Bombing of Civilian Populations Is Not a Good Thing to Do

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55,000 members of the Army of Bomber Command died in the skies over Germany. It raises a very difficult problem for those of us who think that the bombing of civilian populations is not a morally acceptable way of going on or conducting a war. Given that it was a justified war, a right war, and given that it was something that we had to win, does that justify everything we did in the course of it? I want to argue that our view of the choices made by RAF Bomba Command and by the high command of our military endeavor was in that one respect role.

No one doubts the bravery of the thousands of men who flew and died in Bomber Command. The death rate was an appalling 44%. And yet until the opening of a monument in Green Park this year they have received no official recognition, with many historians claiming that the offensive was immoral and unjustified. How can it be right, they argue, for the Allies to have deliberately targeted German cities causing the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians? Even on a strategic level the offensive failed to bring about the collapse of civilian morale that was its intention. Others, however, maintain that the attacks made a decisive contribution to the Allied victory. Vast numbers of German soldiers and planes were diverted from the eastern and western fronts, while Allied bombing attacks virtually destroyed the German air force, clearing the way for the invasion of the continent. In this debate from October 2012, philosopher and author A C Grayling and Professor of History at Exeter University Rochard Overy...

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