Figure 1.--Here are Jewish children at a Belgian orphanage during the German occupation. A primary German war goal was to kill these children and all the other Jews they could get their grisly hands on. This meant killing in the millions. And the Jews were just the beginning of their murder campaign. The Allied bombing resulted in killing in the thousands--not the millions. Authors like Vera Brittain were right, the bombing was terrible. But she was wrong that it was a moral ourrage. The only real moral failing on the part of the Allies would have been the failure to confront NAZI and Japanese barbarity. This was something that Vera Brittain and other pacifists were not prepared to do.

During the War there were a wide range of opinions expressed bu cuviliand military leaders as well as religious leaders and pscifists. At the time, the evil character of German and Japanese leaders was well known, but ut genocidal chararacter was not widely known. Still the opinions expressed are interestung to note. They relect opinionon both the effectiveness of the camapign as well as the morality of strategic bombing. Morality of course is dependent upon one's cultural, social, and individual values. And the results aimed at proved much more difficult bto achiever than thought. Both America and Britain expressed an opposition to bomboing cibilians, but as the Gernans and Japanese were mombing civiians both Ameruca and Britain committed to strategic bombing. The United States did not see 'retributive justice' as part of the strategic bombing doctrine at its inception, but as the war progressed and the widespread damage done over Germany and Japan this view was not absent. Most Americans did indeed see it as the Axis' 'just desserts' given their nefarious actions. Here are some of the views exporessed.

Henry H. Arnold (American)

American USAAF Commnder Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold wrote after learning that the Germans were calling Allied bombing terror raids, he wrote Ira Eaker "...that the effect was all we could wish." Same with the first firebombing raid over Tokyo. Arnold congratulated LeMay and wrote "...this proves you have the guts to do anything."

Vera Brittain (British)

Vera Brittan published a booklet "Massacre by bombing". She was not wrong about how terrible the strateghic bombing campaign was. But she dies not explain just how the NAZIs and Japanese mikitarists could be stopped wuthout the awesome applicatiin of military power. As fir he moral arguments, the only really moral failure by America nd Britain woukd have been to fail to resist the horific evil of these murderous regimes who killed in the millions. And this is just what Brittain was arguing should have been British policy.

Josef Goebbels (German)

Once thevbomns statrted falling in Germany cities, Hitler wasclesscenthusiaric about bspeaking to the German people. Propoaganda Minister Josef Goebels became increasingly the NAZI voice more commonly heard. And Goebbels who had not probelm with bombing when the bombs were Germans bombs falling on other countries> Giebbels amnd other NAZIs suddenly began viewing bombing in a different light when Allied bombs began falling on German cities. In his 'Total War speech' after Stalinrad (February 18, 1943), he assyured a brethless audience, "Just as we did not bow after the First World War to enemy occupation nor to the separatism they encouraged, so also our cities and villages will never bow to the British bombing terror. The enemy can bomb our houses to rubble. The hearts of the people will burn with a hatred that cannot be extinguished. The hour of revenge will come."(Strong applause.) [Goebbels]

Arthur Harris (British)

Arthur 'Bomber' Harris was one of the most controversial figures of the Second World War, after the War. This was not the case during the War. He was the commander-in-chief of RAF Bomber Command (1942-45). Harris's reputation steadily declined after the War as pundits no longer having to worry about a NAZI victoiry began to evalkute the War from the safety that Bomber Command heklped to create. They began to recoil from the devastation of German cities and the deaths of thousands of German civilians. Note the metric thousands' in a war where the NAZIs murdered in the millions. Some began calling himk a mass murderer and a war criminal. "During the Second World War, RAF Bomber Command was the most celebrated aspect of the British war effort. No other nation put asmuch effort into strategic bombing as the British. Enormous resources of money, time, and industrial infrastructure were devoted to the bomber campaign, as Churchill backed Bomber Command’s efforts to bring Nazi Germany to its knees." [Connelly] A few daus after the first thiusand bomber attack of the war, a raid on Cologne (May 30-31, 194), he explained to the British people in a 2 minute newsreel film a chilling descriotionm of just what he planned to do, "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put that rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind. Cologne, Lubeck, Rostock—Those are only just the beginning. We cannot send a thousand bombers a time over Germany every time, as yet. But the time will come when we can do so. Let the Nazis take good note of the western horizon. There they will see a cloud as yet no bigger than a man’s hand. But behind that cloud lies the whole massive power of the United States of America. When the storm bursts over Germany, they will look back to the days of Lubeck and Rostock and Cologne as a man caught in the blasts of a hurricane will look back to the gentle zephyrs of last summer. It may take a year. It may take two. But for the Nazis, the writing is on the wall. Let them look out for themselves. The cure is in their own hands. There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see. Germany, clinging more and more desperately to her widespread conquests and even seeking foolishly for more, will make a most interesting initial experiment. Japan will provide the confirmation. But the time is not yet. There is a great deal of work to be done first, and let us all get down to it."

Curtis LeMay (American)

Gen. Curtus LeMay was an innovator, '"probably the most innovative air commander of World War II." [Crane, p. 125.] There are few men in Ameican military history that were as comprtent and controversial as LeMay. He was referred to as 'Iron Ass, according to one author for 'his stubbornness and shortness once his mind was made up.' The stout, cigar-chomping, stone-faced general when he spoke was blunt and to the point. He told an interviewer, "There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders." [Sherry, p. 287.]

William Manning (American)

Bishop William Manning of New York quipped "If war is to be shortened and the world freed from this assault of brutality and terror, what substitute can the signers of protests suggest for the bombing of cities which are military objectives, terrible and grievous as it may be."

Norman Vincent Peal (American)

Norman Vincent Peal, author of The Power of Positive Thinking was also supportive.

Henry Stimson (American)

Secretary of War Henry Stimson was concerned over the USAAF execution and was concerned that we "might outdo the Nazis in terms of atrocities." To such concern Hap Arnold replied "This is a brutal was and the...way to stop the killing of civilians is to cause so much damage that their govts cease fighting." He went on further to write "...we cant pull our punches because someone may get killed-We must not get soft, War much be destructive and to a certain extent inhumane and ruthless."

New York Times

The editor of the wrote "Just how on earth do they (bombing protestors) expect to achieve their highly valued justice, tolerance, humanity, brotherhood and tenderness without socking the rapacious German nation with every pound of explosives they do not say."

USAAF Planners

It was not part of the original doctrine too have humans as primary targets. But doctrinally there was a wedge that allowed it in certain cases. 2) By 1945 one of the original framers of the doctrine did say "it makes a lot of sense to kill skilled workers." So there is a change in the thinking over time. Once atomic weapons came to fore given the horrors of WW II, the gloves were off as they say. But to say the framers believed that targeting people should be done for revenge-no. Doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, given Pearl Harbor, et al. But it the targeting of enemy moral was focused on dropping infrastructure and the economy-not by indiscriminate killing for killing sake.

Sources

Connelly, Mark. "13. Bomber Harris: Raking through the ashes of the strategic air campaign against Germany," in Michael Parris, ed. Repicturing the Second World War (2007).

Crane, Conrad C. Bombs, Cities and Civilians American Airpower Strategy in World War II (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993).

Goebbeks, Josef. "Überwundene Winterkrise. Rede im Berliner Sportpalast," Der steile Aufstieg (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1944), pp. 287-306.

Sherry, Michael . The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon. "LeMay's interview with Sherry," interview after the war" (September 10, 1989), p. 408 n. 108). (Yale University Press).

Created: 8:25 AM 3/11/2021
Last updated: 8:25 AM 3/11/2021