After the fall of France in 1940 the only thing standing between Hitler and Britain was the English channel. This led to a huge strategic bombing campaign that would only be disrupted by the invasion of The USSR the following year. By then The Allies began hitting Germany hard with strategic bombing campaigns of their own. This was a controversial tactic with no regard for civilian life, but did it actually work?
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No, strategic bombing was not a success and needlessly cost many men's lives. The Germans said it was the tactical bombing of military supplies that was successful (9th AF). That prevented resupply as well as the supply of fuel to the combat units. Bombing train yards was a good idea. Nobody has ever explained by the Allies did not bomb the railways to the East of Germany which would have stopped the trains running to the Eastern front as well as the trains taking the last Jews to the death camps. Big question there.
Shame we lost WWII…if Germany had REAL leadership we would have won. WWII shouldnt have had to happen but no choice. Allies forced both world wars.
Could you fit anymore effing ads on your video???
One of Hitler's biggest blunders was to attack the Soviet Union after he lost the Battle of Britain. This only put Germany in a vise with no where to turn. Except slowly retreat to Berlin~! Shalom
The British did not modify or improve the 51. They, in fact, firstly denied the supercharger on the aircraft which limited its high altitude performance. An American test pilot recommended the RR engine. You Brits are innovative but please try to get your history right.
No it wasn’t accurate at all it was pretty much a vengeance weapon and anti morale weapon it killed indiscriminately and weakened morale
If the effect was to destroy Germanys arms industry, it failed. It was their lack of fuel that lost them the war. Germany produced more weapons and aircraft in 1944 than any other year. US bombing tactics were abysmal with some being 8 miles off target, and this was in daylight. When the lead plane dropped its bombs, all those behind did the same, going back as many as 12 miles. Some navigators never looked through a bombsight on missions because of this. They scrapped the upper and lower turret gunners to save weight because the British were getting the Mosquito to carry more than a B17, with a crew of two. Its 1935 design was showing. The Lancaster carried twice the bomb load with half the crew. It took the American 6 months to g train a B17 crew. It only took the British 3 weeks to train a Lancaster crew. Many Lancaster crew did over 200 missions by the end of the war. The Americans went home after 25.
World War II in color is one of the greatest series of all time.
Some details wrong. The Rolls Royce Merlin engine gave the P51 Mustang altitude, not range (the previous Allison engine was great at low altitude but performance fell off over 15,000 feet). It was the use of drop tanks that gave the P51 (and the P47) range.
This is hugely biased on British. And not the real monster of Americans
“Strategic Bombing was a controversial tactic” – From a German prospective or ours?
Civilians have ALWAYS been considered a legitimate target in warfare, awful but true.
If you can starve a population of a besieged city you won the siege, it's just a small step away from dropping bombs on them.
However, RAF carpet bombing was a total failure and the immense resources wasted on building Bomber Command should have been spent on the army, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of men performing mundane tasks on airfields all over the UK while whole infantry divisions were being disbanded to provide much needed reinforcements for other units.
I believe that if BC had been scaled back to 50 Mosquito bomber squadrons and no heavies the war may have ended sooner.
It's too bad the episode wasn't about strategic bombing.
Yes it was effective on so many levels. It kept 1m troops and 1700 aircraft tied down, that could have been better used elsewhere.
German POWs were treated better than African American soldiers 💀
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage documentary about Nazism regime strategic bombarding failed by its airforces and Nazism naval confronted allies ( UK 🇬🇧 and the USA 🇺🇸) airforces and navy fleets during WW2
America didn't enter the European war until late 1943.
If the bombing of cities in the UK hardened peoples' resolve, why did the RAF think it would be different in Germany?
What was a joke was the almost non-existent tactical air support the RAF and the French gave their troops in the crucial Battle of France in 1940; while the Luftwaffe terrorized the allied ground forces and knocked out bunkers and tanks left and right.
Stop sugar coating history it may be disturbing but humanity needs to see that war is ugly
it isnt controversial if people understood the situation the post Pearl Harbour ALLIES faced . 1, USSR demanded western allies open A SECOND FRONT early as possible1942 NORTHERN FRANCE. The western ALLIES were not militariy strong enough to do this. the best Churchill and fdr could offer was an ever increasing bombing of GERMAN CITIES,. IN JULY FDR commited to an opening of a second front at nw AFRICA (TORCH)november 1942.this was the only sensible decision UK/USA could make after loss of TUBRUK in june 1942, This was vital the ALLIES gained NAVAL SUPREMACY OF MEDITTERANEAN , TOO MUCH EFFORT was being wasted by having allied shipping supplying EGYPT and INDIA via CAPE OF GOOD HOPE SOTH AFRICA
industry and its workers are designated targets in war
Bombing raids against Berlin in October 1943 severely damaged the Alkett plant which produced the highly successful StuG III assault guns. German High Command was so worried about the loss of production of the most effective armored fighting vehicles in its inventory that it had to divert production of tanks in an effort to make up some of the lost production of StuG III.
You guys are just now admitting that the Allies bombed mass numbers of innocent civilians? They committed tons of atrocities too. Obviously it angers you guys when someone presents you with the truth. Neither side should have bombed civilians and it was definitely a war crime when the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan
The British were scared to bomb Germany in daylight so they weasled out by making the Americans do daylight raids.
The premise behind the 'Straegic Bombing' campaign was that it would lead to a collapse in German civilian morale, which in turn would affect German war production. This didn't happen, so the Strategic bombing campaign failed against its primary objective. However, it did lead to a substantial diversion of German resources away from the Eastern front, which weakened Germany's effectiveness in the war against the Soviet Union, and it therefore achieved something, if not what was originally intended.
Show me a war that is not Total! After all the protagonist's are not Playing Tiddlywinks.
Pls censor & blurr out historical fact & truth because we can't handle the truth. California Google hates America & Cis gender ppl.
Hmmm, the Japanese thought it was….
Bomber Harris was a war criminal.
bombing dosnt win wars but helps the effort ,Infantry takes and holds ground thats what wins wars fact
War, war never changes
Dresden did have a huge military significance. (19:42). The Soviet army was approaching Berlin and Dresden was the last major city between Berlin and the Soviets. This is where Germans would make a stand and try to stop the Soviets so Stalin asked the allies to demolish Dresden, which they did. That was huge help for the Soviet army.
1000 bomber raid.
That's why they call him Bomber Harris.
What a huge waste of resources the Bismarck was.
Questions about whether it reduced net German war materiel production?
Without the bombing it may have doubled or tripled.
Yes — very successful.
YouTube censorship at work 🤡
Prior to the Mustang, USAAF command condemned bomber crews to suicide missions.