Strategic Bombing: Was The Controversial Tactic Actually Effective? | WWII in Colour | War Stories

As World War II got underway, both the Allies and the Germans were looking for the knockout blow, the new weapon that would decisively defeat the enemy. For Hitler's Germany, the problem was that Britain was an island. His tanks couldn't blitzkrieg across the Channel. The only way to defeat her was to strangle her seaborne supply routes. That meant warships and, above all, submarines. For the Western Allies, the problem was attacking Germany when there were no Allied troops in mainland Europe. The solution they adopted was strategic bombing, aerial bombardment aimed at destroying Germany's infrastructure and pounding its people into submission. The two sides had adopted two very different tactics, but with one aim, to save their troops and to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible. Ironically, it was the Germans who first started strategic bombing. In August 1940, Luftwaffe bombers accidentally hit London. The RAF retaliated by bombing Berlin. By the autumn, Germany was bombing Britain's cities almost daily, convinced the British would eventually crack. But the blitz, as it was called, never showed any sign of forcing the British to surrender. By the summer of 1941, it was dying away as the Luftwaffe turned its attention to the war in Russia. But for the British military command, bombing remained the only way of striking directly at Hitler's Germany. Moreover, by early 1941, the RAF was starting to receive a new generation of bigger, more powerful, four-engined bombers. These could carry loads of up to 18,000 pounds of bombs, four times the capacity of earlier aircraft. The first of these was the short Stirling. To begin with, the plan was not to hit the German population, but specific infrastructure targets, cutting transport and oil supplies, damaging Germany's ability to wage war. But it suffered one central problem. Britain's bombing was extremely inaccurate. In August 1941, a secret British report showed that over the crucial German Ruhr industrial area, only 10% of British bombers were getting their bombs within five miles of their target. At the same time, the German air defences were taking a terrible toll on British planes. By late 1941, up to 10% of the bombers on any raid were being shot down, a loss rate which couldn't be sustained. The Royal Air Force High Command decided to change tactics. It gave up any pretense of trying to hit specific targets. Instead, Bomber Command was instructed to undertake what it called area bombing, a euphemism for what is known today as carpet bombing. The idea was to deliberately target an entire area of a city, regardless of the civilian population. In the chilling words of the British Air Ministry, it would destroy the morale of the civilian population, and in particular, of industrial workers. Its leading exponent was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Bomber Harris, who was now appointed Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command. There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see. They served the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind. In spring 1942, Harris launched what was, in effect, a huge public relations stunt for what he preferred to call strategic bombing. He gathered every available aircraft in Bomber Command. Over a thousand took off for the German city of Cologne. The city's defences were overwhelmed. Six hundred acres were destroyed. But only 39 British aircraft were lost. Harris had won his point. He now had the full support of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. He also now had an outstanding new weapon, the Avro Lancaster, the finest heavy night bomber of the war. And he had a new partner. By the summer of 1942, the United States had joined the air war in Europe. American planes began to appear in Britain. The majority were the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. It was heavily armed with 13 machine guns and could, in theory, fight its way through to a target in daylight without a fighter escort. It was also equipped with a new bombsight that would supposedly allow it to drop its bombs with almost unerring precision. These features encouraged the Americans to ignore the lessons of the early British campaign and return to targeted raids on Germany's infrastructure. In August 1942, the Americans put the Flying Fortress to the test. Twelve of them attacked marshalling yards near Rouen in France. Damage was slight, but the United States lost no aircraft. For the Americans, it was the proof that daylight raids on infrastructure targets could work. For the British, it simply showed that the Americans could hit a minor and relatively undefended target. But that winter, the two allies agreed to combine their approaches. They would launch a massive bombing campaign against Germany's industrial heartland. The Americans would attack by day against carefully selected infrastructure targets. The British would attack by night, carpet bombing whole areas, destroying war production and civilian morale. They hoped it would be so devastating, it might even bring the war to an end. In March 1943, British planes took off for the German industrial city of Essen. High-speed Mosquito light bombers went in first, dropping flares to highlight the targets. Then a force of nearly 450 Lancaster bombers swept over the city, dropping their bombs. The German defences were overpowered. Only 14 British aircraft were shot down. The Essen raid was followed by wave after wave of similar attacks on industrial towns in the Ruhr. But the German air defences now began to get the measure of the Allied attacks. Britain's losses climbed to one in ten. Harris was forced, reluctantly, to call a halt to the attacks. But then he was informed about a new Allied invention. Codenamed Window, it consisted of clouds of aluminium foil strips dropped from an aircraft. As the foil fell, it jammed any radar system. It promised to cripple the German air defences. Harris seized on it. And four months after the Essen raid, in July 1943, he went back on the offensive. He called it Operation Gomorrah. The target this time was the industrial port of Hamburg. Bombers equipped with Window jammed the German radar. Other aircraft dropped incendiary bombs. A giant firestorm engulfed the city centre. 40,000 people died and half a million were made homeless. More raids on the port followed. It was an enormous shock to the German people. Four months later, in the autumn of 1943, Harris followed Hamburg with a series of attacks on Berlin. But by now the Germans were learning to overcome the effect of Window and by spring 1944, British losses were back at nearly one plane in ten. Worse, there was no sign German civilian morale was cracking. Harris's carpet bombing campaign was just not working. But neither was the American alternative of targeting infrastructure. By the spring of 1943, US Army Air Force daylight raids were steadily reaching deeper into Germany. But American losses were climbing. Around one in every 15 planes was being shot down. Yet undaunted, the American command now launched an attack on factories in the German towns of Regensburg and Schweinfurt. It was hugely ambitious. Both were deep in southern Germany, far beyond the range of US escort fighters. It was a disaster. The 380 flying fortresses, which US bomber chiefs had assured everybody wouldn't need a fighter escort, were harried and shot down. The loss rate was over 16%. The US was forced to suspend its bombing campaign. The war in the air had reached stalemate. And there was still no sign of it helping to usher in a victory. Then in the early summer of 1944, as the Allies prepared to invade mainland Europe, the British and American Air Forces were tasked with disrupting German communication lines and oil supplies. It represented a return to targeted infrastructure bombing. But this time, the Allies had a new weapon. The British had experimentally modified a US fighter, the P-51 Mustang. The US engine had been replaced by a British-made Rolls-Royce Merlin. It gave the plane a much longer range. It was the ideal long-distance bomber escort. The Allied bombers hit bridges and roads leading to the German front in France with almost surgical precision. Oil supplies to the German military were drastically reduced. Once again, the German fighters attacked. But they were now outmanoeuvred by the Mustang. Much of the German Air Force, now running low on fuel, was grounded. The campaign of targeted bombing on Germany's infrastructure may not have been the knockout blow the Allies hoped for, but it was finally paying dividends. But one man was not impressed. Bomber Harris was still obsessed with the idea that ever more devastating carpet bombing attacks would stop Germany in her tracks once and for all. So it was that in late 1944, Britain returned to carpet bombing. German city after city was hit and devastated. Then, in February 1945, Harris attacked Dresden, a city with virtually no military significance. The city's civilian population had been inflated by refugees fleeing bombing raids elsewhere. Yet Harris seems to have had no regard for civilian life. The city was flattened. Some 50,000 people died. It was a raid too far. Finally, questions began to be asked about the morality, let alone the efficacy, of carpet bombing. Whatever it had achieved, it had been done at a horrendous cost of civilian and military lives. Critically, it had failed to break German morale, yet 60% of RAF crews had died before they had completed 30 missions. For all the hopes put in it, carpet bombing had not come up with the knockout blow. The Germans, meanwhile, had put their faith in an altogether different technology to give them the knockout blow they needed to win the war. For Germany, Britain was a problem. It was an island, and for once Hitler's formidable land forces were useless. Britain also had a much more powerful navy. Yet Hitler calculated that if he used what he had strategically, he could fatally disrupt the sea convoys that were keeping Britain supplied with everything from oil to food. In the first 18 months of the war, German raiders sank more than 130 British merchant vessels. Some of the most effective raiders were the so-called pocket battleships, small but powerful warships designed in the 1930s to circumvent restrictions imposed on German rearmament after World War I. One, the Graf Spee, became particularly notorious. In a matter of weeks, she sank nine Allied merchant ships in the South Atlantic before being cornered off the river plate in South America and Scotland. But the raids were taking a serious toll. If the losses continued to rise, Britain would have real supply problems. Then, in early spring 1941, Germany's first and only two full-sized battleships completed their sea trials. They sent a shiver through the British navy. Their potential for destruction was enormous. First into action was the Bismarck. In May, RAF reconnaissance aircraft spotted her in the Norwegian port of Bergen, trying to sneak out into the North Atlantic. The British navy set off in pursuit. Two days later, the Bismarck was sighted in the North Atlantic. Britain's latest battleship, the Prince of Wales, was sent to intercept her. With her was the British battlecruiser, Hood. Early on May the 24th, 1941, the two forces met. It was the first time the two sides' battleships had squared up to each other. Almost immediately, a shell from the Bismarck plunged through the weak deck armour of the Hood. It penetrated one of the aft magazines. There was a huge explosion. Only three of the Hood's 1,200 crew survived. The Prince of Wales, now outnumbered, retreated. It was round one to the Bismarck. Two days later, Bismarck was spotted again, this time far to the south, several hundred miles off the coast of France. British swordfish torpedo bombers swooped in. One hit and jammed the Bismarck's rudder. The following morning, two British battleships, the Rodney and King George V, caught up with the crippled Bismarck. They started pouring heavy calibre shells onto the hapless German ship. She was soon reduced to a blazing wreck. The Bismarck was finally sunk by a torpedo. All but 110 of her 2,300 crew perished. The Bismarck had been sunk before she'd had a chance to prove her worth. Then, in June 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. War at sea entered a new phase. Britain began sending supply convoys to the Russian arctic ports of Murmansk and Arkhangel. Immediately, the German navy prepared to cut them off. Convoy after convoy was attacked or threatened. By summer 1943, it had become so dangerous, further convoys to Russia were suspended until the autumn, when it was hoped bad weather and poor visibility would offer some protection. While the convoys were suspended, Britain turned its attention to one of the biggest threats it faced, the Bismarck's sister ship, Tirpitz. She'd spent months hiding in the Norwegian fjords, waiting for the moment to pass. All the while, the British navy had been keeping her under close watch, determined to eliminate Germany's last battleship. In September 1943, five British midget submarines known as X-Craft were sent into the Norwegian fjords to sink her. The attack caused only minor damage. By the following spring, the Tirpitz was once again ready to menace the arctic convoys. The Royal Navy now sent in a massive force to attack her. It included six aircraft carriers. They took the Germans completely by surprise. British dive bombers attacked Tirpitz. But she was heavily armoured, and the relatively small bombs caused only superficial damage. Three months later, she was ready for action again. She was soon spotted in another Norwegian fjord. Lancaster bombers carrying massive five-tonne Tallboy bombs were sent in to sink her once and for all. Tirpitz put up a smoke screen, which partially obscured her. Nevertheless, several bombs struck her bow, causing severe damage. Finally, two months later, a squadron of Lancaster bombers caught her in perfect weather conditions. Three Tallboys struck home. Tirpitz slowly capsized. Almost 1,000 crew members went down with her. After more than two years of hiding and running from the British Navy, she had been sunk. Germany's battleships had promised much, but against the overwhelming might of the British Navy, they never had a chance to prove their worth. Hitler had lost the battle at sea, at least on the surface. But below the waves, it was a different story. Germany's military planners had long expected that the country's U-boat fleet would play a key role in cutting Britain's supply lines. They could sneak up underwater on British merchant vessels, attacking them at the last moment. The submarines were also extremely agile on the surface. To combat the threat, Britain's merchant fleet was corralled into convoys for protection. But there was a serious shortage of anti-submarine ships to escort them. Many ships sailed without protection. Yet Britain's naval command remained remarkably complacent. They believed they had the weapons and the technology to contain the U-boat threat. It was soon proved wrong. In the early months of the war, Britain's supply lines were harassed and disrupted. Often the U-boats would attack on the surface, picking off merchant ships with their deck guns. In response, the Royal Navy sent aircraft carriers equipped with submarine-hunting aircraft to patrol the sea lanes used by the convoys. But they had only limited effect. By the end of 1939, over 100 Allied merchant ships had been sunk by German submarines. If losses continued at this rate, Britain would face disaster. Oil, food and weapons would all begin to run short. Then things got even more difficult. Germany overran France. Suddenly, the German navy, which until now had been largely bottled up in the North Sea, had access to France's Atlantic seaboard. They now had a base to attack Britain's Atlantic convoys. France's Atlantic ports filled with newly built German U-boats, particularly the Type 7C ocean-going vessel. Admiral Karl Dönitz, head of the German U-boat service, now organized his submarines into what he called wolf packs. A group would be lined up across a likely convoy route. As soon as one U-boat spotted a convoy, it called in the rest to attack. Sometimes the U-boats were also guided by long-range patrol aircraft. By the end of October 1940, up to 40% of Allied merchant shipping per convoy was being sunk. Britain's supplies were under threat. German U-boat crews called it the happy time. Top U-boat commanders became national heroes. Britain was paying dearly for its lack of preparation. But finally things began to change. A crash-building program of anti-submarine escort vessels was producing results. The first corvettes, as they were known, were coming off the slipways. For the first time, Britain could set up permanent groups of warships to escort the supply convoys. But their effectiveness was limited by the fact that their top speed was 15 knots, two knots slower than the surface speed of a U-boat. At the same time, the patrol aircraft of Britain's coastal command were equipped with depth charges. They lacked the range to cover the mid-Atlantic, so U-boats on the surface near their bases could be harried and forced to submerge. Then, as in the bombing campaigns, there was a series of technological breakthroughs that really came to Britain's help. In early 1940, a new type of radar, known as centimetric radar, was developed. It was smaller than existing systems and, for the first time, could be fitted to escort ships and aircraft. Now, any German U-boat on the surface was vulnerable. Some months later, there was a second technological breakthrough. Huff Duff was a radio detector. Any time a German U-boat surfaced to communicate, Huff Duff could pick up the radio signal and pinpoint its exact position. Steadily, during the spring of 1941, Britain began to contain the U-boat threat. Merchant shipping losses fell by more than half. In early March, Gunther Preen, one of Germany's top U-boat commanders, failed to return from a patrol. Shortly afterwards, two more top German U-boat commanders lost their lives in quick succession. Then, Germany suffered a major disaster that would reverberate through the rest of the war. In May 1941, the British destroyer Bulldog forced U-110 to the surface and captured the submarine. On board was an Enigma machine, used for encoding German signals. More importantly, Bulldog also captured the naval codebooks that went with the machine. It would provide vital assistance to Britain's codebreakers. Soon, unbeknown to the Germans, Britain was getting a real insight into German naval communications. For the Royal Navy, it meant convoys could now be routed away from the U-boat wolf packs. Germany's submarines had to work harder and search further to find and sink their prey. Yet, despite the Allied gains, by the winter of 1941, a German war machine was producing ever greater numbers of U-boats. The long-term outlook for Britain's supply routes still looked ominous. Then, in December 1941, the war at sea changed decisively. In December 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States. Almost immediately, Admiral Dönitz, head of the German U-boat service, sent submarines to attack U.S. merchant shipping along the American seaboard. At first, only a few of his submarines, the new Type IX, were capable of making the long voyage from Europe. They found easy pickings. The U.S. Navy's commander-in-chief, Admiral Ernest King, had resisted British advice to corral his merchant ships into convoys. The merchant ships were sunk or destroyed. America was learning the tough lesson Britain had already learned. Something had to be done. King now changed his mind, and by May 1942, the United States had introduced a limited system of convoys. By July, the U.S. losses were falling. It forced the Germans to adopt a new tactic. They would concentrate their U-boats in one particular part of the North Atlantic, the Black Gap, the area in mid-ocean too far from land for anti-submarine aircraft to reach. Often, a convoy would be hit by more than 15 submarines coming at it in waves. During October 1942, 56 Allied ships were sunk in the Black Gap. By the following March, Allied losses had reached 120 ships in a single month. During the same month, the Germans lost only 12 U-boats. Hitler's tactic of disrupting Britain's supply lines so severely the country would collapse seemed a real possibility. It looked as though his U-boats might win him the war. But now the Allies began to up their game. Britain had brought in a new commander. Admiral Max Horton was former head of the Royal Navy's submarine fleet. His first move was to set up permanent groups of destroyers and frigates that would provide additional support to convoys, rushing in as soon as an enemy wolfpack was spotted. Equally importantly, a string of yet more technological developments came on stream. The Hedgehog was an anti-submarine mortar that fired 24 bombs. Allied aircraft were fitted with a new high-powered searchlight, the Leelight. As an aircraft swooped in, it could be turned on at the last moment, catching a submarine by surprise on the surface. The steady technological advance now began to pay off. The German U-boat losses increased. The German commander, Admiral Dönitz, struggled to regain the initiative. In April, he ordered an all-out U-boat attack on convoy ONS 5, a convoy of 43 merchant ships travelling from Liverpool to Canada. It was designed to be a demonstration of German naval force. Forty U-boats descended on the convoy. Anti-submarine aircraft flew from Canada. It would take four days for the Allies to beat off the German attack. Eleven merchant ships were sunk, but the Germans had lost seven U-boats. Two weeks later, Dönitz tried again, attacking a second convoy. It was a disaster. Five U-boats were sunk without a single merchant ship being lost. During May 1943, a quarter of all Germany's operational U-boats were sunk. The Germans were finally beginning to lose the U-boat war in the Atlantic. So the Allies now took the battle to the Germans. A new long-range version of the U.S. B-24 Liberator bomber was introduced. It could now reach the German U-boats in the Black Gap. Germany's submarine designers tried to respond with innovations of their own. U-boats were fitted with radar detectors and anti-aircraft guns. Some were also fitted with the Dutch-designed schnorkel, an air inlet that meant that submarines could spend longer underwater, hidden from Allied radar. But it was too little, too late. The Allies still found them. Hitler's U-boats were now pinned down in port. It was too dangerous for them to roam the ocean freely. German attempts to find an answer became increasingly desperate. They now produced a revolutionary new submarine. It was known as the Type 21. It was electric-powered and capable of 17 knots while submerged, over twice the speed of a traditional submarine and fast enough to outrun most surface vessels. But again, it was too late. Only one ever became operational and it never made contact with the enemy. By the end of 1943, the Allies dominated the Atlantic. It was a turning point in the war. Hitler's U-boat campaign had taken a terrible toll on both sides. It had lost nearly 800 submarines. 75% of the U-boat crews perished. On the Allied side, some 32,000 sailors died. But now, at last, with the U-boats out of the way, great waves of U.S. troops and equipment could flood across the ocean in preparation for the invasion of Europe. Victory in the Battle of the Atlantic