European Aviation History

It has become a cliche to claim that the RAF conducted "area bombing" at night and the USAF conducted "precision bombing" by daylight. As with most cliches, there is a kernel of truth in it, but it is also a gross oversimplification. It is certainly true that after taking over as C-in-C of Bomber Command, Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris embraced the idea of whole-scale destruction and scorned most efforts to attack specific targets as pointless. However, it is wrong to claim that the RAF as a whole never attempted or achieved precision.  For a start, the RAF began the war with a doctrine of strategic bombing that was not materially different from that of the USAAF. Furthermore the crews -- and the public -- were religiously assured that all targets were "legitimate military targets" and that the objective in all bombing was to obtain the greatest possible accuracy and minimize collateral civilian damage. Indeed, the RAF's failure to achieve the a...

  It took a team to fly a bomber in WWII. While the pilot was the team captain and each of the other members of the crew contributed to getting an aircraft to and from the target safely, the reason they were all there was because of what the bomb aimer did.     Bomb aimer "Dickie" Newcomb, Courtesy of Jonny Cracknell and Adrian Stevens On a bomber, bombing was what it was all about. In the first world war, bombing had been done by the second man in the aircraft, the so-called "Observer" who was responsible for everything except flying -- i.e. navigation, defense and dropping the bomb(s). The term "Observer" continued in use into the early years of WWII, but with the advent of the four-engine bombers it was replaced by the more specialized terms "navigator," "air gunner" and "bomb aimer" (bombardier in U.S. jargon).  Many, if not most, bomb aimers started their careers in the RAF wanting to be pilots,  but had "washed ou...