OBLITERATION " BOMBING
SIR,—Are not the British and American Governments taking for granted that the nation approves of a policy of blotting out German cities by concentrated bombing? Were the implications of this policy adequately discussed before such a momentous decision was taken?. Can it be ▪ considered as an exclusively technical military question? We are told by Government spokesmen that there is no indiscriminate bombing ; yet the Air Ministry News Service estimates that in the built-up areas of Hamburg, a city of over a million inhabitants, the destruction and damage, to property amounts to over 77 per cent. Many thousands of people, young and old, must have perished under circumstances of great horror. It will be claimed that the attacks were on military objectives and that the destruction of civilian life and property was incidental. Cannot it be said with equal truth that in the concentrated night bombing of great cities, in which industrial establishments and tenements are closely intermingled, it is the homes of the people that are bombed and the damage to military objectives that is incidental?
To save space, may I conclude by putting some points in a series of questions for consideration?: (1) Can a policy that brings such suffering on innocent people be morally justified? (2) Will not such methods add , immeasurably to the hatreds among the people of Central Europe and increase the difficulties of a lasting peace? (3) Are we not in danger of destroying the material heritage of European civilisation, particularly as we are told the limit of destructiveness of large bombs has not yet been reached? (4) May there not be created conditions of " anarchy and chaos and finding ourselves with no authority with which to deal "- conditions which Mr. Churchill feared in Italy? (5) May we not create conditions that will lead to typhus and other epidemics that may sweep round the world? (6) Why is it that so many religious leaders, politicians and journalists, who denounced German barbarism during the heavy raids on this country, now either applaud such methods when they are adopted in an intensified form by the Allies, or acquiesce by their silence?
Previous page
