Dehousing

Dehousing was a military strategy adopted by the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany during World War II from 1942 to 1945. It sought to maximize the damage to civilian housing in Germany's largest cities during Royal Air Force raids as part of a demoralisation campaign against the German public.

The Dehousing strategy was proposed via a memorandum on 30 March 1942, by Professor Frederick Lindemann, Baron Cherwell, the British government's chief scientific adviser who believed that this strategy would allow them to avoid an invasion of Europe. Documentation on the strategy based on the effects of the Area bombing directive issued in February 1942, after it was accepted by the Churchill War Cabinet, became known as the dehousing paper.

The dehousing paper was delivered during a debate within the British government about the most effective use of the nation's resources in waging war on Germany: whether the Royal Air Force (RAF) should be reduced to allow more resources to go to the British Army and Royal Navy, or the strategic bombing option should be followed and expanded. The paper argued that from the analysis of the reaction of the British population to the Blitz, the demolition of people's houses was the most effective way to affect their morale, even more than the killing of relatives. The known limits of the RAF in locating targets in Germany and in providing the planned resources to be available to the RAF made destroying about 30% of the housing stock of Germany's 58 largest cities the most effective use of the aircraft of RAF Bomber Command by breaking the Germans' spirit. After a heated debate by the government's military and scientific advisers, the Cabinet chose the strategic bombing campaign over all other options.

The dehousing paper came while Bomber Command was in an enforced period of much reduced bombing since the winter of 1941/1942. The Butt Report had shown that bombing results were poor, and with the attrition rate it had been suffering in operations, the effort that had been expended gave a poor return. Since November 1941, the RAF had been husbanding its resources and awaiting the introduction of large numbers of four-engined heavy bombers and the GEE radio-navigational device into frontline service. The bombing policy had already moved away from attempts at precision bombing.

The paper was produced by Cherwell by using an analysis of recent raids on British cities that were being undertaken. The information was given by the researchers in response to questions posed by Cherwell.

The following seems a simple method of estimating what we could do by bombing Germany.

Careful analysis of the effects of raids on Birmingham, Hull and elsewhere have shown that, on the average, one ton of bombs dropped on a built-up area demolishes 20–40 dwellings and turns 100–200 people out of house and home.

We know from our experience that we can count on nearly fourteen operational sorties per bomber produced. The average lift of the bombers we are going to produce over the next fifteen months will be about 3 tons. It follows that each of these bombers will in its life-time drop about 40 tons of bombs. If these are dropped on built-up areas they will make 4000–8000 people homeless.