War Guilt and Why the Allies Won the War

This thread is quite active with anticipated driving attitudes of the past. Regarding RAF racial tendencies toward the Germans, are you saying the focus was/may have been physical differences in appearances?

 

I'll try again, you can't anticipate something in the past, the word means to predict a future event. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anticipated

No one suggested there were any particular racial tendencies on the part of the RAF, in fact when it came to bombing civilians there appeared to be something of an equal opportunities ethos, not discriminating based on race, age, gender etc. The USAF however wouldn't bomb white Europeans but was happy to bomb the Japanese, this combined with the racial propaganda spread by the US seems at the very least a little odd.

 

The Luftwaffe; Rotterdam 1940.

 

it should be noted that the first bombing of a German town during WW2 in which civilians were killed was on the 10 May 1940. When a number of Luftwaffe aircraft bombed the German town of Freiburg by mistake, killing 57 people. In overcast weather the crews thought they were over the French town of Dijon. The fragments of the bombs found later, confirmed the bombs as German, but German propaganda claimed the raid to be a terror attack by the French Air Force, justifying subsequent bombing of French towns.

 

Point taken. Therorize would have been more appropriate. I’m about out of time for the week, heavy work load/going out of town. The long and short of, it seems to me too much focus is put on racism, but I'll have to review this thread later.

 

I don't think that the U.S. set out with the idea of bombing civilian targets at all, especially because of anything remotely racist. I believe any notion of this is just nonsense. Why would the U.S. Command have put such valuable resources at risk for such an endeavor? Moreover, the decision to switch from primarily daylight precision bombing to incendiary attacks has been justified as such: Japanese industry was less concentrated as it was in Germany (we've already covered that), precision attacks were difficult due to constant cloud cover, and the long range of Japan from airstrips in the Marianas made day time high altitude bombing only slightly effective.

 

Racism does not have to be white against blacks, redskins, hispanics or asians. It is the attitude that something in the heriditary makeup of a people makes them inferior, or having the desire to believe that they are lesser humans.

As for bombing civilians, it was not something we could avoid. We still cannot avoid it. The allies bombed numerous civilian targets. For example, when the dam busters took out their targets, think about how many innocents were destroyed by the floods. The allies accepted these losses as collateral damage. There are several theories about the why of Dresden, but from a practical point of view, it did not really make sense. Yes, there were military targets. There were reports that the railroads were loaded with troops retreating, but it is hard to believe that they did ot at least suspect that they were full of refugees. The most plausible theories are that they did it as an example to the Russians, or that they did it to make a point to the Germans. A lot of accusations were levied against the allies that were not based in fact, but Dresden was still a big moral and political mistake.

Firebombing Tokyo was not a result of the failure of HE, but a method chosen due to the type of target. At Dresden, they also used firebombing. They would blow the tops off of the buildings with HE and then incendaries would set the old wood interiors on fire. In the case of Tokyo, you had flimsy wood buildings crowded into a small footprint. They used incendaries for Jimmy Doolittles raid, and it was always the most effective type of bombing. Amazingly, the Tokyo firebombings killed more than Nagasaki or Hiroshima. But when certain groups tried to charge the allies with war crimes, it was for Dresden and the atomic bombs, not Tokyo.

 

If I had a £ for every time we've argued 'Dresden' on this Forum I'd be a rich man. I'm definitely not going to be dragged in again...

As for moral rectitude,'revenge', etc don't let's forget that the UK had been subject to V1/V2 attack - possibly WWII's most indiscriminate weapons - so at the time few people gave two hoots about bombing Germany - quite the opposite, in fact.

We have seen in recent World affairs how rash decisions can be taken which are at least partly driven by 'public opinion' and a desire for revenge. Historians often overlook human emotions which is odd when you think that war is one of mankind's most emotional activites.

 

I find what Seadog and Willconqr are saying does sound reasonable, perhaps we are exaggerating on the racism tone here, but fact remains the propaganda againt "Japs" and Yellow Peril was in rather strong terms.

Also there was the question of the internment of Japanese-Americans, and I understand Italo-Americans (Dagos?) did not have an easy life as well.

 

Note, I didn't say the Japanese civilians were bombed just for racist reasons, it was just easier to jusitify.

 

The US certainly adopted a propaganda policy of dehumanisation of their Japanese opponents. This, no matter how you want to describe it, was a policy of racism designed to make it easy for their troops to destroy the enemy.

Whether the bombing of cities in Japan is therefore a rascist attack is more difficuly to reconcile. Personally I dont think it was. While the propagnada was rascist in tone the actions of the air force had a distinct military objective to destroy the enemies will to resist and destroy the civilian infrasturcture.

The same is true of British attacks in Germany. They were aimed at destroying the German will to resist and place further strain on the German economy and cripple the German workforce by destruction.

Sadly it is a fact of 'Total War' that the civilian no longer has the protection that they may have once enjoyed, although even that is open to debate. Civilian deaths are an unavoidable fact in war. It always has been.

As for Dresden, it was seen at the time as a legitimate miltary act and in my mind was merely yet another attack on the German nation in a time of war, albeit one that cost a great deal of lives, but again one that struck at the German workforce and placed strain on the German will to resist.

I once had the good fortune to meet a pilot who dropped the markers Dresden for the bombers. After the war he became a monk in Ireland as he was unable to cope with the deaths he had caused to the civilians. I asked him if he felt his actions were wrong. He stated that although he felt a great deal of guilt at having taken so many lives, he felt that at the time it was right. I asked him if he would do anything differently with hindsight and he said no. It was to him the right thing to do to punish a nation that had started a horrific war, but he has had to live with the knowledge that his actions killed large numbers of people.

In my mind, attacks on civilian centres can be seen as a legitimate target in war. Perhaps not the most politically correct thing to say, but when fighting a regime such as the Third Reich, I believe the ends justify the means.

 

Well put, VN.

 

Hind sight allows us to see things not apparent at the time. I have regrets about the Dresden bombing, and I question the motives behind it, but only from a logical retrospective.

Racism is a factor in every war. It will always be so, as even when we are an enlightened culture, it is a kernal of who we are. It is one thing to feel more comfortable with similar races and cultures. It is another to base actions on a perception of superiority based on it. We talk about race as if it is clear cut color and features, but it is not. Sometimes it is easier to note cultural differences than racial differences. And sometimes it is ridiculous how it is calculated. Should a person that is 1/16th of any race be considered as that, when they are 15/16ths another race. My wife is 7/8 Germanic origin and 1/16th to 1/8th Ottawa. If it were not for the fact that she cannot trace her great-grandmother's name to the registration rolls, she would be classified as American Indian. We can be such a silly species at times.

 

Talking about racism and historical revisionists ... Is Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Byelorussia (and many others countries) is an Anglo-Saxon world? Maybe you can say something like “Anglo-Saxon world with a little help of others”

Do I miss something? Are we talking about same Indians and same America? Because I think indians in South America doing just fine.

 

In Canada they have the Native Network funded by the tax-payers.
One time a well-respected program host interviewed for a History Channel program said (paraphrasing) ...

'the only difference between what you did in the Americas and what Hitler tried to do with his Final Solution was that you succeeded and write the history books and he failed.'

His program funding was reportedly cut for a while, but upon appeal and arbitration in a public forum, it was determined that 'however unpallitable the position was, it was founded in historical fact and was protected under the Bill of Rights'...even where freedom of media was not applicable in gov't funding.

Now I've got that old Bloom County (Opus) cartoon up on the wall of an office where Opus and the guys are at a table and everyone else in the restaurant are non-white-straight-males-whose-ancestors-kicked-ass and were ordered to 'apologize'.

As a hetero-sexual white male, politically incorrect as they come I do feel picked on no doubt. Persecuted even. Believe me.

But still, a spade is a spade no matter how much I want the card in that hand to be a diamond.

There is definately a double-standard in how we, the victors, write the history books too.

 

Marienburg, you also do not know your native americans well. Their fate is as diverse as their history. Many tribes and individuals are well off. Most of their problems stem from a failure to adopt the ways of society. Just as it is not needed to abandon God in today's society, it not needed to abandon one's heritage.

We as a species must continue to grow. As we do, many of the old beliefs are left in the dust. But, a lot remain that are acceptable to both reality and faith.