For a considerable time in the war Bomber Command sent its bombers over occupied Europe to drop not bombs but leaflets. Many crews were killed performing this task, and I have to wonder, why on earth were they doing it?
I mean, what was on the leaflets that the British really thought would help turn the war their way? Was a propaganda blitz like this really a vital part of the war effort? Did all those men need to die, or be captured or injured? Did all those aircraft need to be wasted, and the fuel?
Who did the leaflets effect, apart from the street cleaners. Did many people read them and suddenly say “OK, I’m now going to fight in the British side instead!”???
Sometimes they’d drop bombs and leaflets together, but often th mission was all about the paper! And of course there was a massive shortage of paper in Britain (not surprisingly when they were dropping it all on the Germans). Was the leaflet driops the actual cause of the paper shortage? A figure I have states that by the 6th of April 1940 the RAF had dropped 65 million tons of leaflets over Germany!!
What do you all think, was leaflet dropping a massive waste of resources? Or did it play a very valuable part in the war? I’m keen to hear what you all think.
As a lighter aside, here’s a little anecdote from Vickers Wellington crewman Sgt (later Sqn Ldr) Arthur James from No 75 (NZ) Sqn, in the book ‘Forever Strong’ by Norman Franks.
“Leaflets were dropped en route and over target areas, pushed through the flare chute. They were in bundles held together by a single rubber band. I well recall one night when I was second pilot. A band broke on dropping the bundle into the chute and the inside of the Wimpy was plastered with leaflets; and therewe were, over the target, killing ourselves with laughter. We finished up opening the astrodome and feeding them out on the palm of our hand, like feeding sugar to a horse. All the time the pilot was taking evasive action!”
By: mmitch - 20th July 2004 at 18:57
I was reading recently ‘Lie in the Dark and Listen’ by Ken Ellis (Excellent book by the way) In an aside on ‘extras’ that were dropped from bombers over their targets. One rear gunner he flew with used to take a couple of bottles to pee in en route and then throw them out at the critical time! Old nuts and bolts etc also made the one way trip to Germany.
mmitch.
By: Dave Homewood - 20th July 2004 at 11:28
Thank you chaps. I have rechecked my source (Forever Strong) and yes, it was 65 million leaflets. That’s what happens when you try to quote figures in the middle of the night. 😡 Sorry for the confusion there.
James, I did realise the many reasons for not bombing Germany and the occupied territories apart from clearly military targets (though I hadn’t considered the British-owned assets angle, a good point I suppose).
What my question was is if they were not bombing en masse, for whatever reason, why should Bomber Command have wasted all that money and so many lives and machines on paper drops? I think the propaganda would have done very little, and it was a total waste of time. The only thing I can think that might have worried the Gerries is that RAF bombers were able to fly over their towns, even if they were dropping harmless leaflets – but even this must have allowed them to see their weaknesses in defence and strengthen them before the real bombing onslaught came.
Do you see where I’m coming from now? Does anyone think that the RAF would have been better to simply have bombed the military targets as told, and not wasted money, men and resources on paper drops?
Did the Germans ever drop leaflets on Britain in return?
And yes James, I do have some books of course, but I like to stimulate interesting conversation here because so much info can flow from so many people via the forum, and I think it gives a lot of us pleasure and also educates many on things they might not have ever known or ever thought about before. 😉
Cheers
Dave
By: Moggy C - 19th July 2004 at 15:44
My (Ex-RAF) Dad always used to tell me this was an attempt to alleviate an acute shortage of bog roll in Germany for humanitarian purposes.
Moggy
By: Papa Lima - 19th July 2004 at 15:09
I would guess the 65 million was the number of leaflets!
By: JDK - 19th July 2004 at 14:48
Hi Quizmaster Dave,
Here’s a bit of some answers tio be getting on with…
Unfortunately there was a considerable lobby in the UK which was adverse to hitting first or hard. (There was great reservations about what the Germans could do to Britain and France, and a lack of good intelligence. Guernica was a recent high -profile memory, andthere was no real understanding of what attacks were possible by both sides.) At the early stages of the war, there was a reasonable concern of risk to civillian (yes, even German) casualties, so German Naval targets were about all that as ‘safe’ to aim for. (Ships and coast bases. – Thecoast is much easier to find a target on, than inland)
In 1939/40 there were all too many in the UK who didn’t want their German assets damaged… Think about it. Multi-national companies aren’t a post-war invention.
Paper was a war material; it would have been rationed anyway to create forms in triplicate (Bumpf). Dropping relatively small loads on Germany would’nt make much of a difference to avaliability.
Bomber Command, forced to switch to night ops only due to daylight losses, couldn’t find most targets reliably. (More because of completely inadequate nigfht navigation equipmewnt and training than any lack of guts.) Dropping leaflets at semi-random is a lot more sensible than dropping bombs. Sometimes they were over France.
So, no good, but a lot of pragmatic reasons.
HTH
Dave, do you have ANY general books on aviation history? 😀 😉
Cheers / Salut
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July 19, 2004 at 12:50 pm