The targeting of civilians as a strategic objective in the World War II Western European Theatre had a rather absurd and tragic beginning.
At the start of the war, both sides carefully avoided civilian centers although collateral damage was seen as an unfortunate consequence of aerial bombing. During the Battle of Britain, during the night of 23 August 1941, a dozen German bombers made a navigational error and dropped their bomb loads in the center of London rather than on the oil farms and factories that they were ordered to hit. The British believed that this attack was deliberate and, the next evening, 81 R.A.F. bombers targeted civilian targets in Berlin. After a few more such raids, the Germans retaliated with a massive night bombing raids on London. Ironically, the switch from R.A.F. targets to civilian targets took pressure off the R.A.F. and eventually lead to the Luftwaffe’s defeat in the Battle of Britain.
After this series of events, the genie was out of the bottle and each side, to the best of it’s ability, targeted each other’s civilian population centers with whatever means were available to it. The Allies firebombed cities. The Germans, never having developed adequate four engine bombers to match the Allied bomber capabilities, eventually resorted to the V-1 and V-2 terror weapons.
Each side truly believed that, by causing massive civilian casualties, the other side would surrender. In reality, conventional bombing never achieved that kind of shock value which was only achieved with the advent of the atomic bomb. More civilians died in one Tokyo fire-raid than at Hiroshima.
In the European Theater, the bombimg of the population centers was conducted mainly by the RAF although the 8th Air Force also participated in such attacks, most notably at Dresden. The British bombers could not take the punishment that the American B-17's could and British daylight bombing resulted in substantial losses. As a result, the British bombed at night. World War II bombing accuracy was bad enough as it was and hitting relatively small targets such as specific factories or refineries was out of the question during the night. Night bombing required a target the size of a city center. The British reluctance to bomb smaller, high value targets had much to do with Bomber Command's reluctance to give up the protective cover of the night.
After the war, the morality of massive conventional bombing of civilians came into question. It is always easier to ponder such questions with 20/20 hindsight than during the passions of a World War. The British, it seems, did not feel very comfortable with what had occurred. While all other British senior military leaders were lionized, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris of Bomber Command became somewhat of a quiet embarrassment just as Sir Alexander Haig had become after World War One. Both men were seen by many as having wrought much more death than was necessary to achieve victory.
Harris was no better than a World War One general.
In an early case of media hype, he'd been built up so strongly when Bomber Command was the only success the Brits had that it was tough to sack him later, although that almost happened, and Harris's boss', Portal has been criticized for not biting the bullet and getting rid of the guy.
Walt
"I am in control, here, in the White House..."
Not the same guy, right? ;-)
Discussing coffee, our industrial-sized coffee maker here in the lab has been out of service since last Friday. Nerves are fraying. This is the most important piece of equipment here and we can't get it serviced until today...