Tuesday, March 10, 1942. First combat mission of the Avro Lancaster

On this day in 1942 the Avro Lancaster flew its first combat mission.

It was a great airplane and became the backbone of the RAF's nighttime bombing campaign during World War Two.  At least arguably, it was the best four-engined bomber built during the war, with perhaps only the B-29 contesting for being a better one.

Sunday, February 22, 1942. Harris takes command.

February 22, 1942: Air Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris takes command of RAF Bomber Command. President Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave Bataan for Australia.

So states the opener of Sarah Sundin's blog for the day.

"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 naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”  Harris.

 

An unrelenting advocate of the RAF's Area Bombing Directive, he remains an extremely controversial figure, perhaps the most controversial British figure of the Second World War.

Harris was born and raised in England, but moved to Rhodesia at age 18.  While just about to enter ranching in that country in 1914, he reluctantly joined the 1st Rhodesian Regiment.  He transferred to the RAF as a pilot in 1916.  He remained in the RAF after the war and never returned to Rhodesia even though he considered it to be his country, although for a time after his retirement from the RAF he managed a mining company in South Africa.

As also discussed by Sundin, Douglas MacArthur was ordered by Franklin Roosevelt to leave the Philippines.

The Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen arrived at Bergen, Norway.  Later that day, the left for Trondheim.

Saturday, February 14, 1942. The Area Bombing Directive

On this day in 1942 the British Air Ministry issued the Area Bombing Directive instructing the RAF to target the German industrial workforce through the bombing of German cities.  The thought was that this would impact German production and morale.

RAF Lancaster over Hanover.

Controversial ever since, irrespective of what a person views of the overall aspect of right and wrong in the combatants, targeting civilians in this fashion is hard not to view as immoral and a war crime.  The US would resort to the same tactic against Japan later in the war.

Whatever the order's impact on production came to be, it did not cause a collapse in German morale.

The Japanese landed on Sumatra.