Bomber boys - bbc one

[csThor]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Area bombing over Germany was the only alternative for the RAF and the American 8th Air Force. My German friends in Germany (not on this forum) regard the RAF and the American 8th Air Force as being the same as regards area bombing.

Pardon my french, but BS. In 1941 and 1942 Bomber Command was certainly the only means the UK had to strike directly at Germany but the tactical problems (such as the lack of a long-range escort) made its use difficult. One of the key reasons why area bombing at night was chosen - apart from lessening the potential losses and the lack of sufficiently precise technology for night attacks - was the incredible fear of the RAF of becoming subordinated to the Army again and so the key figures decided to show that the RAF was capable of conducting the war on its own. This internal political squabble - a leftover from the 1920s squabbles over the greatly diminished funds and the role of the RAF - was a very powerful motivator to the people in charge and combined with the vanity of Arthur Harris, who was also fighting his own war with his internal critics, this provided the matrix for the strategy the RAF Bomber Command applied in WW2.

On a sidenote it is darkly amusing to see the attempts of the nations between the wars to ban deliberate attacks on the civilian population ... and to see which nations deliberately torpedoed any such attempts. Can you guess? Yes, the USA (which at the time of the last attempt was about to roll out the prototype of the B-17) and the United Kingdom (which had used aerial attacks on civilian settlements in "colonial warfare" already). But all of that is history now ...