re: How much of the US support of Israel is religious based?

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It keep us from putting troops on the ground in Poland, but the US was flying bombers over Poland in 1944 (there are surveillance photos of camps). I realize most of the damage had been done at that point, but the US could have done something. We also could have allowed more Jewish immigrants in the late 30s - early 40s.

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I'll deal with the second part first.

Sure we could have allowed more immigrants but at that time nobody could have forseen what was to come. You can't use hindsight and 21st century morality to judge thinking in the 1930s. Hell, up to the starving, raping, enslaving, and killing part we did the exact same thing to American citizens of Japanese ancestry after Pearl Harbor. Forced them to give up their homes and businesses and shipped them off to live in camps behind wire and under guard.

Now for the first part.

For starters, the assertion that the USAAF had large scale strategic operations going over Poland in 1944 doesn't paint an accurate picture. All but the southern and western edges of Poland were outside the range of both the 8th and 15th air forces - meaning that many of the death camps were outside or at the very edge of their range.

Just for fun, let's throw that out the window and assume we could get a raid (or several) there with meaningful payloads.

The Norden bombsight had a CEP (circular error probability) of over 1,000 feet. That means that half of the bombs would land within 1,000 feet of the target. There is absolutely NOTHING a WWII heavy bomber strike could have done for those poor people other than put them out of their misery.

Finally, the RAF did bomb one camp. On 24 August 1945 they hit Buchenwald. You can see the result of the raid and hear what a Canadian POW had to say about it.

Despite only targeting the factories, the raid killed over 300 prisoners and wounded more than 1,400.

The only thing the US or any ally for that matter could do for the people in the camps was exactly what they did - liberate the camps and end the war as quickly as possible.