Did the 8th Air Force precision bomb or area bomb? (1 Viewer)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Exactly what I was saying before Harris gets the blame but ultimately he wasn't given strong enough orders and wasnt kept on a short leash by those that had the ultimate responsibility. He made a lot of mistakes and wasted a valuable lot of men on the battle of Berlin. Someone should have been carrying out proper oversight.
 
As late as NOVEMBER 1944 Harris was writing to Portal saying that all was needed to finish his grand plan and finally defeat Germany was the destruction of Magdeburg, Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Nuremberg, Munich, Koblenz, Karlsruhe and the surviving areas of Berlin and Hannover. This is patent nonsense and is yet another case of Harris overstating the case and capabilities of area bombing. By this time many other airmen had already come to the conclusion that it was no longer useful.

Portal carried on a rational debate with Harris.

Portal November 5th.
"At the risk of you dubbing me another panacea merchant I believe the air offensive against oil gives us by far the best hope of complete victory in the next few months."

But he didn't force him to do it or accept his tendered resignation.

Portal November 12th.
"You refer to a plan for the destruction of the sixty leading German cities, and with your efforts to keep up with, and even exceed, your average of two and a half such cities devastated each month. I know that you have long felt such a plan to be the most effective way of bringing about the collapse of Germany. Knowing this, I have, I must confess, at times wondered whether the magnetism of the remaining German cities has not in the past tended as much to deflect our bombers from their primary objectives as the tactical and weather difficulties which you described so fully in your letter of 1st November. I would like you to reassure me that this is not so. If I knew you to be as wholehearted in the attack on oil as in the past you have been in the matter of attacking cities, I would have little to worry about."

Harris didn't reassure him but made a truculent reply saying that
"The MEW [Ministry of Economic Warfare] experts have never failed to overstate their case on panaceas....the oil plan has already displayed similar symptoms."

Actually the MEW experts were correct and it was Harris who overstated his case and yet he held on to his command until the end.

Cheers

Steve
 
Last edited:
still, the city smashing raids after June were probably more successful , and certainly less costly than the earlier efforts September '43 to April'44. These were very coslty and of limited value really , but the raids after June were really quite accurate and really were flattening the cities.....

Imagine if that ability to flatten such areas was directed at the large oil pants?

One could argue that ability was there from late 1943 - or earlier. Certainly Hamburg was devastated in July 1943.

As shown earlier, when the RAF did bomb oil targets it was very effective. The most effective raid of the early oil offensive was by Bomber Command - and those of the 8th AF were far from ineffective.

Even small Mosquito raids of 40-50 bombers and markers could do significant damage to oil facilities.
 
I think it would have been more productive to switch to some kind of precision attack after the defeat of the Luftwaffe Feb-May. However i would caution against assuming a single concerted attack on the oil industry as the overarching panacea. Germany's collapse was due to a coomprehensive attack on a number of key targets,principally its oil, its actual airforce, it transport networks and certain key industries including certain key chemical industries and certain sectors such as electronics. Harris refusal to completely embrace the attacks on oil is a worthwhile criticism, but I think it more appropriate to criticise him on a more general level. His refusal to persist on area attacks was the problem, not so much the attacks on oil per se.

I wish there was a straightforward easy answer to this, but there isnt. I certainly am not defending Harris. i think he made some really bad errors of judgement and this was one of them. Attacking Berlin directly was another. .
 
Imagine if that ability to flatten such areas was directed at the large oil pants?

And other key areas of the German economy as mentioned by Parsifal.

At the end of the day the 'panacea merchants', the intelligence analysts and those grey men at the MEW were correct; Harris and the ever dwindling band of Trenchardists were wrong.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we all benefit from it. It might not have been so clear to Harris that his method was failing and that others might be more successful, yet there was plenty of evidence at the time which he chose wilfully to deny or ignore. To this extent he is culpable.

The Battle of Berlin was a near disaster for Bomber Command. It wasn't saved by Harris but by the enforced switch to targets in support of the invasion. This in turn enabled Harris to remain in denial as to the true nature of the defeat he had suffered.

More incredible is his pursuit of the destruction of German cities AFTER the explicit directives of 14th and 25th September (44). After Quebec control of the strategic bomber force in Europe had reverted from SHAEF to Sir Norman Bottomley and General Spaatz. The Chiefs of Staff's instructions for 'Pointblank' were translated into formal orders issued by Bottomley and Spaatz on the 25th. These orders are unequivocal. Oil was the sole 'First Priority' target. Transport links, tank and vehicle production were 'Second Priority'.
There is barely a mention of area targets though they are mentioned in the same terms as the earlier September 14th directive. Important industrial areas were to be attacked "when weather or tactical conditions are unsuitable for operations against specific primary objectives."

These were direct orders which Harris flouted and for which he should have been fired. No wonder he didn't get offered any further posts after the war.

Cheers

Steve
 
Last edited:
Usually lost in the Precision Bombing Debate is the definition of "precision." We should start with the AAF criterion of the 1000-foot circle around the aim point. The 1000-ft CEP (circular error probable) BEGAN with the notion that half the bombs would strike outside that circle. A 1000-pounder hitting at 1050 feet still would inflict some damage but presumably would not be cited as a success. The fact was: the 1000-ft CEP was seldom achieved, though things did improve (they had to.) In researching the Curt LeMay biography, IIRC when took the 305th BG to England he found that the 8AF could not tell where half its ordnance landed--a hellacious big CEP. (In the highly controversial Monte Cassino bombing, Gen. Mark Clark's trailer was rocked by explosions miles behind the lines. And that was in broad daylight.) There were of course multiple reasons: equipment, weather, and especially training. In each of his commands LeMay established remedial training programs to compensate for Stateside shortcomings.
 
Both.
No one would claim the 8th AF devoted as much effort to area bombing as Bomber Command did, but it's wrong to claim they didn't do it at all. Until 1944 they were pretty open about their area bombing against Germany, after that they removed all reference to area bombing from their records, although they still carried out area attacks.

This is an old post but I agree Hop. It is worthwhile to note that Northern Europe weather and visibility precluded
visual acquisition of the Aiming Point in many instances from October through February and mid March.
 
This is an old post but I agree Hop. It is worthwhile to note that Northern Europe weather and visibility precluded
visual acquisition of the Aiming Point in many instances from October through February and mid March.

Plus, has been pointed out before, formations would pickle their bombs when they saw the master bomb aimer release his bombs. Hard to achieve precision when your aircraft isn't even fitted with a Norden Bomb Sight and you're simply releasing on a cue from someone else.
 
Usually lost in the Precision Bombing Debate is the definition of "precision." We should start with the AAF criterion of the 1000-foot circle around the aim point. The 1000-ft CEP (circular error probable) BEGAN with the notion that half the bombs would strike outside that circle. A 1000-pounder hitting at 1050 feet still would inflict some damage but presumably would not be cited as a success. The fact was: the 1000-ft CEP was seldom achieved, though things did improve (they had to.) In researching the Curt LeMay biography, IIRC when took the 305th BG to England he found that the 8AF could not tell where half its ordnance landed--a hellacious big CEP. (In the highly controversial Monte Cassino bombing, Gen. Mark Clark's trailer was rocked by explosions miles behind the lines. And that was in broad daylight.) There were of course multiple reasons: equipment, weather, and especially training. In each of his commands LeMay established remedial training programs to compensate for Stateside shortcomings.
I question LeMay's judgement regarding Stateside shortcomings. Having personally gone through the Bombardier Training Program I can attest to it's quality.
 
Last edited:
I question LeMay's judgement regarding Stateside shortcomings. Having personally gone through the Bombardier Training Program I can attest to it's quality.

I wonder if those remedial schools were before your time in training.

I believe that the training quality issues were for the initial intakes of the 8th AF, and the later trainees benefited from improved training informed by combat experience/
 
I wonder if those remedial schools were before your time in training.

I believe that the training quality issues were for the initial intakes of the 8th AF, and the later trainees benefited from improved training informed by combat experience/

That could very well be. The training I received was excellent and prepared me mentally and physically for combat. It demanded the very best I had to offer.
 
I question LeMay's judgement regarding Stateside shortcomings. Having personally gone through the Bombardier Training Program I can attest to it's quality.
Bill - LeMay's experiences and reflections pointed to the very earliest days of 8th AF operations in fall and Winter of 1942 - based on observed results.

The trained officer corps was at a very low level in 1938-1939-1940 due to budget constraints. The crews and Navigator/bombardiers were trained and deployed without the integration of combat experienced trainers or combat experience relative to weather and least of all, the combined systems/doctrines and flight disciplines that led him to institute Lead Crew training.

I suspect that your training program in the states was circa mid-late 1943 after more Lessons Learned filtered back to the States? Additionally, the B-17E and early Fs went to England without the Automatic Flight Control systems that permitted the Bombardier to take over control from pilot during the bomb run from the IP (IIRC).
 
Bill - LeMay's experiences and reflections pointed to the very earliest days of 8th AF operations in fall and Winter of 1942 - based on observed results.

The trained officer corps was at a very low level in 1938-1939-1940 due to budget constraints. The crews and Navigator/bombardiers were trained and deployed without the integration of combat experienced trainers or combat experience relative to weather and least of all, the combined systems/doctrines and flight disciplines that led him to institute Lead Crew training.

I suspect that your training program in the states was circa mid-late 1943 after more Lessons Learned filtered back to the States? Additionally, the B-17E and early Fs went to England without the Automatic Flight Control systems that permitted the Bombardier to take over control from pilot during the bomb run from the IP (IIRC).
Thanks for the info. I graduated from Bombardier School September 30, 1944 so the training I received would have included the changes he made.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back