heir more controversial advice (such as removing ineffectual turrets from bombers to increase defensive speed) was ignored. The very high casualty levels suffered give testimony to the dedication and courage of Bomber Command's aircrew in carrying out their orders. Statistically there was little prospect of surviving a tour of 30 operations. For much of the war, the loss rate hovered around 5%, about 1 in 20 aircraft would, on average, be shot down although obviously there was great variation here, on some occasions the loss rate exceeded 10% sometimes much higher than that.
Bomber Command was overwhelmingly committed to the strategic bombing offensive against Germany and its contribution to the Allied war effort must primarily be judged in that context. The ostensible aim of the offensive, breaking the morale of the German working class, must be considered a failure. The scale and intensity of the offensive was an appalling trial to the German people and the Hamburg attacks, particularly, profoundly shook the Nazi leadership. However, on balance, the indiscriminate nature of the bombing and the heavy civilian casualties and damage stiffened German resistance to fight to the end. In any case as Sir Arthur Harris put it, the Germans living under a savage tyranny were "not allowed the luxury of morale".
Sir Arthur Harris himself believed that there was a relationship between tonnage dropped, city areas destroyed, and lost production. The effect of Bomber Command's attacks on industrial production is not so clear cut. The British Bombing Survey at the end of the war was deliberately under-resourced, for Churchill wanted to put Dresden behind him. The much better provided US survey was little concerned with the RAF area bombing campaign. It pointed to the great success of the USAAF's attacks on Germany's synthetic oil plants starting in the spring of 1944 - this had a crippling effect on German transportation and prevented the Luftwaffe from flying to anything like the order of battle that the aviation engine plants, parts and sub-assembly fabrication and final assembly manufacturing facilities; Luftwaffe training and logistics could have otherwise sustained. Further, in going for targets they knew the Germans must defend, the American escort fighters were able to inflict crippling losses on the Luftwaffe's fighter force. However it should be pointed out that the RAF also made a great contribution to the oil offensive as its abilities to attack precision targets had greatly improved- by mid 1944 it was mounting huge bombing raids in daylight too.
Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister of Armaments noted that the larger British bombs did much more damage and so made repair more difficult, and sometimes impossible. Shortly after the war's end, Speer was unequivocal about the effect of this:
In terms of overall production decrease resulting from the RAF area attacks, the US survey, based upon limited research, found that in 1943 it amounted to 9% and in 1944 to 17%. Relying on US gathered statistics the British survey found that actual arms production decreases were a mere 3% for 1943, and 1% for 1944. However they did find decreases of 46.5% and 39% in the second half of 1943 and 1944 respectively in the metal processing industries. These losses resulted from the devastating series of raids the Command launched on the Ruhr Valley at these times.
This apparent lack of success is accounted for in several ways. The German industrial economy was so strong, its industrial bases so widely spread, that it was a hopeless task to try and crush it by area bombing. Further, up until 1943 it is undoubtedly the case that Germany was not fully mobilised for war, Speer remarked that single shift factory working was commonplace, and so there was plenty of slack in the system. It has been argued that the RAF campaign placed a limit on German arms production. This may be true but it is also the case that the German forces did not run out of arms and ammunition and that it was manpower that was a key limiting factor, as well as the destruction of trans