Honour in Combat

[JonS]

It isn't considered a warcrime for the very simple reason that it wasn't a warcrime until 1949. You might not like what was done, but that is your personal issue.

As for the bombing of the camps ... There is some discussion here.

[ February 13, 2006, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by McIvan:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />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 </font>

[zmoney]

What’s an Islamic style response? Honestly Stalin’s O I thought your post was a pretty big misrepresentation of the actual event. There’s a huge difference between some kiwi’s getting doped up and shooting up a German hospital for kick’s and a break out attempt at night when your surrounded and don’t know what’s exactly out there. I’m sure those Kiwi boys were scared and didn’t want to die, so they made sure the enemy around them died instead. Honestly I think you would have done the same thing had you been in their situation. Plus it’s not against the GC to shoot someone as long as you didn’t already pass them and come back just to kill them because you wanted to. In fact in the training I received in the military it says to shoot people that are in front of you until you know they are dead.

John Kettler, I think I have the answer to the 670,000 MIA. My mother in laws cousin and uncle fought on the east front. Her uncle came home but his son, her cousin never did and was listed MIA. Well years later one of the cousins mates found the family and told them he had died in combat and was buried somewhere in Russia in an unmarked grave. Also if you have ever read Guy Sajer book titled the Forgotten soldier, he mentions several such instances of where someone died and they just buried him on the side of the road. In some cases I doubt they even knew the soldier that had died. So if I had to guess I would say at least half of the MIA’s were buried in this fashion and maybe their comrades that buried them were later killed so they never got to report what had happened to the individual. Hell even the old German Prime ministers Father was buried in an unmarked grave in Romania and he didn’t find out about it until the 90’s.

The other half were probably blow to bits or buried in the same fashion by the Russians or Brits or Americans or whoever came across them. I’ve read accounts of the local villagers burying the war dead left behind, and I don’t think they knew the proper procedures to report the death to the German High command.

I’m sure some Axis soldiers were killed after they surrendered, but to suggest that these 670,000 men were worked to death in a French, Brit or US POW camp is asinine. If your talking about any SS member that was killed at a concentration camp then I don’t care how many were killed because like Big Duke and the others have said it’s a natural human reaction when confronted with such a horrific sight. I would have probably gladly followed the orders of a superior officer if he wanted me to execute those SS scum. I also read that US GI’s were letting the freed inmates at those camps kill or repeatedly shoot the SS guards. Which I also think is ok.

[McIvan]

Originally posted by JonS:

Heh. You're still north of the Bombays, so I am of course legally obliged to call you a dork. I spent two sunny weeks at Pap about 10 years ago, running around and around in circles. Nice town, although I understand it's declined a bit since then.

I'm in Wellington, about 15 mins walk from the downtown area and work.

Be cool

Jon

I went to university in Wellington and spent around seven years in total there...would happily have stayed except that employment took me elsewhere. Very fond of the place.

Declined a bit since then? Cheeky scamp. I like the town and country feel, although tis gradually losing that as it becomes more absorbed into the greater Auckland sprawl.

I suppose such musings are slightly off topic and I believe my lunch hour has finished, so I'll get back to work....

[JonS]

Originally posted by zmoney:

... Plus it’s not against the GC to shoot someone ... In fact in the training I received in the military it says to shoot people that are in front of you until you know they are dead. ...

At the risk of misquoting you, you touch on something that is often overlooked in the discussion of supposed and alledged warcrimes, and Minqar Qaim provides a very good example.

Context and intent is always taken into account. Looking at MQ, the basic rule in dispute is "shooting medics and the wounded is bad, m'kay" (currently in GC1.3 & GC1.24, not sure what it would have been in 1942) BUT due recognition is given to the chaotic nature of war, and nominal breaches will be prosecuted on their merits. In the case of MQ we have night assault through and out the other side of a defended German position. That the RAP happened to be in the way and got trampled is regrettable and unfortunate, but not a warcrime per se. And that is because the intent was something quite different to just giving a few medics a good kicking.

Regards

JonS

[JonS]

Originally posted by zmoney:

If you're talking about any SS member that was killed at a concentration camp then I don’t care how many were killed because like Big Duke and the others have said it’s a natural human reaction when confronted with such a horrific sight. I would have probably gladly followed the orders of a superior officer if he wanted me to execute those SS scum. I also read that US GI’s were letting the freed inmates at those camps kill or repeatedly shoot the SS guards. Which I also think is ok.

Well, you might think that, but what was done by the US soldiers at Dachau (according to the report Andreas posted) was clearly wrong and clearly criminal.

[JonS]

Originally posted by McIvan:

Declined a bit since then? Cheeky scamp. I like the town and country feel, although tis gradually losing that as it becomes more absorbed into the greater Auckland sprawl.

Oh, I meant declined since the camp closed. I'm sure that it's still pretty good. Well, as far as Auckland goes anyway

[Grimly Fiendish]

JonS, thanks for the link and the clarification.

Oops, link not found!

[JonS]

Link editted. My girlfriend keeps telling me I can't multitask ... seems she was right!

BTW, on the previous page you wrote:

"If carried out today except in retaliation perhaps, [urban bombings] would definitely be war crimes"

It is true that the post-war GCs* did address deliberate targetting of civilians and their property. However, retaliation is never considered to be a justification (as far as the GCs go). In fact, one could say that the whole point of the GCs is to prevent tit-for-tat retaliations spiralling completely out of control.

Regards

JonS

* Of course, right now I can't find the relevant GC and para, but there is a summary here. The key point sems to be "The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked." Means and methods aren't discussed, which as it should be, so aerial bombardment isn't specifically addressed. In interesting side argument is how this would play out in a nuclear war. Leaving aside the non-trivial task of finding someone left at the end of it all to be the prosecutor, the legality of massive (or even minor) exchanges of nuclear weapons strikes me as unlikely to be consistent with the principles of the GCs.

[ February 13, 2006, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[zmoney]

Originally posted by JonS:

Well, you might think that, but what was done by the US soldiers at Dachau (according to the report Andreas posted) was clearly wrong and clearly criminal.

I didn't say they weren't war crimes. I honestly in my opinion don't think they were wrong for doing it either. But this example is a whole lot deferent than normal situations. Thats what I'm saying, this was an abnormal situation. Not the norm which some are suggesting.

[Grimly Fiendish]

Jon, if aerial bombardment of civilians is not specifically spelled out as a crime in 2004, then what would have made it any less a crime in 1943? Not that I'm arguing it was---from a legal point of view, it either was or it wasn't. Of course, even if it was directly banned in 1949, that doesn't make it honorable in 1943. Or '45.

Mr Jingles, here's a point you might consider. In a lot of pastoral/nomadic cultures, retaliation is honorable. Under the GC, which as Jon notes was intended to suppress retaliation, it is not. Therefore one might posit 2 kinds of honor: the kind in which aid is extended to the wounded etc., and the kind in which a fair fight is sought between warriors.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Dave Stockhoff:

Jon, if aerial bombardment of civilians is not specifically spelled out as a crime in 2004, then what would have made it any less a crime in 1943?

Because civilians weren't protected persons prior to the new GCs in 1949.

[Bigduke6]

JonS ,

Well, you might think that, but what was done by the US soldiers at Dachau (according to the report Andreas posted) was clearly wrong and clearly criminal.

At minimum, you need to read that report more closely. I would also suggest you not always take military documents at face value, if you are interested in getting at the truth of what happened in a war.

I say: Not at all clearly wrong and not at all clearly criminal.

1. The report makes clear there was one extenuating circumstance, and a big one: The emotional shock of the U.S. soldiers coming upon a real concentration camp.

2. The report cites U.S. soldiers as in violation of rules of war on grounds that that extenuating circumstance was not enough to excuse their murderous behavior.

3. Had the report done otherwise, it would have set a precedent. It would have opened the legal door for any U.S. soldier to argue, in defense of any violent act in violation of his orders: "Hey, I was under emotional stress." This possibility is so perniciously dangerous for military discipline, it is inconceivable a military court would allow that precedent to be set.

4. The enforcement of military discipline, and the legal interpetations stemming from it, are not the same as the historical truth. The historical truth takes into account, as best as it can, all extenuating circumstances relating to the incident in question, with the overriding goal of accuracy, and most certainly not with goals like setting precedent or defending a policy.

5. From the point of view of historical accuracy, I do not see how an average group of 1940s American soldiers could be expected not to react, at least in some small part, violently to finding an S.S.-run concentration camp, and all the horrific things that it contained, and then gaining control over S.S. personnel who were:

a. The enemy

b. Known fanatics extending the war senselessly

c. Identified - at least in a general way and apparently often by name and direct accusation - by former inmates as directly complicit in running the camp.

6. Had the U.S. troops not executed S.S., then what about the inmates? Justice - I'm talking human rather than judicial here - demanded the S.S. personnel be punished. This is speculation, but I strongly suspect that, had the U.S. troops not treated inmates to the sight of S.S. personnel being shot down dead, the U.S. troops would have had a bloody riot on their hands.

It is arguable it makes a whole lot more sense, from a human point of view, for a U.S. soldier to shoot S.S. personnel for sure and risk killing an S.S. trooper not directly complicit in the concentration camp's operation; than to follow military law to the letter, not execute S.S. personnel, and risk shooting down former concentration camp inmates to prevent them from tearing S.S. personnel to pieces with their bare hands.

I say a concentration camp justifies almost any retaliation. If there there is a more evil thing visited by one group of humans on another, I don't know it. I am perfectly prepared to excuse blanket justice and willful departure from standing orders by U.S. personnel, if it has to do with a concentration camp. Of course, I am not interested in enforcing discipline in the U.S. Army. I am interested in the historical truth.

The Army White Paper, on the other hand, was unconcerned aimed at keeping discipline, hang the reality, from start to finish.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

5. From the point of view of historical accuracy, I do not see how an average group of 1940s American soldiers could be expected not to react, at least in some small part, violently to finding an S.S.-run concentration camp, and all the horrific things that it contained, and then gaining control over S.S. personnel who were:

a. The enemy

b. Known fanatics extending the war senselessly

c. Identified - at least in a general way and apparently often by name and direct accusation - by former inmates as directly complicit in running the camp.

How were they expected to act?

a) not as criminals

as professional soldiers

c) the same way thousands of British, Canadian and American soldiers did in dozens of other concentration and prisoner of war camps - by taking necessary measures to secure the camps, round up prisoners, and identify and detain suspected war criminals for trial.

There was no excuse - none - for murdering the camp guards.

[JasonC]

I think there is one decent excuse, Mike. It was an act of justice. It was unprofessional and illegal and not due process-ee, and should not be encouraged or repeated, all granted.

But the law is an ass, due process is how decent men tie themselves in knots to the advantage of indecent men, as a safeguard against indecent men in their own places and their own temptations to indecency, and professionalism is equal parts virtue and blind obediance to (usually but not always sound) rules.

I believe it was Eleanor in "A lion in winter" who gets the immortal line "I could peel you like an onion and God himself would call it justice". It was typical hyperbole in her case. Not in this one.

[Dandelion]

Jason

On the Dachau executioners, we agree on the issues of professionalism, legality and due process. On the issue of justice, I dare think Michael might have meant _ probably because I mean - that the tribunal, introducing an impartial party to the conflict and lending defence to the accused, might have stood a better chance at finding a concept of justice stretching beyond reptile reaction and the satisfying of immediate personal urges. And perhaps even execute such justice in a manner not defouling the vastness of the sacrifice made.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[John Kettler]

John D Salt,

My apologies on the misattribution to you of Trap One's post concerning R.V. Jones and sequelae thereto!

Trap One,

It logically follows that what I said to John D Salt on comparative bombing accuracies should've been directed to you. My apologies for responding to the wrong interlocutor. I get lost sometimes when answering so many posts.

I thought I'd found the pertinent quotes (already posted the initial dismal state of things in detail), but apparently need to go back and do some further digging.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 14, 2006, 05:35 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

John D Salt,

I went back to my original Q-ship statement to be sure I had it right, but what I said was that the British use of Q-ships was "the rules turned inside out." On the one hand, the British emphatically insisted that the Germans obey the Stop and Search rules as mandated under the Laws of War, then used this very compliance to ensure the destruction of

U-boats and commerce raiders, meanwhile knowingly and deliberately using their own AMCs, such as the Lusitania, which was designed to carry 6" guns and as previously described was positively known to be carrying considerable war materiel even before she sailed for England, in gross contravention of the same Laws of War the British were so adamant the Germans must obey.

Am no legal expert, but suspect that even the Laws of War as they stood then categorically forbade the deliberate placement of civilians in the path of great destruction, especially when it was not merely foreseeable but had been specifically warned against by a hostile power with whom the vessel's parent nation was at war. As shown here,

the upshot of using people as pawns in this manner is that (sources vary slightly, as seen below) some 1200 passengers and crew, including 124 Americans, died. The first link shows one of the ads the German government ran in an effort to dissuade Americans from taking passage on the Lusitania.

http://www.ralphmag.org/BT/lusitania.html

http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_056900_rmslusitania.htm

I have previously discussed what several involved parties have said of their part in this sordid affair, so won't repeat myself on that score. I will say, though, that not only was this geopolitical maneuver surpassingly callous, but it was then buried in stringent secrecy and encased in howls of official outrage at the sinking of an "innocent passenger liner."

I thus think (not know) that an excellent case could be made for a British warcrime in the Lusitania matter, and I believe that the extraordinary British government hypocrisy exhibited in this and related matters needs to be pointed out.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

John D Salt (and Trap One),

Thanks for the bombing accuracy data. Let me now respond on methodology. My argument has absolutely nothing to do with bomb tonnage dropped, only the CEPs over time. Essentially, I'm saying that if the RAF, per R.V. Jones in the summer of 1941, was getting only one tenth (0.1) of its force within five miles of the target at bomb release, then there was no way, even with accuracy improvements over time, that its average CEPs could hope to match American daylight bombing accuracy, with CEPs, to take your numbers, of ~1000 feet (~0.2 statute miles or 0.12 nautical miles) more or less right out of the starting gate.

When force A bombs through much of the war

with CEPs on the order of miles, and Force B starts out with CEPs of ~1000 feet and keeps on going, I see no way that the average CEP for a force which starts out with ~25 times worse CEP

can ever catch the more accurate force, hence my argument about getting a string of "F"s while trying to earn an "A" average.

I find the difference in defined aimpoints to be telling in the extreme, with, say, a factory for the Americans and an entire city for the British.

Did things progressively get better over time as the various navaids and air-to-surface radars became available and were brought into service with the RAF? Yes!

Over time the CEP improved markedly for night bombing, but I'm saying that looking at the average CEP of the RAF bombing by night from the beginning raid against Wilhelmshaven until the RAF switched to daylight attacks vs. the averge CEPs for American daylight bombing running from the first American raid against Rouen? (think that was it) until VE Day, the average RAF CEPs over the entire campaign by Bomber Command simply can't be even close to those of the Americans, precisely because there was such a huge difference in relative delivery accuracy to begin with.

Just so we're clear, this analysis intentionally

leaves out such things as Tallboy strikes on the U-boat pens and the Tirpitz, 633 Squadron strikes against Gestapo, Grand Slam attack on the Bielefeld viaduct--all daylight ops IIRC--and the known night attack on the Ruhr dams. Am talking about the CEPs of heavy bombers used en masse against assigned targets.

Am not at all sure that it's appropriate to talk about the master bomber concept as being identical

for the two sides. Why? The Americans put massed formations over the target, but the British couldn't do this for fear of major midair collisions at night, relying instead on the "bomber stream" in which a steady flow of aircraft, all separated in carefully defined time, arrived over the target and bombed. The Americans, by contrast, could and did "bomb on the leader," whose plane had the best bombardier available.

As the war progressed and the navaids got better, the British first began target marking

using incendiaries with the goal of helping bombers home in from miles away visually, then progressed to dedicated pathfinders equipped with the famous Christmas Tree long duration flare clusters, which, being ignited way above the target, were much easier to see from a distance, but none of this allowed for the simultaneous drop of the American "bomb on the leader" method. What it did do, though, was to take much of the gross prior aiming error out of the night bombing equation, provided, of course, that the Christmas Tree wasn't shot down, didn't go out or drift off target before enough incendiaries could be dropped to make its presence largely superfluous. This, in turn, became a much less critical issue when the air-to-surface radars H2S and H2X, for example, became available to Bomber Command as a whole, rather than just a few pathfinders.

Regards,

John Kettler

P.S.

Love the Price books! You've probably read the standard ones but may not be aware he's the author of the multivolume HISTORY OF ELECTRONIC WARFARE IN WORLD WAR 2 for the Association of Old Crows, the people who publish the JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC DEFENSE.

[ February 14, 2006, 05:23 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I think there is one decent excuse, Mike. It was an act of justice. It was unprofessional and illegal and not due process-ee, and should not be encouraged or repeated, all granted.

But the law is an ass, due process is how decent men tie themselves in knots to the advantage of indecent men, as a safeguard against indecent men in their own places and their own temptations to indecency, and professionalism is equal parts virtue and blind obediance to (usually but not always sound) rules.

I believe it was Eleanor in "A lion in winter" who gets the immortal line "I could peel you like an onion and God himself would call it justice". It was typical hyperbole in her case. Not in this one.

But it is the very process of tying one's self up in knots to the advantage of an indecent man that gives the decent man the moral authority to judge the indecent.

To paraphrase the (fictional) dialogue from Alec Baldwin's NUREMBERG movie:

Justice Jackson - a fair trial means an uncertain outcome.

Soviet General Ion T. Nikitchenko - you would let a man like Ernst Kaltenbrunner - responsible for the Gestapo and the concentration camps - you would permit a man like this to stand up in the courtroom and declare himself "not guilty"?

Justice Jackson - yes, that is exactly what I would allow.

[John Kettler]

Michel Dorosh,

My cut and paste feature isn't working for some unknown reason, hence can't quote, but I did want to congratulate you on that splendidly turned phrase about knots you just made. Bravo!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by M. Dorosh:

But it is the very process of tying one's self up in knots to the advantage of an indecent man that gives the decent man the moral authority to judge the indecent.

To paraphrase the (fictional) dialogue from Alec Baldwin's NUREMBERG movie:

Justice Jackson - a fair trial means an uncertain outcome.

Soviet General Ion T. Nikitchenko - you would let a man like Ernst Kaltenbrunner - responsible for the Gestapo and the concentration camps - you would permit a man like this to stand up in the courtroom and declare himself "not guilty"?

Justice Jackson - yes, that is exactly what I would allow.

I completely disagree. We require due process in an attempt to avoid miscarriages of justice against the innocent and to protect citizens from the concentration of power in the state. Tying oneself up in procedural niceties does not, in and of itself, confer moral legitimacy.

The process that is due depends on the nature of the situation. In the case of Dachau, I would summarize it as follows:

1) Was the prisoner apprehended at Dachau?

2) If yes, was the prisoner a member of the SS.

If the answer to both is yes, I have a hard time seeing how a summary execution is in any way "unjust".

Justice Jackson's quote demostrates exactly what was wrong with the Nuremburg trials: they were overly legalistic. We created ex post facto laws and then pigeonholed the defendants' conduct into them.

Instead, rather than accusing the defendants of breaking particular laws, the prosecutors should have presented evidence of exactly what the Nazi regime had done and the various defendants' individual roles therein. The defendants should then have had an opportunity to dispute the evidence or to explain why they should not be punished. Then, the court should have decided on a just punishment.

Jackson completely misses the point when he says that a fair trial requires an uncertainty of outcome. Why? If the facts are not in dispute, guilt (or innocence for that matter) should not be in question.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

Posted by M. Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> But it is the very process of tying one's self up in knots to the advantage of an indecent man that gives the decent man the moral authority to judge the indecent.

To paraphrase the (fictional) dialogue from Alec Baldwin's NUREMBERG movie:

Justice Jackson - a fair trial means an uncertain outcome.

Soviet General Ion T. Nikitchenko - you would let a man like Ernst Kaltenbrunner - responsible for the Gestapo and the concentration camps - you would permit a man like this to stand up in the courtroom and declare himself "not guilty"?

Justice Jackson - yes, that is exactly what I would allow.

I completely disagree. We require due process in an attempt to avoid miscarriages of justice against the innocent and to protect citizens from the concentration of power in the state. Tying oneself up in procedural niceties does not, in and of itself, confer moral legitimacy.

The process that is due depends on the nature of the situation. In the case of Dachau, I would summarize it as follows:

1) Was the prisoner apprehended at Dachau?

2) If yes, was the prisoner a member of the SS.

If the answer to both is yes, I have a hard time seeing how a summary execution is in any way "unjust". </font>

[Black Jack Pershing II]

Posted by M. Dorosh:

Probably because you obviously have no concept of what justice actually is.

And if the prisoner in your example was mentally deficient in some way, or worked in the motorpool or kitchen at Dachau, you would still justify shooting him in cold blood?

By that logic, the Japanese soldiers in Hong Kong who bayonetted men lying in hospital beds were justified - they were at war with the British, they found British soldiers in a hospital, and they then killed those British soldiers. The fact that they were lying wounded in a bed is irrelevant.

Slippery slopes tend to be just that. You can't go out and say you're fighting for democracy and justice, and then not practice it. Why fight at all, then? Just to become what you're fighting against? No thanks.

Easy, tiger. If you cannot discern a qualitative difference between executing wounded soldiers in a hospital and executing SS men caught red-handed in a death camp, it is time to recalibrate your antennae.

I have no problem summarily executing anyone affiliated with running Dachau. Do you really think it is an excuse that someone was working in the kitchens doling out substarvation levels of rancid food? Or that he is on sick-leave from the 3d SS-PD, and is recuperating on light duty at the ol' death camp? Or even that he is, God forbid, mentally deficient? I hope for the sake of their immortal souls that they were mentally deficient.

Where does your "slippery slope" lead to? To more summary executions of death camp guards? I wouldn't mind taking a quick jaunt down that slide, and I think humanity would be better, not worse, for it.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Black Jack Pershing II:

I have no problem summarily executing anyone affiliated with running Dachau...Where does your "slippery slope" lead to? To more summary executions of death camp guards? I wouldn't mind taking a quick jaunt down that slide, and I think humanity would be better, not worse, for it.

But where to draw the line of acceptable behavior on our part? If we catch the SS guards in the act of throwing Jewish babies into the ovens then yes, line them up against the wall.

But fast forward 40 years, and he is now a grandfather...