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Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
A controversial letter appeared in today's Guardian.
"Letters, The Guardian, Friday 9 October 2009 This week's BBC film about the second world war Coventry blitz repeated a misleading myth. Coventry was not selected because it was an industrial city, as claimed in the film. Coventry had a medieval city centre regarded at the time as the best preserved in Europe. Hitler took revenge on Coventry for the bombing of Munich by the RAF. He was incensed at the attack on the city known as the birthplace of his Nazi party. His revenge was to entirely remove from existence the medieval city centre of Coventry as a demonstration of his ruthlessness and insane power. The factories were not the main target as they were on the outskirts of the city. Only those within the city centre were affected. The centre of the raid was meant to be the cathedral, and a cross was drawn over the city to this effect. The obliteration of the medieval city centre was so complete that nothing of it seems to remain in the national memory of the British people. In this way Hitler seems to have achieved his aim. It may be for reasons of morale that this utter destruction of a historical centre was underplayed, although at the time the British government was outraged at the attack on a "non-military target". The hatred engendered, however, by this demonstration of the mind of a dictator to remove history at will changed the nature of the war. The bombing of Dresden was Britain's reply in kind. That Dresden has been preserved but Coventry forgotten is something which is hard to explain, except the cost of winning the war was so high that Britain wanted to remove its bomb sites and move on. Jackie Litherland, Durham" But is Litherland correct? There is no mention in the BC War Diaries of any attack on Munich in the months before November 1940, although attacks on unspecified targets are mentioned which may have included Munich, and BC aircraft were notorious for getting lost and bombing anywhere which could have included Munich. Many of the 437 GAF aircraft attacking Coventry were given specific military targets; I./LG I the Standard Motor Works and Coventry Radiator and Press Co; II./KG 27 the Alvis aero-engine works; I./KG 51 the British Piston Ring Co; II./KG 55 the Daimler Works; and KGr 606 the gas holders in Hill Street. Most of these targets suffered significantly together with twelve important aircraft component plants and nine other major industrial works in or near the city centre. But it is true that the shadow factories on the outskirts of the city were untouched, including the shadow factory on Banner Lane making Bristol aero engines. The destruction of Coventry in Unternehmung Mondschein-Sonate was significant because it, 1.had a profound effect on the British government, as the TV film made clear, when Herbert Morrison and the BBC reported that the population was traumatised and had fled the city, leading to demands for the BBC to be taken over by the government. People interviewed on the TV programme burst into tears at the very memory of what they had endured nearly seventy years earlier. The destruction of Coventry removed any British compunction about traumatising Germans, and this utterly inhumane bombing policy continues to this day in Gaza and Afghanistan 2.gave the British a worldwide propaganda coup, and especially in the USA where there were many towns named Coventry, eg Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania. 'Remember Coventry' became the new 'Remember the Alamo' 3.became the final nail in Dowding's coffin. He was blamed for the incompetence of the RAF in failing to destroy a single one of the attacking 437 GAF bombers, despite their flying at height under a full moon, over a period of 12 hours, through an area lit by searchlights, from known bases (which were supposed to be harassed by the RAF in Operation Cold Water) to a target identified as soon as it was marked at 2015hrs by the He-111s of K.Gr.100 using X-Geraet. Three main streams crossed Lincolnshire/East Anglia, Selsey Bill to Portland, and Selsey Bill to Dungeness 4.led to ineffectual retaliation by 134 RAF bombers on Mannheim (Abigail-Rachel) on December 16, 1940 for a loss of 10 aircraft 5.resulted in the adoption by Harris of the technique of fire-raising that had been shown to be effective in Coventry. Harris wrote of Luebeck, where the same technique was first tried out by 234 bombers, of which 191 claimed to have bombed, killing 1,000 people, “On the night of 28/9 March 1942, the first German city went up in flames”. BC implemented the Air Staff Directive issued on February 12, 1942; “The primary object of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population, and in particular of civilian workers” 6.sold Churchill on the theory that killing/traumatising civilians was a war-winning policy. Half the British gross domestic product was given to Bomber Command to burn out cities. Consequently the British army was starved of modern equipment and recruits, which resulted in US dominance of the alliance and Britain becoming second-rate. It is of interest to know why the GAF destroyed Coventry, and surprising there appears to be room for debate on the matter. Tony |
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Sorry, Nick, I should have mentioned this, but it was German propaganda that said the reason for bombing Coventry was to take revenge for RAF bombing of Munich.
The question is why would the Germans have said that the reason if it was not true? Tony |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Found this:
"On the evening of November 8, 1940, just at the time Hitler was to have addressed the old guard of the Nazi Party in the Lowenbraukeller of Munich to commemorate the seventeenth anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 -- Hitler's first attempt at revolution, which collapsed in a gunfight with police -- the RAF made a small, provocative raid on Munich" More inclined to believe that Coventry was an industrial target, one of several selected for Moonlight Sonata, that suffered excessive collateral damage. Don |
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Guys
BC certainly bombed Munich on the night on 8/9 Nov 1940. It is stated by John Foreman in Battle of Britain, the forgotten months, that 43 aeroplanes from 3rd and 5th Groups made the attack. In Chorleys Bomber Command losses 1940, two aircraft are listed as lost belonging to the Munich Force. Foreman states Hitler talked about a revenge raid after BC raid, and at least mentally makes the connection with Coventry. I don't know myself and perhaps the answer is somewhere in between.... B Rgds Stig |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Thank you. That clears the matter up.
The operational orders for Luftflotten 2 and 3 truthfully described Coventry as "an important centre of the enemy armament industry", according to Cajus Bekker, who mentions nothing about retaliation for Munich. That's probably the source for our erroneous impression that the motives were strictly military. Bekker goes on; "The usual cheers that greeted a direct hit stuck in our throats", wrote one of the bomber pilots. "The crew just gazed down on the sea of flames in silence. Was this really a military target?" BC pilots were later assured untruthfully that Luebeck and Dresden were important military targets. Pilots accepted what they were told. Flying high above the carnage they never saw the burning bodies, although they could imagine them, and sometimes smelled them as they did over Hamburg. I wonder if any pilots refused to carry out orders to burn civilians. William Douglas-Home did, refusing to operate his Crocodile flame-thrower during the capture of Le Havre; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas-Home Tony |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Dresden was a legitimate military target being a major rail hub. There was many other military targets such as the Zeuss optics works.
Luebeck was a port and had submarine construction yards. |
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"Coventry had a medieval city centre regarded at the time as the best preserved in Europe"
What about Carcassonne, Nürnberg, York, Prague … and doubtless many other contenders? "That Dresden has been preserved but Coventry forgotten is something which is hard to explain" No it isn't. Look at what happened to London, Plymouth, Exeter, Birmingham, Southampton … the list goes on. Maybe it's differing national attitudes, maybe a desire to make a new and better world, maybe the fact that so many of Germany's modernist architects had fled to Britain and the USA before the war. |
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But I can assure you that Luebeck had no submarine construction yards. The 'justification' put out by the British was that it was the main port for iron ore imported from Sweden and was home to a U-boat training station. But everybody knew that its timbered mediaeval buildings were a temptation for coventrieren. Luebeck was destroyed on 28 March, Exeter in retaliation on April 23, and the following day Baron Gustav Braun von Sturm said; "We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedecker Guide". Rostock (the Heinkel works were not the target) was another mediaeval city destroyed next in three raids from 23 to 26 April; then it was York, then it was Bath, and then the 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne, etc etc etc. By the way, it is important to know why the the Bomber Command War Diaries failed to record the raid on Munich that led to Coventry's destruction. I don't have Middlebrook, but wonder whether he analysed the War Diaries for examples of bowdlerisation. And who made the decision to leave Munich out and why. The only example I know of deliberate falsification of records was by Doenitz over the Athenia sinking by Fritz Julius Lemp on September 3, 1939, which the Germans denied and suggested the RN had done in order to drag the USA into the war like the Lusitania event. Doenitz ordered that the U-30's log be altered. Tony |
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Bruce |
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Bruce and Kutscha.
I say Lübeck was not a legitimate target because Harris wrote that Lübeck “went up in flames" because "it was a city of moderate size of some importance as a port, and with some submarine building yards of moderate size not far from it. It was not a vital target, but it seemed to me better to destroy an industrial town of moderate importance than to fail to destroy a large industrial city". Lübeck was attacked because it would burn. In Harris' words, “Lübeck was built more like a fire-lighter than a human habitation”. The Official History stated that the choice of Lübeck showed “the extent to which a town might become a target mainly because it was operationally vulnerable”. Harris was right about everything except his belief that area bombing could end the war by collapsing civilian morale and thereby reducing war production. However, I need to apologise to Kutscha. Lübeck did contain a U-boat yard. Flender Werke AG, was one of 19 yards in 11 cities making U-boats. Flender manufactured 3.6% of the total (42 out of a total of 1153 U-boats). So Harris was technically correct that Lübeck had “some submarine building yards of moderate size not far from it”. Harris was correct only technically because neither the submarine yard nor the port was either targeted or hit. His mention of these genuine military targets was disingenuous because he did not target them. In Lübeck, “damage to the German war effort was very slight”, according to John Terraine in 'The Right Of The Line”. “A factory making oxygen apparatus for U-boat crews was completely destroyed, together with 8 others of less importance”. The conclusion is that the existence of iron ore unloading facilities and a U-boat yard was a rationalisation needed for public consumption, especially in the USA which rejected area bombing, and to motivate the bomber crews. I cannot believe Harris and Churchill believed that traumatising civilians would reduce war production, since both of them could visit Coventry to see for themselves that production steadily increased after a short-term reduction. On the other hand they could and did delude themselves into believing that since area bombing was all that they could do to end the war, then it must be capable of ending the war. The wish was father to the thought. Tony |
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The facts you cite preceding the above quote prove Lübeck was a legitimate target. See my earlier post for the specific attraction of this target. Harris believed in his policy, as was required from any senior officer, and Churchill supported him because BC was the best tool available anywhere for hitting the Axis. I have many issues with both Churchill and Harris, but surely neither can be said to be deluded because they believed in area bombing; yet to be proven wrong, perhaps, but delusion is hardly an apt description of their mindset at the time. Regards, Bruce |
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Bruce.
I don't follow you. It was illegal then, and is so today, to target civilians. But factories making war material, and ports importing war material, just as ships carrying war material, were all, AFAIK, legitimate targets within the rules of law (the Geneva Convention). The mediaeval centres of Coventry and Lübeck were not legitimate targets per se, as defined by the Geneva Convention. So I do not follow your logic that "Lübeck was a legitimate target". Germany and the UK were not legitimate targets, but both contained legitimate targets. The problem was that neither the GAF, nor Bomber Command, nor the VIII USAAF could hit these legitimate targets, so they went after the only thing they could hit - city centres, and rationalised that civilian morale was being degraded so the war would be ended without the need to fight battles on the ground. Don correctly argued that the armament works in Coventry were legitimate targets (and as we have seen they were actually targetted) and he suggested that the destruction of the inner city of Coventry was collateral damage. I think in a court of law the GAF would probably be absolved from the charge of targetting civilians in Coventry. Flender Werke and the iron ore unloading facilities in the port of Lübeck, and the factory making oxygen breathing apparatus for U-boat crews, were legitimate targets. But these were not targetted. Harris in fact targetted the flammable inner city, and the tactics were chosen in order to induce a firestorm. Harris and Churchill were exultant with their success in producing a firestorm in Lübeck. Ditto Goering and Hitler after coventrieren Coventry, which raises a doubt about their real motives, but these were relatively early days when fire-raising techniques were still in their infancy. I don't see how anyone can argue that the destruction of Lübeck was not clearly a war crime. Tony |
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You have obviously seen orders passed to the squadrons specifying aiming points in the enemy port of Lübeck or you wouldn’t be able to state your case so conclusively: would you mind sharing the contents of these orders with us? Thanks in advance, Bruce |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Certainly I can give you my sources.
I have not seen the specific orders for Lübeck, but I do know the content of the Directive of February 14, 1942 which covered Lübeck, and the minute from the Chief of Air Staff to the Deputy Chief on February 10, 1942, (both quoted in Denis Richards & Hilary St G. Saunders, Vol 2, page 124, and footnote 1). The Directive stated that, "the general aiming point was not to be a particular factory, but the most heavily built-up district". Footnote 1; "In view of later controversy over Harris' interpretation of this directive, it is worth quoting the following minute from the Chief of Air Staff to the Deputy Chief on February 10, 1942: 'I suppose it is quite clear to the C.-in-C. that aiming points are to be the built-up areas, not for instance the dockyards or aircraft factories where these are mentioned'. The D.C.A.S. replied that he had specifically confirmed this point with Bomber Command by telephone". The technique involved in Essen and Lübeck was the same. "An advance force would drop flares for fifteen minutes, relying entirely on Gee, and ignoring visual impressions in order not to be misled by decoys. Two minutes after the first flares went down, other aircraft of the attacking force would start bombing with incendiaries, taking as their aiming point the big square in the old town. After fifteen minutes the main force would begin to arrive, and would pile down its bombs on the fires already burning. The tactics, in other words, were to be a form of pathfinder/fire-raiser technique; but whatever the Luftwaffe had shown us of these methods in the autumn of 1940, (ie Coventry) was to be far surpassed. For even if the town was completely obscured by cloud, Gee it was thought , would ensure that at least one bomb would find its mark." (Source again page 124, Richards & Saunders). Tony |
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Thanks for that. I must point out that while you have quoted well known evidence to prove that there was a directive to target builltup areas within target cities/towns, that wasn’t the question that was raised by your earlier post: you said Lübeck wasn’t a legitimate target. For the reasons I touched on in post #10, Lübeck was emphatically a legitimate target. You replied that it was chosen because it would burn: like just about everywhere else in Europe, it was an old town and it burned. Attacking this port town, a vital conduit for Swedish high-grade iron ore for the German armaments industry, was clearly not a war crime.
Regards, Bruce |
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I see your point, Bruce, but cannot accept it.
The phrase used by BC for Lübeck - port-town - is disingenuous, and the cause of our problem. Lübeck comprised an Innenstadt that was targetted solely because it would burn, and quays along the opposite bank of the River Trave. The quays would not burn, and were therefore not targetted, but that was where the iron ore was offloaded into trains and barges. These were a legitimate target - see the attached photo. Burning out the Innenstadt would not and could not reduce the imports of iron ore by one kg, or damage or delay the building of one U-boat. BC knew this and thereby committed their war crime. And, by the way, it is untrue to say that just about every town in Europe was old and flammable. Harris' big problem was how to create firestorms in non-flammable cities like Berlin, Essen and Wilhelmshaven. For it was only with a firestorm that he got a big bang for his buck. I know about Wilhelmshaven - it was where I went to school. Wilhelmshaven was a legitimate target because it built the Tirpitz and then built Type VII U-boats and Type XXI sections that were assembled into U-boats in Vegesack and Hamburg. Wilhelmshaven was a Victorian town, built of hardened brick called Klinker, and BC had no way of making it burn. It was raided about one hundred times, and was the first town attacked by Bomber Command (September 4, 1939) and the first German town attacked by the VIII USAAF (Memphis Belle and all that on January 27, 1943). The area in the centre of Wilhelmshaven around the shipyard was 90% destroyed by HE. But not one day of production in the shipyard was lost. The shipyard was only lightly damaged and easily repaired. But the interesting point is that the exchange rate between civilians and aircrew was favourable to the civilians; 358 civilians and 94 military died in Wilhelmshaven for a total of 452 German dead, with 1,125 wounded, out of a total population of 120,000 in 1939 and 70,000 in 1944. But 406 RAF and 450 US aircrew for a total of 856 aircrew perished while dropping 19,046 tons during 5,668 sorties. I have no figure for wounded aircrew. This phenomenon was due to the fact that Wilhelmshaven was prepared for war and accepted as a legitimate target by both sides. Every German had a place in a bomb-proof Hochbunker from 1943 onwards; it was a non-flammable town; plenty of water and Kriegsmarine labour was available for fire-fighting; and the Flak and fighter defences were very strong. The result was that it took BC 42.1 tons of bombs to kill one person in Wilhelmshaven, compared with only 138Kg of bombs needed to kill one person in Dresden and 750Kg in Lübeck. The average for Germany was 2.5 tons, and for the UK 830Kg. Tony |
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If the population surrounding an industrial target was also the predominant labor source for said target, would it still be a crime to target them? It may sound callous, but targeting skilled military workers seems the equivalent of destroying the drill press where he works. The same as not only shooting down aircraft, but ensuring the death of the pilot and crew.
Don |
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Let us face it, we are comparing chalk with cheese. Judging by todays standards just possibly some of these actions were war crimes.
At the time we had the precedents of history, i.e the bombing of defenceless British cities by the Zeppelins and Gothas in WW1 and Guernica, Rotterdam, etc., etc., by the Luftwaffe in WWII. As a child at the time I heard bombs whistle over our roof to explode less than 100 yards away, underwent 20mm cannon shells knocking holes out of our walls as we ate breakfast, felt the roof lift off from the blast of a nearby V1. We had been brought up with the mantra "The only good German is a dead one" and when we heard about Lubeck, Dresden, et al we said "Bloody good job" and wanted to hear that news every day. The current apologies and excuses are just mawkish. |
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Tony, I am trying to understand your point but I’m struggling with the your emphasis on whether or not an area of the target was/wasn’t flammable: the only way I can follow the logic of your latest reply is if you believe a target should be spared because it would burn.
Bruce |
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Re the Grauniad article.
I went to secondary school on Canterbury in 1943, about a year after the Luftwaffe had destroyed the town centre. From our school on the west of the high street up to the cathedral was a total wasteland, half of our school had been destroyed and the girls side was evacuated. We were taught in the patched up remainder and a collection of wooden huts. We also took shelter in concrete tunnels under the playground, the centrepiece of which was a barrage balloon which was hoisted up and down as the need arose. I can remember my mother taking us out into the garden one night to see the glow in the clouds as Canterbury burned some 11 miles away. |
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Sorry for the delay in coming back to the thread, been a bit tied up. Regards, Bruce |
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I also have been tied up; apologies.
Two things need proving to answer Bruce and Don; that - targetting civilians was a war crime, while - Lübeck was a clear example of targetting civilians. Contemporary comments will provide some response to Peter. There were a series of conferences at the Hague in the 1890s. The 1899 Hague Conference passed the Martens clause, which has retained its legal force to this day; “Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience.” The Conference also agreed “to prohibit, for a term of five years, the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons, or by other new methods of similar nature”. The Hague Conference of 1907 renewed the prohibition of aerial launch of projectiles and explosives. It therefore remains in force to this day AFAIK. The Hague Conference of 1922/3 attended by Britain, France, USA, Italy and Japan (Germany and Russia could not attend) - produced articles on air warfare that were not ratified. They do however spell out the implications of the Martens Clause which remains in effect. Article XXII; Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorising the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of a military character, is prohibited. Article XXIV; 1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective .... 2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition, or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes. 3) The bombardment of cities, town, villages, dwellings, or buildings not in the immediate neighbourhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment. (NB that answers Don). Article XXV. In bombardment by aircraft all necessary steps must be taken by the commander to spare as far as possible buildings dedicated to public worship, art, science....hospitals.......must be indicated by marks visible to aircraft..... The League of Nations Disarmament Conference convened from 1925 to 1932, and included the Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932 where most of the attending powers agreed that air attacks on civilians were in violation of fundamental principles, and so confirmed the previous understanding of the Martens Clause. The proposal to outlaw attacks on civilians was protested by the RAF, in the person of Sir John Salmond. He said however that he was opposed to the bombing of civilians because 'no military advantage would accrue to a country that employs its bombing aircraft to terrorise rather than disarm its opponent”. (Which is ironic since that was what the RAF did during WW2). The RAF objected to banning bombers because it was arguing for its (the RAF's) very survival. If bombing were banned, then the RAF knew it would be abolished and the non-bombing forces would be returned to the Navy and Army. The RAF therefore welcomed the collapse of the conference in 1934, which left it free to win the argument for building a strategic bombing force to kill German civilians. So we come to Lübeck. Harris was told to use incendiaries, as the GAF had done at Coventry. But Harris refused and insisted on using some HE; “I do not agree with this policy (of using only incendiaries). The moral effect of HE is vast. People can escape from fire, and the casualties on a solely fire-raising raid would be as nothing. What we want to do in addition to the horrors of fire is to bring the masonry crashing down on top of the Boche, to kill Boche, and to terrify Boche; hence the proportion of HE” (at Lübeck). The target at Lübeck was the Innenstadt, the old town surrounded by water. You can see it in the satellite image. In the photograph you can see it burning. The quays where the iron ore was unloaded, and the U-boat yards, were located down-river to the north. They were not targetted or bombed. Does that answer your question, Bruce? Can we not agree that Bomber Command's policy of attacking civilian housing at night in city centres was a war crime, and had been specifically prohibited on all the occasions it had been discussed from 1899 to 1934? In response to Peter's cry for retaliation (“The only good German is a dead one", Lübeck "Bloody good job"), this was answered during the war by Vera Brittain quoting George Bernard Shaw; “The blitzing of the cities has carried war this time to such a climax of infernal atrocity that all recriminations on that score are ridiculous. The Germans will have as big a bill of atrocities against us as we against them if we take them into an impartial international court”. And Vera Brittain argued that retaliation in kind simply reduced the British to the level of the Germans, “and it is the perverted values of our enemies that made us fight them in the first place”. Tony |
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Thanks Tony,
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Lübeck was a legitimate target. Perhaps I am too pedantic about the point, but it seems to me that, if there was a reason why Lübeck should have been excluded from the ‘target list’, it hasn’t yet been stated: general statements about the horrors of bombing and more particularly Harris’s determination to use tactics giving maximum destruction should not be confused with the specific case that you raised when you said that Lubeck, a shipyard which produced 42 U-boats between 1939 and 1945, was not a legitimate target. Also, as explained before, it was the German end of a significant route of Swedish high-grade iron ore which was vital for armaments production. It was a part of the German war machine and I am surprised it wasn’t targeted earlier and more often. Regards, Bruce |
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1. If you hit me in the face, don't be surprised when I knock you to the ground;
2. Wars are not run on the principles set down in documents at Conferences. Get real. |
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The destruction of Lübeck degraded neither the berthing & unloading capacity of the port, nor the capacity of the transportation system to move the unloaded ore. Nor did it affect Flender Werke. And nor did Harris intend it to do so. He intended to wipe out the Innenstadt. Why I mention semantics is that Lübeck port might just as well have been called Travemunde Port or Porta Holsteinica for all the effect that the bombing of Lübeck had on the port of Lübeck. Would a different name have solved our problem? Harris himself said the port and yard were near Lübeck and not in Lübeck. Both were also near Travemunde and not in Travemunde. I'm afraid I'm baffled by your post. Tony |
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"The important point is not who bombed what and why, but who started it all. We did. On the night of 10-11 May 1940 the RAF bombed München-Gladbach without provocation from Germany. The raid did little damage and cost few lives, but it was thought important enough at the time to be kept from the British public because of its doubtful psychological effects. It was only revealed in 1944 when a former Air Ministry official, JM Spaight, wrote a book called Bombing Vindicated, and is not well-known today. Phillip Knightley London If Knightley is right, and I suspect he is, but please confirm it, then perhaps you would like to revisit your point 1 above. Re your point 2, I would ask you to point out where I have said that wars are run on the principles set down in documents at Conferences, and therefore why you say that I am being unreal. And finally would you please explain what you are saying, or implying. Are you saying that everything in war is justified? For example was the Holocaust justified? Was the shooting of British Commandos justified; or the killing of British aircrew who had been shot down and captured? What exactly are you trying to say, John? Tony. |
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[quote=tcolvin;94033]
Are you saying that everything in war is justified? For example was the Holocaust justified? quote] Linking the Holocaust to the war; experiments in extermination and the concentration camps existed without the war. The war only allowed the Holocaust to expand. For that matter, comparing area bombing to the Holocaust is "apples and oranges". The extermination in camps had zero bearing on the outcome of the war. Area bombing which included civilian areas was a means to the end of the war, whether it was only 5% effective or 100%. Don |
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Tony, thanks for the reply but I'm still here, and still far from persuaded. Before addressing your insight into how this 'war crime' you describe could have happened without having "degraded neither the berthing & unloading capacity of the port, nor the capacity of the transportation system to move the unloaded ore. Nor did it affect Flender Werke.", please could you break the suspense and say why Lübeck was not a legitimate target?
Believe it or not, I am interested in this point if it can be proved. Regards, Bruce By the way, neither of the books called Bodyguard of Lies that I am aware of were written by Knightley |
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Every study in Britain, Germany, Spain, and Russia showed that after the bombers had gone home, the terror of the victims rapidly subsided and turned to resolve that they would not give in. And when you take into account that area bombing absorbed over half the gross domestic product of Britain in an unproductive enterprise while leaving little for the navy (few landing craft for example) and for the army (no tank immune to the 88-mm for example), then you can say that area bombing was possibly minus 30% effective. Bottom line, area bombing was a catastrophe for everybody except Hitler and his henchmen. Tony |
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Bruce I can and do believe you are interested.
Apologies for getting Knightley's book wrong; I meant 'The First Casualty". Harris targetted the Lübeck Innenstadt because it was overwhelmingly civilian and because it was flammable. Therefore it was an efficient target for his purpose of killing civilians. This is not a legitimate reason for making the Lübeck Innenstadt a target. By the rules of law, the bombing of the Lübeck Innenstadt was prohibited since it did not contain a preponderance of war industries, and he did not take care to limit civilian deaths - on the contrary. Therefore a war crime was committed. Tony. |
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Hello again Tony, your answer muddles the issue but doesn’t alter my point. The question was “Why was Lubeck not a legitimate target?”, not “Do you approve of the tactics/weapons used to attack Lubeck?”
Help me here, I am stuck on this point that could fundamentally alter the way I (and perhaps others on the forum) think about the conduct of the war. Few of us have any rosy illusions that the air-war by this stage hadn’t outgrown the model on which the rules had been devised, but this is different: you say that the leader of Bomber Command knowingly launched a bombing raid on an ineligible target. Please separate the subject of ‘tactics used’ from the more sinister allegation that bombing Lubeck at all was a crime, as defined by the rules in force on the day, and show what gives Lubeck this singular status. It really would help. Regards, Bruce |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
I'm sorry, Bruce, but I am obviously failing to engage fully in your concern.
To my view Lübeck's status can only be said to be singular because of its being the first British attempt at town destruction to break morale and make Germans cry Uncle. Dresden was perhaps the last in the series which ended after Churchill's belated change of heart. To take your phrase and finish it. Lübeck was an ineligible target because: 1. it was chosen to fulfill the February 15, 1942 directive from the Air Staff that “the primary object of your operations should now be focused on the morale of the enemy civil population, and in particular of the industrial workers”. The 1922 Hague Conference proposed; “In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 (Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective) are so situated that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment”. The military objectives specified by Harris were the port where iron ore was trans-shipped, and the U-boat yard or training station. But these were not targetted. The Innenstadt was targetted. The aircraft therefore had to abstain from bombardment, but did not and committed a crime. 2.it was a flammable mediaeval city vulnerable to incendiaries. The Air Staff chose Lübeck as an experiment. But Article XXIV, Para 1 of the 1922 Hague Conference, stated that, “Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective”. No military objective was targetted. 3. Harris believed unshakably “that war was to be won by attacking the morale of an enemy population until its will to resist was broken”, (Grayling 'Among the Dead Cities', page 120). This contravened Article XXII of the 1922 Hague Conference; “Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorising the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of a military character, is prohibited". Tony |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
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Point 1. I do believe Luftwaffe bombers were over Britain as early as February 1940. Do check up on a certain, relatively famous, pilot who brought one down. I won't say who, because, you being an expert, will already know. Rather beats May 1940 by a few months, what? Point 2. Go back and check your earlier posts. Unless you've edited them heavily, I do recall (I can't be arsed going back and quoting them ad-infinitum) you reference several meetings/conferences (I won't get into semantics, as you rightly mention earlier) in the decades before WW2 where the rules/principles (insert your own term if you wish) were set down. I do recall you appeared to set great store by some of the points agreed at said meetings/conferences. As for being real. I'm sure we at least agree war is a dirty business, and in war, all kinds of things happen, good and bad. The purpose is to win, and if that means you bomb the shit out of the opposition, and end up winning, then that's what happens. The problem being that Governments go to war, and the ordinary Joe ends up taking the shit and the deaths. And as for Coventry, I am continually amazed at the amount of bleeding heart stuff that one hears about it (and I'm not being callous when I say that). Ask most people about which city got hammered the most after London in 1940, for example, and you can bet Coventry will will come out on top by a comfortable margin. No way. It was my home city, Liverpool, which took the second biggest battering after London. And continued to do so into 1941, particularly in the May Blitz in 1941. And trying to lure me into even commenting about these things: "...Are you saying that everything in war is justified? For example was the Holocaust justified? Was the shooting of British Commandos justified; or the killing of British aircrew who had been shot down and captured?..." just doesn't work. You're just being a smart-arse again, like in the other thread. You really do need to get your facts right before you post... |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
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Tony, it is nice occasionally to find someone is consistent, even if it leads to the odd difficulty. Allow me to explain my question again, and for the last time: I am not asking for what BC did, or what was wrong with their logic, or about the topography of the area, or anything else to do with the motivation of the C-in-C of BC. You said that Lübeck was not a legitimate target, and I ask what made it ineligible. It’s flammable structures do not make it an ineligible target. What the RAF chose to bomb it with cannot make it retrospectively an illegible target. It is not acceptable to quote the results of the raid to support your theory that a crime was committed when you are alleging that choosing the target was the original crime. Before the bombing, at the decision making stage, it was either (a) a legitimate target, in which case how it was bombed is the next subject, or (b) not a legitimate target, in which case any attack would be wrong. This is the point, and since it was central to your overall argument on the commission of a war crime, it is worth clearing up: show us the proof that BC had information establishing the ineligible status of this city before it was chosen as a target or accept that the head of the RAF was right to bomb it. I will get off your back and drop the subject if you find your original statement impossible to justify. I look forward to a clear answer on point, and hope it is not too difficult. Regards, Bruce |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Tony,
what is your basis for the assertion about the half of Britain´s GDP being consumed by Bomber Command? Johnson and Floud in The Cambridge economic history of modern Britain, Volume III say that at its peak (in 1944) all Britain´s war related expenditures amounted to 53 % of its GDP. Given the manpower of the ground forces and navy and the physical quantities of armanents and equipment manufactured in 1944 it is highly unlikely that BC share could be anywhere above 20% of GDP. Jan |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
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The tenor of your posts are, shall we say, forthright. And I asked you questions, so what's this about my failing to check facts before posting? Now to your point about GAF activity over Britain in February 1940. A British bomber was over Wilhelmshaven on September 4, 1939, and attacked a military target in the harbour causing deaths of sailors and the Blenheim crew. Pilots, British, German and French, were under strict instructions to avoid civil casualties by every means after FDR's appeal to the belligerents. The RAF religiously kept to this instruction until 10/11 May 1940, according to Phillip Knightley. You say this is incorrect? and LW bombers were over Britain "as early as February 1940"? You imply they were bombing civilians, otherwise why mention it. Are you referencing the He 111H of 1./KG 26 shot down on February 10, 1940? But this bomber was not attacking civilians but raiding shipping in the Firth of Forth, and is therefore ineligible for the prize of who first bombed civilians. So please tell us which GAF aircraft bombed civilians in Britain before the RAF did so on 10/11 May 1940. This fact is important to your argument that "if you hit me in the face, don't be surprised when I knock you to the ground". Who hit who in the face? Was it the RAF? Tony |
Re: Why was Coventry 'coventriert'?
Tony,
This kind of discussion is pointless. |
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