Strategic bombing during World War II

World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close air support of ground forces and from tactical air power.R.J. Overy, The Air War. 1939–1945 (1980) pp. 8–14 During World War II, many military strategists of air power believed that air forces could win major victories by attacking industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets.Tami Davis Biddle, "British and American Approaches to Strategic Bombing: Their Origins and Implementation in the World War II Combined Bomber Offensive", Journal of Strategic Studies (1995) 18#1 pp 91–144 Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians, and some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize them or to weaken their morale. International law at the outset of World War II did not specifically forbid the aerial bombardment of cities – despite the prior occurrence of such bombing during World War I (1914–1918), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

Strategic bombing during World War II in Europe began on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) began bombing Polish cities and the civilian population in an aerial bombardment campaign.Levine 1992, p. 21 As the war continued to expand, bombing by both the Axis and the Allies increased significantly. The Royal Air Force, in retaliation for Luftwaffe attacks on the UK which started on 16 October 1939, began bombing military targets in Germany, commencing with the Luftwaffe seaplane air base at Hörnum on the 19–20 March 1940. In September 1940 the Luftwaffe began targeting British civilians in the Blitz. After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, the Luftwaffe attacked Soviet cities and infrastructure. From February 1942 onward, the British bombing campaign against Germany became even less restricted and increasingly targeted industrial sites and civilian areas.Hastings 1979Garrett 1993 When the United States began flying bombing missions against Germany, it reinforced British efforts. The Allies attacked oil installations, and controversial firebombings took place against Hamburg (1943), Dresden (1945), and other German cities.Boog 2001, p. 408.

In the Pacific War, the Japanese frequently bombed civilian populations as early as 1937–1938, such as in Shanghai and Chongqing. US air raids on Japan escalated from October 1944,Pimlott, John. B-29 Superfortress (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1980), p.40. culminating in widespread firebombing, and later in August 1945 with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaigns is controversial.J.K. Galbraith, "The Affluent Society", chapter 12 "The Illusion of National Security", first published 1958. Galbraith was a director of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey.Williamson Murray, Allan Reed Millett, "A War To Be Won: fighting the Second World War", p. 319 Although they did not produce decisive military victories in themselves, some argue that strategic bombing of non-military targets significantly reduced enemy industrial capacity and production,Buckley 1998, p. 165.Murray 1983, p. 253. and was vindicated by the surrender of Japan. Estimates of the death toll from strategic bombing range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Millions of civilians were made homeless, and many major cities were destroyed, especially in Europe and Asia.

Legal considerations

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which address the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power. Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, it was not updated before the outbreak of World War II. The absence of specific international humanitarian law did not mean aerial warfare was not covered under the laws of war, but rather that there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws. This means that aerial bombardment of civilian areas in enemy territory by all major belligerents during World War II was not prohibited by positive or specific customary international humanitarian law.

Many reasons exist for the absence of international law regarding aerial bombing in World War II.Evangeslista, Matthew. "Peace Studies, Volume 3". page 447. Routledge. Most nations had refused to ratify such laws or agreements because of the vague or impractical wording in treaties such as the 1923 Hague Rules of Air Warfare. Also, the major powers' possession of newly developed advanced bombers was a great military advantage; they would be hard pressed to accept any negotiated limitations regarding this new weapon. In the absence of specific laws relating to aerial warfare, the belligerents' aerial forces at the start of World War II used the 1907 Hague Conventions—signed and ratified by most major powers—as the customary standard to govern their conduct in warfare, and these conventions were interpreted by both sides to allow the indiscriminate bombing of enemy cities throughout the war.

General Telford Taylor, Chief Counsel for War Crimes at the Nuremberg Trials, wrote that:

Article 25 of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions on Land Warfare also did not provide a clear guideline on the extent to which civilians may be spared; the same can be held for naval forces. Consequently, cyclical arguments, such as those advanced by Italian general and air power theorist Giulio Douhet, do not appear to violate any of the convention's provisions..Obote-Odora, Alex. "The judging of war criminals: individual criminal responsibility under international law". page 177. Due to these reasons, the Allies at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials never criminalized aerial bombardment of non-combatant targets and Axis leaders who ordered a similar type of practice were not prosecuted. Chris Jochnick and Roger Normand in their article The Legitimation of Violence 1: A Critical History of the Laws of War explains that: "By leaving out morale bombing and other attacks on civilians unchallenged, the Tribunal conferred legal legitimacy on such practices."

Ethical considerations The concept of strategic bombing and its wide-scale implementation during WWII led to a post-war debate if it was moral.Eric Roberts, Stanford University. The Moral Dilemma of Targeting CiviliansSmith, Melden E. The Strategic Bombing Debate: The Second World War and Vietnam, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 12, no. 1, 1977, pp. 175–91.Maier, Charles S. Targeting the city: Debates and silences about the aerial bombing of World War II, International Review of the Red Cross, Volume 87, Number 859, September 2005Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby, Royal Air Force. The Ethics of Bombing, The Royal Air Force Quarterly, No. 2, Summer 1967 Three separate lines of ethical reasoning emerged.Johnson, James Turner. Bombing, Ethics of. In Chambers, John Whiteclay. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

The first was based on the Just War theory and emphasized that noncombatants possess an inherent right to be spared from the harm of war and should not be intentionally targeted. John C. Ford, SJ, made such an argument in an article in 1944. Noncombatant immunity and proportionality in use of force were insisted upon.

The second approach was grounded in the so-called "industrial web theory" that proposed to concentrate on destroying enemy military, industrial, and economic infrastructure instead of forces in the field as the fastest way to win the war.Rizer, Kenneth R. Bombing Dual-Use Targets: Legal, Ethical, and Doctrinal Perspectives, Air & Space Power Journal, 1 May 2001 Proponents of this approach argued that civilian deaths inflicted by strategic bombing of the cities during the WWII were justified in the sense that they allowed a shortening of the war and thus helped to avoid many more casualties.Holland, Edward C. Fighting with a conscience: the effects of an American sense of morality on the evolution of strategic bombing campaigns. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1992

The third approach was demonstrated by Michael Walzer in his Just and Unjust Wars (1977). Walzer formulated the so-called "supreme emergency" thesis. While agreeing in general with prior Just War theoretical postulates, he came to a conclusion that a grave threat to a moral order would justify the use of an indiscriminate force.

Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby concluded his analysis of the ethics of bombing by these words,

Europe Policy at the start of the war Before World War II began, the rapid pace of aviation technology created a belief that groups of bombers would be capable of devastating cities. For example, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned in 1932, "The bomber will always get through."

When the war began on 1 September 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the armed neutralitarian United States, issued an appeal to the major belligerents (Britain, France, Germany, and Poland) to confine their air raids to military targets, and "under no circumstances undertake bombardment from the air of civilian populations in unfortified cities".President Franklin D. Roosevelt Appeal against aerial bombardment of civilian populations, 1 September 1939 The British and French agreed to abide by the request, with the British reply undertaking to "confine bombardment to strictly military objectives upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all their opponents". Germany also agreed to abide by Roosevelt's request and explained the bombing of Warsaw as within the agreement because it was supposedly a fortified city—Germany did not have a policy of targeting enemy civilians as part of their doctrine prior to World War II.Nelson (2006), p. 104.Corum, 1995., p. 7

The British Government's policy was formulated on 31 August 1939: if Germany initiated unrestricted air action, the RAF "should attack objectives vital to Germany's war effort, and in particular her oil resources". If the Luftwaffe confined attacks to purely military targets, the RAF should "launch an attack on the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven" and "attack warships at sea when found within range". The government communicated to their French allies the intention "not to initiate air action which might involve the risk of civilian casualties".

While it was acknowledged bombing Germany would cause civilian casualties, the British government renounced deliberate bombing of civilian property, outside combat zones, as a military tactic.A.C. Grayling (Bloomsbury 2006), p. 24. The British changed their policy on 15 May 1940, one day after the German bombing of Rotterdam, when the RAF was given permission to attack targets in the Ruhr Area, including oil plants and other civilian industrial targets which aided the German war effort, such as blast furnaces that at night were self-illuminating. The first RAF raid on the interior of Germany took place on the night of 15/16 May 1940 while the Battle of France was still continuing.

Early war in Europe

Poland