GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
Arthur \'Bomber\' Harris

There are 9 quotes matching Arthur \'Bomber\' Harris in the collection:

Lübeck was built more like a fire-lighter than a human habitation … The main object of the attack was to learn to what extent a first wave of aircraft could guide a second wave to the aiming point by starting a conflagration; I ordered a half-an-hour interval between the two waves in order to allow the fires to get a good hold.

Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

On the raid of 28/29 March 1942. A third of the medieval city center was destroyed by 234 planes in what became known as the double blow technique. Quoted in the 2001 book Germany and the Second World War, Volume VI/I: The Global War: Widening the Conflict into a World War and the Shift of the Initiative, 1941-1943.



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In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

Then Air Officer Commanding Bomber Command, statement on the July 1943 bombings of Hamburg, quoted in the 1991 book The Valour and the Horror: The Untold Story of Canadians in the Second World War.

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The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

The last part is from the Bible, Hosea 8:7, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it.” Statement at the start of the British bombing campaign over Germany, 1942.



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There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My reply to that is that it has never been tried… and we shall see.

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

Newsreel interview a few weeks after he took command of Bomber Command, February 1942.

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Victory, speedy and complete, awaits the side which first employs air power as it should be employed. Germany, entangled in the meshes of vast land campaigns, cannot now disengage her air power for a strategically proper application. She missed victory through air power by a hair's breadth in 1940 … We ourselves are now at the crossroads.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

Opening of letter to Winston Churchill, 17 June 1942.

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We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go on with the war. That is our object; we shall pursue it relentlessly.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, RAF

BBC radio address, 28 July 1942.

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The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive … should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilised life throughout Germany … the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

Memo urging the British government to be honest with the public regarding the purpose of the bombing campaign over Germeny, October 1943.

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I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. It therefore seems to me that there is one and only one valid argument on which a case for giving up strategic bombing could be based, namely that it has already completed its task and that nothing now remains for the Armies to do except to occupy Germany against unorganized resistance.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris

In letter to Sir Norman Bottomley, 29 March 1945. Quoted in 1985 book Bomber Harris: The Story of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris.

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There are no words with which I can do justice to the aircrew who fought under my command. There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determinaiton in the face of danger over so prolonged a period, of danger which at times was so great that scarcely one man in three could expect to survice his tour of thirty operations … It was, moreover, a clear and highly conscious courage, by which the risk was taken with calm forethought, for their aircrew were all highly skilled men, much above the average in education, who had to understand every aspect and detail of their task. It was, furthermore, the courage of the small hours, of men virtually alone, for at his battle station the airman is virtually alone. It was the courage of men with long-drawn apprehensions of daily “going over the top”.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, RAF

Tribute to WWII bomber crews, crediting their lonely courage and ending by invoking the language of WWI, Bomber Offensive, 1947.



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