Arthur "Bomber " Harris.....

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Cott Tiger
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Post by Cott Tiger »

So…

It was an unfortunate accident

It was a legitimate attack on troops stationed in the town

It was a legitimate attack on a solitary bridge near the town.

It was due to fog and primitive bomb aiming

Sorry chaps, the proof is in the pudding. The Luftwaffe heaped a lethal cocktail of 22 tons of bombs and incendiaries upon a massed innocent civilian population. If that isn’t the intentional targeting and killing of civilians, I am the Queen of Sheba.

Good night good sirs (I.m out on the town tonight :beer: ) and best wishes,

Andre
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phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Andre, now youre being obtuse LOL

Just because something unexpected happens, doesnt mean it is or isnt an accident - it just means its unexpected. This was the Luftwaffe's first opportunity (bad word I know) to attack an urban target of any size, and just followed Douet's academic formula for attacking an urban target. The problem is, this was an academic study from the mid '20s if I remember right - which became a bestselling book! - which generated the now-legendary saying "the bomber always gets through" which events proved only to be partly correct.

Yes, I fully admit that the Condor Legion attacked a civilian target, and Von Ricthofen campaigned for it. Or at least for the Legion to be given its head. But given the munitions factory, the bridge, and the very active presence of the Italians who were fulfilling exactly the same role as the Condor Legion, and who certainly wouldn't have participated in a "terror" attack in the political environment, its a moot point WHO gave the Condor Legion their orders and what was said. certainly Von Ricthofen wouldn't have acted on his own authority, not for this. No officer does, Holywood notwithstanding.

Also, in answer to the tonnage of bombs dropped....that only equates to about FOUR lancaster full loads (I think). Minuscle by WWII terms, and only "big" in 1937 terms because up until then bombing meant light bombers with a few hundred pounds' of bombs. Noone had seen "heavies" in action since the Zeppelin and Gotha raids, and Sykes' Independent Air Force of 1918.

The Condor Legion has always had a VERY bad press about Guernica - and rightly so. But "responsibility" for targeting Guernica is at the very most only partly theirs, and very possibly Franco's/ Mola's. But in the case of Harris' bomber offensive, responsibility for targeting civilians started at the very top and was actively participated in at all points in Bomber Command right down and back up to the pointy end.

phylo
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Post by Njorl »

Jan-Hendrik wrote: I don't want to be the "Nitpicker" here , but such serious claims on topic "war crimes" must be proven with primary sources , without them they will be still claims only .

Jan-Hendrik
I don't want to be nitpicker either :wink: but it was you, that uttered the name of Wielun first.

I read both threads, to which links you had provided, but the only reference to primary sources (as I understand this term) was posted by Marius Emmerling. This document was rather about air-raids on Warsaw (Wasserkante) - not in Poland in general. He put parts of it in his books as well. I don't know any dr Boog's works but I presume they show better quality than Emmerling's books :wink: which happened to stir much confusion (to put it lightly) here in Poland. I, so far, have both books published by this author in Poland (ie. Luftwaffe nad Polską 1939 cz. 1. Jagdflieger oraz Luftwaffe nad Polską 1939 cz. 2. Kampfflieger) and plan to buy the rest as soon as they appear in bookshops. The 3rd in row is to be Stuka i Schlachtflieger and I'm impatiently looking forward to read it.

The first thing that stroke me were numerous mistakes in names of cities/towns/places that on many occasions makes it hard to locate. The second one was his approach to Polish sources and publications based on them. I agree they (sources) were and are partial, often written-down some time after the events they describe (eg. in 1940 in France or Great Britain) and thus bear errors and omittions. But as he discards them, he sees nothing wrong in using similar German sources eg. letters of Luftwaffe veterans sent to him in July 1999 :shock:

There are some more examples of strange facts in Emmerling's books that make me wonder about so called 'primary sources' he used - like eg. notorious reports of AA fire with 20 mm guns, which were not on the list of Polish Army equipment (maybe with exception of captured German guns that were used, but not to such extent!). I'm not discarding them but would like to point out that even in official reports and documents one can find errors. If we sticked to what was written eg. in victory claims, we would have too agree that Luftwaffe didn't shoot down any Polish fighter, because Polish Airforce had no "PZL P.24" (except for 1, IIRC, and most probably it wasn't even Polish) @{ The same would also apply to Polish claims of shooting down German "Ju 86s" :wink: Another thing is their volume - I'm sure not all documents survived to our times and thus our knowledge is limited. Thirdly - Emmerling even openly states, that:
Even if in Poland in September 1939 such events (strafing refugees, bombing of open cities killing civilians and so on /quote from previous pararaph - N) happened on purpose, these were only criminal pranks of single pilots or crews. Individual misdemeanors of this kind and other warcrimes, committed by Germans or Poles, should be examined by liable people and - if necessary and practicable - formally investigated before the court under military, wartime and international law. That's why similar incidents weren't the topic of book "Jagdflieger", are not topic of volume "Kampfflieger" and will not be the topic of next part of series. The only exception are examples of Polish misdemeanor towards German airmen, which can be found in original, archival documents. (...)
(Luftwaffe nad Polską 1939 cz. 2. Kampfflieger p. VII-VIII, Armagedon, Gdynia 2005) Now I have to admit, that my sources are limited - at least in this case:(. Can anyone direct me to any other publications on German September 1939 in air?

In case of Frampol original orders issued to KG 4, KG 55 and KG 77 for 12th-14th September would be the most helpful. I'm using Emmerling's Kampfflieger and according to it there are 2 units who might have conducted bombing of Frampol on 13th. September: I/KG 55 (17 He 111P) or I/KG 77 (17 Do 17Z). In the thread on 12 O'clock High Emmerling states it was the latter, but basing on his book I cannot specify if their operational areas encompassed Frampol :? . Why? I simply can't find all towns which names he presents... Moreover I/KG 77's operational area is written in detail and all 17 Dorniers apparently didn't attack the same target simultaneously.

Too many unclear facts there IMHO.

I have a question: was it a common practice in 1939 that all targets were photographed before and after bombing?
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phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Njorl, I can answer for the RAF they certainly tried to! Needed for targeting, and afterwards for damage assessment; and did this throughout the war. It was THESE post-attack pics, by PR Spitfire or Mosquito, that 1/ allowed damge estimates, and 2/ were available for the Butt enquiry in '41 that found out that Bomber Command was doing such a basically sh1t job! They were able to examine rece photos from very nearly every RAF sortie.
BOTH sides did it, and in turn both sides were skilled at hiding damage or exaggerating it if necessary. A factory shell....with a canvas tight over a frame of wood - is a working factory with its roof intact, for example, from high altitude. Thats why the RAF tried to recce-sortie over the target at first light, and WOULD send a second sortie if the first pics weren't clear.
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Post by Njorl »

Thanks for input phylo. So specialised planes were used. I wonder how it was practiced in Luftwaffe - did every mission's outcome was documented with photos?

The fact that there are aerial photos of Frampol before and after attack puzzles me. Apparently there was a need to check the results of bombing, but why?

Does anyone know the difference between photos taken by 'regular' Aufklaerer and Kampfaufklaerer? I suspect that handheld cameras were used on Kampaufklaerers (generally ordinary planes used for recon and bombing), which, owing to quality of those photos, would exclude them from group of aircraft type used to obtain photographic data on Frampol.

And another confusing thing: targets of attacks - like eg. railway lines or stations, military installations etc. - are generally well identified in Emmerling's books. At some points though one can find that units operated in some area (more or less roughly limited) as if their targets weren't clearly defined. The example of Frampol falls in this "operational area" category of KGs activity and there's no indication in the book that Frampol itself was bombed during these missions... :?

Can anyone shed some light on the matter? :[]
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Post by phylo_roadking »

To greatly generalise here - being a maritime nation Britain seems to have made a point of having excellent reconaissance aircraft, the PR Spitfires and Mossies for two, being very high altitude variants. Excellent for high-level fast passes over targets. The idea bing, a it like the American U2 - get over the target at such a high altitde and so fast, that by the time an intercept gets off the ground and up to your altitude...youre miles away! SAMs would have made the skies of WWII a very different place....

In turn, the Germans also had specialised highlevel aircraft, including a number of Junkers Ju88 and later variants with pressurized cabins etc for very high-level and long distance work. One of these did the photographic work for a possible invasion of NORTHERN IRELAND, now THATS a long way to go for a tactical bomber - in daylight! The Germans also had more specially developed tactical theatre recce aircraft like that dinky twin-boom FW type.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

All, this thread tackled many aspects of the Bombing War in WWII, and tooking discussion of intentions back to Guernica and similar pre-war.

However, in light of recent discussions in other threads, about continuing research even into "proven" historical facts and the right or not to retain an open mind - look at this press item put online by Associated Press tonight;
By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 59 minutes ago

GUERNICA, Spain - Itziar Arzanegi can still hear the roar of the German warplane overhead, and see the old woman shaking her fists at the foreigners destroying her town. She remembers the look of horror on the woman's face as the plane swooped low, opened fire and cut her down.

ADVERTISEMENT

It has been nearly 70 years since German and Italian fighter planes backing the fascist forces of Gen. Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War leveled this historic Basque town on April 26, 1937.

Myths and misinformation have shrouded the bombing from the outset, starting with the death toll, which historians have been gradually revising downward for decades. But Guernica has come to be seen as a foretaste of the aerial blitzes of World War II, immortalized in Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," one of the most iconic paintings of the 20th century.

But while the images of destruction are etched indelibly in the world's consciousness — and in the minds of a dwindling number of survivors — the 70th anniversary is causing barely a ripple in Spain itself. Little is planned to mark the event on a national level, and no major Spanish politicians are expected to attend a Mass, concert and wreath-laying ceremony for the dead in Guernica's town cemetery.

It is symptomatic of a country that has never come to grips with its Civil War past. Spain has become a cultural and economic powerhouse in recent years, but critics say its success has been built — quite literally — over the ruins of its greatest disaster.

"In Spain, we have changed on the outside — we've built new highways, shopping centers and successful multinational companies — but to change people's mentality on the inside has proven much more difficult," said Emilio Silva, president of an organization that leads efforts to exhume the bodies of civilians killed by Franco's forces in the 1936-9 war. Half a million people are believed to have died on all sides.

Silva said that many in the generation that lived through the war and Franco's victory learned that the best way to survive under the dictatorship was not to talk about it. Those who oversaw the country's transition to democracy following Franco's death in 1975 believed reconciliation meant burying the past.

But the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the war generation are starting to demand more openness, he said, adding: "A country without memory has no meaning at all."

Survivors of the Guernica bombing, their faces lined by age, say forgetting has never been an option for them.

Arzanegi was just 11 years old when the bombs started to fall. She fled to a pine grove on a hill above town and watched the inferno below. She and other villagers hid in the brush as the planes screamed overhead, until one woman could contain her anger no longer. She jumped out and started to scream at the sky, just as a plane was coming into view.

"There are many things we live through in our lives, and some of the details we forget, but that bombardment I cannot forget, not even for a single day," said Arzanegi. "As long as I live, the sight of that plane dropping down and machine-gunning that woman will be with me. It was so cruel, so unimaginable."

Only about 200 survivors are known to be alive today, according to Remembering Guernica, a non-governmental peace group based in the town. But the stories they tell of that day in their childhood are captivating and terrifying in their detail.

Luis Iriondo, 84, says he was separated from his family and hid in a bomb shelter in the center of town.

"There was no light, no ventilation, and there were so many people pressed together that it was impossible to breathe. I was frightened that a bomb would hit us and I would be buried alive," he said. In the end, he decided to take his chances on the streets: "Better to be machine-gunned than buried alive."

Pedro Balino was at the train station with a friend when he heard the sirens cry and saw the first plane fly overhead. The pair fled to the hills above town and watched the bombing from there. When it was over, he came down to find his family.

"After the bombing we came down from the hills, and at the entrance to Guernica we found eight or 10 guys who were dead or dying. One was missing his face, the other had no arm," said Balino. "Some of them I knew. They were young people, maybe 15 or 16 years old."

Why was a small, nonmilitary town picked for destruction?

The most popular theory is that it was sacred to the Basques, who had rejected Franco's overtures to join him and whose independent streak was detested by the Spanish general. Here Spanish kings would travel to stand under an oak tree and vow to respect an ancient code giving the Basques special rights.

The tree was not targeted and stood in one of the few places in town that survived the bombing. It finally succumbed to disease in 2005, replaced by a sapling from the original tree's acorn that stands today.

Today Guernica is a town of 15,000 nestled in a lush valley at the southern tip of an estuary that opens into the Bay of Biscay.

Franco denied any German or Italian planes were in Spain at the time of the attack, and claimed the Basques had destroyed the town themselves. When his troops took the town a few days after the bombing, they immediately set out to conceal all traces of the air attack, removing bullets and the casings of the incendiary and fragmentation bombs.

The town was rebuilt as quickly as possible — with drab new buildings rising on top of the ruins of the old. Residents say public works projects frequently uncover bones.

Though thousands of witnesses saw the attack, the dictator took his denial of responsibility with him to the grave.

But there were myths on all sides, said Jose Angel Etxaniz, a historian linked to the town's museum who has spent nearly 20 years studying the bombardment. Chief among those myths was the belief that Guernica was the first and deadliest air assault on a civilian population in the Spanish Civil War.

On both counts, it was not.

After Hitler's Condor Division planes and Italian allies unleashed their payloads, reducing the town of mostly wooden houses to smoldering embers, the fleeing Basque government announced that 1,245 people had died, and that more than 800 had been injured.

But those numbers were mere guesswork. In the world's collective consciousness, Guernica became synonymous with the tens of thousands killed in subsequent bombings elsewhere.

The attack began when a single plane appeared on the horizon at about 3:30 p.m., dropping six bombs. In the 10 to 12 minutes before the first wave of bombers arrived, many of the 8,000 to 10,000 people in town at the time managed to flee into fields or bomb shelters.

Etxaniz said his team have meticulously pored over church and cemetery records and have been able to document 120 deaths from the bombing.

Nor was it the first time modern weaponry was used against a civilian population — German planes had unleashed a similar assault against the Basque town of Durango just three weeks earlier, killing 300 people.

But Guernica captured attention because of dramatic dispatches by foreign correspondents, chief among them George Steer of the London Times, who wrote of walls of flames visible for miles around.

"In the form of its execution and the scale of the destruction it wrought, no less than in the selection of its objective, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military history," he reported.

It was these accounts in the foreign press that caught the attention of Picasso, who was living in Paris at the time, Etxaniz said. Otherwise, the artist might well have picked a different subject for his signature painting.

Many believe Guernica was a dry run for Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland and the start of World War II two years later. Soon a world that had never known urban savagery from the air would witness the horror falling on London, Warsaw, Berlin, Hiroshima.

Yet Guernica, whatever its final death toll, retains the power to shock, and its survivors say they hope their ordeal can still serve to warn the world away from war. Many have been active in opposing Spanish involvement in
Iraq, and speaking out about other conflicts.

"What are the lessons of Guernica?" asked Balino, now 86, hunching his shoulders and resting his elbow on his knee as he considered the question. "Only that it should never happen again. That it should never be allowed to happen again."
The Spanish have fought shy of dealing with the Civil War for many years, and have certainly fought shy of any revisionism...simply because with very little publishing on the conflict done inside Spain - there at the geographical heart of the issue, there just isnt a lot of "recorded historical fact" to revise. So, historians like the local Spanish one mentioned here are in efffect carrying out a lot of primary research for the very first time.
Etxaniz said his team have meticulously pored over church and cemetery records and have been able to document 120 deaths from the bombing.
This statement I found very interesting - and not from the "revisionism" inherent in his new researched casualty total. While city was full of refugees at the time, and not all the dead would of course be from the city - they would certainly have been buried there. Remember, when foreign journalists got there, burials were already underway and fast. So his research has covered both angles - the names from birth/marriage/death records....and the burial records.

The Spanish aren't RE-investigating issues like this - they're doing it for the first time, and look at the way the "facts" change as new ones come to light. They're not worried about fighting to retain a right to investigate and question....only NOW are they free to question and investiagte so much of their recent history for the very first time. And look what they've found...

Guernica had journalists - and thus publicity...whereas Durango hadn't but was the more deadly attack. As the article almost says public perception of Guernica would be VERY different if that painting had been called..."Durango"?
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Post by Cott Tiger »

Hi Phylo,

Interesting article, thanks for posting it up.

However, the article doesn’t undermine any of the arguments I have forwarded on this thread or any other.

The essence of the argument on this thread and the other one ( http://www.feldgrau.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=25040 )hasn’t been about the number of those killed.
The argument was/is that Guernica and other Luftwaffe attacks on European cities demonstrated that the Nazi’s were willing to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets, and did so well before Churchill authorised and conducted attacks on German cities.


In relation to the death toll - it has always been debated. There has never been a categorical figure for actual deaths. From what I have read, the general consensus is that a there was a minimum of 1650 casualties (how many of which were actually thought to be deaths I do not know).

Of course, we should welcome further study of these events, and if we can actually establish a firm “watertight” actual number of deaths, all the better.

Of course it worth noting that to gain a definitive and accurate death total in these type of incidents, the church burial records alone rarely tell the whole story, but they are of valuable importance nonetheless.

Best regards,

Andre
Up The Tigers!
phylo_roadking
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Post by phylo_roadking »

...which would be why they have been covering all avenues available, matching them against births/marriages/deaths. Also in rural Spain of that era, they'd be more reliable than, say, their 55% non-religious French neighbours.

Casualty totals climbed courtesy of the media for many years, until Cesar Vidal was able to restore it to at least the original totals given to George Steer by the Republicans. About ten years ago this was brought down to 200-300, and now its has fallen further to this figure of around 120.

George Steer of the Times wasn't the first reporter on the scene, just the first to get his story syndicated. The first on the scene was Brian Crozier who although a Republican sympathiser - was of the (published) opinion that the Republicans had...in the delay between the bombing and any reporters arriving - "added to" the damage. This claim was later - and independantly - made by Franco, who was unaware of Crozier's claims.

The media story of Guernica was prejudiced by THREE circumstances - Republican propaganda, Nationalist propaganda...and what people often forget - Basque proaganda; Steer was very pro-Basque.
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Phylo,

I find the lower demonstrable death toll plausible.

In the late 1930s the professional advocates of air power didn't focus on Guernica - that was for the propagandists.

The air professionals focused on the first Italian raid on Barcelona, where they knew exactly how many bombers (12, I think) were involved and had accurate casualty figures. It was from this raid, not Guernica, that many governments, including the British, extrapolated their estimates of likely casualties in the event of unrestrained aerial war. In fact, they overestimated wildly due to two factors: (1) Barcelona's citizens had not expected to be bombed, had no shelters and did not take cover and (2) by chance one bomb hit an ammunition lorry in a crowded street, causing an eceptional death toll.

One thing that I think the article you posted didn't mention is the tactical significance of Guernica. It was actually close behind the front and was a key bridging point vital to the retreating Rebublican/Basque forces. The Nationalists/Italians captured Guernica only a couple of days after it was bombed. Their is a good case that Guernica was not just a random "terror" attack on civilians, but rather was integrally related to developments on the nearby battlefront.

Cheers,

Sid.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Sid, that was in one of my posts back up the thread. The Italians had made independent raids earlier in the day aimed specifically at the bridge, and their records show this. And the first German raid of the day, escorted by the italians, was also specifically aimed at the bridge.
Their is a good case that Guernica was not just a random "terror" attack on civilians, but rather was integrally related to developments on the nearby battlefront.
...which I've always believed. Also, you have to remember that one of the most popular non-fiction books in the Inter-War period - was actually Douhet's musings on tactical and strategic bombing! It was a suprising popular success, a bit like Antony Beevor's "Stalingrad" a few years ago, a must-read. A lot of what was bandied about in the media after Guernica grew on the already-fertile ground of people's imaginations...AND it had only been a year since they could troop into cinemas and see that remarkable first ten minutes of "Things To Come" - as guaranteed to reinforce paranoia as anything I've seen! :D

A lot was also made at the time of how crowded the city was, with thousands of refugees packed into its streets when the Condor Legion appeared - yet strangely if you read accounts from a lot of the survivors, one thing is very apparent - exactly how easy it was for them to take to their heels and get right out of the city and hide in the woods and olive groves. Now I know the ONLY accounts you're going to get are survivor's LOL but what I mean is - they're all suprsingly similar. The town's population was able to take to its heels and get the hell outta Dodge, or into shelters - and given the Dutch, Belgian and French experiences a couple of years later, this is suprising...what happened to all the confused, panicky refugees blocking roads and milling around?
In the late 1930s the professional advocates of air power didn't focus on Guernica - that was for the propagandists
...and events like Dunkirk and Calais, so similar to Barcelona, didn't do much to prove them wrong later!

BUT - "that was for the propagandists"...OR those same professional advocates whenever the time came for new appropriations??? You see Guernica mentioned SO many times in Hansard associated with debates on defence spending from then on - but Barcelona? :wink:
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Phylo,

Parliament was not composed of air professionals. However, the then Air Ministry number crunchers, who were air professionals, had the full gen on Barcelona, not on Guernica, and it was on these statistics that they made recommendations to the politicians about shelters, likely casualties, hospital beds, evacuation, etc. Other countries also extrapolated from the hard facts they had on Barcelona.

Guernica really was essentially a propaganda issue because, as you have pointed out, nobody had any hard gen on what had happened there. By contrast, there was plenty of substance known about the first Barcelona raid.

I don't follow how Dunkirk and Calais were "so similar to Barcelona"? The Barcelona raid of which I am talking was a complete surprise and occurred when Barcelona was far behind the front.

Cheers,

Sid.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Dunkirk and Calais - civilian populations crammed on dock fronts and narrow streets behind awaiting non-existent evacuation. Breakdown in civil authority. Constant air attack. Military units trying to get through the press to head away from the docks or too the docks adding to the melee. No or inadequate AA defences. Damaged water mains, so no drinking water OR firefighting.

The first raid on Barcelona was when it was behind the front. When it came to the practical end of the Republic and it had shrunk to the streets, wharfs and quaysides of the city - the similarities are endless.
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Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Phylo,

I see no obvious equation between the first Italian raid on Barcelona (which is specifically what is being talked about here) and either the 1940 or 1944 situations at Calais and Dunkirk beyond the general fact that bombers were variously used at all five (as they were at hundreds of thousands of other places in between). The circumstances were very different. The French ports were defended positions on a battlefront. Barcelona was many miles behind the lines and effectively undefended.

Cheers,

Sid.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Sid, when you look into all the Air Ministry material, and also cabinet minutes from discussions in Deep Sheltering for London and Civil Defence - its not the first Barcelona raid thats in their minds generally, its very much the later raids at the end of the Republic.

The first Barcelona tought them much about bombing and what they could expect from it in casualty and damage terms - without adequate prevention. But the later raids taught them more and was concentrated on through early 1939 discussions - about the control of refugees, the breakdown of civil order, the breakdown of utilities etc. Through 1937-38 they were concetrating on bombing - AND extrapolated what they expected the RAF day bombere force to be able to do in Germany (see above!!!) - but then discussions turned round onto civil defence more. From mid-1939 you can even see the first glimmering of the British Cabinet worrying about the as-yet totally undefined threat of atomic attack on London - leading to the strange decision to STOP the Deep Shelter construction plan after only 1 and a 1/2 had been constructed out of the first batch of 12 planned...because on the little advice they had available to them, they were going to be totally inadequate.

THAT was the more important lesson for everyone in government OUTSIDE the Air Ministry - ALL parties were still clinging to the "The bomber will always get through" idea, and nothing in Spain changed their opinions on THAT. Barcelona 1 and what was known from Guernica gave them an indication of what they could HOPE they could to to an enemy as well as "them" to us in physical damage terms, but it was the general free-for-all bombardment of Barcelona that was more on everyone's mind in the country because THAT and the level of social and organisational breakdown and chaos that came with it backed up Douhet - that once the bomber HAD got through, bombing alone could do enough to drive an opponent to surrender.

Its THOSE raids that paralleled Britain's experiences in April/May 1940 in France - when Barcelona WAS in the frontline...or rather was all the frontline the Republicans etc. had left.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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