We needed to preserve it, so as to not allow a mine shaft gap.
To the smartest people in the world, here on FR.
It’s rather hard to bomb a mine.
Could be because there were more critical targets.
It's amazes me that there are people in this country who are STILL mesmerized by Hitler and those years (1933-44).
1933: 81 years ago.
I lay no claim to being overly smart, but perhaps it had to do with the resultant mine fire that could burn for years?
Maybe a global warming skeptic warned them about that. /s
It makes no tactical sense.
If you bomb the railroads and bridges used to transport the coal and the power plants that use the coal it’s not going anywhere.
Someone didn’t want it bombed.
destroying production plants for equipment means that you stop or delay production. Destroying the refining facilities for oil stops gas and diesel production. Destroying the steel mills stops steel production.
Thus more “bang for bomb” in destroying them than trying to hit the mine shaft heads or bombing the oil wells.
Bombing strategy changed several times during the war. Sometimes it changed between one raid and the next. They never, for example, targeted power plants. They only did one bombing on a dam, despite the tremendous potential for secondary destruction. They went to area bombing because a study showed that only a few bombs got within five miles of their intended target. How would one bomb a mine? It’s already a hole in the ground.
Was there any art stored there?
You’re an idiot!
It was obviously owned by the Bushes.
Part of Joe Kennedy’s investments...
Who worked the mine?
That is so last century - in reading history of the air war the Allies were more interested in cutting lines of communication - rail/marshaling yards/ etc.
Probably a LOT more effective to bomb the manufacturing process than the starting point...
Sort of hard to go from the raw materials to a tank and airplane in battle without the means to make them...
Fantastic Place. Our division of our company (German)held the party for our twenty fifth anniversary bash up in their party room, about a hundred feet up with a view of the region. I also toured it ten years ago. The cars when they came up from bellow clanged so hard and with such noise that if you worked in that room you were deaf in a few months. That was pre-WW One.
Not much point in bombing a mine. Better question: Why weren’t the German Ford and Opel(GM) factories bombed?
We needed to preserve it, so as to not allow a mine shaft gap.
The Germans used mines for aircraft and rocket production. They used mines to store their gold and art treasures. Why did they do this? Because the 8th Air Force did not have the capability to bomb underground mines with any result besides a little rubble at the entrance that could be cleared away in an hour or two.
They bombed oil refineries for months with thousands of bombers and many thousands of tons of bombs. The refineries were right out in the open. The refineries were severely damaged, but were still producing refined petroleum products on the day that the war ended.
Do not ask this question of any 8th Air Force veterans. They are getting old and the uncontrollable fits of laughter could be fatal.
Bombing the mine would be akin to bombing the farmer in the field that raises crops that can feed the army.
To kill the farmer or miner would be “strategic devastation” and not in accordance with the Just War principle of minimizing the suffering of the innocent — a western concept that the middle-east has yet to embrace (if ever).
One can bomb a munitions factory that is staffed with civilians because they contribute directly to the war effort, whereas miners do not as the mine serves a purpose beyond the war. . .like the farmer.
So, morally, bombing a munitions factory and killing the civilian employees would be justified because the munition employees contribute directly (and solely, in essence) to the war effort. Bombing the mine and killing miners that do not directly contribute to the war effort, like the farmer, would be immoral, unjust.
“Just and Unjust War” by Walzer is an excellent read on the subject.