[zook]

I would disagree strongly with any "analyst" making such claims. It is really impossible to determine the extent to which bombings of civilian areas helped win the war. They argue that "some of the bombings were unnecessary"? They mean 20,000 deaths were ok, but 40,000 was beyond the pale?

I think their sensitivities are showing. Perhaps the Allies did go a bit beyond what was necessary, but at the time, there was no clear way of knowing what was necessary. The bombings were aimed, I believe, at destroying German morale; to rob German citizens of any hope under Hitler. And in my opinion, the strategy was entirely legitimate in this instance.

[Western Phil]

People can do all the Monday morning quarter backing the want, but there is no way to change history and try some else. The Allied theory at that heavy loss of civilian property would cause the population to turn against their leaders. Unfortunately it didn’t work that way and probably didn’t significantly shorten the war. Continued concentrated pressure on selected industries (ball bearings, petroleum) would probably have achieved more, but war is war. Once you are in it, you need to do what it takes to end it as soon as possible on your terms and with most of the casualties on the other side.

The British bombers did not have any superchargers as did the American planes. Thus they flew in amongst defending German fighters. Heavy losses caused a change in strategy and the Brits became night bombers. The Americans were able to fly higher and in the day time tending to use radar because of the cloudy nature of the continent. Neither practice was very effective in destroying individual small targets such as factories. City busting (fire bombing) was pretty much developed by the British because the cities were easy to find at night. Typically, the bombing was done in waves, one wave mostly incendiaries, another mostly block busters. Dresden was a combination British/American effort. The fires were set at night by two large waves of British planes (by this time there was little or no air defense). The Americans came the next day and bombed the rubble. Don't know about Hamburg.