Fire And Fury: The Allied Bombing Of Germany 1942--1945

It's one of the big philosophical questions of the twentieth century given the totality of destruction WWII had on humanity. In "Fire and Fury," scholar and professor Randall Hansen explores the ethical dimension of the use of area bombing by both the axis and the allies during the war.

Hansen begins the book with an anecdote about the controversy over how to memorialize the bomber squadrons that participated in WWII in the Museum of Canada. He asks: "How can we judge the role that bombing played in the Allied victory? What role does morality play in the execution and evaluation of war?" Hansen goes on to quote Goebbles who said: "we all end up as the greatest heroes or the greatest war criminals."

Hansen's central thesis is: the area bombing (aka carpet bombing) of Germany by the allies failed to achieve its primary objective of destroying industrial armament production and in fact prolonged it.

Throughout the body of the book, Hansen explores the rather ambiguous objectives of area bombing. While superficially stated, the purpose was to destroy the German industry, implicitly many Generals interpreted the purpose to destroy public morale. Hansen concludes that Generals such as Curtis LeMay of the US and Sir Arthur Harris of the RAF felt they had carte blanche to "bomb them into the stone age."

The two major events with major moral implications are: why bombing wasn't used to end Auschwitz; and why was the bombing of Dresden so complete?

The first question has been asked many times. Hansen concludes that by Apr 1944, the first documented record of when the Allied leaders became aware of the concentration camps, 95% of the approx 7 million Jews killed had already taken place, so in the end it would not have saved that many. Still, the logic the Generals gave for not bombing Auschwitz was that the bombs were not precise enough and risked killing civilians. So, they turned around and carpet bombed Berlin, then Dresden killing over a half million German civilians, where's the logic in that?

Regarding Dresden, Hansen leaves the most destructive bombing campaign of the European theater for last. The stories are horrific, of babies being burned to death in their mother's arms, the totality of it, really sickening for sure. The complete and utter devastation of Dresden left no doubt that the goal of the bombing campaign all along was the "long striven for goal of destroying the 50 leading industrial cities."

Hansen concludes that the memorialization and historiography of the bombing of Germany tends to justify the bombing of innocent civilians based on the faulty assumptions that it somehow prevented more Jews from being killed, and that it helped to bring the war to an end earlier. I was somewhat disappointed that despite the larger moral questions Hansen begins the book with, he ultimately decides to skirt an answer to this fundamentally philosophical question in his conclusion by sticking by his empirical evidence and simply concludes that it was a "moral and strategic failure." Why not answer the moral question directly: was the bombing a war crime? In not doing so Hansen contradicts himself when he states: "We cannot shy away from this conclusion out of a fear of giving succour to the far right or of offending the RAF."

I thought Hansen supported his thesis well overall though I definitely felt that certain chapters of the book acted more as filler than fully supporting his argument, but for a commercial book, I suppose that is OK.

Overall, I think the book is a decent exploration into one of the larger moral implications of bombing and its use in war, specifically in WWII. I would have to say that a basic background in the war is necessary, otherwise you won't understand the basic sequence of events. Despite a few minor flaws, I recommend "Fire and Fury" for anyone wanting to learn more about WWII.