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Area BombardmentArea bombardment is the policy of indiscriminate bombing of an enemy's cities, for the purpose of destroying civilian morale. The coming of Area Bombing during the Second World War was an invitable consequnce of the position in Europe at the end of 1942. The English were being defeated on all fronts, and the only effective way they had to strike back at the Axis forces was by Air Bombardment. However, the technology available meant the long held idea that individual factories of buildings could be struck by air without causing any collateral damage was in fact a dream, and remained so into the 21st century. The only effective method the Allies had to strike Germany by air was to carpet bomb an entire area with a massive force that overwhelmed the ground defences. There was a small amount of oppostion to this policy, even though it was never explicitly declared. The nearest the Allies got to a declaration was in an Air Ministry directive issued to Harris on 14th February 1942, which said "You are accordingly authorised to use your forces without restriction", and listing a series of 'Primary targets' which included Essen, Duisberg, Dusseldorf and Colgne. 'Secondary targets' included Lubeck, Rostock, Bremen, Keil, Hanover, Frankfurt, Mannhiem, Stuugart, and Schwienfurt. It stated that "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers" Lest there be any confusion, Sir Charles Portal wrote to Air Chief Marshall Norman Bottomley on the 15th February "..I suppose it is clear that the aiming points will be the built up areas, and not, for instance, the dockyards or aircraft factories" The first true practical demonstrations were on the 24th March 1942, when 234 aircraft bombed and incendaried the ancient hansiatic port of Lubeck. This target was picked not because it was an important military target, but in fact because it was unimportant, lightly defended and, in Harris's words 'built more like a fire lighter than a city' The ancient timber structures burned well, and the raid destroyed most of the town centre. A few days later, Rostock suffered the same fate. However, the most startling, awesome examples of carpet bombing were the 'Thousand Bomber Raids' On 30th May 1942, between 00:47 and 0225 hours, 1046 aircraft dropped over 2000 tons of high explosive and incendaries on Cologne, the mediaeval town, and burned it from end to end. The devastation was total. The fires could be seen 600 miles away at 20,000 feet altitude. 3300 houses destroyed, 10,000 damaged. 12,000 separate fires raged, also destroying 36 factories, damaging 270 more and leaving 45,000 people with nowhere to live or work. Bomber Command lost 40 Aircraft, and 384 civilians and 85 soldiers were killed Two Further 1000 raids were executed over Essen and Bremen, but neither so utterly shook both sides as the scale of the destruction at Cologne. See also the firestorms created in some cites by area bombing, and especially the firestorming of Hamburg and Tokyo. During the Vietnam War, the Americans, increasing frustrated by there inability to gain the upper hand against a guerilla war conducted by the Viet-con, resorted to area bombing the forests and villages with Napalm and Agent Orange, in order to depirve the Viet-con of there jungle cover, but to no avail. Precision bombing had to wait until the second Gulf War in 2004 before it became a practical reality.
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