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OSS economists, role of in devising Allied bombing strategy of Germany,
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| British supporters of area bombings of cities thought the time was thus ripe for a full-court press. They argued that a decisive Wagnerian crisis in German morale could be brought about if the US bombers would abandon daylight bombing and join the RAF in night attacks. Those holding this view often argued that it was the break in German morale that caused capitulation in November 1918. | | Both related to the appropriate use of airpower before D-Day and in the wake of the Allied landings. Both involved intense debate in which, at the bureaucratic level, General Spaatz was squared off against Eisenhower's deputy, Air Chief Marshal Tedder and part of the RAF. At the intellectual level, EOU was squared off against Tedder's one-man brain trust, Solly Zuckerman, a scholar of the sexual and social life of apes; under the curious but not untypical imperatives of war, he became an expert on the physical effects of bombing which he applied in the Mediterranean, and then he became a bombing stategist. There are Americans (and some British) who to the end of their days regarded (or will regard) the last year of the struggle in Europe as a war against Solly Zuckerman rather than Adolf Hitler. |
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| With a large flow of long-range fighters in sight, the American military establishment was not about to abandon its deeply rooted commitment to daylight precision operations. EOU played its part in the defense of American doctrine by asserting that the German acceptance of defeat in 1918 was based on the situation in the field. In a widely circulated memorandum I sent from the British Air Ministry on 14 November 1943 to an influential advocate of area bombing, I argued that | | |
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| | | Stated with reasonable objectivity, the first controversy was about bombing policy before D-Day. Even before the big week in February had ended, Hughes and EOU were at work on a plan to exploit air supremacy over Germany. A plan to bomb German oil production was drawn up, approved by Spaatz as early as 5 March, and went forward to Eisenhower and Tedder. The judgment underlying the plan was that the use of strategic bombing to reduce oil supplies radically was the optimum way to lower the fighting capability of the German ground and air forces. Meanwhile, Zuckerman, basing his judgment on his highly debatable view of lessons of the air war in the Mediterranean, persuaded Tedder to support concentrated attacks on marshalling yards, postponing the whole question of oil until after D-Day. |
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| | collapse will come this time also from the top, and as a result of the military and military supply situation literally defined. I see no evidence or reason to believe that area bombing, whatever its great virtues as a generalized drain on the structure of Germany and its military potential, is capable of precipitating a decisive crisis. | |
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| The issue was settled, as often in public policy, by an event, not an argument. In the week of 20 February 1944, the entire US bomber force, conforming to a long-laid plan, was dispatched to attack German aircraft production from one end of Europe to the other. It was estimated that about 100 US bombers and crews would be lost (the number lost was only 22). The weather miraculously held clear until the 25th. General Anderson, pursuing basic military doctrine, and despite the exhaustion of the crews and protests from the bomb division commanders, exploited the breakthrough relentlessly until the winter weather closed in. The German single-engined fighter force never recovered from its unlikely defeat by the American long-range bombers. This was the week that, in effect, a mature US Air Force emerged. | | |
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| | | Spaatz took the view that attacks on marshalling yards would have diffuse, generalized effects but would not interdict military supplies because the minimum essential lines could be repaired overnight and because the Germans would not engage their beleaguered fighter force to defend marshalling yards. Thus, his primary and overriding responsibility of Allied air supremacy on D-Day would be at risk. |
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| | | | | | | The battle was promptly joined between Spaatz and Tedder and between their passionate intellectual spear carriers. The crisis and what proved to be interim resolution came at an historic meeting on 25 March 1944, chaired by Air Chief Marshal Portal, representing the combined Chiefs of Staff. But the decisive |
| From the perspective of those immediately engaged, the big week in February 1944 was Murphy's Law in reverse or intervention by higher authority. But not atypically, success led directly to more trouble: the second and third great conflicts over bombing policy. | |
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Posted: May 08, 2007 08:48 AM
Last Updated: May 08, 2007 08:48 AM
Last Reviewed: May 08, 2007 08:48 AM
