[mooxe]

Was RAF Bomber Command morally and ethically justified in its campaign to delibrately kill German civilians in WWII?

Bomber Commands decision to kill civilians came after futile efforts of precision daytime bombing. The RAF suffered severe casualty rates and very limited success. They then switched to night time area bombing with the intent to kill civilians and raise cities. From such a civilized society, could they not of though out a better plan?

This was conducted on a massive scale by using 1000's of bombers, and tens of thousands of airmen. Not only was this ethically and morally wrong by yesterdays standards, and todays, but it was a huge misallocation of war resources. It cannot be proven that effects of this bombing campaign can be attributed to ended the war any sooner. I believe that if those resources were allocated to Germanies industry and war machine that it would of had the effect the Allies wanted and would of shortened the war.

Take in account that many wartime leaders distanced themselves from this campaign after the war, and a few prominent British civilians protested the campaign. Thier protest were quieted by the government though. Also consider the fact no campaign medal was ever awarded to the men in Bomber Command. It would seem that British government knew that it was wrong, but somehow justified it during the war.

The British government deliberatly sought to kill civilians indiscriminately. The purpose being to destroy the Germans morale. Whether or not they did destroy morale is an open debate, arguments exist for both sides. Even if this campaign was a success was the means in carrying it out morally and ethically justifiable?

[ANZAC_Lord4war]

yes undoubtedly.

[Blackstump]

That was a square up for Coventry pure and simple,has there ever been an"Ethical war" was the atom bomb an ethical way to force Japan to the table ? Germany bombed civilian populations first in ww2 even if it was a mistake. Germany bombed Englands civilian population with gothas in the first world war as well, also developed and used chlorine and then mustard gas, any weapon that works, will eventually be deployed by the powers that be...im sure that if gerry or japan had developed the A bomb first, that london or new york would be different looking today

[ANZAC_Tack]

but i agree, it was part payback, and desperation.

concentrating that firepower on industry would of shortened the war by months.

bombing the army,can be more difficult. industry dosent campflarge and move as well, and all army's need food,water,ammunition and equipment to fight.

ethically, i think if put in the same position, it would be repeated.

in hindsight, it was morally wrong.

[God4Saken]

Definately agree with what has been submitted here, Britain wanted to fight a "Total" war against Nazi Germany, get revenge for the Gotha/Zeppelin raids of WW1 and the Blitz of 1940. So the decision was made in 1942 to switch from precision raids to area bombinng of major German industrial cities. Whether the British were justified in orchestrating such a devestating campaign or not is pretty much irrelevant, as they won the war and so get to write history in their favour. Personally I think that the carpet bombing of German cities in WW2 was unjustified.

The two men who were directly responsible for this change of strategy were "Bomber" Harris and Professor Frederick Lindemann, scientific advisor to Churchill. Both men had a deep hatred for the Germans, with Harris being quoted "The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind." In his memoirs he writes "In spite of all that happened at Hamburg, bombing proved a relatively humane method"! Obviously old Arthur Harris never knew what it was like to have a 1000-pounder dropped down his chimney in the name of being humane!

Bomber command was relatively small at the start of the war and had taken horrendous losses in france in 1940. Harris greatly increased it's size and pushed for heavy 4-engine bomber developement. For instance the Lancaster bomber was originally a 2-engined aircraft called the Manchester until Harris changed it. The Germans had never realized the potential of long-range heavy bombing. Prior to Goering, the chief of the Lutwaffe was a General Walther Wever who pushed for the developement of so-called "Ural bombers", 4-6 engine heavy bombers that would have the range to bomb targets beyond the Ural mountains in the USSR and even New York. But Wever was killed in a plane crash in 1935 and Goering then pushed his own agenda of smaller tactical bombers that would primarily give ground support to the Whermacht

Lindeman put forward the strategy of attacking major industrial centrers in order to deliberately destroy as many homes and houses and therefore kill as many of the skilled German workforce as possible. These attacks would be done at night, not only because daylight raids were too dangerous, but also that most of the German factory workers would be at home then and away from bomb shelters. Working class homes were to be targeted because they had a higher density, were mostly wooden and fire storms were more likely. This would kill, demoralise and displace the German workforce and reduce industrial output. The fact that these workers were civilians and that their families would be bombed as well made little difference, their skills were vital to the German war effort almost as much as the average soldier in the Whermacht was.

Night bombing however was significantly difficult due to poor navigation technology at the time and lack of any night-vision gear. Bombers often collided in the night sky, got lost and ran out of fuel or became victims of the ever-improving German air defences. In the early stages of the war, navigators had to somehow find their way to their target and then drop their bombs on "Dead reckoning", that is they guestimated their target zone. Once harris took over, Bomber command was hugely expanded, it's ROE's were changed so that "Leaflet" raids were out and attacks on civilian targets were allowed and massive bomber fleets of several hundred aircraft were used to pulverize a city rather than just a dozen or so aircraft in each raid. The first German city to suffer this new "Carpet bombing strategy was Lubeck on the Baltic Sea. Harris picked it for two reasons, firstly it was on the coast which made navigation to it very easy at night as the sea can be distinguished from land by high-flying bombers and the other reason was that it was a very old city full of dense-packed wooden houses and so would burn easliy. Lubeck was not a major industrial or military centre, it was merely a practise to guage how effective carpet bombing would be.

Whilst losses on the ground to the RAF's strategic bombing campaign were severe, the losses of bomber command crews was just as horrendous percentage -wise, especially for the Australians. Losses were so great amongst Australian RAAF aicrews that, statistically, you had a better chance of surviving as a POW of the japanese on the Thai/Burma railway that you did as a bomber crewman over Germany. Members of the Australian squadrons of Bomber Command equalled only two percent of RAAF personnel, but represented 23% of the total number of RAAF personnel killed in action during World War II. Another example is that of 460 Squadron RAAF, which had an aircrew establishment of about 200. They experienced 1,018 combat deaths during 1942-45 and was therefore effectively wiped out five times over. A total of 216,900 men and women served in the RAAF during WW2, of whom 11,061 were killed in action. Added to this are the thousands of aircrew from various Commonwealth countries killed during training as part of the "Empire Air Training Scheme" who never even saw combat. Forced to train on obsolete or run-down damaged aircraft well past their use-by-date, there was a high incidence of crashes during training.

With regards to the USAF's strategic bombing of Japan in 1945, more Japanese died from the fire-bombing of Tokyo using incendiaries (Again, dense packed wooden housing) than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the Atomic bombs.

[ronson]

Yes it was cruel and inhumane, but its also a misconception to imagine the British as a race that fights all the time with a rule book in one hand. Go back to anytime in our history and you will find equally controversial acts be it from the privateers of Elizabeth the 1st, through the Indian mutiny, the Zulu war, right up to the Boer war, however back to the subject:-

I believe the intention was....To destroy/disrupt German industry with area bombing....the by-product of this was to destroy the housing of the German workforce and to kill those of the workforce remaining in the cities. This was fully realised by the powers that be, and to a certain extent by the British population.

You make no mention however of the substantual forces that were diverted to the protection of those same cites, ranging from the direct protection such as Flak guns, Fighter aircraft, searchlights etc......through to the research commitment into passive defences such as Radar and Air Raid Precautions.

Lastly but by no means least is the manning levels that were needed to operate these same defences, from the Air Controllers down to the flak gunners themselves. (Please no 'schoolgirl' gunners,.... who flew and maintained the night fighters? and manufactured the AAA? operated the huge radar chain? .....thanks:) )

Don't forget also the scope that these defences had to cover, every German city had to be defended, in addition to the more obvious strategic targets of U-boat yards, oil plants, aircraft factories etc.

Finally in answer to your original question,....... was it justified?
as a Londoner I can answer you that quite easily, my family comes originally from the Square Mile and I can assure you that not one of the older generations who lived through the blitz of 1940/41 would have had any hesitation in agreeing with it. Many of the common people viewed the 'Bomber boys' be they British, Commonwealth or from one of the Free Air forces in the same light that is now bestowed upon the fighter pilots of the battle of Britain. This you must remember was the only arm of the services that was able to hit back at the Germans for much of the war.

The fact that a campaign medal was never issued and Harris never accorded the honours given to other commanders is to the eternal shame of that and subsequent British governments.

I'd be interested in the views of any citizens of Rotterdam, Belgrade, Warsaw etc. on this subject.

Cheers
Ronson

[Piper_1]

Well said Ronson... Its very easy for someone to sit in CANADA 50 years after the event and say 'we were wrong' lets bomb CANADA for 2 years with no way to hit back,Then let the air force wild for them......I think they would do the same.Its very easy to look back and make very rash statements.

[mooxe]

[Piper_1]

[king_tiger_tank]

the only reason why they did that was due to the fact that one night in 1940 2 german HE-111 got lost and ran into to british AA guns over london. In an act of desperation they release their bombs and turned back, but Hitler and Churchill agreed to not bombing each others capitals. so the next day Churchill order lancasters to bomb berlin and to continue to do that. which started the Battle of Britain. So it seems cruel, but fair.

[Piper_1]

[king_tiger_tank]

british landcasters did do the dam bombing runs which killed people along the rivers and flooded their crops, but the main point of this is that armies have done many questionable things. (and this will last forever)

[mooxe]

[king_tiger_tank]

i think he ment that the citizen's and country's morale would be greatly effected and question the leader of the country's decisions and probably resist joining the army (depending on how crazy the people and leader are).
no it won't stop the nation's existing armies much except supplies, but would majorly effect more tanks, planes, etc.

[Piper_1]

What i'm trying to say is at the time, bombing from the air was the only way we the "Common Wealth" could strike back! the moral of the british people was at an all time low with great losses at dunkirk and in the East. Did the Italians show any moral courage when they gased thousands of ethiopian people to win their victory in the Africa,and how many sleepless nights did Hitler have when he over ran Europe.All i want to say is that at that time the WORLD looked to Brittan to hit germany any way they could.As i did not live at that time ( thank god ) i try not to make any moral judgements for them. As an Ex member of the RAF i know how hard it is to hit a target with a bomb and not cause collateral damage.What we should be asking is? in a post 911 world why do we still make the same mistakes. In answer to your question the decisions made were made by one man not the british people. Why then do so many people hide behind the bad things the germans did Hitler never shot anyone and not all firing squads were manned by the SS.

[Pzt_Mac]

Getting back to the original question:
Was RAF Bomber Command morally and ethically justified in its campaign to delibrately kill German civilians in WWII?

I don’t believe anyone is questioning whether England wanted blood after enduring the hell that they did. That would be a natural reaction that on some level we can all appreciate and identify with.

However, a lot of comparing to past happenings, and using the logic of “well, the enemy did it first” isn’t really getting at the heart of the question.

High Command could have chosen to bomb the factories themselves (allowing for the inaccuracies of the time and “collateral” damage). This would have stopped production of military goods. Bombing the “work force”, which includes men, women, and children living in the suburbs and cities was an act of killing civilians, plain and simple.

But perhaps that’s exactly what needed to happen – not necessarily to stop military production, but rather to let the German populace know just what the rest of the world had been going through. So maybe old Harris had it right, “The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them.” But you have to admit, it sounds pretty sadistic, on any level.

Civilians are always getting caught in the cross fire, then and now. But deliberately attacking civilians, well that does just seem morally and ethically wrong. I hear about and see images of governments attacking civilian populations, on purpose, everyday (just look at any of the many wars in Africa for starters), and I don’t support any of that, no matter how many Hutus killed how many Rwandans 5 years ago. But of course I’m not there, so it’s easy for me to say that. Nor was I in London 65 years ago. So we’re all just really outside looking in.

But I’ll say it again anyway – bombing civilians ain’t right.

[king_tiger_tank]

your completely right, but bombing before the nordan bombsight was bad so there might have been accidental bomb drops on civilians. go figure

[Blackstump]

Bomber Harris makes a good patsy , but was only a pawn so was" ike"that war was fought by two men everybody else was manipulated, Hitler had total control over an entire country, and wanted world domination for the German race, Churchill who hab been thru the German backed Boer War than thru various ministries and positions thru the first world war, found him self in a position to fight them once again( with controll over a Commonwealth of countries).. Both were as mad as " hatters" even tho in Australia Churchill is not looked on with any favour( blunders in first world war cost Australia dearly, second world war he gave us up in Singapore and tried to divert our returning troops to Burma, while the japs were bombing Darwin )He was the man prepared to not let another dominate the world,and the one who pulled all the fractions together to stop him.The RAF and its commanders were just another tool in his controll as were the Luftwaffe under Hitlers wishes, people who went against there wishes were replaced. civilians as they are where subject to a total war effort in all these countries and thus became legitimate targets by nature... break the populace and destroy the will to fight. such is total war as known by countries under threat of invasion, the same as today...

[russ109]

[God4Saken]

Afternoon all, great subject this.