Chaps,

A question that I’m sure any true researcher of Bomber Command will be interested in, “should AM Harris have been replaced in 1944”
His blatant refusal to cooperate with Portal and his reluctance to change from area to precision bombing, (something that RAF Bomber Command was capable of doing and well) his blinkered obsession with the area bombing German cities, and his stubbornness to attack in numbers oil and transportation targets and other “panacea” targets.

Should he have been replaced, and if so by who, Bennett, Cochrane, Rice ???

Over to you. 😮

Shortsbro I think your caricature of Harris is an over simplification of the facts and if it were entirely true it would be hard to see why Portal did not replace him. It would also reflect poorly on Portal for the fact that he did not. I think you need to understand the politics of the time, and how that Harris was possibly used by Churchill and how this relationship with Churchill may have given him the confidence to do things that would have otherwise needed higher authorisation or broader agreement. This relationship may also have inhibited Portal in his relationship and direction of Harris. Harris may have been determined and dogmatic, but I am certain that if He had not had the confidence of his Group commanders and headquarters staff Bomber Command would not have been as effective as it was. They weren’t all wrong!!!

Changing the Leader would not have lead to an immediate change in tactics, as there would have been a long period of retraining. Remember that 5 Group under Cochrane was operating as an independent command in the last year of the war with its own path-finder force, its own target selection and building on some of the Tactics that had been pioneered by 617 squadron. So I think the change of leader was not an option for change of tactics as they were changing anyway.

Another point to remember is that Britain needed to retain influence with the US and Russia and in the Politics of War a strong Bomber Command was an important tool, and sacking the leader would not have sent the correct message to the US or the Russians.

And it’s often portrayed that Bomber Command did not attack transport targets, oil plants or any of the Panacea targets. The fact is that they did, and often with a far greater weight and accuracy than the 8th Air Force. When the eighth flew in cloud they were no more effective than flying at night and scattered bombs in all directions. 100 group confused and bamboozled the Germans every night, as well as intruding night fighter stations. 8 group kept the residents of Germany awake every night, many intricate and complicated operations were flown that were more than a group of bombers taking off, flying to a city and dropping bombs aimlessly into the centre.

Hopefully some food for thought.

facts=-===============

The sneaky thing about the Mosquito was, that not only could it go to Berlin and back with a 4,000lb bomb, it could, and this is the clincher, do it so fast that it could do 2 trips in the same time as a heavy took to do one. On some winter nights up to 60% of 8 group’s bomber Mosquito’s would do 2 trips

I believe that only the first few Mosquito bombers with the short nacelles were finished in the Dark Green Dark Earth sky scheme. These aircraft were called B MkIV series 1. I haven’t got my references with me but not too many were produced before production shifted to the long nacelle version B MkIV series 2. As far as I can ascertain these aircraft were all finished in the day-fighter scheme, including sky spinners and sky fuselage band. These original machines were allocated to 2 Group Bomber Command as day Bombers.

2 Group was subsequently transferred to Fighter Command but the Mosquito Bomber squadrons transferred to 8 Group and started to fly at night. The sky bands and spinners had by this time stopped being applied to the Bombers, but they remained in the day fighter scheme with some units applying black under surfaces.

2 Group then re-equipped its Ventura squadrons with B MkVI’s to replace the lost day bombers squadrons and the original aircraft were again finished in the day fighter scheme, including the sky bits. For some reason I can’t recall this attracted adverse comment from the Aussies and Kiwis from the first two squadrons to re-equip and all subsequent MkVI’s for 2 Group were left in their factory finish Night fighter scheme. When asking about a particular aircraft it important to find a photo to be sure what scheme was used.

I seem to recall that there is a good one on airliners.net

To be honest I’m not an expert on Bomber Command / 8th Air Force tactics, but is it possible that the reason why Dresden was bombed was to prove that low level incendiary bombing of “combustible” targets was a viable alternative to high altitude bombing missions over Japan. I understand that several high ranking US staff members transferred to the Pacific from the 8th around the time of the bombing of Dresden. Or was Dresden bombed because it was a German city and therefore a target – one of many.

I don’t want to go into the ethics of bombing or the bombing of ethics, it just good to know why.

Dresden was bombed at the request of the Russians to help their army in the east that was very close to Dresden but bogged down. With bad weather in the west of Germany and the stalled counter offensive in the Ardens the army had started to transfer large numbers troops to the east and the Russians were taking casualties at a staggering rate. Stalin wanted the Western Allies to do more to help and requested various choke points to be destroyed. Dresden was just one of many of these places. It should have been bombed in January but the weather was very poor.

In fact most of the raids during this period had poor to middling results despite the tonnage dropped due to the poor weather. 13th Feb was no different. Except that incredibly on this night a localised hole appeared in the cloud and perfect visual conditions prevailed. And as all the flak had been removed to Berlin or the Russian front there was no opposition. A case of impossible to miss, with no early “bombs away”, or creep-back occurring.

As for being combustible Dresden was again in no way any different to all the other industrial cities, with one possible exception. The Nazis never allowed news of how other cities were coping with the air-raids to be shared, so the residents of Dresden had no experience or help of what to do once the bombs stopped dropping. They in fact stayed in their cellars, (where they suffocated) as there were no air raid shelters for the public, and they did not come out and help fight the many small fires that had started, or evacuate the area if the fires had taken hold.

Consequently etc etc etc

Dresden was not choked with refugees to the extent that has often been quoted, but that was one of the objectives to have the city choked up to help prevent the easy movement of troops and thereby help the Russians.

There was no conspiracy to terror bomb, or burn, or annihilate or any other theory. In fact the outstanding feature of the raid was that there were no C**k ups by the RAF this night. (C**k ups being an integral part of all warfare) I hope this helps a little. The 8th Airforce bombed Dresden the following day, on a day when they ranged far and wide over Germany. Perhaps as little as 15% of their force was directed at Dresden this day. The Politics of this raid is a fascinating subject, but some what complicated to explain quickly. I think that everyone was taken aback by the firestorm, but even then as a proportion of the total population the casulties in Dresden were not as high as in many other raids.

Gannet again

He’s one of the Gannet I managed to get.

Seafury Fan
Was that Brendan O’Brian landing on the truck?
I always thought that act looked a bit dodgy but I loved it.
Is that a cub?
Anyone?
Andy

I seem to recall it was. Rather him than me

I was hoping to see 2 mossie’s and a Blenheim in the air that day. I think a week or so later we were done to just one Mossie.