Violent deaths of a bomber force.

[Mark V]

I dont see what "brave" is to murder innocent civilians?

Kasper

I think this issue has been chewed thoroughly and we should not go to that direction KalaVelka.....just my opinion.

RAF aicrews were brave men, but innocent casualties of that campaign on German side should not be forgotten either. I think we can show respect to both sides. Nuff said...


Mark V

[KalaVelka]

I dont see what "brave" is to murder innocent civilians?

Kasper

I think this issue has been chewed thoroughly and we should not go to that direction KalaVelka.....just my opinion.

RAF aicrews were brave men, but innocent casualties of that campaign on German side should not be forgotten either. I think we can show respect to both sides. Nuff said...


Mark V

Roger. I agree that this has been done to the death, so I will not continue this one.

Kasper

[Englander]

Yep. I dont see what "brave" is to murder innocent civilians?

so I will not continue this one.

That's a shame.I wanted to ask you a question.

[KalaVelka]

Ok if you want you can, but dont blame me if this tread is going to lose its original idea.

Kasper

[Englander]

Ok if you want you can, but dont blame me if this tread is going to lose its original idea.

Kasper

You should have thought about that before you posted.Check out my new post.

[KalaVelka]

Ok if you want you can, but dont blame me if this tread is going to lose its original idea.

Kasper

You should have thought about that before you posted.Check out my new post.

Your new post?

[Englander]

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 503#419503

[WalterS]

KelaVelka wrote:

How many innocent German civilians died in that raid?

From "The Nuremberg Raid" by Martin Middlebrook p.259

Daylight gave the inhabitants of Nuremberg the opportunity to assess the damage caused by the bombing. The Nurembergers soon realized that they had escaped lightly from an obvious attempt by the RAF to destroy their city when they found that the bombs they had heard the night before had, in most cases fallen outside the city.........When the bodies of the dead had all been recovered, the final casualty figures were assessed. These were almost as nothing compared with successful RAF raids on Hamburg, Dresden and other cities but still seventy-five civilians had lost theor lives. The Nuremberg archives carefully classify these: sixty Germans had been killed (Twenty-eight men, twenty-four women and eight children), but so too had fifteen foreign workers (fourteen men and a woman).



As stated earlier, the RAF raid on Nuremberg was a bloody failure.

RAF crews exhibited great bravery in this and many other raids. Don't forget that they were flying at night, in planes that had been stripped of most armor and were lightly armed (rifle caliber machine guns vs the 50 cal heavy MG found on US B-17's). They were flying gas cans packed with HE and incendiaries. They had to contend with an ever improving German night fighter force and incredible flak defences en route to and over the target city. Yes, I'd say they were brave.

[KalaVelka]

roger

[KalaVelka]

Yes, I'd say they were brave.

I could say same from German counterpartisan units.

[Globalization41]

The British airman bombing German
civilian centers were brave because they
risked their lives while engaged in an act
of war. ... Omitting from history, for the
purpose of wanting them forgotten, the
innocent Germans targeted and
slaughtered during Allied bombing raids
is the moral equivalent of ignoring the
Jewish Holocaust or the Ukrainian
Terror Famine. ... Executioners are not
brave. ... War equals terrorism. If a
community facilitates a party engaged
in war, then the community is not neutral
and is therefore at risk for war. ... If the
community in general does not know that
it is facilitating a party engaged in war,
then that community's neutrality has been
subverted.

Globalization41

[Englander]

Indeed. A German pilot, Leutnant Wilhelm Seuss, flying a Bf-110 with the SN-2 radar and schrage musik shot down four Lancasters in about a half hour's time. It was truly a night of carnage for Bomber Command.

Just to remind our readers,it wasn't a one way street.The night time battles over Germany was a cat and mouse affair.The hunters,became the hunted.The Lancaster was the best bomber in Europe. But the best aircraft to emerge from a British workshop was the Mosquito. By day,the cry would be "Achtung,Spitfire". By Night,"Achtung,Moskito".

[WalterS]

Englander wrote:

Just to remind our readers,it wasn't a one way street.The night time battles over Germany was a cat and mouse affair.The hunters,became the hunted.

You are absolutely correct. There were many raids during which the RAF did great damage and suffered relatively minor losses. The Hamburg raids are an example.

We were discussing the Nuremberg raid, which you introduced, and my comments were directed at that raid.

It is also worth noting that the RAF did pay a heavy price for the night raids...some 50,000+ flyers perished.

[Andreas]

Yes, I'd say they were brave.

I could say same from German counterpartisan units.

Well no you couldn't, unless you are totally ignorant of the facts. Comparative loss figures in action should tell you as much. Bomber Command had either the highest or second-highest loss rate of any British Service (I think the submarine service maybe a close contender), in relation to the number of chaps who served. They were all volunteers, and could have walked away at any time (albeit with a strong stigma attached to their record).

To compare German counter-partisan units with them is a completely uncalled for insult.

[Globalization41]

Berlin, Associated Press, The New York
Times, Monday, June 23, 1941: [Late Sunday,
U.S. time] British squadrons attacking the
German-occupied port of Boulogne, France,
Sunday lost 11 planes, D.N.B., German news
agency, reported early Monday. ... Two
Bristol Blenheims were downed in dogfights
while nine Spitfires were shot out of the sky.
The German anti-aircraft in the Netherlands
bagged another British plane, the agency said.
... The High Command asserted that 28 British
planes were shot down over the French coast
Saturday. Nazi fighters accounted for 26 and
anti-aircraft guns got two. ... The Luftwaffe's
attack on the English port of Southampton
during Saturday night, D.N.B. added, rained
more than 400,000 pounds of incendiary and
explosive bombs on Portsmouth Harbor
facilities. Fires were visible as far as the
French coast. ... ... London, Special Cable
to The New York Times, By Craig Thompson,
Monday, June 23, 1941: [Late Sunday, U.S.
time] In another series of big daylight sweeps
over the German-occupied territory of Northern
France Sunday, the Royal Air Force shot down
30 German fighters, many of the new
Messerschmitt 109-F type, with the loss of
only two of their planes. ... Strong forces of
Hurricanes and Spitfires worked destruction on
Nazi defenders, while smaller numbers of
Blenheim bombers rained high explosives on
the Germans' airfields. ... Sunday's daylight
raids followed up a long attack over Saturday
night by a heavier force of British bombers on
Dunkerque and Boulogne. Persons on the
Kentish coast described the Dunkerque and
Boulogne attacks as "the heaviest yet."
They said bombs falling across the Channel
rocked the earth on the English side. ...
Simultaneously, in the hours before dawn
Sunday, the industrial areas of Western
Germany around Duesseldorf and Cologne
were bombed by R.A.F. squadrons. ...
Sunday's R.A.F. offensive included a hard
bombing of freight yards at Hazebrouck, used
by the Germans to handle traffic to Channel
ports, the Air Ministry reported. ... Partaking
in the daylight sweeps over Northern France
was the famous Polish Squadron 303, which
performed valiantly in the Battle for Britain.
... Over Saturday night, despite British air
patrols, a fairly heavy force of Nazi bombers
raided a South Coast town that the Germans
said was Southampton, causing considerable
damage and a number of casualties. Four of
the enemy bombers were shot down. The raid
was described as "sharp." ... Mingled among
the bombs dropped were leaflets in which the
Germans undertook to tell the British people
they were losing the Battle of the Atlantic.
This was the second time in recent weeks the
Germans have dropped "peace" leaflets in
England. It would seem, just as the Rudolf
Hess mission was a failure, these Nazi leaflets
are futile if they are intended to influence
people here to turn from a demand for victory
to a negotiated peace.

[Stay tuned for late breaking war bulletins.
... Globalization41.]