14 May 1943 A.D. WASH, DC: US & British chiefs of staff plot OPERATION POINTBLANK—joint bombing offenses from British bases
14 May 1943 A.D. WASH, DC: US & British chiefs of staff plot OPERATION
POINTBLANK—joint bombing offenses from British bases
Editors. “1943
– U.S. and Great Britain chiefs of
staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot out Operation Pointblank,
a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British airbases.” This Day in U.S. Military History. N.d. https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/may-14/. Accessed 12 May 2015.
1943 – U.S. and
Great Britain chiefs of staff, meeting in Washington, D.C., approve and plot
out Operation Pointblank, a joint bombing offensive to be mounted from British
airbases. Operation Pointblank’s aim was grandiose and comprehensive: “The
progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military and economic
system, and the undermining of the morale of the German people.” It was also
intended to set up “final combined operations on the continent.” In other
words, it was intended to set the stage for one fatal blow that would bring
Germany to its knees. The immediate targets of Operation Pointblank were to be
submarine construction yards and bases, aircraft factories, ball bearing
factories, rubber and tire factories, oil production and storage plants, and
military transport-vehicle factories and stores. Ironically, the very day
planning for Pointblank began in Washington, the Germans shot down 74 British
four-engine bombers as the Brits struck a munitions factory near Pilsen. Joseph
Goebbels, writing in his diary, recorded that the biggest setback about the
British raid on the factory was that the drafting room was destroyed.
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