Page 62 - Airpower in 20th Century - Doctrines and Employment

62 airpower in 20 Century doCtrines and employment - national experienCes
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war. The idea of bombing an enemy into submission came from the period between
the world wars when strategies for air offensives were slowly taking shape in the form
of the concept of strategic bombing. There was no proper doctrine however, as Scot
15
Robertson notes in his analysis on the development of strategic bombing. Early in the
war, the British had conducted daylight bombing raids against German military targets
16
with unpromising results . During the course of the war, the British bomber offensive
targeted the war potential of the German cities through nightly aerial bombing. As
described in a directive following the Casablanca conference, the objective was
“the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and
economic systems, and the undermining of the morale of the German people to the
point where their capacity for armed resistance was fatally weakened”.
17
German morale did not collapse even though the population was subjected to
heavy bombing which caused severe casualties. Actually, the result was quite the
opposite of the original objective. As Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and
War Production put the subject in a post-war interrogation “the powers of resistance
of the German people were underestimated and no account was taken of the fatalistic
18
frame of mind which a civil population finally acquires after numerous air raids”.
Instead of reducing German morale, the bombings increased the German resolution
to stand firm as the killing of innocent civilians by the Allies offered excellent
propaganda opportunities for the regime that had total control over domestic radio
19
and press. The same trend occurred in the bombing of industry. After re-organising
its production, German industry was actually able to increase its output. It is a well-
known fact that German industrial production reached its peak in 1944, which was
the year of the heaviest bombing in the war. 20
Throughout the bombing campaign, the British retained a cynical attitude towards
precision bombing. This view was held by the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber
Command, Air Marshall Arthur Harris in particular. Nevertheless, the official report
by the British Bombing Survey Unit reveals that the British realised the importance
of selecting key target categories in their post-war studies. According to the report,
the oil and communications facilities were the two “target systems whose attack
yielded major strategic gains.” However, the same report acknowledged that the
destruction of the oil system did not paralyse the German fighting capacity due to the

15 Scot Robertson, The Development of RAF Strategic Bombing Doctrine 1919-1939 (Praeger, 1995),
pp. 158-159.
16 John Searby, The Bomber Battle for Berlin (London: Guild Publishing, 1991), p. 18.
17
Arthur Harris, Despatch on War Operations 23 February, 1942, to 8 May, 1945, ed. Sebastian Cox
(London: Frank Cass, 1995), p. 33.
18
The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939-1945 ed. Sir James Butler (Naval & Military
Press, 2006), p. 283.
19
Max Hastings, Bomber Command, p. 349
20
David Divine, The Broken Wing. A Study in the British Exercise of Air Power (London: Hutchinson
& CO, 1966), pp. 259-260.