Figure 1.--Here shocked London surviors are helped from the rubble of their homes by an ARP warden during the Blitz (Septmber 1940). You might have though that yhese people wouldc hve wanted pece at ny price, but thus ws not the case. Before the Blitz, the British had wanted despertely to avoid war. Aftr the Nliz thre was a nion-wide detrermkintion to defeat the Germans. And this included the women.

One of the unknowns to military planners as Europe moved toward war was the reaction of civilians to strategic bombing. It was widely believed that 'the bomber would always get through' meaning that there was no way to stop them. This was was a phrase introduced by British Prime-Minister Stanley Baldwin (1932). At he time, Baldwin was right. Bomber speeds were actually faster than fighters. A year later Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany (1933). This lead to increasing concern about the possibility of war and bombing. Major improvements in fighter aircraft occurred in the 1930s which improved air defenses. The refinement of radar also made improved air defense systems possible which was first demonstrated in the Battle of Britain (1940), Most countries except for Germany and America had the capability to create integrated defensive stems. Even so, it was clearly impossible to stop a bombing force by a major air force. It was possible to attrit bombers depending on the defensive capability, but not to stop all of them. What was still unknown is how a civilian population would respond to a sustained bombing campaign. The one World War I experience that the air planners had to go on was the World War I British experience. The Germans used both Zeppelins and Gotha bombers to bomb London and other British cities. In World War I terms, these were mere mere pin pricks, but they had a huge impact on British public opinion. It infuriated the British people, but there was no mass panic. Given the reaction, many air commanders believed that civilian morale could collapse under a really sustained bombing campaign with large numbers of modern bombers. The Czech Government surrender even before the War. Poland was not a real test as the German Army advanced so quickly and then the Soviet Red Army attacked from the East. And the Dutch Government surrendered after Rotterdam was bombed. As the War developed, however, it became clear that civilian populations proved much more resilient to conventional bombing than the air chiefs had anticipated. This might have proven differently if the belligerents had employed chemical weapons. it was widely assumed in inter-War planning that chemical weapon would be used They were not, except by Japan against the Chinese. And this despite the fact that the Germans had developed advanced nerve agents. The two countries most heavily bombed were Britain and Germany and in both countries, civilian morale did not collapse and the economy continued to function. And this was the case in London despite the fact that adequate provisions had not been made for bomb shelters. What did occur was a desire to pursue the War with increased determination and fierceness. This was not a major factor in totalitarian societies which had the capacity to compel obedience. It was a factor with the democracies which had been so reluctant to wage war. And this was also important in the still-neutral United States where public opinion was being powerfully affected, especially by the NAZI air assault on London which was being covered live by American broadcast reporters. The same was true in other heavily bombed localities like Leningrad and Malta as long as military forces kept the invading army at bay. The Allies air campaign was much more massive than any campaign conducted by the Luftwaffe and Japanese air forces. And the German and Japanese war economies did eventually collapse, but there was no total collapse of civilian morale as was the case in the Central Powers at the end of World War I. [Citino] This loyalty to Hitler is something that bis rarely discussed in the morality debate and needs to be. More important than the bombing seems to have been the food supply. Hitler unlike the Kaiser in World War I, managed to keep the German people reasonably well fed by depriving occupied people of food. This continued until the very last months of the War. The Japanese were beginning to starve in the last few months of the War, but civilian morale did not crack. Instead large numbers of people moved into th countryside. We suspect, however, that one reason the occupation of Japan went so smoothly was the efforts made to feed the population.

Sources

Citino, Robert A. The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The Gerrman Campaigns of 1944-1945 (2018). Citino is one of the firemist authorities in the Wehrmacht. He primarily discusses why the German Army, especially the officer corps, remained loyal to Hitler to the end. And this include most of the soldiers, maening not just the SS, as well as the civilian population. With the officer corps it was understandable and Citino explains why. With civilaims it is more difficult to understand

Hughes, Thomas Alexander. Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II (The Free Press: New York, 1995), 380p.

Created: 9:11 AM 2/26/2022
Last updated: 9:11 AM 2/26/2022