On What Happens When You Give a Lunatic Like Bomber Harris Leeway

While Portal (Sir Charles) opposed Harris's Strategy of carpet bombing and Churchill was at the most ambivalent initially, they both ultimately left it up to the Bomber as to whether the Brits would bomb the primary targets (oil installations, railroads, communications) or civilian areas on any given day (weather ostensibly being the prime determinant). Of course, the end result of this senseless, unearned discretion was the fact that only 6% of the bombs ended up hitting oil fields while a significantly larger amount went to the bombing of cities that were already predominantly rubble (Cologne, Leipzig, etc.) - the sole goal being to terrorize the population. How anybody in his right mind can say that this "strategy" helped to win the war sooner, a) is perplexing and b) shows a serious ignorance of the facts (to their credit, the Americans - at least in Europe - focused more on tactical operations such as oil fields and factories, and it was this approach that ultimately moved the needle - NOT the Bomber's terrorism) in that it isn't terrorist actions that win wars but strategy.