Strategic Bombing Update: Are We Seeing 'Bomber' Harris versus Carl Spaatz?

Looking at what the Russians and Ukrainians are Doing in Historical Context

Hi All,

As per usual, I started writing one piece and its snowballed into two. Its a look at strategic bombing concepts in WWII and comparing it to what we are seeing by Russia and Ukraine today. Below is the WWII section—will do the present war situation tomorrow. Sorry!

The strategic air-war, which has come to take a growing prominence over the last few weeks, seems to be going down some noticeably different paths. The Russians and Ukrainians are both concentrating on some very different target sets. The Ukrainians are continuing to try and hit Russian oil refineries in a targeted industry campaign. They hit another this week (regardless of US requests that they stop). The Russians, in comparison, are devoting some of their resources to try and terrorize Ukrainian cities, most noticeably Kharkiv and Odesa. They seem to be trying to make these cities unlivable and destroy the morale (and lives) of the Ukrainians who reside in them.

Dresden after being bombed in 1945

In this way, the Ukrainians and Russians are actually adopting quite similar positions to the two most important strategic air power commanders in the European Theater of Operations in World War II—Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris and Carl ‘Tooey’ Spaatz. Harris and Spaatz were not only the two most senior Allied operational air officers, they had very different views about how the air war should be fought. In a nutshell—Harris had some ideas quite similar to what the Russians are doing and Spaatz had ideas that the Ukrainians seems to be replicating almost identically.

Harris and Spaatz

Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, CinC RAF Bomber Command: 1942-1945

General Carl Spaatz, Commander US Strategic Air Forces in Europe: 1944-45