The Bombing of Berlin in World War II (The Ugly Truth)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ย. 2024
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This is the story of the bombing of Berlin during World War II - by both the Royal Air Force Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force. Here, we analyze why the capital city of the Reich had to be bombed, and the true cost. This was made using the World War II flight simulator War Thunder - Download free here: playwt.link/tj... Hope you enjoy! Please like, comment, and subscribe. #WW2 #WWIIHistory #WarThunder
RESEARCH SOURCES: Research sources in all of my content include the United States National Archives (NARA) - and specifically, Missing Air Crew Reports, as well as combat reports and diaries from various fighter and bomber squadrons. catalog.archiv...
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Thank you Trent for another fine TJ3 History video about WWII air power.....
Old F-4 pilot Shoe🇺🇸
@@steveshoemaker6347 thanks for watching Shoe! Hope you're well.
Bombing citys, is a war crime. It was one of the many warcrimes alied did.
Still no convictions.
Churchill was a war criminal, as was those too, that followed His criminal orders.
My uncle was a B-17 pilot. His aircraft was shot down after bombing Berlin. Flak had knocked one engine. Unable to stay in formation, 2 FW-190s found them. They shot out 2 other engines. Every one of the crew managed to bailout. They spent the remainder of the war in POW camps. This was in early ‘44.
At time stamps 0:55, 7:56, 10:35, 11:14, and 14:30, that is me in the Bf 109 with the yellow markings. This is the first TJ3 video I have participated in, and it was an absolute honor and pleasure being able to represent history and participate in this amazing team. Can’t wait to fly in the future, and once again TJ3, great work as always.
@@Xeno1001 woooo! Thanks a ton :)
@@TJ3how do I get to fly for your videos, that sounds awesome 😂
the synagogue doesnt care how many whites have to die for their banks to make profit. thats the only truth.
"we defeated the wrong enemy" George S. Patton... before being assasinated in a "car accidente"
The RAF Bomber Command suffered 55,573 aircrew killed in action, which was 44.4% death rate out of the total 125,000 aircrew with
8,325 aircraft were lost in action.
I'd like to eventually do a video on them. The losses that bomber command suffered are staggering, and it is especially tragic when you consider how poorly they were looked upon after the war.
Damn
The actual total of all types of british bombers lost in combat in europe was 11,965 bombers out of a total 42,010 aircraft lost in action.
@@TJ3Please do. A good research would be the book Bomber Boys by Patrick Bishop. Imagine an RAF pilot or navigator could spend up to two years training often to be killed within weeks of operations. Where a young flight sergeant pilot from a working class background was the skipper over officer crew from middle and upper class backgrounds. Crew from all around the empire and commonwealth. Fascinating largely untold to the rest of the world history. Let's hope for peace in their names.
My heart bleeds. ....
Honey, wake up, TJ posted another video! I appreciate the hard work you put in all your videos tj, stay awesome!
Thank for your continued support :)
I'm up I'm up
One of my Uncles was a B24 pilot who bombed Berlin twice. He survived all 25 missions and lost only 1 man. A photographer who fell out the Bombay while trying to take a photo during a bombing run.
I'd be more quiete. Bombing women and children is and was a crime against humanity. remember Hiroshima. Russia won without these atrocities.
It's called Mumbai these days 😉
My father was a Waist Gunner in a B24 for the 8th Airforce. He never talked about it. One of his missions was Berlin. He was so young 18 turning 19 in 1945. I would love to see the look on there faces of the Luftwaffe when they first saw our Mustangs running with our Bombers.
My grandmothers brother named Sidney Kelly was Australian Airforce he was KIA in one of the first Berlin raids in a Lancaster he was 19 and a tail gunner . Only one of the crew survived an Englishman and he was taken in by a local family and treated well until taken to a POW camp he was treated well by the Germans he said that he was always treated well by the Germans he wrote to our family every year until he passed away. Sidney still has a sister who is alive at 98 and she still feels the pain of what the family went through when the letter came that he was not coming home.
"...in the horror of a bloody World War, the likes of which one hopes no human will ever again have to witness."
-Hear, hear & amen.
That sounds very similar to our family history:
My father, John Allan Martin, enlisted in the Army Air Corps (1942), age 18, and served as a gunner and radio operator on B-17s and B-24s. He was assigned to the 8th Air Force in England and flew 35 combat missions over Europe. Including one shown as "SECRET" on his papers.
According to him, later while watching “12 O’clock High” on TV, he thought that it was very well done and he liked the show. He did say that instead of the large letter “A” in the show their planes carried a large letter “P” there. He was in the 387th Bombardment Squadron of 487th Bombardment Group. The records for many crew members were lost during a fire at Fort Benjamin Harrison.
His brother, age 20, was a Navy aviator flying in the Pacific area: his plane was shot down . The bad news was wired to the family, who were surprised three months later when he walked in the front door in his Navy uniform.
My father had left the service at the end of the war and worked as a TV/Radio engineer. He was called back to duty for the Korean conflict but didn’t have to deploy; and stayed with the new US Air Force. He retired in 1968 after 26 years of active duty and died in 1976. His brother also passed in 2005.
Both brothers are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Regards
Really interesting, thank you!
Hello Almartin4. My father FX Shamrell was in the 8th AF, 95th BG, 336 SQ based in Horham, UK. He was on the First Daylight Raid on Berlin, March 4, 1944. When they landed back in Horham that evening, most of the people around their base were waiting because they had already heard the news that "the 8th Heavies had just bombed Berlin". "The people surrounded the base on bicycles, cars and wagons with their lights/lanterns on. That weekend in London we didn't have to buy any drinks as everyone we met in London were so thrilled at what we had just done."
PS. There is a picture/video of my father FX Shamrell after landing in Horham on "Black Friday", October 1943. The top turret gunner was being unloaded on a stretcher as he watched. My dad had given him a morphine shot. He eventually died. My dad talked a lot about Black Friday and how the "Luftwaffe kicked their butts." "The 20-30 mm exploding cannon shells tore the hell out of everything and it was the first time we had seen the rockets hitting us." My dad also brought home 3 pieces of flak- one of them had hit him in the leg.
The 95th BG was the only 8th AF Group to be awarded three Presidential Unit Citations (Oak Leafs) by FDR for the Munster, Regensburg and Berlin raids. He said his "biggest thrill was getting to shake Dolittle's hand when he visited their base. Strong grip for such a little guy. We all loved him - we would follow him anywhere because he knew exactly what he was doing compared to those before."
Note: The video is ipart of the NBC WW2 News film (1984) "All the Fine young Men" at about the 2 minute mark. The same video/picture was used by Ken Burns in "The War" Part 2, "The Air War."
MXS
@@mxmissile4588 If you want a really in depth info go to:
Constituted as VIII Bomber Command on 19 January 1942. Activated in the US on I Feb 1942. An advanced detachment was established in England on 23 Feb and units began arriving from the US during the spring of 1942. The command conducted the heavy bombardment operations of Eighth AF from 17 Aug 1942 until early in 1944. Re-designated Eighth AF on 22 February 1944.
from there you can go to these:
95 th..
458th..
305th..
At the top of the page are names of crew who served in that unit. At the bottom of the page is a full description of all missions flow by that group. Like this:
Constituted as 305th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 28 Jan 1942. Activated on 1 Mar 1942. Trained for duty overseas with B-17's. Moved to England, Aug-Oct 1942, and assigned to Eighth AF. Began combat on 17 Nov 1942 and operated chiefly as a strategic bombardment organization until Apr 1945. Until mid-1943, attacked such targets as submarine pens, docks, harbors, shipyards, motor works, and marshalling yards in France, Germany, and the Low Countries. Bombed the navy yards at Wilhelmshaven on 27 Jan 1943 when heavy bombers of Eighth AF made their first penetration into Germany. Received a DUC for a mission on 4 Apr 1943 when an industrial target in Paris was bombed with precision in spite of pressing enemy fighter attacks and heavy flak. During the second half of 1943, began deeper penetration into enemy territory to strike heavy industry. Significant objectives included aluminum, magnesium, and nitrate works in Norway, industries in Berlin, oil plants at Merseburg, aircraft factories at Anklam, shipping at Gdynia, and ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt. Received another DUC for withstanding severe opposition to bomb aircraft factories in central Germany on 11 Jan 1944. Participated in the intensive campaign of heavy bombers against the German aircraft industry during Big Week, 20-25 Feb 1944. 1st Lt William R Lawley Jr, and 1st Lt Edward S ..
Here is a great site on the various 8th AF markings.
th-cam.com/video/QphxXb77E2E/w-d-xo.html&lc=UgzgNm7rLHhxg84RxfF4AaABAg.A0fveUiRoKqA0mwrSPhW_3
Regards
Respect to your ancestor, My gt grandfather was name John allen Martin as well excerpt he was born in England 1890s like your father my gt grandfather was a highly esteemed military man his nation . Salute to your father.
The Allies lost thousands Bombers over Europe to the Germans.
But in the Pacific, only 147 B-29s were shot down over Japan.
The Japanese Army and Navy hated each other so much, they couldn't decide whose job it was to intercept the Bombers.
It's hard to believe that morale cannot be completely shattered by bombing.
Even after the vicious fire bombing of Japan, the Japanese didn't want to surrender.
I own a book which I would recommend as suggested reading entitled "Target Berlin: Mission 250:6 March 1944" by Jeffery L. Ethell and Alfred Price. I also own and recommended 2 books by Martin Middlebrook dealing with RAF Battle of Berlin entitled: The Berlin Raids RAF Bomber Command winter 1943-1944" and "The Nuremberg Raid: 30-31 March 1944."
James Holland's book, _'Big Week'_ is also worth a look.
I know of no writer of military material who covers his topic more thoroughly than Martin Middlebrook did. He unfortunately died in January of this year.
@@ramonzzzz Nobody has written a better book on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid. He followed it up with a similar book on the RAF raid on Peenemuende that night. What nobody here would likely know - unless they know Middlebrook’s books - is that the RAF suffered more than twice the number of casualties as the USAAF in those 24 hours.
'Wrong Place, Wrong Time' by George Kuhl is a brilliant, very detailed account of the 305th BG's mission to Schweinfurt on October 14 1943. It was decimated. He was a pilot in the 364th Squadron of the 305th. A very good pilot indeed.
@@gibson617ajg Thanks for that.
Harris sounds like a guy who writes poetry under a pseudonym.
...the German morale was not shaken. They should've known this even before they started the bombing campaign. What happened to the Londoners' morale during the Blitz?
Well, what do they say about trying the same method again and expecting different results?
By that stage of the war German industry had dispersed into the surrounding towns and countryside due to the targeting of industrial centers earlier in the war....production was actually highest towards the end....they may have been taking that into consideration as well. Railway hubs and important transport infrastructure is found in towns/cities as well, crippling the ability to transport equipment was necessary.
Oh yes it was 'shaken' - read von Studnitz's book 'While Berlin Burns'..
British morale was 'shaken', there were riots in some cities, but the Government hushed it up. German morale too was shaken, all the soldiers returning home on leave (reading it in their books) are distressed by the devastation, especially if they lost family or friends. In books, you can see the Germans (like WW1) realising the chances of victory are slipping away, & the regime is exposed. What supported the Nazis (& continuation of the war), was the point that the German population feared Soviet retaliation & occupation more than Allied bombing, so that kept them fighting far longer than they may have.
The Allies where expecting more results it's true, as they were using more, newer, heavier bombers than the Luftwaffe.
While there was definitely no collapse on either side, who can actually tell how much was done? How many German (or Axis, especially Italian) soldiers surrendered rather than fight on due to it? Did the Allied bombing (among other elements) help bring about the plot to kill Hitler, which nearly succeeded, or helped Italy go out of the war?
Resolved -cant be broken by conventional means
@@eric-wb7gj There was serious unrest in the east end of London during WW2 because the east end got regularly plastered so they had the King and Churchill do visits, film the visits and then boast of the Cockney spirit.
Berlin was bombed more than 300 times during the war, as well as 60 other German cities, all reduced to rubble. The US bombed during the day and the UK at night. Bomber Harris said:
"The destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized community life throughout Germany is the goal. It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale and the breakdown of morale both at home and on the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories."
Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris, Commander in Chief, Bomber Command, British Royal Air Force, October 25, 1943 quoted in Tami Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 220
my Dad and his friend Robert Thomcheney went thru flight school in TX together … Dad opted for air duty in the Pacific and flew P-40 Warhawks , his friend flew B-24’s eventually being shot down on the Ploesti , Romania bombing raid … Dad told him the already existing statistics on longevity in a bomber … Robert Thomcheney told Dad he’d accept fate as God willed !!!
My Dad flew 1st 2nd and 3rd Berlin with the 384th as a navigator/bombardier.. by 1944 part of all missions was to destroy the Luftwaffe in preparation for D-Day
Danke fur correctly pronouncing German words, and not Anglicizing / Americanizing them. It makes your presentation much more professional.
You want to talk about courage and attrition. There's a book called "The Red Line" by John Nichol. It's about our blokes on a raid to Nuremberg. Horrific
Minor details: Berlin was never beloved by Hitler. He always disliked the city and it was even suggested that bombing the city would help to demolish buildings and make it easier to begin building Germania.
My great uncle was 94BG, 332 Squadron and survived a large number of missions as a B17 Navigator only to go missing with two other B17 and 15 men altogether over the North Sea 5-31-45 😢
Why are the fighters not mentioned. The escorts laid waste to the Luftwaffe’s fighter force during the big week raids and left the Luftwaffe in no position to seriously intervene in the Normandy landings.
Yo moma
Are you talking about Operation Pointblank Oct 43 to Mar 44 because the Big Week was well after D/Day The Luftwaffe lost 2950 fighters during it conducted by Spitfire IXs and P47s
17:30 Looks like someone messed up their bomb drops! Great video TJ, you're always making high quality videos that go in depth on things I didn't know much about, and I love it.
Great job making this video; you just earned a new subscriber. Cheers.
Yet another Quality presentation from TJ3 History
My mother grew up in Berlin. I don't know how she and her relatives made it.
I love all of your videos I’ve always been so fascinated and interested of WW2. I have one question though for your war thunder gameplay, how on earth did you get flak. I just started a movie series based on the B-17s over Europe, I’ve never been able to get flak so please if you know how please tell me. Love the vids keep up this amazing work.
Love the creativity and unique approach in this video!
I served in the US army 1985-1988 in a place called Andrews Kaserne. To this day there are places where 1 to 2 inches (2.5 - 5 cm) under the grass you will find rubble
According to "Seven months over Europe" by Kent D Miller and "363rd Fighter Group" by Nick Marenelli., the Berlin raids did not stop for almost a year. The 363rd FG, flew escort missions to Berlin on March 9th, April 29th, May 4th, May 7th and May 8th, May24th all 1944. I suspect there more, I just quit looking. This is just the 363rd FG 951's)of the 9th airforce.
These were not actual raids to Berlin. And certainly not large scale. They were almost certainly smaller raids that had targets near Berlin as the target. March of 1944 was without a doubt, the first major USAAF operation against Berlin.
I have in my collection the GRS Tag of SSgt. Raymond C. Fiebiger of the 754th BS, 458th BG and a letter written to 1LT. Edward Handorf of the 351st BS, 100th BG. Both were KIA on the 6 March 1944 mission to Berlin. It was very sobering to read about their deaths and even more so to see the tremendous number of casualties the 8th Air Force suffered in just three missions
Thanks for posting.
I had to laugh when Harris said the germans thought, "Nobody was going to bomb them." Sure, buddy sure.
As is pointed out below, ‘Sir Harris’ is never the correct way to refer to someone possessing a knighthood. In this case, it should be Sir Arthur, or more formally Sir Arthur Harris.
Maybe an American thinks Sir Arthur is ‘too familiar’. It isn’t, it is the correct way to say it!
My son and I love your videos. Would you ever be interested in doing a video on the PB4Y? My Grandfather was a tail gunner on one but I can’t find a lot about them.
Great graphics!
The War Production Board had Lockheed building B-17 bombers at the Burbank P-38 plant, instead of building twice as many P-38 fighters, which could eacort and protect the bombers. It also prevented massive improvements in the P-38 that could have been introduced in July/August of 1943, i stead of February 1944, or in some cases, never.
Incompetence, arrogance, and corruption multiplied U.S. casualties over Europe exponentially.
8:00 if what you are trying to say is true that American switch to bombing cities was more about destroying luftwaffe than about killing civilians then why did they not target German Airbases ? this would of destroyed more luftwaffe assets and not exposed the bombers to fighters in the air
They did bomb airfields. But many of these industrials targets were in fact aircraft production plants.
@@TJ3 Those are just post war comebacks to cover the fact they were bombing civilian targets . The USAAF did bomb airfields but these were never the primary nor the secondary targets the strategic bombers were assigned too and were almost always the targets of the smaller fighter bombers . Heavy Bombers however were deployed in mass carpet bombing large areas doing utter destruction . Oil refineries , Industrial plants , Railway marshalling yards and Large troop concentrations ie Falaise Pocket 1944, dogged fortifications Monte Cassino 1944 also . Several of the Industrial plants hit were Aircraft factories , or aircraft component factories like the Sweinfurt Ballbearing plant. The USAAF first started bombing purely civilian targets was 9th October 1943 when the 100th bomb group was ordered to bomb Munster Germany with the primary targets being the city centre, the railway yards and the densely packed railway workers housng districts. , hoping that if enough civilians were killed it would break the will of the Germans to continue to fight . From this date onwards with the exception of the time around the D-day landings when military targets became the priority briefly again , civilian targets and breaking the will of the civilian population by killing them was the norm . This all climaxed with the Dresden bombing raid in the very last weeks of the war when Dresden a city of no military or industrial value at all became the target as it was known that its streets and railyards were swamped with refugees with no where to go caught between the allied armies and the Soviet armies. 4 waves of bombers hit these masses aiming for maximum carnage and even escorting fighters were ordered to strafe refugee columns and expend all ordnance on these masses before returning home . After the war the USAAF after a backlash from the public played down the total number of deaths to being only 10,000 but this does not include the many many refugees who packed the city.. Low estimates of death toll = 60,000 high death toll = 260,000 less than 200 of these were soldiers.
The Luftwaffe had plans to shuffle its defensive fighter shield to various locations around Berlin in an effort to keep the Allies guessing. I don't know if they were implemented as a result of these attacks by Bomber Command or in anticipation of the 8th Air Force sending fighters to accompany its bombers.
I donated to your kickstarter & would love to fly with you in WarThunder. I have all the b17 models E/F, E, and G and high their props for U.S and germany :) I'm 13 and love war thunder lol :D
Really enjoyed this thorough documentary, l can't help but feel sad for all the people killed , from the bomber aircrew,( especially if the bomber got a direct hit from flak) to what the civilians on the ground experienced, to loss of fighter pilots on both sides. Such a tragedy that the attempts on Hiltler',s assassination failed. Sensible German leaders like General Rommel knew that once the Western Allies got a foothold on France the war.was lost. Even pompous Marshall Goering said " Once l saw Mustangs flying over Berlin , knew the jig was up"
I really apreaciate your Work and love your content.
But why have you changed the Title of this Video, three times within eight Hours?
Good video! The combined efforts of the 8th Air Force and Bomber Command did eventually destroy the industrial base and urban economy of Nazi Germany but the achievement came too late to have the effect that the proponents of strategic bombing had argued it would. The British and U.S. bombing campaigns did not obviate the need for ground assault. By late 1944 the war was well on its way to being won, on both fronts, by the ground forces of the Allied Powers. As a matter of fact it was the invasion of Normandy and the securing of the French Coast that deprived the Germans of the early warning stations that had helped to direct the Luftwaffe fighters into the bomber streams. This, along with the steady weakening of the Luftwaffe by attrition AND by the 1944 campaign against oil targets, helped lead to the late war successes of the bombing campaigns and the increased survival rate of their crews.
Great video
The target was civilians trying to break morale. You should interview the victim of allied bombings. I seen many interviews of the Londoners surviving the blitz, but few of German civilians enduring raids targeting them.
They just murdered the downed Allied crew but not in the West.
nonsense. the main objective was to support Russia by forcing Germany to divert resources away from RUSSIAN FRONT
germans fought for the white race.
americans and soviets..... for the synagogue. this is the hard cold truth
I really do not care. These are the same people that claimed they did not know of the Holocaust The same people who lived 3 km from the Camps and claimed they did not know when allied soldiers could smell them from 15 km away The same people who did not see the thousands of Cattle cars full of people going to the camps every day through their towns .
No, it was trying to destroy infrastructure etc etc and workers. Listen to what AVM Harris says. Do not make things up.
The number of American bombers shot down in early 1944 is not directly comparable to the numbers from 1943. By April, 1944, it was clear that American losses were mounting yet the number of attacks by German fighters had greatly declined, due largely (but not entirely) to the presence of P-51s. The reason for this appears to coincide the switch to deadlier German armament. There is another channel - frankly, a slightly better channel than this - called 'WWII US Bombers', which did two videos on German 20mm and 30mm hits. 20mm was survivable - to a degree - but even a couple of hits from a MK108 was enough to destroy a B-17.
Early 44 the P51 was not there in sufficient numbers as yet some F/Gs of the 8th Airforce were still changing over in Nov 44
@@jacktattis Wrong. Stay out of things you know nothing about.
@@thethirdman225 I have the dates in my drawer . Go and check 8th A/F and then the F/Gs
I did some years ago
@@jacktattis I already have the necessary information and have posted extensively on this. I have included figures for P-38, P-47 and P-51 Fighter Groups for ‘Big Week’. The P-51 out scored both of the others by orders of magnitude, even if the raw figures don’t appear to show it. This resulted in an emphatic win for the USAAF. It is not hard to see how or why.
I’m starting to get sick of you Jack. I blocked you some years ago but somehow your posts became visible to me again when you changed your handle.
But when some random guy on the internet starts trying to provoke an argument on a Saturday evening - as you did - when I’m out to dinner with friends, I have to wonder what kind of a life he has.
You need to get a life Jack. I have very limited interest in validating your existence any further.
@@thethirdman225 1. Yes you did block me I never changed my handle I just changed the first name And you must realise I do not have to reply to you direct.
2. So you were out a dinner with friends and I disturbed you? Not much of a dinner companion I would say.
3. I have a great life it is always interesting like now. I just went over to the F/Gs of the 8th and I just had to come back
4. I said that the 8th F/Gs got their P51 in dribs and drabs and you went ballistic below is the results from WIKI and other sites
4th P51 25 Feb 44
55 P51 Jul 44
78 P51 Dec 44
339 P51 Apr 44
353 P51 Oct 44
479 P51 Between Oct and Mid Dec44
355 P51 Apr 44
356 P51 Nov44
357 P51 after Feb 44
359 P51 Apr 44
361 P51 May 44
364 P51 Between D Day and Market Garden Sep 44
All verbatim from the various sites And these are in Dribs and Drabs
And my friend we are not the only ones on this site
Great video and presentation
Thanks!
One of my Grandpa's was on this mission. He had come over with a large number of bombardiers trained personnel. I think 50 or 60 of them it's made at home. Yeah, numbered in the hundreds at the beginning. Everything less than a 100 made at home. Watching him I wander around town and as bermuda shorts, danny loker's black socks, Thick glasses, you would have never known that this guy stared death in the face.
I take it that there was no fighter escort on these bomb runs.
Fantastic video from War Thunder!
Question, did the bombing of cities worth the losing so many planes and fighters?
Yeeee
Yeeee
Yeeeeeee
TJ, do you have any photos of the Minnie-so-Tan nose art?
@@OfficerBullerman unable to locate any unfortunately!
One thing the Germans were very good at was using mobile railroad or Eisenbahn FLAK units that has every size of FLAK gun even the dreaded 12.8 cm guns, combined with railroad mobile radar stations. This let them easily move a lot of FLAK around to wherever it was perceived to be needed and made it easy to strategically strengthen the FLAK cover over any piece of sky that had a railroad nearby. and in Europe that was almost everywhere. The soviets also had roughly 40 dedicated AA trains, with guns up to usually a maximum of 76 mm that took advantage of the huge railroad networks in and around every city. Also the Russians had been using trains as combat units for quite a while and where very good at it.
And who thought the Germans would not shoot down the bombers? Only one side of the picture is shown, the damage done on Berlin and the killing of many of its people are ignored. But that is what wars are like. Both sides suffer, one more than the other.
That last statement? It's about to happen again!
The Strategic Bombing Survey, conducted after the war, concluded that the basic premise of high altitude mass bombing of CIVILIAN population centers, was false! The Survey concluded that the Allied bombing campaign totally failed in its objective in shortening the war, by destroying the enemies willingness to combat the attacks on its industrial, and civilian population bases. The survey revealed that, in contradiction to propaganda films at the time, German armaments production reached its peak, at the apex of the bombing campaign. It furthermore revealed the campaigns strategy in selecting, and to determing effects on the targets, were inconsistent. Some targets were repeatedly bombed, without reaching the desired goals of effectiveness, and others were bombed once, or twice, and never attacked again, without achieving the desired level of reduction. The conclusion was reached that only a quarter of the total tonnages of bombs dropped, had any effects on the targets. The highly touted Norden bombsight, "Able to drop a bomb in a pickle barrel", was a failure. The Germans, actually had a spy at the production facility, that supplied them with the exact specifications, and capabilities of the instrument. The Germans concluded the Norden, was inferior to their own designs, and ignored it. In retrospect, the term " The bomber can get through", was proved correct, but at a horrific cost, in human life, and material cost. The question must be in the end, was it worth the loss of 80,000+ Allied service personnel, and untold thousands of innocent civilians?
I suspect those 80,000 losses would have been on the ground had the bombing campaign not happened. Germany could have built all the planes they wanted but it didn't matter. They didn't have capable pilots to fly them. Their military was decimated which was their own fault of course. P47s wreaked havoc on ground targets with it's 8 50 caliber machine guns. However they also paid a price for it. Germany had a marvelous fighting force. Unfortunately it was commanded by sadistic madmen.
@@almorris171 Defending one's country is sadistic and mad. Got it.
great video TJ can you do more videos based on specific b17's and there crew thx
No RAF Bomber Command we were in the war longer 1000 plane raid in 1941 or Hampdens bombing German Naval installations Sept 39 almost 36 months before the first USAAF raid in August 42
Excellent report. Just to add that taking the effort so far east allowed the D-Day landings to face no significant air opposition. Greetings from Patagonia Argentina
Did you start with Oregon TJ?
How many west coast states did you collect veterans stories from?
Two in Washington, then one in Oregon! Headed back to Texas and Arizona next week.
@TJ3 Tj. I was born in Temple, TX, my good sir 🙌🏿
Did you manage to enjoy any of our coastline out here on downtime? Epic adventures
@@dezmondw7927 unfortunately downtime is very rare for us!! Haha
After what they did to London, Coventry, Plymouth, and many other towns and cities in the North and Midlands....
Oh for heaven's sake - the USAAF 8th air force was NOT available for raids on Berlin alongside RAF Bomber Command - error at 4 mins.
Yes we flew at night No B17 went at night.
Kein erbarmen für Bomberpiloten! Sie wissen genau was Sie tun!
Read somewhere that the USAF suffered heavier casulties than its Pacific brethren.And that the USAF suffered more than any other arm of the US military in WW2.
Seriously brutal.
Yep. The 8th air force suffered 28.000 casualties i think
@@derpynerdy6294 sobering.
That wasn't the reason they bombed Berlin and made a hamburger out of Hambugh, it was an integrated and complicated rationale but nevertheless did provide Germany with the reality that the writing was on the wall. This presenatation is not 100% accurate, NOT in what it conveys but the reasons it states.
In a different theatre , my wife’s uncle was in the Army Air Force . He was in from 1943 till December of 1945 . He was a photographer and based out of Guam . I have aerial photos of target acquisition , bombing & damage assessment of Japan . Plus ground photos after their surrender . A bigger plus is , I have a aerial photo of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor & the deck with US officers & the signing desk , alas none showing the Japanese officials signing the surrender papers t
8:48 look at all those chem trails 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂
You must have drank a lot of fluoride as a kid, while living under power lines. Your over use of the laugh icon is ironic because you're not even aware of your own ignorance, like most people these days. You really think people don't know the difference between vapor trails and chem trails. Whats funny is you think chem trails are vapor trails. Those bomber vapor trails didn't spread out and stay all day long, genius.
I bellieve the name of that bomber was Hell's Belle - without the "s".
Love this channel. In my opinion the British commited war crimes by purposely targeting civilians. As did the Americans. I don't have a problem with it war is war. Yet in Nuremburg we convicted Germans for doing the same thing. The Russians murdered 15000 polish prisoners in 1939.
History is written by the victors.
The moral lines are hardly clean but morally equating the Allies' bombing campaign with various Nazi acts during the war is a big stretch.
You should get a refund from the law school that you didn’t go to. Any fortified city is a legitimate target under international law. The day the Germans built flak towers in their cities they became legitimate targets.
Strange is it not, the UK declared war on Germany for invading Poland from the West yet ignored the fact that the Soviets invaded Poland from the East and then started rounding up the Polish Intelligentsia and murdering them, (see Katyn forest massacre 25,000 Polish bodies in one mass grave). Even the Germans did not do that ! So the Soviets became our friends and we supplied them with materials and equipment to beat the Germans, but we turned a blind eye to Stalin moving entire races of people in the USSR to places like Siberia where they usually froze to death. A lot of fuss is made about the Germans exterminating around four and a half million Jews, yet a deafening silence about Stalin having upwards of fifty Million citizens of the USSR done to death, many millions of those being Christians.
@@AnthonyTobyEllenor-pi4jqExactly what 'defeaning silence' are you referring to? The one on a documentary about the bombing campaign over Nazi Germany? What do you expect people to refer to when discussing the Nazis? If you wish to see references to Soviet atrocities then try watching a documentary about them instead, or refer to the tomes of written material on the subject: no 'histories' are silent on Stalin's mass murder. Oh, and nice try with your down playing the scale of the Holocaust. Yeah, sure it wasn't about six million. In fact the Nazis murdered about 11 million European civilians, of whom about six million were of ethnic Jewish origin. If you wish to disguise your Nazi sympathies you will have to do better than that.
P-47 Thunderbolts over Berlin.?????
Not sure they had the operating radius, maybe you can redo the video to show P-51's which did have the operating radius.
You do know that the P51D was only there from Jun 44 Too many people give it Super-plane status It was not at Operation Pointblank where Spitfires and P47 got 2950 enemy softening up the Luftwaffe before D/Day
Surely the raids crossed the North Sea not the channel.
No the North Sea was deemed to start past Scotland I believe
Why didn’t we have escorts - hell cats , etc
you would think that the army air corps would have learned from the German bombing of England that resistance increases instead of decreases as the bombing went on. he phrase "pinpoint " was a JOKE. a 1/2 mile away from the target was considered GOOD!? one pilot tried to tell what bombing was like when he said that to get an understanding on how hard it was to hit the target was like" riding on the handle bars of a bicycle going fast down a bumpy road and trying to drop rice grains into a cup as you went by." my dad wanted to go into the army air corps in 1943, his mother wouldn't sign the papers because he was only 17. he went ahead and joined the coast guard and brought the 101st airborne back from Europe as well as bring back American troops who were pow's in German camps .until the day he died, he always believed his mother had save his life. based on per capita comparisons, the air corps was the deadliest branch of the military in ww2
I used to visit a Steelworks in Dortmund for my work, it was named," Herman Goering Werke", older Germans told me that during WW2 not a single bomb fell on the Steelworks but most of the surrounding houses were damaged. So much for pinpoint bombing !!
@@AnthonyTobyEllenor-pi4jq AHHH No house no sleep no food no rest.
Great video, subbed.
Sorry but this is a highly convoluted account of the Berlin attacks.
The post operational reports all clearly state that the payload for each mission was small and in fact getting smaller.
The Luftwaffe in fact used these easy targets to get younger pilots experience which they would require.
There are accounts of many US crews bottling out of such missions and returning to base with various excuses(cant say I blame them I would of done exactly the same).
Plus of course it was such an unfeasible concept that it could never have achieved anything near it's supposed objectives.
Finally-yes there is a case that if the resources had of been vandalised elsewhere this MAY have ensured an earlier Allied victory and an end to the European war.
Doolittle was fully as a commander.I truly wouldnt have him commanding a line of ducks to the local pond.
Was it a war crime to purposefully attack civilian targets.Certainly now it would be but such a misadventure must never be allowed to flourish again.
Remember-winners of ears are the ones who make the fewest mistakes.
God rest all who died in this hellish misadventure.
Ok Mr. HINDSITE.
RAF payloads never got smaller they had a particular load for a particular Mission
(The Ugly Truth) nothing has changed
CGI is great for war films !
According to one source, the Luftwaffe losses on the three American raids featured here were:
March 4 20 aircraft, 8 KIA and 5 WIA
March 6 75 aircraft, 37 KIA and 32 WIA
March 8 48 aircraft, 22 KIA and 13 WIA
Total 143 aircraft, 67 KIA and 50 WIA The human casualties include crewmen in twin-engined aircraft (including night fighters) which the Germans stupidly put into the same airspace as that occupied by American escort fighters.
Ummm. What was the Ugly Truth ????????????
Sure was one hell of a gamble for the 8th.
War Crime by Harris
The Germans had jets the usa did not have jets for years
No. The US was flying Lockheed P-80 Shooting Stars out of Italy in the last weeks of the war.
"Sir Harris"... bloody hell. It's either Sir Arthur Harris or, less formally, Sir Arthur or just Harris.
Bomber Harris?
@@samuelgordino Yeah.
It was not until Bomber Command started to put up the "Little Birds" that missions started to work and the Luftwaffe was finally getting major hurt. The P-47s, as you showed were not as effective as the P-51s. Also, you did not show the underbelly tanks on the 47s as they were mandatory for escort duty to Berlin. If I remember correctly, the US stopped flights to Berlin until they got fighter escorts. Get all the information correctly and chronologically correct please.
I assure you my information is correct. These March raids did indeed have escorts of both P47, and P51 - as I have interviewed men who flew them during these very missions. My flight simulator used to remake the visuals does not feature drop tanks, so I have to show them as I am able to - but they would have dropped them by the time shown in combat anyways.
The P-47 did not go to Berlin until early 1945. On this raid some specially converted P-47s (D-9) flew escorts almost as far as Magdeburg but that was as far as they could go. The vast majority couldn't go past the Dutch border.
Without the P-51, the USAAF could not prosecute Operation POINTBLANK.
@thethirdman225 Correct. They did fly escorts on these missions, and did engage the enemy, but obviously did not make it all the way to Berlin.
@@TJ3 As I said a small number of the P-47s got almost as far as Magdeburg. The rest, even with a 108 US gallon drop tank, could not get past the Dutch border.
@@thethirdman225 exactly
This has little to say about the development and deployment of the fighter escorts and their role in protecting the bombers--or how many fighters were lost vis-a-vis the German interceptors. Very amateurish--needs re-working!
EST
Considering we were under 30 days into the war in Jan 1942, really amazing that 30 months later we were landing on the beaches of Normandy, and by 36 months into the war, an inevitable win for the Allies.
nothing was inevitable about ww2. ANOTHER myth frequently peddled in todays fake NEWS. It took western ALLIES 4 years to cross ENGLISH CHANNEL after fall of FRANCE. IT TOOK another 10 months to cross RHINE RIVER. THEN and only then was ALLIED VICTORY INEVITABLE
Yo moma
@@JohnSmyth-l6iyou just contradicted yourself is it inevitable or not ?? Dirt bag
Goes to show just what the other allies had done before you came in .
Why would Harris or the Americans, think for any reason !that the capital would not have heavy anti-aircraft protection along with fighters that would fight to the end!🤷🏻♂️
A bloke going by the name Third man has blocked me. He does not like facts
That was crass of me I apologise
AND DO NOT SAY /RAIK/ ALL THE TIME- CHECK THE PRONUNCIATION OF REICH in GOOGLE TRANSLATOR, DUDE
Terrible war.
It still blows my mind that the RAF actually thought that these bombings of Berlin would impact Civilian morale. They knew the Gestapo was literally watching each and every Citizen of Germany, and if any of one of them said something disparaging about Hitler, you got a one way ticket to the nearest Death Camp (or they'd just save the trouble and cap your spinal cord like they loved to do). That is such a bad metric to use in the equation.
Ahmm I believe the USA were in it as well
Harris from the get go told the media of the day words to the effect The Germans were very naive to think that they could bomb Warsaw Rotterdam English cities and not get bombed in return .
And people born in the war or before it in Europe, do not bloody care. Do you think those occupied countries forget what the Germans did to them?
Turn the other cheek ? in a pigs eye
You watched too much Hollywood rubbish.
👍👍👍
Big 🅱️
I'm not watching computer generated rubbish
The narrator’s teenage voice and clumsy script ap lack dignity,
❤❤😂😂😂🎉🎉🎉😢😢😮😮😅
revisionism
thed russian army bled germany dry
BS....
As the Luftwaffe most likely was hiding their losses by reclassifying shot-up or shot-down fighters as "non-combat" losses, and that these "non-combat" losses ranged from 40-50 % of their total, that "over 100" fighters lost could easily approach 180-200 (yes, they did have non-combat losses, but if their non-combat loss rate was roughly akin to the USAAF, it would be about 10 %, not 40-50 %). Postwar interviews with Luftwaffe officers by the USAAF reported that the Luftwaffe only recorded a fighter as lost in Reich defense if the pilot was killed. This fact seems to have been completely forgotten today.
So, in that light, maybe 143 bombers lost isn't as bad? I recall US Grant's aphorism to consider not just how badly you are getting hurt, but also consider that your opponent may well be in just as bad a shape, if not worse.
"This fact seems to have been completely forgotten today." Didn't you read my response to this nonsense the last time you posted it? I again recommend that you read the works of some reputable authors if you wish to better understand the details of the air war in WW2.
@@ramonzzzz Because "reputable historians" have been wrong too, that's why.
Let me give you an example from the Eastern Front. Photos of three Hs-129 bombers, and Luftwaffe records report them as damaged in combat, thusly:
#141279: 10 % damage
#141263 : 35 % damage
#140514: 40 % damage.
But given the skills of German mechanics, these planes are repairable, right?
But there's one little catch. There are soldiers standing near these wrecks in these photos....soldiers in RED ARMY uniforms. You see, these German planes recorded as "merely damaged' by Luftwaffe record-keeping ACTUALLY CRASH LANDED IN SOVIET TERRITORY.
But hey, we always should accept without question Luftwaffe records, right? Even when they don't add up or make sense, right?
Some of us see the job of a good historian to question all sources, and is to come up with the most sensible and most likely narrative. The reported Luftwaffe loss records are nothing more than numbers on paper, they are not the reality itself, and if these numbers "don't add up" or fit in with other pieces of evidence (and they don't) they should be at least questioned and possibly dismissed as reliable evidence.
@@stewartmillen7708 The Hs-129s incident: If you have information about the damage reports for these aircraft, and also photos of Soviet soldiers in their presence, you must also have information of the fates of the crewmen, which would be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim. Did they become PoW? Were they recorded as MIA by their unit? Were there no casualty reports at all? If you have none of these, you have no conclusive proof as to what actually took place. It could well be that the aircraft came down in German-held territory where their damage was then assessed. It could also easily follow that the Soviets took control of that territory before the Germans had the opportunity to recover those aircraft. Hs-129s, after all, were most frequently used as anti-tank aircraft, and they would most probably have been engaged in countering a Soviet attack. Even if everything happened as you believe it did, it's just one incident, and you can therefore not justifiably claim it to be proof of a Luftwaffe policy to falsify loss statistics.
Your claim that the Luftwaffe recorded 40% to 50% of its losses as non-combat is something I've never seen written anywhere else, and I've read an enormous amount of material on the topic of aerial combat. I have no hesitation in dismissing it as completely worthless. Let me provide an example to support my statement. Here are the statistics from one of the raids mentioned in this video, that of March 6th. On that occasion, the defenders lost 47 single-engine fighters (and over 20 twin-engine fighters) destroyed or damaged beyond repair, 15 damaged, 18 pilots KIA and 15 wounded. Of those 47, ONE, a Bf-109, was recorded as having been destroyed in a takeoff accident, with the pilot being killed. The only other incident that may have been recorded as being non-combat was the damaging of a Bf-109 in a strafing attack. If you believe that this is an isolated sample, and that more typically the Luftwaffe did as you claim it did, go ahead and prove it.
You seem not to have read my post in our previous discussion that disproved your claim that the Luftwaffe in action against US bomber attacks recorded only those losses that involved the death of the pilot. I suggest you go back to that video and read it.
If you do nothing else in response to this post, please explain how the Germans would have benefitted from falsifying their loss reports.
@@ramonzzzz The key here is the claim that the aircraft were only damaged (and the photos seem to show far more than 10, 35, or 40 % damage to boot). I can ask the person who posted the photos. They were recorded as "hit by AA fire" but the article doesn't mention the crews. But the thing is, they shouldn't have been recorded as damaged at all, but total write-offs.
The fact that Luftwaffe recorded 40-50 % of its losses as "non-combat" comes from Dr. Williamson Murray's "Strategy for Defeat: the Luftwaffe 1933-1945", p. 183.
"The disastrous rate of attrition was a reflection both of combat losses and numerous aircraft losses through noncombat causes . In fact, the Lufwaffe seems to have almost been in a race with its opponents to see who could destroy the most German aircraft . After a fairly respectable showing in 1940, from 1941 through 1944 the Lufwaffe lost between 40 percent and 45 percent of its total losses through noncombat causes . The surprising element in such an accident rate is the fact that until the spring of 1944, few in the general staff seem to have been particularly worried about the implication of such a level of noncombat losses . At that point, however a number of authorities awoke and began to examine the problem in detail . '
Murray seems to just meekly accepted the German documentation, instead of questioning it. For one thing, while he correctly points out that the USAAF had a high accident rate too WHEN TRAINING (back in the continental US) these were not losses of planes and personnel that had been attached to combat units (and most of these involved trainer aircraft, not combat aircraft), while the German supposed "accident rate" happened in combat units. The loss rate from accidents/mechanical failure/mishaps in the USAAF in combat units was about 10 %. I cannot imagine why the German figure would be 4-4.5 times higher; given the weather over England, the fact the USAAF is flying bombers in formation (ergo, a mistake by a bomber pilot can cause the loss of not only one bomber, but multiple ones) and finally, a USAAF bomber or fighter that develops a mechanical issue over occupied Europe or Germany has a LONG trip back to base, while a German pilot in the OVER GERMANY simply finds the closest air strip on which to land.
The fact that no one in the Luftwaffe high command is asking in any questions is probably because (wink wink nod nod) they know the books were being cooked.
My whole point is that it's impossible to reconcile the realities of air combat over Europe, the tactics the Germans chose to use, and everything else that happened in the air with German loss records. Nothing makes any sense if you accept German paperwork as true, especially the low damage rates among German fighters attacking bomber formations. Heck, the paperwork is at odds with the recollections of German pilots who fought in those battles!
The most parsimonious answer is that the paperwork is being fudged. Put 80 % of the German non-combat losses into the combat loss bucket, and you still have Germans losing planes in accidents and mishaps and by mechanical failure at the same rate as the USAAF, but then the air battle results fit both the testimony and the tactics used far better. Like I said, in Korea the USAF fudged F-86 and B-29 losses the same way (going through the data, it was amusing to see B-29s being hit by AA and MIG-15 attacks but being written off as ''non-combat' losses').
It all comes down to physical reality vs written records. In 1054, there was a supernova. It was recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers, and it's where you currently find the Crab Nebula. At its brightest, it was visible during daylight. Yet to date no certain European records of this exist.
So, because no one in Europe apparently wrote it down, did it not happen because the paperwork doesn't show that it did? Or does physical reality not trump paperwork? The problem with historians (and I have a history degree and taken historiography classes) is that they are trained to think of paper sources as evidence, and as evidence that trumps other evidence (say, eyewitness accounts). But that's not always a valid rule, as paper scribblings can be just as manipulated and falsified as any other testimony. In fact, the whole case against Alfred Dreyfus (the Dreyfus Affair) was based entirely on forged documents.
@@stewartmillen7708 "My whole point is that it's impossible to reconcile the realities of air combat over Europe..."
I disagree. In fact, I'll post some data which should make things much clearer for you. These are the claims and loss figures from a few 8th AF HB raids into Germany:
Oct 8, 1943: 30 bombers MIA / gunners claim 167 destroyed / 22 probably destroyed / 85 damaged German fighters
US fighters claim 12 destroyed / 2 probably destroyed / 4 damaged / Total US claims 179-24-87
German losses: 33 aircraft / 24 KIA / 14 WIA
Oct 9, 1943: 28 bombers MIA / gunners claim 122-29-61 / no fighter escort
German losses: 15 / 6 KIA / 15 WIA
Oct 10, 1943: 30 bombers MIA / gunners claim 183-21-36 / fighters claim 19-0-0 / Total US claims 202-21-36
German losses: 34 / 20 KIA / 13 WIA
Oct 14, 1943: 60 bombers MIA / gunners claim 186-27-89 / fighters claim 13-1-5 / Total US claims 199-28-94
German losses: 51 / 29 KIA / 20 WIA
Jan 11, 1944: 60 bombers MIA / gunners claim 228-60-98 / fighters claim 31-12-16 / Total US claims 259-72-114
German losses: 58 / 38 KIA / 28 WIA
This was the last time that 8th AF bomber gunners claimed at least 100 destroyed in a single day.
Sept 11, 1944: 39 bombers MIA / gunners claim 17-25-4 / fighters claim 115-7-23 / Total US claims 132-32-27
German losses: 111 / 56 KIA / 23 WIA
Nov 2, 1944: 40 bombers MIA / gunners claim 36-35-27 / fighters claim 102-6-25 / Total US claims 138-41-52
German losses: 133 / 71 KIA / 31 WIA
Nov 27, 1944: On this date, the 8th AF sent a huge number of P-51s, many of them flying in the formation typically used by heavy bombers. The Germans were fooled, and sent up their interceptors, which suffered badly, losing 80 aircraft, 37 KIA and 19 WIA. The US fighters claimed 98-4-11. In addition, 17 German fighters were recorded as damaged, which makes a total of 97 German aircraft struck by American gunfire, less a few, of course, that may have been lost to other causes.
There are at least two significant conclusions one should be able to come to after reading this. What are they?
You mentioned that the number of German aircraft damaged is surprisingly low. This is probably due to the fact that slightly damaged aircraft (a few bullet holes that struck nothing vital) would not be reported to higher headquarters.
I've asked three times for an answer to this question: What could the Germans possibly gain by falsifying their records? Without a plausible answer, I don't see how you can claim that your position in this debate has any validity, although I do appreciate the effort you've put into it (the debate).
*Join the Enlightenment, support Secular Humanism.*
thanks
Rubbish