A mistake that the prewar RAF shared with the American Army Air Force, was the belief in the self-defending daylight bomber formation. As far as the RAF was concerned, this illusion was promptly, and literally, shot down in 1939. But its reaction to this discovery was about as flawed as was the Americans’ clinging to the idea until 1943. Although it has rarely been attacked even by Bomber Command’s most vehement critics, the decision to shift to night bombing was a bad mistake. It was based on three mistaken assumptions:
1. Long-range fighter escort to targets in Germany would never be possible.
2. Night bombing would not be much less accurate than bombing during the day, or at least, a capability for accurate night attack would be easily attained.
3. The German defenses at night would never be much more formidable than they were in 1940.
The first and last assumptions were disproven by events, and it took years for the British to gain the ability to carry out accurate attacks at night. The whole unsatisfactory practice of area attack was a result of the change to night operations.
Had the RAF banked on developing long-range fighters instead, it would have had to forego attacking Germany for a long time. But it is likely that, by early 1943 at the latest, it would have had a plane like the Mustang (if not the Mustang itself) and would have been able to bomb accurately anywhere in Germany in daylight. With American help, it could have started decisive offensives against oil and transportation in 1943. World War II would have taken a radically different course.
Given the switch to night bombing, which could not be accurate for a long time, it would have been wise to slow the buildup of Bomber Command in favor of Coastal Command’s antisubmarine activities, as was done to some extent. This would have led to earlier victory in the Battle of the Atlantic and would have been a more effective employment of bomber-type aircraft than were the attacks on Getmany in the early years of the war. A smaller Bomber Command could have continued to bomb Germany, pinning down German resources in defense and gaining operational experience for the day when effective attacks could take place.
Through much of 1943 there was little alternative to area bombing. But had the British leaders regarded general area attack as a last resort, instead of embracing it, they might have handled things differently even in 1942 and early 1943, better exploiting what limited capability for attacking specific targets they had. They could have placed more emphasis on developing new techniques for precision attack at night, and tailoring the target list to suit Bomber Command’s limitations, they could have concentrated against industry more than they did. Even in 1942 precision attack was possible against a few targets, as the attack on the Renault plant showed. Some RAF officers, like Oxland, believed that similar targets could have been found. The introduction of Oboe in 1943 made possible attacks on still other very large industrial plants inside its range.
The British could also have directed area attacks, wherever possible, against cities where industrial installations were relatively concentrated, as the Americans did on their radar bombing mission in 1943-1944. The plants and industrial areas suited for such attacks were few and would have offered only a limited alternative to conventional area attacks on primarily nonindustrial areas. The additional damage to the German war effort would probably still have been marginal, but especially if coupled with a policy of selective area attack against towns associated with a particular industry, even when the industrial plants themselves could not be hit, the maximum possible concentration against industry would probably have hurt the Nazis worse in 1942 and 1943 than the policy of nearly “pure” general area attack that was followed.
Bomber Command’s great mistake was the failure to switch to precision bombing when that finally became possible against most targets in the latter part of 1943, and Harris’s insistence on continuing the area attacks, whenever he could get away with them, right up to the war’s end. The failure to pursue the oil offensive properly in the summer and fall of 1944, and the destruction of Dresden, were only the last and most obvious consequences of his fanaticism. But the British had missed important opportunities earlier. Most notable of these was the failure to start the oil offensive sooner and the delay in attacking the critical and extremely vulnerable bottleneck in tank engine and transmission production at Friedrichshafen. That vital target could have been struck in 1943. The failure to send the main strength of Bomber Command against Friedrichshafen, long before Harris reluctantly attacked it in April 1944, was one of the worst, if little noted, blunders of the war.
Moreover, while much of the capability for night precision bombing rested on devices that only became available during 1943, one precision bombing method might have been developed much earlier than it was, namely 5 Group visual. Low-level marking could conceivably have been introduced as soon as Gee, a concentrated bomber stream, and marker bombs came into regular use, making precision attack in good weather possible against all but the most heavily defended targets in Germany as early as 1942.
As a result of the fixation on area attack, Bomber Command’s contribution to victory, although great, was far less than it could have been. But it should be remembered, especially by Americans, that the RAF did most of what damage was done to Germany through 1943, forcing the Nazis to build vast and costly air defenses. Dangerous as it was to serve in the Eighth Air Force, especially in 1943, the men of Bomber Command were even worse off for most of the war. And much of the Eighth Air Force’s success rested on a base of British support and expertise.
World History
