The catalyst was for this thread was a Tweet today for this article by an author, Calum Douglas, who describes himself as a Writer, Researcher and Engineer; who appears in one other post here. He has written a long article on the subject, which does appear scattered in various threads, some are readily found searching for refineries. His summary: Link: The Strategic Oil Bombing Campaign - Calum Douglas It is a long read, so I have yet to fully understand it; not my area of interest too.
This bloke was on the ‘We Have Ways’ podcast recently talking - really - about his book ‘The Horsepower Race’. I’ll be interested (or perhaps not!) to see what he has to say about the Oil Campaign. Thanks for sharing.
It is not very impressive, in my view. It started like it was just an opportunity to talk about fighters, but as I was about to give in, he says, “let’s get back to oil”! However, the whole thing is pretty turgid, really. Setting aside the basic English errors (grammar and typos in particular), it’s just very badly written, often rambling along, and he really offers nothing new, beyond pointing out that better targeting of certain plants might have had better results - and using, by his own admission, a massive dose of hindsight to suggest that concentration on oil targets could have had great effect - so, nothing new there. My other problem is that it’s just so broad and vague. The stuff at the start on escort fighters is largely irrelevant, and he doesn’t talk at all about the problems of precision targeting of oil plants. Perhaps this is why engineers shouldn’t write essays in broader bombing strategy.
Technical Sub-Committee on Axis Oil: Oil as a factor in the German war effort, 1933-1945, March 1946, 4 volumes, 50-60 pages ea.: Part_1 Part_2 Part_3 Part_4
There are two relevant book reviews: “Masters of the Air. How the Bomber Boys Broke Down the Nazi War Machine” by Ronald L. Miller and Bombing the European Axis Powers A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945
Thanks for that reference! Also See the documents, the Petroleum Facilities of Germany, available for download from the Ike Skelton Library: Petroleum facilities of Germany. - World War II Operational Documents - Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) Digital Library (oclc.org) Jim
