Was the American Bombing Campaign in World War II a War Crime?

American Heritage Magazine ^ | April 6, 2006 | Fredric Smoler

[tbird5]

Deliberately targeting civilians is widely considered terrorism nowadays, but during World War II both the Britain’s Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force deliberately targeted civilians.

The British philosopher A. C. Grayling, in his new book Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (Walker, $25.95), points out that the two air forces combined killed perhaps 600,000 German civilians and another 200,000 Japanese. He makes the case that at least by our current standards we were terrorists, and it logically follows that the attacks were war crimes. In an age of political terror, when it is urgent to come up with a persuasive distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence, it is hard to overstate the importance of the questions Grayling raises.

[rlmorel]

I would classify it as an act of war, not a terrorist attack. Still pretty underhanded in any case.

They were making an effort to have the declaration of war given to the USA minutes before the attack by their diplomats, but...they screwed up in the translation and other administrative parts of the task and so they attacked before the declaration.

Therefore, the day that lives in Infamy.

[Spktyr]

That wasn't "it" by any means. On top of the Soviets' declaration, the promise that the Americans would continue their nuclear bombing campaign (because after each bomb we told them to surrender or we'd hit them again) until they surrendered was what got the Emperor to surrender - because while Japan's forces might have fought bravely, all it took was one plane with one bomb to sneak through, and there went another city. And there was *no* chance to take the enemy with you.

The nuclear bomb was a stand-off weapon that meant that the Japanese had about no chance to take people with them as they died. *That* is what finally convinced the Emperor and Togo's faction at court that following bushido would be pointless and would result in the extermination of the Japanese; therefore, they had to surrender.

By the way, the insistence on unconditional surrender is why we didn't have a rerun of WW1, which segued into WW2 because of the conditional surrenders that the winning side allowed.

[txroadkill]

That is going to be my next adventure. I went to Europe a couple of years ago and the war is so much more real there too. I was fascinated by all the war material still around. In France and Italy you can still find Jerry cans rusting on the side of the road or being used as planter boxes. There are places in Belgium that the local police still have to go out and detonate unexploded artillery shells. What is really cool is that a lot of those artillery shells that didn't explode is because they were sabotaged by the Jewish and other slave laborers to make sure that they would never explode.

[rlmorel]

I assumed you were talking about the Doolittle Raid...my mistake.

Although, the thought of B-52's flying low and fast laden with full loads of 500 lb bombs is kind of interesting...as long as one isn't on the receiving end

[txroadkill]

OK guys...it's 1am here and I've been up since 6am. I'm going to bed before I have to change my screen name.

[Almagest]

<< That wasn't "it" by any means. >>


That wasn't all of it -- but it did figure large in Hirohito's decision.


<< On top of the Soviets' declaration, the promise that the Americans would continue their nuclear bombing campaign (because after each bomb we told them to surrender or we'd hit them again) until they surrendered was what got the Emperor to surrender >>


That was part of it. Los Alamos told the military they had NO A-bombs left -- but could supply seven more pretty soon. But the extra A-bombs were even cosidered for bombing the Kyushu coastline before the invasion. Fortunately, that didn't happen, or it would have doomed many thousands of invading troops to radiation poisoning.

Another factor -- for the Americans -- was that their intelligence had the Japanese massing three divisions on Kyushu -- and the Americans were planning on invading with up to nine divisions. But in the days just prior to Hiroshima -- intelligence changed to indicate up to THIRTEEN Japanese divisions on Kyushu. This was one reason there was consideration given to using any extra nukes on the coastline to soften them up for invasion.

I cannot figure out those who do not see that the A-bombs saved many tens of thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- of soldiers' lives -- and perhaps millions of Japanese. We were already massing soldiers for the invasion -- and many of them were convinced they would die. The news of the A-bombs and the surrender was like coming back from the dead for them.

[rlmorel]

LOL...thanks for the insight.

[Zhang Fei]

Well, General Curtis LeMay, the architect of the strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific theater, was concerned about this question. He once remarked that, if the US were to lose the war, he expected to be tried for war crimes.

And the context? The fact that the Japanese summarily executed a lot of Allied prisoners. Note that people joke about things they consider remote. For instance, if I were in Japanese-occupied Asia during WWII, and I had justified the wartime bombing of Japan by the Allies, I would fully expect to be executed if caught doing so, not because it is a particularly bad thing to advocate, but because the Japanese don't have any problem executing anyone under their control for whatever reason. LeMay may have joked about being tried for war crimes, not because the bombings were particularly bad, but because he expected the Japanese to do away with him regardless if they won. It may also have been his highly-tuned Christian conscience at work. Did the Japanese High Command even pause for reflection as they subjected American prisoners-of-war to dissection in mainland Japanese medical facilities while they were still alive?

The other LeMay quote that I think is more relevant, but less used, is the following: "We’re at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?" This isn't some academic debate - it's about defeating the enemy with as few American losses as possible, at a time when 300 American boys were getting killed daily. People who complain that we put too little value on the lives of enemy civilians are putting too little value on the lives of American civilians wrenched from their daily lives, in the flower of their youth, to face the rigors of a cruel, pitiless and fanatical enemy.

[COEXERJ145]

We used B-29's during the firebomb raids on Japan.

The B-52 didn't exist until the 1950's.

[COEXERJ145]

The United States was also preparing to use another, even more effective weapon to clear the beaches, bunkers, and tunnels of Japanese resistance.

Poison Gas was already available in large quantities and more was being shipped to the Pacific as part of the buildup for Operation Olympic.

Even the official plans for Olympic had sections dealing with how to use poison gas.

[txroadkill]

He knew that, he was giving me a hard time because I typed b-52 by mistake.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

The U.S. hasn't formally declared war against another country since World War II, so "what we are doing" wouldn't even meet our own legal standards for warfare in any other era.

Kindly define "formal declaration of war".

And would you please point me towards that article of the Constitution that stipulates such as a requirement for the use of military force?

Thanks so much.

[sasportas]

The baddest: the Army has its Gen. Patton, the Navy its Admiral Halsey, the Marines its Chesty Puller, the Air Force? Who else but LeMay. He was tough as nails that guy.

[zip]

ping

[Enchante]

...and let us not forget that the Japanese military was killing MILLIONS in China, including millions of civilians. China was our ally. The USA had every right and reason to do all in its power to end by the earliest possible date the insane depravities the Japanese military was inflicting daily in China. Similarly, the Nazis and their allies were killing countless millions on the Eastern Front, including millions of civilians. The US and UK had every right and reason to seek to end THAT series of depravities at the earliest possible date. The revisionists of history never even bother to discuss the staggering scale of the atrocities we were trying to END when they indict the USA and UK. I'm not saying such moral balancing has an easy or obvious answer, but most of the time the dilemma is not even presented -- the revisionists write as though the Allies could have won WWII just as soon without the urban bombing, when in fact the war would almost certainly have gone on another year or two or more and cost millions more lives in the ALLIED countries. THAT is never taken into account by the revisionists.

[frankiep]

General Le May was a damn fine officer and great leader. I remember watching the movie "Thirteen Days", starring Kevin Costner, about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how Le May was portrayed as being a caricature of a mindless warmonger. Sadly, I know quite a few people who also saw this movie and, because of it, completely believe that were it not for Kennedy that Le May and the rest of the Joint Chiefs would have conducted a coup and started a nuclear war.

[Enchante]

"I'm not saying such moral balancing has an easy or obvious answer, but most of the time the dilemma is not even presented"

Actually, I DO think the moral answer is rather easy and obvious, though the human toll is catastrophic either way. But the leaders of the Allies were faced with such dire choices because of the depravity of the aggressive war launched by Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, and pals: either we kill up to 1 million now by bombing the hell out of their war machine cities, etc. or they kill another 5, 10, 15 million pursuing their war aims. I don't think any US leader could have gone to the public after a bloodfest invasion of Japan and said "well, we could have ended the war a year or two earlier with far less loss of life, even just on the Japanese side, but we weren't willing to use strategic bombers against Japan."

[spetznaz]

Simple answer: We won the war, thus it is NOT a war crime. The winners write the rules.

On the same vein: Had the Japanese won the war then the Rape of Nanking would not have been a war crime. Had the Germans been victorious then their atrocious extermination of the Jews would have been looked at under a differently (let's say people wouldn't have been condemned to death at Nuremburg). In the same manner, had we LOST you would have definitely seen the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the fire-bombing of Tokyo, brought up by the victors.

Anyways, did the stuff we did fall under war crimes? Nope! It most certainly did not. We won the war (and by the way nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved many lives ....including Japanese lives .....since an invasion by Allied troops into Japan would have cost far more American, and Japanese, people since the Japanese were planning for every man woman and child able to fight to take up gun/rake/stick/stone). Anyways, we did not commit war crimes, and our enemies committed many. However had THEY won and WE lost, then we would have done the war crimes and they (with their mass murders and gas chambers and child skewering) would have not have done any criminal behaviors (and they would have come up with reasons, as well, why what they did was not criminal .....maybe the Japanese would have said the Rape of Nanking 'saved Chinese lives overall' or something equally ludicrous).

[RobbyS]

No. The allied fleets were the only way to carry the offensive to the enemy. How was this different from the ravaging of Eastern European cities by German Armies or, for that matter, what we did to Normandy during the "liberation" of France. (The majority of French did not want liberation)

[ellery]

bttt