Bombing. Morals and Morale
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Bombing. Morals and Morale By Oswald Garrison Villard I APPRECIATE tha apirit of Or. Bohn'a article "The I Quality of Mercy" which appeared in "The Home jProitt" in the March iasue and regret...
...The British and Americans are dropping projectiles on Germany in s highly selective wsy...
...I have talked with some of the fliers...
...I submit now thst the oceans of hate we are creating by this putting to death by fire of women and children and innocent iKincombatant* and the bystanders in the conquered countries, sre the best possible prepsration for the third World War...
...It was one of the greatest events in human history...
...But first they must consider critically the problem of what it is that matters moat...
...Bohn declares that it is time for us 29 protestants to "stand up like men and join with others to do some-, thing practical and decent toward the ending of war," aad then he says, "The very first thing to do about It is to help us win this war...
...Now Dr...
...I have gone through reports by newsmen who have ridden with the bombers on their raids...
...Villard makes out a strong case...
...The record of the effects produced is meticulously compiled dsy by dsy...
...W* failed and the other nations failed...
...In the second place, British and American bombing of Germany is not like the German attacks on Britain either in character or purpose...
...Now comes this devastating hurricane of destruction Which we Call total war, war with modern technology...
...It is perfectly logics...
...The Germans were bombing civilians promiscuously—obviously with some very general purpose...
...After the raid photographs show precisely what results have been achieved...
...Today, as one correspondent from the front recently said to me, they have stood "a thousand times wsrse" and yet shown no signs of yielding...
...Bombing, yon see, shortened the war...
...Whether or not it is'effective from a military point of view is a question which I am incompetent to argue...
...Mere affirmation of this or that by Mr...
...We went on from that kind of bombing of the innocent Dutch and Belgians to the use of liquid fire which makes all our threats of what we shall do to the Germans if they resort to chemical warfare look extremely hypocritical...
...War at all—war of any kind—is terrible...
...None whatever...
...We drop liquid fire on these cities and literally roast the populations to death...
...This I can understand...
...The la&t war was much more than "humbug and a sham...
...We have even done our best to romanticize them out of existence...
...It was the dropfj"*" of more bomb* upon Cassino than bad ever before *•*» thrown down on human beings in one town...
...Bohn, and those who feel like him, may say that this is a,logical development and that the Germans have only themselves to thank if our technicians have gone them one better and introduced liquid fire, that that is what they earned by starting the thing...
...But the systematic bombing of German factories and railway junction points surely has little relation to the Cassino situation...
...The picture left in my mind is quite different from thst which Mr...
...It is, of course, to Mr...
...So what...
...Their definite purpose is to reduce production and impede transportation...
...After the British announced that Hamburg was "completely destroyed" they bombed the city again 119 times...
...We must do It by using our own brains...
...We found it on the flrst page of the New York Times, slthough it waa mailed in casually without any editor's attention being called to it, and it has resulted in a barrage of criticism and fault finding from the entire press of the country...
...The way to atop thia whole horrible business Is, first to lick Hitler and, second, to build up international cooperation...
...that they recognize how much right there is on our side since they hsd to take up their pens immediately to show how wrong we were I The Real Target By William E. Bohn IT must be acknowledged that Mr...
...What I meant in my original article—and what I mean now— i< very simple...
...It is possible that after this war...
...He is not merely a man of conscience...
...The main question is left open...
...Targets are definitely designated—here a railway yard, there a dock or an airplaine factory...
...I was one of those who wrote after the horrors in London that the Germans could not possibly stand up against anything like those...
...But what has happened since is much worse...
...They csn do a lot toward educating the American public...
...1JOW does he know this...
...It was next reported from Antwerp that we killed 2,000 men, women and children, and injured 1,000 more there...
...So far as Germany is concerned there is no evidence that these wicked and ungodly practices' are shortening the war...
...The men are shown photographs, maps, diagrams...
...They are traditional...
...Bohn is entirely right as to the military effects of our bombings, what la vaatly more important is the ethical aspect of the whole proceeding...
...Every one of us has worked for the ending of war for years and years past...
...The read to Rome was open, we had »h>pped the taking of American lives by Germans in ** monastery—and then the Germans re-entered the ¦bee and our dispatches admitted that the ruins made **c* batter fortifications than had the monastery...
...It seems to me that he has overlooked the fact that obliteration bombing is an American device, that it was not used by the Germans, nor by the British, until we began to operate on the European front...
...Using the word obliteration this way, as a technical term, is very effective argumentation...
...Our imaginations have accepted them...
...The lessons of Cassino have probably been thoroughly learned...
...Tbe High Command announced that the old monastery ¦*»ne blocked our way to Rome, and that we would be •» the highroad to that city if we just destroyed this Priceless historical edifice...
...The man who loads ships or mskes sirplsnes is right in the line of defense...
...In the flrst place, the Germans never followed up their air attacks on Britain with an actual invasion...
...Just'as peace is more productive so war has incressed in destruction...
...Villard presents...
...I must add here that an important and highly trained military observer, who has been in Europe and is now back, reports that the bitterness and rage against us Americans in Belgium, in Holland and in France for our bombing of their countries, "for their own little good" to free them from the Nazis is piling up reservoirs of hate against us that will make us the most unpopular people in Europe for decades if not generations to come...
...For a time thereafter these dreadful American attacks on occupied cities ceased...
...Horrible as that German crime in Rotterdam was, London reported on March 31, 1943, that United States fortresses had bombed the harbor and shipbuilding area of Rotterdam, and the official joint British-American communique declared that shipping and shipbuilding yards which extend some sixteen miles along Rotterdam's waterfront were the targets...
...If, in Hamburg, our fliers snd the British wiped out the workers as well as the ships and docks, it is plain that they had a definite military purpose...
...Villard's argument boils down to the idea that bombing from the air is a terrible form of warfare and that we are doing it better than the Germans...
...We invite contributions from readers...
...For men interested in morals this should be the focal point...
...I read the communiques published in the papers...
...We must discover just what the American fliers are doing...
...But the cry of a sensitive man must be completely ineffective if in this modern world we have war at all...
...Why is it that a number of those who returned on the Gripsholm were quoted in Portugal as saying that the bombing of Berlin stiffened the whole German front...
...Again I say, the burden of proof that we should continue in our obliteration tactics rests upon those who support this abominable policy...
...In this appeal of theirs they were, it seems to me, going off on a sidetrack...
...I cannot recall anything quite like it in my long journalistic career, and I am compelled to believe that our protest did strike home, that we did accomplish what we set out to do, namely, make Christian people "examine themselves concerning their participation in this carnival of death...
...that we revealed thst the consciences of most of our editors are troubling them...
...It is still being bombed, and yet has just been reported within a few days as being 75 per cent restored and '•operating...
...To this my reply is that we have atone" up like meat and we have joined with others of like faith in England,'including the former Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester, and others, snd made the practical and decent and militarily wis* suggestion thst we move toward winning to war by refusing to bomb the homes of innocent women and children and civilians in nowise connected with the war effort for the purpose of breaking the morale of the enemy...
...you add that our petition offers mightly little in the wsy of help...
...Yet this ia the vital side of the whole Issue...
...I may be wrong, but I think the facta are on my side...
...When our statement was issued those who drafted it had not the slightest idea that it would even be noticed by the American press...
...Please don't tell me that in a matter like this you ag»a got to follow military advice...
...It is horrible...
...All of these distinguished clergymen can wield an enormous influence on the right side...
...In the iaaue of the New Stalnman and Nation of December 18, 1943, the editor quoted Ed...
...But the sorts'of misery they hsd in the Napoleonic wars or in our Civil War ars a part of history...
...Does that look like shortening the war...
...Look at Cassino...
...The bombings of Madrid and London steeled the inhabitants of those cities to hold on...
...War is horrible— and grows constantly more horrible...
...I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the main part of Mr...
...This part of our difference is a question of fact...
...But blanketing the airforce with a term and implying that we have invented—and are responsible for—a new form of destruction from the air really settles nothing...
...Anything that can be done to end this inner corroding, this degrading of our own ethical standards and morals, is the greatest contribution, we believe, that anybody can make toward the real winning of the war in the best sense of that term...
...In his main argument Mr...
...DUT if Dr...
...You wipe out the dock and the man who can rebuild the dock...
...If the man lives with his wife and children, they will be killed along with him...
...Incident after incident like thia could be cited to prove the attar misUkenneaa of mill* tary men who at leaat had the frsnkness to admit that the bomber in this instance failed completely...
...What *•» the result...
...Morrow's protest over the CBS in regard to our air raids over Berlin, that "it wasn't exactly pretty—British boys being burnt to death in aeroplanes while they sre roasting to death the population down below...
...The men in our industries are constantly being appealed to as soldiers of production...
...What proof has he...
...When we attacked again the Germans wee* stronger than ewer and recaptured half el tha town from' us, our entire offensive broke down and ended in a complete American defeat...
...Villard is protesting totsl war ss such...
...The relative effects of air bombardment on civilian morale seems to have little relevancy...
...Villard says, are doing "obliteration bombing...
...he is recognized as a man having a considerable right to speak as an expert on military affairs...
...After hestitating ten dayswe blew it to bits and some wonderful American fliers counted exactly 200 Germans as leaving the Abbey in muite when we began to shell it—not 203, or 197, but •xwtly 200...
...If it is true, as has been reported here, that the Catholic hierachy in Germany has been so outraged by the wholesale destruction of Germsn cities, of suburbs and workmen's quarters in which there was not a military objective of any kind, as to have called upon ell good Catholics to drop- their steadfast opposition to Hitler snd to stand behind him, then this kind of bombing has done Hitler a world of good...
...Ever since we have warned the statesmen that they were leading us straight into the second World War...
...The Americsns, Mr...
...We protested against the obliteration raids because of the infinite moral damage they are doing to us by the destruction of our moral values, by the immeasurable harm they are doing to the young men whom we compel to do these things, who, 1f what I hear is correct, hate the very thought of it, dread the raids, and are doing none of the gloating which our newspapers record...
...That is the part of the appeal that seemed to me weak, wishful and escapist ll is a pity that God has no chsnce to make an appropriate reply...
...But while I appreciate the friendly apirit of bis references to me and to others among the 28 wicked persons who protested against the obliteration raids en German cities, there are some things I must say b> reply...
...Villard or myself gets us nowhere...
...The editor then quoted a British official, "whose job gives him special knowledge of these things," as asking whether the British public was aware of the change in the bombing from the type that the Germane had used in the blits and realized that "today our raids are of quite another order...
...to bomb him...
...wo shall succeed in building a different sort of world...
...After it was over we failed to utilise the advantages of the situation...
...I am surs that be had nothing to do with calling upon God to still the winds and waves of war...
...You don't accomplish such things by calling on God...
...It is true that the Germans at Rotterdam and elsewhere did wipe set Inhabited sections, but it wss never chsrged thst the Germans were deliberately undertaking this policy...
...This and other American raids so shocked the weekly British press at that time that it unitedly pratetttd attributing the horror of these raids to the inexperience of American pilots...
...He rejoices in this because of his beliel that it is helping to end the war and therefore to mitigate its horrors as a Whole...
...The distinction between fighters and workers has practically disappeared...
...And so it has in the bombing of large cities...
...The military experts are, of course, doing many things experimentally and revising their theories as they go along...
...We are constantly hearing tales of the accurate use of our bombsights...
...Villsrd's credit that he is crying out agsinst what we do rather than against the accomplishments of our enemies...
...But •w High Command had the remedy...
...The part of my original article in which I called upon the protesting clergymen to "stand up like men" waa not addressed to Mr...
...I opposed the last wsr ss a humbug and s sham, snd time proved thst those of us who took that position were correct...
...The targets presented for the day or night in the preliminary briefing are, I am told, very definite...
...He is psrt of the enemy force...
...Bohn'a article "The I Quality of Mercy" which appeared in "The Home jProitt" in the March iasue and regret that because of absence ia Puerto Rico I hare only juat received a eepy...
...There will be further discussion of this topic In future issues...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 20
