Restrained Policy and Careless Execution

This monograph examines the nature of Allied strategic bombing on The Netherlands in the Second World War. It discusses the endless controversy on strategic bombing and classifies its discourse into six different narratives. It adds the policy of bombing occupied countries, especially the Dutch involvement in bombing policy development, a quantitative analysis of bombing on The Netherlands, and three case studies to the existing narrative. The study concludes that Allied bombing policy towards The Netherlands sought to maintain a balance between the usefulness of bombing and the risk of collateral damage. Further, it reveals the absolute magnitude of the bombing campaign in The Netherlands, which contrasts with existing history. This monograph concludes that the nature of strategic bombing on The Netherlands, notwithstanding the fact of sincere intentions and restrained policies, was that the execution of the bombardments regularly failed to attain the defined bombing goals. These failures in execution caused extensive collateral damage, as illustrated by three case studies in this monograph, bombardments on Amsterdam, Nijmegen and The Hague.