Article: the American use of the atomic bombs

[Traitorfish]

*Ignore this post*

 

[Adler17]

Kranden: Does the murder of Jews is justifying killing innocent Germans?

@PH:
Attacking civilians is better to attack industrial/military/traffic targets? Why not bombing the industrial quaters and not the civilian in that way the British did. If they did that way they would be victorious sooner. There you don't need that much accuracy, too. BTW my grandma could have told you some stories about accuracy...

The Eastern Front is a completely other chapter. But you're right. The total war here was barbarism. And partizans, well, they are not protected by the law of war. To shoot them was allowed.

In terms of law you can use the same or other equivalent means if the other is systematically violencing a law. So in ww1 the Brits made a blockade which was against the law. The submarine warfare by Germany was thus seen as reprisal. Or if one side is not making PoW you can also make no PoW. However the new means may not out of proportion. So nuking a city is not allowed if the other bombed Westminster Abby.

The Germans attacked mostly military and industrial targets until the Berlin bombardment. From then on we have a series of attacks also on civilians by both sides. As here the situation is very difficult to prove, in dubio pro reo, they can be seen as reprisals. However indeed every single attack had to be judged if you want.
Then the new strategy came to bomb civilians as main targets. Now a total new quality came into the war, which was not justified. Even as reprisal. That the Luftwaffe was not prepared for such a war, in contrast to Britain, is another point for me. The Luftwaffe was designed as a kind of flying artillery for tactical missions. Not strategical. There they failed when switching to that task. Also it is one question to want to do something and doing it really. You can't kill your enemy only he wants to kill you, when he did not do anything.
Also you're right in so far as not every single action, whic is later seen as questionable, is questioned. But a whole campaign is not a single action!
Oh did I mention a reprisal must be in the same or a similar way to be legal? So for Malmedy it would not be allowed to bomb Hamburg-Barmbek. Anyway we're talking here just about the war in the air, and nothing else should be discussed. If you want to open a general warcrime thread, okay. But here we are talking abot Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the British bombing campaign.

Adler

 

[privatehudson]

Attacking civilians is better to attack industrial/military/traffic targets? Why not bombing the industrial quaters and not the civilian in that way the British did. If they did that way they would be victorious sooner. There you don't need that much accuracy, too.

It rather depends on whether you have the ability to attack the principle "proper" targets doesn't it? Specialised raids against specific targets like U-Boat pens or factories need accuracy and specific tactics to be effective, otherwise it rarely puts the target out of action for an extended period. Targetting a city in general and/or its population specifically does not require accuracy.

BTW my grandma could have told you some stories about accuracy...

As could probably a large number of people who lived in the South East of England during 1940. I very much doubt any air force was free of the kind of pilot who might engage in straffing civilians.

The Eastern Front is a completely other chapter. But you're right. The total war here was barbarism. And partizans, well, they are not protected by the law of war. To shoot them was allowed.

Well to shoot partisans on the spot is one thing, the problem might well lie in the way that Russia and Germany generally lumped a great many people into the category of partisan and shot them out of hand. Whether they were partisans or not is a matter of debate. However when Germany felt inclined to shoot so many "partisans" when they invaded Russia it left them wide open for the Russians to do the same in reprisal when they invaded Germany.

Which is why reprisal as justification for an action is a dangerous game, for if you don't win the war the enemy will sooner or later (whether some niave law says its justified or not) reply in kind.

The Germans attacked mostly military and industrial targets until the Berlin bombardment. From then on we have a series of attacks also on civilians by both sides. As here the situation is very difficult to prove, in dubio pro reo, they can be seen as reprisals. However indeed every single attack had to be judged if you want.

I don't see any point in arguing the toss with each simply because the British government and people would not have had the luxury of sitting around and debated each attack in such a fashion. I can't imagine that civilians bombed out of houses and working in shells of buildings would give a hoot whether the British targetted civilians or targetted cities and hit civilians by accident. The perception was that the Luftwaffe went after civilians when it suited them to do so, the response was that the British would do the same in future. From your cosy chair 60 years later you can analyse each Luftwaffe and RAF raid and say whether the actions of either were proportinate. Whether the people at the time had that luxury in the middle of a global war is another matter entirely.

Also you're right in so far as not every single action, whic is later seen as questionable, is questioned. But a whole campaign is not a single action!

Nor is a whole campaign made up solely of one style of action. Hamburg was raided many times in WW2, a great many of them to target military or industrial sites.

Oh did I mention a reprisal must be in the same or a similar way to be legal? So for Malmedy it would not be allowed to bomb Hamburg-Barmbek.

It really doesn't suprise me that the legal defenition of reprisal would be so pointlessly specific. I can just imagine the heads of the RAF scratching their heads trying to work out how many planes they can bomb Berlin with that week in order not to be accused of going over the top.

Anyway we're talking here just about the war in the air, and nothing else should be discussed. If you want to open a general warcrime thread, okay. But here we are talking abot Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the British bombing campaign.

I thought the thread was supposed to be about the first two, if we're going to drag it off topic to discuss the British bombing campaign we might as well discuss what we like, not limit the subjects discussed in order to avoid some difficult subjects.

 

[C~G]

Not that I really want to interfere your discussion...

It really doesn't suprise me that the legal defenition of reprisal would be so pointlessly specific. I can just imagine the heads of the RAF scratching their heads trying to work out how many planes they can bomb Berlin with that week in order not to be accused of going over the top.

IMO some of the bombings of the cities can be seen as harassing rather than systematic bombing of civilians which I refer to in my first post in this thread.
And surely the line can thought to be drawn to the sand but if we are talking about the amount of planes allies used in those raids and how they were arranged, they were not only side-effect of other bombings or harassing but was targeted towards terrorizing and murdering civilians. Maybe the allies thought it had effect towards winning the war or maybe it was done because of revenge or even both. It doesn't change the issue we are talking about massmurders here.

Then again maybe if germans would have had more planes they would also bombed more civilian targets, we don't know. I think comparing them in this light is rather difficult since it's very hard to prove such things as what was the intentionality of some side compared to the other since.

I have to comment also this earlier post...

Just to clarify something I don't think the allies having the just cause justified the means they used. They did what they thought they had to in order to win the war, they made what we now can see with hindsight were monumental mistakes, they didn't always play by the book. Sometimes in the midst of trying to preserve something you loose sight of it and end up almost destroying it yourself (Lincoln on a lesser scale for example by his at times almost dictatorial actions).

This is very good, only thing maybe missing is that allies might have also done something completely based into emotion rather than reasoning it would win war to them as like of in form of bombing civilians as revenge.

This is exactly where I'm referring to with the earlier messages.
It goes something like this:
Attaching yourself to one side (allies) => Just cause for war (against nazis) => Means of total war are used if it means victory (bombings of civilian targets become justifiable) => Overly rationalizing the decisions made by the side (The only reason they did it was because other side was also using them or there wasn't supposedly any other choice available)

The Result is linear study of human history were alternative scenarios don't exist, all decisions and actions can be justified as they happen to that period of time in kind of opportunity vacuum where they aren't able to be taken back. Especially if it comes to the decisions of your own kind. I also talked about this in that long message about Orwellian truth machine. The side that wins writtens his history and in current western fashion all progress is overly rationalized to have good cause and good effect. It also creates similar attitude for the future and the cycle continues. It is the ultimate mistake.

People are afraid of letting go of it since it would imply two things, first that your side might had done lot of wrong things for lot of bad reasons for wrong cause and second that the other side that seen as evil might have been as rational as ever can be, and nothing separates you from one another.

I do however believe there was a distinct difference in motivation and end result (for want of a better word) between the western allied crimes and the crimes of the Nazi regime.

And this why you clearly cannot have neutral viewpoint into the issue.

You say there's distinct difference between western allied crimes and the crimes of the Nazi regime.

But my question is this: If A bombed civilians because thought it would win the war for them but minor success because of the amount of planes, technology and tactics and B did it later on with much more success because of the same reason, what's the difference?

If this would be murder case B would get much lengthy punishment since he succeeded with much greater scale in what A just tried.
Both are crimes though, in just different scales. And B's intent can be actually shown to prove by the effects and amount of dead while the A's intent is based into ideology they are supposde to have carried.

So actually maybe the Nazi's had motivation but surely Allies did have the end results if we look the bombings.
Holocaust is entirely different issue for me really.

EDIT: And I apologize if these remarks somehow offend you but it's sometimes good to hear different kind of viewpoint, it's refreshing.
Though I must admit in general I usually have maybe a bit strange approach to history than other people, like the posts in this thread also might show.

 

[privatehudson]

You say there's distinct difference between western allied crimes and the crimes of the Nazi regime.

But my question is this: If A bombed civilians because thought it would win the war for them but minor success because of the amount of planes, technology and tactics and B did it later on with much more success because of the same reason, what's the difference?

If this would be murder case B would get much lengthy punishment since he succeeded with much greater scale in what A just tried.
Both are crimes though, in just different scales. And B's intent can be actually shown to prove by the effects and amount of dead while the A's intent is based into ideology they are supposde to have carried.

You are correct, the intention of the two bombing campaigns was very similar and had little difference, however your response to my point implies that my original comment was a direct comparison between the British bombing raids and the German ones, which wasn't the point I was making in that comment. I was saying that the worst allied crimes such as the British raids were borne out of a product of the war, and were effectively an attempt (no matter how misguided) to produce an end to the war sooner. The worst Axis crimes like the holocaust on the other hand had nothing whatsoever to do with ending the war sooner and derive more from the general inhumane nature of the regime than any product of the conflict itself. Its difficult to imagine a peacetime RAF being given permission to flatten an entire population, even in a colony (bombing the occasional town or city is one thing, and prolonged and concentrated campaign another), its not a big stretch to imagine the persecuton and murder of jews continuing had WW2 not broken out.

Therein lies the different motivation for me, and it neither justifies Bomber Command's campaign or the Luftwaffe attacks on cities, it merely says that at least either of those were born from a desire to win the war sooner, which is at least understandable if not exactly justifiable within the boundaries of the legal system of the time. It doesn't have anything to do with nationality but with intention, the holocaust was a deliberate design with the end result of completely wiping out certain groups of people. The Strategic Bombing Offensive was a plan to bomb German civilians with the plan of undermining their morale until such time as the war ended when it would stop.

Morally speaking both are unpleasant, but at least one doesn't have an end product which sees no-one in the target group left alive.

Attaching yourself to one side (allies) => Just cause for war (against nazis) => Means of total war are used if it means victory (bombings of civilian targets become justifiable) => Overly rationalizing the decisions made by the side (The only reason they did it was because other side was also using them or there wasn't supposedly any other choice available)

The Result is linear study of human history were alternative scenarios don't exist, all decisions and actions can be justified as they happen to that period of time in kind of opportunity vacuum where they aren't able to be taken back. Especially if it comes to the decisions of your own kind. I also talked about this in that long message about Orwellian truth machine. The side that wins writtens his history and in current western fashion all progress is overly rationalized to have good cause and good effect. It also creates similar attitude for the future and the cycle continues. It is the ultimate mistake.

People are afraid of letting go of it since it would imply two things, first that your side might had done lot of wrong things for lot of bad reasons for wrong cause and second that the other side that seen as evil might have been as rational as ever can be, and nothing separates you from one another.

I do not believe the allies were perfect, do not believe they never made a mistake, nor that they had no choice in bombing German cities. I do however understand why they did this, just as I understand why the Germans bombed Coventry, London and Liverpool and all the other towns and cities that were hit. I don't think any of the campaigns were forgone conclusions either. I firmly believe that to bomb German cities should not have been done after it was proven that the desired effect of knocking Germany from the war did not suceed. After that point to do so was not only morally wrong but detrimental to the war effort, and a sad waste of aircrew's lives for no gain. In the final balance Bomber Command's offensive probably didn't have a good effect on the war effort.

What I don't believe in is sitting in a comfortable chair 60 years on and declaring without any reflection on the emotions of the time that Bomber Command's whole war was a colossal crime from start to finish. Nor do I believe that it could be argued that even with the crimes the allies did, that the Nazi German regime had nothing to seperate it from its enemies (with the possible exception of Stalin's regime). Sure if you ignore everything that did seperate it from the western allies such as the holocaust and limit a discussion of its fighting methods to those used in the west then there was little to seperate us. To ignore half of the character of a regime in order to compare it to another however is to make an imperfect and only partial comparison.

I'd draw the line at calling the Nazi regime evil since that is to me little more than an overused and simplified word. I would rather call them morally corrupt, weak and hypocritical with little compassion or sense. Well that would be the start anyway...

IMO some of the bombings of the cities can be seen as harassing rather than systematic bombing of civilians which I refer to in my first post in this thread.
And surely the line can thought to be drawn to the sand but if we are talking about the amount of planes allies used in those raids and how they were arranged, they were not only side-effect of other bombings or harassing but was targeted towards terrorizing and murdering civilians. Maybe the allies thought it had effect towards winning the war or maybe it was done because of revenge or even both. It doesn't change the issue we are talking about massmurders here.

Then again maybe if germans would have had more planes they would also bombed more civilian targets, we don't know. I think comparing them in this light is rather difficult since it's very hard to prove such things as what was the intentionality of some side compared to the other since.

I really don't believe I've ever denied that the strategic bombing offensive was not about attacking civilians. We don't know what the Germans would have done, but to me it rather depends on the situation in the war. Had the Luftwaffe required deployment elsewhere such as Russia or the Balkans then a continued and prolonged assault on Britain was unlikley, not because of lack of will (even in late 1943 and early 1944 the will to hit out at London still remained - the Baby Blitz) but more out of the realisation that the planes were more effective elsewhere. Had there not been such a distraction and had the Luftwaffe had more planes we can only go by what the Germans did do after the failure to destroy the RAF - they switched to cities, and there is little evidence that this would have changed since later raids saw no change of pattern. Sometimes these cities had industrial or military importance (Liverpool and Belfast for example) other times the target was merely one of cultural importance (the Baedecker raids).

 

[C~G]

I'm lost as to how this applies to me frankly.

Well, being perfectly honest here I didn't mean all my conclusions affected you, I just continued my thought process from your post and the position I saw your post place you in. I'm sorry if I made it look like that.

I will read your message bit more closely later on and comment it.

 

[privatehudson]

Do not worry about upsetting me, I learnt long ago not to be upset by online debates. Hopefully the above post will clarify my position more

 

[Adler17]

@ PH:

The British did not aim factories. And they could have attacked industrial quaters like they did with the civilians. That's no point.

The point I gave with accuracy was not because of the strafing but about the bombarding. She told me often that she often saw, that British bombs destroyed buildings which were just left the attack before. That means the attack began there, where the bombardment ended before. Although I have to admit that was her impression, but although there were no laser guided bombs accuracy was enough to attack the industrial quaters.

You misunderstood the reprisal: A reprisal is only allowed so long the enemy is violating the laws. If he stopped, even only because he had no chance of continuing, a reprisal is no longer justified. Thus the actions of the Russians from Königsberg to Berlin were crimes and not justifiable as only revenge (if at all) was ruling.

Admitted that in that campaing the British bombed also industrial and military targets. But about them I don't talk. I talk about the aimed attack on civilians. Thus the campaign is a crime. If a few exceptional attacks on civilians make a campaign not to a crime, a few more or less exceptional attacks on valid target makes a campaign not good.

An attack out of proportion does not mean, if the Germans used 108 bomber the British were only allowed to attack with 108 bombers, too. But with ten times as many, then it is out of proportion.

So shall we now discuss every single major attack of civilians by both sides until 1942?

Harris committed similar attacks in Arabia while serving there. There he also attacked civilian targets only to make terror. The RAF did not stop him.

The plan to bomb civilians to break their morale was wrong. It was intended to kill them. To break their morale was not more than another not so harsh sounding word for it. Attacking civilians is murder. That can not be justified with the Holocaust. Okay the Holocaust was worse. But that does not change anything that the British bombing campaign was murder, too. If you have a gangster killing 10 people and a so called gentleman killing one both are murderers.

Emotions are also no justifications. You can not justify yourself because of emotions alone. The nazis made bad crimes. Again this is no justification to do it the very similar way. Also if you admit that it was wrong to make, that there were other possibilities and at least after the failure of the campaing was clear you said it was wrong to continue: Why do you still defend these actions and do not qualify them as crime?

Also what the Luftwaffe had perhaps done is another question what the RAF actually did. BTW IIRC the baedecker raids were done by the British...

Adler

 

[privatehudson]

The British did not aim factories. And they could have attacked industrial quaters like they did with the civilians. That's no point.

The point I gave with accuracy was not because of the strafing but about the bombarding. She told me often that she often saw, that British bombs destroyed buildings which were just left the attack before. That means the attack began there, where the bombardment ended before. Although I have to admit that was her impression, but although there were no laser guided bombs accuracy was enough to attack the industrial quaters.

With the greatest of respect a civilian on the ground is not a good source for what the enemy's bomber force were or were not targetting. I'm sure if you ask any person in Liverpool who survived the blitz they wouldn't often talk about the Germans blasting the docks to pieces, they'd talk about shelters, destroyed houses, old churches that were demolished or department stores torn down. The city's docks were hit, but the impact of a branch dock being destroyed was not nearly as obvious to a civilian as the loss of half the houses in the street and a shelter full of civilians collapsing.

You misunderstood the reprisal: A reprisal is only allowed so long the enemy is violating the laws. If he stopped, even only because he had no chance of continuing, a reprisal is no longer justified. Thus the actions of the Russians from Königsberg to Berlin were crimes and not justifiable as only revenge (if at all) was ruling.

You're assuming I agree that reprisal is a good justification for anything. My point is that if you do commit crimes and use reprisal to justify them then the enemy will in most cases revisit those crimes on you when the opportunity presents itself. Whether the legal system permits reprisal years or months after the fact is only relevant if the regime pays attention to such a system.

But whilst we're on the subject since the German crimes didn't stop with the Allied arrival on Third Reich soil we can assign some sense of reprisal to the actions of say the Russian army in East Prussia. A good study like Beevor's book rightly suggests that this was far from the only reason for the Russian crimes but it certainly played a part.

Admitted that in that campaing the British bombed also industrial and military targets. But about them I don't talk. I talk about the aimed attack on civilians. Thus the campaign is a crime. If a few exceptional attacks on civilians make a campaign not to a crime, a few more or less exceptional attacks on valid target makes a campaign not good.

Of course you wouldn't talk about them, it might present a more balanced account of the RAF's contribution to the war than writing it off as mostly the Strategic bombing offensive.

An attack out of proportion does not mean, if the Germans used 108 bomber the British were only allowed to attack with 108 bombers, too. But with ten times as many, then it is out of proportion.

The largest raids during the Blitz were far larger than that level frankly, the 2nd Great Fire of London raid involved more than 400 planes for example. I personally doubt that this smaller deployment was because the Germans lacked the will to damage the city.

Harris committed similar attacks in Arabia while serving there. There he also attacked civilian targets only to make terror. The RAF did not stop him.

I believe my point was that the British government would be unlikely to sanction the a prolonged and concentrated campaign against a native population during peacetime, not that they would not sanction some attacks on civilian targets.

The plan to bomb civilians to break their morale was wrong. It was intended to kill them. To break their morale was not more than another not so harsh sounding word for it. Attacking civilians is murder. That can not be justified with the Holocaust. Okay the Holocaust was worse. But that does not change anything that the British bombing campaign was murder, too. If you have a gangster killing 10 people and a so called gentleman killing one both are murderers.

I never stated that the holocaust justified the bombing campaigns. I made the point that the character and intentions of the Nazi regime was not comparable to the character and intentions of the western allies. That point was questioned and I clarified it.

Emotions are also no justifications. You can not justify yourself because of emotions alone. The nazis made bad crimes. Again this is no justification to do it the very similar way.

When I spoke of emotion I was discussing understanding why something was done, which is not the same as saying it was justified. You have an obsession with arguing about whether every action can be justified or not, I don't share that.

lso if you admit that it was wrong to make, that there were other possibilities and at least after the failure of the campaing was clear you said it was wrong to continue: Why do you still defend these actions and do not qualify them as crime?

I believe that due to the climate of the time it was understandable to make an attempt at using strategic bombing to put the Axis powers out of the war. It wasn't morally right to do so, nor was it pleasant, but it was understandable to do so. Having proven that it was impossible (or highly unlikely) to break Germany using that method however I believe it was even more morally wrong to continue.

I do not seek to defend the actions, merely to understand why they took place. Appreciating why people before us did something is not the same as defending it.

Also what the Luftwaffe had perhaps done is another question what the RAF actually did. BTW IIRC the baedecker raids were done by the British...

I'm talking about the retaliatory raids the Luftwaffe launched for attacks on Lubeck and Cologne. The targets almost without exception had only a small connection to the war effort. The name of the raids primarily come from a supposed comment by a German propagandist that the Luftwaffe would bomb every building with three stars in the Baedecker guide. They provide some indication of the mentality that existed in the Luftwaffe high command after 1941-42.

I don't know what you're referring to but I'm reasonably sure that the planes that bombed York had Swastikas on them.

 

[Adler17]

PH, a reprisal is in no way justifying revenge or later crimes. So what the Soviet barbars did in East Prussia was in no way a justification for the things nazi barbars did. You ignore the nature of the reprisal.

We are also only talking about the strategical bombing war and not all the tactical attacks the RAF conducted (or the strategical attack conducted only on industrial targets).

The attacks German planes did in the Blitz were made only by tactical bomber planes. The British used strategic. After the Berlin raid the situation escalated indeed. However this does not justify the quantum leap in the change of strategy made by the RAF.

For these attacks Harris was not court martialed. In contrast. And indeed in that times the RAF prepared for making a strategical war like they did in 1942. The government did not stop them.

If someone kills because of hatred and the other kills innocent and defenseless people he might have a higher morale intention. But both are murderer. There was only one penalty for those crimes, was it in Britain or Germany.

If someone fights as Jew against the Nazis his hatred is understandable. But acting understandably does not justify him, if he kills innocent civilians. And that's exactly the point: You ignore that. For you the Allies acted on the morale right side and the wrong things were not so good, but you can understand them. Then you are justifying their actions where there are no justifications.

Well, you just admitted the British started to bomb Lübeck and Köln and so on, cities with little military value and therefore little defenses. The Germans only retaliated. Thus as the Allies started they are justified. Also these retaliation strikes does not justifies the Allies for their attacks. But now we are at the beginning again.

Adler

 

[Kranden]

One thing you should know is my Great Uncle was a Interceptor not a bomber and spent most of his time defending Britain from German fighters and bombers.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, what exactly do you think should have done, Adler? Should Truman have been strung up alongside the Nazis? Should Churchill have been put up against a wall and shot? Should those who organised the Manhattan project be treated as those who orchestrated the Final Solution? Should the Allies have butchered their entire leadership as some form of "repentance" for the war that another country started?
If you're so concerned that the Allied crimes be recognised, then what punishments do you think should have been handed out?

 

[privatehudson]

PH, a reprisal is in no way justifying revenge or later crimes. So what the Soviet barbars did in East Prussia was in no way a justification for the things nazi barbars did. You ignore the nature of the reprisal.

I was not talking about whether the Russian actions were justified (for the record though I don't believe they were), I was saying that they were taken at least in part in direct and deliberate revenge for the crimes comitted against Russia by Germany, crimes for the most part that were planned before the conflict broke out indicating a lack of reprisal in their motivation. Using reprisal methods - justified or otherwise - and/or commiting warcrimes is almost garunteed to result sooner or later in the enemy responding in kind. That is my point - that reprisal, even within the boundaries of this ludicrous legal notion that you keep referring to is a highly dangerous tactic to use, and even if you keep within those boundaries you merely entice and enrage the enemy into going outside them. I don't believe that it would be much consolation to the population of East Prussia to know that German reprisals were within legal limits whereas what they were going to suffer wasn't.

The attacks German planes did in the Blitz were made only by tactical bomber planes. The British used strategic. After the Berlin raid the situation escalated indeed. However this does not justify the quantum leap in the change of strategy made by the RAF.

For these attacks Harris was not court martialed. In contrast. And indeed in that times the RAF prepared for making a strategical war like they did in 1942. The government did not stop them.

That's right, after Berlin the situation escalated, so stating that the British attacks on cities were 10 times as numerous in planes was an exaggeration.

By the way you can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe anyone in the Condor Legion was court martialled for bombing Guernica either.

I'm intruiged by the last statement, are you suggesting that the RAF were preparing to bomb flat all the cities and urban centres of Arabia?

If someone kills because of hatred and the other kills innocent and defenseless people he might have a higher morale intention. But both are murderer. There was only one penalty for those crimes, was it in Britain or Germany.

I don't think its reasonable to expect everyone who ordered attacks on urban areas to be charged like a common murderer. One might as well line up the surviving U-Boat captains as well for firing without warning on unarmed ships under that kind of rationale (to clarify that is not what I believe should have happened, merely that is an extension of the logic being put forward). As much as I would not loose any sleep if Harris had been court martialed I don't see any realistic way that it was likely to happen.

If someone fights as Jew against the Nazis his hatred is understandable. But acting understandably does not justify him, if he kills innocent civilians. And that's exactly the point: You ignore that. For you the Allies acted on the morale right side and the wrong things were not so good, but you can understand them. Then you are justifying their actions where there are no justifications.

OK lets get this cleared up once and for all in simple terms (apparently my previous statements to this affect haven't been clear enough for you).

I am not seeking to justify the actions of the western allies in bombing German cities.

I also don't believe the holocaust justified the attacks, nor do I believe that the German attacks made the British attacks right.

However...

I do understand why during WW2 airforces bombed civilian targets.

Understanding something is not the same as agreeing with it or having sympathy with it, nor even the same as defending it. I can understand why under the twisted logic that the Nazis employed the Holocaust took place but that doesn't mean I actually think like the Nazis or agree with their policies on race. I can understand why the Russians rampaged across the Third Reich when they got the chance but that doesn't mean I actually am glad it took place, or would defend it.

Heck I can even understand why some people support Manchester United but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear one of their tops and visit Old Trafford

Well, you just admitted the British started to bomb Lübeck and Köln and so on, cities with little military value and therefore little defenses. The Germans only retaliated. Thus as the Allies started they are justified. Also these retaliation strikes does not justifies the Allies for their attacks.

You miss the context in which those remarks were originally made, it was not a remark about retaliation. I called them such in my last post because there seemed to be some confusion about what I was referring to. I was postulating that the Baedecker raids, the baby blitz, the 2nd great fire night and the use of missiles come together to suggest that the higher ranks of the Luftwaffe didn't have a great deal of concern about attacking non-military targets. This suggests that had the opportunity of a prolonged air campaign against the UK presented itself the Luftwaffe may well have tried a more concentrated and continuous effort against cities rather than airfields or other military targets.

 

[onejayhawk]

I think much of this discussion is futile. The points being made are that it is better to refrain from this or that tactic. The reason being that the damage to the civil population is too high. In every conflict, that is a line that must be crossed, or not, as circumstances dictate.

For a fictional reference, there are a number of books by MZ Bradley concerning a hypothetical world, where a form of industria sorcery exists. It is possible to manufacture aircraft, "clingfire" (naplam) and "bonewater dust" (nuclear fallout) and other area effect weapons, in a preindustrial society. The result is a code of military ethics that required each attacker to be within reach of the attacked, ie swords and spears. This code has odd interactions with firearms, which are considered not just improper, but illegal and actively dishonorable.

My point is that in the heat of conflict, actions must be chosen without respect to posterity. We, the posterity, can look on the choosers with some disdain, but it is moot. We have full knowledge of the situation that decision makers lack, and we have cooly rational thoughtlines that combatants lack. Was the bombing of Tokyo and Dresden worse than the bombing of Hiroshima? Were the 10,000 korean slave workers killed at Nagasaki too high a price? Arguments are made on both sides.

To me, one thing is clear. Any weapon that can be used, eventually will be used, if sufficient pressure is brought to bear.

J

 

[Adler17]

@ Traitorfish:
To hang the responsible ones for ordering the attacks would be the penalty for murder in that time. But I am not their judge. However if you want a clear answer: Yes, they should have hung in Nuremberg, too! That does not mean everyone you mentioned is included, but Truman, Churchill and Harris, yes. Churchill later tried like Speer to get out of his responsability about ordering the attacks. If this was realistic is a completely other question

@ PH:
Harris let bomb small villages and town in the same way like years later. And the ones who ordered to attack Guernica should have court martialed. But that's not the point here.

I don't think all who ordered an attack sould have been court martialed. But the responsibles for this strategy, including Harris and Churchill. If that was realistic is another point.

Okay, you can understand that. And you're right that there is a big difference in understaning and thinking it was right. But for me you sounded you wnted to justify it.

After the (accidental) bombardment of Rotterdam some Nazis wanted to postulate new strategies. This was extremely opposed by Luftwaffe officers, who still wanted to fight a clean war. But that was no longer possible at last when the British switched the strategies.

@Onejayhawk:

These decisions were not made in the heat of a battle but after long consultations. This was not a desperate action but one made with cool intend. Thus it can be only justified by the barbarian theory of total war. The War Code was violated by them.

Adler

 

[Zardnaar]

Didn't the British launch a minor raid in 1940 on Berlin killing sod all people but Hitler got all miffed and ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb English cities? Gave fighter command a rest during the battle of Britain as the airfields were spared.

See Adler bombers won the war

 

[privatehudson]

After the (accidental) bombardment of Rotterdam some Nazis wanted to postulate new strategies. This was extremely opposed by Luftwaffe officers, who still wanted to fight a clean war. But that was no longer possible at last when the British switched the strategies.

The Luftwaffe had an interesting idea of fighting a clean war if you ask me.

Harris let bomb small villages and town in the same way like years later. And the ones who ordered to attack Guernica should have court martialed. But that's not the point here.

I didn't ask whether he bombed small villages and towns, I asked if the RAF planned to flatten cities and urban areas.

Okay, you can understand that. And you're right that there is a big difference in understaning and thinking it was right. But for me you sounded you wnted to justify it.

Either I wasn't clear or you haven't been paying attention since that wasn't the first time I said such a thing.

 

[onejayhawk]

These decisions were not made in the heat of a battle but after long consultations. This was not a desperate action but one made with cool intend. Thus it can be only justified by the barbarian theory of total war. The War Code was violated by them.

Adler

This is nonsensical. There is no "barbarian theory of total war." There is no "War Code." Winning a war means killing the other side more efficiently than the other side kills you.

As to cool intent, that is simply not the case. The hostilities took years to cool, after the treaty was signed. Consider this was in the context of the lengthy invasions of the neighboring islands. The outlook at that time was for years of additional fighting, involving millions of Allied, mostly US, troops. Also the decision to bomb Tokyo was by then an old news, established procedure.

We are fortunate that President Truman was not informed after the fact. The Army considered it to be just another weapon, to be used as the situation dictated. That they would have used it is not a question, only when and where.

In the end, the atomic bomb had value mostly in shock. One plane, one bomb, one city. More damage was done in the capital, just as it had been in Germany, through the firestorms. However, those were conventional bombs, and an understood effect, even though it was horrific in its own right. I am not sure that our present obsession is any wiser.

J

 

[C~G]

There is no "barbarian theory of total war."

And you still talk about it.

There is no "War Code."

So POWs can be shooted, chemical weapons used, civilians bombed without any specific reason etc. ?

Winning a war means killing the other side more efficiently than the other side kills you.

You're talking about total war. Did you read any of my messages?

I wanted to introduce this idea of total war to this thread since some people seem to be at the same time advocating that there's some kind of justification in certain actions simply because they lead to victory.

When you are talking about total war you're talking about absolute war where not only the main goal but the only goal is to win by any means necessary.

Example if we look how Hitler in the end sacrificed people of germany in the end (in many ways) we could say that he took this theory even to the point that unless he wins there's no point to secure anything. There was no political solution to be found for him.
He drained the land from the resources and then when it couldn't simply endure anymore, killed himself.

Without total war, we can see that war is of course at the same time about winning but the cost of that win cannot be unlimited even when regarding the enemy and we can (sometimes even must) be ready to act proportionally and also set our political goals about the war to something else than total annihilation or submission of the enemy.

Actually this has also reference to current day how this kind of overwhelming strategy is favoured even though the wars that are being fought are completely different (example Iraq).

 

[Adler17]

Thanks C~G. I have nothing to add.

Adler