Newport Papers
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Description
The historical reassessment of the World War II British bombing campaign notes that though in 1940 Churchill declared that he was waging "a military and not a civilian war" to destroy "military objectives" and not "women and children," within eighteen months types would be struck by Bomber Command. The author searches for the reasons in "three contiguous realms" of strategic influence: moral (and legal), political, and military. The study concludes that although for much of the war "area bombing" of cities was a "tragic necessity" meeting the "reasonable man's standard of what was decently allowable given the blunt weapons the Allies had" and the evils faced, nonetheless Allied leaders could have and should have abandoned indiscriminate bombing in the last phases of the conflict, when more precise means were at hand and "Nazi power had been overmatched."
Publication Date
1991
Publisher
U.S. Naval War College Press
City
Newport, Rhode Island
Keywords
Newport Papers, WWII, World War II
Recommended Citation
Harmon, Christopher C., ""Are We Beasts?" Churchill and the Moral Question of World War II "Area Bombing"" (1991). Newport Papers. 1.
https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/1
