- [on Australian Donald Bennet] His technical knowledge and his personal operational ability was altogether exceptional. His courage, both moral and physical, is outstanding and as a technician he is unrivaled. He could not suffer fools gladly, and by his own high standards there were many fools.
- 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 have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind.
- We can wreck Berlin from end to end if the Americans will come in with us. It will cost us between 400 and 500 planes. It will cost Germany the war.
- There are no words with which I can do justice to the air-crew who fought under my command. There is no parallel in warfare to such courage and determination 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 survive his tour of thirty operations..... 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." They were without exception volunteers, for no man was trained for air-crew with the RAF who did not volunteer for this. such devotion must never be forgotten. It is unforgettable by anyone whose contacts gave them knowledge and understanding of what these young men experienced and faced.
- 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.
- I ... assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.
- The destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams was to achieve wonders. It achieved nothing compared with the effort and the loss. The material damage was negligible compared with one small area attack.
- For years we have been told that the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams alone would be a vital blow to Germany. I have seen nothing in the present circumstances or in the Ministry of Economic Warfare reports to show that the effort was worthwhile.
- [on the bouncing bomb] Tripe beyond the wildest description. There are so many ifs and buts that there is not the smallest chance of it working.
- In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method.
- I know that the destruction of so large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were as fully justified as any other operation of war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself.
- [on the bouncing bomb] Just about the maddest proposition as a weapon we have yet to come across.
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