Uncle Bob (and Arthur) Comments On "Strategic Bombing"

(Here's Uncle Bob's fascinating response to Arthur's note of last week. Uncle Bob has been in Washington for the past week, but he's back in full force. Arthur's response follows.)


In partial response to Arthur’s comments in the latest issue of this fine rag, it is my understanding that firebombing of civilian targets was not contemplated by the Allies at the beginning of World War II until the massive German bombing campaign destroyed entire cities and inflicted thousands of civilian casualties in Britain.

Understandably, the Brits wanted payback, and when the Americans furnished new bombers for British crews and arrived themselves with many more bombers and eager air crews, there were opportunities for payback galore. The British air marshal known as “Bomber” Harris soon overcame initial American objections to bombing civilian targets, resulting in such atrocities as the firebombing of Dresden, which wiped out an entire city and at least half of its inhabitants.

Payback, indeed.

In the Pacific theater the opportunities for massive slaughter by our esteemed bomber fly boys were minimal until Allied forces had taken nearby Okinawa and invasion plans of the home islands were on the charts in the war rooms.

I was in an Osaka prison camp in early 1945 when the city was firebombed by hundreds of low-flying bombers. There was death, destruction, and desolation all around us, all civilian so far as we could tell, but our unmarked barracks in the shipyards was miraculously untouched.

The American military commanders called it strategic bombing. I call it murder.

Soon thereafter we were transported by train to a small coastal village on the northwest coast of Honshu where we remained until the war was over.

The firebombing of major cities such as Tokyo was the brainchild of Air Corps General Curtis Lemay, who later remarked that if Japan had won the war, he would have been hung as a war criminal.

During a more recent conflict, General Lemay recommended that the US nuke North Vietnam.

The capability to obliterate entire cities and their inhabitants was enhanced a hundredfold by the atomic bomb, which was dropped unnecessarily on two Japanese cities for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with winning the war.

In August 1945 I traveled by train through the city of Tokyo on my way to the docks where American ships awaited to take us home and there was nothing but smoking desolation and heaps of rubble as far as the eye could see and not a living person in sight, a result of conventional firebombing under the direction of General Lemay.

Later, when I read up on the history of World War II, I concluded that what I saw in Japan was a direct legacy of the strategic bombing strategy first orchestrated by “Bomber” Harris and later by his bloody-minded disciple, General Curtis Lemay.

A post war analysis of the results of strategic bombing found that its efficacy was much over rated by its adherents. During the massive strategic bombing of Germany, for example, German war production actually rose.

Strategic bombing, by its very nature, must be called a war crime, and there are disturbing reports in the press that it is being used in Iraq.

There is no way for bombs to discriminate between who is innocent and who is guilty, therefore when the innocent are killed, what else can you call the bombers but murderers?

A question you might ask the next Air Force bomber crewman you run across.

Uncle Bob

(Uncle Bob's postscript:)

And then there is close air support, pioneered and perfected by the U. S. Marine Corps, designed to support and protect the troops. Targets of such tactical aviation units are normally enemy military units or aircraft. However, in a static situation such as developed in Korea and Vietnam with no enemy planes to fight and only occasional calls for close support missions, the task morphs into a strategic one.

Fighter bombers took off daily by the dozens from the airfield in Vietnam where I spent some of my last years in the Corps, loaded with bombs and napalm looking for “targets of opportunity.” My Group executive officer bragged often about napalming “crispy critters,” otherwise known as Vietnamese rice farmers in the wrong place at the wrong time, which seems to apply to our latest military fiasco, according to the many reports of innocent civilians being slaughtered by trigger happy American bandidos in Iraq.

The beat goes on.

Next year, Iran?
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Arthur Responds:

"Bomber" Harris, the British architect of firebombing Germany, cut his teeth in... wait for it... Iraq. Where Harris was the architect of the British efficiency program which involved punitive bombing of restive villages and the aerial delivery of mustard gas bombs. You know, the same sort of WMD that we hung Saddam Hussein for using?

Bomber Harris proved that if you bombed the crap out of civilians that you could cow the population into obedience. For a while. And then they would figure out a way to subvert you and kneecap you and take their country back, as happened in Iraq. One of the heroes of that effort? Yup, Saddam Hussein. The problem with forcing a revolution is that the nation in question runs the risk of being taken over by revolutionaries. Who often are not very nice people. A bit too prone to ripping people's intestines out, in order to get their attention.

Curtis Le May, if I have my facts straight, is the model for "General Jack D. Ripper" in the movie Doctor Strangelove. One of the oddest movies you will ever rent, trust me.

Arthur