Bombing in WWII - Twelve O'Clock High (1950) Discussion

[–] BikeBill 16 years ago

Nothing at all to that statement. All war is (and was, and always will be) inhuman and ruthless -- and not just to civilians. Remember General Sherman of Civil War fame, and his often-misquoted line that "War is hell"?

This is just another example of revisionist history, coming fifty years or so after the fact. It gives the writer a warm fuzzy feeling, causes people of today to think that they as a society are a better class than those of the war era, and generally pisses off anybody who actually lived through it....and there are so few of them nowadays that people can make a dumb-ass statement like that and get away with it. In fact, if statements like that had been made around the same time this movie was made, the person making them would likely have been run up the flagpole at the local American Legion to see if anyone would salute.

Either that or it's an attempt to view one period of history through the lens and mindset of an entirely different period. And that's just as wrong.

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[–] polsixe 14 years ago

It was brutal and futile. War slowly evolved to include civilians, trying to break the will of a whole country, WW2 was the apex of that thinking and just because "we" won doesn't make it right. Also, the aerial bombing both US daytime and RAF nightime was next to useless. It's well documented the bombs rarely hit their targets and in fact German industrial output in 1944 was much greater than in 1941. The casualty rate for aircrews was very high compared to overall ground and naval forces. But we live and learn and supposedly get better at these things. Are drone airplanes and hellfire missles much better?

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[–] nickm2 14 years ago

It worked pretty well when the 8th's numbers grew large enough; the panacea targets were not what you'd think--Oil for sure & the refineries, but transportation, rail & power generation went hand in hand & they began to hit them all simultaneously & repeatedly it REALLY made a difference.

NM

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[–] polsixe 14 years ago

It was brutal and futile. War slowly evolved to include civilians, trying to break the will of a whole country, WW2 was the apex of that thinking and just because "we" won doesn't make it right. Also, the aerial bombing both US daytime and RAF nightime was next to useless. It's well documented the bombs rarely hit their targets and in fact German industrial output in 1944 was much greater than in 1941. The casualty rate for aircrews was very high compared to overall ground and naval forces. But we live and learn and supposedly get better at these things. Are drone airplanes and hellfire missles much better?

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[–] b-rad 16 years ago

Remember, too, the goal of the USAAF's stretgic bombing campaign in Europe was pinpoint precision, to destroy targets while disturbing the surrounding areas as little as possible. But ultimately, the aim is to destroy your enemy's capability to carry on the war.

The RAF had a slightly different approach, bombing at night, which was inherently less precise, but that strategy also represented the best use of the technology available to them in 1940, while minimizing the risk to British aircrews.

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[–] DD-931 16 years ago

Of course, there are a lot of German and Russian fanboys (the one who like to say that Russia won WWII by itself or that the Germans beat the Americans and British troops every time they met in battle and only lost the war because they ran out of bullets or some such crap) who say the American and British strategic bombing campaigns had no effect on the war at all. Funny how some people claim American lies and bias whenever Americans talk about winning WWII, but all THEIR outrageous claims are, of course, the only truth.

I was curious as to whether anyone had any hard definitive information about the effect of the American and British strategic bombing campaign during WWII. Of course, I could say "Allied" strategic bombing campaign, but since there was no real Russian participation in that campaign...

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] DD-931 16 years ago

Thanks.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] DD-931 16 years ago

The question wasn't about whether strategic bombing was decisive, but about whether strategic bombing helped contribute to defeating Germany in a significant way.

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[–] deeveed 16 years ago

You knw I think it was unquestionable that it helped to drive the nail in Germany's coffin. Thsoe sorties from Bomber Command did many things such as making the Germans constantly spend the time to pay attention and put resources against the Allied quest for superiority in the air and therefore take some pressure off of those ground assaults that came. Truly without that air campaign
I'd think beating the Axis would've been real tough without Bomber Command.

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[–] OeditpusRex 15 years ago

I'm hardly an expert, but everything I've read says the bombing of factories had little direct effect, since the Germans had so diversified their war production into what virtually amounted to a cottage industry. My understanding is that the greatest effect of the bombing campaign was against German oil production, e.g. Ploesti.

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[–] deeveed 15 years ago

I believe that during the war there were 2 camps. Those who wanted to bomb the cities and those who wanted to bomb the factories and oil fields. From the looks of it in post war analysis there are arguments that the Allies should have tried to do more "precision" bombing as opposed to the other because it worked a bit better though "precision" was a tough word to use.

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[–] jstang411 15 years ago

I believe that during the war there were 2 camps. Those who wanted to bomb the cities and those who wanted to bomb the factories and oil fields. From the looks of it in post war analysis there are arguments that the Allies should have tried to do more "precision" bombing as opposed to the other because it worked a bit better though "precision" was a tough word to use.

There absolutely were two camps and they basically were the British and the Americans. The Brits went in at night (when hitting general targets was about the only realistic option) and the Americans during the day, when strikes at specific industrial targets could at least be attempted. I don't think anyone doubted that bombing during the day was more precise, but it came at a great cost. At one point the 8th Airforce almost got functionally wiped out (and I believe at one point took a lengthy pause on daylight raids).

Whoever was right before, the Mustang and its long-range escort capability made daylight the way to go, at least in Europe (no matter whatever Arthur Harris may have said at the time).

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[–] 15 years ago

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[–] rwsmith29456 15 years ago

How about the London Blitz? Were the Germans inhuman and ruthless to civilians? Earlier in the Spanish Civil War the town of Guernica was bombed to rubble pretty much to demonstrate what the German war machine was capable of.

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[–] nickm2 15 years ago

RE: the Blitz, the Germans lacked the technology & ability to put a serious hurting on British cities during daylight due to the defenses;

In the East the situation WAS different---Early on, the LW's bomber force had little or no opposition & due to the nearness of THEIR airfields they were able to mount MULTIPLE concentrated raids daily with a HIGH sortie rate...Take Belgrade for one: It's been said that the FIRST firestorm raid during WW2 was the bombing of Belgrade......same with Russian/Soviet Cities like Sebastopol & early on in support of the Army drive into Stalingrad.
And of course The Russians & Yugoslavs were 'slavs' so there was that...
Not to mention The demand was that Belgrade be 'razed to the ground', for abrogating the peace treaty with Germany;

NM

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[–] violeteh 15 years ago

Read Albert Spears biography: In it he states that the inability to stop the Allied Bombing campaign was the single BIGGEST factor in Germany's losing of the war....The allied attacks on nazi oil destroyed over 90% of Germany's oil production, ( including that which they got from the huge Ploesti complex in Romania, destroyed by the US 15th Air Force).....So it really didn't matter how many planes, tanks & subs Germany produced....

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[–] dbrown172 15 years ago

The inability to stop the Allied bombing campaign was due largely to the ability of the USAAC to render long range fighter escort to the bombers. Goering said after the war that when he saw red-nosed Mustangs of the 4th Fighter Group over Berlin on March 6, 1944 the he knew the war was lost.

But in addressing the question of which is most affective, bombing production facilities or bombing population centers, one must consider the importance of not only destroying the capacity of the enemy to wage war, but also destroying the will to wage war. As distasteful as it seems, that question is a valid one.

It seems to me that if one places too high a priority on sparing the lives of non-combatants, then one must accept the possibility that the conflict could actually be prolonged to the point of creating a higher total casualty number than would otherwise have been. Additionally, does the "non-combatant" status preclude complicity in a war? For example, was the German farmer out plowing his field a contributor to Germany's war effort? Was the civilian factory worker?

When one nation picks a fight with another nation, then IMHO, the citizens of the aggressor nation become a legitimate target.

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[–] rwsmith29456 15 years ago

And the 'Blitz' bombings were humane and ruthful?????? (heh, heh. I just made up a world.

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[–] DD-931 14 years ago

Anyone analyzing the RAF's strategic bombing campaign without acknowledging the London Blitz that the British endured first (or, say, Coventry) is simply ignoring the context of why the British did what they did. Not to mention the V-1 and V-2 attacks on England in 1944/45, which all too many Americans experienced first-hand as well. Hell, the Battle of the Atlantic was all about Germany using U-Boats to try to literally starve the British into submission. Or, barring that, starve them to death. Morality in war is a bit of an oxymoron anyway, but when you're fighting an enemy that doesn't hesitate to kill your civilians and who won't give up even after it becomes clearly evident that they are doomed to lose, differentiating between their combatants and non-combatants in trying to defeat them becomes more than a little besides the point. The war goes on, more and more people die. The war is won, people stop dying. That's about the only morality that winds up counting in the end.

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[–] Squeeth2 14 years ago

http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/e_histlit/2004-2/HTML/SP_2004-2.php#492

This is worth a look.

It's about time that the facts were acknowledged - Bomber Command began seriously to affect the nazi war economy in early 1943 with the Battle of the Ruhr, 25% of US raids were area attacks, German war production didn't increase between the B of the Ruhr and the deployment for Overlord targets in the second quarter of 1944 and the transport and oil offensives began at the moment they were feasible.

If you look at the Bomber Command Official History it is clearly shown that attempts at aiming at parts of a town rather than the town centre were made and that the inherent inaccuracy of the time meant that nothing but fields were bombed. Aiming at town centres was the only way to hit anything in a town. As target finding devices and bomb aiming devices got better in 1943 and 1944 the number of failed raids declined but precision attacks at night and in the day (through better marking) came relatively late in the war. When the means existed they were used immediately.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

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[–] mojorising_you 14 years ago

Thanks for this link.

http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/e_histlit/2004-2/HTML/SP_2004-2.php#492

I've always known about the Dresden bombing and Churchill's distancing himself from Harris and Bomber Command. Dresden in particular was singled out as a vindictive punitive war crime (if that term was around then) and used by Russia and others to point out the RAF's lost morality.

With half the causalities in WWII borne from the civilian ranks, it's hard for me to feel good about any aspect of this war except its end. Hitler and his Nazi inner circle clearly weren't swayed by public opinion and I doubt anyone could have brought this war to an end sooner without a direct confrontation to Hitler.

Can anyone recommend a book that describes how Europe, specifically the bombed out cities fared in the 5 years after the war. I've always wondered about how the cities got cleaned up, infrastructure rebuilt, social services like feeding the homeless burying the dead, etc. Every movie, TV show documentary, etc. documents up to 1945 but I've always wonder about 1945-1950 era with Germany occupied and the ongoing hardships in rebuilding that country.

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[–] jakob3 14 years ago

Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," pp. 586-600
is excellent on the evolution
of thought about bombing civilians from 1930 to 1945.

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