Johannes wrote:
> So its one for Mark ( Opel was (and still is) owned by GM) and one for
> Michael (Ford).
Why say so?
There is no evidence of a conspiracy theory whereby Bomber Command or the
USAAF ignored strategic targets because they had secret instructions to do
so, and/or because the targets in question were US-owned or British-owned.
It is wrong to allege such a thing. You have not adduced supporting
evidence. Nor had Michael Perelman who has walked away from the discussion,
presumably because he is wrong and knows it.
RAF Bomber Command stands accused of atrocities and even genocide against
the German people. This is an index of its formidable and largely forgotten
power. The technology, manpower and methods it deployed were of British
provenance and owed little
to US tutelage. The USAAF showed itself by comparison a lamentably
ill-equipped, badly-led, badly-motivated and under-achieving (but highly
resource-depleting) weapon.
There were three major strategic forces in the European theatre of world war
2, in this order of importance : (1) the Red Army; (2) British cryptography
and cryptanalysis, including the creation of Colossus, the first truly
programmable computer, largely designed by Alan Turing, which enabled the
reading of Ultra messages in practically real time; and (3) RAF Bomber
Command, a decisive instrument of Total War.
The Allied forces which invaded Normandy and earlier Italy were a distant
4th. The role of the Americans in Europe was largely (a) mopping-up the
very-young and very-old last levees of the Wehrmacht and (b) chocolate and
cigarette distributing PR.
The Royal Air Force's Bomber Command was a great technical and social
achievement. After the war, its battlefield successes were largely disowned
and subsequently forgotten; because the genocidal determination which drove
Bomber Command was no longer popular or politically acceptable. But Hitler,
as you say, had good reason to fear RAF Bomber Command.
Mark Jones
>
> About the British RAF the report remarks:
>
> The pioneer in the air war against Germany was the RAF. The RAF
> experimented
> briefly in 1940 with daylight attacks on industrial targets in Germany but
> abandoned the effort when losses proved unbearably heavy. Thereafter, it
> attempted to find and attack such targets as oil, aluminum and aircraft
> plants at night. This effort too was abandoned; with available
> techniques it
> was not possible to locate the targets often enough. Then the RAF
> began its
> famous raids on German urban and industrial centers. On the night
> of May 30,
> 1942, it mounted its first "thousand plane" raid against Cologne and two
> nights later struck Essen with almost equal force. On three nights in late
> July and early August 1943 it struck Hamburg in perhaps the most
> devastating
> single city attack of the war -- about one third of the houses of the city
> were destroyed and German estimates show 60,000 to 100,000 people
> killed. No
> subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show
> that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication
> from interrogation of high officials that Hitler himself thought that
> further attacks of similar weight might force Germany out of the war. The
> RAF proceeded to destroy one major urban center after another.
> Except in the
> extreme eastern part of the Reich, there is no major city that
> does not bear
> the mark of these attacks. In the latter half of 1944, aided by new
> navigational techniques, the RAF returned with part of its force to an
> attack on industrial targets. These attacks were notably successful but it
> is with the attacks on urban areas that the RAF is most prominently
> identified.
>
> Later on the report writes:
>
> Many more German industries were hit mostly in the course of the city
> attacks of the RAF, but some as secondary targets of daylight
> attacks, or in
> spill-overs from the primary target. Industries so attacked
> included optical
> plants, power plants, plants making electrical equipment, machine tool
> plants, and a large number of civilian industries.
>
> So its obvious primary attacks were on the cities.
>
> What was decisive in disorganizing the German war economy were the attacks
> on transportation. (as I guessed before):
>
> The attack on transportation was the decisive blow that completely
> disorganized the German economy. It reduced war production in all
> categories
> and made it difficult to move what was produced to the front. The attack
> also limited the tactical mobility of the German army.
>
>
> Johannes
>
>
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