Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? (review)

"Was this bombing offensive [against the cities of Germany and Japan] a crime against humanity? Or was it justified by the necessities of war?" (p. 1). The English philosopher Anthony C. Grayling poses these questions in an attempt to understand the ethical and legal aspects of the Allied "area-bombing" strategy during World War II. An answer, Grayling asserts, is morally obligatory. Furthermore, "history has to be got right before it distorts into legend and diminishes into over-simplification" (p. 2). Finally, a more contemporary purpose is sought: charting guidelines for the future behaviour of states in waging wars.

Grayling's case is laid out in eight neatly written chapters. There is also an appendix of Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks on Germany with inflicted and sustained losses. He delves into the history of the aerial campaign, the growing prominence of Bomber Command, and its faithful pursuit of the thesis of ruthless industrial bombing advocated by physicist Frederick A. Lindemann. The gruesome experience of the bombed is then surveyed, logically followed by proponents of area bombing (Air Marshal Arthur Harris foremost amongst them). The fifth chapter elaborates the role of "voices of conscience." Grayling cites the dissenting views of such figures as novelist Vera Brittain to demonstrate "contemporary understanding" of the standards of war at that time (p. 183). In Chapter Six, the case against area bombing is measured against a rather haphazardly compiled account of just-war theory. From the cupboard of just-war theory, Grayling extracts the cardinal points of necessity and proportionality.

The case for the defense is then made, and the verdict is grim. Bomber Command's continued insistence on area-bombing throughout the war proved ineffective, while the attacks of the U.S. Army Air Forces on railways and oil-facilities, at least in the German theatre, was "proportionate and pertinent" (p. 250). The answers to his own list of questions are predictable: area bombing was a "moral crime" (p. 246). It was unnecessary in defeating Germany; it was disproportionate; it violated the accepted moral standards of Western civilization and national laws prohibiting murder (p. 277). Furthermore, the Allied aircrews should have disobeyed orders to carry out such bombing.

Grayling claims that no moral or ethical "book-length" analysis had ever been done on the subject of Allied area-bombing, claiming that historians on the subject express "uneasiness." This is not entirely true. W. G. Sebald's On the Natural History of Destruction is powerful, as is Frederick Taylor's unsettling Dresden. More recently, Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden 1945 by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, distinguish the field. The claim also sidelines literature that has brought home the horrors of the air war. Grayling's omission of German texts is, however, conscious: he prefers to examine Allied viewpoints rather than literature that points to German "soul-searching" (p. 274).

Whilst his ethical project is understandable, it remains difficult to square the moral content of Grayling's task with the historical challenges posed by the policies he examines. While the task of subjecting Allied decision makers to the standards of the Nuremberg war crimes trials is entirely understandable (p. 233), it remains a non sequitur. The tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo made neat omissions about area bombing in their judgment, and they were wise to do so. The Axis powers started it; the Allies perfected it. It is seemingly true that, if subjected to the fourth Geneva Convention, the Allies would have been "liable for prosecution under its terms" (p. 242). But Grayling prefers to quote it as a retrospective "ethical thrust." He is on far better ground when noting evidence condemning the use of area bombing before and during the war (p. 243).

Historical pressures are complex: decision makers were making policy in an age of total war. Grayling is not...