Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 14:36:16 EST
From: John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Senate Interrogation
Distribution: can
 <schuck.721165680@sfu.ca> <LABACH.92Nov9083820@acs5.acs.ucalgary.ca>
 <92316.135417SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <schuck.721543654@sfu.ca>
 <92317.121200SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <schuck.721608394@sfu.ca>

In article <schuck.721608394@sfu.ca>, schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan
Schuck) says:
>
>John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:

>>You think wrongly. The CEP (circle around the target within which
>>the bomb falls) assumed by Air Marshall Harris amounted to half
>>a mile for night bombing. The aim of the night bomber offensive
>>had little to do with damage to specific installations; it involved
>>killing workers, destroying cities, and breaking civilian morale.
>
>Only that? They didn't try for areas with rail yards and factories?
>Did they specifically leave them alone? I think they tried for them
>but didn't have the technical expertise to guarantee greater accuracy.

But they did not have the "technical expertise", they needed, and
they knew they didn't have it, and on that basis they consciously
decided (by Harris's own account) to "mass bomb large targets" and
not to go after specific war industries. You'll find the exact quote
in Gwynne Dyer's book "War", and most interesting reading it makes.

>Certainty? Hindsight is 20/20. Where is the evidence that the British
>*knew* the results of the bombing offensive before they happened?

I do not accuse anybody of starting a military campaign they knew they
could not win. I do believe they clung to the idea that bombing could
do to Germany what it had not done to them. I also know from their own
account that they aimed at the civilian population (because they knew
they could hit it) rather than specific industries, and that they kept
the bomber offensive up in the case of extremely high casualties. None
of this amounts to a war crime. I do call it a strategy whose worth is
highly questionable.

To learn from the sacrifice of the men who died for their country over
Dresden and Hamburg, we must search for the results of their efforts.
If the strategy of mass bombing did contribute little to the allied
victory, the men who died doing it only died in vain if we refuse to
learn the lessons of their war. In a wretched irony, the senators who
sought to "defend" the memory of the men who died have detracted from
the one legacy they have certainly left us: the lessons of their
experience.

>Thats right. It's just revisionism without evidence. Lay out the
>information the Politicians and Generals had *at the time*, and they
>were justified.

The politicians and generals made policy decisions; they did not fly
the planes. Your point has nothing to do with any defence of the
airmen who put their lives on the line for their country. This makes
a point you seem not to grasp: the honour with which Canada's airmen
"left the vivid air signed" has nothing to do with the wisdom or
folly of the strategy for which they died. Many fighting men have
died with the utmost courage in pursuit of a policy goal that history
has judged a tragic blunder.

>I am not familiar with Douhet. But again I repeat -- hindsight is 20/20.

Well, it works better than blindness. If you don't know about the theories
which motivated the English policy of mass bombing, how can you possibly
talk about the "justification" of the policy makers? You don't know
why they designed bombers for night bombing, or why they believed they
could bomb Germany to its knees. How can you talk about the "information"
the policy makers had if you don't understand the theory by which they
interpreted that information?

If you want to learn about the subject you have filled a great deal
of bandwidth on, try Gwynne Dyer's "War". It gives a good capsule
history of the technology and politics of "strategic" bombing.

>What you are saying is that Britain should have just sat there
>defending. It should not have taken offensive operations against Germany.

If your defence can do more damage to the enemy than your offensive,
then you'll obviously do better to defend rather than attack. History
records many commanders who won by letting the enemy come to them.

Your culture will adapt to service ours - Columbus to Natives, 1492
Your culture will adapt to service ours - Borg to Captain Picard, 24th C.

standard disclaimers apply ----------------------- John G. Spragge