Luftwaffe) met
defeat. The Royal Air Force (RAF) demonstrated that the bomber would not always
get through and would frequently suffer severe losses during the day. The heavy
losses forced the Germans to switch to night operations, which proved less costly
but also less effective than daylight operations. The Luftwaffe added London to its
bombing list and pounded the city; nevertheless, London, the RAF, and Great
Britain survived.
Later attacks on England were also unsuccessful. The Germans did not field a
satisfactory strategic bombing force as they were unable to produce an effective
heavy bomber and were overextended by the demands of the war.3 The V weapons’
campaign was another German strategic bombardment effort and failure. The V-1
was cost, but not militarily, effective; the V-2 was a technological wonder, but neither
2 On the development of strategic bombing theory, see Lee Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New
York, 1982), 39-104; R. J. Overy, The Air War, 1939-1945 (New York, 1980), 5-25; Williamson Murray, Strategy
for Defeat: The Luftwaffe, 1933-1945 (Maxwell Air Force Base, 1983), 1-26, 321-36; and David MacIsaac, “Voices
from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear
Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, 1985). For the American side, see Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for
AirPower(Bloomington, Ind., 1975); Wesley Frank Craven andJames Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World
War H (7 vols., Chicago, 1948-1958), I, 17-71; Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine. A History of Basic
Thinking in the United StatesAir Force, 1907-1964 (2 vols., Maxwell Air Force Base, 1971), I, 26-110; and Haywood
S. Hansell, Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta, 1972), 1-97. For the best on the British, see Charles
Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, 1939-1945 (4 vols., London, 1961),
I, 6-64. On Gujlio Douhet, see Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, 1959), 22-23, 71-106; and
Edward Warner, “Douhet, Mitchell, Seversky: Theories of Air Warfare,” in The Makers of Modern Strategy: Military
Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton, 1941). The standard on the Luftwaffe re-
mains the old, yet solid [British Air Ministry], “The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (1939-1945),” classified
document, 1948 (London), repr. in The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force (1939-1945), ed. W. H. Tatum IV
and E. J. Hoffschmidt (Greenwich, Conn., 1969; repr., New York, 1983). Subsequent citations are to the 1969
volume. See ibid., 1-49. See also Matthew Cooper, The German Air Force, 1933-1945: An Anatomy of Failure
(London, 1981), 1-96; and Murray, Strategy for Defeat, 1-26.
3Tatum and Hoffschmidt, eds., Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, 75-96, 192-98; Cajus Bekker [Hans
H. Berenbrokl, The Luftwaffe War Diaries, trans. and ed. Frank Ziegler (Garden City, 1968), 144-83; Derek W
and Derek Dempster, The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power, 1930-40 (New York,
1961); Cooper, German Air Force, 121-74, 297, 327-28, 332-33.
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704 The Journal of American History
cost nor militarily effective. Thus the Germans failed
tegic bombardment efforts.4
Initially, the British were even less prepared for strategic bombing than was the
GAF, which at least had numbers of aircraft equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks
and some effective navigational equipment, all of which the British lacked. Consequently, although the RAF’s Bomber Command made elaborate plans for strategic
bombing operations, it lacked essentially everything except doctrine and will.
Early British strategic operations mirrored German operations. The RAF met the
same stiff resistance and the same lack of success, turned to night operations, and
found that night bombing decreased both effectiveness and losses. For example, a
1941 British report indicated that only 22 percent of the bomber crews got within
five miles of their targets; against heavily defended targets, such as those in the Ruhr
Valley, the proportion fell to perhaps 7 percent.5 Therefore, the RAF took a number
of measures that markedly increased its bombing effectiveness. These steps included
the introduction of electronic navigational equipment (such as airborne radar),
greater numbers of aircraft and aircrews, new aircraft (particularly the magnificent
Lancaster), and especially new tactics, the most important of which was the forma-
tion of the Pathfinder Force, veteran crews who flew ahead of the main bombing
force and marked aiming points with pyrotechnics. Bomber Command showed what
it could do with the first one-thousand-plane raid, which battered Cologne in May
1942, and the much more destructive attack against Hamburg in the summer of
1943.
British attempts to destroy the morale of German civilians resulted in growing
numbers of destroyed German acres but also growing numbers of lost RAF bombers
and crews. For as the British increased the effectiveness of their bombing, the
Germans also increased the effectiveness of their defenses. The climax came in the
March 1944 attack on Nuremberg, during which ninety-six RAF bombers went
down. As a result, Bomber Command curtailed strategic night operations against
targets deep within Germany.6
Meanwhile, the Americans had begun to bomb Germany, but with a distinct
difference. During the 1930s the United States airmen had developed a strategic
bombing doctrine that deviated from the bombing theory already described.
Airmen at the Air Corps Tactical School had drawn up a doctrine based on the use
of unescorted, heavily armed bombers that flew in formation at high altitude. The
crux of the American theory was bombing specific targets in daylight, most especially “bottleneck” targets, which, if destroyed, would cause the enemy’s economy
4 See Kenneth P. Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile (Montgomery, 1985), 41-61; British Air Ministry,
“The Economic Balance of the Flying Bomb Campaign, 4 November 1944,” 142.0423-9 (Simpson Historical Research Center, Montgomery, Ala.).
I “Report by Mr. Butt to Bomber Command on his Examination of Night Photographs, 18 August 1941,” Appendix 13, in Webster and Frankland, Strategic Air Offensive against Germany, IV, 205-13.
6 See Webster and Frankland, Strategic Air Offensive against Germany; Overy, Air War, 26-40; Max Hastings,
Bomber Command (New York, 1979); Cooper, German Air Force, 180-94, 297-309; Alfred Price, Battle over the
Reich (New York, 1973), 9-81, 99-115; Martin Middlebrook, The Nuremberg Raid: 30-31 March 1944 (New York,
1973); and Anthony Verrier, The Bomber Offensive (New York, 1968), 81-116, 163-80, 189-232, 239-48.
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Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War It 705
to collapse. In short, the Americans had proposed a surgical, rather than a sledgehammer, method.
The Americans entered the war with that precision-bombing theory and, compared with those of the British and the Germans, better bombers and bombsights.
At the start, however, the Army Air Forces (AAF) lacked numbers of men and
machines, as well as an appreciation of the differences between peacetime operations over cloudless, friendly Texas and wartime operations over cloudy, hostile Germany. In combat, American experience paralleled that of the British and the
Germans; daylight operations proved both costly in casualties and limited in effectiveness. The test came during the summer and fall of 1943 when the AAF lost 54
bombers on the August 1 Ploesti mission, and then 60 bombers on the August 17
Regensburg-Schweinfurt raid. The worst was yet to come when, during one week
in October, the AAF lost 148 bombers and crews on four missions, 60 on the Oc-
tober 14 Schweinfurt attack. The AAF’s peacetime theory failed in wartime
practice.7
Strategic Bombing Thwarted
Had the war ended in late 1943, the evidence would have squarely supported the
view that strategic bombing had failed, and failed miserably. Results were minimal
and losses were high. Why?
The bomber proponents’ basic assumption that the bomber would get through
with acceptable losses proved incorrect. First, by the time war came, the fighter had
greatly improved in performance and had regained superiority over the bomber.
Second, the introduction of radar shifted the advantage to the defender by stripping
the cloak of limitless skies from the attacker.
Another factor in the disappointing performance of the bombers was that targets
proved to be much more difficult to destroy than anyone had figured. Although factories could be hit and damaged, they could not be hit often or badly enough to
be permanently knocked out of action. In addition, rapid and effective German repair, dispersion, and adaptation diminished the impact of the Allied bombing. Civilian morale also proved more difficult to affect than expected.
A third problem was intelligence. The airmen had difficulty not only in iden-
tifying the proper targets but also in determining how much damage they had
inflicted. Therefore, targets written off as destroyed, more likely than not, quickly
got back into action.8
7 Losses at Ploesti were 30.5 percent of the 177 B-24s dispatched, whereas losses at Regensburg-Schweinfurt
were 19.1 percent of those attacking; on the October Schweinfurt mission, 26.2 percent of those attacking; and
on the four missions between October 8 and October 14, 12.6 percent of those attacking. Craven and Cate, eds.,
Army Air Forces in World War II, I, 17-194, II, 479-83, 681-83, 696-706, 848, 850; Price, Battle over the Reich,
85-87, 90-94; Roger A. Freeman, The Mighty Eighth: Units, Men and Machinery (A History of the US. 8th Army
Air Force) (London, 1970), 67-69, 7 5-79, 87-89; Roger A. Freeman, Mighty Eighth War Diary (London, 1981),
89-90, 123-29.
8 The reading of German codes, Ultra, apparently had little impact on the strategic bombing offensive except
for the oil campaign. U.S. Army Air Forces, “Allied Strategic Air Force Target Planning,” [1945], SRH-017, 170.601-2
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706 The Journal of American History
Poor weather, inexperience, and stiff enemy resistance reduced bombing accuracy.
The German defenders forced the British to bomb at night and the Americans to
maintain their defensive formations and to use pattern bombing, which affected
accuracy. The AAF calculated that under fire United States bombing accuracy
declined 10 to 20 percent.9 Consequently, the British measured night-bombing accuracy in miles while the Americans measured their daylight, visual accuracy in
thousands of feet.10
But the war did not end in late 1943; instead, it went on for another year and
a half. During that period not only did the Allies win, but also the airmen reversed
their fortunes. If the strategic air war had been a disaster in the early years of the
war, it was a triumph in the last year of the war. What caused the change?
Allied Victory in the Air: 1944-1945
The key to allied aerial success proved to be modifications that extended the range
of fighter aircraft. Prior to, and well into, the war, the experts believed that a fighter
could never fly so far as a bomber. But pressed by the heavy losses in unescorted,
daylight bomber operations, the AAF produced such an aircraft. In fact, by the end
of the war, the fighters could fly farther than a B-17! Also important, although overrated, was the introduction of a new fighter, the North American P-51 Mustang.”
Finally, the American airmen changed their tactics by loosening their fighter escort.
The AAF recommenced deep penetration into Germany in early 1944 with in-
creased numbers of bombers and fighter escorts. The fierce battle for air superiority
proved costly to both sides, but by April 1, 1944, the Allies had clearly emerged
as the winner. The GAF had lost daylight air superiority and the air war.
Nevertheless, the Allied airmen faced other difficulties. The Germans introduced
(Simpson Historical Research Center); U.S. Army Air Forces, “Ultra, History of U.S. Strategic Air Force Europe
vs. German Air Force,” 1945, SRH-013, 170.601-1, ibid.
9 U.S. Army Air Forces, “Minutes, Flak Conference, 1-11 June 1945,” N10217 (Command and General Staff
College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kans.); Hansell, Air Plan That Defeated Hitler, 252-53, 257; “Report by Mr. Butt to
Bomber Command on His Examination of Night Photographs,” 205-13.
10 By 1943, 60 percent of Bomber Command’s sorties got within three miles of the aiming point, compared
with over 20 percent within five miles in 1941. In 1944, the Eighth Air Force got one-half of its bombs dropped
by nonvisual means within two miles of the aiming point. Price, Battle over the Reich, 97; “Report by Mr. Butt
to Bomber Command on His Examination of Night Photographs,” 205; Verrier, Bomber Offensive, 195, 285, 321;
Hansell, Air Plan That Defeated Hitler, 252. During the last sixteen months of the war, the two United States
strategic air forces (the Eighth and the Fifteenth) got 35 to 40 percent of the bombs they dropped using visual
means within one thousand feet of the aiming point. During that period the Eighth dropped about 49 percent
of its bombs by visual means and the Fifteenth, 82 percent by visual means. Overall, the two American air forces
aimed 56 percent of their bombs by visual means. [Eighth Air Force], “Statistical Summary of Eighth Air Force
Operations, European Theater, 17 August 1942-8 May 1945,” pp. 20-21, 31, 520.308A (Simpson Historical Research Center); [Fifteenth Air Force], “The Statistical Story of the Fifteenth Air Force,” pp. 11-12, 670.308D, ibid.
11 Although the P-51 looked and performed better than the P-47, captured the public’s imagination, and eventually equipped fourteen of the Eighth’s fifteen fighter groups, if any American aircraft defeated the German
fighter force, it was the P-47. Prior to April 1, 1944, by which time the battle for air superiority was decided, the
P-47s claimed 767 victories to the P-51s’ claims of 466. The Mustang did not fly its first escort mission until December 5, 1943, and did not exceed the claims of the Thunderbolt until March 1944. VIII Fighter Command,
“Comparative Combat Performance,” 670.308D (Simpson Historical Research Center). See also Bernard Boylan,
“The Development of the American Long-Range Escort Fighter” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1955).
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Strategic Bombing of Germany in World War II 707
into combat the best fighter aircraft of the war, the jet-powered Me 262
fly 100 mph faster than the best Allied fighter. But the old cliche “too little, too
late” applied as poor command decisions, inadequate numbers of machines and
traiined fighter pilots, technical problems, and overwhelming numbers of Allied
fighters nullified this tactically superior weapon. As the effectiveness of German
fighters declined, however, the relative importance of German flak increased. 12 Allied airmen overcame both threats, although not without cost.
But the airmen were unable to take …
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