World War II Bombing Accuracy

[Douglas J Schrack]

I found this article and thought it interesting.
In 2003 George Will's Newsweek column was headed "The Hour of Air Power", and presented some historical comments on bombing.
An August 1941 British report commented "of those aircraft attacking their targets , only one in three got within five miles of the target. Over the French ports the proportion was two in three; over Germany as a whole one in four ; over the Ruhr it was one in ten.
Under the best conditions, daylight and anti aircraft fire only, no fighters, bombers equipped with the Norden bombsight, only 70 out of 500 landed within 1,000 ft. of the target. 100 B-17s , each carrying five-500 pound bombs , only one may hit the target under bad conditions ( flak and fighters ).

-Wills, George "The Hour of Air Power"
-306th Echoes, January 2005.Vol 30, No.1

Doug

[Simon O.]

That report is quoted in several books on Bomber Command. In 1941 of course, strategic bombing was in it's infancy. By the end of the war accuracy had improved hugely thanks to improved methods like the use of pathfinders and technology like H2S.