Among many sticky issues British Prime Minister Churchill would discuss with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Casablanca conference in January 1943 was the fact that the U.S. Eighth Air Force still refused to join the RAF's Bomber Command on nocturnal bombing missions into Germany. Though United States bombers had been striking enemy targets since August 17, 1942, Churchill noted, “The Americans have not yet succeeded in dropping a single bomb on Germany.”
The Allies had a fundamental disagreement in the use of heavy bombers. The RAF believed in night area bombing, which delivered a massive amount of bombs onto a broad urban or industrial center. The Americans believed in daytime precision bombing, hitting specific targets such as factories or refineries with pinpoint accuracy. The British, having experienced heavy losses with daytime raids early in the war, believed the American method would prove too costly, and Churchill argued for American adoption of the British system.
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