Jason Royko

HI 350
30 Nov 11
DIALECTIC ESSAY
I. Introduction
As war has evolved and changed from age to age, so has the
technology used to fght these wars. From the invention of the bow and
arrow, too the high powered fully automatic lead slingers that are employed
today, the weapons that are used to try and kill one another have only been
limited by the unending imagination that we as a species hold. One tactic
used to particular efectiveness during WWII was the use of incendiary
devices for the frebombing of key cities belonging to the enemy. This was
used to devastating efectiveness by the United States Army Air Force and
their allies against both the Germans and the Japanese in order to deny
them the critical resources needed to fght.
The purpose of this dialectic essay though is not to determine if
frebombing campaigns proved to be efective against the enemy, an
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Jason Royko
HI 350
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understood fact, but rather to discuss whether or not the employment of
these tactics was truly the right decision to be made. The paragraphs that
come to follow will ofer insight into both sides and will include excerpts
from scholarly articles and journals that will either defend the practice of
frebombing as a viable method of warfare or try to ofer reasoning for why
it should not have been used.
II. First Thesis
At the opening of World War II the USAAF used the strategy of
daylight, high-altitude, strategic bombing in order to make precision strikes
deep into the German heartland. The idea at the time being that large
squadrons of bombers could fght their way deep into enemy territory and
make precision strikes against key industrial factories. They believed that
by destroying essential materials or products created by the intricate web
of factories, industry, power plants and transportation lines, they would be
able to efectively force the enemies war machine to come to a grinding
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HI 350
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halt. All of this they thought could be done without ever having to
incorporate the use of naval or land forces. The Norden Bomb sight was
the main instrument that the Allies believed would allow them to make
precision bombing a great success. However, weather and cloud cover
over the target often made the use of the bomb sight rather pointless.
This is all outlined in Thomas Searles article It Made a Lot of Sense To
Kill Skilled Workers, from The Journal Of Military History. (1)
The British however took to the strategy of area bombing, instead
choosing to conduct their bombing runs under the cover of darkness. This
obviously was far less accurate, but its application did allow for the pilots to
drop their ordnance even when the target was obscured by weather,
something that the USAAF ran into almost immediately when fying over
Germany, and also ofered protection from anti-air fre and fghters since it
was much harder to spot the bombers at night. Because of how difcult it
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Jason Royko
HI 350
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was to determine key targets in the enemies war industry, the decision was
made to incorporate the use of incendiary bombing for when precession
bombing was not an option. This was usually because of the acknowledge
fact that frebombing was particularly efective against cities and thus
enemy industrial sectors. Another plus to frebombing was the fact that you
did not have to be accurate but merely get enough of the smaller fres to
start until it grew into an uncontrollable blaze devouring several city blocks
at a time. This was done successfully against the cities of Dresden,
Mannheim, and Tokyo. (1)
Firebombing was of course used most successfully in the Pacifc
theatre against the Japanese. One issue that Searle addresses is the
accusation that one of the primary goals of the USAAF in its use of
frebombing tactics, like the incendiary bombing campaigns of Germany,
was to demoralize the population. He states that in fact the Japanese
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Jason Royko
HI 350
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Industry was the primary target of the area raids, as it was for precisions
raids. (Pg. 114)
III. Second Thesis
There are those of course who see the fre bombings of cities such as
Dresden and Tokyo during the Second World War as completely immoral,
unethical, and generally inefective at achieving the desired goals. One
such author, Justus Lawler, talks about just that in his article titled
Dresden: The Fire Last Time in the journal Cross Currents.He places
the accusations that the USAAF and their allies turned to the use of
incendiary bombing against both the Germans and the Japanese for the
sole reason of striking a
blow to the enemys morale and thus reduce his willingness to fght. He
also states that this method was used as sort of revenge tactic and that the
American people simply wanted to kill the enemy for the casualties that
they had already inficted on them. He further backs up this claim by
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Jason Royko
HI 350
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stating that the attack on Pearl Harbor was in no way comprisable to the
raids on Tokyo and the massive civilian casulties it inficted. Another key
argument is that the USAAFs change over from strategic bombing to area
bombing was rapid and unplanned and that even though the commanders
knew of the large civilian casualties that were occurring, they were
somehow choosing to ignore it instead. Lawler also makes the observation
that the use of saturation bombing and frebombing occurred because of
the idea that morale bombing was bad for the enemy because it
destroyed infrastructure and was also good for the people who wanted
retaliation and vengeance back on the home front. He also makes the
statement that Churchill had in fact let slip the following statement. It
seems that to me that the moment has come when the question of
bombing German Cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though
under other pretexts, should be reviewed. (pg 119)
All of his points land more on the ethical and morale implications for the
mass killings of non-combatants that were caused by frebombing.
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Jason Royko
HI 350
30 Nov 11
IV. Evaluation
Both sides to this argument present clear and logical evidence as to
why the use of fre bombing tactics in WWII either was or was not the right
decision to be made. On one hand Thomas Searle and
his article It made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers, looks at the
decision from the more tactical point of view. His article itself is full of
necessary background information that is crucial for establishing his point.
Not only that but he does not deny the fact that the killing of civilians in
combat is not something that is warranted or wanted, but
is rather an unfortunate by product of war and that in the grand overarching
scheme the use of frebombing to destroy the enemies key production
facilities aided in ending the war faster, thus saving countless more lives on
both sides.
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Jason Royko
HI 350
30 Nov 11
Lawlers article though is based less on tactics and more on the
morale and ethical wrongs that come with the using of such tactics. His
article "Dresden: The Fire Last Time." still does an excellent job at
defending the points that he tries to make. He does not however provide
as clear of a picture with what he is trying to tell the reader
and instead seems to jump around from point to point with no relation to
any sort of timeline or central theme.
V. Conclusion.
Both theses take an in-depth look at the reasoning and rationale for why
the Allied forces incorporating frebombing tactics in the Second World
War. Each writer used factual evidence as well as hard
numbers to help aid their respective arguments. On one side we have Mr.
Searle, who takes a look at this from the tactical side and in
my opinion a bit more logical as well, as he argues that the frebombing
was used as an efective tool to help bring an end to the war. This goes in
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Jason Royko
HI 350
30 Nov 11
direct contrast to Mr. Lawler who argument is based more so on the
concept of frebombing of civilians to immoral, no matter the rationale
behind it. I found his article to be based more on the concept of right and
wrong, which in my opinion is a very gray area to try and base an
argument out of.
After reviewing both of these gentlemens works and reading about
their rationale behind their respective arguments I have to say that I fnd
myself agree with Mr. Searles article, It made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled
Workers more so than Mr. Lawlers. The main reason for this is because
of the large number of facts that are provided within the article. He does
an excellent job including background information necessary in order to
understand why his claims should be taken as legitimate.
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HI 350
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Bibliography
(1) "It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers": The Firebombing of
Tokyo in March 1945
Thomas R. Searle
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The Journal of Military History , Vol. 66, No. 1 (Jan., 2002), pp. 103-
133
Published by: Society for Military History
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2677346
(2) Lawler, Justus George. "Dresden: The Fire Last Time." Cross
Currents 54.2 (2004): 116-127.Academic Search Premier. Web. 30
Nov. 2011.
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