In August 1943 the Anglo-American bombings heavily damaged the basilica, in particular the apse and surrounding area.
According to Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, Big Week and the subsequent attack on the aircraft industry reduced "the fighting capacity of the Luftwaffe" through threatening the bombing of strategic targets and "leaving the German fighters with no alternative other than to defend them" but "the combat was primarily fought and certainly won" by the US long range fighters.
The heavy bombers involved in the Combined Bomber Offensive did not win the war alone, as Harris had argued they would.
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At that time, the Eighth Air Force and the Royal Air Force Bomber Command were engaged in a combined bomber offensive against strategic targets in Nazi Germany and Occupied Europe.