On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Michael Perelman wrote:
> WW II bombing was mostly directed at military sites;
Michael, I don't think this is at all right. The main strategic goal of strategic bombing was enemy morale, and their main targets were not civilian infrastructure but civilians themselves: Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima.
The American talked about economic chokepoints for much of the war, but after that didn't work and once they had air control they acted exactly like the RAF. The Allies dropped 2,700,000 tons of bombs on Germany; 72 percent were dropped between July 1, 1944 and the collapse of Germany. And the major weapon during that period was the incendary bomb. We were intentionally slaughtering civilians to make them give up, pure and simple. The conclusion drawn after the war was that it didn't work. Any more than it V-2's made Londoners want to give up.
Well, okay, Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked. But they're the exception that proves the rule.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com