[jim]

A lesser known consideration that Harris subscribed to was the long term view. What would Germany be after the war ended? In his mind he wanted to see a Germany devoid of any heavy industry. The point being was that if Germany was reduced to a rural economy there would be no possiblity of another war with them at a future date. The events after the war proved that it was a false belief and the rearming and rebuilding of Germany had to be done to counter the Soviet threat. (something that Churchill predicted in 1944). However the total destruction of German cities did instill in Germans the "Never again" mind set. Something that we should appreciate. We must not underestimate the effect of night bombing. It had a catastrophic effect on Germanys ability to wage war. it caused (as said in a previous post) a huge amount of much needed resources to be held back from the front. It also caused mayhem with manufacturing and transporting of all kinds of equipment for waging war. I read a British government report drawn up after the war of the effect the bombing campaign had on production of war goods in Germany. It listed factories communications and infrastructure that had been wiped out. In Germany it was quite common to site factories in built up areas. Thousands of smaller factories making key components were also sited in cities. Rail terminals road bridges and cannal junctions all important distribution networks and of course workers houses were all strategic targets within these cities. All of these were in many cases destroyed. We must look at the big picture, Neither type of bombing ,day or night was effective on its own. It was a huge joint effort. The relentless daylight raids followed by the night raids kept the Luftwaffe at full stretch and not able to bring to bear their might against our invading armies. In all the cost of the two campaigns was over 100.000 men (in some cases boys). Their sacrifice was crucial to victory and without that sacrifice the war would have rumbled on until the ultimate decision to use the Atom bomb would have had to be made. That last part is my opinion where as the the rest is indeed fact.