CHURCHILL'S DILEMMA AND THE BOMBING OF COVENTRY
The following is a disturbing historical case that raises some interesting questions for utilitarianism. Actually, some see it as an argument in favor of utilitarianism; some see it as a source of shame for the those who argue according to the "cold" logic of utilitarianism.
During the autumn of 1940, the German Luftwaffe campaign, called "Battle of Britain", had been
raining bombs on major cities in the U.K., in an attempt to demoralize the British and to win air
superiority over the British Isles. Instructions from Goering were communicated to the fighter
pilots by radio, using a super-secret encryption technology called "Ultra". By 1940, the British
had developed deciphering technology that allowed them to reading thousands of messages a day.
The first rule of military cryptography, however, is that you never act on the information in a way that
will lead your enemy to think that you have broken the code. Because then the enemy will switch
to a new code. So, throughout the war, Allied Intelligence had to be very cagey about using this
information, and very often, they had to withhold life-saving information. The most notorious (if
disputed) case of this came on November 14, 1940. At 3 pm that afternoon, a German signal was
deciphered containing the bombing targets for that evening, including the name of one city,
Coventry, which had mistakenly not been given its code name.
Prime Minister Churchill was
informed, and this generated a terrible dilemma. He could have ordered the evacuation of the
city, but then the Germans would have known that their code had been broken, they would
certainly have shifted to a different code, and the Allies would have, in effect, been blinded about
Nazi war plans. Instead, he allowed the fire brigades and other emergency services to be given
the information, confidentially, that they should be on alert. This was the standard response to
such information. Coventry was bombed and 554 people died.
For more on the Coventry Blitz, read the following gripping account of what happened that night (with historical photos of the damage):
http://www.cwn.org.uk/heritage/blitz/
[This account is based on the book, The Ultra Secret, by F.W. Winterbotham (New York: Harper
& Row, 1974), esp. pp. 60-1. Winterbotham oversaw the Ultra deciphering unit. His claim
that Churchill was informed of this information has since been contested. What is not contested,
however, is that the Intelligence services knew this information and that they had a policy of
informing fire brigades and emergency services merely that an attack was likely. Thus, even if Churchill never himself faced this dilemma, Intelligence officers did, on a daily basis.]
So who are we going to put into internment camps today? If you said all the liberals well that would be a moral quandry!
"...case of this came on November 14, 1940. At 3 pm that afternoon, a German signal was deciphered containing the bombing targets for that evening, including the name of one city, Coventry, which had mistakenly not been given its code name."
I'm sorry, but it is simply not accurate to say that they knew that Coventry would be the target for that evening. The sources that have argued that have long since been discredited by historians using primary documents from the people invloved (diaries, communication logs, etc).
Again, if you are going to argue a historical precedent for the deprivation of rights, there are many good examples to use. You do not need to use a fake one.