Sir Arthur Harris-Chief of Bomber Command-War Criminal?

Re-reading it again, I can see what you were saying.
You were telling him it wasn't just German's who tried to make excuses for Hitler and his gang


Sorry about the misunderstanding

 

Complete Rubbish.

Harris felt disgruntled at the perceived lack of recognition for him & his men in 'official' honours.
That lack of recognition sprang perhaps from postwar unwillingness among the leadership to talk too much about the necessity/validity of area bombing, but likely as much from Harris's own obstinate battles as the war drew to a close with his superiors and peers over the allocation of air power.
Harris and the men of bomber command got nothing but respect from the majority of the population for the job they carried out so well, taking the war to the opposition in whatever manner possible, and still do.

As Erich said; "The Insanity of War" sums it up well, and that was appreciated by the 'British People' of the time, no matter what later moral overlays people may choose to place over the mores of the day. "Reap the Whirlwind" indeed (though 'return to sender' is also a nice way to put it).

Hated by the British people? Errant & unsubstantiated nonsense, no matter how many exclamation marks you choose to add to the statement.

~A

 

Not in the context of the original post, in which he is obviously refering to the supposed "Massacre on the Elbe Meadow" which never occured.

Yes, strafing occured on both sides, and as Erich put it "war is hell", but fleeing women and children refugees continuously straffed? - c'mon. That is one of the many Dresden myths that has been thoroughly debunked.

 

MCoffee yes for the part in February 45 as Dresden was just one of several city-populace environs to be hit this as a combined offensive both night and day by BC/US commands to put terror into the hearts of the German peoples. the strafing during that week in February continued into central Germany as well, civilian and military targets were hit alike, my own relatives can speak volumes on that but it was the Soviets that plagued the Germans that were in a state of retreat from the east to the west that were hit-strafed and bombed at will and daily; no myth just fact.

E ~

 

Your correct and if we did not declare war who knows? Lets not go there.

Hitler without question was evil and evil must be fought and bought down as fast as possible. I'm not throwing the book at anyone as Erich said...war is hell. I don't agree in hitting civilians but how could they had avoided it? Even today's technology it still happens. The war ended 65 years ago this coming May and thats a lot of water under the bridge.

My own Grand father was a fireman in London during both blitz's and saw horrendous sights which did effect him but he held no grudges over the German people for what happen.

 

Hello Richard,

that is the good part in all the evil and sadness of WWII, that most of the victims still know about the differentiation between those being involved by fate, and those bastards who caused all the missery.

Regards
Kruska

 

Hello urgh,

in regards to Falklands ah.. Malvinas, let me say that...ah...th..em.., right I think I know just where that combat sheep comes from

Regards
Kruska

 

As Harris was neither charged with, nor found guilty of, war crimes the answer is a simple "No".

Harris may well have been over zealous in his duty, but he was never hated en-masse as is suggested.

This really should be a "what if?".

Usually this angle of recrimination is expressed by fascists or communists in furtherence of their dodgy dogmas, with the advent of the web it's also now used by trolls. I do hope you're none of these three.

 

No, Britain did not bomb Germany first. On 3 September the government decided that the RAF would not be allowed to attack targets in Germany, even military targets, in case civilians were killed. They authorised an attack on German warships at sea or in harbour, warships in port were off limits in case civilian dock workers were killed.

That remained the British policy until mid March 1940, when the Germans attacked military targets in the Orkneys. A civilian was killed when a German bomb landed in his street. The RAF were ordered to carry out a single reprisal attack against the German seaplane base at Hornum, on the island of Sylt.

The RAF didn't drop their first bombs on Germany until the night of 10/11 May, when the they attacked German road and rail targets west of the Rhine, immediately behind the German advance. This was, of course, after the Luftwaffe had already bombed targets in France, Belgium and the Netherlands (and mistakenly in England and Germany as well).

The RAF weren't allowed to attack military targets elsewhere in Germany until after the attack on Rotterdam, and they weren't allowed to attack targets of opportunity in Germany until mid September 1940, a week or so after the Blitz had begun. Finally, the RAF didn't carry out their first area bombing attack on a German city until mid December 1940, and that was modelled on, and designed as a reprisal for, the raid on Coventry.


The problem with claiming allied bombing was a war crime is that, if bombing was indeed a war crime (and it wasn't), then allied bombing would have been a reprisal for German bombing. Hard to claim one side was breaching the "rules" when the other side had ignored those rules from the start.

 

Hop;

Hello Hop,

I don't think so:

check google and enter; "04.09.1939 Erster Luftangriff auf Wilhelmshaven"
And this attack was highlighted by the Nazis for good reason.

IMHO bombing on cities was a war crime - since it was not exclusivly directed towards military or industrial objects.
As such IMO all bombing raids by all parties can be considered as warcrimes. And if so - then Dresden and Hamburg would have been the biggest warcrime in regards to bombing of cities in Europe. - not to mention the two Japanese cities.

No matter off who started it, but who participated in it. Again let me state, war is hell and not fair - as such I find it a bit silly to excuse incidents that occured due to war.

Regards
Kruska

 

The blitz failed to destroy the will of the British to continue the war. Rather, it reaffirmed the willingness of Britons to continue it and win. We have seen impressive testimony in previous post.

Why Harris believed that bombing cities would help win the war? With few exceptions the night bombing was a cruel and absurd waste of resources. I guess there were bitter arguments about it.

 

Sorry, I can't read German. Can you give me a rough translation?

The Cabinet instructions were clear. They met on 3 September. From the minutes:

Middlebrook in The Bomber Command War Diaries says of the policy:

Middlebrook says the 4 September attack was on warships in the harbour at Wilhelmshaven, not on ships in the port.

The only applicable laws that bore on the issue were the Hague conventions of 1907 that governed bombardment by land and naval forces. The rules for naval forces said:

Bombarding a town wasn't unlawful. And if it was legal for a warship to do so, how could it be illegal for an aircraft?

The laws of war at the time allowed for the right of reprisal. It was reprisal that was supposed to keep the parties honest, as there was no superior force that could come in to enforce the rules.

As such, even if there was a rule that banned bombing of towns, then the allies could claim they bombed Germany in reprisal for German bombing of Poland, Norway, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union etc.

 

Aside from your own opinion "Kruska", the WW2 air war was a "new" deal in both intensity and effect. The first air "terror" bombing of any import was first put down by German Zeppelins on Great Britain in WW1.

This whole business of "aerial bombing war crimes" is more than a tangled can of worms. There were attempts to define and limit the practice post-WW1, but nobody could seem to come to an agreement on the "terms" so they remained undefined for the most part.

There were rules "proposed" by an International Panel of Jurists in 1922-23, but they were not ratified by anyone. Then there were old rules of war which allowed "bombardment" of a city if the city was defended since that implied it had military import.

But going into WW2 the nations relied on "retribution in kind" as a deterrent, so in that case the first to "cross the line" and bomb cities wouldn’t be committing a "war crime" themselves per se, but neither would their opponents if they replied in kind.

See:

The First Rules of Air Warfare

 

it is a fact the German military machine moved inward to the city proper placing some items of importance underground. For Vienna and some of the larger metro city centres you have major railroad links just on the cities outskirts if not dead center. ......... it is obvious from a military standpoint to bomb these areas for their route/transportation importance.

as I said war is Hell, people die and to the great extent the innocent.

 

I find it difficult to object to Allied bombing of German industrial/civilian targets. Even more difficult I find to call this effort a "cruel and inhumane waste of resources."

No less a personage in the Third Reich than Armaments Production Minister Albert Speer is on record as making the following observations about the Allied Bomber Offensive...

(After Hamburg)..."Six more raids like this one would have finished us. It was a tremendous moral shock to the German people."

(Speaking of the Offensive as a whole)..."Looking at the resources needed to combat these raids, tens of thousands of Anti-aircraft guns, hundreds of thousands of personnel, millions of rounds of ammunition. What you had was, in effect, a SECOND FRONT, long before 1944. What these guns and ammunition would have done for our Eastern Front is obvious. It strung our defenses out."

The aircraft needed to combat these raids sucked more and more of the best Luftwaffe pilots into the maelstrom. These aircraft were desperatelly needed on Ost-Front, and the Bomber Offensive contributed to the loss of German air superiority in the East in no small measure.

Of itself, the wartime accomplishments of the Allied Bomber offensive were never going to win the war entirely on their own. BUT, it is difficult to see how the Reich could have been defeated WITHOUT reducing their factory space, causing much wasteful duplication of effort. "De-Housing" the population was also a MAJOR cause of economic and social unrest in the working population, straining the limited resources of the Reich still further.

The Allied Bomber Offensive, in it's total effect on the war, can be likened to the activities of the Royal Navy in WW1, contibuting much that undermined the war effort as a whole. In both cases, it is extremely difficult to see how the war could have been brought to a conclusion any faster with the absence of the Bomber in WW2, and the RN in WW1.

We tried leaflets.....and were laughed at for providing the Reich with an endless supply of toilet paper.

We tried selective bombing of factory facilities, but our losses in daylight were not comensurate with the poor results. The Butt Report estimated that only 3% of bombs delivered actually fell within 5 miles of the target zone. Germany laughed at that too...

THEN, after Harris took command, we stopped 'mucking about' and got serious. We made the GAF, and the people that supplied them, PAY. You reap what you sow.

And, all of a sudden, Germany wasn't laughing anymore.....

 

A very interesting post, every one in this forum knows the contribution of the VIII air force to achive the air superiority over the skies of Germany. With the RAF daytime Attacks too.

In fact the post you answer is only about THE RAF NIGT bombing. (against cities) This is new OK. But the low "precision" (this is not a joke) of these attacks made them alomst usseles against military targets. With few an brilliant exceptions all of us know. (I'm really sorry to write this , even RAF veterans could read it, they riskerd their lives for Victory and they got it, that's history.).

More: If Speer was right, Why the allies needed Bragation and Overlord ... to win the war?

In other hand may be this is such a good defense for the Harris bombings. IMHO Harris was wrong but he wasn´t a war criminal.

Was worthwile the effort wasted in the night bombings?

Just a 45%? ratio of the waste of resources in "night" bombers as the Short Stirling could have been expended in other machines (as more an sooner Landig crafts)...The lack of landing crafts was a serious problem throughout most of the war. But this is a matter of a Wat if?

Unfortunately, the Mustang did not start to fly with the Merlin from the beginning, the Tempest came in 1994, British bombers weren´t equipped with 20 mm cannon until after the war ... SO the RAf could have bomb during the daytime. More what if?

An other answer could be that th US won the war against the Jampanse with the Atomic Bomb (It's said they could even won only with the firebombing, at this point) In fact they were horrible but worthwile in this way. I must found granpa´s WWII Secret Histories, a "lost in traslation" case.

But you will agree its an other matter. The Japs were yet almost defeated .

And, in other war, None lerned in "Spanish Civil War test" that the fascist terror bombings over Madrid even Guernica were counterproductive.

 

Hop;

Hello Hop,

try and change the German into googeling "bombing of Willhelmshaven"

One article by a resident of Willhelmshaven states that the light cruiser Emden was hit during the raid on the dockyards by a shot down Blenheim.
The raid included Willhemshaven, Cuxhaven and Brunsbuettel.

AFAIK the only rule or more of a no-say, was mentioned in the "Law of war" that defensless cities are not to be attacked. This is were Dresden comes into the picture, since AFAIK Dresden had been stripped of its AA guns.
As I mentioned already before, I personally find bombings against civilians as a crime, since they have no means of defense or evasion. Unlike cities being attacked by ground forces, were the respective military city commander could resort to order a handover of a city, or declare a city as an open city like in the case of the Wehrmacht in Rome.

Regards
Kruska

 

Hello brndirt1,

No not Britain, it was Luettich and Antwerpen that were bombed by Zeppelins first.

Regards
Kruska

 

Hello V.B.,

that is because you never had to experience terror bombings, and also due to Australia (maybe Darwin?) and the US never having had to experience terror bombings on their own soil.

The fact or bugging question is, why didn't the allies simply bomb and devastate the power plants and petro/oil/gas facilities in Germany?

With no power and petro how is one going to operate factories?

The war would indeed have ended pretty fast.

Regards
Kruska

 

I'm sorry, I don't understand your point. These were attacks on German warships, under strict instructions not to bomb if they were too close to the shore.

Dresden still had night fighters and AA guns. But a "defenceless" city is one that isn't defended at all, it;s one that the enemy can come and take whenever they like. The Germans were still defending not just Dresden but the whole of Germany, both from the land and air.

And if they didn't? What defences do civilians have from artillery fire?

How many civilians died in the battle for Berlin? So why is Dresden a war crime, and shelling Berlin not? There's no logic to that, which is why there were no laws banning bombing of cities.

In 1944 and 1945 RAF night bombing was generally more accurate than USAAF day bombing.

The first RAF target priority, after they were allowed to bomb targets in Germany following Rotterdam, was oil. The planners believed that with the force they had available they could devastate Germany's oil supply and win the war. What they learned was you needed tremendous tonnage to not just put an oil refinery out of action, you had to keep coming back, again and again, to keep it out of action.

Until 1943 the RAF just didn't have enough bombers to go after oil targets seriously. Until 1944 they didn't have the accuracy. In 1994 and 1945 they dropped 95,000 tons on German oil targets and helped devastate German oil production.

The USAAF didn't have the escorts to go after oil until 1944, either. So the earliest practical date for taking out the German oil industry was 1944.