Casablanca directive The Casablanca directive was approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff ( CCOS ) of the Western Allies at their 65th meeting on 21 January 1943 and issued to the appropriate the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces commanders on 4 February 1943 . The CCOS met during the Casablanca Conference when the Allies were deciding the future strategy of the war . The directive set out a series of priorities for the strategic bombing of Germany by the air forces based in the UK ( RAF Bomber Command and US Eighth Air Force . With modification in June , making German fighters ( part of their main defence against Allied bombers ) an " intermediate target " and the primary goal , it gave direction to the combined ( USAAF and RAF ) bombing offensive known as Operation Pointblank . Contents . Memorandum C . C . S . 166 / 1 / D by the Combined Chiefs of Staff , 21 January 1943 : C . C . S . 166 / 1 / D was a revised and expanded version of the " C . C . S 166 " document which had been presented for discussion to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on 20 January by the British Chiefs of Staff . The discussions brought up several issues , such as how to phrase the memorandum to balance the concerns of the different stake - holders about the priority to give to anti - U - Boat activities as opposed to support for the planned operations to take place in the Mediterranean theatre . Two changes were proposed and agreed that the addition " for political reasons " should be inserted into " . . . issued from time to time [ for political reasons ] by His Majesty ' s Government . . . " and that the word " synthetic " was removed " Synthetic oil plants " . Further changes were made to the British draft of the memorandum in the ordering of some of the sentences . A modified version of the Casablanca directive as sent to RAF Bomber Command on 4 February 1945 : Arthur " Bomber " Harris , the commander of RAF Bomber Command from 1942 , included the directive in his papers ( published in 1995 as " " ) with an attached note to the bottom . The RAF Bomber command version contains most of the information that is in the C . C . S . memorandum but in a different order and in the note at the bottom it makes it clear that this directive replaced general directive No . 5 , that is often referred to as the Area Bombing Directive . Missing from the Bomber command directive are mention of " point 4 " in the C . C . S . version — objectives of great but fleeting importance such as the German Fleet — and point 7 which was redundant as RAF Bomber Command already obeyed orders originating from the Chiefs of Staff Committee ( British Chiefs of Staff ) whatever their military or political origins . Despite the lack of an explicit mention of " point 4 " in the Bomber Command version of the directive , Bomber Command was involved in attacking the German capital ships only a few days after this directive reached them , when along with the Royal Navy and its Fleet Air Arm they failed to prevent the successful " Channel Dash " made by the , , , supported by a number of smaller ships , from France to their home ports . In his post war book " Bomber offensive " Harris mentions the Casablanca directive at the start of chapter seven " The offensive underway " . In it he emphasises the " Object " paragraph of the directive issued to the RAF and mentions the " Primary " paragraph in passing . He explains that the subject of morale had been dropped ( it had been emphasised in the previous general directive No . 5 ( the Area Bombing Directive ) ) and that he was to proceed with the " general ' disorganisation ' of German industry " but that some parts of that industry , such as U - Boat building , had a higher priority than others , from which he drew the conclusion that it " allowed [ him ] to attack any German industrial city of 100 , 000 inhabitants and above " and that the Ruhr remained the principal target for the RAF .