Evening star., 1944-03-09
'CurnivuI of Death

Inc protest by American clergy
men and other leaders against the
"obliteration bombing" of enemy
cities springs from deep and sin
cere aversion to the destruction of
human life. Even though we are
thousands of miles away, there can
be but few among us to rejoice, at
the death of great city, and all
of us must shudder inwardly when
in our minds eye we visualize the
suffering and the terror which this
crucial year of the war is visiting
upon millions of men and women
and children. And yet, as we search
our hearts and our -consciences for
the answer, there emerges the grim,
inescapable fact that this is war
the ruthless total war which all
right-thinking men sought to avoid,
but which nevertheless was forced
upon them
This war was brought upon the
world by Adolf Hitler. With the
support of the German people, he
designed it as an all-inclusive war,
a war in which there would be no
military distinction between the
soldier and the civilian, but in which
all would fight and suffer alike.
And then-still with the support of
his people-he proceeded to put that
design into execution. Nor will the
world soon forget the destruction
that he brought to Rotterdam, Gov
entry, London, Belgrade, Lidice and
scores and hundreds of other towns
and cities that tasted the wanton
fury of the Reichswehr and the
Luftwaffe.
1t will be said, however, and
rightly so, that retaliation of itself
is not sufficient justification for
the Allied bombings of German
cities. If the remorseless pounding
of Berlin, Hamburg, Regensburg
and the others cannot be justified
as an act of military necessity, it
cannot be justified at all. What is
the fact as to this?
Miss Vera Britain, and those who
indorse her protest, look at the
bombings and fail to see the war.
If their protest is anything, it is an
appeal for discontinuance of the
systematic bombing of enemy cities
and the military targets that lie
within them. If their point of view
should prevail, the Germans would
be able to keep on making weapons
to be used to kill young Americans
and young Britons who must carry
the war to the enemy if we are ever
to win it. They would not be losing
the hundreds of planes that are
being shot out of the skies this
winter by our own bombers and
fighters. Instead, they would be
able to conserve them for invasion
day, to be used then in sending
thousands upon thousands of our
own boys to their deaths. How
much longer would the war last if
we were to put aside the bombers,
our most effective weapons? Months,
certainly; perhaps years. And what
of the soldiers who would be sacri-
feed needlessly in that longer con-
flict, and of the civilians who would
die of starvation and disease?
At this critical stage of the war
we must steel ourselves to face the
fact that it is war. We must look
beyond the well-intentioned but
shortsighted appeals of those who
can see the suffering of the enemy
but who cannot foresee the greater
suffering that their proposal would
bring upon us. The bombing of the
German cities may be a carnival
of DEATH" as the protesting group
says, but that is also true of the war
in its entirety. 1t is all a desperate,
bloody nightmare, in which our
bombing strategy finds its single
justification in the fact that it will
shorten the duration and insure
uintory