[tcolvin]

Hi Juha.

I'm afraid this well-researched subject will yield no further revelations from the National Archives, and AFAIK there are no books on the subject, and never will be since irrefutable evidence exists that electricity generation was rejected as a target by BC from first principles, aka prejudice.
I asked you about it because it appeared you had a source, but you don't.

The subject is well-known and crystal clear, and not worth pursuing further because of Occam's razor (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" - entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). There is no necessity to look further than the following facts, which IMHO preclude any doubt on this subject, in spite of Kutscha's quote which gives no detail. When told they had missed the one target that could have ended the war, and therefore had egg all over their collective face, the RAF would have claimed that they "extensively debated" it, wouldn't they? But they never produced any evidence, and none has surfaced AFAIK.

The facts:
Butt led to Gee, which by February 1942 had been fitted to 200 bombers.
On February 14, 1942 BC was directed to strike at full force (no more conservation of strength) for 6 months (time estimated before the Germans jammed Gee) against German cities to destroy 'the morale of the enemy civil population, and in particular of the industrial workers' through area bombing.
This remained the gospel for the following two years. Why?
Because on February 22, 1942 Harris took command of BC.
Harris immediately ruled out all 'panacea' targets - oil plants, aircraft works, ball-bearing factories, molybdenum mines, submarine works, etc, etc, including electricity generating stations.
Harris argued that even if his bombers could find and hit these 'panacea' targets, as he contemptuously dismissed them, "their destruction would probably have nothing like the effect prophesied by our economic experts. And as, for the most part, such targets could not be found and hit by night, and as our bombers could certainly not survive over Germany by day, it followed that our offensive must be directed against something much larger. The only really large objectives of indisputable value, it was alike clear to Harris and the Air Staff, were Germany's great industrial towns......... In this frame of mind, and with a calculated determination to resist all unnecessary diversions to other ends, Harris embraced his new task". Richards & Saunders, Vol 2.

Note the glaring fallacies, and why it is instructive even now to point them out:
1. Every target, other than cities, was dismissed as a 'panacea'. So bye-bye any discussion of electricity generation - 'Don't waste my time with another panacea', Harris would have said. Do you believe, Juha, that in this environment Harris would listen to reasoned argument? Or that anybody would have been fool enough to bring an argument to him? Harris is an open book; you can hear him on film explaining himself. This man was on a mission to kill Germans until those who remained alive lost the will to resist and capitulated. This was called 'destruction of morale' by the RAF spin-doctors.
2. The only strategic weapon that existed for Harris and the Air Staff was the inaccurate heavy bomber operated at night. So bye-bye the accurate A-36 dive-bomber and Mosquito skip-bomber operated by day. Portal (see earlier in this discussion) dismissed as a technical impossibility the very idea of a long-range fighter, let alone a long-range fighter-bomber. Harris would not have been interested in them because of their pathetic bomb-load which could not set alight city centres and kill masses of Germans.
3. A 'panacea' is a 'cure-all; a remedy for all diseases, evils, or difficulties'. So why was area bombing not itself dismissed as a panacea? The answer is because the boss said so, and the boss was Harris, and Harris was on a mission to kill Germans until those alive cried uncle.

Tony