Ex and others,
I'd like to be clear - what Bomber Command did in 42 and 43 was, in my view, a justified part of 'total war'. If all they could do was hit a city, then hitting cities was what they had to do.
The issue is that the RAF (Harris) went back to a truly Trenchardian view of air warfare and became convinced that area bombing would win the war by breaking civilian morale. (Whether this move was driven by quantitative and objective analysis, blind faith or a realisation that they could not survive by day, but could not find a small target at night, is a matter for the historians).
Churchill had a better grasp - he just wanted to hit the Germans as hard as he could with whatever he had while waiting for the US to build up their war fighting economy.
By late 43/early 44, the divergence in war aims led to the problems we've discussed in this thread. Harris wanted to keep pounding the living areas of the cities to rubble, convinced that he would win the war without the need for ground combat. The Alled High command wanted to focus on German industrial targets to directly weaken their war effort prepare the ground for invasion.
The raids on cities late in the war are, to use Max Hastings' phrase, 'resistant to being placed in context'. Wurzburg is an example of those raids.
But to be clear - I certainly don't think BC crews were expected to be able to choose 'which sort of house' they hit. We have no right to judge them for their actions from this range. I also think that BC crews were astonishingly brave and deserve huge respect for the war they fought.
But the reason the BC offensive of WW2 still generates discussion is that it talks to the 'air power' theories of today. If we (the West) come to believe that we can prosecute our national aims and defend our national interests by dropping high explosive on foreign lands with minimal risk to life, instead of putting troops in harm's way, I (for one) fear that we're more likely to do so.
I fought a (small) war 30 years ago. Our young people have fought a few more (bigger) ones since then. I'd like them to be less going forward.
Best Regards as ever
Engines