Talk:Area bombing directive

message: In this case the word directive means orders The directive was not cancelled by Churchill in 1945 it was replaced by another directive long before that. I am not sure which one, because they were issued quite often. For example
* On 27 March, 1944, the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued orders that control of all the Allied air forces in Europe, including the strategic bombers, would pass to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. They were ordered to help bomb tactical targets in France in the lead up to and during the Normandy landings.
* The Directive the RAF received at the end of this campaign dated 25 September 1944, was to attack German oil, communications and certain other targets like U-boat pens.
* Another directive was issued on 27 January 1945,
* Yet more were issued after the Yalta Conference
The above list is far from complete, and as can be seen they were issued quite often. So I am removing the section about Churchill cancelling the directive in 1945. --PBS 23:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: End of the directive

message: * February 1941 Oil 
* March 1941 "Air Ministry directed Bomber Command to attack U-boat production factories, docks (containing the virtually indestructible U-boat pens) and airfields when long-range German patrol aircraft operated from. The shipbuilding ports of Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen and Vegesack topped the target list along with U-boat engine factories in Mannheim and Augsburg and airfields in Norway and France."
::"It was also during [March] that some very prophetic words about the Command's operations were written. Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfred Freeman, in a directive dated 9th March, he said: 'Priority of selection should be given to those [targets] in Germany which lie in congested areas where the greatest moral [sic] effect is likely to result.' Despite the unfortunate miss-spelling, it was obvious what Freeman was suggesting, and this, ironically, was taken up by the then Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Arthur Harris who, when said of Mannheim and the recently added city of Stuttgart to the U-boat production targets said: "Both are suitable as area objectives and their attack should have high morale value." These two statements would greatly influence future Bomber Command thinking." 
::.
::"By the end of 1941 the Luftwaffe night-fighters were winning the air war because the nightly losses were outstripping the ability of Bomber Command to replace the aircraft and, more importantly, the experienced air crews. the grim reality was underlined on 8 November 1941 when thirty-seven bombers, or 9.25 percent of the force, were shot down or failed to return from air raids across Germany. The losses were unacceptably hight for a single night and on 13 November the RAF suspended operations pending a review of tactics."
* 13 November 1941 "The War Cabinet have had under consideration the intensity of air operations recently undertaken in bomber and Fighter Command. The have stressed the necessity for conserving our resources in order to build a strong force to be available by the spring of next year" (Longmate 116)
* 10 December 1941 "the highest priority for Bomber Command operations on the destruction of enemy capital ships" (Longmate 116)
* 14 February 1942 Area Bombing Directive
* 14 January 1943  priority to attacking U-boat pens 
* 21 Jan 1943 Casablanca directive issued by the Combined Chiefs of Staff defining the primary objects of the combined bomber offensive.
* 10 June 1943 the Combined Chiefs of Staff issued a directive to RAF and USAAF on the POINTBLANK plan for destruction of the German aircraft industry.
"By the end of 1943, however, the British Air Staff, already inclined to the American view, was finally convinced that the area bombing offensive was not the best way to win the war. But it was not until February 1944 that, by insisting on an attack against the controversial target of Schweinfurt, they made this clear to Sir Arthur Harris. The official British policy, if not the practice, of area bombing was then discarded" (New Zealanders with the Royal Air Force (Vol. II) CHAPTER 3 Bomber Command and the Battle of the Ruhr
* 16 September 1944 combined Chiefs of Staff directive "OCTAGON 29", that stated the primary objective to be
:"the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic systems and the direct support of land and naval forces."
--PBS 21:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some other bombing directives

message: I do not see what the recently added quote by Harris adds to the article, as Harris made it in October 1943 which was more than half a year after this directive had been superseded. As such it is misleading. --PBS (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO saying that the directive was superseded is somewhat misleading. The "superseding" Casablanca directive of January 1943 also pointed out the German morale as a target, and what really matters is not the specific wording of the various "superseding" directives but the interpretation of priorities that those in charge made of the directives. Therefore IMO the Harris quote is very important since it shows that although the wording may have changed, effected bombing policy (at least the UK one) stayed the same as defined in the area bombing directive.--Stor stark7 Speak 08:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would disagree on that, taken that the directive had long term effects, as shown by Harris, and the effects should be part of this article. Technically the paper may have been superseded by another paper, but this one was still being followed in practice, making  Harris interpretation of what policy he was following important. However I'm not gonna push the issue. If you're willing to post the issue at Wikipedia:Third opinion I'll go away quietly if he/she supports your standpoint against mine.--Stor stark7 Speak 12:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Harris quote

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Cologne 1945 1.jpg

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I have remove from the lead:
This is original research (a breach of the policy WP:OR) it states an opinon as a fact (breach of the policy WP:NPOV)  and it is not a summary of the text in the body of the article (breach of the guideline WP:LEAD) — PBS (talk) 10:53, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The directive is contradictory to Article 25 

message: Should the article title be in sentence case (as it currently is) or in title case (as shown in the lead in bold font)? With the lead and article title clashing, it seems worthwhile to ask that question. Schwede66 07:21, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article title