Summary Hardly Precision: 8th Air Force Day and Night Area Bombing raids on Germany Part of 8th Air Force Week 2 on WW2TV With Colin Kelly Since WW2 the dominant narrative about the 8th Air Force was that it was a daylight precision bombing force that targeted German military and industrial targets. While not necessarily untrue, this narrative has however left other aspects of the 8th Air Forces bombing campaign neglected, ignored and/or forgotten in the historiography. In contrast to the efforts to carry out precision bombing attacks on key German industries, the 8th Air Force also carried out significant and deliberate area bombing attacks on German towns, villages and cities, which increasingly became common as the American bombing campaign progressed and new technologies were adopted. Similarly, 8th Air Force documents also point to a significant and largely forgotten effort to convert part of its daytime bomber force into a nighttime bombing force, which was conducted with the help of RAF Bomber Command in 1943 and 1945. On the whole, the 8th Air Force and its commanders were much more flexible in their commitment to daylight precision bombing than they claimed during or after the war, largely due to the major challenges they encountered as they sought to get the American bombing campaign going. Nevertheless they are important, if perhaps inconvenient, parts of the 8th Air Forces story that should be remembered.

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