Honour in Combat

[painfbat]

I know Andreas doesn't reply to my posts but I'll try it again:

QUOTE:

= = = The area bombing campaign by the RAF and the USAAF was not a war crime. Neither was the German Blitz on Britain, or the bombing of Rotterdam.= = =

Are we talking DRESDEN, HAMBURG and ROTTERDAM in Holland???? Do you really want to say that they were NOT an infringement of the Geneva Convention?

Am I wrong here and weren't Kesselring and Göring both found guilty to the criminal intent of the bombardment on Rotterdam?

Cheers

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

My original comment was NOT a "deliberate distortion of the truth" as you charged, for in order for it to be so it would mean I consciously chose to present information I knew to be untrue. I did NO such thing. Rather, I mentioned British OR, invoked the conclusion presented by R.V. Jones, and cited his book, THE WIZARD WAR. Anyone who bothered to look up the item in his book would not only thus be presented with the date of the original statement by him but would also be able to read, in fair detail, about some of the later navaid developments. It logically follows, then, that such developments were factored into my original statement. On page 210 we find the following:

"...in early 1941 I had drawn Lindemann's attention to reports that indicated we were not hitting our targets in the way that was being claimed. I remember particularly a raid on the Skoda Works at Pilsen, duly announced by the B.B.C. A friendly Czech indignantly told us that everyone in Pilsen knew that there had been no raid, and that the nearest bomb had fallen fifty miles away."

NOTE: Computer jammed, so am continuing this post via edit function.

He goes on to say that this shocking discovery caused Professor Lindemann to commence an investigation, using cameras on Bomber Command aircraft to document their location at the time of bomb release. This had the unintended effect of royally peeving the aircrews, who thought their bravery was being questioned by implying they weren't driving in to the targets. They were mollified once they understood the true purpose of the cameras.

"Ultimately, they were convinced that no one doubted their courage, and enough photographs were collected that by the summer of 1941 for Lindemann's secretary, D.M.B. Butt, to show that over the Ruhr, only one tenth of our bombers were within five miles of their target. It was this that finally convinced the Air Marshals that astronavigation, dead reckoning, and ordinary radio beacons were thoroughly inadequate; and the drive at last started for us to emulate the Germans in their radio navigational techniques. (emphasis mine)

Thus, Andreas, I a) inadvertently OVERSTATED the RAF bombing accuracy as of early 1941 while working from memory in the wee hours and by incorporation factored in the subsequent development and deployment of the very navaids whose absence you are dinging me about in the post under discussion.

By the way, it's "backpedaling." What you've written appears to be a coined word indicating, perhaps, mercantile activity conducted from a backpack, as in, say, the tea vendors found in Turkey and elsewhere.

[ February 13, 2006, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Andreas,

My original comment was NOT a "deliberate distortion of the truth" as you charged, for in order for it to be so it would mean I consciously chose to present information I knew to be untrue. I did no such thing. Rather, I mentioned British OR, invoked the conclusion presented by R.V. Jones, and cited his book, THE WIZARD WAR.

It's called selective quoting, and it is a distortion of the true argument of Jones.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Anyone who bothered to look up the item in his book would not only thus be presented with the date of the original statement by him but would also be able to read, in fair detail, about some of the later navaid developments.

And anyone who does not have the book has to trust that your post is an accurate reflection of the content of it. Sorry, that does not wash. Well, it does, but only if we accept that you are not above bending the truth in the pursuit of your argument, deliberately leaving out critical information, providing it only when called on, and some posts on try to distort all this by claiming you had said it all in the first place.

All this while getting outraged when you perceive others to do the same to you.

That's called hypocrisy where I am from.

Regards

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by painfbat:

I know Andreas doesn't reply to my posts but I'll try it again:

I did reply to your post asking about the books.

Originally posted by painfbat:

QUOTE:

= = = The area bombing campaign by the RAF and the USAAF was not a war crime. Neither was the German Blitz on Britain, or the bombing of Rotterdam.= = =

Are we talking DRESDEN, HAMBURG and ROTTERDAM in Holland???? Do you really want to say that they were NOT an infringement of the Geneva Convention?

Am I wrong here and weren't Kesselring and Göring both found guilty to the criminal intent of the bombardment on Rotterdam?

Cheers

No they were not - here is the judgment regarding Göring linky. Kesselring was never put on trial for Rotterdam as far as I can tell (e.g. here linky) but he was sentenced for being involved in retaliation measures including shooting partisans.

And yes, none of these attacks was an infringement of the laws of war as they then existed. All of the targets were of military value (including Dresden), they had not been declared open cities, and they were defended (including Dresden). The GC covering treatment of civilians dates from 1949. It would have been difficult to observe it in 1940.

All the best

Andreas

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

You posted while I was still working on completing my original planned post. The finished version, which you can now consult, has direct quotes, complete with page numbers, which anyone with access to the book can now check. No trust required!

As noted, the only distortion I'm guilty of is grossly overstating the RAF's bombing accuracy as recalled from memory. It was much worse than I remembered as being the case.

I don't know why, but your default setting in dealing with me seems to be attributing the worst possible motives to everything I say or do. Personally, I think questioning my integrity is a fool's errand, seeing as how I've been repeatedly bonded, have worked on SEC sensitive financials, worked for a police department, held high security clearances for over eleven years, worked in security, and am and have been a trustee--all positions of trust, and many involving extensive background investigations, to include searching assessments of my fundamental honesty and integrity. If you want to waste your time and energy, though, knock yourself out!

Regards,

John Kettler

[painfbat]

Andreas,

I stand corrected about the books. At least I now know that Berthold is a "Berühmte Bamberger", but I find it a little strange that if Seidler works for the Bundeswehr, his book is found and can be downloaded from VHO.

I would like to here your views on the "Oberleitungvertrag", as I quess you know more about it then a do, and what the official reason for Adenauer was to sign this.

About Rotterdam etc. I was told that both were also trialled for Rotterdam and that the prosecutor Sir David Maxwell Fyfe stated that there was no aspect of wartactics and that the only goal was forcing the Dutch surrender by showing power and using terror.

I'll have to do some reading and translating so I'll come back on the airraids, as i seem to remember that in the Land War regulation & G.C.(der Haager Landkriegsordnung und der Genfer Konvention vom 27.7.1929) there are some if's that were violated by ALL countries.

Thanks for now,

[Andreas]

painfbat

Seidler is a now retired professor for modern history at the Bundeswehr university in Munich. I presume 'Freiheit der Lehre' applies to the university as it does to others. Whether the views he proclaims are seen as unpalatable by some like me and the reviewer in the FAZ should not have any bearing on his employment. He can not be fired for them, unless they are clearly breaking a law.

I highly doubt Goering was prosecuted for Rotterdam, since he killed himself at Nuernberg, and he was not prosecuted for it there. I linked his judgment, and it says exactly zero about any bombing campaigns. He got done for (like the others) participating in planning and executing an Angriffskrieg.

Kesselring was a witness at the trial of the major war criminals, and his testimony can be found here:

linky

The Avalon Project at Yale has all the texts of teh Hague and Geneva Conventions online. linky. Let me know which para you think outlaws the bombardment of cities that are defended and contain military installations. Happy digging.

You may want to consider this part of Kesselring's statement - but take into consideration that it was given after the war, and the whole direction of his statement seems to me to aim at bringing some distance between the GAF and the RAF strategy of bombing:

The Hague Convention on land warfare did not provide for the requirements of air warfare. In order to avoid an arbitrary selection of targets, the Supreme Command had to go into the question and issue general directives based on the preamble to the Hague Convention, the literature published in the meantime, and finally, the special conditions governing the Luftwaffe itself. Only those targets which we considered admissible according to international law were assigned to the air fleet or formation. This did not exclude the reconsideration and change of targets in individual cases, which were discussed with the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, and we took the responsibility ...

178

12 March 46

THE PRESIDENT: You are speaking too fast.

KESSELRING: By personal visits and other means we impressed upon our units the need to study preparation, the dropping of bombs, aiming, the meteorological conditions, so carefully that the highest degree of accuracy could be obtained and regrettable deviations into the perimeter of the objectives could be avoided. The case of Coventry was particularly fortunate as it presented an important military target, and no one could speak of it as an attack directed against the civilian population.

All the best

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

I don't know why, but your default setting in dealing with me seems to be attributing the worst possible motives to everything I say or do. Personally, I think questioning my integrity is a fool's errand, seeing as how I've been repeatedly bonded, have worked on SEC sensitive financials, worked for a police department, held high security clearances for over eleven years, worked in security, and am and have been a trustee--all positions of trust, and many involving extensive background investigations, to include searching assessments of my fundamental honesty and integrity. If you want to waste your time and energy, though, knock yourself out!

Regards,

John Kettler

So all these people studied your ability to correctly read and remember historical texts? Amazing, I never knew that US police departments required that. But they must be crap at checking, looking at the amount of things you already got wrong in this discussion.

I am judging you on a very simple basis. You are willing to take lies and distortions at face value, regardless of who utters them, as long as they fit your pre-conceived notions and ideas. All your errors go into the same direction - that of making the allies look worse than they were. I think there is a method, since by now it can no longer be accident. That other people are willing to trust you with money has no bearing on this.

Regards

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by painfbat:

I would like to here your views on the "Oberleitungvertrag", as I quess you know more about it then a do, and what the official reason for Adenauer was to sign this.

I don't actually know much about it, since post-war history is not very interesting to me. My guess is that the prime reason was that Germany had lost the war and was in no position to argue?

Obviously I am not in favour of my government signing away such basic rights, but I think it is a simple question of playing with matches and getting burned.

All the best

Andreas

[John D Salt]

Right, this is really the last time I'm responding to Kettler's trolling.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

[snips]

Concerning the British use of Q-ships, I did not say their use was a warcrime. Rather, I said the British insisted on eating their cake and having it too by demanding that the Germans follow the stop and search rules when employing commerce raiders and U-boats, then using Q-ships against them while made vulnerable by following the rules of war.

So, if the use of Q-ships complied with the laws of war, it appears that you are accusing the British of "hypocrisy" and "eating their cake and having it too" for complying with the laws of war, while underhandedly demanding that the Germans also comply with the laws of war.

I'm sorry I misunderstood your intended meaning, and can only plead in mitigation that I had not previously expected even you to make an accusation so wonderfully , glitteringly and thumpingly bloody stupid.

Now, on to the business of bombing accuracy, with a few inclusions from previous postings:

Originally posted by John Kettler:

If we take CEP as the measure of effectiveness and track it for the two forces involved for their respective periods of combat, there is absolutely NO WAY the averaged RAF CEP can even come close to that of the U.S.A.A.F., if nothing else because of all those early years of the RAF campaign before the electronic aids were available would make it impossible to catch up. Kind of like having a 4.0

average, then getting a "D." In this case, though, with early war RAF CEPs measured in miles, it's more like trying to get an "A" average by starting out with a long string of "F"s.

This is a worthless argument for two reasons.

First, you don't present any CEP figures for either force; the assumption of USAAF superiority appears to be mere prejudice on your part. Yes, we've all read Jones, we've all heard of the Butt report, we've all seen the cartoons of B-17s putting bombs into a pickle-barrel. But if the USAAF was so damned accurate, what did they keep hitting Switzerland for?

Second, taking an average CEP may make sense per bomb, or per weight of bombs, but it makes little sense by year. The tonnage of bombs dropped went up markedly after 1941, as shown by the following figures from page 120 of Richard Overy's "The Air War 1939-1945" (Papermac, London, 1980):

1940_____14,631

1941_____35,509

1942_____53,755

1943____226,513

1944__1,188,577

1945____477,051

Unfortunately he doesn't give the split between Bomber Command and USAAF tonnage, but the ratio from another source (The designer's notes from the AH game Luftwaffe; not great, but the best I can do while my Alfred Price books are hiding from me) for the whole war is given as about 7 US to 6 British tons. It should be obvious that the RAF's cumulative tonnage up to the end of 1941 (no US figures are included for those years), about 45,000 tones, is entirely swamped by the tonnage we might expect from bomber command for 1944, something over half a million tons.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Compared to the British at night, the American bombardiers were phenomenally accurate, typically putting their bombs within, I believe, hundreds of feet of the aimpoint. Were bombs released too soon or too late, hitting civilians and their structures? Yes. Did bomb patterns overlap such areas? Yes. Were innocents killed within the properly targeted areas? Yes. Is that the same as what was done to Hamburg? No!

You seem to be unaware that the USAAF participated in the bombing of Hamburg: See Martin Middlebrook's "The Battle of Hamburg" (Allan Lane, 1980l Cassell, 2000), bombing twice on successive days.

The only figures for heavy bomber accuracy I can find at the moment are from the "Luftwaffe" designer's notes, which I suspect may be leaning pretty heavily on the USSBS, but they don't quite their sources.

The following snippets on accuracy are given:

With less than 5/10ths cloud and visual aiming, a B-17 group could be expected to put 32.4%, and a B-24 group 30.4%, of its bombs within 1,000 feet of the aim point. A bit different from "typically putting their bombs within hundreds of feet".

Formations with a 3-plane frontage were 45% more accurate, those with a 6-plane frontage 10% more accurate, than those with a 9-plane frontage. (I don't know exactly what numerical meaning we are supposed to assign to "more accurate").

The percentage of boxes (3 to 18 a/c) expected to put at least 10% of their load within 1,000 feet of the target depended on their order of passage over the target:

1st box_____82%

2nd box_____60%

3rd box_____48%

4th box_____47%

5th box_____30%

RAF bombers averaged 38% of their tonnage on target and put 40% of their bombs within 425 feet of the aim point.

The booklet goes on to say "While it appears that the RAF was vastly more accurate than the AAF, it must be remember (sic) that the "AIMING POINT" for AAF aircraft was usually a single factory building. The "AIMING POINT" for RAF bombers would be the entire city."

Personally, I thought the aim point for the RAF was usally the markers (air or ground), usually placed with good accuracy by the Pathfinders.

As both forces essentially used pattern-bombing cued by master bombers, it wouldn't cause much surprise if their overall accuracy was not dissimilar.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

As for U.S. vs. RAF bombing accuracy, I think I can fairly assert that you are guilty of cherrypicking the data.

I don't think you can assert any such thing, most particularly because, at the time you asserted it, I had not yet presented any data on bombing accuracy at all.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

I was discussing the comparative delivery accuracy through much of the war, whereas you handpicked one example of what the late war state of the art performance was in electronically aided night bombing.

No I didn't.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Where I come from, that's called lying with statistics, and I deem it most unfair of you to use such a tactic in order to attack my credibility and demean me personally.

Since my stocks of the milk of human kindness are not yet all entirely evaporated, I shall make the charitable assumption that you are confusing me with Trap One. I take this to be yet another of your frequent slapdash errors, rather than your deliberately attributing to me things I never said, which would be just plain "lying".

It does, however, reinforce the necessity of checking your facts, something you seem congenitally incapable of doing, whether you're accusing me of lying or accusing Allied servicemen of mass murder.

Now, I really do not intend to respond to any more of your nonsense.

John.

[Black Jack Pershing II]

BigDuke6-

I think you err when you refer to the executions of the KZ guards as "war crimes" or "atrocities." If they were, then we need a new definition for the terms. My only problem with the defendants was that they apparently felt the need to excuse their conduct by claiming that they were acting in self defense.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

BigDuke6-

I think you err when you refer to the executions of the KZ guards as "war crimes" or "atrocities." If they were, then we need a new definition for the terms. My only problem with the defendants was that they apparently felt the need to excuse their conduct by claiming that they were acting in self defense.

Shooting people after they have surrendered - no matter what crimes they may have been suspected of committing, or indeed, had even committed in plain view up until the moment of surrender - is a war crime. You can't do it. Once surrendered, enemy servicemen (I wouldn't call scum like that "soldiers") were entitled - expected, actually - to receive the full protection of their captors. Nothing justified the shootings except that self-defence claim you dismiss, which is why they lied about it. To have not done it in self-defence would have made them guilty, and they knew it. Umm...because they were.

[ February 13, 2006, 02:43 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

Given the many strawmen you insist on erecting and the even more numerous red herrings you trail, you must have financial interests in fodder raising and commercial fishing!

You knowingly and vexatiously insist on deliberately twisting my statements in order to make me look bad,

as neatly demonstrated by your latest blast regarding background checks in history for police work, when you know full well that what I was responding to was a fairly blatant attack you had earlier made on my personal integrity.

Since you like to judge me so much, why not judge yourself and your actions by the same merciless, reality inverting methods by which you judge me?

Be sure to note your utter unwillingness to say anything positive about what I have to say, no matter how thoroughly documented, nor excellent, credible, even mainstream the source. I gave you the R.V. Jones statements on early British nightbombing accuracy in the form of precise quotes with page number, yet the silence from you has been deafening.

I have hammered away at Allied atrocities precisely because the prior discussion was so one sided, because what people "know" or "take as Gospel" isn't always true, because there were Allied warcrimes and atrocities (whether admitted and prosecuted or not), a fact not generally known and certainly not in detail, and in the interests of making the record complete. By doing this, I and others here have learned much, such as what painfbat dug up concerning clauses prohibiting the prosecution for warcrimes of Allied soldiers in Germany. I've also learned a great deal about why Bacque is so denounced as to accuracy, but further learned that his research, sloppy as it was, did uncover something that mainstream historians had missed--the policy changes--and generated a much needed discussion of what really happened in the nonRussian controlled parts of Germany after the war, to include the serious to severe food shortages. What emerged in trying to figure out the true number of missing German POWs was fascinating. Had no idea there was so much "slop" in the figures.

In doing so, I have in no way attempted to gainsay or minimize Axis warcrimes or atrocities. Indeed, the Wikipedia link alone that I provided revealed a host of such atrocities I'd never heard of before then. Unlike many, I have also long known of rather obscure topics such as Unit 731, whose warcrimes were never punished, to this nation's eternal shame. Tojo swung by his neck, but those who killed tens of thousands in China with deliberate biowarfare were never called to account, let alone chastised.

The bias I have and freely admit is an unceasing search for the truth, however unpalatable and upsetting, wherever the search may lead. Some of you seem adamantly determined to stop my quest and block any related discussions at all costs, to which end you are prepared to personally attack, vilify and label me as something I'm not, usually while systematically avoiding any rational discussion of the actual topic.

Your bias seems to be utter, intransigent, ironclad unwillingness to address anything that pushes your buttons, regardless of the credibility

and transparency of the source.

In closing, I see you ended your post with another of your typical distortions, by turning my evidences of personal integrity into merely being my suitability to handle money. In financial printing, I was privy to sensitive corporate financial data (aka "insider information") way before the SEC 10K and annual reports were published and known to the stock market. In both the police and security jobs I was responsible for protecting lives and property. In my aerospace work I was directly entrusted with the actual performance numbers for our own weapons and the fruits of the work of the Intelligence Community, some of which cost lives. And my trust work involves the intimate details of other families' finances, caring for and educating their loved ones, and zealously watching over the investments which make it all possible. How you can equate all of these with others being willing to "trust you (me) with money" is beyond my comprehension.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

You brought up your securities clearance. I just pointed out it is a red herring.

It still amazes me that with all these great qualifications, you can not (or at the very least do not bother to) get your facts right when a simple Google search would suffice, as evidenced in this thread.

Regards

Andreas

[Dandelion]

Err? I rather got the impression that the Duke struggled with the classical problem of conflict between emotions of justice through vengeance and that old saying we endeavour to teach our kids in the percevering hope of a better future - two wrongs do not make a right

When fighting a beast, you must not only be victorious, but endeavour to not become one yourself.

This rather plain and simple biblical statement must reasoably be, IMHAnalysis, why Western allied bad behaviour is so painful that it attracts interest even in the light of the mass atrocities committed by their opponents. And why Western Allies are the subjects of criticism even when they did not commit crimes, but displayed behaviour less than chivalric in general.

The KZ guards were part of a criminal organisation, committing henious act of devilry. The American servicemen were part of an honourable corps fighting for a just cause. I fear the Dachau conquerors behaviour lent neither any credit at all, but rather mirrored that of the KZ guards. If not corrected it would have cast a shadow upon their betters, wearing the same uniforms, doing their duty and not committing any crimes, regardless of personal sentiment or individual needs.

Rest assured that emotions 60 years afterwards are far, far more bitter if you are the offspring of men who could not or would not distinguish right from wrong, or felt perfectly comfortable playing god and wanton executioners, with nobody around them reacting at all, but feeling it was perfectly normal behaviour.

Cheers

Dandelion

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by McIvan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

which is inflammatory and offensive nonsense, appears nowhere in your quotes and is taken completely out of context. You defended that position in your followup post.

There is no mention in either of your posts that it was not a field hospital at all....</font>

An adcvanced aid post - not so far removed from a field hospital, and your comment about it being "inflamatory and offensive nonsense" is itself bull.

what's the difference between a field hospital and an advanced aid post? Both are places where wounded are collected.

I had what I consider a minor failure of memory that produced a minor mistake.

your reaction is excssive and my point remainns - wounded and medical personnel were killed without being in a position to defend themselves - why is it OK at an aid post but not at a field hospital?

The plain inference, which you have posted and then defended, is that a New Zealand unit left their lines for the purpose, for no other is mentioned, of butchering patients in their beds and shooting the medical staff who,

Good god what a lot of absolute crap - I made no such comments - my comments were that I thought I had infomation on New Zealanders overrunnign a field hospital (sic) and I could get more information if it was required.

That you read such absolute nonsense into it is your problem and shows a serious inability to read what was actually written!

Good day to you

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by McIvan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

which is inflammatory and offensive nonsense, appears nowhere in your quotes and is taken completely out of context. You defended that position in your followup post.

There is no mention in either of your posts that it was not a field hospital at all....</font>

An adcvanced aid post - not so far removed from a field hospital, </font>

[McIvan]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by McIvan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

which is inflammatory and offensive nonsense, appears nowhere in your quotes and is taken completely out of context. You defended that position in your followup post.

There is no mention in either of your posts that it was not a field hospital at all....</font>

An adcvanced aid post - not so far removed from a field hospital, and your comment about it being "inflamatory and offensive nonsense" is itself bull.

what's the difference between a field hospital and an advanced aid post? Both are places where wounded are collected.

I had what I consider a minor failure of memory that produced a minor mistake.

your reaction is excssive and my point remainns - wounded and medical personnel were killed without being in a position to defend themselves - why is it OK at an aid post but not at a field hospital?

The plain inference, which you have posted and then defended, is that a New Zealand unit left their lines for the purpose, for no other is mentioned, of butchering patients in their beds and shooting the medical staff who,

Good god what a lot of absolute crap - I made no such comments - my comments were that I thought I had infomation on New Zealanders overrunnign a field hospital (sic) and I could get more information if it was required.

That you read such absolute nonsense into it is your problem and shows a serious inability to read what was actually written!

Good day to you </font>

[McIvan]

Oh, and I would add that you are still asserting that medical personell were killed without a shred of evidence even mentioning such a thing. Is it really me that has a "serious inability to read what was actually written"?

[Guest Mike]

You are right that the source I quoted does not mention medical personel being killed. My apologies for not picking up your point and acknowledging it earlier. But IMO it beggars belief that you can accept that wounded were killed but that the personnel attending them were not.

I am perfectly aware of the context of the action - it is sufficiently explained in the source which I quoted at leangth and verbatum, although not in the sections I quoted.

I do take offence at you saying that I have deliberately misquoted and mis-represented the action. I did not. I made no claims at all about the context of the action because I was seeking to provide the original poster with a pointer to the action so he could make his own conclusions - nothing more.

[ February 13, 2006, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

[snips]

I am perfectly aware of the context of the action

Yet you chose not to mention it, and in particular chose not to mention that it was a night action.

Ever been in a military exercise at night, have you?

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

I do take offence at you saying that I have deliberately misquoted and mis-represented the action. I did not.

You bloody well did. Take all the offence you like, but McIvan has done an excellent and scholarly job of correcting your nonsense.

John.

[JonS]

McIvan,

which part of the country are you from?

Jon

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

[snips]

I am perfectly aware of the context of the action

Yet you chose not to mention it, and in particular chose not to mention that it was a night action.

Ever been in a military exercise at night, have you?</font>

[Grimly Fiendish]

Andreas and John Salt, I'm confused about something and I hope you can clear up a distinction for me. From everything I have ever read on the topic, the USAF deliberately targeted the residential and industrial areas of certain German cities to create terror among the civilian population and weaken their "resolve," such as it was.

Whether they succeeded or not, my understanding is that is was a matter of policy. I would call this something of a gray area: something one would rather not do but that seems necessary under the circumstances. (The theory behind these bombings has now fallen out of favor in the USAF.) What is it that clearly separates these bombings from war crimes, so that one can unequivocally state, "These were not war crimes"? If carried out today except in retaliation perhaps, they would definitely be war crimes.

[i see painfbat's parallel question was already answered. Did the Geneva Conventions simply fail to address mass slaughter and displacement of civilans by aerial bombardment?]

Since bombings and concentration camps are being discussed in the same thread here, I'll ask another question: Does anyone know anything about the US "failure to target" certain death camps whose rail lines and boxcars were clearly visible in aerial photos? Any opinions on whether it should have been done, why it was not done, why it is ridiculous to ask such a question etc. etc?

[ February 13, 2006, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: Dave Stockhoff ]

[McIvan]

Originally posted by JonS:

McIvan,

which part of the country are you from?

Jon

I'm in Papakura, Jon, about 35km south of Auckland city where I spend my workdays. I maintain that I live in Counties and have nothing to do with these Aucklander folk Yourself?

Regards

Ivan McIntosh