Saturday Afternoon: February '45 Allied War Crimes - Steuben Sinking and Dresden Bombing

Dietlef Busch

February 8, 2014 at 8:49 pm

Another excellent exposure of Allied War Crimes, would it have mattered if those ships, were painted as Red Cross? NO! Bari Harbour with Eisenhower and Churchill classified the “Bari Report” against Germany. Link in German, the video in English. http://morbusignorantia.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/usa-und-gbunfassbare-lugenim-dezember-1943/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NonWxm4aYHc
An American merchant ship, the John Harvey, was transporting a top secret cargo, mustard gas, a highly toxic gas banned by the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

Or did International Law stop the the Prosecution of Red Cross Nurses? NO!
http://www.thenewsturmer.com/norwegian%20ww2%20history/conviction_of_red_cross_nurses.htm

Lurker

February 9, 2014 at 2:17 am

Im not sure the differences between RAF & USAAF bombing doctrines made a whole lot of difference on the ground. The RAF became more focused on area bombing (bombing cities) as much for reasons of bombing inaccuracy as politics, at least to start with. In other words the very real problems with hitting anything accurately with a heavy bomber gave them a reason (or an excuse) to embark on area bombing. In that sense they were just more honest about it. The USAAF insisted throughout 1942-45 that they were primarily targeting military/industrial targets but their raids were barely any less lethal to civilians due to the same problems of accuracy.

To me, whats telling, was the development of the Mosiquito and later the P-51DMustang aircraft.

The Mosquito had the capability to fly all the way from Britain, bomb German targets in broad daylight and outfly all German fighters of the time – unarmed! An incredible plane which, as far as I can see, gave the RAF the chance to really try accurate bombing again. It rendered the big 4 engine bombers largely obsolete. But that didnt happen. Area bombing continued despite one of the technical limitations being removed.

And of course the USAAF could have used the Mosquito too (indeed they did have some as recon aircraft – lend-lease in reverse)

In a similar vein…

Somewhere out there is a TV interview with Robin Olds. He was a P-51D pilot in the USAAF and a USAF General by the Vietnam war. In it he talked about what he saw as the absurdity of hundreds of his planes flying all the way to Germany escorting hundreds of B-17s. (Carrying hundreds, if not thousands of tons of bombs, the majority of which would completely miss their targets). When a Group of P-51s ie @ 30-40 planes could have carried bombs to the same target and attacked – vastly more accurately – at low level. Olds was more concerned about effective operations and the much lower US casualties that would have resulted but of course civilian deaths would have beem much lower too.

ulf

February 9, 2014 at 5:44 am

Besides the victors, David Irving also decreased the numbers (from 150 to 50 and then up again to the old number). 25000 is a number which is referred to as “counted corpses” I believe. But how count people who are burned completely?

Carolyn

February 9, 2014 at 10:49 am

When a Group of P-51s ie @ 30-40 planes could have carried bombs to the same target and attacked – vastly more accurately – at low level.

This is what German pilots like Leopold Wenger (whose letters about it can be read at carolynyeager.net HERE) were doing in 1942-43, flying their Folk-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bombers from the French coast to English targets. They flew at low level and accurately hit their targets, but they didn’t carry a big load. Germany never had the intention to flatten English cities, and didn’t have the concept of “Total War” until the Allies convinced them that’s what it was all about.

Paul Hickman

February 9, 2014 at 12:17 pm

Carolyn

“Germany never had the intention to flatten English cities, and didn’t have the concept of “Total War” until the Allies convinced them that’s what it was all about.”

This is something WN’s in Britain still have to contend with as we’ve all heard English people say… “Hitler was dropping bombs on my gran parents heads”.

Although Churchill was a POS, I have to conclude he ‘played’ Hitler in this regard. The Luftwaffe was winning under Goring’s strategy of; knocking out the radar towers (England’s main advantage) and destroying the RAF air fields. Along with the U-boat campaign, Britain had a few weeks left under these conditions.

Then Churchill sent bombing groups over to Berlin which attacked civilians several times. Hitler responded by making that speech about dropping many more bombs on English cities. Then the strategy was changed from the former to ‘The Blitz’. Although Hitler had a fair argument morally for doing this (revenge). He gave Britain time to rebuild Radar stations and Airfields – and also lost the moral high-ground.

That’s how I see it.

Lurker

February 10, 2014 at 10:18 pm

Paul – hi man.

Hate to sound a note of disagreement with you…

The Luftwaffe was winning under Goering’s strategy of; knocking out the radar towers (England’s main advantage) and destroying the RAF air fields. Along with the U-boat campaign, Britain had a few weeks left under these conditions.

I think this is partly a war myth. Its convenient for the Germans – “We nearly did it!”. Its convenient for the British – “They had us on the ropes, but we still won!”

The Luftwaffe attacked some of the southern radar stations, knocked a few out and then. . . stopped doing that for the remainder of the Battle of Britain. Meanwhile those stations were repaired very quickly with days at most and not attacked again. Nothing to do with the Germans not having the resources to attack. I’ve never been sure if the Germans quite realised this, as if they had a timetable of targets, a shopping list. That after x number of days attacking radar stations it was deemed to be non-operational (but in fact it wasnt).

The RAF advantage with radar was talked up a lot until the 1970s because ENIGMA was still a secret. That being a huge advantage that the RAF had, they knew where many big raids were headed and could deploy effectively. Crediting radar with that was to help deflect attention from ENIGMA.

And radar was far from being the only advantage. The RAF was defending right over its home territory, right over the factories where its planes were built in fact, you cant shorten the supply line much more than that!

There was also a well established observer corps and a lot of AAA. Also Fighter Command had set up a very effective form of command and control. You can see that emulated even today in the classic NASA Mission control room set up. The girls pushing numbered markers around being replaced with big screens.

The supply of fighters is also a factor – Fighter Command had more operational fighters at the end of the battle than at the beginning. In other words net of losses in the air, on the ground and bomb damage to factories. On its own that might not matter but Goering’s strategy failed to render a single RAF base unusable for any significant length of time or stop the radar system working, all aircraft factories continued operating too.

The airfield issue is interesting too – most of the German fighter units were operating from grass strips in France, most of the RAF fighters were operating from established hard strips but had any of these runways been totally destroyed the RAF planes could just have easily switched to grass strips themselves. ie if the Luftwaffe had destroyed every pre-war runway in southern England the RAF would still have been operating the same number of airbases in alternative locations.

Again, going back to the war myth, the belief that Britain was about to lose in 1940 plays well – the plucky little guy beating the odds. But Germany had no real hope of actually defeating Britain in 1940. The RAF never came close to being defeated, the Royal Navy even less so.

I think the purpose of the Battle of Britain and the U-Boat war was to try and dissuade Britain from continuing the war, to fight to a standstill. All Hitler wanted was Britain out of the war in Europe, he was only trying to raise the costs of continuing that war to a point where the British leadership would give up.

Paul Hickman

February 11, 2014 at 1:25 am

Lurker

Interesting comment.

“The RAF advantage with radar was talked up a lot until the 1970s because ENIGMA was still a secret. That being a huge advantage that the RAF had, they knew where many big raids were headed and could deploy effectively. Crediting radar with that was to help deflect attention from ENIGMA.”

I’ll have to look into that part. I didn’t think Enigma/Ultra was in use (by the British) during the battle of Britain? I still think the radar was a massive advantage – knowing which formations were coming from which direction and how strong they were.

“The RAF was defending right over its home territory, right over the factories where its planes were built in fact, you cant shorten the supply line much more than that!”

True, I’m sure the mostly single engine fighters which Goring sent (only a few minutes flying time over Britain) didn’t help either. I still think the psychological advantage was with Germany as they had more planes and more pilots.

“The supply of fighters is also a factor – Fighter Command had more operational fighters at the end of the battle than at the beginning.”

That is true, I was going to mention how Britain produced more planes than Germany (even though Germany controlled the whole of Western Europe pretty much) but didn’t want to be overly critical of Hitler, who as you say, wanted to “try and dissuade Britain” from war.

http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/document-15.html