I am trying to locate a Squadron photo of 218 Sqn at Downham Market taken between March, 1943 and mid september, 1943.

My father served his first tour of Ops as W/OP-AG on Stirlings with 218 Sqn at Downham Market during this period and I feel sure that he would feature in this photo.

If anyone has a copy I would welcome hearing from them.

Hi,

I am the No.218 Squadron Association historain, if you would like to contact me off board I will be happy to help.

Kind regards

Steve

‘The ultimate aim of the attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this we must achieve two things; first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce(i) destruction and (ii) the fear of death.’

The above statement was in 1941 exactly what was required given the proven limitations of the command at this stage of the war. However we are talking about early 1944 onwards when Bomber Command had already proven to a degree that it had the ability both tactically and strategically to carry out raids on selective targets and not just cities.

We appear to be going off at a tangent here. I am not attacking the man just his apparent resistance to utilise bombing aids that could have been used to a more beneficial effect. I have already mentioned he was the right man for the job in 1942 and continued to be up until his resistance to listen to the Senior Air Staff and Portal from early 1944 onwards.

His commitment to victory is unquestioned.

Sorry, I edited my post whilst you were typing yours, so I will highlight my change –

If I recall correctly from what I have read, Harris believed he could end the war in 6 weeks, with an all-out bomber offensive on Berlin IF the 8th Air Force would come in on it. Who is say that the overwhelming force of the two wouldn’t have been successful? Okay, so he continued without US support and it didn’t work, and he could perhaps have looked at the offensive on London in 1940 as an indicator that this kind of offensive had the potential not to work. But of course, a war had never really been fought in this way before, so only with hindsight can we say that he should have switched to the kind of targets the 8th Air Force were targetting.

If anything Harris was a very clever and shrewd commander using the American 8th Air force to justify a pre-longed campaign? The 8th AF was not in a position to undertake deep penetration raids to Berlin in 1943, I am sure Harris was well aware of this when he made this sweeping comment.
From memory it was not until March 1944 the US AF undertook their first operation and again from memory they suffered grievous losses. The “Battle of Berlin” was almost over by then, and the men of Bomber Command had paid heavily.

By including the 8th Air force in this statement Harris as basically admitted that RAF Bomber Command could not have “wrecked Berlin from end to end” let alone even brought the war to a conclusion on it’s own. Regardless of continuing heavy losses and the withdrawal of the Short Stirling and Merlin equipped Halifax’s he continued attacking Berlin for little worth while results.

I agree, hindsight is wonderful, however what would have happened if the weight of Bomber Command could have been directed to synthetic oil, aircraft production and selected industrial targets and not cities. !!

Bomber Command proved it was capable of attacking selective targets and destroying them from early 1944, pre-invasion targets, VI sites, transportation centres etc. This continued if but on a limited scale with No.3 Group right up until the end of hostilities.

It is my opinion that Harris should have been removed from command soon after the bloody debacle of the Battle of Berlin. His “obsession” with the destruction of Nazis Germany’s capital cost RAF Bomber Command some of the best aircrew the command had for little or no strategic importance. His dogged attitude which served the command so well when he took over in 1942 was in my opinion misplaced in 1944 when the whole nature of bombing had changed with the introduction of sophisticated bombing aids like Oboe & G-H which were in 1944 available in numbers that could have made a difference to strategic / selective bombing, i.e. Oil.

His reluctance even towards the end of the war to switch to selective bombing instead of “area” bombing is well documented and is one that in my opinion justifies his removal in 1944.

This was the feeling of a number of senior members of the Air Staff at the time, including Portal.

I await the flak. !!!!