Aerial bombing of cities

The aerial bombing of cities became a common tactic in World War II.

Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912

The very first aerial act of aggression occurred during the Italian-Turkish War of 1911-1912 in North Africa. Italy had been using aircraft to monitor enemy troop movements and search for Turkish artillery positions. One Italian pilot, a Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti, realized that the aircraft could be used for more than simple reconnaissance. The event occurred over a Turkish camp at Ain Zara in Libya on 1 November 1911. Lt. Gavotti was flying his Taube monoplane at an altitude of 600 ft (185 m) when he took four small 4.5 lb (2 kg) grenades from a leather pouch, screwed in the detonators he had carried aboard in his pocket, and threw each bomb over the side by hand. Although no one was injured and little damage was done, Lt. Gavotti earned his place in history for conducting the first aerial bombing raid ever recorded.

Balkan Wars

The second ever aerial bombardment was on October 16, 1912 by a Bulgarian military aircraft during the Balkan Wars. The aircraft was German built Albatros F-2. The pilot Radul Milkov and an observer named Prodan Tarakchiev flew on a reconnaissance mission over the Turkish army’s positions in Edirne. During the flight, the pilot and observer dropped bombs placed in specially designed compartments outside the aircraft. The bombs were dropped over a Turkish military base.

World War I

The first ever aerial bombardment of civilians was on January 19, 1915, in which two German Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on the English towns of Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, Kings Lynn, and the surrounding villages. In all, four people were killed, sixteen injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740, although the public and media reaction were out of proportion to the death toll.

London was accidentally bombed in May, and, in July 1916, the Kaiser allowed directed raids against urban centres. There were 23 airship raids in 1916 in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defences improved. In 1917 and 1918 there were only eleven Zeppelin raids against England, and the final raid occurred on August 5 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser, commander of the German Naval Airship Department. By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. It has been argued that the raids were effective far beyond material damage in diverting and hampering wartime production, and diverting twelve squadrons and over 10,000 men to air defences.

Picasso's "Guernica"

Inter war years (1919–1938)

Between the wars, the British used aerial bombing as a counter-insurgency tactic in Iraq and India's north west frontier.

During the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists under Francisco Franco made extensive use of aerial bombing on civilian targets. Nazi Germany gave aircraft to Franco to support the overthrow of the Spanish Republican government. The first major example of this came in November 1936, when German and Spanish aircraft pounded Republican held Madrid from November 19-23. This bombardment was sustained throughout the Siege of Madrid (1936-39). Barcelona and Valencia were also targeted in this way. On April 26, 1937, the German Luftwaffe (Condor Legion) bombed the Spanish city of Guernica carrying out the most high profile aerial attack of the war. This act caused world-wide revulsion and was the subject of a famous painting by Picasso, but by the standards of bombings during World War Two, casualties were fairly minor, estimates ranging from 500 to 1500. However, it remains significant as it was the first-ever saturation bombing of a civilian population.

World War II

For detailed articles see Aerial bombing during World War II and Strategic bombing during World War II

The remains of German town of Wesel after intensive allied area bombing in 1945 (destruction rate 97% of all buildings)

At the beginning World War II, the bombing of cities was a normal practice of the German Luftwaffe.In the first stages of war, the Germans carried out mainly massive indiscriminate bombings of towns and cities in Poland (1939), with Wieluń being the first city destroyed by 75%. Later the tactics was used against Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1940. After the German victory in France, Great Britain came into the German focus. In the beginning, predominantly as part of the preparation for the invasion of England (Operation Sealion), a 3-step air campaign was launched. In the first step British air defense installations were attacked (airfields, Sector stations, radar stations and depots). In the second step the attacks concentrated on aircraft factories, main supply harbors, communication centers and railroad installations in southern England. During that time the RAF started relatively small-size counterattacks on cities in the Ruhr Area, on Berlin and Munich. The 3rd-step, the tactical close air support of the invasion, of the proposed German air force operations against England was not carried out, because Hitler dropped the invasion plans. After that, the Luftwaffe carried out an intensive bombing of cities in Britain, including London and Coventry to weaken the morale of the population, in a bombing campaign known in Britain as "the Blitz", from September 1940 through to May 1941 with the goal of forcing Great Britain into agreeing to peace without carrying out an invasion.

In response, the British started intensive night air raids on Berlin and other cities. In 1942 a new area bombing directice was given to the RAF. In this directice the goals of the British attacks were defined. The primary goal was the so called moral bombing, to weaken the will of the civil population to resist. Following ths directive an intensive bombing of highly populated city centers and working class quarters started. On 30 May 1942, between 00:47 and 02:25 hours, in Operation Millennium 1,046 aircraft dropped over 2,000 tons of high explosive and incendaries on the medieval town of Cologne and burned it from end to end. The devastation was total. The fires could be seen 600 miles away at an altitude of 20,000 feet. Three thousand, three hundred, houses destroyed, 10,000 damaged. Twelve thousand separate fires raged destroying 36 factories, damaging 270 more and leaving 45,000 people with nowhere to live or work. Only 384 civilians and 85 soldiers were killed, but thousands left the city. Bomber Command lost 40 aircraft.

Two further Thousand-bomber raids were executed over Essen and Bremen, but neither so utterly shook both sides as the scale of the destruction at Cologne. The effects of the massive raids using a combination of Blockbuster bombs and incendiaries created firestorms in some cites. The most extreme examples of which were caused by Operation Gomorrah the attack on Hamburg (45,000 dead), attack on Kassel (10,000 dead), the attack on Darmstadt (12,500 dead), the attack on Pforzheim (21,200 dead), the attack on Swinemuende (23,000 dead) and the attack on Dresden (35,000 dead). U.S. bombers operating in the Pacific War created the same firestorms in Japanese cities such as Tokyo (120,000 dead).

File:FirestormHamburg.jpg

Firestorm in Hamburg. The picture was taken in the closely settled working class quarter of Hammerbrock during the attack .

In 1943, Hamburg was heavily damaged by the firebombing of Operation Gomorrah. In the final stage of the war, the United Kingdom and the United States used fire-bomb attacks on Dresden during February 13-February 15, 1945, creating a firestorm which together with the bombing itself killed 25,000–35,000 citizens (although Nazi propaganda figures at the time, and sometimes still quoted as correct, were as high as 250,000. The U.S. Bombing of Tokyo in World War II killed 83,000 persons, the bombing of Kobe killed another 8,800 and the nuclear weapon attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed at least 70,000 in each city.

Aerial bombing had the practical effect of equating the citizens of a country with those who made the decision to take that country to war. However, it is clear that not all citizens of Germany were Nazis; in fact there was an active German resistance which, with the help of the Abwehr, Germany's intelligence organization, carried out several attempts on Hitler's life. Similarly in Japan, although allegiance to the emperor was strong, even within the ranks of the military there were many who strongly objected to an attack on Pearl Harbor and to war with America in general.

The widespread use of the tactic of bombing civilian populations in World War II is a major reason that historians consider it a total war.

The Cold War

During the Cold War, the threat of destruction of cities by nuclear weapons carried on bombers or ICBMs became the main instrument of the balance of terror that allegedly kept the United States and Soviet Union from open warfare with one another. See mutual assured destruction.

Aerial bombing since World War II

During the Vietnam War the United States from 1965 to 1968 conducted an aerial campaign known as Operation Rolling Thunder. The campaign began with interdiction of supply lines in rural areas of southern North Vietnam but incrementally spread northward throughout the country. On June 29, 1966 restrictions against bombing the capital city of Hanoi and the country's largest port, Haiphong were lifted, and they were bombed by the United States Air Force and Navy [1]. The bombing of their city centres continued to be prohibited by "circles of restriction around Hanoi and Haiphong"[2].

The United States has bombed city areas during a number of military operations, including Tripoli (1986), Belgrade (Kosovo War 1999) and Baghdad (1991 and 2003). These attacks were made using precision-guided munitions (or "smart bombs") and cruise missiles. Following the September 11, 2001 attack the United States attacked the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, bombing urban areas, military bases and mountainous regions, with some estimates of deaths amounting to 5000.

During the US-led invasion of Iraq and the US-led occupation of Iraq, targets in many Iraqi urban areas were bombed by the U.S. and the Royal Air Force. During the invasion the US and Britain's stated objectives were Iraqi military and government targets and the Iraqi head-of-state, Saddam Hussein. During the post-invasion conflict their stated objective was to target terrorists / the Iraqi insurgency entrenched in cities as a part of urban warfare. Some sources claim that over 10,000 civilians have been killed as a result of this bombing.

In all of these instances the United States government maintained that it has a policy of striking only militarily-significant targets while doing all possible to avoid what it terms "collateral damage" to non-military areas and persons.

See strategic bombing for a more thorough treatment of this subject.

Aerial bombardment and international law

International law up to 1945

International law relating to aerial bombardment before and during World War II rests on the treaties of 1864, 1899, 1907 which constituted the definition of most of the laws of at that time. The most relevant of these treaties are the Hague Conventions of 1907 because they were the last treaties ratified before 1939 which specify the laws of war on aerial bombardment. Of these treaties there are two which have a direct bearing on this issue of bombardment. These are "Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18 1907" and "Laws of War: Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War (Hague IX); October 18 1907". It is significant that there is a different treaty which should be invoked for bombardment of land by land (Hague IV) and of land by sea (Hague IX). Hague IV which reaffirmed and updated Hague II (1899) contains the following clauses:

Article 25: The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited.

Article 26: The Commander of an attacking force, before commencing a bombardment, except in the case of an assault, should do all he can to warn the authorities.

Article 27: In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as possible edifices devoted to religion, art, science, and charity, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes.

The besieged should indicate these buildings or places by some particular and visible signs, which should previously be notified to the assailants.

In 1923 a draft convention, promoted by the United States was proposed: The Hague Rules of Air Warfare, December, 1922-February, 1923" , There are number of articles which would have directly affected how nations used aerial bombardment and defended against it; these are articles 18, 22 and 24. It was, however, never adopted in legally binding form .

In response to a League of Nations declaration against bombardment from the air, a draft convention in Amsterdam of 1938 would have provided specific definitions of what constituted a "undefended" town, excessive civilian casualties and appropriate warning. This draft convention makes the standard of being undefended quite high - any military units or anti-aircraft within the radius qualifies a town as defended. This convention, like the 1923 draft, was not ratified, nor even close to being ratified, when hostilities broke out in Europe. While the two conventions offer a guideline to what the belligerent powers were considering before the war, neither document was legally binding.

After the war the judgement of the Nuremberg Trials, the records the decision that by 1939 these rules laid down in the 1907 Hague Convention were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as declaratory of the laws and customs of war. Under this post-war decision, a country did not have to have ratified the 1907 Hague conventions in order to be bound by them.

The legality of the status of area bombardment in during World War II rested on the language of 1899 and 1907, from a time before aerial mass bombardment was possible — language which, despite repeated diplomatic attempts, was not updated in the immediate run up to the conflict.

In examining these events [Anti-city strategy/blitz] in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war.

International law since 1945

In the post war environment, a series of treaties governing the laws of war were adopted starting in 1949. These Geneva Conventions would come into force, in no small part, because of a general reaction against the practices of the Second World War. In 1977 Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva conventions.

The International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion in July 1996 on the Legality of the Threat Or Use Of Nuclear Weapons

See also

• Terror bombing
• Strategic bombing survey
• Air supremacy
• Siege of Warsaw (1939)

References

• Charles Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés, Editions Pedone, Paris, 1983
• Francisco Javier Guisández Gómez, a colonel in the Spanish Air Force ICRC: "The Law of Air Warfare"