The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

There was also no effective way of measuring what impact the bombing was having on the German economy, military machine, and popular morale. During 1942 the command dropped 37,192 tons of bombs on German soil, compared with 22,996 in 1941, but most of these bombs failed to hit the target area, and the raids cost some 2,716 bombers lost on operations or through accident.235 The first scientific analysis of a major raid was supplied in November 1942 by division RE8 of the Research and Experiments Department, which used British models to calculate the likely degree of homelessness, lost man-months, and financial cost of the 1,000-bomber raid on Cologne six months before. The first statistical assessments of acreage destroyed and of the ratio between high-explosive and incendiary damage were only ready in January 1943.236 Until then, claims that cities had been wiped out or obliterated were mere guesswork. In fact, during 1942 the damage to the German economy and society remained limited. A small number of spectacular raids in the late spring had not been sustained, and the German civil defense and repair organization coped with the consequences with little pressure. The German economy cushioned the bombing and expanded weapons output by more than 50 percent during the year. Postwar calculations in the United States Bombing Survey suggested a loss of potential overall production of 2.5 percent due to British bombing, or roughly half the impact of the German Blitz on Britain. D...