Re: Bush: 'We should have bombed' Auschwitz
 

To say the bombing of Germany could have been conducted better and more effectively is true. But to say it had no eefect is not correct either.

The problem with bombing factories is that nothing short of a direct hit of a 1000lb bomb or bigger is going to damage very large factory machinery. Most B-17's and B-24's carried 500lb bombs and sometimes a mix of 500lbr's and 1000lbr's.

In Belton Cooper's book "Deathtraps: The Story Of A US Armored Division" he was shocked doing post war inspections that the Allies never targeted power plants. The large power plants providing electricity to countless factories and refineries and foundries were never bombed. This would have also affected civilians but the bombing of the electrical plants and the destruction of hard to replace transformers and generators would ahve crippled Germany.

Apparently war planners decided not to bomb them because it was felt it would be very difficult to repair post war and they would have been needed for post war rebuilding.

Bombing of the Ploestin and the oil infrastructure also had a major effect on the war.

Also important were the bombings of the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Both were important to Germany's war effort. Little in a mechanized society moves without bearings.

In another case Germany switched production of Stug III's to the PzIV hull due to Allied bombings crippling the factory where StuG III's were made.

Germany was able to make IIRC 38,000 Bf109 fighters in WW2. By mid 1944 many were destroyed on the ground due to a lack of fuel and trained pilots.

One of Germany's new very large underground pilot training bases was destroyed when the Dambusters hit and flooded one of the valleys and thus the underground base.

Bombing the camps would have required absolute pinpoint precision by Mossie's or RAF's 617 squadron. Targets should have been rail lines in and out, gas chambers, ovens, guard barracks, etc.

I would have attempted at all cost to avoid killing the prisoners.