[PeterVerney]

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.