The Allied bombing of Europe

The Allied bombing of Europe was definitely terror bombing to demoralize the civilian population. There are countless studies and books on the subject, written on both sides. E.g. "The Night Hamburg Died", by Martin Caidin.

The US Air Force was using mass daylight attacks with undertrained, inexperienced crews, who often didn't even know over which country they were flying, e.g. dropping propaganda leaflets in Hungary, written in Romanian.

They came in square blocks of about 50 planes and when the leader shot up a certain colured rocket, they all dropped their bombs, wiping out cities, while military production was climbing through the war, until late 1944. This was called carpet bombing.

Meanwhile the anti aircraft batteries covered the sky with a carpet of cloud from the explosions of shells, while hitting nothing, with the exception of the odd plane.

The Brits were better trained, but came in the night in long streams, also to hit cities, because they couldn't see, or find military targets.

Read the biographies of commanders, like "Bomber Harris", who openly admitted their terror bombing tactics, like Cologne, Hamburg, 70,000 dead, Dresden, etc. and who also should have been charged with war crimes and hanged with their German colleagues.

There's nothing glorious in war, never has been. War is the ultimate economic competition, either to steal, or to defend resources, while wasting more than gained in the process.

It is not countries, or people who start wars, but rulers and governments for their own special interests and all who fight in wars, on either side, are victims of fraud and lies.

Ed Deak.

Idont' think Rafe said John MaCrae was trite.

Perhaps another read of the piece might be helpful to nightbloom as his first quick judgment gave us the second. Rafe is quite right to remind us. Even today we sometimes see Remembrance Day used to support the adventure in Afganistan and that is hardly what John MaCrae intended.

Unlike ancient wars were armies met on some great field and duked it out till the last person standing claimed victory and then raped and pillaged the losers towns, these days it is the civilians that are the victims. What is the ratio of soldiers to civilians killed in Afganistan and Iraq?

Remember them all if remembrance day has any meaning for you.

My sister in law was a WW2

My sister in law was a WW2 war bride and the famliy showed up in our little town in Ontario. Their son Roger appeared to adapt quickly to a new family in a place far from his home. The first thunder storm showed us he was not as secure as we figured he was. He was under a shed at the first rumble of thunder and wouldn't come out. He was maybe four years old. It took him a long time to accept that thunder or other loud noises wern't them getting bombed one more time. Those kids are middle aged now but he and many others remember the fear, coming out of a underground station to see houses gone, on fire, and bodies. War is hell. It proves nothing and sadly the civilians suffer at least if not more than the military.

Civvie street...

I vaguely remember a few things from WWII. I've been told that I knew my father was in uniform overseas. All my uncles were as well, and a couple of cousins. There were casualties among them.
But here in Canada, not one of my relatives was a casualty of WWII.
So we tend to think only of casualties who were overseas in uniform.
But time passed and I read of the mind boggling numbers of civilians who were casualties. If I stretch the time a bit to include Japan in China in the 1930s, Spain, Italy in the Horn of Africa, and then Greece after 1945, Southeast Asia when we Westerners tried to re establish our empires...a lot of civilians were casualties of the wars of the 1930s and 1940s.
Sometimes I think that having such a large military presence on Remembrance Day distracts from what that time of war actually did to so many civilians.

As lux suggest above we carried out carpet, or area bombing runs over the continent, as opposed to targeted runs. At night, to escape fighter defense, bombing runs tended to be area bombing. This lead easily to the use of area bombing on Japan, which made the step to the nuclear bombing (which was area bombing only with one "asset delivered")an easier step to take.
I've looked at Goebbels' journals from about 1939 to about 1941. Seems to me he mentions Brit air raids on civvie targets fairly early on after September 1939. Although,I guess it doesn't matter much now who did it first, except to preserve or challenge some of the mythology of the that war. (Or maybe how we present our memories in a national war museum.)

Anyway, thanks to Rafe Mair for remembering the millions...the ones who are usually forgotten.

I wasn't there, but...

I did spend years of my youth crashing into posters ominously telling us "Be active for peace today, or radioactive tomorrow".

It was then our own task to figure out how, as the girl and boy next door, we could be 'active for peace'. Was it by joining the other 10,000 marching down the main street chanting 'Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, Yanks out of vietnam!' or maybe something closer to home. I chose the closer to home. For I believe and believed, that war can only happen if the warlords have the numbers to throw at the other warlord's numbers, and the numbers are delivered by us. So, I chose to throw my support behind the idea of planned - very narrowly planned - parenthood, or better, ZPG. In fact, I believe that if we want to know how to effect peace, we are going have to go to go all the way back to when we had it. Before we started cheating our way out of our place in the natural order of things. Why do you think the fallen angels were considered fallen as a consequnece of teaching metalworking to the dumb people on the flatland?? Because those dumb people would use it to effect quantity, not quality. Or, as my favorite teacher of Biochemistry said, when trying to explain competitive inhibition: 'My mistake was to believe, that if a little bit was good, more must be a hell of a lot better'. If ever there was a sacred secret understanding shared by only a few, this was it. Quality before quantity. Ergo, we must shrink, one way or another, and those who suffered then, and those who do so now, do deserve medals, not because they chose to be brave, for they were not given any choice, but because we owe them that they lived through Hell to provide us the insight. The greatest insult we can hand them is not acting on it. That much we must grant the Chinese; they got the message. Late, I admit, but they got it.

military thinking

Fiat Lux is correct (again), about the terror bombing.
The leader in a raid would drop the first bomb and the rest would just act like robots.
In Denmark the Brits made some presiscion bombing, but one plane hit an obstacle and went down, the following planes figure that was the target; probably from lack of individual instructions?, just follow the leader?
What is happening everywhere a conflict arises now, is more of the same: No accountability!
The top brass knows it all, and there is no room for individual thought.

I watched a " victim" of war

I watched a " victim" of war this evening on the CBC. A young corporal came back from the event in Afhganistan with serious mental problems. He is presently of not much use to anyone and it's his parents that are forcing the issue to get help. He went to the parade as a bystander, woudn't wear his medals, drinks way to much and has horrible nighmares. They used to call it, lack of moral fiber and some folkls got shot for suffering from their breakdowns. His time in the military is over. Another fellow ran the department for mentally distured soldiers , in Edmonton. Lack of resources caused him to resign. Almost forgot, when the corporal got to see his CO , in the presence of his parents was told to"suck it up".
In that CO's mind, being a mental cripple should be overcome by the fellows own actions. That CO needs some guidance from above. WE sort of backed into this recent war, first as a suport team, then a reconstruction team and now to blow up anyone who gets close.Wise up citizens and go ask your elected folks why they arn't looking after their own "walking wounded"
The CBC has requested that other families with similar issues to please contact the program. I can't recall th percentage of folks who simply cannot cope. Are they less than perfect?

Bombing of German Cities WW2

One must keep in mind that many cities in Great Britain and Europe, beginning in Spain during their civil war, were reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe before and during the second world war. The Nazis sowed the seeds of their own destruction and in turn learned what it was to "Reap The Whirlwind".

Yes, and the terrible irony

Yes, and the terrible irony is that it was all started by accident, after the Luftwaffe commenced night time sorties against strategic targets (air fields and the aircraft industry). One night time sortie over Thomas Haven fatefully resulted in some Luftwaffe bombers straying over the outskirts of London to the east and northeast of the city. That prompted a full-blown retaliatory strike against Berlin proper, and air warfare changed forever after that. Prior to that it had still tried to maintain a kind of warrior's ethos about how, what and who could be targeted. It was the civilian government and the civilian public that clamoured for the deliberate targeting of the civilians, and they sacked any commanding officer who stood in their way. This is the key lesson, in my opinion. In these circustances, blood lust comes from the civilians, not the professional soldiers. I am reminded of comments Bush reportedly made in private to Chretien and Eddie Goldenberg after 9-11: "I have to manage the blood lust of the American people." Or something to that effect.

Canada has no national memory of civilian bombardment, defeat, or occupation in the way that Europe and the U.K. do. The Yankee U.S. doesn't either (altho I would argue the American South harbours a collective memory of their defeat & brutal scorched-earth occupation by the Yanks). I was fascinated how the recent bombings in London were quickly put in the context of the far worse horrors Londoners had endured (i.e. the Blitz, and I suppose the IRA bombings as well). Almost immediately you saw a contemptuous defiance emerge in London along the lines of "We survived Hitler, we'll survive you." Whereas attempts by historians and journalists to place 9-11 in historical or contemporary context with civilian tragedies abroad or in the past were met with indignation in the U.S. Notwithstanding the shocking symbolic potency of 9-11, it now pales in comparison to what the U.S. has visited upon the civilians of Iraq.

bombing civilians

I have very mixed feelings about Remembrance day that would take a lot of time to explain and add nothing to the debate other than to inject my personal view of the infantile nature of war into the debate.

However, regarding bombing of civilians, I must point out Nightbloom, that there was limited bombing of civilian targets during the tragically mis-named War to End all Wars and even without that fact I can disprove your theory in a word:

Guernica.

Oh Really!

Guernica, in the Basque country, had no strategic value whatsoever.

On April 26, 1937, over some three hours, twenty-five or more of Germany's best-equipped bombers, supported by Messerschmitt and Fiat Fighters, dumped one hundred thousand pounds of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the city, slowly and systematically pounding it to rubble.

Those trying to escape were cut down by the strafing machine guns of fighter planes. Fires burned throughout for three days afterward. Seventy percent of the town was destroyed and 1600 civilians - one third of the population - were killed or wounded.

The German report on the mission considered it “… the greatest success," and it was unquestionable the testing ground for a new Nazi military tactic - blanket-bombing a civilian population to demoralize the enemy.

On April 24, 1999, the German Parliament formally apologized to the citizens of Guernica for the role the Condor Legion played in bombing the town. The German government also agreed to change the names of some German military barracks named after members of the Condor Legion. (NYTimes, May 12, 1999)

Try to get this down to Earth...

“I can't recall th percentage of folks who simply cannot cope. Are they less than perfect?”

Of course they are. They are just as much ‘less than perfect’ as everybody who smokes too much, eats too much, and drink too much; just as imperfect as those who overdrive their vision and wrap themselves and their car around a utility pole somewhere, just like those who smash their knees on the skihills, not knowing to the full what element they have gone out into, and just as imperfect as everyone who gets lost, gets wrecked, lose it, and goes down and out, or just out of commission for a while.

The whole problem comes from anyone expecting that it should be otherwise. We throw ourselves into ‘the fray’ of life like veritable lemmings. Some of us just for the adventure, the fun, so to speak. Others dead serious, with ‘a mission’. Bottom line is, deep down we all know it’s a do or die world, so we try to do. Some of us try to do things we’re not cut out for, and some crash. What of it? While simply ‘sucking it up’ is not really a constructive and helpful input, try each one of you, sit down and write a catalogue of what in fact you have ‘sucked up’ during your lifetime, and you will find the list is in most cases more impressive than you would have thought. We are all little Don Cherries, who reinvented ourselves and sucked it up over and over, and still come out of our corner fighting. All you can really say to this soldier is: Give it time. Rome was not built in one day, and neither is a new set of paradigms for living. Get some help, but not from the military. Their idea is to patch you up and send you back out there. If that is not on, they have no time for you. Civil helpers must step in, for you are now a civil entity.

I saw in the show a tendency to somehow try to apportion blame, and that is not helpful. Soldiering has its ugly aspect, but somebody has to do it, as long as too many cannot put a cork in it and we try to crowd each other out. If the young man had tried being a bank teller and not liked it, nobody would have been alarmed. Think of it as a job option that did not pan out.

BTW

An 'official' apology from the Allies for the civilian devastation inflicted by the bombing Ed has so accurately described above here is still being awaited as far as I know.

The mere suggestion that Bomber Harris was engaged in terror tactics directed at civilian populations causes a firestorm of its own every time the idea is put forward.

I would not want to give the impression that German actions since the war, in moving toward a open acknowledgment and collective accountability for what they were a part of, are trivial. They are not. Despite the current Pope's attempts to excuse them, the German people have grown up.

Far more, alas, than we have.

The mass, carpet bombing of

The mass, carpet bombing of cities has been put forward and advocated in a book by an Italian general either in the '20s, or '30.

I've read the book many years ago, but now I can't remember the guy's name. It must be also quoted in some of my hundreds of books on warfare, and acknowleged that he was the originator of the theory, but I don't have the time to look for it now. Perhaps somebody my recall the name.

In any case, all wars and all military forces, since the beginning of times have been built on and for the purpose of economic competition for the acquisition of energy from others, by fraud and lies.

The soldiers lie to the NCOs, the NCOs lie to the officers, the officers lie to the generals, the generals lie to the politicians and the politicians lie to the public on every conceivable facts and facets of war, trying to make it look like
the ultimate purpose and sacrifice of life for some extremely noble cause.

When we read the history of the same battles and campaigns from all sides, as I have done for decades, we can immediately see the fraud of war by military and politicians.

In what other field of endeavour can a semi literate bum order the killing of others, or even his own people he doesn't like for some reason, or even just for fun ?

Ed Deak.

Got the Italian general's

Got the Italian general's name : Giulio Douchet.

Look up his advocacy of mass, carpet bombing of cities on google. He was definitely the originator of the theory.

Ed Deak.

OK, then!

So, everybody agrees that war is not the intelligent way of solving any problem. What do you propose to do instead? I heard in the old days somewhere in the world, two warring 'lords' would position their armies facing each other, toe-to-toe, and the one who could post more soldiers, which the other one could not match, he would be the winner with no bloodhsed. The problem with that was it started a numbers-race, which we are still trying to clean up.

If you think I am too facetious, I am sorry. I am just sick and tired of getting these admonitions on how evil, cruel, and dirty war is, but never a single practical proposal for how we solve the problems otherwise. I have proposed one parameter we might work on - population control. It is patently rude to just keep repeating the same bleeding heart stuff I have tried to reply to, as if I never said a word.

An easy and non-bleeding heart solution

No standing armies. For any nation who instigates a war, attempts a military build-up... summary execution of the leader responsible and his/her cabinet ministers (yep, all of them) as soon as practical (through a bounty of one billion dollars per head... and I wanna see the head!) along with forfeiture of any assets or wealth they have, the proceeds given to UNICEF.

Oh, and any country with a democratically elected gov't gets a few ICBMs equipped with MIRV warheads just to keep everybody real friendly-like.

We don't need population control as much as we need politician control.

An apology from the Allied

An apology from the Allied Powers for the retaliatory firebombings is political impossible.

Not defending the practice here. It did no good, and didn't hasten the end of the war. But there's a few insurmountables in the way.

As any denizen of The Tyee knows, politics feeds on narrative and spin, no matter how fictional, and any apology would be tantamount to "apologizing for fighting the Nazis". That's how it would read.

The apology will never happen...at least not until a lot of the other baggage is addressed. And just to tweak your nose: the only leader on the world stage who has demonstrated any will to address that baggage is Pope Benedict. It's a hard one. Helmut Kohl almost had to fall on his sword and FedEx his nuts to Tel Aviv when he ventured into that territory.

In any case, we can't even hold joint Remembrance services with the Germans or Japanese (the former have owned up; the latter haven't yet). That says a lot. Reagan was crucified by the NYT just for laying a wreath at a German military cemetary. We're not ready to apologize, and I doubt we will be in either of our lifetimes.

Dorothy, As I wrote before,

Dorothy,

As I wrote before, because wealth can not be created, only taken, war and crime are the ultimate economic competition for the taking of somebody else's wealth, or energy/resource supply.

Human history is the chronicle of attempts for the temporary control of energy, by stealing it from others.

It took me 40 years of research to come to the conclusion, that the disasters of mankind have always been caused by the misdefinition of economic efficiency, as the "biggest energy takings for the least energy inputs", but without accounting for the losses. This is what the GDP is about today.

The losses have always been carried by the unwashed public, as have the real costs of all the forts, palaces, cathedrals and now office towers for the glorification of ruling classes. Look who got the benefits from the sacking and colonizing of the Americas. Definitely not the people who did the dirty work. The same for all wars.

Once humanity comes to grips with this simple fact and realizes that the real definition of economic efficiency is the lowest energy/resource inputs for the largest production and that competition always increases costs and the real road to well being is cooperation, the human race may just have a chance to survive.

Definitely no chance, or rational right for survival with armaments.

Ed Deak.

Au Contraire

Cut off the necessary bollocks and fedex them to Hades if necessary...If we can apologize to the Japanese, the Chinese, the Ukrainians, the Albanians, the First Nations, the Blacks, the blues, the pandas and the passenger pigeons then surely we can muster up our courage and apologize for our part in bombing the shit out of civilians.

Moreover, the sooner the better, nothing is politically impossible - Joint remembrance is perfectly reasonable - but it has to be on some agreed neutral ground and not at a Bitburg burial ground containing the remains of members of the Schutzstaffel.

Furthermore, we're talking about civilian deaths here and apologies for making them into burnt offerings..

Benedict was, by implication, making the case that the German people did not share responsibility for the Nazi beast nightbloom. Your memory cannot be that bad. He was, in a real sense, expressing a view that I (among others) took to mean that the great German people were simply victims of a Nazi "ring of criminals".

The Germans themselves know that is not true and their repeated acceptance of responsibility for the horrors of war is a shining ornament upon their stature in world councils as we speak. They’ve owned up to a lot more than Guernica.

Apology has aready happened

It might interest some readers to learn that Ford Motors Corp was compensated some 2.5 billion dollars in the late 60's from the USA government because of damages incurred to Ford's factories in Nazi Europe that were accidentally bombed during air attacks. Apparently, even civilians knew that some American based factories were never targeted and began using the industial sites they sat on as de facto bomb shelters. So the apology has been made... but to the wrong people.

Remembrance of things lost

What more is there to say? War is Hell - that's old. In a foxhole, nobody's an atheist - humourous, or at least a good try. Catch 22 - been there, done that. All quiet on the Western Front - butterfly maudlin, even if indubitably true. Guernica, don't look too closely, you might see yourself.

As long as some people perceive only their own selfish wants there will always be wars and rumours of wars. Are poppies the underlying cause of Afghanastan's plight? Is access to cheap oil the reason for Irag's agony? Did Hitler really need more 'living room' for the German people?

Until every person on Earth can put every other person's needs ahead of his own in genuine altruism, we are and always will remain the image of Ozymandias, fallen and alone in the desert.