The Morality (or Otherwise) of the Allied Bomber Offensive
Jan 29, 2024 16:34:18 GMT
The Squeezed Middle and wapentake like this
Post by Dan Dare on Jan 29, 2024 16:34:18 GMT
I recently finished re-reading Len Deighton's "Bomber" for the first time for over 20 years. What a bloody cracking good read it is, chock-full of interesting and plausible characterisations on both sides, and larded with all the technical and historical detail that any anorak could wish for.
But on reading it again it struck me that it might well have been one of the first revisionist 'accounts' concerning WW II. I put the word account in quotes because "Bomber" is a work of fiction, the events even being set on the night of June 31st, 1943. Irving's "Dresden" may have pipped it by a year or two, right now I can't arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that I read "Bomber" first.
Having said all that, though, I didn't find "Bomber" to be any more persuasive as a polemic against what Deighton clearly believes was an immoral act (the Allied bombing campaign) anymore than I did when I first read it all those years ago.
When it was first published, Grayling was a philosopher at Birkbeck, so this is more of a philosophical tome searching for the boundaries between necessity and wickedness in wartime. Towards that end, he poses the following questions:
My view is that he is wrong on all counts.
But on reading it again it struck me that it might well have been one of the first revisionist 'accounts' concerning WW II. I put the word account in quotes because "Bomber" is a work of fiction, the events even being set on the night of June 31st, 1943. Irving's "Dresden" may have pipped it by a year or two, right now I can't arsed to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that I read "Bomber" first.
Having said all that, though, I didn't find "Bomber" to be any more persuasive as a polemic against what Deighton clearly believes was an immoral act (the Allied bombing campaign) anymore than I did when I first read it all those years ago.
Speaking of which, another book which focuses on the moral aspects of the Strategic Boming Offensive is AC Grayling's Among the Dead Cities, subtitled "The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan".
This book continues in the tradition of Irving and Deighton in questioning both the efficacy and morality of the bombing campaign. It doesn't have the same technical depth as either nor does it provide a coherent picture of how the campaign developed and changed over time, as did of course the German countermeasures. And Grayling is much more exercised by and appalled by the area bombing tactics of the RAF, in contrast to what he terms the more humane 'precision' bombing approach of the USAAF.
When it was first published, Grayling was a philosopher at Birkbeck, so this is more of a philosophical tome searching for the boundaries between necessity and wickedness in wartime. Towards that end, he poses the following questions:
... To see the hard truth about the morality of Allied area bombing, we need only to ask the relevant questions:
Was it necessary?
Was it proportionate?
Is it really true that civilians without exception belong in the front line of war?
Was it against the humanitarian principles that people have been striving to enunciate as a way of controlling and limiting war?
Was it against the general moral standards of the kind recognised and agreed in Western civilisation in the last five centuries, or even 2,000 years?
Was it against what natural laws provide in the way of outlawing murder, bodily harm, and destruction of property?
In short and in sum: was area bombing wrong?
Very wrong?
Was it necessary?
Was it proportionate?
Is it really true that civilians without exception belong in the front line of war?
Was it against the humanitarian principles that people have been striving to enunciate as a way of controlling and limiting war?
Was it against the general moral standards of the kind recognised and agreed in Western civilisation in the last five centuries, or even 2,000 years?
Was it against what natural laws provide in the way of outlawing murder, bodily harm, and destruction of property?
In short and in sum: was area bombing wrong?
Very wrong?
Grayling then answers himself as follows:
...On the basis of the foregoing chapters the answer I give [to these questions] is No to the first three, and Yes to all the rest.
And now come some very hard questions for us to ask ourselves about our own airmen - our own kinsmen.
Should airmen have refused to carry out the area-bombing raids?
Yes.
...
And now come some very hard questions for us to ask ourselves about our own airmen - our own kinsmen.
Should airmen have refused to carry out the area-bombing raids?
Yes.
...
My view is that he is wrong on all counts.
