Area bombing is not a dirty word.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: Mike Beede
Date: 12/31/03 4:48 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article , Chris Mark
wrote:

And here's a paraphrase from a mission briefing:

Not a paraphrase of anything I can find on the net. Where is
it from?

Mike Beede


It's just a lot of crap he made up.


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

From: Mike Beede

And here's a paraphrase from a mission briefing:

Where is
it from?

Approximate words of Maj. Frank Pilliard briefing for attack on Porto Torres,
Sardinia.


Chris Mark

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 12/31/03 7:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: Mike Beede

And here's a paraphrase from a mission briefing:

Where is
it from?

Approximate words of Maj. Frank Pilliard briefing for attack on Porto Torres,
Sardinia.


Chris Mark

And I guess you weren't there to hear it. Right?


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

From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 12/31/2003 6:12 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

From: (ArtKramr)

Nope. It is a paraphrase from a Military Tactics instructor at Cadet
school.

And here's a paraphrase from a mission briefing:

"Remember, if things get screwed up, get rid of those bombs. Find something,
anything, another target--trains, trucks, camps, emplacements, guns, troops,
anything is fair game--and drop on it. I don't care what it is. Better to
drop those bombs than bring them back here. We're not trying to save money,
it's all expendable, and we have a lot more bombs where these come from.
I want those people shook, so shook they never come out of their holes again.

If you kill them today they can't kill you tomorrow. We're not playing fair.

We're playing to win. We win by killing them. Killing them until they've
had
enough and quit. They can quit any time, but until they do we are going to
kill them anywhere and anyway we can."

Q: We're dropping to rooftop height three minutes from the target and you
said
to fire on "targets of opportunity" during that time. What is a "target of
opportunity"?

A: "Just strafe anything in your line of fire. Fire on anything that moves."

Q: Donkeys move, farmers move, women washing clothes move....

A: "You've got the idea. We've got to hit them where they live until they
drop
their ****ing guns and quit. Do you understand?"

Complete silence in the tent.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Yes, sir!






Chris Mark

I just can't see anyone in command position that blatantly advocating war
crimes. I can imagine it being hinted at, but never openly stated with that
many witnesses. They have plenty of room in Leavenworth for anyone that stupid.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: (B2431)
Date: 12/31/03 8:24 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

From: ost (Chris Mark)
Date: 12/31/2003 6:12 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

From: (ArtKramr)

Nope. It is a paraphrase from a Military Tactics instructor at Cadet
school.

And here's a paraphrase from a mission briefing:

"Remember, if things get screwed up, get rid of those bombs. Find something,
anything, another target--trains, trucks, camps, emplacements, guns, troops,
anything is fair game--and drop on it. I don't care what it is. Better to
drop those bombs than bring them back here. We're not trying to save money,
it's all expendable, and we have a lot more bombs where these come from.
I want those people shook, so shook they never come out of their holes
again.

If you kill them today they can't kill you tomorrow. We're not playing
fair.

We're playing to win. We win by killing them. Killing them until they've
had
enough and quit. They can quit any time, but until they do we are going to
kill them anywhere and anyway we can."

Q: We're dropping to rooftop height three minutes from the target and you
said
to fire on "targets of opportunity" during that time. What is a "target of
opportunity"?

A: "Just strafe anything in your line of fire. Fire on anything that moves."

Q: Donkeys move, farmers move, women washing clothes move....

A: "You've got the idea. We've got to hit them where they live until they
drop
their ****ing guns and quit. Do you understand?"

Complete silence in the tent.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Yes, sir!






Chris Mark

I just can't see anyone in command position that blatantly advocating war
crimes. I can imagine it being hinted at, but never openly stated with that
many witnesses. They have plenty of room in Leavenworth for anyone that
stupid.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired


I have been through 50 combat briefings and never heard any such line of crap
in my life.



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

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
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.


I did a quick search on Germany+war+production.

This is the first hit I got:

http://www.usaaf.net/surveys/eto/ebs4.htm

It indicates that German Industry has so much slack in it that bombing had
little effect.

Psychologically bombing may have been counter productive, it made us appear
inhuman and therefore caused the Germans to fight longer and harder.

True Germany was crumbling at the end but that was as a result of many
effects.

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.

Subject: Area bombing is not a dirty word.
From: "Bill Phillips"
Date: 1/1/04 11:36 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
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.


I did a quick search on Germany+war+production.

This is the first hit I got:

http://www.usaaf.net/surveys/eto/ebs4.htm

It indicates that German Industry has so much slack in it that bombing had
little effect.

Psychologically bombing may have been counter productive, it made us appear
inhuman and therefore caused the Germans to fight longer and harder.

True Germany was crumbling at the end but that was as a result of many
effects.

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.



Well, that's on opinion.


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

Chris Mark wrote:


Approximate words of Maj. Frank Pilliard briefing for attack on Porto Torres,
Sardinia.

Chris Mark




Approximate??????

Sounds more like something YOU think someone might have said at some
time if he was completely stupid - especially in front of multiple
witnesses.

Or did you dig it up from a video game?

Dave

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.

The impact the combined bomber offensive had against POL cannot be disputed.
POL was a "Top 3" target prior to the war, but when Intelligence officials were
replaced by American industrial "speacialists", it was dropped to #13 (IIRC).
The first Ploesti raid was undertaken not so much for the direct physical
effect, but to force Germany to defend themselves from the Baltic to the Med.
When a serious effort was undertaken to hit German POL (and sythetic POL) in
early 1944, the results were relatively quick and devestating. The reason your
P-51s did so well was because the FW-190 and Me-109 pilots they were flying
against had less than half the pre-war training time. The reduction in training
hours was due to the loss of both lubricant and fuel. The impact the CBO had
prior to 1944 was to draw manpower to defend Germany from the front. Every guy
manning a AAA piece or fueling a fighter would have been carrying a Mauser-98
on either the eastern or western front if it wasn't for the CBO.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

From: "Bill Phillips"



I did a quick search on Germany+war+production.

This is the first hit I got:

http://www.usaaf.net/surveys/eto/ebs4.htm

It indicates that German Industry has so much slack in it that bombing had
little effect.

Psychologically bombing may have been counter productive, it made us appear
inhuman and therefore caused the Germans to fight longer and harder.

True Germany was crumbling at the end but that was as a result of many
effects.

IMHO the only useful thing bombers did was draw the Luftwaffe out so that
the P51s could shoot them down.


In my opinion a great many strategic bombing missions were a waste of men and
aircraft.

1) The bombing of London had already proved the population would NOT be
demoralized yet the Allies seemed to think the Germans would cave.

2) Formating missions could take as long as 2 hours during which time the
Germans would be alerted by radar. I have always wondered if 1 or 2 Forts or
Lancs could sneak in at night and hit the target at dawn. Both bombers had good
accuracy at 5 kilofeet giving a good chance of taking out the target.

3) Targets kept changing prorities. If the bombing missions were planned to
knock out a system or production of a specific item such as ball bearings or
oil and continued until that system or product was brought to a stop they could
then go on to the next priority. Speer said a follow up to the Schweinfurt raid
would have seriously hurt ball bearing production to the point of affecting the
war effort. However the next bombing missions were elsewhere.

You can see where I am going with this. I wonder how many airmen would have
lived if the Allies changed their methods. I wonder how much shorther the war
would have been if oil production and distribution alone were the sole primary
targets early in the war. Secondary targets would be airfields and flack.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired