British bombing policy 1939-1940

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Paul Lantos
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British bombing policy 1939-1940

#1

Post by Paul Lantos » 05 Nov 2013, 04:33

[Split from "Who Bombed The Others Civilians First? Germany or Britain?"]
BuddaBell123 wrote:Britain was prepared to fight a war that it was not sure for a long time it would win with Bomber Command only bombing specific military targets - would Britain have stuck to this even if lets say Germany also didn't bomb any civilian targets, but managed to get where it had in May-June 1940 with most of Western Europe and Poland in its hands?
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.

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Re: Who Bombed The Others Civilians First? Germany or Britai

#2

Post by Urmel » 05 Nov 2013, 12:50

Paul Lantos wrote:
BuddaBell123 wrote:Britain was prepared to fight a war that it was not sure for a long time it would win with Bomber Command only bombing specific military targets - would Britain have stuck to this even if lets say Germany also didn't bomb any civilian targets, but managed to get where it had in May-June 1940 with most of Western Europe and Poland in its hands?
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.
All completely and utterly irrelevant and idle speculation in relation to the question. You forget or ignore that Harris only was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command in February 1942. Which means that he did not set policy until then, and 'then' was well after the Germans decided to go for area bombing.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#3

Post by Paul Lantos » 05 Nov 2013, 16:10

Urmel wrote:All completely and utterly irrelevant and idle speculation in relation to the question.
It's irrelevant that the head of the RAF had a strategic policy position, which he articulated ad nauseum, that could only be executed with area bombing? Is it also irrelevant that the Butt Report showed horrendously poor bombing accuracy by the RAF, which meant that destroying military targets could not be done precisely?

It's not speculation, it's history that there was great hubris in the RAF about their capability of bombing Germany into surrender or incapacity, and it's history that from Churchill on down no one in Britain wanted a land war in Europe. It's also history that even direct hits on U-boat docks and underground aircraft facilities were ineffective, and accuracy was so poor that direct hits were rare. What's speculative is to what degree revenge played a role -- I'm sure there was some of that, but one doesn't need revenge to understand the policy.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#4

Post by phylo_roadking » 05 Nov 2013, 17:45

It's irrelevant that the head of the RAF had a strategic policy position, which he articulated ad nauseum, that could only be executed with area bombing? Is it also irrelevant that the Butt Report showed horrendously poor bombing accuracy by the RAF, which meant that destroying military targets could not be done precisely?
It's entirely relative however that you don't seem capable of taking on board the correction above that Harris was NOT AOC Bomber Command in 1939-40....and not until early 1942 actually.

He was also NOT head of the RAF, he was only head of one of its branches.
It's not speculation, it's history that there was great hubris in the RAF about their capability of bombing Germany into surrender or incapacity, and it's history that from Churchill on down no one in Britain wanted a land war in Europe.
It's ALSO unfortunately history that as early as the summer of 1940 Churchill ordered planning begun for a rapid break-back onto the Continent! The British had done considerable work on it before it was subsumed into ROUNDUP, then subsequently SLEDGEHAMMER.
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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#5

Post by Urmel » 05 Nov 2013, 18:30

Paul Lantos wrote:
Urmel wrote:All completely and utterly irrelevant and idle speculation in relation to the question.
It's irrelevant that the head of the RAF had a strategic policy position, which he articulated ad nauseum, that could only be executed with area bombing? Is it also irrelevant that the Butt Report showed horrendously poor bombing accuracy by the RAF, which meant that destroying military targets could not be done precisely?
Original question = Bomber Command Policy 1940
Butt report = August/September 1941
Harris = C-i-C Bomber Command 1942

Conclusion: Harris views and the Butt report were irrelevant to any decisions made by RAF Bomber Command in September 1940.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#6

Post by phylo_roadking » 05 Nov 2013, 18:41

Oliver- precision bombing ;) Hitting specific targets by day...nightflying and nightbombing came very late to the equation, the first nightflying school wasn't opened until the Spring of 1939 IIRC (See John James' The Paladins) It's possible that this...among other aspects of Bomber Command such as building up the required numbers of multi-engined bomber crew trainers...was a result of the decision in late '38 to drive forward and complete Fighter Command prior to war breaking out.

James is very useful...although in some aspects of his study it cuts off in 1938, in others in 1939, for a reason discussed in the book...and when tied to something like Chirs Ward and Steve Smith's excellent study of 3 Group Bomber Command you can obtain an almost continuous view from theory/buildup through to use of Bomber Command as a weapon ;)

One aspect that I was sort of aware of before reading Ward and Stevens, but that book brought home to a great degree, was that the first Bomber Command efforts were not only hampered by a lack of accuracy - they were GREATLY hampered by the very low numbers of aircraft the RAF sent against specific targets! Especially once they'd gone to night bombing...

Three here, six there...only occasionally full "squadrons" once they got into the swing of things in the summer of 1940 - but not often at that point in the war against the same target! Often they were distributed around a number of objectives. Maybe it was an early symptom of their inflated opinions regarding the accuracy those few aircraft were achieving...

But also, the flying of large missions was ALSO hampered by the availability of aircraft - at a time when squadrons were ideally to muster a dozen aircraft for operations....it was rare for them to fly off a full dozen! 8O Mechanical reliability of aircraft seems to have been relatively low....and for certain types it was atrocious. The Short Stirling comes to mind, that didn't reach any appreciable level of reliability until the MkIII!
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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#7

Post by Marcus » 05 Nov 2013, 21:59

An off-topic post from BuddaBell123 was split off into a new thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4&t=203203

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#8

Post by gambadier » 10 Nov 2013, 08:15

In the aftermath of WW1 strategic bombing became the primary role of the RAF, this was Trenchard's doing. A major reason for it was that such a role justified the existence of the independent RAF, and enabled the RAF to thwart the attempts by the War Office and Admiralty to revert to air arms in the army and navy. During the inter-war period it became the common view that any future war would involve bombing civilian targets on a large scale. The Spanish civil war and the actions of the Condor Legion reinforced this view.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#9

Post by EKB » 10 Nov 2013, 15:02

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.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#10

Post by gambadier » 11 Nov 2013, 11:22

The argument for Army Cooperation raged on and the army was definitely aggrieved. The RAF remained convinced throughout the war that strategic bombing would win it, the polite reponse is 'could I have some of what they were smoking'. The interesting question is why Brooke did not take a firm line against the wasted resources of strat bombing. Trenchard has a lot to answer for, a classic case of believing your own BS.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#11

Post by Sheldrake » 14 Nov 2013, 13:05

gambadier wrote:The argument for Army Cooperation raged on and the army was definitely aggrieved. The RAF remained convinced throughout the war that strategic bombing would win it, the polite reponse is 'could I have some of what they were smoking'. The interesting question is why Brooke did not take a firm line against the wasted resources of strat bombing. Trenchard has a lot to answer for, a classic case of believing your own BS.

This is coloured by hindsight.

Between 1940 and 44 the RAF could argue that they were hitting back at the Germans in Germany, while most of the army was not engaged with the Germans at all. Alanbrooke's Diary contains the post-war comment are that this was a difficult argument to counter at the time. His contemporary diary entries are full of references to arguments in the Chief of Staff meetings with Portal, variously described as "hammer and tongs" or "futile" or "unsatisfactory."

Brooke was the CIGS not CDS. He chaired the chief of staffs committee. He had no command authority over the RAF, which was answerable through the air ministry to the politicians. As long as Churchill, the war minister favoured strategic bombing it would have priority over close air support.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#12

Post by fredleander » 14 Nov 2013, 14:07

phylo_roadking wrote:But also, the flying of large missions was ALSO hampered by the availability of aircraft - at a time when squadrons were ideally to muster a dozen aircraft for operations....it was rare for them to fly off a full dozen! 8O Mechanical reliability of aircraft seems to have been relatively low....and for certain types it was atrocious. The Short Stirling comes to mind, that didn't reach any appreciable level of reliability until the MkIII!
In 1940 Churchill was so p***** with what little was done with Bomber Command's 500-plane inventory (his figure) that he suggested some fancy missioning to make it seem more impressive... :) ..

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#13

Post by phylo_roadking » 14 Nov 2013, 16:56

In 1940 Churchill was so p***** with what little was done with Bomber Command's 500-plane inventory (his figure) that he suggested some fancy missioning to make it seem more impressive... ..
...including the ill-favoured MEW policy of firebombing German forests to deny the Reich wood as a strategic resource...

You will of course note how famous and successful THAT policy was.

On what date did that suggestion noted above arise?
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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#14

Post by Kurfürst » 19 Mar 2014, 11:53

As far as the RAF bombing policy in 1939-40, the main driving force behind was Chamberlain vs Churchill. While the former was Prime Minister, Churchill's folly and various proposals from the autumn of 1939 to area bomb German cities under various pretexts were blocked in the war cabinet - partially due to practical considerations, i.e. the LW had far larger bombing capacity than the RAF and it was feared that it would win the bombing war. It was not until Chamberlain had to to resign and Churchill came into power that Churchill's "grand strategy" (if you can it that) of winning the war by a combination of area bombing of cities and operations on the Axis periphery and satellites prevailed. The driving motivation was probably the same as Trenchard's folly, a "cheap" way of waging wars without engaging in land battles; in addtion with the German offensive in the West in motion it was hoped that the Germans could be provoked into reprisal air attacks and thus relieve the Allied land troops from the pressure the Luftwaffe was putting on them.

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Re: British bombing policy 1939-1940

#15

Post by harry6116 » 19 Mar 2014, 12:47

hey all,
am loving these forums.
the RAF dropped a lot of leaflets over germany in late 39 and 40. my question is a hard one. does anyone on here know what these leaflets said?
thanks for any help

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