1st DRAFT

Allied Bombing of Europe During World War II: The Moral Question

War in Europe

History 5927 (Dr. Stephen Fritz)

By

Michael A. Letsinger

Graduate Studies, History Department

East Tennessee State University

The bombing of civilians in times of war always poses an extreme moral dilemma and choice to

societies. The bombing of civilians in World War II provides a good historical context in which to judge the

morality of the choice, as it represents the crossroads of moral principle with historical fact. This question,

the necessity of bombing civilians remains a great controversy of the Second World War.

The subject remains current today as we are confronted again and again with the same

decision. We usually revert to the past to help tackle our own views. This paper will present both sides of

the controversial debate by reviewing the pros and cons as represented by leading historians, authors,

journalists, theologians and military leaders. In assessing this contentious debate it will be necessary to

review the historical narratives of London, Hamburg and Dresden in some detail. Those either intimately

familiar with the backgrounds of these cities or those unwilling to endure to horror should forgo the next

few pages.

This moral debate turns on a few key focal points:

1. Do we have the right to judge past actions in times of unimaginable conflict and terror, with the

moral principles of today?

2. Does hindsight cloud our moral judgment of past actions, and should we accordingly attempt to

dispense with it in arriving at a conclusion?

3. Do times of conflict merit extreme reactions and the dispensing of certain moral principles?

Specifically in the context of World War II, these questions are complicated by two main considerations.

Bombing civilians, many argue, hastened the end of the war. If this is assumed to be the case, was the

bombing of civilians justifiable given the appalling nature of the Nazi regime, and the possibility of

Germany achieving the atom bomb?

On the issue of hindsight, in 1949, with the Fourth Geneva Convention, the US and UK did not

accept a clause banning the bombing of civilians, perhaps fearing backlash and accusations of hypocrisy

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given the proximity of the war. In 1977, the UK signed a protocol against bombing civilians. Though the

US still hasn’t, the UK’s agreement begs the question – if it is wrong now, how could it not be then?

The moral principles against killing the innocent, or the value of a human life, have arguably never

changed – how is it possible to say they have over the past 80 years? To further this argument,

Chamberlain and Hitler had undertaken at Roosevelt’s request, an agreement not to bomb civilians

should conflict arise. Though Germany broke it first, and the UK’s response could be labeled retaliation,

this again highlights the questionable nature of the Bomber Command’s actions, and whether moral

principles were consciously deemed impracticable during the war.

London

This campaign of ultramodern violence began in August of 1940 with German air attacks code-

named Eagle Attack on England. Churchill steadily refused to order retaliatory strikes against German

citizens, stating “This is a military and not a civilian war… we desire to destroy German military

objectives, not women and children” (Garrett 1993, p.44). Although 23,000 English civilians were killed

by the end of the year, Hitler was not happy that Britain refused to surrender. Perhaps in an attempt to

impress his then Russian ally, Hitler ordered an attack on the ancient English town of Coventry in

November killing 400 hundred civilians. A seething Churchill vowed “German cities will be subjected by a

country in continuity, severity and magnitude…to achieve this end there are no lengths of violence to

which we will not go” (Garrett 1993, p.31).

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On Dec. 29, 1940, a hail of 100,000 German incendiary bombs set the City of London ablaze. As the fire engulfed St. Paul's Cathedral, a photographer captured one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century—Sir Christopher Wren's great cathedral dome riding above the smoke.

By 1942 with the Allied campaign continued with attacks on Cologne, Lübeck and Rostock. In the

autumn of 1943 the Royal Air Force was joined by the U.S. Air Force. Theoretically, the Americans'

daytime sorties with well-defended B-17 bombers allowed for more precise targeting. But given the

limits of high-altitude attacks, the Americans too soon found themselves in the business of obliterating

entire cities.

Although fascist Italy, imperial Japan and Nazi Germany had initiated terror bombing in the 1930s,

it was the democracies, not the dictatorships that made long-range attacks on the enemy home front a

central instrument of war. For the Axis powers, the bomber was never an independent strategic weapon;

their aircraft were designed primarily for tactical ground-support operations (Beevor 2012).

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When the Americans began building their bomber force in the late 1930s, they too had taken a

comprehensive approach, envisioning the enemy home front as an integral legitimate target. The

resulting disparity was dramatic. Between 1940 and 1941—after which the Luftwaffe concentrated on

the Eastern Front—the Germans dropped 57,000 tons of high explosives and incendiaries on Britain. By

comparison, at a conservative estimate, Bomber Command and the U.S. 8th Air Force dropped over 1.6

million tons on Germany (Frankland 1965).

Intended to weaken those countries’ ability and will to make war, the bombings nonetheless

destroyed centuries of culture and killed some 800,000 non-combatants, injuring and traumatizing

hundreds of thousands more in Hamburg, Dresden, and scores of other German cities.

The disconnect between the apparently gratuitous destruction and the supposed ineffectiveness of the

bombers is the basis of the moral critique of bombing that began to be expressed in the 1940s. This is a

critique recently revived by German historians such as Jörg Friedrich in his dramatic book The Fire: The

Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945 and Grayling in Among the Dead Cities. These critics make convincing

arguments against civilian bombing. The argument for these men boils down to this: is bombing a

disproportionate, ineffectual and unjustifiable use of force?

Revisionist historian Fredrick Veale goes even further in his indictments of the West in his work.

Veale traces the evolution of warfare from primitive savagery, and argues the rise of a civilized code of

armed conflict is shattered during the Second World War. Unlike the Luftwaffe, the RAF would equip

itself with a fleet of purpose-built strategic bombers. Historians and engineers were brought in to analyze

the inflammability of German cities. A mixture of bombs was devised: high explosives to blow off roofs

and turn high-rise residences into smokestacks, followed by incendiaries to light the fires and then more

explosives to kill and maim fire crews. Larger bombs would disrupt water and electricity lines and

demolish factories. Ahead of the January 1943 war conference in Casablanca attended by Roosevelt,

Churchill and de Gaulle, Bomber Command set the goal of destroying 104 German cities and towns. The

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result, their experts estimated, would be 900,000 civilians dead, one million injured and 25 million left

homeless (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014).

Hamburg

On the night of 24th July 1943, air raid sirens sounded for the hundredth time as about 800 British

bombers attacked the German city of Hamburg, creating a firestorm that destroyed almost four square

miles and killed 40,000 people. The raid on Hamburg was part of a British wartime strategy known as

area bombing. Over 500,000 civilians lost their lives as a result and another million received serious

injury (Sorge 1986, p.101).

The attacks continued throughout the week until there was nothing left to destroy. Operation

Gomorrah succeeded in scorching Hamburg and its people from the face of the earth. With thirteen

square miles of total destruction, with 750,000 homeless, with an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 dead,

Hamburg, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist (Goodrich 2010, p.14)

Dresden

If the Germans didn’t get the point, the bombing of Dresden, a major communications hub and

manufacturing center, as well as a leading European center of art, classical music, culture and science was

completely destroyed on 13 February 1945. During the final months of World War II, Dresden became a

haven to some 600,000 refugees, with a total population of 1.2 million. The bombing of Dresden remains

a controversial Allied action of the Western European theater of war. The inner city of Dresden was

destroyed by 722 RAF and 527 USAAF bombers that dropped 2431 tons of high explosive bombs, and

1475.9 tons of incendiaries (Force 2014). The high explosive bombs damaged buildings and exposed

their wooden structures, while the incendiaries ignited them, severely reducing the number of shelters

available to the retreating German troops and refugees. Temperatures reached upwards of 3,000 degrees

(McKee 1982, p.176). Metal roofs, copper cupolas, glass, and even stone is liquefied in the furious heat

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and poured down like lava. Dresden was drawn into the fireball by a hurricane of smoke, flame and dust

that roared toward the vortex from all directions. It was like the Last Days of Pompeii (McKee 1982,

p.141). The German Dresden Historians' Commission, in an official 2010 report published after five years

of research concluded there were up to 25,000 casualties, while right-wing groups continue to claim that

up to 500,000 people died. (Commission 2010).

The Allies described the operation as the legitimate bombing of a military and industrial target

(Hansen n.d.). But as news from Dresden spread, there was shock, horror and anguish. Most outrage was

directed at Arthur Harris, Chief of Bomber Command. Once known affectionately as “Bomber” Harris,

after Dresden, Harris earned a new nickname, “Butcher”. Harris was known for such comments as, like:

“to destroy something you have to destroy everything…the aiming point is usually right in the center of

town…bombing is a comparatively humane way to kill thousands of people” (Harris 1990, p.177). (Nell

2003) (Nell 2003, p. 254). 3Churchill distanced himself from the blame, stating the need for “more

precise concentration upon military objectives rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton

destruction” (Veale 1968, p. 194). Crewmen were told they would be bombing thousands of Panzer

troops mobilizing toward the Russian Front. Many said afterwards, if they had known the truth they

wouldn’t have gone out, some remarking that “to just fly over it without opposition felt like murder”

(McKee 1982, p.66).

Critics: Garrett, Grayling, Goodrich, McKee, Overy, Sorge, and Veale [Hitler, et al.]

Stephen Garrett is a professor in national security affairs at the U.S. Navy's Center for

Contemporary Conflict and professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of

International Studies. In Ethics and Airpower in World War II, Garrett analyzes the attitudes which various

people and groups in Britain took toward the bombing strategy as it was unfolding and pays particular

attention to the small band of dissenters against such bombing. At the same time Garrett offers his own

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moral critique of area bombing, not just on traditional ethical grounds, but also in terms of its dubious

military rationale. His book attempts to understand how apparently humane individuals could condone

area bombing and to show what lessons it carries for people today. Garrett is particularly critical of

Churchill and Air Marshall Arthur Harris (Garrett 1993, p. 31, p. 44).

And, in Among the Dead Cities, philosopher Anthony Grayling asks the provocative question, how

would the Allies have fared if judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Trials? Arguing persuasively that

victor nations have never had to consider the morality of their policies during World War II, he offers a

powerful, moral re-examination of the Allied bombing campaigns against civilians in Germany and Japan,

in the light of principles enshrined in the post-war conventions on human rights and the laws of war

(Grayling 2006, p.11).

“Was this bombing offensive justified by the necessities of war,” Grayling asks writes, “or was it a

crime against humanity?” These questions mark one of the remaining controversies of the Second World

War. Their resolution is especially relevant in this time of terrorist threat, as government’s debate how

far to go in the name of security (Grayling 2006, p.5).

Grayling’s work examines dramatic and dangerous missions of the Royal Air and the U. S. Air Force

over Germany between 1942 and 1945. Through the eyes of survivors, he describes the terrifying

experience on the ground as bombs created an inferno and devastation among often-unprepared men,

women, and children (p. 90). He examines the mindset and thought-process of those who planned the

campaigns in the heat and pressure of war, and faced with a ruthless enemy. Grayling chronicles voices

that, though in the minority, loudly opposed attacks on civilians, exploring in detail whether the

bombings ever achieved their goal of denting the will to wage war.

Based on facts and evidence, Grayling makes a meticulous case for, and then one against, civilian

bombing, and then offers his own (negative) judgment. Acknowledging the bombing in no way equated to

the death and destruction for which Nazi aggression was responsible, he nonetheless concludes that the

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bombing campaigns were morally indefensible, and more, that accepting responsibility, even six decades

later, is both a historical necessity and a moral imperative ( (Grayling 2006, p.274).

Grayling argues that he re-examines Allied victory “to get a proper understanding for how peoples

and states can and should behave in times of conflict.” (Grayling 2006, p.2). Grayling takes the position

that the bombing of civilians is never justified – in the context of conflict generally and World War II

specifically. Interestingly, he acknowledges that the Allies had ‘a moral duty to win the war’ when faced

with the prospect of Nazi victory. This is one of the key focal points of his argument – whether the

atrocity of the Nazi regime made bombing German civilians to ensure victory essential. Nevertheless,

Grayling followed this argument with the question – even if it was a justified, right, war, would it justify

everything we did? The answer, he believes, is no – and this is a classic, but misleading, question of

whether the ends justify the means (Grayling 2006, p.276).

Grayling also explains how the tactics of bombing civilians at the time demonstrated how the

targets were arbitrary, and therefore very likely to be “innocent”. Because of the lack of technology to

ensure accurate attacks on military or infrastructure targets, the British relied on ‘indiscriminate attacks

by night on cities’. The result was the general target of the ‘civilian’ and their ‘morale’, and highlights the

‘lack of consideration’ towards people’s identities when they were killed – the aim was to kill civilians,

and equivalent to killing the ‘innocent’ ( (Grayling 2006, p.51)

A few further points are raised by Grayling – because of German bombing of British civilians (both

in World War I and II) was bombing German civilians justified as revenge? Grayling introduces an

interesting find from the British press during the war – civilians in cities such as Coventry, who had been

under attack, thought the bombing of German civilians ‘unjustifiable’, those who had not thought the

opposite (Grayling 2006, p.193). (He doesn’t illustrate these views represented a very few who worried

about their own individual safety, perhaps those lacking moral fiber). An interesting historical point to

consider is propaganda: much of the media encouraging men to fight used revenge for bombing of

women, children, families, as motivation for retaliation – either by bombing German civilians as part of

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the RAF, or enlisting in the army. This raises the question of whether such encouragement has a cyclical

effect – the incitement of vengeful feelings for bombing of civilians may lead to more willing bombers,

more frequent attacks, and further anger and retaliation on both sides. All this begs the question of

whether retaliation is a beneficial motivation for those involved in armed conflict.

Professor Richard Overy, one of Britain's best-known historians of the war, has spent much of his

life studying this tragedy, particularly from the German side. From his Ph.D. on Luftwaffe production, by

way of "Goering: The 'Iron Man' " (1984), to "Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945" (2001),

he has consistently stressed the strength and resilience of the Nazi war effort, leading him in his 1997

best-selling work to pose the question: Why did the Allies win? For Dr. Overy the evident answer—that

they had four times the productive capacity. Given the endurance of the Nazi regime, though, he insists,

the war was a surprisingly closely contested event. Here Overy is clear:

The Allis won because of … the will to win was produced by moral courage [and] … bombing forced …

very large resources away from equipment for the fighting fronts … The German Army and Navy were

desperately short of essential radar and communication systems; further Overy states … bombing did reduce

western casualties … bombing permitted Britain and the United States to bring considerable economic and

scientific power to bear … because they turned their economic strength into effective power fighting power

(Overy, Why the Allies Won 1997, p.325).

Thus Overy is on record supporting the Allied will, physical and moral courage and systems necessary to

defeat supreme evil (Tiffany, John R., editor, The Devil’s Handiwork: A Victim’s View of ‘Allied’ War Crimes.

The Barnes review, Washington, 2008).

However seventeen years later in his latest work, Bombers and the Bombed, Overy appears to be

taking a different view in regards to the morality of bombing civilians. Now Overy introduces a different

strategic perspective in rebutting Bishop’s points. He defines the strategic aims of bombing civilians as to

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unhinge the war effort and to demoralize – producing a political dividend – and argues these were not,

and could not have been, fulfilled by bombing civilians (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014, p.64).

Overy’s account begins with the Blitz and works its way through the RAF's nightly ordeal of high-

cost, low-return bombing in 1942 and 1943 to culminate in the indiscriminate devastation of Europe's

urban fabric late in the war, a rage of destruction symbolized by the firestorm that consumed Dresden on

Feb. 13, 1945 (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014, p.216).

Around 1939, for Overy there was no evidence that sustained bombing of civilians would achieve

these aims – the small level of bombing at the end of World War I had largely proved inconclusive, and

evidence from the Spanish Civil War did not produce a great deal, and in fact, combined arms operations

– supporting ground or naval troops with the air force – proved much more effective.

Overy also maintains that Bomber Command in the 1930s was unprepared for the bombing of

civilians in Germany. The RAF was preparing both defensive and attack tactics in tandem. Overy asserts

this as an absence of a clear decision in favor of strategic bombing thus revealing the lack of solid thought

and strategy they used against the German population (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014, p.36).

A key aspect of Overy’s argument is that the Blitz in Britain proved that bombing civilians did not

break morale, and in fact may have increased a defiant and vengeful attitude, and resolution to defeat the

enemy. Nor did it hugely damage the economy – he quoted the statistic that the economy of the UK was

reduced by about 5% due to bombing. Indeed, German morale never cracked – Overy even implied there

was a racist assumption that the German citizens could not be as defiant as the British. This was a logical

point to demonstrate a lack of consideration behind the tactics, and the uncertainty of their efficiency,

showing again how they were unjustified. Strategically, Overy comments that the resources used to bomb

cities and civilians, could have then been directed elsewhere (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014,

p.350).

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A Royal Air Force raid on Hamburg, Germany, in 1943. The Allies' campaign would practically destroy the city. Getty Images

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Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945.Oblique aerial view of ruined residential and commercial buildings south of the Eilbektal Park (seen at upper right) in the Eilbek district of Hamburg, Germany. These were among the 16,000 multi-storeyed apartment buildings destroyed by the firestorm which developed during the raid by Bomber Command on the night of 27/28 July 1943 (Operation GOMORRAH). The road running diagonally from upper left to lower right is Eilbeker Weg.

Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk: photo # CL 3400

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Caption Victims of the 13-14 Feb 1945 bombing on Dresden, GermanyPhotographer Richard PeterSource Deutsche Fotothek

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Overy’s narrative runs throughout as an undercurrent of frustration. At first the RAF lacked the

bombers, the payload and the means of targeting to hit the Germans hard. Then in 1944, when they were

in a position to annihilate entire cities, the war was already being won by armies on the ground,

supported not by heavy bombers but by tactical air power. If strategic air power made any contribution,

it was the U.S. Air Force that made the largest difference, shooting the Luftwaffe out of the air in the

spring of 1944 and targeting Germany's synthetic-fuel plants (Beevor 2012).

In telling the story in these terms, Overy replicates a script created after the war by experts

commissioned by the British and American governments, who worked closely with German colleagues

collected in prison camps or re-employed to rebuild occupied Germany. The result is contemptuous of the

bombers and disturbingly fervent in its treatment of Nazi toughness. For Overy, the conclusive evidence

of the bombers' failure is the fact that German armaments production didn't collapse after 1942 but rose

to new heights by mid-1944. He credits the so-called "armaments miracle" supposedly engineered by

Albert Speer, Hitler's armaments minister and architectural agent (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed

2014, p.277).

Defenders: Churchill, Hanson, Hastings, Bishop, and Beevor [Roosevelt, Truman, et al.]

But Max Hastings, a distinguished British journalist, editor, historian and author of Bomber

Command-The Myths and Reality of the Strategic Bombing Offensive, 1939-1945, argues the US took a more

honorable approach at far greater danger to bombing raids over Nazi Germany than the British (Hastings

1979, p.181). And USAF Chief of Air Operations General Eaker, made a very telling statement regarding

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the morality of bombing, “We should never allow the history of this war to convict us of throwing the

strategic bomber at the man in the street”) (Garrett 1993). While the bombing might affect German

morale, the Americans did not agree that public demoralization was an appropriate objective (Millett,

2012).

Patrick Bishop, foreign correspondent and military historian, presents the view that the bombing

of German civilians was justifiable. He offers a powerful response to Grayling – the nature of the enemy

made bombing civilians a more legitimate tactic – there was no compromise possible with Nazi Germany.

This contributes as well to his argument that there was little feasible alternative, while the need for

victory was paramount: ‘in 1942, the smallest target the RAF could hit was a town or city… This was a

momentous decision, and it was known to be so.’ It was, he asserts, a considered, yet horribly necessary

decision, when the only other option was passivity against a great evil (Bishop 2007). Bishop quotes Dr.

Noble Frankland, an official historian of the Bomber Command, that the “great immorality open to us …

was to lose the war against Hitler’s Germany. To have abandoned the only means of direct attack which

we had at our disposal would have been a long step in that direction” (Frankland 1965).

Bishop uses the forceful argument that in times of conflict, forced moral compromise can be

inevitable. He counters Grayling’s Coventry’s man on the street by arguing the justification of bombing

civilians as retaliation by quoting a Coventry resident at the time: ‘We’re fighting gangsters, so we have to

be gangsters ourselves. We’ve been gentlemen too long’ (Bishop 2007).

Bishop is specific about his belief that bombing civilians was the right thing to do. He emphasized

that post-1945, bombing civilians was wrong as it did little to hasten the end of the war, but pre-1945, it

quickened victory and was a necessary choice (Bishop 2007). Nevertheless, Bishop emphasizes that we

have no right to use hindsight – in desperate times, people may be forced to abandon moral principles,

and we cannot judge their decision from our position today.

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Anthony Beevor, an award-winning historian and author of The Second World War, mounts a

powerful attack against Grayling and Overy’s arguments. He emphasizes his view that we cannot use ‘the

luxury of moral judgment with the hindsight of 70 years’ nor judge from ‘a position of safety long

afterwards’ (Beevor 2012). He also highlights that in fighting Hitler’s Germany, greater moral

compromise was necessary to defeat his evil – he asserted that ‘Nazi Germany created total warfare’, and

quoted Nietzsche, saying ‘Be careful when you fight monsters, lest you become one’. Bombing civilians

was a necessary act to hasten the end of the war, to retaliate against German bombing of British civilians

(which came first), and its massacre in other nations – it was, Beevor said, ‘a pretty natural reaction’

(Beevor 2012).

Beevor also introduces the strategic advantages of relying on indiscriminate bombing of cities –

revenge was not the primary motive, but daylight bombing failed in accuracy and efficiency, and the

technology could not reliably focus on smaller targets. He also highlights the dangers of hindsight, saying

it was a desperate time, with the Wehrmacht advancing on Moscow, and the Red Army taking nearly all

the casualties for the Allies. The British standing army could do very little, the USSR had no long-range

bombing force, and therefore the RAF had to be relied upon. Beevor also counters Overy’s point about the

effects on morale of bombing civilians. He comments that bombing civilians weakened the morale of

German soldiers on the Eastern front, where weapons, military personnel, and sections of the Luftwaffe,

were withdrawn to defend home cities. It seemed, therefore, perhaps the only viable option. ‘We must

remember that though today we know the war would end in May 1945, that was far from clear at the

time’ (Beevor 2012).

Some further points

Overy adds the authority of his book to this familiar critique. In so doing he ignores evidence

revealed by the opening of the archives in East Germany after the fall of the Wall (Gray 1999). This has

effectively exposed the narrative spun by the survivors of the Third Reich. The best evidence from inside

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the German war machine suggests that, from 1943 onward, the Allies had the means to inflict enormously

shattering setbacks. German armament production didn't collapse, as the theorists of air power had once

predicted. But from the instant at which British bombing of the industrial districts of the Ruhr began in

1943, armament production halted its monthly increase. It began growing again only in early 1944, after

the RAF had squandered away the fall in bombing Berlin—a political, not an economic, target.

When the Allies shifted toward tactical priorities in France ahead of D-Day, they gave the German

war economy a further six months of reprieve. By draining factory capacity, using every able slave

laborer and taking advantage of the usual of mass production learning curves, Speer fabricated one last

spurt of record production. But as soon as the full power of strategic air power was focused again on

German targets from mid-1944, the Third Reich's productive system was quickly obliterated.

The question that Overy evidently desires to elicit is why this gruesome but unproductive

campaign was continued at such inordinate cost? It was, he seems to be suggesting, another instance of

military idiocy, an aerial replay of the attritional trench warfare of World War I. But what Overy's

relentless skepticism obscures are the profound foundations of the bombers' commitment. With added

aircraft, heftier bomb loads, superior fighter escorts and better-quality electronics they would, they

believed, prevail. And they were right. At times their margin of superiority was painfully slim. But the

Allies had already won one high-tech attritional battle, against U-boats in the Atlantic in 1943.

As in the Battle of the Atlantic, the fight evolved in often frustratingly slight percentages: Victories

in the Ruhr in the spring of 1943 and the devastation of Hamburg in July 1943 alternated with months of

dissatisfaction over Berlin and the disappointment of American hopes for their early pinpoint raids. But

once the balance of force shifted, it did so irrevocably. By the summer of 1944 German air defenses were

in shreds, Allied loss rates had plunged and the devastation created by the bombers was unique. This

model of a lengthy and excruciating impasse followed by a sudden collapse is not, as Overy seems to

believe, evidence against the force of attritional logic. In a life-or-death struggle, this is how

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overpowering material superiority makes itself felt: in a fierce fight followed by an abrupt

triumph.

Here the Eurocentric limits of Overy's version really bind. The story comes to an abrupt halt with

V-E Day in May 1945, leaving room for no more than a brief discussion of the atomic-bomb program. Of

course, the bomb came too late to be used in Germany. But this shouldn't darken the fact that it was the

vision toward which the development of strategic air power was directed. The Manhattan Project was set

in motion in December 1941 in conjunction with the bomber fleets that were razing Germany in 1944

and 1945. If we want to realize what perpetuates the strategic-bombing campaign, we have to grasp that

intermittent dramatic successes such as Hamburg were seen not as accidents but as omens of this awe-

inspiring future, the realization of the destructive fantasies of the 1930s. The firestorm that consumed

Hamburg in a single night in August 1943 was ignited by only five kilotons (Overy, The Bombers and the

Bombed 2014, p.433).

At the most elementary level Overy rebalances our perception of the bombs' death toll. The usual

figure of 600,000 killed in Germany turns out to have been compiled from inflated casualty figures

circulated by Nazi propagandists. Overy revises this dramatically, to some 350,000. But to that number

he rightly insists that we add 60,000 Italians, 53,600 French, 12,000 Belgians, 8,000 Dutch and many

thousands more Bulgarians and Romanians. For the first time Overy allows us to see the history of

bombing not as a German suffering but as a Europe-wide experience.

How many the bombers killed varied on the degree of preparation and the efficacy of

countermeasures. The Germans were able to keep casualties down not just through massive air defenses

but also through intricate early-warning systems, shelters, highly organized firefighting and quick

medical services. As Overy makes plain, they were also proficient at deception. Just as the Allies used

mock-up armies to mislead Rommel before D-Day, the Germans used mock factories to divert bombers

from the Ruhr. In Berlin they built a fake government quarter, complete with a fake Brandenburg Gate.

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On the ground the Nazi regime sustained its grip through chilling measures of cruelty. But it also

resorted to subtler methods, including an offer of compensation for bomb damage. A national home-

repair service mobilized thousands of craftsmen to repair the daily damage. An express mail service was

created to allow bombed-out families to reassure loved ones at the front that they had survived (Overy,

The Bombers and the Bombed 2014, p.243). The Allied bombardment heaped concern on the Landsers

(german infantry); letters from home spoke of the terrible agony of waiting for the bombs to fall (Fritz

1995, p.84) The truth, acknowledged by the Germans themselves, was that the Third Reich's

endurance confirmed the logic of the bombers: The German home front was a legitimate target

because it stood solidly behind Hitler's war.

Today it is routine to criticize area bombing in moral terms. But what Overy reveals is that

in the last 18 months of the war the Allied bombing campaign released an argument across Europe, the

terms of which were less moral than political. If it was questionable to bomb German civilians, how much

more problematic was it to attack cities under Nazi occupation. Should the French or the Romanians

welcome the extension of Germany's air defenses to their territory? And how were the Dutch to react

when they learned that the Americans had designated their cities as appropriate for target practice by

inexperienced crews? Vichy France staged ceremonial funerals for the victims of the Anglo-American

"sky pirates." Meanwhile, the French Resistance claimed those same victims as war heroes.

The heated arguments over rules of engagement are eerily familiar from Iraq and Afghanistan. But

in the days before the remote-controlled drone, the stakes were higher. With slow-moving bombers in

low-level attacks, casualties on the ground could reach 100%. When the American command decided to

apologize to the Dutch population for the collateral damage with a leaflet drop, it caused deep resentment

among the pilots. If they were to take the risk of crossing into German-held territory, they wanted to be

dropping bombs, not paper.

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To justify bombing of civilians to hasten the end of the war, at the time the Allies did not know

how close the Germans were to an atom bomb, making a quick end to the war even more essential. Maybe

bombing civilians was perhaps justified in the earlier stages of the war – after the land invasion of

northwest Europe, there were ‘diminishing returns’ on bombing civilians and cities, and the impact was

more economically damaging to the recovery after WWII. The difficult question of how much does a

shortened war justify the breaking of a firm moral principle, must be asked. In answer to this, the

extreme evil of the enemy – in this historical period remains a very valid point.

In using hindsight, Garrett, Grayling, Overy and Sorge imply that when making decisions in the

present, why should you not be able to examine the past? Why should you not be able to pass judgment

on past situations to help define your concrete moral principles today? In other words, if we don’t learn

anything from history, why on earth study it? The bombing of civilians continues to this day, and if we

cannot rely on analysis of the past to work out what our response should be, it becomes impossible to

take reality into account when deciding on moral principles. It was also hinted that there was an element

of a military complex in the decision to bomb civilians – as a retired military plans officer, I suggest that

the use of new technology in violent ways, was just one way to impress and intimidate with might and

force. Few, living or dead, fail to praise the courage of Allied Bomber Commands. The death rate was an

appalling 44%, yet despite this enormous physical and moral courage to meet German evil, many want to

criminalize their war duty.

Conclusion

On the issue of hindsight, in 1949, with the Fourth Geneva Convention, the US and UK did not

accept a clause banning the bombing of civilians, perhaps fearing backlash and accusations of hypocrisy

given the proximity of the war. In 1977, the UK signed a protocol against bombing civilians. Though the

US still hasn’t, the UK’s agreement begs the question – if it is wrong now, how could it not be then?

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The moral principles against killing the innocent, or the value of a human life, have arguably never

changed – how is it possible to say they have over the past 80 years? To further this argument,

Chamberlain and Hitler had undertaken at Roosevelt’s request, an agreement not to bomb civilians

should conflict arise. Though Germany broke it first, and the UK’s response could be labeled retaliation,

this again highlights the questionable nature of the Bomber Command’s actions, and whether moral

principles were consciously deemed impracticable during the war.

Beevor forcefully asserts that claiming bombing of civilians wasn’t necessary, is to partake in ‘an

ideal world that doesn’t exist’ (Beevor 2012). Bishop supports this, saying it was the only choice we had –

‘blunt instrument though it was’ – and the ‘realities of the situation’ and ‘absence of hindsight’ meant it

was an ‘inevitable and justified’ decision (Bishop 2007).

Overy, by contrast, maintains that ‘at the time people knew what a blunt instrument bombing

was’, and points out that statistics on the number of people killed who were neutral or on the allied side,

by Air Force errors (Overy, The Bombers and the Bombed 2014). Grayling makes perhaps the most

logical point: the bombing of civilians is now outlawed by the UN and in the Geneva Convention – can we

say this only became a moral principle recently? He asserts that ‘we can’t say it became wrong in 1949 or

1947… If it is wrong now, it was wrong then’ (Grayling 2006).

Recent informal polling of graduate students at the University of Tennessee and East Tennessee

State University when asked to voice their opinion, the results are intriguing. The majority thought

bombing justified. Given the South’s conservative, and perhaps martial nature, this isn’t surprising.

Perhaps polling a similar body in Madison, Wisconsin or Berkley, California would balance the results in

the opposite view.

Given that war coarsens moral fiber and thinking changes in times of conflict, such changes affect

both the nature of the enemy and the physical strategies available. In the context of WW II, with the

possibility of Hitler’s Nazism overtaking Europe and maybe more, thinking changed towards necessary

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sacrifices. Perhaps a reason why that strategy is now largely banned in international law is partly also

due to the global recognition of the dangers of extreme fascism, making it safer to legislate.

The authors above provide excellent points, brilliant arguments and insightful interpretation of

morality and the bombing of civilians. However, historians, philosophers, politicians, and even

theologians have no brief to look at terrible periods of history, through the prism of today’s value and

apply the values we have today to those desperate times.

The argument that the Strategic Air Campaign was not only ineffective but immoral is an old one.

The passing of time has not made it any more convincing. It was certainly true that at the outset, Bomber

Command failed dismally to achieve the results that the RAF hierarchy had forecast and that Churchill’s

prolonged support for the bomber offensive was a major failure in the Prime Minister’s strategic

direction of the war (Weigley, 2012). The blame lay not with the crews but with inadequate aircraft and

primitive navigation aids, which meant targets were rarely hit. As equipment improved, so did

performance. Bombers were still incapable of hitting anything smaller than a city, however, and it was

not until towards the end that genuine precision was possible.

These attacks did not bring about the collapse of civilian morale that at one point was their partial

aim. But they nonetheless had a drastic effect on Germany and made a decisive contribution to victory.

Vast numbers of soldiers were brought in to man anti-aircraft batteries – men and guns that would

otherwise have been used against the Soviets on the eastern front and us in the west.

It should be pointed out that the Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower had

tremendous awareness of the consequences of war that caused him to swear to himself “never again”

(Ambrose, 1990).

The Luftwaffe was also diverted away from offensive operations to deal with the attacks. The

defensive battle, and Allied bombing attacks on aviation factories and infrastructure, ended in the virtual

destruction of the German air force, making the invasion of the continent a much easier proposition.

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German war industry may have proved surprisingly resilient to endless bombardment. It would have

been a lot more productive, however, if it had not been subject to constant attack.

As to the ethics of area bombing, German ruthlessness inevitably caused those who had the

courage to fight them to harden their hearts. Britain was locked in an existential struggle with an evil foe.

It is hard to disagree with the official historian of the Strategic Air Campaign, Noble Frankland, who

experienced it himself as a navigator with Bomber Command. “The great immorality open to us in 1940

and 1941,” he said, “was to lose the war against Hitler’s Germany. To have abandoned the only means of

direct attack which we had at our disposal would have been a long step in that direction” (Frankland

1965).

Grayling argues Germany’s civilian population was often unprepared; how is this when its nation

was at war, especially in 1943-1945? Targeting the man in the street was never official U. S. policy,

however the targeting of civilians engaged in any support of the enemy’s war production is a legitimate

target, then or now. And as to the question of relation, shouldn’t retaliation always be a legitimate

component of justice? And War has and will have voices of dissent and always should, as General Lee is

often quoted, “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of It”.

There is a final point, an awkward one to acknowledge nowadays. The bombing campaign altered

Germany’s personality. The utter devastation it wrought taught the Germans a lesson about the folly of

aggression and the benefits of peaceful democracy that has lasted to this day. He told his wife, Mamie, “

Certainly Germany should not want to see any more high explosives for the next hundred years; I am

quite certain of the cities will never be rebuilt” (Eisenhower, 1978).

[Perhaps the just fruits of appeasement to evil?

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