Bomber command memorial (2 Viewers)

[Mitch]

Combat...

Just had a quick look at some of my books so, I could respond more factually to some of your comments.
Adam Tooze: Wages of destruction: the making and breaking of the nazi economy

Said of five months of Bombing in 1943 34,000 tons of bombs were dropped and resulted in steel production falling by 200,000 tons. Speer stated that the RAF were disrupting his war capacity severely his plans to increase productivity.

Hamburg raids in 1943 set back Tiger tank production and 75mm and 88mm gun production significantly.

In relation to bombing cities Prof John Buckley states the impact on civillian morale was severe. 60% of civillian homes were destroyed and 6 million were displaced and often seperated from family and friends

The US strategic bombing command survey stated Bombing was seriously undermining the morale. 80% thought the war was over by spring 1944 due to the bombing campaign.

I commented on this about your response about war production and could not remember the fact until I reread it where Germany until late in the war was on a one shift system and Speer initiated a three shift rota which, could account for increase productivity.

I know these historians may not be in your class of ''serious'' but add to the debate that a few of us here comment on.

I agree with Rob that your statements were at worst anti british as no acrimony was aimed at the germans and, at best purely baiting and argumentative when we are celebrating what the RAF did to defend our country
Mitch

 

[uksubs]

Mitch-
I think you are on shaky ground here if your point is that Britain targeted German civilians because of something the Germans might have done, but had not done up to the time of the Berlin raid. I assume that raid was "limited" based on distance and bomber resources at that time and not out of concern for German civilians. In addition, any argument that the targeting of German civilians had a strategic impact on the German military has been debunked by any serious historian. The primary objective was to break German civilian morale and lead to an overthrow of the Nazi regime. It didn't happen. The massive resources and loss of life devoted to these missions was not intended just to tie up German school boys and old men with AA guns (which would have been manned in any case). So it failed. I really don't believe there is any serious disagreement on that point. The best argument that can be made is that all is fair in war. The allies believed the raids would break German morale and they turned out to be wrong on that point.

So what do you think about the fire bombing of Japan then
I'm think I'm right in saying one raid alone killed more than one of the atom bomb raid

The first raid using low-flying B-29s carrying incendiary bombs to drop on Tokyo was on the night of 24–25 February 1945 when 174 B-29s destroyed around one square mile (3 km²) of the city.[citation needed] Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 335 B-29s took off[2] to raid on the night of 9–10 March, with 279 of them[2] dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost.[2] Approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombs.[3][4] The US Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated that nearly 88,000 people died in this one raid, 41,000 were injured, and over a million residents lost their homes. The Tokyo Fire Department estimated a higher toll: 97,000 killed and 125,000 wounded. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department established a figure of 124,711 casualties including both killed and wounded and 286,358 buildings and homes destroyed. Richard Rhodes, historian, put deaths at over 100,000, injuries at a million and homeless residents at a million.[5] These casualty and damage figures could be low; Mark Selden wrote in Japan Focus:

The figure of roughly 100,000 deaths, provided by Japanese and American authorities, both of whom may have had reasons of their own for minimizing the death toll, seems to me arguably low in light of population density, wind conditions, and survivors' accounts. With an average of 103,000 inhabitants per square mile (396 people per hectare) and peak levels as high as 135,000 per square mile (521 people per hectare), the highest density of any industrial city in the world, and with firefighting measures ludicrously inadequate to the task, 15.8 square miles (41 km2) of Tokyo were destroyed on a night when fierce winds whipped the flames and walls of fire blocked tens of thousands fleeing for their lives. An estimated 1.5 million people lived in the burned out areas.[6]

 

[Mitch]

uksubs....

Your right mate.
Mitch

 

[Rob]

Meant to say I heard a truly astonishing statement in a docu the other day. A British serviceman said a German women was stood in the ruins of her town, looking around she said to the Tommy 'If only you'd surrendered in 1940, none of this need ever had happened '!!

Rob

 

[uksubs]

Quote from Combat:

"Most importantly, that the bombing campaign in Europe didn't shorten the war by one minute"

Really....what is they say, 'a picture says a thousand words'. Well, he's 5 thousand words then

Tirpitz

Dambusters

German occupied railway yard in N.France

Railway Viaduct at Bielefeld, Germany

V2 Development site before and after

As for German's targeting civilians - of course no track record of that with Zepplins in WW1, bombing of Guernica in 1938, Poland 1939 etc etc ....

Cheers

Gazza

Great photos Gazza
Look like there all 617 sq raids

 

[Combat]

Well Doug it does sound pretty anti British, you don't appear to condemn the Germans in anyway at all for the commencement of civilian bombing or the War in general that I would expect most folk would and yet you seem to expect the British not to want to hit back. Now I don't know you or know if you are anti British, but I put it to you that you cannot possibly understand the depth of feeling that the bombing of my country caused, you seem happy to critizise Churchill but I don't hear a word about Goering and co??. Perhaps your sympathies lie with the German airmen in WW1 because of your avatar, but perhaps a real study of the lives lost in this country during WW2 may help you understand a little more of what we went through and therefore our right to hit back.Lets just remember who started the war and just how much support Hitler had from his civilian population...when they were winning.

Rob

Rob-
You appear to have a very strong bias on the subject which I understand but you reach some conclusions about me that are unfounded by any post here. The issue as I understood it was a statue to the men of bomber command and some who opposed that (not me). If you want to discuss who started the war or Goring you can always start another thread (btw why did the Brits declare war on Germany because they invaded Poland but not Russia?). All I've said here is that the targeting of civilians by the Brits and Americans who also fought in the war (remember us?) was ineffective. If you or anyone else takes exception to any such views as somehow anti-British then it's hard to have a meaningful discussion. It becomes just a rehashing of half-truths and beating down of contrary opinions.

 

[Combat]

Combat...


I agree with Rob that your statements were at worst anti british as no acrimony was aimed at the germans and, at best purely baiting and argumentative when we are celebrating what the RAF did to defend our country
Mitch

Mitch-
Tortured logic but nice use of forum buzz words.

 

[Combat]

Here is an excerpt from Max Hastings book Armageddon which I think captures fairly some the opinions expressed here:

The USAAF's strategic offensive achieved formidable success, in winning air supremacy over Europe and in crippling Germany's oil production and transport links. By contrast, the final stage of the offensive against Germany's cities contributed little to the defeat of the Nazis, and cast a moral shadow over Allied victory which has never been lifted. It is impossible to fight any war wholly humanly. In most respects, the Western allies displayed commendable charity in their conduct of total war against an enemy bereft of civilized sentiment. Aerial assault, however, provided the exception. It was a policy quite at odds with the spirit in which the Americans and British otherwise conducted their war effort. The remoteness of bombing rendered tolerable in the eyes of Western political leaders and military commanders, not to mention their aircrew, actions which would have seemed repugnant and probably unbearable had the Allies confronted the consequences at close quarters. Eisenhower's soldiers frequently found themselves killing local inhabitants in the course of battles for Germany's towns and village. They would have surely revolted at the notion of systematically slaughtering civilians by artillery bombardment or machine-gun fire. This is what the Allied air force did, nonetheless, protected by the curious moral absolution granted by a separation of some thousands of feet of airspace, together with pragmatic excuse that it was impossible to hit targets of military relevance with air-dropped missles without inflicting what is now called "collateral damage."

We should recognize, however, that it is far easier to pass such judgements amid the relative tranquilllity of the twenty-first century than it seemed in 1945, when Hitler's nation was still doing it's utmost to kill American and British people, together with millions of Nazi captives, by every means within its power. Some Germans today brand the bombing of their cities a war crime. This seems an incautious choice of words. It is possible to deplore Harris's excesses without accepting that they should be judged in emotive language. For all it's follies and bloody misjudgements, the strategic air offensive was a military operation designed to hasten the collapse of Germany's ability to make war.

 

[Rob]

Rob-
You appear to have a very strong bias on the subject which I understand but you reach some conclusions about me that are unfounded by any post here. The issue as I understood it was a statue to the men of bomber command and some who opposed that (not me). If you want to discuss who started the war or Goring you can always start another thread (btw why did the Brits declare war on Germany because they invaded Poland but not Russia?). All I've said here is that the targeting of civilians by the Brits and Americans who also fought in the war (remember us?) was ineffective. If you or anyone else takes exception to any such views as somehow anti-British then it's hard to have a meaningful discussion. It becomes just a rehashing of half-truths and beating down of contrary opinions.

Right are you now saying Britain started WW2 because they promised to protect Poland? Also your ' remember us ' is uncalled
for because the discussion was about the disgraceful reaction of some Germans to our bomber command memorial it had nothing to do with the wonderful efforts of the USAAF

Your apparent belief that my country was as much to blame as Nazi Germany , your statement that Churchill was looking for an excuse, your belief that the loss of life of my countrymen around the airfields was acceptable and your choice of avatar can lead to assumptions being made, perhaps understandable in the circumstances I suggest, but my apologies if I've offended you Doug. I will argue my country's corner until my dying breath, but have no wish to fall out with anyone on here, there has been too much of that going on here of late.

Rob

 

[trooper]

Gentlemen, I have followed this thread with interest but am concerned and deplore the tendancy to slip towards personal opinion of each others posts and reading reasons behind those posts. The issue of bombing was quite simple, we were at war with GERMANY not just the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, and whatever could be done to hurt Germany was supported wholeheartedly. I stress that was the civilian opinion, not necessarily the military. In all fairness I am sure the same thinking applied to the German populace as well. I well recall my sister saying in quite blood curdling terms what she would like to do to the Germans and yet when a German aircraft crash landed near the farm where she was working as a Land Girl she and the other women tended the wounded crewmen until the army arrived to take them away. As a little lad I knew nothing but war and any thing German was anathema to me. Later as a serviceman I was stationed in Germany and met many Germans some of whom became my friends. I tend to judge people as individuals but I must confess I still regard Germany, the nation state, with some suspicion. There are still traces of the old arrogance surfacing from time to time and I suspect that the rant by this person regarding the memorial is one of them.

 

[Rob]

What has annoyed many people in this country is the timing of all this. Did it not occur to those in Germany who are complaining or the Mayor of Dresden that this very week we are remembering the start of the Blitz and all those who died in the first days?. Could they not have just done the decent thing and said ' Lets let them remember their dead in peace and we will raise the subject later'. No they couldn't do that could they, they , the country that caused all this just had to push the button , they must have known how high emotions are running over here this week but just showed no consideration for anyone else, as Alan said, there is still that bit of arrogance there.

Rob

 

[Mitch]

Combat....

Tortured logic. You really are crass. I firmly believe that you are doing this for no other reason than to cause annoyance. What I cannot understand is what you are going on about why we declared war on Germany for attacking Poland and not Russia.

We declared war on germany because Poland was promised such help as an allied state and, if my tortured logic bears me out Russia was invaded after we were formally at war with Germany and therefore what would necessitate the declaration of war. I do recall we were close to declaring war with Russia over Finland but, cannot see what your point is here. Maybe your own form of tortured logic.

I thought the germans were insensitive in their reaction to our commemoration of the RAF but, you have just sidled in with your alternative points with the knowledge that it would inflame posters on here and, that is not a buzz word its what I feel about the text of your posts.

You allude to the ''remember us'' in the war but, this is a celebration of what the RAF did not what the USAAF did and that is clear.
Mitch

Mitch-
Tortured logic but nice use of forum buzz words.

 

[Mitch]

My error about the question posed about declaring war on Russia. nI now realise what you were trying to provoke with the question but, as I mentioned we were very close to war with Russia over the finnish war But, I think you will find that explanations over this matter have been published and, are not the real issue here
Mitch

 

[aujj65]

It must be "Bash the British" month......again!

Jeff

 

[Rob]

It must be "Bash the British" month......again!

Jeff

You must be right Jeff....but Hey, we still won!!

Rob

 

[Mitch]

How true on all counts
Mitch

 

[Combat]

Combat....

Tortured logic. You really are crass. I firmly believe that you are doing this for no other reason than to cause annoyance. What I cannot understand is what you are going on about why we declared war on Germany for attacking Poland and not Russia.

We declared war on germany because Poland was promised such help as an allied state and, if my tortured logic bears me out Russia was invaded after we were formally at war with Germany and therefore what would necessitate the declaration of war. I do recall we were close to declaring war with Russia over Finland but, cannot see what your point is here. Maybe your own form of tortured logic.

I thought the germans were insensitive in their reaction to our commemoration of the RAF but, you have just sidled in with your alternative points with the knowledge that it would inflame posters on here and, that is not a buzz word its what I feel about the text of your posts.

You allude to the ''remember us'' in the war but, this is a celebration of what the RAF did not what the USAAF did and that is clear.
Mitch

It's clear now that we can't have a rationale discussion of the issue without personal attacks. However, I will just note that what I was referring too is the fact that Russia invaded Poland in 1939.

 

[Rob]

Mitch, did I see docu's on the Wellington and Lancaster coming up in yesterday tv series?.

Rob

 

[aujj65]

Mitch, did I see docu's on the Wellington and Lancaster coming up in yesterday tv series?.

Rob

Rob,

The Lancaster has got to be the Spitfire of the Bomber Command, imho of course.

Jeff

 

[Mitch]

Rob..

I think there are some coming on and I agree that the Lanc was the spitfire of Bomber command. Did you know that 23 VC's were awarded to Bomber command for bravery in their duties in WWII?
Mitch