17-12-2002 15:36									#121
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Yes, but we can blame Japan on America's inherent racism, can't we?

Could you explain what you mean. That seems like either a huge double standard or bigotry - I hope I have misunderstood.

quote: SD, our respective air forces, the UK and the US, should have refrained from sinking to the level of the Nazi's. When we, the US, bombed Japanese cities, except for the A-Bomb, we dropped leaflets warning that we were going to bomb a particular city. The Japanese then evacuated that city. So, I still maintain, there is a major difference in conduct between the UK and the US. We joined our ally Britain and the USSR on their request for a raid against a German city. But we did not lead the effort to destroy German cities. That honor goes to Bomber Harris and the British government.

The US was a willing accomplice and executor in the deaths of millions. Dress that up any way you want, but your claim is that the US do not owe an apology. That is bull****.

Are you going to change your stance on that position?

	17-12-2002 15:41									#122
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I do feel this owing apologies to people is bollocks.

It all happened 60 years ago.

As for the US being shocked by the inhumanity of it all, and only going along because the UK asked them too that is rubbish, the US was loath to accept British requests during the war( this worked both ways).

	17-12-2002 17:07									#123
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd loinburger, This isn't relevant - if you want to boil everything down to hard numbers, you are simply talking about egalitarianism, ie, a system where it is acceptable to kill 50 innocents to save 100 other innocents. I just cannot comprehend how one can defend that system.

I don't see how you can defend the flip side where allowing the ongoing death of 100 to save 50 is acceptable.

	17-12-2002 17:32									#124
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Everyday our inaction lets people die. We let millions die in 3rd world countries because we don't want to pay (just money not lives) to help them.

What difference that one is war, the other peace?

	17-12-2002 18:49									#125
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd However, if I attempt to stop a murder - no, let's make it a mass murder, or a genocide, even - by spraying machine gun fire into a crowd in the hopes of either turning the crowd against the murderer or killing the murderer, but in the process slaughtering dozens of innocents, EVEN IF the murder/genocide is prevented, I have committed murder.

Fine, change the scenario a bit. Joey the Terrorist has a nuke with him on the top floor of an office building, and he has ten hostages. If the nuke goes off then there will be approximately 10,000,000 casualties. It will, however, take him ten minutes to prepare the nuke for detonation. Your advisors have thoroughly examined the situation, and have determined that the only effective means of ending this stand-off is to raze the top of the office building, thereby killing all of the innocent hostages but also ending the threat to the 10,000,000 innocents who would be killed in the nuke -- they explain that Joey the Terrorist has barricaded himself in, and that an extraction team would take at least a half hour to do its job.

Is it a bad thing to kill the ten innocent hostages? You bet your ass, killing innocents is always wrong. However, killing ten innocents is better than allowing the destruction of 10,000,000 innocents whose destruction you can prevent. That's my opinion, anyway. Anybody who argued that doing nothing and thereby allowing Joey to detonate the nuke "because then their hands would be clean" would strike me as being about the most selfish person alive -- essentially, they'd be telling me that their supposed moral well-being is more important to them than saving the lives of ten million innocents, i.e. "I don't care what happens to y'all so long as my ticket into heaven is secured."

quote: Where would you like to draw the line?

Depends on the specifics of a situation. Bombing German and Japanese industrial production (knowing that innocents would almost certainly die in the process) was a necessary evil in order to put a speedy end to the war and prevent additional innocent casualties. Ramo disagrees that lives were saved in the bombing raids, and that's fine, I'm willing to listen to what he has to say about the casualties inflicted and the casualties supposedly prevented. Your high-and-mighty "These people are clearly evil for disagreeing with me, Ramo, so don't bother trying to convince them of anything" post just happened to punch my buttons, that's all.

quote: This isn't relevant - if you want to boil everything down to hard numbers, you are simply talking about egalitarianism, ie, a system where it is acceptable to kill 50 innocents to save 100 other innocents. I just cannot comprehend how one can defend that system.

I think that you mean utilitarianism, not egalitarianism. (If you mean egalitarianism, then I am thoroughly confused by your post.) Utilitarianism is one of the few ways to differentiate between shades of gray, i.e. between two acts that are not absolutely "good," and as such it is extremely helpful since such dilemmas are all too common. (Of course, another way to differentiate between two acts that are not absolutely "good" is to convince yourself that one of those acts is absolutely "good," but self-delusion just doesn't sit well with me.)

quote: Obviously, "Is it wrong to kill innocents?" IS the question this thread is dealing with, and asking that question is not irresponsible at all. It is an attempt to tie people down to a position. If killing innocents is wrong, then bombing civilians is wrong, but if killing innocents is OK, or "dependent upon circumstances", then the Holocaust can be justified.

The question that you've again ignored is "Is it wrong to allow somebody else to kill innocents?" You've already responded that, yes, it is wrong to allow somebody else to kill innocents. What confuses me, then, is how you can see a situation in which a malefactor (say, Hitler) is killing and attempting to kill many innocents (a "bad thing") and somebody else (say, the Allies) is attempting to end the malfeasance but is killing innocents in the process (also a "bad thing") and see this as a black-and-white dilemma. If allowing the malefactor to continue in his/her misdeeds is a "bad thing," then in what way is it clearly more moral to "do nothing" (and allow the "bad things" to continue) in this and similar circumstances?

	17-12-2002 19:30									#126
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov How on earth is it immature for me to think it wrong to target civilians in war and not believe that civilians deserve to be killed because of what their government does? I think you're getting a little confused over what maturity means...

No, your confused on what war means, each and every
time the first time the "rules" become inconventant they
are tossed. Civilains are'nt the only ones murdered in
war by both sides, soldiers are too (Normandy).

You talk about morally and war? You can't have war
and morally too, hard enough to have morality during
peacetime. (Landmine banning)

David Floyd,

"How many people in the world today do you imagine fit that framework? Hint: A lot."

Good point, Too bad it is sooo true.

	17-12-2002 20:08									#127
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quote: Originally posted by Ozz No, your confused on what war means, each and every time the first time the "rules" become inconventant they are tossed. Civilains are'nt the only ones murdered in war by both sides, soldiers are too (Normandy).

I know full well what war means. But again, how does this justify anything? Murdering surrendered soldiers is as bad as murdering civilians, certainly. Yes, it happens all the time. That does not make it ok, nor does it somehow mean that the victims deserve it. Sadly, the vast majority of people who died in WW2, like any war, didn't deserve it. That goes for Americans, Germans, British, French, Russians, Poles, Japanese, Chinese, Italians, etc.

quote: You talk about morally and war? You can't have war and morally too, hard enough to have morality during peacetime. (Landmine banning)

I'd certainly agree that war is immoral. But it is a necessary evil at times to wage war. That does not mean morality should be tossed aside in waging the war. We like to be nostalgic about WW2 as a great moral crusade against Nazism. Well, that's fine (if somewhat inaccurate), but if we're going to bring morality into the cause, we have to discuss it in the actions. You can't wage a war by immoral means and claim to be upholding a moral cause. The U.S. and U.K. need to acknowledge that Dresden was wrong so we can be assured it won't be repeated. I don't think it will lessen the moral rightness of defeating Nazism to admit that we did something wrong in our quest to do so.

Likewise, Japan needs to be hoenst about Nanjing. Their continued denials over it are appalling.

But again, nothing here validates targeting innocents in war. If everyone is guilty of a crime, it's still a crime.

	17-12-2002 20:35									#128
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Dresden wasn't wrong, it was shades of things to come.

Dresden was the first case of what "bombing" was supposed to be. Munich happened cause the British/
French though Dresden would happen to London/Paris.

After Dresden, I'm surprised the allies didn't go all out
and fry each and every german city off the map.

	17-12-2002 21:13									#129
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quote: Originally posted by Ozz Dresden wasn't wrong, it was shades of things to come.

As incongruous a statement as I can think of. The morality of Dresden has nothing to do with it being a "shade of things to come." And it wasn't a shade of anything to come, as the war in Europe ended a month and a half later. At the time it happened, Germany was already beaten and on its last legs.

quote: Dresden was the first case of what "bombing" was supposed to be. Munich happened cause the British/ French though Dresden would happen to London/Paris. After Dresden, I'm surprised the allies didn't go all out and fry each and every german city off the map.

Ok, again, you seem not to know history. Dresden was firebombed in February 1945. There was not even a possibility of German retaliation at this point, the Allies knew this. Germany had no air power left.

What this has to do with Munich I can't imagine, since Munich was bombed in July 1944. Munich was also a key industrial and strategic target, unlike Dresden.

After Dresden...well, remember Germany surrendered in April, a little over a month later. And bombing Dresden had no affect on the German surrender--it only fostered resentment.

And why didn't the Allies fry every city off the map? Because the populations of those countries expressed revulsion and outrage at the bombing. Even Churchill said it was wrong.

Dresden was wrong. You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory. The only thing Dresden accomplished was incinerating 200,000 innocent people.

	17-12-2002 21:28									#130
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quote: You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory.

That's easy to say in retrospect. The point of firebombing civilian targets was to either make Hitler surrender (not likely) or to push those around Hitler to assasinate him (more likely) and subsequently surrender. This was on the minds of Allied strategists, but unfortunately no surrender happened so the immoral act served no purpose. But there was a chance that it would in their minds.

To put it into perspective:

Imagine that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not brought about a surrender. The civilian slaughter would have been fruitless, and the bombings would have been impossible to justify to someone in 2002. You'd be sitting here saying to me 'You can't morally justify it as a strategic target or as something that contributed to victory.'

Conversely, imagine that in late February of 1945, officials close to Hitler witness the destruction of their beloved fatherland at Dresden and decide that they must kill the madman that is the root cause of this horror. They kill him, offer a surrender, and then thousands of Allied and German soldiers (along with thousands of potential last-minute holocaust victims) would be saved. The bombing would then be somewhat justifiable, just like the atomic bombings in Japan are today.

You have to think about people's intentions before actions like Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki, when there seemed to be a real possibility that these immoral acts would bring about a positive result.

I personally believe that firebombing Dresden was immoral and that we shouldn't have done it. However, I will not go so far as to say it 'served no purpose' because that naively ignores the fact that it was meant to.

	17-12-2002 21:34									#131
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Ok, again, you seem not to know history. Dresden was firebombed in February 1945. There was not even a possibility of German retaliation at this point, the Allies knew this. Germany had no air power left. What this has to do with Munich I can't imagine, since Munich was bombed in July 1944. Munich was also a key industrial and strategic target, unlike Dresden. And why didn't the Allies fry every city off the map? Because the populations of those countries expressed revulsion and outrage at the bombing. Even Churchill said it was wrong.

No retaliation, true, No resistance false. Wars don't
slow down cause the enemy is down,

Munich 1938, appleasement.

Wrong, Churchill didn't want to have to quarter his
occupation forces in a wasteland and it was getting
to be a waste of effort "to bomb piles of brick". it
was time to go to Japan.

	17-12-2002 21:45									#132
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quote: Likewise, Japan needs to be hoenst about Nanjing. Their continued denials over it are appalling.

Why does everyone seem to think that the Japanese deny the Nanjing Massacre? The Japanese fully admit that the massacre happened; only far-right nut jobs say otherwise.

The controversy is not over Japanese denial of Nanjing, as no such denial exists. The controversy is over the Japanese practice of whitewashing the descriptions of the Nanjing Massacre in textbooks. Japanese school kids learn that the massacre happened, but don't learn many of the details.

It's a pretty interesting issue, actually.

	17-12-2002 21:47									#133
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quote: Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin Could you explain what you mean. That seems like either a huge double standard or bigotry - I hope I have misunderstood. The US was a willing accomplice and executor in the deaths of millions. Dress that up any way you want, but your claim is that the US do not owe an apology. That is bull****. Are you going to change your stance on that position?

SD, Yes, the US should apologize for its role. But, as I said, there are some here who think the US is primarily if not solely responsible for Cologne, Hamburg and Dresden. The record on Allied bombing of civilians should be made clear. I don't want to see massive anti-US protests in Germany on this issue with the UK and Russia getting a free ride.

As to Japan, our efforts to drop leaflets should be noted.

As to the A-bomb - well, we have to take full responsibility for that one. It was Truman's decision. Because of it, I am probably alive today because my Dad would have been one of those Americans landing in Japan.

	17-12-2002 21:49									#134
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You people really are funny. Wars should be as brutal as possible as a reminder to those that think it should be taken lightly. The reason wars such as WWII are started is that someone gets it in their head that the other nations will not want to risk war and those that do will be defeated easily. Sometimes it actually works out that way. If you miscalculate and you get what happened in WWII.

My suggestion is to stop looking for morality in war, cause you won't find it. A nation will reach back far in history if it needs some morality(like we were cheated at versilles). You can sit here and say the Allies were brutal all you want. But that is exactly the point of war, to be as brutal as you can be. Some countries had no limiations placed on them, and some countries tried to place limitations on themselves and found out that those limitations had to be put aside from time to time. Dirty business it was and I'm glad they did it. In a way, they did the dirty work so people such as yourselves could come on this insigificant board and play moralizer about a situation that morality had no part of except as an instrament to back up the folks back home on both sides of the conflict. This is a stupid argument for the simple reason that morality is put away in the closet during war. Sure it is allowed out when it serves the war goals but immediatly put back in when an opportunity presents itself.

They do not say war is hell for no reason.

	17-12-2002 21:50									#135
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quote: Originally posted by Darius871 That's easy to say in retrospect. The point of firebombing civilian targets was to either make Hitler surrender (not likely) or to push those around Hitler to assasinate him (more likely) and subsequently surrender. This was on the minds of Allied strategists, but unfortunately no surrender happened so the immoral act served no purpose. But there was a chance that it would in their minds.

Actually, Churchill's strategy was more likely to impress upon the Soviets the destructive power the Allies could muster and would be willing to use. But certainly not a moral reason.

I see little reason the Allies would have had to assume, given the state of Germany in Feb. 1945, that the bombing would have accomplished anything strategic against the Germans.

quote: Imagine that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not brought about a surrender. The civilian slaughter would have been fruitless, and the bombings would have been impossible to justify to someone posting on OT forums in 2002.

Well, I am consistent in this light, as I also think the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaky were morally wrong. The fact that Japan surrendered shortly afterward doesn't morally justify them, IMO. Nor do I accept the argument that it changed the outcome of the war or saved lives. But that involves more speculation than Dresden, true.

	17-12-2002 21:56									#136
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quote: Originally posted by Ozz No retaliation, true, No resistance false. Wars don't slow down cause the enemy is down,

Which means nothing regarding Dresden, as Dresden was not in anyway a strategic target or part of the German war effort. It offered nothing to the Allies in terms of stopping German military resistance, which was already crumbling left and right.

quote: Munich 1938, appleasement.

Huh? What does this have to do with anything? Do you like not massacring 200,000 people to being appeasement of some kind?

quote: Wrong, Churchill didn't want to have to quarter his occupation forces in a wasteland and it was getting to be a waste of effort "to bomb piles of brick". it was time to go to Japan.

Even if true, that speaks nothing to it being morally ok to do the bombings. And you have to say that Churchill was insincere in his expression of regret over Dresden, which I don't think is the case. And bombing Dresden was a waste of effort in itself.

	17-12-2002 21:56									#137
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quote: Originally posted by Ned SD, Yes, the US should apologize for its role.

No they shouldn't. The US did what it thought it had
to do at the time. The US didn't start the war, it just
finished it.

	17-12-2002 22:04									#138
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I didn't say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were moral, I just said that they can be justified (note the words can be justified, I didn't say they are justified) while Dresden cannot be justified because due to a bad toss of the die its political objective was not achieved.

	17-12-2002 22:17									#139
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quote: High altitude bombing over Europe was far more accurate than bombing over Japan, due to wind velocity at altitude.

True, but European high altitude bombing was still usually incapable of knocking out anything as small as a factory or a bridge. If it wasn't a 50 hectare rail marshalling yard or a city, a B-17 wasn't much of a threat.

Except, of course, in the case of carpet bombing, which was a very definite threat to anything in the target area. Or nearby. One of the funniest tragedies of WW2 is the fact that Bomber Command's attempts to destroy the U-boot pens in Brest resulted in the complete destruction of the city--------except for the U-boot pens.

quote: To support their point of view, they have studiously avoided recognition of how much higher the production levels would have been without strategic bombing, and the manpower, equipment, and materiel drain required for air defense against strategic bombing. How much longer would it have taken the allies on either front to break through into Germany if the Germans had been able to transfer 3,000 FlaK 36/37, 1500-2000 FW-190 and Me-109K aircraft, and 200,000 luftwaffe air defense personnel into army control?

Sure, but so what? It also ignores the effect that not pursuing a strategic bombing offensive would have had on the Allied war effort. Think how much better the drive across France would have gone if we had used our air capability to deliver fuel and supplies to front line troops. Or how many men and how much materiel would have been saved if heavy aircraft had been used against submarines in the Battle of the Atlantic. Or how we could have invaded France in 1943 if we hadn't been wasting a third of our war production on heavy bombers.

It is true that bombing is a very convenient weapon for countries that would otherwise have to amphibiously invade to get into contact with the enemy.

But convenience isn't good enough. The goal is to force the enemy to surender, not merely to hurt him. Applying a large amount of effort to an attack that weakens your enemy only slightly is stupid. Especially when you are simultaneously undertaking a decisive attempt to destroy him elsewhere.

In any event, I doubt that German production could have gotten much higher (in 1944 anyway) regardless of bombing. The main limiting factor in German war potential was manpower. Bombing did not greatly affect manpower availability or hours worked, although it did divert some hours into repair and (as you state) did tie up manpower that could have been used elsewhere.

Allied effectiveness, on the other hand, was limited by the amount of troops they could supply in Europe. Attempting to undertake an expensive bombing campaign from an island besieged by submarines is doubly stupid. The supplying ships first have to run a gauntlet of submarines that attrition 30+% of materiel off before it even reachs Britain. Then, you burn huge amounts of fuel flying bombs to Germany, 95% of which do absolutely nothing. You also lose 8% of the planes on each mission in exchange for less than one cheap fighter for each expensive bomber.

If Britain had, instead, used those bombers to attack submarines, she would halve losses to subs and bombers and have more supplies and force for the decisive attack.

	17-12-2002 22:24									#140
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quote: Originally posted by Darius871 I didn't say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were moral, I just said that they can be justified (note the words can be justified, I didn't say they are justified) while Dresden cannot be justified because due to a bad toss of the die its political objective was not achieved.

I see the point, but this takes the limits of justification almost to absurdity. In this logic, one could justify anything done in war that may have some sort of effect on war aims. We run into the ends justifying the means mentality. I'm sure the IJA could use similar justification for Nanjing. By terrorizing the population, they may have induced a quicker capitulation of opposing forces, and word of their tactics would make other areas less likely to resist them or else they would get similar punishment.

Very slippery slope.

	17-12-2002 23:00									#141
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The American public is so adverse to American casualties that I find it hard to see Bush allowing American ground forces to get involved in street fighting in Bagdad.

OTOH, international reaction to the indiscriminate bombing of Bagdad would be extreme.

You can be sure the volunteer troops expect Bagdad to be leveled before they go in.

Best solution is to use anti-Saddam indigious ground troops and limited air support.

But Saddam is getting far to much time to prepare.

	17-12-2002 23:54									#142
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quote: Originally posted by DanS While true (there was enough war fever to go around), Germany provided the trigger, and German troops were the first ones to cross borders. So it's their fault.

Forgive me if this has already been dealt with but if Germany had wanted war to the extent that you seem to claim they would have provoked a conflict in 1905. Russia was still reeling from its defeat in the Far East and was in no position to defend itself from German attack. The UK had also not allied with France and Russia during this time which left France standing alone against Germany.

Now on to the main topic: The strategic bombing campaign of only started in earnest in 1944 when the allies finally achieved air superiority over Germany, well after it was clear that Germany was going to loose the war. Given that fact it is quite reasonable to question both its morality and military utility.

	18-12-2002 00:05									#143
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov As incongruous a statement as I can think of. The morality of Dresden has nothing to do with it being a "shade of things to come

It was for the Japanese, that is exactly what happened
to thier cities

	18-12-2002 00:34									#144
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I have and do criticize the Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign for falling so short both morally and effectively. I think the moral question finds everyone lacking, but the temper of the times (Totalitarianism and Uncoditional Surrender) made this question easier to ignore. Look at the doctrines of Massive Retaliation and Mutual Assured Destruction which respectively went in to place fairly shortly after WWII for the continuation of this trend toward the extremes of Total War Doctrine. So WWII is really another (arguably large) step along the line from limited to Total Warfare. WWI decimated a generation of young men for nothing. At least WWII had to do in part with big ideas. So while I wouldn't support this sort of indiscriminate bombing today, I don't think that the people who thought up, carried out, supported or allowed the bombing to happen deserve to be severely castigated as a group. The important question is can and will we do better.

As to the efficacy of the campaign, that is a tough question, or certainly a complex one. You have to make a lot of assumptions about what would have been done with the resources freed up on both sides. IMO the largest positive effect of the bombing was that it gave the Western Allies air superiority at precisely the time that they really needed it, just prior to the invasion.

Max Hastings in his book about the Normandy Campaign makes some very interesting points regarding the way manpower was managed by the Allies. His most salient point in regard to this issue is that a lot of the men who would have been good solid small unit leaders were reduced to taking incredible risks as simple AA machine gunners on heavy bombers, where their chances of directly doing any damage to the enemy was negligible. This was because the Army Air Corps usually got its pick of personnel ahead of the ground pounders. There were very serious leadership problems in the American Army at many levels, but those at the small unit level really had a large effect on its morale and tactical capabilities.

The lack of accuracy point has been made already, I'd like to add one more stat. IIRC the USAAF got only one bomb in 5 within 5 miles of its target during the Strategic Bombing Campaign. This includes plenty of scratched missions which dropped their bombs in the Channel, or more or less randomly over Europe when they realized that they couldn't see / get to their target, but also a lot of lost formations, bad intelligence, and not an inconsiderable amount of refusing to fly over the target area due to the very high likelihood that you would be shot down.

	18-12-2002 02:56									#145
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quote: Forgive me if this has already been dealt with but if Germany had wanted war to the extent that you seem to claim they would have provoked a conflict in 1905.

Sounds logical, but logical or not, the fact remains that diplomatic and state papers of the Great Powers in 1914 show fairly clearly that Germany choose to start the war. Russia did mobilize first, but mobilization is not the same thing as war.

quote: IMO the largest positive effect of the bombing was that it gave the Western Allies air superiority at precisely the time that they really needed it, just prior to the invasion.

One thing WW2 proves is that bombers are not the best way to destroy fighters. The opposite is true. By engaging the Luftwaffe in this manner, we probably reduced our air superiority instead of increased it. All we did, after all, was allow the Germans to shoot down large numbers of bombers in exchange for a relatively few fighters and a lot of flak shells.

quote: Max Hastings in his book about the Normandy Campaign makes some very interesting points regarding the way manpower was managed by the Allies. His most salient point in regard to this issue is that a lot of the men who would have been good solid small unit leaders were reduced to taking incredible risks as simple AA machine gunners on heavy bombers, where their chances of directly doing any damage to the enemy was negligible. This was because the Army Air Corps usually got its pick of personnel ahead of the ground pounders. There were very serious leadership problems in the American Army at many levels, but those at the small unit level really had a large effect on its morale and tactical capabilities.

Yeah, iirc the replacement crisis eventually forced the Army to send everyone, regardless of school, out as infantry. Annoyed a lot of people who were expecting to be engineers.

	18-12-2002 03:41									#146
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The Germans did something along the lines of provoking the Entante Cordial. They sent a gunboat called the Panther into Tangiers. The French were trying to make Algeria a colony at this time, so they sent an ultimatum to the Germans. The Germans had tested the Alliance between Great Britain and France and they discovered Britain was going to stand by france.

	19-12-2002 13:19									#147
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quote: Originally posted by Vanguard One thing WW2 proves is that bombers are not the best way to destroy fighters. The opposite is true. By engaging the Luftwaffe in this manner, we probably reduced our air superiority instead of increased it. All we did, after all, was allow the Germans to shoot down large numbers of bombers in exchange for a relatively few fighters and a lot of flak shells.

This was true until January 1944 when Allied long range fighters started to destroy the defending German fighters en masse. The bombers forced the action in this situation, if they weren't there the Germans could have simply transferred those fighters out of range and kept their ability to deploy serious fighter strength for a lot longer than was actually case.

And much worse than losing that expensive bomber was losing the irreplaceable (and large) crew. The Germans were on the right track in forsaking Strategic Bombing for unmanned rocket attacks late in the war, it was much more economical in terms of human capital.

	20-12-2002 00:36									#148
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Bullshit. Dresden was bombed in February 1945, well after the Germans had been defeated in the Battle of Britain and were incapable of bombing British cities.

V1 and V2 rockets were still hitting Britain's towns and cities at that time.

	20-12-2002 07:43									#149
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Sikander, I don't think that the United States ignored the morality of bombing civilians. Look at what we did in Japan where we dropped leaflets on the intended target cities days prior to their being bombed so that they might be evacuated. Why this wasn't done in the case of Germany I don't know, but it clearly indicates a double standard. In this case double standard worked in favor the Japanese as opposed to the Germans.

One possible explanation for the double standard is that we had a partner named Britain who did not want to give the Germans prior warning.

	20-12-2002 08:08									#150
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I wouldn't overstate the mercy of dropping leaflets before destroying an entire city. Where exactly were the inhabitants supposed to go? To live in the woods?