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

by Richard Overy

The one lesson that the RAF and the government failed to learn from the German experience was, paradoxically, the reality of relative failure. German bombing did not dislocate the economy seriously, nor did it undermine civilian commitment to the war effort, as the Air Ministry could clearly see. Calculations were made which showed that potential output in the British economy was reduced by no more than 5 percent; even in cities heavily bombed, economic activity was restored to previous levels in between three and eight days.110 It was also difficult to argue that German “morale” would somehow crack if British morale had remained intact after nine months of remorseless assault. When the new directive was shown to the American chiefs of staff at the Argentia meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in August 1941, they found it hard to reconcile the morale bombing of Germany with the “valorous experience” of the British people under German bombardment.111 The RAF could not ignore this paradox. It was resolved by suggesting that the Germans lacked the qualities of endurance and pluck displayed by the British under fire. The general prejudice among senior airmen was that the German people, as one intelligence report put it, “will not stand a quarter of the bombing” dished out to Britain, though there were few sensible grounds for believing it.112 A report in July 1941, following a meeting in Lisbon with American diplomatic personnel from Germany, suggested that the average Ger...