the_cave

Given the many strong words spoken by atheists (perhaps accurately, I'm not here to discuss it) against the killings perpetrated over history by Christians, the strong words spoken against President Bush in regards to the current world crisis, and the criticisms of America's history of military conflict (perhaps validly, I'm not here to discuss it), I'd like to take an example of killing on a similar scale by a secular society from modern times for discussion, out of curiosity's sake (in other words, I have no ulterior motive.)

During WWII, over 1.5 megatons of explosives were dropped over the Nazi state, killing millions of civilians--men, women, and children. If you want to argue numbers, it ranks among the largest slaughters ever perpetrated by humankind. The bombings were indiscriminate, and deliberately targeted civilian areas--and left many millions more homeless, as it reduced many of Germany's cities, houses, and buildings to rubble. One of the explicit goals of the bombing was to induce terror and fear in the German civilian population. Great exultation was raised at the enactment of revenge for the destruction of Coventry and the suffering of London. I've seen statistics indicating production capacity did not drop appreciably in Germany during this time, and it did not appear to aid the plight of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, nor their fellow victims. Indeed, the Holocaust does not appear to have been used as a reason for the bombings. Most (70%) of the bombs were dropped after the breakout from Normandy following the D-Day invasion, during the last year or so of the war. (I'm going to leave out discussion of the mass rapes documented in the Allied sectors following the war, for now.) These bombings were carried out by the RAF and the US Army Air Corp. It was approved by FDR and (somewhat reluctantly, but fully) Winston Churchill, and the leader of UK Bomber Command, Sir Arthur Harris, swore to his dying day, without remorse, that the bombings were fully justified.

Were they justified?

Ab_Normal

I haven't studied history enough to have an informed opinion. My gut reaction is strongly against bombing civilian centers, regardless of who does it.

Amen-Moses

You forgot the Canadian Air Force (25% of the bomber force prior to 1943) the Polish volunteer forces and the Australian and New Zealand Air Forces. It was a truly international effort.

I live in a house that was built smack bang in the middle of a bomb crater in 1947 and it was at the time the crater was made(by a 500kg bomb or possibly 3 250kg bombs, it is a bit difficult to tell after the event) at least 2 miles from the nearest military target.

My aunt left Hamburg during the total destruction of that town with ten days of non-stop day and night raids, her story is truly horrific.

Both sides were equally guilty of mass bombing raids (just take a look at Stalingrad or some of the towns in Holland!) but personally I think that the final stages, i.e Dresden and Cologne amongst them, were totally unjustified because by that time we had air superiority which meant we could pick and choose targets at will and we should have only gone for strategic targets.

Much is made of the lack of damage to Germany's industry but percentages do not tell the whole story, just as with the "what if" scenarios the main point is that by taking out a single factory or rail yard it is possible to do real damage to the war effort even though 95% of production capabilities are untouched. For example taking out a rubber fabrication plant (which burns extremely well) could severly restrict the fighting abilities at the front line by reducing the supplies of fan belts and tires without which vehicles quickly become useless. Another target was ball bearing factories, synthetic fuel plants (which crippled the Luftwafe) and even something as mundane as an air filter factory.

(btw by "what if" I mean the scenario whereby Britain fell in 1940, one consequence of that would be that within 6 months Germany and Japan could have cut of rubber supplies to the US and the U-boats could have easily cut off Russia from any imports by controlling the Indian Ocean, Artic and Northern Pacific routes. Such a simple thing as a lack of rubber would have seriously hampered any attempts by the US to mount an effective challange)

Amen-Moses

themistocles

I don't know that Churchill was reluctant to bomb the hell out of Germany. At least he promised that the Brits would mete out equal retribution to the Germans as the Germans did to them and then some("You do your worst, and we'll do our best").

Really, I don't think it was a matter of "let's wipe out the German race". Factories were in urban areas and morale is directly a part of conducting a war, I'd feel secure in stating that the Allies felt by bombing the hell out of the Germans, they were sending the war to its conclusion.

It well can be argued that this strategy may have been incorrect (although I don't, and it's a bit difficult to measure such things...every street corner that has to be cleaned is a day more away from the munitions factory, I'd say), but I don't think there's anything particularly insidious about bombing the enemy in a war. It really had become the nature of the beast.

The war in the Pacific Theater was directly ended by incinerating two whole cities, so there's some moral merit to the argument unless you believe fighting a war for as long as possible with as high a body count as possible.

Psycho Economist

First, there's a difference between starting a war and fighting one that's been started. The carpet bombings in northern Germany (Dresden) would not have happened if Germany had not invaded Poland, with whom England had a mutual-protection treaty.

Second, as it's already been pointed out, the objective of the Dresden campaign was not to terrorize civilians (as was the V1 & V2 air raids on London), the object was to disrupt Germany's military - industrial complex. Only a war crimes trial would settle the issue of who signed the orders to bomb what, and winners to date have never faced war crimes trials... but manufacturing centers for military equipment and supplies are legal targets.

Were target orders based on perfect inteligence? They aren't today. But were non-combattants being intentionally, knowingly targeted? We have no affirmative evidence to date. If such evidence comes to light, apologies and restitutions would be in order and the commanders, pilots and bombadiers responsible (who are still alive, anyway) should be exposed for what they did.

Third, the technology back then sucked. Period. Today we can target a dirtbag with a kalyshikov from miles away, but in the 40's you had to bomb the shit out of the whole region to have a good chance of hitting a factory or rail yard. The best you could do was dial in your altitude and airspeed as best you knew to put optical crosshairs on the target, let the things go and if you're Christian: pray you hit Karl's factory and not Helga's cottage next door.

Was it justified under the circumstances: yeah. Would it be exceptable today: no.

themistocles

Here, here, Psycho Economist. Well said.

christ-on-a-stick

I would echo Ab_Normal's sentiment.

JohnR

I saw on the History Channel while Britain bombed everything, the Americans still opted for industrial or military targets. According to this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwt...mbing_02.shtml) the whole thing was a big mistake.

Psycho Economist

Wow. Three points for JohnR. Shows I know less about Churchill and Britain in WWII than I thought.

Like I said, it's a shame the victors never face war crimes trials.

Vorkosigan

The usual exaggerated nonsense. A quick check of Google reveals that the actual civilian destruction was nowhere near the initial post claims

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Official German statistics place total casualties from air attack -- including German civilians, foreigners, and members of the armed forces in cities that were being attacked -- at 250,253 killed for the period from January 1, 1943, to January 31, 1945, and 305,455 wounded badly enough to require hospitalization, during the period from October 1, 1943, to January 31, 1945. A careful examination of these data, together with checks against the records of individual cities that were attacked, indicates that they are too low. A revised estimate prepared by the Survey (which is also a minimum) places total casualties for the entire period of the war at 305,000 killed and 780,000 wounded. More reliable statistics are available on damage to housing. According to these, 485,000 residential buildings were totally destroyed by air attack and 415,000 were heavily damaged, making a total of 20 percent of all dwelling units in Germany. In some 50 cities that were primary targets of the air attack, the proportion of destroyed or heavily damaged dwelling units is about 40 percent. The result of all these attacks was to render homeless some 7,500,000 German civilians.
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The US Strategic Bombing Survey is online. You can read it for yourselves and judge.

The was a famous debate between Keynes and Rostow on this very topic that heavily influenced our subsequent bombing campaign in Vietnam. Keynes argued that the Strategic Bombing Campaign had been useless because production levels of aircraft did not drop. But Rostow pointed out, by using data on actual aircraft deliveries to the front, that Speer had cooked the books, first by reporting production that wasn{t actually delivered, and second, by counting repaired aircraft as produced aircraft. Bottom line is the German production figures are cooked, and not a whole lot can be inferred from them.

The Survey says
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German fighter production continued to increase during the summer of 1944, and acceptances reached a peak of 3,375 in September. Although it has studied the problem with considerable care, the Survey has no clear answer as to what happened to these planes; the differences of opinion between German air generals, it might be added, are at least as great as between those who have searched for the explanation. Certainly only a minority of the planes appeared in combat. Possibly the remainder were lost in transit from factory to combat bases, destroyed on the fields, or grounded because of a shortage of gasoline or pilots. Conceivably some are part of an inflation of German production figures. The answer is not clear.
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The bombing campaign helped in several ways. First, it used a large number of resources that might have led to German victory in the East despite the massive aid program to Russia. Second, it ground the German Air Force to bits. Third, it did have a strong negative effect on the war effort, especially on the transportation side. Fourth, it had a positive morale effect on the Allied side, we were taking the war to the enemy. Fifth, it represented the Western Allies contribution to the war effort at a time when Russia was doing most of the real fighting.

There were definitely areas of success. Again the survey

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Production from the synthetic plants declined steadily and by July 1944 every major plant had been hit. These plants were producing an average of 316,000 tons per month when the attacks began. Their production fell to 107,000 tons in June and 17,000 tons in September. Output of aviation gasoline from synthetic plants dropped from 175,000 tons in April to 30,000 tons in July and 5,000 tons in September. Production recovered somewhat in November and December, but for the rest of the war was but a fraction of pre-attack output.

The Germans viewed the attacks as catastrophic. In a series of letters to Hitler, among documents seized by the Survey, the developing crisis is outlined month by month in detail. On June 30, Speer wrote: "The enemy has succeeded in increasing our losses of aviation gasoline up to 90 percent by June 22d. Only through speedy recovery of damaged plants has it been possible to regain partly some of the terrible losses." The tone of the letters that followed was similar.
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Overall, of course, there were many things that could have been done better with 20'20 hindisght, chief among being concentrating on electric plants instead of oil. But the technology was so primitive that a city was about the smallest target that could be properly hit, especially by bombers operating at night. Remember, a 1% error across a 400 mile flight means the bombs are four miles off target. Furthermore, the Germans were actively seeking to mislead the bombers, and of course, trying to shoot them down and interfere with their bomb dropping in any way possible. The bombers were not unopposed! Accuracy is a serious problem with crosswinds, enemy fighters, flak, fake burning cities, and fear dominating the action.

Vorkosigan