Paul Lantos wrote: The RAF policy under the dogmatic Arthur Harris was basically one of strategic bombing, and I don't think this was particularly reactive to Luftwaffe strategies. Basically, Harris was not a fan of tactical bombing, which was essentially moot for the British anyway except at a small scale in North Africa, until the Sicily / Italy / Normandy campaigns.
Because Britain simply did NOT want to invade France until the US hammered them into it, the recourse for British military policy was strategic bombing. But they largely restricted their raids to night bombing to avoid losses, rendering their terrible accuracy even worse.
Harris was VERY dogmatic about this policy of trying to win the war through bombing, both by destroying war industries and by "demoralizing" the German people (an outlook similar to that of the Germans in their terror bombing efforts, perhaps). Harris also believed that the industrial workers during a "total" war, with complete population mobilization for a war effort, were legitimate military targets. (Source = Beevor, "The Second World War"). Executing this sort of strategy basically necessitated regional bombing rather than targeted bombing.
Point taken, but Arthur Harris was the opinion follower more than the opinion leader.
Cyril Newall led the RAF from September 1937 to October 1940. Charles Portal took his place and was chief policy maker during World War II. Hugh Trenchard, the first Chief of the Air Staff, was long since retired but he still managed to actively influence the use of British bombers. You must take into account that no matter what these officers wanted, all of them had to contend with changing politics.
Newall was best known for flexibility and compromise, particularly when he appeased politicians who called for shifting emphasis to production of defensive fighters rather than offensive bombers. He also had doubts that bombing alone could decide the outcome of a war. All this went against the bomber-centric will of the Air Staff, and Newall was not universally popular with government officials. Based on what happened just before Newall was forced to retire, the major change in pre-war policy was a wise choice.
Portal wanted more emphasis put on strategic area bombing of Germany and he pursued that program vigorously. From 1940-1942, both Portal and Trenchard complained to the Air Ministry and the Prime Minister that tactical bombing was a very expensive waste of resources, and that it should be curtailed, at least until bombing accuracy was improved. At various times, Portal accused the Air Ministry and the British Army of making demands on the RAF that were based on felt political pressure rather than military necessity.
Like Newall, Portal was not a proponent of close air support. Their views were partly shaped by the poor air to ground communications, which also resulted in outdated target information being given to the air crews. On 8th May 1940, when Portal was in charge of Bomber Command, he warned the Air Staff that the Blenheim squadrons were not suited to tactical air strikes on enemy ground forces and airfields, and he predicted they would probably suffer heavy losses with little to show for their efforts. That is exactly what happened.
On 19th May 1941 Trenchard wrote a memo to Winston Churchill reviewing bombing policy to date (circulated to Charles Portal, John Dill, and Dudley Pound). They were informed that bomb damage assessments suggested only 1% of bombs hit the targets, and he rightly underscored that some amount of those 99% of bombs which missed the targets were liable to cause unnecessary death and collateral damage to civilian property in Norway, Belgium, Holland and France. For that reason, he thought it was prudent to confine air attacks to within the borders of Germany. Trenchard was also dismissive of the Coastal Command anti-shipping campaign, the Circus raids, and of attacking other subsidiary targets such as sea ports and oil refineries.
The old man made a point about bombing accuracy that was hard to argue with, but Trenchard almost ruined the power of his message in closing, by insisting that breaking German morale should be the primary target of bombing policy, and that the RAF must be massively expanded for the express purpose of indiscriminate area bombing over Germany every night, regardless of cost in men and material.
The Chiefs of Staff were generally supportive, except for Admiral Pound who replied that: "the paper is a complete over-statement and it suffers all the dangers of all over-statement". General Dill was cautiously optimistic and Portal was so misty-eyed by Trenchard's proposals that he soon drafted his own paper demanding 4,000 new heavy bombers.