I have questioned the Combined Bomber Offensive for some time and have tried to read as much as possible into it. A point that many miss is that Mr Churchill could point to the offensive as proof that we were pulling our weight when Russia and the USA were making incredible sacrifices.
I think the bravery displayed is staggering. I also believe that both during the war and to the present day a high proportion of people have struggled with certain fundementals of the campaign.
I am not a WW2 veteran, but I have been to war and have dished out kinetics and been on the receiving end of AAA and IDF. That doesn't mean I have an absolute right to an opinion but it does set me aside from some.
My opinion of the RAF and USAAF campaign is that it was not discretionary, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't proportional, in fact it was quite the opposite. It wasn't humane. (Some would argue that HE is humane, none could argue that a firestorm is). It was, however, when viewed as the only offensive weapon we had at the time, arguably, necessary.
I therefore find myself in a strange position. I support the boys who did it, I hail their courage and I think that on balance the campaign was justified. But I honestly believe that out of the four principles of LOAC I took to war it fails on three.
I would rather that we were bold enough to stand up not only for the boys who did it, but to correctly identify what they did. 'It was total war' is inadequate. So, to me, is describing cities as the targets. We deliberately targeted civilians. We did so because some believed it to be the right thing to do, and in any case they were the only thing we could target with the only offensive weapon we had. In the circumstances, in a time when great evils simply had to be conquered, it was the right thing to do.