Allied bombers chose 'easy' German targets
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday August 23, 2001
The Guardian
Britain and the US bombed small towns in Germany in the final stages of
the second world war because they would burn easily
and not because they were strategically important, documents found in
the public record office reveal.
The documents cast new light on the allied bombing campaign after the
razing of Dresden in February 1945 when at least 30,000
people were killed, many of them refugees fleeing from the Russians.
The following month, the RAF dropped more bombs on Germany than in any
previous month and more than 30,000 tons fell on
towns and cities, including Wurzburg in southern Germany. With a baroque
palace, and rich in art and architecture, Wurzburg
had little industry of wartime importance. According to the British
ministry of economic warfare, it had only one potential target, a
power switching station.
A BBC2 Timewatch programme, Bombing Germany, to be broadcast tonight,
records that on the night of March 16, 226
Lancaster bombers took off for Wurzburg. The crews were briefed that the
town was an important communications centre. Yet it
was clear to them that their mission was a fire attack on residential
parts of the town. Their bomb loads contained mainly
incendiaries.
In just 17 minutes, they dropped nearly 1,000 tons of bombs on Wurzburg;
82% of the town was destroyed and almost 5,000
people were killed.
Timewatch found documents which show how Wurzburg found its way on to a
target list once German industrial centres were
virtually destroyed.
To use heavy bombers in every way possible to hasten a German collapse,
new targets for area bombing were needed. In
January 1945 Wing Commander Arthur Fawssett, intelligence officer for
targeting at Bomber Command, made a list. Towns were
first selected because they were easy for the bombers to find and
destroy. One of the main selection criteria was that the towns
had "structural features" that made them "suitable or otherwise for fire
attack".
The Americans also attacked targets of little strategic importance. A
few days after the Dresden raid they launched an attack on
mainly rural towns that had not been attacked before. These included
Ellingen, a small town in Bavaria with 1,500 inhabitants,
many of them farmers. Around 70 tons of bombs were dropped on the town.
A note by US air force general Frederick Anderson to
his press office notes that such operations were "not expected in itself
to shorten the war ... However, it is expected that the fact
that Germany was struck all over will be passed on, from father to son,
thence to grandson; that a deterrent for the initiation of
future wars will definitely result."
The programme notes that a few days after the Wurzburg raid, Winston
Churchill drafted a memorandum for the chiefs of staff.
"The moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities
simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under
other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control
of an utterly ruined land."
Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, chief of Bomber Command, was
furious, especially since Churchill had backed the bombing
campaign.
Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,541035,00.html
Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland
michael.keaney@xxxxxx