Holocaust - Why Didn't They Bomb The Tracks?!

[rjs4470]

As others have mentioned, railways would have been an incredibly hard target to hit, and easily repaired if they had been hit. With low accuracy of bombs, you'd only be able to take out very small sections of the literally thousands of miles of track, and thus have very little impact or effect on the German military operation. Lots of effort and resources for very little return is likely why very little was done in this regard.

[nkypete]

Yes and those videos below the walls were just brutal.

 

My son and his wife were there just last week.

[PepRock01]

FWIW the biggest reason is going to be that taking these out did nothing to contribute to the war effort. The resources used to take out the train tracks or trains would be better used ending the war faster, which in the end would likely save more lives.

[BFritz]

I love WWII, especially the European Theater. I find it all very fascinating. Some good responses in here.

 

I highly recommend the move, Conspiracy, for any that enjoy learning more about the Holocaust and how the Germans came to decide upon the Final Solution.

 

I'm definitely going to watch that (hopefully tonight)!

 

I always assumed that there really was no deciding other than Hitler coming to power because he was a great public speaker and using that skill to convince everyone that the Jews were to blame to the Great Depression.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Bombing missions were as harrowing as any single job that anyone had in the Allied military. It was difficult enough to successfully dodge German anti-aircraft defenses in the first place to get through to your bombing target, and then even when the targets were large factories and the like, targets were still oftentimes completely missed by the bombs. The Allied Forces would occasionally bomb train stations, but trying to hit a section 5-ft wide railroad track was far from being a simple task when bombs were being aimed using a glorified pair of binoculars aided by the bombardier's pencil, paper, and trigonometry skills. It was not the era of laser-guided precision that we're familiar with in the 21st century.

 

Railroad tracks and roads were also easily repaired and rebuilt. The United States learned that lesson very well during the Vietnam War when their continual and successful bombing missions of the Viet Cong's supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail were almost instantaneously repaired in the 24 hours following their bombing. Granted, actual railroads would require a new section of rail to be installed in addition to the disrupted ground, but when hundreds of feet of railroad track can be carried on a single supply truck, it's not as effective as it may seem to bomb the track.

 

Also, as stated above, the Allied Forces did rely on use of existing railroads to keep their supplies following them to wherever their military front stood in Europe.

[Bluegrasscard]

One problem is that the camps were mainly to the east of Germany. Auschwitz was about 2,700 miles round trip from London. The B-17 range was only 2,000 miles. So raiding the tracks near that camp was a logistical challenge. And high altitude bombing would have been highly ineffective. The Americans abandoned low-level bombing in 1943 after the disastrous Ploesti raid.

 

And if the trains were halted it probably does not stop the murders. The gas chambers did not need to be used. They were just more efficient than bullets.

[sweet16]

My son and his wife were there just last week.

 

That’s when I was there.

[MJAlltheWay24]

 

And if the trains were halted it probably does not stop the murders. The gas chambers did not need to be used. They were just more efficient than bullets.

 

More efficient and less taxing on the psychology of the Nazi soldiers carrying out the killing.

[nkypete]

This is a tough topic for me since I had relatives of my dad who died in the camps.