226. LC, Eaker papers, Box I/20, Eaker to Portal, 28 Jul 1943; TNA, AIR 19/218, Portal to Eaker, 25 Jul 1943.
227. Pieter Serrien, ‘Bombardementen in België tijdens WOII’, in http://pieterserrien.wordpress.com/2010/10/11.
228. Esch, ‘Restrained Policy and Careless Execution’, 37–8.
229. B. A. Sijes, De Razzia van Rotterdam 10–11 November 1944 (Gravenhage: 1951), 27–9.
230. On aircraft see Overy, ‘The Luftwaffe and the European Economy’, 58–60.
231. NARA, T901, Roll 2018, Reichsgruppe Industrie, ‘Anlagen zu den Ergebnissen der Industrieberichterstattung: Belgien, Oktober 1943’; ibid., ‘Niederlande, November 1943’.
232. Altes, Luchtgevaar, 334–6.
233. Netherlands Institute of War Documentation, Amsterdam, File 222, Haagische Courant, 30 May 1944; Het Nieuws van den Dag, 30 Jan 1942.
234. TNA, FO 898/234, Stockholm Despatch to PWE, 25 Nov 1943 (based on information from a Dutch visitor to Sweden).
235. AFHRA, US Strategic Air Forces in Europe, 519.12535, ‘Heavy Bombers: Targets in Low Countries’.
236. Serrien, ‘Bombardementen in België’, 2–3.
237. Esch, ‘Restrained Policy and Careless Execution’, 39–44; Altes, Luchtgevaar, 189–98, 203–2. The figure of 800 dead includes those classified as missing, those who died of wounds and a number of German personnel.
238. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 157, PWB chief, Leaflet Section, to Bruce Lockhart (PWE), 22 Apr 1944; Esch, ‘Restrained Policy and Careless Execution’, 43–4.
239. Henrik Kristensen, Claus Kofoed, Frank Weber, Vestallierede luftangreb i Danmark under 2. Verdenskrig, 2 vols (Aarhus: 1988), vol 2, 731–2.
240. Ibid., 742–3, 745–7, 748.
241. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 67, ‘Status of Combined Bomber Offensive: First Phase, April 1–August 31 [1943]’.
242. TNA, AIR 2/8002, memorandum by the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1 Dec 1943; Laurence Collier (FO) to Eden, 26 Nov 1943.
243. Ibid., Air Ministry, ‘Priority Targets in Norway’ [n.d. but Apr 1944]; Norwegian High Command, ‘Comments on Priority Targets in Norway’, 31 May 1944.
244. Ibid., Norwegian Embassy to Air Ministry, 2 Nov 1944; Norwegian Embassy to Collier, 13 Dec 1944; Maurice Dean (Air Ministry) to Foreign Office, 11 Jan 1945; on the raid, Martin Middlebrook, Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries (Leicester: 2000), 609.
245. AFHRA, Disc MAAF/233, HQ MAAF, Intelligence Section, ‘V-Weapons’, 27 Mar 1945; Altes, Luchtgevaar, 302–3; TNA, AIR 37/999, SHAEF Air Defense Division, ‘An Account of the Continental Crossbow Operation 1944–1945’, 1, 13.
246. Serrien, ‘Bombardementen in België’, 3.
247. CCAC, Hodsoll papers, HDSL 5/4, Sir John Hodsoll, ‘Review of Civil Defence 1944’, 1, 13; TNA, AIR 37/999, ‘Continental Crossbow’, 24.
248. TNA, AIR 37/999, SHAEF, ‘Continental Crossbow’, 7–9, 19–20, 23.
249. Serrien, ‘Bombardementen in België’, 1, 3–4.
250. Altes, Luchtgevaar, 293; Esch, ‘Restrained Policy and Careless Execution’, 45–7.
251. Altes, Luchtgevaar, 324; Esch, ‘Restrained Policy and Careless Execution’, 5. The figure of 8,000 was calculated by the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation, Amsterdam. Uncertainty over the exact figure derives partly from the difficulty in distinguishing between deaths from aerial bombing and deaths from artillery bombardment or ground strafing.
252. TNA, AIR 2/7894, Arthur Street (Air Ministry) to Orme Sargent (FO), ‘Draft Broadcast to the Dutch People’, 21 Mar 1945; E. Michiels van Verduynen (Dutch ambassador) to Eden, 15 June 1945.
253. Ibid., Street to Alexander Cadogan (FO), 30 June 1945.
254. Ibid., Mary C. van Pesch-Wittop Koning to King George VI, 20 Dec 1945.
255. Ibid., A. Rumbold (FO) to M. Low (Air Ministry), 4 Mar 1946; Low to Rumbold, 18 Mar 1946.
256. TNA, AIR 19/218, Sinclair to Eden, 5 June 1943; Eden to Sinclair, 11 June 1943.
10. THE BALANCE SHEET OF BOMBING
1. John K. Galbraith, A Life in Our Times: A Memoir (London: 1981), 219, 240.
2. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 84, Brig. Gen. John Samford to USAAF Director of Information, 20 Sept 1946.
3. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/29, ACAS (Ops) to Zuckerman, ‘Comments by Sir John Slessor’, 14 Jan 1947, 1–2.
4. Royal Society, London, Blackett papers, PB/4/4, ‘Note on the Use of the Bomber Force’ [spring 1942], 1.
5. TNA, AIR 20/8693, Testimony of Hermann Wilhelm Göring at Nürnberg, 6 Apr 1945, interrogation by Hilary St George Saunders (a later official historian of the RAF).
6. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 134, USSBS Interview no. 8, Lt. Gen. Karl Koller, 23–24 May 1945, 3.
7. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/29, ‘Comments by Sir John Slessor’, 3.
8. TNA, AIR 14/739A, Portal to Harris, 4 Mar 1944; HQ Bomber Command, Air Intelligence Section, ‘Progress of RAF Bomber Offensive Against German Industry’, 19 Feb 1944, 4.
9. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 134, Excerpt from the Interrogation of General Koller, 25 Sept 1945, 3.
10. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/28, minute for Air Commodore Pelly, 3 Jan 1946.
11. TNA, AIR 14/1779, Air Warfare Analysis Section paper, Feb 1945, 1.
12. CamUL, Andrew Boyle papers, Add 9429/2c, Conversation with Harris, 18 July 1979.
13. Michael Neufeld, ‘The Guided Missile and the Third Reich: Peenemünde and the Forging of a Technological Revolution’, in Monika Renneberg, Mark Walker (eds), Science, Technology and National Socialism (Cambridge: 1994), 64–6.
14. NARA, RG 107/138, Statistical Control Division, ‘One Million Tons of Bombs’, 30 Sept 1944.
15. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/58, Bottomley (DCAS) to Portal, 3 Apr 1945, ‘Area Bombing’, 1.
16. Royal Society, London, Blackett papers, PB/4/2, John Jewkes to Blackett, 3 Oct 1939, encl. ‘A Note on Economic Intelligence Service in Connection with Air Warfare’, 2, 4.
17. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 134, USSBS Interview no. 8, 2.
18. NC, Cherwell papers, G195, Cherwell to Churchill, 6 Nov 1942.
19. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/103, Nicholas Kaldor, ‘The Nature of Strategic Bombing’ [n.d. but 1945].
20. Ibid., 4.
21. Ibid., SZ/BBSU/1, Interview with Kesselring, 23 Aug 1945, 3.
22. Ibid., SZ/BBSU/90, Transcript of conversation between Lord Zuckerman and Albert Speer, Heidelberg, 28–29 Aug 1974, 4, 6; Notes of a meeting with Albert Speer, 28–29 Aug 1974, 4–6.
23. Royal Society, London, Blackett papers, PB/4/2, Note by P. S. Blackett, 18 July 1936, 2.
24. CCO, Portal papers, Folder 2/File 2, Churchill to Portal, 7 Oct 1941, 2.
25. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/29, ‘Comments by Sir John Slessor’, 2.
26. NC, Cherwell papers, G193, Cherwell to Tizard, 22 Apr 1942; G192, ‘City of Birmingham: Effects of Air Raids on Dwelling House Property’, 12 Feb 1942.
27. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/29, ‘Comments by Sir John Slessor’, 2.
28. Steven Brakman, Harry Garretsen, Marc Schramm, ‘The Strategic Bombing of German Cities during World War II and its Impact on City Growth’, Journal of Economic Geography, 4 (2004), 201–18, who conclude that the evidence for the German Federal Republic shows ‘that large, temporary shocks will have at most a temporary impact’.
29. FDRL, Map Room Files, Box 72, OSS Report 49, ‘Germany: Air Bombardment and Morale’, 11 Aug 1943; Report 60, 17 Sept 1943.
30. Ibid., OSS Report 76, Bern station, ‘Germany: Problems of the Bombed-Out Refugees’, 15 Nov 1943; Report 89, Bern station, ‘Germany’, 21 Dec 1943.
31. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/29, Bottomley to Air Marshal William Dickson, 8 Feb 1947, 7 Feb 1947; ‘Comments by Sir John Slessor’, 2.
32. John Deane, The Strange Alliance: The Story of American Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia (London: 1947), 37. Deane visited Stalingrad in late 1943, and was accommodated, he claimed, in the one building
left standing.
33. British Red Cross Society Archive, London, J/WO/1/2/2, War Organisation, Second Annual Report, 2.
34. Hans Nossack, The End: Hamburg 1943 (Chicago, IL: 2004), 41.
35. LSE, Fellowship of Reconciliation papers, Box 16, letter from R. R. Stokes to the Sunday Dispatch, 29 Dec 1943.
36. LC, Eaker papers, Box I.30, MAAF Intelligence Section, ‘What is the German Saying?’, item (c), 11 Nov 1944.
37. Ibid., item (i), lieutenant, German Air Force Artillery, 4 Aug 1944.
38. FDRL, Map Room Files, Box 72, OSS Report 50, Bern station, 12 Aug 1943.
39. TNA, FO 371/28541, British Embassy, Bern, to the Foreign Office (French desk), 31 July 1941, encl. memorandum on bombing French industry.
40. TNA, AIR 19/217, War Cabinet memorandum, ‘Bombardment Policy in France’, 24 July 1940.
41. Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Churchill and Stalin: Documents from the British Archives (London: 2002), doc 29, Conversation between Mr Churchill and Marshal Stalin, 12 Aug 1942, 4.
42. Ibid., doc 30, Aide-Mémoire by Mr Stalin to Mr Churchill and Mr Harriman.
43. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 84, Spaatz to Doolittle, 26 Jan 1944.
44. USMA, Bradley papers, War Diary, vol 3, 25 July 1944.
45. LC, Doolittle papers, Box 18, Doolittle to Spaatz, 10 Aug 1944, 2.
46. See the study by Frederick Sallagar, The Road to Total War (New York: 1969), esp. ch 11, ‘Pressures for Escalation’.
47. Conrad C. Crane, ‘Evolution of U.S. Strategic Bombing of Urban Areas’, Historian, 50 (1987), 23–5, 31–2.
48. TNA, AIR 40/1882, DoI memorandum, ‘Crossbow Retaliations’, 3 July 1944; Colyer to DoI, 2 July 1944.
49. AFHRC, Disc MAAF 233, Director of Operations, Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, ‘Bombardment Policy’, 21 Mar 1945, 1.
50. There is still a great deal of debate about this, occasioned largely by the spurious claim that The Hague Rules for the conduct of air warfare drawn up in 1923 were never ratified, or that defended towns lacked the right to immunity of ‘undefended towns’. The existing Hague Convention on the rules of war, drawn up in 1907, makes clear that the intention of the existing rules governing warfare was to define as illegitimate those acts of war designed deliberately to damage civilian lives and property. See Timothy McCormack, Helen Durham, ‘Aerial Bombardment of Civilians: The Current International Legal Framework’, in Yuki Tanaka, Marilyn Young (eds), Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History (New York: 2009), 218–19, 228–30; Igor Primoratz, ‘Can the Bombing be Morally Justified?’, in idem (ed), Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World War II (Oxford: 2010), 113–30; Anthony Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in World War II a Necessity or a Crime? (London: 2005), 271–81. It is worth trying to answer the question: could Montgomery’s troops on entering Hamburg in 1945 have legitimately machine-gunned 37,000 of the civilian population? Allied armies could not deliberately kill any civilians except spies or francs-tireurs.
51. Richard Overy, ‘The Nuremberg Trials: International Law in the Making’, in Philippe Sands (ed), From Nuremberg to The Hague: The Future of International Criminal Justice (Cambridge: 2003), 10–11.
52. Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, for the Protection of War Victims (Washington, DC: 1949), 164–9; Adam Roberts, R. Guelff (eds), Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd edn (Oxford: 2000), 419–21; M. Bothe, K. J. Partsch, W. A. Solf (eds), New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts: Commentary on the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva Convention of 1949 (The Hague: 1982), 274–80, 292–318; International Committee of the Red Cross, Protocols Additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 (Geneva: 1977), 34–9.
53. FHA, Foley papers, Mss 448, Box 1/5, J. M. Spaight, ‘Bombing Policy’, 12 Sept 1941.
54. Ibid., Box 1/1, Rev. Canon F. Cockin to Thomas Foley, 1 Oct 1941.
55. RAFM, Peirse papers, AC 71/13/61–2, speech to the Thirty Club, 25 Nov 1941, 11.
EPILOGUE: LESSONS LEARNED AND NOT LEARNED: BOMBING INTO THE POST-WAR WORLD
1. Lord Tedder, ‘Air Power in War: The Lees Knowles Lectures’, Air Ministry pamphlet 235, Sept 1947, 13.
2. USMA, Lincoln papers, Box 5, File 5/2, Presentation to the President by Maj. Gen. Lauris Norstad, 29 Oct 1946, ‘Postwar Military Establishment’, 11. Also 5, ‘future war’ will be ‘truly total’, and 6, ‘We must prepare for total war.’
3. USMA, Lincoln papers, Box 5, File 5/3, ‘Industrial Mobilization’, lecture to the General Session of the National Industrial Conference Board, 28 May 1947.
4. Tedder, ‘Air Power and War’, 12–13; USMA, Lincoln papers, Box 5, File 5/2, address by Lauris Norstad, National War College, ‘U.S. Vital Strategic Interests’, 22 Nov 1946, 2 (emphasis in both originals).
5. RAFM, Bottomley papers, AC 71/2/97, Director of Command and Staff Training to Bottomley, 23 Apr 1947; TNA, AIR 20/6361, Air Ministry Exercise Thunderbolt, vol I, Aug 1947, foreword by Lord Tedder; UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/3/75, Exercise Thunderbolt, Joining Instructions, Pt II.
6. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, SZ/BBSU/3/75, Exercise Thunderbolt: Precis Folder, 10–17 Aug 1947; on the economy, TNA, AIR 20/6361, Air Ministry Exercise Thunderbolt, Presentation and Report, vol II, item 20: ‘neither the day nor the night offensive succeeded in their strategic task of destroying the enemy’s economy’.
7. Tedder, ‘Air Power and War’, 13, See too TNA, AIR 20/6361, Exercise Thunderbolt, vol II, item 20, 130.
8. RAFM, Bottomley papers, B2318, ‘Thunderbolt Exercise: Note on the Potentialities of Biological Warfare’, 13 Aug 1947; Note by Bottomley [n.d. but Aug 1947].
9. USMA, Lincoln papers, Box 5, 5/2, Somervell address, ‘Industrial Mobilization’, 7.
10. Ibid., Box 5, 5/2, Draft address by Gen. Wedemeyer to the National War College on ‘Strategy’, 15 Jan 1947, 4, 16, 21.
11. Ibid., Box 5, 5/2, Norstad, ‘Presentation Given to the President’, 27 Oct 1946, 1, 6.
12. Ibid., Box 5, 5/3, Maj. Gen. O. Weyland, Air Force-Civilian Seminar, Maxwell AFB, 20 May 1947.
13. Warren Kozak, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay (Washington, DC: 2009), 277–81.
14. TNA, AIR 8/799, Air Ministry (Plans), memorandum for the Defence Committee, 16 Oct 1946, 1.
15. D. A. Rosenberg, ‘American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision’, Journal of American History, 66 (1979), 68.
16. TNA, DEFE 10/390, Joint Inter-Service Group for Study of All-Out Warfare (JIGSAW) papers, minutes of meeting 23 Feb 1960, 1–2; meeting 2 June 1960, 1; meeting 4 Aug 1960, 2.
17. Kenneth Hewitt, ‘Place Annihilation: Area Bombing and the Fate of Urban Places’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 73 (1983), 278–81.
18. On Britain see Nick Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities 1945–55: Myths and Reality’, Contemporary British History, 14 (2000), 27–44; Stephen Essex, Mark Brayshay, ‘Boldness Diminished? The Post-War Battle to Replan a Bomb-Damaged Provincial City’, Urban History, 35 (2008), 437–61.
19. Jeffry Diefendorf, In the Wake of War: The Reconstruction of German Cities after World War II (New York: 1993), 14–15.
20. LSE archive, Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom papers, 2009/52/3, Mary Phillips (Women’s International League), ‘Germany Today: Report on Visit to British Zone May 9 to 27 1947’, 2–3, 5.
21. Leo Grebler, ‘Continuity in the Rebuilding of Bombed Cities in Western Europe’, American Journal of Sociology, 61 (1956), 465–6.
22. LC, Eaker papers, Box I.30, MAAF Intelligence Section, ‘What is the German Saying?’, recording ‘G’.
23. Fred Iklé, The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction (Norman, OK: 1958), 213–15, 218–20.
24. Cited in Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities’, 28.
25. Ibid., 36.
26. Grebler, ‘Continuity in Rebuilding’, 467–8.
27. Steven Brackman, Harry Garretsen, Marc Schramm
, ‘The Strategic Bombing of German Cities during World War II and its Impact on City Growth’, Journal of Economic Geography, 4 (2004), 205, 212.
28. Grebler, ‘Continuity in Rebuilding’, 467.
29. Nicola Lambourne, ‘The Reconstruction of the City’s Historic Monuments’, in Paul Addison, Jeremy Crang (eds), Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 (London: 2006), 151–2, 156–60.
30. Andreas Huyssen, ‘Air War Legacies: From Dresden to Baghdad’, in Bill Niven (ed), Germans as Victims (Basingstoke: 2006), 184–9; Peter Schneider, ‘Deutsche als Opfer? Über ein Tabu der Nachkriegsgeneration’, in Lothar Kettenacker (ed), Ein Volk von Opfern? Die neue Debatte um den Bombenkrieg 1940–1945 (Berlin: 2003), 158–65.
31. Mark Connelly, Stefan Goebel, ‘Zwischen Erinnerungspolitik und Erinnerungskonsum: Der Luftkrieg in Grossbritannien’, in Jörg Arnold, Dietmar Süss, Malte Thiessen (eds), Luftkrieg: Erinnerungen in Deutschland und Europa (Göttingen: 2009), 55–60, 65.
32. I am grateful to Professor Dobrinka Parusheva for supplying me with information on the Bulgarian protests.
Acknowledgements
This book owes much to the generosity of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and to the Leverhulme Trust, the first for funding a major research project on ‘Bombing-States and Peoples in Western Europe’ in the years 2007–10, which I helped to direct at the University of Exeter, the second for funding a year of research leave in 2010–11 to allow me to complete most of the archive research and begin writing. I would also like to thank the University of Exeter for allowing me a number of semesters of leave to work on the bombing project. I owe a particular debt to the support and help given by the team on the AHRC project – Claudia Baldoli, Vanessa Chambers, Lindsey Dodd, Stephan Glienke, Andy Knapp, Marc Wiggam – and I hope they find that the end product has been worth all our many brainstorming sessions. I would also like to thank Claire Keyte for all her unstinting assistance in helping us manage the AHRC project and its aftermath.
Over the course of the preparation and writing of this book I have relied on the help, advice and criticism of a great many people. I owe a particular debt to those who have helped me find archive material or have translated what I couldn’t read. Dr Matthias Uhl devoted many hours to searching out and organizing material from the German and Soviet archives deposited in Moscow. To him and his anonymous assistants I owe a large debt of thanks. The Russian material has been rendered into English for me by Olesya Khromeychuk and Elena Minina, for which I am also deeply grateful. The Bulgarian account of the bombing of Bulgaria was made accessible to me thanks to the help of Professor Dobrinka Parusheva in Sofia and Vladislava Ibberson, who did the translation. Material on the Soviet bombing of Finland was very kindly supplied by Dr Anu Heiskanen from Helsinki and, for the bombing of Rotterdam, by Major Joris van Esch during his time at the US Military Academy. Pieter Serrien was generous in providing information on the bombing of Belgium. As ever I am indebted to the assistance given in the many archives I have visited, with the exception of the American National Archive at College Park, Maryland, which astonishingly still remains a researcher’s nightmare.
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