The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

157. CCO, Portal papers, Folder 9/File 2, Stefan Zamoyski to Peirse, 4 Jan 1941, encl. letter from Polish Army HQ, 30 Dec 1940; Peirse to Sikorski, 15 Jan 1941; Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton, NJ: 2002), 191–2.

158. TNA, AIR 19/218, Eden to Sinclair, 7 July 1944; Sinclair to Eden, 15 July 1944; Sinclair to Vice CoS (RAF), 26 July 1944; Richard Levy, ‘The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited: A Critical Analysis’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 10 (1996), 268–9, 272–3. See too Michael Neufeld, Michael Berenbaum (eds), The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies have Attempted it? (New York: 2000), 263–4, 266–7, for the full correspondence.

159. TNA, AIR 19/218, Bottomley to ACAS (Intelligence), 2 Aug 1944; V. Cavendish-Bentinck (JIC) to Bottomley, 13 Aug 1944. See too Stuart Erdheim, ‘Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz-Birkenau?’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 11 (1997), 131–7.

160. David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 (New York: 1984), 290–91, 295; Levy, ‘The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited’, 277–8. The McCloy letters of 14 August and 18 November 1944 are reproduced in Neufeld, Berenbaum (eds), The Bombing of Auschwitz, 274, 279–80.

161. TNA, AIR 19/218, Richard Law (FO) to Sinclair, 1 Sept 1944; Air Ministry to Spaatz, 1 Sept 1944.

162. Neufeld, Berenbaum (eds), The Bombing of Auschwitz, has 15 papers arguing the case for or against.

163. AFHRA, Disc MAAF 233, Economic Warfare Division to Maj. Ballard, NAAF, ‘Strategic Target Priority List’, 16 Dec 1943. OŚwie˛im was number 14 out of 15 priority targets.

164. Joseph White, ‘Target Auschwitz: Historical and Hypothetical German Responses to Allied Attack’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 16 (2002), 58–9; Randall Rice, ‘Bombing Auschwitz: US 15th Air Force and the Military Aspects of a Possible Attack’, War in History, 6 (1999), 205–30.

165. Norman Davies, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw (London: 2003), 310–11.

166. TNA, AIR 8/1169, Portal to Slessor, 5 Aug 1944; Slessor to Portal, 6 Aug 1944; Slessor to Portal, 9 Aug 1944.

167. Ibid., AMSSO to British Mission, Moscow, 8 Aug 1944; Slessor to Portal, 16 Aug 1944. See too Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London: 2012), 419.

168. TNA, AIR 8/1169, Despatches from MAAF on Dropping Operations to Warsaw [n.d.]; Davies, Rising ’44, 311; Kochanski, Eagle Unbowed, 408–11. The successful drops included 4.5 million rounds of ammunition, 14,000 hand grenades, 250 anti-tank guns and 1,000 Sten guns.

169. TNA, FO 898/151, PWE, ‘Rumanian Policy’, 2 Dec 1943; PWE minute, ‘Air Attack on Bucharest’, 20 Mar 1944.

170. C. O. Richardson, ‘French Plans for Allied Attacks on the Caucasus Oil Fields January–April 1940’, French Historical Studies, 8 (1973), 136–42; Ronald Cooke, Roy Nesbit, Target: Hitler’s Oil. Allied Attacks on German Oil Supplies 1939–45 (London: 1985), 25–8, 37–8.

171. TNA, AIR 9/138, Air Ministry (Plans) for the CAS, ‘Appreciation on the Attack of the Russian Oil Industry’, 2 Apr 1940, 1–2; memorandum by Air Ministry (Plans), ‘Russian Oil Industry in the Caucasus’, 30 May 1940.

172. Ibid., ‘Memorandum on the Russian Petroleum Industry in the Caucasus’, App E, ‘Calculation of Effort’; Cooke, Nesbit, Target: Hitler’s Oil, 49–51.

173. TNA, 9/138, letter from E. A. Berthoud (British Embassy, Cairo) to HQ RAF Middle East, 13 June 1941; Air Ministry (Plans) to HQ RAF Middle East, 13 June 1941; Air Ministry to British C-in-C (India) [n.d. but June 1941].

174. TNA, PREM 3/374/6, HQ RAF Middle East to Air Marshal Evill, 14 June 1942.

175. TNA, FO 898/176, PWB, Allied Forces HQ, ‘Psychological Warfare in the Mediterranean Theater’, 31 Aug 1945, 4–5, 15.

176. LC, Spaatz papers, Box 157, Col. Earl Thomson to Director of Intelligence, USSTAF Europe, 1 Feb 1944.

177. Ibid., Box 157, Carl Spaatz article for Air Force Star, ‘Leaflets: An Important Weapon of Total War’, 5.

178. Ibid., Box 157, Lt. Col. Lindsey Braxton to Spaatz [n.d. but Feb 1944]; Thomson to Director of Intelligence, USSTAF, 1 Feb 1944. For an example of whole bundles falling see TNA, FO 898/437, H. Knatchbull-Hugesson (British Embassy, Ankara) to Ministry of Information, 18 Jan 1944, on Bulgarian leaflets.