The Area Bombing of German Cities During World War 2 - Essay Example

How Just Was the Area Bombing of German Cities During World War 2? A controversy remains today regarding the cost/benefit aspect of the strategic air bombing campaign waged by the allies against Germany during the Second World War. The campaign’s effectiveness is a matter of widespread debate as is the moral implications of this action particularly during the latter stages of the war. The fire-bombings of the medieval German city of Dresden in 1945 are especially referenced when discussing the Allies policy of killing innocent civilians for the announced intention of breaking the German will to continue the fight. The British bombing of Dresden, a city not much smaller than Manchester, towards the end of the war is widely acclaimed as a war crime because this cultural capital of Germany was filled with refugees trying to escape Allied bombing and was of no military value. This and the indiscriminant bombings of other German cities are largely viewed by historians as retaliation for the London bombings by the Germans. Were the bombing campaigns an act strictly motivated by revenge and should therefore be regarded as morally reprehensible or were they the result of a necessary and successful strategy that may have gone a little too far? This question is the focus of the following discussion which attempts to explain why these bombings of civilian targets are generally regarded as an indefensible, shameful act perpetrated by the Allies. The Allies, particularly the British, have been likely rightfully vilified for decimating German towns and civilian populations near the end of the war essentially in retaliation for the Luftwaffe bombing raids over London. This strategic bombing campaign took the lives of an estimated 600,000 German civilians. However, the reality of the situation must be kept in proper context. Germany started the war, killed approximately 12 million civilians including six million in concentration camps and would have taken a greater toll if they had beaten the Allied forces. The German’s and British certainly were not the only nations that committed wartime atrocities. Many hundreds of thousands of German prisoners who were taken by the Americans died in prison camps. Witnesses told of gaunt bodies wearing clothing smeared with diarrhea huddled in muddy holes with no shelter and perhaps a rotten potato to eat. Many had to eat grass and drink urine to survive. According to the American Red Cross, at least 98 percent of American prisoners in German prison camps survived but the West German government stated that more than one million German prisoners of war ‘disappeared,’ a suspicious phenomenon which the Americans falsely blamed on the Soviet Union (Mohr, 2007). The second dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan is still widely criticised as the pointless wasting of innocent civilian life. The Japanese were not given the choice to surrender following the first bomb on Hiroshima. In addition, the use of such a destructive weapon in any given circumstances has been condemned as morally repugnant by all reasonable persons since its inception therefore it is reasonable to conclude its use was morally repugnant to the same extent then as it would be now. During the 1940’s, the Soviet Union committed numerous atrocities including confiscating all Polish state and private property, four substantial and other deportations of Polish citizens to prisons and the massive arrests of those opposed to Soviet occupation. Stalin ordered the executions and arrests of tens of thousands of Polish underground members (“Soviet Crimes” 2007). The Japanese treatment of prisoners is also well known including the Bataan and Sandakan Death March, the mass murder of Australian soldiers following their surrender and the murder of Americans captured at Midway (Drea et al., 2007). The list of wartime atrocities committed by all nations involved in any war continues seemingly, and unfortunately, endless. Certainly not all subscribe to the idea that Britain committed a monumental war crime by the strategic bombing raids near the end of the war. Instead, they believe the bombings were an essential part of the war effort. Regardless, the British legacy for its part in WWII will always be infamously linked to Dresden and the carnage that resulted. Interestingly, many who would condemn the bombings seemed to have forgotten or forgiven the fact that the British bombed civilian targets in 1940, well before the London bombings and in 1943, Hamburg was bombed by the British, killing more than 50,000 non-military persons (“American War Crimes” 2005). Throughout the relatively brief history of air warfare, strategic bombing, a somewhat ambiguous term, has induced emotionally-charged debates regarding its use. Since its inception, strategic bombing had added an innovative component to the concept of conventional warfare and its use effectively nullified any previous philosophy of waging war. Many intellectuals, politicians, military officials and the public alike question not only the effectiveness but the moral implications of directing strategic bombing missions. Supporters of this technique commend its effectiveness as well as the reduction of personnel and money needed to accomplish a similar objective had ground troops been used instead. The first pervasive use of strategic air warfare occurred during WWII. The Allies deployed close to one and a half million bomber missions which in total dropped nearly three million tons of bombs on German targets destroying more than three and a half million German buildings, or about a quarter of the total structures in Germany. Allied, jointly conducted by the Americans and British, strategic bombing raids accounted for 300,000 German civilian deaths, seriously wounding nearly a million more. These raids left more than seven million homeless and reduced major German towns to heaps of rubble that surrounded hollowed-out buildings amidst desperate, grieving survivors. The effectiveness and supposed necessity of the bombing raids was debated then as today. Strategic Air Force Commander General Carl Spaatz questioned its effectiveness following the war’s conclusion. “One may argue the exact degree of contribution made by strategic bombing to the final decision. The war against Germany was fundamentally an infantry war supported by air power” (Meilinger, 1983). Critics of Britain’s policy regarding the strategic bombing of Germany claim that the year and a half of constant bombing missions actually did little to reduce the production of military armaments or diminish the morale of German citizens as was its official objective. British scholar Sir Henry Tizard served as the Aeronautical Research Committee chairman during WWII and supervised the scientific team that developed radar, an invention credited for facilitating the RAF victory in the Battle of Britain. He openly condemned the bombing campaigns, characterising the entire operation as a “misguided failure that had hurt Britain more than Germany” (Overy, p. 20). The ineffectiveness of the bombing campaign only intensifies the regret felt by many historians and scholars regarding the often described ‘inhumane’ RAF policy. For example, American political scientist Robert Pape who specializes in Strategic air superiority proposes that the strategic bombing of Germany was “not decisive and made virtually no difference in the outcome of the war.” He claimed that “the decline in the German war economy was due mainly to territorial losses, not strategic bombing (Hansell, 1986 p. 27). In addition, Pape adds that “even if there had been no strategic bombing campaign, the war would have ended in the same way and at about the same time” (Hansell, 1986 p. 28). Pape credits airpower used in the support of ground troops as making a much more positive impact on the positive outcome of the war. The shame brought to Britain as a result of the massive fire-bombing campaign is compounded because of its overall ineffectiveness. This infamous episode in British history is further sullied due to the sad fact that the bombing campaign took precious resources away from the ground operations effort which had the most impact in the war’s conclusion. The air campaign actually extended the war which took an untold additional number of lives both military and civilian. Had the ground forces received more air support, it would have advanced much quicker and suffered fewer casualties. During bombing raids alone the British and Americans lost 40,000 planes. Each nation lost more than 79,000 airmen in the raids on Germany. The losses of these resources are staggering especially when considering the contribution even a fraction of these men and planes could have made to the effort on the ground. The bombing of oil fields, ball-bearing factories, railways and airplane factories were indeed effective to a varying extent but the bombing of civilian targets did not achieve the intended goal of coercing German citizens into capitulating. (Meilinger, 1983). “The potential of the strategic air offensive was greater than its achievements, this was primarily due to the difficulty of obtaining a unified and concentrated policy through the channels of divided command” (Hansell, 1986 p. 30). Of course a hindsight viewpoint often does not take into account the unique and limited perspective of those decision makers who were being ominously threatened with the loss of their life and country. The decision to employ strategic air bombardments was not based on information known today as is much of the criticism directed at it. A strategic bombing campaign against an enemy that initiated and continued attacks is not at the center of debate. The indiscriminant and intentional bombing of civilian targets most would agree should be considered outside the boundaries of warfare tactics in a civilised world. However, the much maligned British air-war strategy was a response to a number of exceptional events. The strategy makes no distinctions, all persons or structures within the boundaries of the attacking country are considered targets, a ‘total war’ ideology. British political and military leaders were understandably under pressure to win at any cost, a reasonable stance considering the circumstances. What may seem morally reprehensible 60 years later was universally accepted as necessary at a time when much of London still smoldered. Bombing civilian targets prior to 1943 was considered essential for the survival of the RAF therefore the nation. Civilian areas were not heavily guarded by the Luftwaffe unlike targets essential to the military machine. Because the RAF was busy defending the skies over Britain, its depleted numbers could not risk engaging multitudes of German fighter planes protecting military installations. The only alternative was to hope bombing civilian areas would help diminish the German’s morale and increase their desire to end the aggressive actions of their government. The reality is, again, in hindsight, the bombings served to unite the German people against the Allies. In sum, the strategic bombing campaign initiated by the British and Americans against Germany during WWII was immoral but no more so than war itself and certainly not to a greater degree than the atrocities perpetrated by Germany itself. The major players in the war, the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, Italy, Britain and the U.S. all can be rightfully accused of crimes against humanity during the war. This does not excuse the massive and intentional bombings of civilian targets. However, the unique events and circumstances of that time in addition to the lack of clear hindsight do justify the reasoning behind the action if not the end result. All of Britain was panicked at this time in history therefore the decisions emanating from this hysteria cannot be scrutinized fairly while during a time of relative peace. History’s judgment of this fateful decision to bomb non-military targets is reliable and credible only if it considers the entire context of the situation, a complex and horrifying era in which many decisions made by the leaders of that time are today much easier to second-guess and scrutinise. Works Cited “American War Crimes in the ‘Good War.’” Socialist Worker. (February 11, 2005). 2 August, 2008 Edward Drea, Greg Bradsher, Robert Hanyok, James Lide, Michael Petersen, Daqing Yang. Researching Japanese War Crimes Records. Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. Washington, D.C. 2 August, 2008 Hansell, Haywood. “The Strategic Air War against Germany and Japan” Air Force History & Museums Program (June 1986). pp. 27-30. Meilinger, Phillip. “Guilio Douhet and the Origins of Airpower Theory.” Office of Air Force History. (1983) p. 1 Mohr, Lt. Col. Gordon ‘Jack’. “US War Crimes in World War II: Part 2.” US War Crimes. 2 August, 2008 Overy, Richard. “The Air War: 1939-1945” Potomac Books Inc; 1 edition (15 June, 2005). p. 20. “Soviet Crimes Against Poland During World War II.” Electronic Museum. 2 August, 2008< http://electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-WW2/soviet_crimes/soviet_crimes_eng.html> Read More