The momentous cost of Bomber Command.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hi,

To be complete, you have to estimate the cost of BC and fighting against BC for Germans:
_ direct military losses (at least 3000 NJG aircraft lost, and 3000 aircrew killed, thousand more of soldiers killed in strategic raids).
_ military resources used against BC (thousand of guns, millions of shells, etc...)
_ manpower hours lost, or used to repair railyards/factories hit by raids.
_ production lost during the dispersion of factories.

I agree that until the summer of 1943, Bomber Command was not able to really hit hard Germany economy, but starting from there, it was able to devastate cities (starting with Hamburg) on an increasing rate. I guess that the devastation of Hamburg had a net impact on German war production.
But before 1943, having thousand more tanks will be of little use for Britain too.

[Tapper]

Interesting thread, can I also throw into the pot another thing to consider.

Without wishing to travel into the emotive subject of Dresden too deep as it generally ends in a big argument, I am in favour of the theory that Dresden was mainly to show the Russians that the massive city destroying capability of BC existed and would be unleashed against them if they carried on into France when Germany was beaten.

The cost has been pointed out but what cost can you put on winning a war?

[Nick Beale]

Wars are colossal wastes of material, let alone human life. Why else would the exceptions, where the pinpoint target was hit, the crackshot, the ace be so celebrated? These were the exceptions.

Were fighters worth building when the majority of pilots never shot anything down? Most torpedo aircraft never scored a hit, were they worth building? Were ships worth it when most escort sank a U-boat? Were armies worth it when postwar studies showed a high percentage of infantry never even fired their rifles? When most landmines were never trodden on, sea mines never struck?

The point was not what the war or any aspect of it cost in money, for Britain in 1940–42 it was the determination to do whatever it took to hit the enemy. With France out of the war, the arithmetic was transformed and the course embarked on then is wholly understandable. Britain could never raise a field army big enough alone to defeat a German one (too great a population disparity). The RN couldn't overcome the military capacity of a continental power occupying the greater part of Europe to its West and occupying or allied to everything to its east. And the people who'd been Blitzed understandably wanted to hit back.

I suspect that a partial dilution of BC's strength in favour of Coastal Command might have done Britain more good c. 1941–43 than sending that extra (say) 100 machines over Germany. Clearly there was obstinacy over various elements of strategy, tactics and equipment (highlighted by Max hastings and Bill Gunston amongst others) but hitting German with the means at Britain's disposal was a rational choice in the circumstances of the time. The later insistence on hitting cities with a force that had meanwhile developed enough accuracy to hit oil targets etc. is what I find inexplicable.

[pstrany]

I had the privilege of doing an interview with John Kenneth Galbraith many years ago (he was one of the authors of the USSBS.)

As regards Hamburg, Mr. Galbraith pointed out that the Germans were very slow to mobilize their war production. Hamburg was a thriving city, with a great deal of civilian economic activity. Once Hamburg was bombed, all that civilian infrastructure was destroyed, so that all the shopkeepers, hairdressers and other non-military activity ceased. As Mr. Galbraith put it, the British created an idle workforce. The Germans, realizing this, put them to work in military industries.

Keep in mind that peak German military industrial output came not in 1941, but in 1944, after several years of BC attention. That is not to say that they accomplished nothing, but just that they did not single-handedly bring down the German war machine.

One other note, both Mr. Galbraith and several other sources pointed out that German war production could have been brought to its knees fairly quickly if Bomber Command had focused on the power grid in Germany. Aside from the raids on the Ruhr dams, very little effort was made to destroy German ability to generate and distribute power to factories throughout the Reich.

Any weapon can be effective, but only if it is used properly.......

Paul

[Jan Gazda]

Tony,

To answer your original question first no critical review of Fahey’s book is known to me. As for the conclusions you’ve made:

1. I totally agree with you that given the vast resources at its disposal BC’s contribution to the ultimate victory inadequate although by no means negligible. Had the only goal been to defeat Germany as quickly as possible then BC would be a horribly inefficient tool. However, there was broader strategic planning at work there. In terms of casualties BC’s campaign was a cheap way of showing good will to Russians. It enabled Churchill to stand by and watch Russians and Germans to slaughter themselves which he undoubtedly enjoyed. From this point of view bombing Germany for four years from 15 000 feet above was a very smart thing to do.

2. I can not agree with you that BC’s campaign or even WWII bankrupted Britain. Surely there was some loss of wealth as in most wars and yes, Britain was in huge debt after the war, but so were most other countries and this situation had been there before. War debt did not make UK the sick man of Europe as there were many other and more important factors at play that caused steady decline of Britain’s economy. The only country that really got bankrupted by the WWII was Soviet Russia. For many reasons combined it was unable to ever fully recover from the damage war brought about. The GDP per capita gap between USSR and the West kept widening after WWII which finally led to collapse of the Soviet block.


Jan

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Jan Gazda

It enabled Churchill to stand by and watch Russians and Germans to slaughter themselves which he undoubtedly enjoyed.

Are you seriously suggesting that Britain alone could have raised and equipped an army sufficient to take on the Germans in Western Europe and win? Britain's entry to the war was predicated on an alliance with France and its (on paper) very powerful armed forces. When the greater part of those forces were taken off the board, Germany and the USSR were still in a non-aggression pact. Other than surrender, what were the viable options for Britain at that time?

I think you might also find that, at considerable cost, Britain and the USA poured material support of all kinds into the USSR to sustain it against Germany.

[RodM]

After having a read of the thesis, my own opinion is that it is an important addition to the debate of the strategic air offensive.

Having said that, I feel that the author has missed the point in several areas and not delved into several complex issues.

I actually find it offensive that the author should emphasize a calculation of the cost for each German civilian killed, as if this is the marker upon which the success of the SBC should be judged. In fact, the calculation is completely irrelevant. Of more importance would be comparing the cost to Germany of defending against and repairing the damage caused by the SBC, not to mention the simple expedient that Bomber Command was an offensive weapon that, along with the USAAF, diverted a fair portion of German output to defence - output that otherwise been used for offensive over the British Isles. I would maintain that Germany's failure to mount a proper and sustained strategic campaign against the UK as a base of war operations was a grave mistake. Whether Germany could have mounted such a sustained campaign, considering that it had ultimately 'bitten off more than it could chew' once America had joined the European war, is another matter.

In terms of the construction and maintenance of airfields and infrastructure, I don't believe that one can separate the needs of Bomber Command from that of the USAAF. To that end, if the investment had not been made in Bomber Command, how would the USAAF strategic bomber force have fared in establishing itself in the UK? The USAAF in the UK relied heavily on RAF support in a number of areas, including the infrastructure set up to aid Bomber Command. To suggest that the investment in Bomber Command infrastructure was a cost that Britain could not afford, would automatically call into question the parallel USAAF SBC. I don't believe these two issues can be separated.

Nor do I see detailed analysis of the offsetting of costs against reverse lend-lease. A question I would be asking is did Britain get full economic value from technological advances and research shared with America? While the military value of this sharing undoubtedly bore fruit in American manufacturing of and improvements to British technology in the fields of both the aeronautics and electronics, to what extent did America economically profit to the detriment of Britain in the post-war years because of technology provided to the Americans for no real direct economic recompense?

The author also places emphasis on the wastage due to the dissolution of a substantial portion of Bomber Command in the immediate post-war years, without exploring the late-war requirements of fighting Japan, and the planned deployment of 'Tiger Force'; plans only made redundant by the Japanese surrender after the Atomic bombings. That Britain could reduce this war material to scrap only came about because the Allies defeated the Axis powers and the Soviet Union did not 'liberate' western Europe.

Tony, most of your theories are based on the notion/belief that Bomber Command operations had no political or material effect against Germany and its ability to wage war, and were thus a complete waste of effort. Many people flatly disagree with this notion, including Webster/Frankland in the Official History (which, in my view, is one of the most forthright and courageous Official Histories ever published by any country. If you haven't done so, I suggest that you read all four volumes from end-to-end, and not selectively take what suits your own hypothesises).

What most people now agree on is that with hindsight the British SBC could and should have been more effective than what it was. This is obviously different from suggesting that Britain should not have embarked upon a SBC at all. Should Britain not have done so then I would suggest that the economic cost to Britain could have been much more dire because the war might have been lost.

Cheers

Rod