effectiveness of WW2 air bombing of Germany

and now there are those who question whether the air bombardment of Germany by the RAF and the US 8th AF effectively shortened WW2 by as much as a single day --- opinions, please

 

Absolutly, German Fuel dumps, Airplane factories, Tank Production HURT The German economy to the point of that it was becoming more and more unexistant. Bombing the Polotsie oil fields also killed them.
Maybe if the Germans had more fuel, Battle of the Bulge may have been different.

 

Well, I think it damaged a lot German infraestructure, particullary in the second half of 1944 on... However, it did not break the German morale as bomber Harris thought nor it damaged a lot the German industry those days (let's remember that the first half of 1944 is the time in which German industry produced the largest weaponry quantities of the war)... But it sure helped a lot. It was the Western's Allies most important contribution for victory.

 

Also the idea that it diverted alot of combat aircraft for defense of the Reich instead of for other operations such as the Eastern Front hurt Germany as well.

Greg

 

I would go along with what Herr General said, particularly with reguards to the effect of bombing on morale. It may have been reduced but it didnt break, if anything it had a similar effect to the Blitz, which makes me wonder why Harris didn't realise after looking at the effect on london that he could not break a people by blowing them up. Actually someone once suggested to me that the main reason was that Britain found itself in 1943 with thousands of big four engined bombers which were totally useless at daytime and so had to continue the night bombing offensive to make it worth keeping them, even if it didnt have much of an effect. I dont know how true this is but it is a thought.

 

Sure the bombings brought the war faster to its end, no question about it!

But could it have been done differently and wiser? And not with the blood taste ( own and enemy´s ) in one´s mouth all the time? I always prefer cool and calculated to mad, bad and dangerous to know!

1. Could there be an alternative to the unconditional surrender demand, that would shorten the war even more? At least Goebbels was happy with the terms the allied used.

2. Other means of bombing Germany? Or making it safer for the crews? I know the soldiers are always the cheapest parts of the army to replace but I always hate to lose good soldiers, and I think the price was almost too high to pay!

Here´s a story that I found truly effective, and saved lives.I think that should make us think that there are always different approaches to the victory that should be considered. We should never ever stop looking for those ways!
------

"When Park, now Air Marshal Park, arrived on the island, was determined to counter-attack. The fighters that were sent out to intercept the German attack inflicted such heavy losses on the incoming German planes that Malta was saved.

I think he said to the previous commander who told him after the bombings that they could take it all: "WHY?" and made a campaign with which to destroy the nazi bombers before they reached the island...Sometimes great ideas are simple!"

http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000100#000000

 

No, it didn't helped much to prevent the production of the weapons itself. Speer managed to double the production of tanks, rifles, ... in 1944.

The only thing that was good was that the reinforcements had a very difficult time to reach the front.

 

damage - yes destroyed germand industrial base - no. the bombing efforts greatest contribution to the war didn't come from the destruction of germnaies ability to produce. it came in the destruction of the luftwaffe and the transfer of men and material to defend the reich, especially in the cruscial year of 1944. the bombing effort forced gun and shell production to be concentrated on anti-aircraft minitions. also the startegi9c air forces, especially the 8th air force, started a campaign in 1944, the name of which i can't remember , which forced the luftwaffe to come up and fight and in which the fighter forces destroyed the luftwaffe. it was never the case that the germans could not produce the fighters it was the case that they didn't have the trained pilots with which to fly them. this was probably the strtegic bombing campaigns greatest acheivement. without the destruction of the luftwaffe before D-Day, the invasion of europe would have been a much more highly contested affair.

 

Hard to say but--I think it DID help shorten the war because it forced the Germans to build underground facilities and forced them into a drastic change of the ways of their lives.

Even thouth Albert Speer actually increased production on most or all of his production of war materials and weapons, I still think the bombing raids did help shorten the war.

I dont want to discount what our guys in the bombers did--my own father flew in B-17s in the 8th AAF in late 44 to the end of the war. In my humble opinion, you guys in the bombers were some of the hardest fighting and bravest men in our military. Certainly there was no lack of courage these men showed nor a lack of determination for getting the job done. They also sacrificed so much to get the job done.

Sometime after the war--my father transferred to the 5th AF and served in Japan and through the Korean War, as a member of a weather detachment.

Just my humble 2 cents worth.

[ 08. March 2003, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: C.Evans ]

 

One of the major reasons Speer managed to increase the production of aircraft in 1944 was due the fact that the Germans stopped all production of bombers and other multi-engined aircraft, and transferred all production to single-engined fighters which were far easier to make.

 

Yes the bombing campaign did effect the outcome of the war.
A major reason the worth of the bomber campaign is often questioned, is due in a large part to the claims the effect of the campaign would have, by the bomber barons during the war. They vastly over-stated the effects it would have.
So people tend to overlook the actual effects of the bombing and just concentrate on the claims made for the campaign by the bomber barons

 

And apart from anything I think the main reason production increased was because Speer knew what he was doing, where as Goering was an economic moron.

 

Air warfare was new, and as such thinking in respect of deployment became revised through experience. In W.W.I the airships brought the war to homes otherwise unaffected unless they happened to be where the infantry/artillery were. Studies conducted during W.W.II in Britain concluded that people were more distraught about having their houses destroyed than about deaths by air-raids of people they knew.

In W.W.II, decision to destroy manufacturing and transport centres are directly relevant to reducing the enemy’s capability. Destroying civilian areas, to the extent they were capable at the time, was, IMHO, considerable less damaging. The ploy in respect of bombing Germany, again IMHO, was to flatten the whole country with extreme prejudice. Hostilities ceased in 1918 and should have stayed that way. In Harris’s quote about Germany ‘sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind’, I take as being representative of the mood and opinion at the time. i.e. No one wanted another war, everyone bent over backwards to avoid another one, but, being forced into, this was going to be pursued to an unprecedented barbaric degree. I think Germany is lucky so many of its citizens were allowed to survive! Seriously!

No.9

 

I posted the question with little expectation of forming a clear-cut conclusion, but it is worth remarking that of the 12 replies, only 1 was posted from a German address. I know I'd welcom more.

 

Sam :

And you may not get much more from the German community unless they have access to some very good German literature covering the period. The youth are not interested basically in WW 2 events and OPA's stories. With the complete rebuilding of Germany and very little evidence to be shown the populace would rather forget what happened 60 plus years ago.

My opinion is yes that the US with the evening RAF raids hampered the Reichs industry to supply it's troops with needed raw materials.

The effect on the Luftwaffe fighter force was nil until the event of US fighter escorts. The US bomber boxes would have been decimated without the high and protective cover of the P-38, P-47 and the later P-51's. 1943 was a killing ground over the Reich until the insertion of the first 9th AF fighter group the 354th which started to take an ever slow tally of the German single and twin engine fighters in December of 1943......the rest is history, with the blood letting in January through May of 44 and the failed Normandy defence where nearly every Luftwaffe single engine Geschwader was nearly down to 0 planes and 0 pilots. The crews and a/c being replaced on more than one occassion in almost entirety.

Demoralization was indeed a factor. The German people had a word for the RAF and especially US crews that were captured.....terrorflieger. A given reason that any Allied crew that was captured would hope that they landed in the hands of the military, SS excluded and not in the hands of the civilians and the end of a pitch fork.

The contiual bombing of oil targets was a huge blow to the overall production and of course the running of equipment whether land or air. The destruction of Ploesti and the Rumanian oilfields was all due to the bombing by US four engine bombers.

Granted the production of material goods like certain a/c such as the Fw 190 did not falter and production runs ran up to their highest during the fall of 1944.

Erich

 

The bombing of German industry and especially the transportation network was effective. As Friedrich said it was the Allies most important contribution to the war effort, along with opening multiple diversionary fronts for Hitler to contend with.

But the terror bombing of residential areas, especially Dresden, is totally inexcusable. As was the London blitz or any other terror bombing. Its one of the blemishes on the Allied war record. Im not particularly proud of the hundreds of thousands of dead civillians my government and its allies caused.

Originally posted by Kai-Petri:

I would have kept the bombing to military and industrial targets. Hitting civillians is a waste of bombs, fuel, planes, and men.

 

Your last statements are pretty easy to say. If you had lived during the 1940's and served such as Sam in the USAF then you may even today have a little different perspective of what really happened, and what info and materials you were given to accomplish your designated task. None of us know personally what went on except for the scant few vets that visit these forums. It is easy to criticize what we did and did not do. The guys were given orders and they performed their tasks as required by the top brass in charge. Could things have changed or should have been done another way......that is hindsight and a what -if.

E

 

Yes bombing Germany helped shorten the war. I think before the war started their were alot of people in many countries that thought bombers alone could win the war and they missed on that idea.
Also these same people thought that bombers could go unescorted to their targets and not have losses because of their high speed before the war and light defences.
This also was a quickly found out flaw in thinking when the Fairey Battles got slaughtered in France.
Bombers only help win the war, they can never win a war on their own as some predicted before the war started.

 

the bombing camapaign helped to shape and distort germanys war production. instead of producing the weapons it needed to fight it ground wars it was forced to concentrate a lot of production on anti-aircraft weapons. i dont have the figure to hand but if my memory serve me right, 75% of all 88mm AA/AT guns were produced solely for the anit aircraft role. imagine if that didn't exist and these weapons were used in an AT role.

 

just checked here are some figures on how the bombing campaign effected the germany war effort:
-75% of all 88mm flak/anti-tank guns went to anti-aircraft duties inside the Reich.
-1 and 2 million personnel in anti bombing duties.
-42% of lorry production was lost due to bombing raids in 1944.