Figure 1.--I know of no disccusion in the German press of the morality of German air assaults on foreign cities during 1939-42. Goebbels spoke passionately on the subject when the bombs started falling on German cities. The German terror bombings were considered attrocities by the British and Americans. There was little sypathy for the Germans when the Allied air campaign intensified in 1943. After the horific Dresden raid, the Allies begab to have second tghoughts. I am unsure, however, to what extent the issue was discussed openly in the American and British press.

The morality of the air campaign is a still hotly debated question. At the time, none of the major combatant countries with bombing formations (Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) questioned their own use of bombing on moral grounds. America and Britain accused NAZI Germany of war crimes when it conducted terror bombing of cities with that explicit goal. The Japanese did the same in China. After the the NAZIs began using this tactic, both America and Britain subsequently launched much more massive assaults on German and later Japanese cities. Although the goal was never described explicity as terror, the differences if you were a German civilian would be difficult to determine. The German foreign minister coming to Washington in November 2002 recalled cowering in a bomb shelter during the Allied bombing. A HBC reader remembers the glow in the night sky from raging fires in a nearby city after Allied bombing runs. Much of the debate over the morality of the aerial campaign really are questions on the morality of war itself. There are questions, however, that pertain uniquely to the World War II aerial campaign itself. HBC does not seek to answer the moral questions. A thorough discussion would be a study in itself. We do believe, however, that it is important to pose some of the major questions.

War-time Attitudes

The morality of the air campaign is a still hotly debated question. A historian argues that the strategic bombing campaign was "the most uncivilized method of warfare the the world has known since the Mongol devesations". [Hart] At the time, however, none of the major combatant countries with bombing formations (Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States) questioned their own use of bombing on moral grounds. Only at the end of the War were questions raised in Allied circles. The bombing of Dresden, a city without major war industries and packed with refugees fleeing the retribution of the Red Army and local populations, in particular has been questioned on moral grounds. There was no serious debate at the time in America about the use of the atomic weapons agianst Japan in August 1945.

German Terror Bombing

America and Britain accused NAZI Germany of war crimes when it conducted terror bombing of cities with that explicit goal. It was the Germans who began bombing civilian populations rather than military targets as a terror tactict calculated to destroy civilian morale. Visionary military planners in the 1930s built the world's most advanced air force at the time--the Luftwaffe. [Corum] Germany was the first World War II combatant to use bombers to terrorize urban populations. This began even before World War II during the Spanish Civil War. The Luftwaffe experimented with the bombing of Guernica in 1937 and other Spanish cities were targeted. At the onset of World War II began the tactic was used on Warsaw and other Polish cities (September 1939). One historian writes, "The bombing of Warsaw early in the war made it clear to the Allies how Hitler intended to fight his war. It was to be Schrecklichkeit ('frightfulness') with no regard for the civilian population." [Snyder] Actually the avowed purpose was to cause civilian casualties.

Japanese Terror Bombing

The Japanese carried out strikes on undefended Chinese ciities that had no military purpose. The Japanese also used chemical and biolgical weapons against the Chinese.

Tactics

While not a moral issue, the effectivness of bombing civilian populations has to be considered. The German use of terror bombing had some impact on their early campaigns, but there is no evidence that it materially changed the outcome of any major campaign in the German favor. In fact Hitler's obsession with mindless destruction and decission to launch the Blitz against London may well have saved the RAF and Britain in the 1940 Battle of Britain. The Allied campaign against German industrial did disrupt German war production, but only at enormous cost--over 100,000 Allied aviators lost. There is reason to believe that if the Allies from the onset of the campaign had targetted German fuel production that it might have been more effective and less costly.

Allied Bombing

After the the NAZIs began using this tactic, both America and Britain subsequently launched much more massive assaults on German and later Japanese cities. Although the goal was never described explicity as terror, the differences if you were a German civilian would be difficult to determine. The German foreign minister coming to Washington in November 2002 recalled cowering in a bomb shelter during the Allied bombing. A HBC reader remembers the glow in the night sky from raging fires in a nearby city after Allied bombing runs.

Christian Theology

Much of the debate over the morality of the aerial campaign really are questions on the morality of war itself. Christianity is not pacifistic, although leading members of te pacifist movement off come from the Church community. Mainstream Christian theology teaches that there are times when wageing war is not only permitted morally, but in fact is required in morale terms for self demense and outrageous agression--the just war doctrine. Christian theologians have found that violence to prevent agressors pursuing unjust, evil purposes can and should be met by violence to prevent innocents from harm.

World War II

There are questions, however, that pertain uniquely to the World War II aerial campaign itself. Of course most wars fought in Europe do not fall under these terms of a Christian "just war". World War II of course does. If ever a war in the course of human history was a fight against evil, it was Wotld War II. The War was nothing less than a struggle to preserve Western civilization from mindless barbarism. Only a minimal consideration of the Holocaust and NAZI plans for the occupied East lead irrevocably to this conclusion.

Bombing Civilians

A key issue here is the bombing of civilians. There can be little question that the NAZI bombing of civilians for the expressed purpose of inspiring terror is morally repugnant. The British air offensive against Germany, with impossible to target night-time raids, comes periously close to an equivalent strategy. The Americans in day-time raids accepted higher casualties in an effort to better target the bombing raids, but in terms of casualties killed civilians in air rades than the Germans and Brtish combined because of the size of the American air campaign. Here a variety of questions rise. Does a country which is attacked and subjected to terror bombing have a right to strike back at the aggressor's civilians. Are their limits on the dimensions of the counterstrikes. And even more basic question is, if a civilian population is committed to an aggresive country's war which include war crimes and even genocide, is that civilian population still morally protected from air strikes. Is the prohibition on civilians changed when the country uses children to man anti-aircraft guns around war plants, inducts children and old men into the army, and uses children to carry out war crimes? What about a country which has used bombers to launch chemical or biological weapons aginst your civilians? Another question is whether the moral issues are relaxed if civilian casualties will result in a faster conclusion of the war and the overall reduction in casualties? Would it have been more moral to refrain from stretegic bombing even though the War would have lasted longer and more soldiers and civilians would have been killed? Here we are unsure just how to make the calculation. Does the level of evil of an agressor nation permit higher levels of violence against it civilians? Does a lower net lss of life permit the bombing of civilians? None of these are questions which permit easy answers, but must be considered in any assessment of the morality of the air camapaign.

Political Correct Thought

Some authors in the modern politically correct world have attempted to suggest that World War II was not a great crusade for freedom, but rather a war fought with a level of moral eqivalency. It is as though some modern American historians are ashamed to find that Some readers site the strategic bombing campaign in Europe as babaity on the part of the Allies. Given the crimes of the NAZIs, however, the argument of mutual equivalency is not often made. Because the war crimes the Japanese war crimes are less well-known and the atomic bomb was such a cataclismic event, that the argument of moral equivalency is sometimes offered in the Pacific War. One author describes American attrocities in previous wars (Indian Wars and the Philippines Insurection). [Bradley] Seeking to draw moral equivalencies selecting wars in different eras is patently faletious that a competent historian would reject it out of hand. The same historian on more solid grounds suggests that the American bombing of Japan (both the fire bombing of Japanese cities and the atomic bombs). [Bradley] HBC does not disagree that bombing Japanese cities was an act of savergy. We do disagree that there was a moral equivalency in the Japanese and American war effort. Here we see some major differences. One, it was Japan which began the war. Two, the sheer scale of the killing. The Japanese killing in China was on a scale only equalled by the NAZIs. Three, the Japanese not only initiated the bombing of civilians, but used chemical and biological weapons. Four, the goals of America were very different. This may well be the most significant difference. Here compare America's occupation of Germany and Japan with the Japanese occupation of China and the German polices in the occupied East.

Atomic Weapons

The use of the atomic bomb in World War II was an act so unique in warfare that it requires a separate discussion. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945 were horendous events devestaing two entire cities, killing large numbers of civilians, and wreaking horendous pain and suffering on the survivors. In actual casualties they were nt the most destructive air rades. The dropping of the atomic bombs, in fact, not only saved many Allied caulties, but it also save a much larger mumber of Japanese casulaties, including very large number of civilians if it had been necessary to invade the Home Islands. Using the Okinawan invasion as a guide, millions of Japanese civilians would have died in an invasion.

Personal Experiences

German boy's experiemces

Sources

Bradley, James. Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (Little Bown, 2003), 398p.

Corum, James S. Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918-1940 (University Press of Kansas, 2000).

Hart, B.H. Liddel. The Revolution in Warfare (Faber & Faber: London, 1946).

Snyder, Louis L. Historical Guide to World War II (1982).

Created: November 6, 2002
Last updated: 3:00 AM 8/9/2005