Hey Its been a couple of years since i have posted! Holy Moly this site has changed!
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History of World War II
Jan 22, 2010
Strategic Bombing
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in warfare. With the goal of destroying enemies’ economic ability to wage war. Rather than destroying its land or naval forces.
The British Bomber Command believed that strategic bombing was the most efficient way to defeat a nation’s capability and will to fight. In 1942, British air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris was named commander of Bomber Command, and he immediately began rallying for a larger bombing force and for a more intense, aggressive campaign against Germany’s industrial capacity. He targeted industrial cities with their factories, worker housing, and anything else that might contribute to German production.
Britain desperately needed to target prime industries like power plants, aircraft factories, oil refineries, and rubber factories. In February of 1942 the British abandoned any attempts of strategic precision bombing and with the issuing of the area bombing directive to the RAF {Royal Air Force}, put most of their strategic bombing efforts into area bombardment and the "dehousing" of the German workforce. Area bombing would mean dropping large quantities of bombs into an area full of activities, and industries being harnessed for the German war effort. Though this would mean many work houses would be destroyed, it also meant many civilians would die.
Obviously this was not a moral choice, and indeed many German citizens died horribly. The British must have realized this, but they still continued their area bombardments. Truthfully this was also a waste of supplies, hard work, and time. British forces could have used supplies in strategic bombing for greater things. For the Bomber Command lacked the power (and brains) to bring Germany down, and therefore wasted a great deal of supplies in attempting this.
Greatly did the British learn from the consequences of their stupidity in World War one, and in World War two. In the future it would be wise of them not to attempt this again. Strategic bombing may not have even been a true strategy, and it certainly in my opinion was not fair play.