The most controversial phase of this war is aviation’s role in it. This involves not only the strategy to be employed in the air and the importance of this newest arm of the service as compared with the older branches but also the detailed issues such as most efficient types of planes, their speeds and modes of fighting.
Among these is the question as to whether the U.S. Air Force should continue its high-level precision daylight bombings or change its planes so they can be used in mass night bombings. And that is one of the main points debated in Allan A. Michie’s new book The Air Offensive Against Germany which now is so much discussed.
Mr. Michie makes a completely convincing case that the way to victory is by the air through terrific and ceaseless bombings. This is to prepare the way for the inevitable invasion when land armies, with the air arm. will clinch the victory. He does no theorizing about winning the war in the air alone.
But in spite of the fact that he is persuasive also in advocating changes in the types of planes we are now turning out, and changes in the use we make of our existing air fleets, and no matter how well informed the writer is, the competence of our Air Force must be conceded. And its offices make a strong case, too, in behalf of present types and methods.
No longer is it a question of being air-minded and abreast of the time in that field. That point has been passed. It is now a question for technicians familiar with the demands of modern fighting. In the last analysis that is where decisions must be reached on questions of this sort.
Interesting read. I love how they criticize him for his information. Why not B29’s faster for example. If only we could have developed the B29 as fast as the P51 like that was even possible.
For me, the main question has always been “How effective was strategic bombing ?”. To describe WW2 strategic bombing as “precision” is an awful misnomer by modern standards, and this held as true for the Axis as the Allies. You could be pretty pleased if you dropped your bombs within 1km of the target. Increasingly as the war progressed, both sides dug bunkers for their factories and it was rare for a factory to be out of production for more than a day even after being bombed successfully. It has been argued that ground attacks on railway rolling-stock actually took a higher toll on German industry than bombing the factories, especially as Germany failed to ever get the logistical snarl in its railways under control. I consider the fire bombing raids and nuclear raids to be a very separate issue btw, as is the dambuster attack, even if they were part of the strategic bombing offensive. The question for me is whether it was worth putting hundreds of strategic bombers with their crew of 9+in the air every night during WW2.
We can say that the strategic bombing offensive failed to achieve the objectives it’s proponents claimed for it.
However in terms of a ‘front’ in the war against the axis it was definitely effective.
The disruption of production in 1943 delayed the German Kursk offensive.
The resources used to build bomb resistant factories could have been used to strengthen the Atlantic Wall prior to D-Day.
It delayed the development of the V2 and look at the resources that were used trying to build bomb proof V2 launch sites.
It destroyed synthetic oil production.
It eliminated the Luftwaffe as an effective tactical air force in 1944-45.
More 88mm barrels were used in air defence than were used in AT.
Huge amounts of ammunition were expended in flak.
If nothing else you just have to look at the large part of the German military budget that went on air defence of the fatherland.
I recommend RJ Overy’s various works on the bomber offensives in WW2.
The strategic bombing offensive was effective, but was it also significant?
Would it have taken any longer for the allies to win the war if they hadn’t made that offensive? What about the resources, the allies could have used for other projects if they hadn’t committed them to the bombing offensive? Could those have made a difference to the progress of the allies?
It is probably not hard to prove that the bombing campaign had some effects that were helpful to the allies, but it is harder to judge if the Germans would have had a much better position without these effects.
I agree with you Lydia.
The unit cost for a B-17 Flying Fortress was US$238,329, and there were 12, 731 made during WW2. This means US$3,034,166,499 were spent on this line of bombers alone. There were plenty of other types of US bombers made. The price factored for each B-17 was about 9 million dollars in today’s money. Of these 4375 were lost during combat missions. I think it is important to establish, historically, whether it was a huge “white elephant”.
Good point. I understood the B29 was more expensive than the Atomic bomb so it was significant. I like to think that the US made a conscious decision that lives were more expensive than bombers but what I believe is we had this program to build the things, now we have to use them. We keep building them because politics mostly and people believed they helped win the war.
Lydia’s point about what else could have been done is good. We can only guess at whether there were more effective ways of winning the war at less cost in lives and time. The US had enough money they didn’t have to make hard calls. Germany never had the resources for a heavy bomber program so they had to make that choice. They also couldn’t build enough armaments so sacrificed navy for more tanks.
I always thought more ground attack aircraft rather than bombers might have been an interesting idea. I think though I am trying to imagine Vietnam style combined forces tactics which were not even on the drawing board in WW2. I don’t know what would have been a better cost but we knew how to build and use b-17’s
So basically, the strategic bomber offensive was most effective in annoying the Germans enough to build significant countermeasures against it? That means it was only effective at diverting German resources, not at actually crippling their war production.
I guess it depends on your idea of annoyance. Albert Speer thought it was considerable but I would agree that overall it did not stop the German production. There are a few notable exceptions though including Petroleum related products.
Worth it? I would say yes but opinions may vary. I judge it by the standard that I believe it saved allied lives. I don’t factor in the inhumanity inflicted. Which others may see as making any results unacceptable.
Do you think the Russian offensives in 1943 and 44 would have been as effective if there were 8000 more 88mm guns deployed as AT guns?
Bomber Command flight personnel were 125,000 over the war. That would be between six and seven infantry divisions. For comparison 10 divisions went ashore on D-day. Germany was resource poor so had to make tougher choices while the Allies were resource rich.
There are really two related questions, the first is what damage to the Allies would the resources used to fight the bombers have done used differently and what could that Allied manpower have been diverted to that would have damaged the Axis more?
The B29 was needed because existing aircraft lacked the range for trans-oceanic warfare. The B17 had a range of 1300km with a 2000kg payload; the B24 was 1900km with a 1200kg payload; and the B29 was 2600km with a 2300kg payload.
The Germans didn’t sacrifice a navy for more tanks, they built over 1,000 U-boats and had nearly 100 partially built in May 1945. As to heavy bombers they started at a disadvantage having configured the Luftwaffe as a tactical air force in the thirties. They build the He177 which wasn’t operational till 1942 and was grounded from mid 1944 because of fuel shortages (due to the allied bomber campaign). It had a lot of technical problems, which they never ironed out, but they still built over 1000 of them.
The allies had no shortage of ground attack aircraft, over 30,000 IL2 alone, and had pioneered ground air tactics with forward air controllers and cab ranks of aircraft on call starting in 1943 - Operation Supercharge II.