Bomber Boys- BBC 1.

[Danny42C]

First, thank you Chugalug2 (#145), and others for your kind words.
(Chugalug, I accept your strictures with good grace).

Before I put my oar into this thread again, I had better make my locus standi
clear, otherwise you good people may ascribe an authority to me that I don't possess.

From late 42 to early 46 I was in "far away places with queer sounding names"; the European War was a long way from our daily concerns. So I know little more about the Bombing campaign than an informed civilian back home. My "ops" were relatively safe, most folk did their 60-80 sorties without a scratch. Much of my knowledge is derived from the many BC veterans who served with me post-war.

To business: the question seems to centre on the legality and morality of the area bombing policy. Oddly, only one of the Posts so far (#178 from Pontius Navigator) refers to the "Principles of War". There were ten of them, No.2 was "Maintenance of Morale", as I recall.

Churchill said: "Hitler knows he has to break us in these islands, or lose the War - he meant break our Home morale. (Hitler didn't break us, and he lost the War).

If it was vital to keep up our civilian morale, then clearly it was equally essential to destroy theirs any way we could. The only way found so far was to kill as many of their civilians as possible. Our leaflet-dropping was ineffective. They had no success with Lord Haw Haw. They couldn't invade us, we couldn't invade them (until 1944). We couldn't starve them out, they couldn't starve us out. Anyone with a better idea? It had to be mass bombing - that didn't work in practice either - on both sides, civilian morale held up till the final military collapse - but it was all we had at the time.

Of course it was official policy on both sides! How could it not be? No one made any bones about it at the time. And it fitted in nicely with our capability. Civilians live in cities, so hit the city. Most industrial units work in cities, so hit the city. Most War production takes place in the cities, so hit the city. What is the only thing big enough (in the circumstances) for our Navigators to find, and too big for our Bomb Aimers to miss - a city! It was a "no-brainer", wasn't it?

Now we come to the difficulty of the 1907 Hague Convention. What had the delegates of those days in mind? I rather think it was of bayoneting civilians one by one - the "Frightfulness" which we attributed to the Germans in Belgium in 1914. Things had moved on. We were now prisoners of our own technology, we had to do our killing wholesale. We knew about all the other international agreements to which we had committed ourselves in times of peace.

Nothing less than our survival was now at stake. We did what had to be done.


I was a bit puzzled by prOOne (#176)

Quote: "Harris.......was convinced, and made the statement many times, that strategic bombing of cities would win the war. it didn't".

True as regards Europe. But although it was not of his doing, his idea was vindicated at Hiroshima. Emperor Hirohito threw in the towel ten days later, on 15th August 1945 - much to my relief and that of thousands of others!

Danny42C