B-24s Kicking *ss Over Italy 1944

[Jack Cook]

B-24H 456th BG 15th AF 1944

Sad thing is HOW many civillians died in such attacks? Bombs dropped had over a 2mile -/+ accuracy at times... so civillians would be killed in large numbers when the air forces attacked such city centres.

[mlenoch]

Though it may seem sad, my grandparents were very happy to see the bombers overhead making deliveries to their targets. When one ditched nearby, the first thing everyone would do is to rescue the crew and get them to the partisans. No one complained about the +/- 2 mile accuracy.
VL

[K5DH]

Sad thing is HOW many civillians died in such attacks? Bombs dropped had over a 2mile -/+ accuracy at times... so civillians would be killed in large numbers when the air forces attacked such city centres.

Yep. Allied bombers surely killed many civilians. But it wasn't just the Allies. How many English civilians died in their homes when the Nazis staged their night bombing raids on London during the Battle of Britain? What about the V-1 "buzz bomb" and V-2 rocket attacks, which came with no warning? Any way you look at it, war is a nasty business, and innocent civilians are very often killed. The "up side" of this awful fact is the development of precision-guided weapons. With the accuracy that we have now, civilian casualties have been tremendously reduced.