To the Editor:

I have just read Milt Groban’s letter in the July issue commenting on David S. Wyman’s “Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed” [May]. . . . During World War II, Mr. Groban was a radar navigator-bombardier with the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force in Italy. I was a pilot with the Eighth Air Force Heavy Bombardment Group, stationed in England, and I find that in his letter Mr. Groban presents . . . a distorted picture of the capabilities of the U.S. air force. He claims that we were not able to do precision bombing (“we really could not drop a bomb through a pickle barrel from 3,000 feet”). . . . But in fact we could hit the proverbial barrel on the ground, or at least come very close. For example, my crew received a Lead Crew Commendation in 1944-45 for hitting the “Pig Pens” (submarine yards) at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, with our squadron of eleven planes. Each plane carried between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds of bombs (about 50,000 pounds in all) and all the bombs landed within 500 feet of the main targets. We used radar, G-box, etc., as well as visual sighting, since the cloud cover was dense that day and cleared up only at the last minute. I might add that 90 per cent of our bombs fell right on target, which is dead center within a 50-foot radius, with the other 10 per cent falling within a 150-foot radius. . . .

Mr. Groban is also misleading in his claim that RAF bombing equaled ours in accuracy. The RAF did “pattern” bombing—that is, RAF planes bombed a square area several hundred yards in length and width. Although they certainly hit the target, they also hit everything within the targeted area regardless of military value, while we pinpointed our targets with more precision. . . .

Mr. Groban claims, finally, that had he been given the command to bomb the killing installations at Auschwitz, he would have become the “ultimate Kapo.” But . . . there is no question that thousands of innocent men, women, and children would be alive today if we had bombed those barbaric horror chambers and destroyed them. If I had been given the command to bomb the camps, I would have been proud to have been chosen for such a mission. . . .

Charles M. Bachman
White Plains, New York