Military experts concluded that bombing Auschwitz and the rail lines would have been extremely difficult and risky and that the chances of achieving significant results would have been small. This is very different than saying the mission was viewed as an unwise use resources.
McCloy stated that the idea was never discussed with President Roosevelt.
McCloy may have found it expedient to share with FDR the blame heaped on him by people who seek to blame somebody in addition to, or even instead of, the Germans for the Holocaust.
Germans had specialist teams that could repair damage within hours or days. The inmates' food supplies were assumed to come by rail, and so an unrepaired railway would cause them hardship. Area bombing risked killing too many prisoners. (Rubenstein, Overy)
In August the Army bombed a factory adjacent to Buchenwald. In perfect conditions there were 1740 prisoner casualties.
No proposals to bomb either Auschwitz or the rail lines were made by anyone until May or June 1944. (Rubinstein) The first proposal was made by Michael Dov Ber Weissmandel in May. The idea was immediately opposed by the Jewish Agency.
We should not ask the Allies to bomb places where there are Jews. (Gurion)
In June the Jewish Agency reversed its opposition and urged Roosevelt to bomb the camp and the train tracks.
Then Akzin, a junior official on the War Refugee Board staff made a similar recommendation in an inter-office memorandum dated June 29 to his superior. These recommendations were totally rejected by leading Jewish organizations. The World Jewish Congress opposed the idea. In July Kubowitzki wrote, "The destruction of the death installations can not be done by bombing from the air, as the first victims would be the Jews who are gathered in these camps, and such a bombing would be a welcome pretext for the Germans to assert that their Jewish victims have been massacred not by their killers, but by the Allied bombers."
Pehle told McCloy that he was transmitting an idea proposed by others, that he had doubts, and that he was NOT requesting the War Department to take any action on this proposal. This is the proposal McCloy rejected.
Later in 44 the War Refugee Board relayed to the War Department suggestions by others that Auschwitz and the rail lines be bombed. It repeatedly noted that it was not endorsing any of them.
It was only in November, four months, about 120 days before the invasion that Pehle half-heartedly changed sides and asked McCloy to bomb the camp for the “morale of underground groups.” And by this time Auschwitz was all but shut down.
Churchill did not see bombing as a solution because bombers would kill prisoners on the ground. This is also very different from the "better uses for resources" refrain.
For prisoners in the Auschwitz complex, the bombs dropping nearby gave hope. One survivor later recalled: “We were no longer afraid of death; at any rate not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life.”
What did the prisoners killed by allied bombs say about their fear, joy, and confidence?
Did it make a difference if they died to Allied Bombs or German Gas?
Of course it did. For many reasons. Some of them are, determining who killed the dead people, explaining to survivors and Jewd around the world why allies are killing Jews, and more importantly, a death by an allied bomb was much more certain than a death in the gas chambers.