Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 12/31/03 3:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
60 years of hindsight with some revisionism thrown in have obscured the
original intent of attacking an enemy from the air. I only flew one (of
50)
mission
over cloud cover using GEE. We didn't call it area bombing. We didn't call
it
blind bombing. Those are words are now used to stake out an agenda against
bombing in general. We flew the mission because it had to be flown and GEE
was
the only way to get it done. And there was a war on. A very nasty
unpleasant
war.
The name of the game was to go for the enemies throat.

The problem is: were you going for the enemy's throat?

Beating the enemy's fist with your face is not a good way to win.

Hit him night and day
in good weather and bad with no let up and no relief. We flew the
missions,
came back, buried our dead and went out again.We always hit a specific
target
that had to be hit. .The idea of having the enemy hit us without our
hitting
back any way we could was unthinkable. It shows weakness and gives the
inititive to the enemy, and once you have lost the initiative, you have
lost
the war.

Quite agree, however, your return blows have to be effective.

Also doing the same thing again and again is not gaining the initiative, it
is surrendering it.



Not when experience shows you that he is crumbling under your repeated blows.
And as we delivered these blows we could see him crumbling under our very eyes.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer