WalterM140 wrote in message ...

deleted text,

"Walter is clearly not up on the USAAF use of ground based radio
aids in 1944 and 1945.

So Walter presumably believes the attacks on Switzerland were deliberate."

According to Richard Davis's USAAF heavy bomber raids list the 8th's
bombers hit targets in Switzerland on the following occasions.

Schaffhausen 1 April 44 using H2X, 38 aircraft, 96.5 tons of bombs
Basel 22 February 45, Visual bombing, 1 aircraft, 3.0 tons of bombs
Basel 4 March 45, Visual bombing, 9 aircraft, 21.5 tons of bombs
Zurich 4 March 45, using H2X, 6 aircraft, 12.7 tons of bombs.

Spaatz was sent to Switzerland to personally apologise after the
4 March 1945 raids and the "safety zone" around Switzerland was
expanded.

I think you will find "The Day we bombed Switzerland" deals with
the 1945 events, not the 1944 one.

As for the 1 April 1944 raid, it appears the wartime story is at odds
with what actually happened, though the net throws up various accounts
of what happened that day, with varying civilian death tolls.

http://www.b24.net/missions/partb.htm

Mission #59
1 April 1944
Field Order 250
Target: Schaffhausen

This mission of the Group was to be recorded as one having embarassing
overtones with international complications between the embassaries of the
United States and Switzerland. The briefed target was Ludwigshafen’s
chemical works the mission to be led by a PFF radar ship. General briefings
were held for (24) aircrews with (23) taking off commencing around 0645
hours. Enroute to the briefed target, the PFF lead ship erred in piotage
while
flying over an undercast and led the Group aircraft far south of course into
southern Germany near Lake Constance and approximately (10) miles into
neutral Switzerland. It was learned after landing that the unit had bombed a
forested area (3) miles southeast of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen some
(120) miles southeast of the briefed target of Ludwigshafen. A total of
(1184)
100# bombs had been released in the area. No enemy aircraft were
encountered, but some AA fire was experienced with (9) aircraft picking up
battle damage. All airplanes returned around 1445 hours.

It's all insults now, isn't it?

In case people are wondering the topic was how bombing accuracy
degraded with distance during WWII, more so for the night than
day bombers. Then add Walter's basic ignorance of the radio aids
used by the USAAF.

Now add the accurate recording of USAAF raids is considered all
insults and instead of discussing the raids there is simply an "RAF
did dumb things too" attempt, as if, somehow, in a campaign lasting
years there would not be such incidents. No matter which air force
was involved.

"Not surprisingly, a navigator would sometimes get so hopelessly confused that
his plane would drop its bombs on a dummy city, the wrong city or even
occasionally, on an RAF base back in England.

Dummy target and wrong city are standard errors, that happened in
daylight and night time bombing. It would be interesting to read
of the incidents where RAF bases were bombed. The early night
raids could miss the target country.

In one notorious instance, a
Whitley plowed through an overcast sky, unloaded its bombs on an airfield
below, then ran out of gas crash landed in a cabbage patch. All four men
aboard scrambled to safety and set fire to the plane to keep it from falling
into enemy hands. Then, hoping to make a getaway by daylight, they hid in a
nearby barn. They were confronted there by an apoplectic RAF group captain who
had watched the whole affair from his own control tower."

The Whitley in the cabbage patch, if this is K8969 then it was
on the night of 3 September 1939, it was a French cabbage
patch and the aircraft was on a leaflet raid.

-- "The Air War in Europe" p. 34, Time-Life Books

Yes the boys own adventure references continue.

The Germans are clear that the USAAF hurt them much worse than the RAF, that
even when the day bombers were still inferior in numbers, that more attention
was given to defense against day bombers versus night, further, according to
the Chief of the Air Staff, that but for the favorable situation brought on by
the Americans, Bomber Command would have suffered a "visible and humiliating
defeat."

You can see Walter's agenda here, the words attributed to the RAF
Chief of Air Staff were written by another person, the author of the
book where Walter finds a Portal quote, they are not Portal's words.

Walter simply pretends to wipe the slate clean and then resubmits the
same junk claims over and over, the "much worse" and "more attention"
claims being the ones to resurface this time.


Now for the "look what I did after 1 year" event.

Of course the allies aided each other, despite the chance that people
would come along later and simply ignore the aid.

The USAAF in England sourced 49% of its supplies from British
sources until July 1943, plus obtained other British supplies through
the Quartermaster system. In the period June 1942 to June 1944
the British supplied to US forces in England 63% of Quartermaster,
58% of engineer, 49% of medical, 25% of Chemical Warfare, 22%
of signal corps and 21% of Air Force supplies, some 6.8 million
measurement tons of supplies January 1942 to June 1944.

In theory this means if the British failed to aid the USAAF then the
300 aircraft missions of August 1943 would be 150 aircraft. In fact
given the nature of the equipment supplied, like radios, the raids
would have been at lower strengths, then add services like air
sea rescue and reconnaissance. Bomber Command also reported
adverse effects from the loss of airfields to US units.

In the 1940 to 1942 period Bomber command benefited indirectly from
US aircraft, either purchased or lend lease, being sent to overseas
areas, increasing the amount of British home production that could be
retained in Britain. In more direct assistance in April/May 1943
Bomber Command took delivery of the first Lancaster IIIs, with their
US built Merlin engines.

And so on throughout the war.

The next point to make is the idea the general war situation was
the same August 1942 to August 1943 versus May 1940 to May
1941, the idea is simply junk. Bomber Command ended 1942
with fewer squadrons than it started with thanks to the need to
send units to the middle and far east.

The next point is the RAF change over from 2 to 4 engine bombers.
Harris reports in February 1942 his average availability, aircraft with
crews was 374, made up of 55 light, 275 medium and 44 heavy,
after hovering at around 400 all year in December 1942 the figure
was 419, 45 light, 111 medium and 262 heavy. In terms of standard
2 flight squadrons (some squadrons had 3 flights and so were 50%
larger than "normal"), in February 1942 there were 37 operational
and 18 non operational squadrons, in December it was 32.5 and
18 respectively. The last Whitley operation was 29 April, the last
Manchester operation on 25 June, the last Blenheim operation on
17 August, the last Hampden operation on September 14 1942,
you can see the major change in bomber mix. The last Wellington
bombing operation with Bomber Command was 8 October 1943.

There would be a major jump in strength in January 1943 as the
Canadian group was made operational, 514 aircraft, 313 heavy,
January 1944 strength was 869 aircraft, 818 heavy, (this is despite
the loss of the day bomber force, sent to the 2nd Tactical Air Force
on 1 June 1943). Strength in January 1945 was 1,434 aircraft,
1,287 heavy.

The really absurd thing is the idea the B-17 needs to be compared
to the Blenheim, Whitley or Hampden to look good, in this "after 1
year" false comparison.

Using the RAF official history figures, long tons, the first 12 months
of Bomber Command operations, to end August 1940 dropped
6,765 tons of bombs, May 1940 to April 1941 it was 19,236 tons.
For the 8th Air Force August 1942 to July 1943 it was 13,424 tons.

The main effects of the early Bomber attacks was military, the
flak and fighter defences and this continued probably into 1944.

In May 1940 the Luftwaffe nightfighter force was effectively non
existent, by 17 August 1940 the night fighter force had grown from
near zero to 102 aircraft, by the end of the year NJG 1, 2 and 3 had
been created, though they were certainly not at full strength. They
had 245 aircraft between them on 24 June 1941.

The day fighter strength in the west went like this, on 27 July 1942 388,
20 June 1943 696, 20 September 1943 899.

So after the attempts to show how the Luftwaffe increased the strength
in April 1943 by telling us the strength in August and December 1943
we now have the bombing accuracy figures for heavily attacked USAAF
formations, with most of the examples being formations that were not
heavily attacked, with something like 20,000 examples to take from
we are given 2 or 3 and told to accept them as typical.

Meantime 1 RAF raid is used, with a quote telling us the bombers
were under flak and fighter attack, and then accusation of lies when
the flak and fighter attacks are pointed out. This raid is used as
typical, with accuracy measured from the official aiming point, not
the area marked on the night. Oh yes, after the deployment of
"window" the Luftwaffe changed night tactics to trying to "swim in
the [bomber] stream" and interception over the target, the most
effective being when the fighters could be fed into the bomber
stream. On the 31 August 1943 raid on Berlin an estimated 2/3 of
the 47 aircraft lost that night were to fighters over or near Berlin.

Finally it seems the firestorm raid on Hamburg achieved about
normal accuracy for the night bombers at that time, around 2/3
of the bombs within 3 miles in good weather (around half in
moderate weather). Showing the reality the night bombers had
target identification problems while doing area raids even without
strong fighter defences. The 8th noted even in good to fair weather
in late 1944 the heavies managed 91.5% within 3 miles, showing
the daylight problems with hitting targets. The RAF reported during
the same time period, late 1944, the night bombers were achieving
91 to 95% in good weather and 97 to 98% in moderate weather,
which is an interesting result, either a statistical fluke or an indicator
of the rise in electronic bombing aids.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.