"The aerial bombardment of Germany had no strategic purpose in hindsight, or as it appeared at the time?" Chris asks.
Not the aerial bombardment of Germany per se, but Bomber Harris' targetting of civilian - or in his words 'working class' - districts was challenged at the time. It was challenged in Bomber Command itself, it was challenged in Parliament, and was widely understood not only not to reduce Germany's war production, but actually to have increased it.
All of this was known at the time, and was popularised by Vera Brittan at the time, and was confirmed by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey that JK Galbraith worked on in the closing months of the war.
The British forces were stuffed in 1941, and needed bloodshed for morale purposes. Bombing German civilian districts was a substitute for invasion, which at that time they were reluctant to risk, preferring to let the USSR absorb the worst of the German armed power.