Talk:Aerial bombing of cities/Archive 1

old comment
should this be merged with strategic bombing? - Omegatron 18:25, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't think so. Strategic bombing mostly refers to level bombing of industrial and military facilities, even if the civilian part of the story is more discussed recently. Bombing of cities is exactly what it says: bombing of civilian targets on purpose. [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 21:59, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Mazatlan
Mazatlan Mexico not the Balkans was the second place to be bombed. The first urban area to be bombed and also the first bombing of civilians though perhaps unintentionally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.107.141.236 (talk) 23:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Death toll for Dresden?
Some anon [ 64.121.8.136, 01:12, 17 September 2004 (UTC)] said: The death toll for Dresden is vastly too high.

Estimates vary. See The 135,000 figure seems to be a German estimate; the 35,000 figure the Allied estimate after the war. Many dodgy revisionist sites quote the 135,000 figure. See Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II for a lengthy argument on the merits and legitimacy of various figures. -- The Anome 12:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364material/chronologies/wwii-bom_3.htm quotes figures from 35,000 to 135,000
 * Bombing of Dresden in World War II says "Estimates vary from 25,000 to more than 135,000 dead"

The Bombing of Dresden in World War II now says: "Earlier reputable estimates varied from 25,000 to more than 60,000, but historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range" and reference it with: The Bombing of Dresden in 1945:Falsification of Statistics, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge. --Philip Baird Shearer 10:52, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Some questions
Interesting article, I just have a couple of quesstions. Should the World War I zeppelin raids on London be counted or were they strategic raids? Could someone translate the writing in the picture for us non-German speakers? Lisiate 21:47, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * And both have been answered in a few days. Many thanks to the contributors. Lisiate 20:02, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is Aerial Bombardment state Terrorism
In paragraph two of this section, it is quoted as saying "The minutes of the meetings of the Target Committee responsible for proposing locations for the are available." This part does not seem to make sense "the are available", but I can't be sure what it should say. --Jack Quack 05:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Expansion on section Inter war years (1919–1938) request
I would like to ask for an expansion on this section. There were more wars than just the Spanish Civil War and more bombarments than just Guernika. --Francisco Valverde 16:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

See the article#section Terror bombing -- There was bombing of villages and towns in colonial :"pasification campaigns" but was there "aerial bombing of cities" between the wars? --Philip Baird Shearer 17:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Merging of Aerial bombing of cities and Terror bombing
As the articles stand, I see them very similar although I understand there are some subtle differences. Perhaps they could both be merged...? --Francisco Valverde 20:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There is a difference, because this article is about cities and the bombing of towns, villages, and the staffing of roads are excluded. But leaving that aside for the moment. I think this needs further discussion before any merge is done because there are about half a dozen articles all much to do with the same thing: See the dormant discussions under Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 18.


 * Personally I think that the "Terror bombing" article should be gutted and an explanation put in that it was a propaganda term popularised by Joseph Goebbels when Germany started to loose the air war. I think that the term inevitably leads to the negative POV that aerial bombing is bad, which is precisely why Goebbels used it. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm removing the proposal tag from the article due to lack of any support for several months (incidentally I oppose the merge FWIW). Tempshill 00:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The German view
Copied from the article page:
 * The following sites concerns respectable information from scientific institutions in Germany. They are not "linkspam"!


 * Bombenkrieg at Historicum.Net Extensive site with large content, maintained by the University of Cologne. (mainly in German)
 * Air Battle of the Ruhr 1939-1945 History of the most important industrial area in Germany in World War II, maintained by the Historisches Centrum Hagen. (mainly in German, with pictures)
 * Hagen 1939-1945 Example for a heavy bombed German town, maintained by the Historisches Centrum Hagen. (mainly in German, with pictures)
 * Mission 854, 28/2/1945 Air raid of the 8th USAAF on the railroad yards in Hagen, 28. February 1945. (in Germyn, with pictures)

Personally I see no point in having these links on the article page, as they are not used in citations and are only background reading and they are in German. If they should go anywhere it is on a German page like Flächenbombardement, about this subject which would then be crossed linked in the usual way --Philip Baird Shearer 18:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * These sites are non-specific and have been inserted in multiple articles by an IP. Overlooking them, only the first (bombenkrieg.historicum.net) meets scientific criterias. As far as I could see none of the rest offers further reading. All of them are in German and there are enough English links, so I think we should avoid them. --jergen 19:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

User:84.187.111.99 and User:145.254.97.88 inserted this non-specific link into about 20 articles. As far as I see it, this is no recommendation for this website. --jergen 08:37, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the VL Zeitgeschichte is the main source for WW II in Germany. "The Virtual Library Contemporary History is part of the History Network at the European University Institute in Florenz. The contents of the catalogue are concentrated on the history of Germany (1890-1949). The Virtual Library History is the oldest catalog in the Internet, founded in March 1993 by Lynn Nelson at the University of Kansas, USA. Since September 1993 this catalog is part of the WWW Virtual Library. The VL Contemparary History is maintained by Ralf Blank at the Historisches Centrum Hagen, Germany." http://www.vl-zeitgeschichte.de Even if the linking a little professionally took place should the VL contemporary history under Web on the left of remain. The publishers can do finally nothing for it if people her here left. --Scholl 20:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC) --Scholl 21:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The links are specific, but you are not able to read German and your horizon is too small ;-) Most of Germans are able to read English. We have no problem with foreign languages. This fact is very interest. Are the Americans ungebildetet and more superficial than the Germans? Apology, but if I read your statements and evaluations, this statement forces itself upon me. --Scholl 10:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Was steht auf der Seite von "jergen": Deutsch als Muttersprache. Ich denke mal, jergen hat hinsichtlich der Sprachen etwas mehr auf dem Kasten als Du denkst ... --Scholl 10:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I personally think that you only want to impose your vision or side of the story, and censore what is true, that what the british, and later, the americans did to germany, and europe, was a crime, or how would you put it, aaah yes, crime againts humanity, right?. See the photos and see what your fathers did to the world, and understand why many, almost all eurpean nations hate america. {{subst:unsigned2|20:31, 11 June 2007|148.245.246.116}

World War I : Bombardment of civilians
Maybe this is some form of bias, but I know that my hometown of Antwerp, Belgium was bombarded by Zeppelin(s) in the night of August 23 1914. Liege, also a garrison town, was bombed by Zeppelin on August 9th, but that could have been a tactical bombardment (i.e. support of ground troops) The argument could be made that Antwerp was a garrison-town and strategically important as a port during that period, but as far as I know the German troops hadn't advanced that far in Belgium (war having been declared in the beginning of the month) so the bombardment was aimed at terrorising civilians. I therefor would suggest that the entry is modified and that the first bombardment of civilians isn't London 1915 but Antwerp 1914.

Any arguments pro and contra anyone?Efrasnel 20:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Efrasnel (talk • contribs) 17:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Great Yarmouth was bombed because it was the principle port for British troops embarking for the Western Front. If you have a reliable source that contradicts the first claim with civilians killed then please add it. It is a shame that the current information has been in Wikipedia so long that in the days it was initially added to Wikipedia adding citations was the exception rather than the rule. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:46, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Found the souce in Aviation in World War I so I have added it to this article. But it is not the most authoratiative source I have ever seen, so if you have another one we can add "civilians in Britain" to this article. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * More information on the bombing of Antwerp. In the night of 24-25 of August, the Stadswaag (a square in the centre of Antwerp) was bombed by a Zeppelin. A few people, including a police constable, died. The attack was a "revenge" for the bombing of the Zeppelin base at Dusseldorf by ther Royal Flying Corps. I hesitate editing the entry becaues this information comes from a book, published in Dutch (75 jaar luchtvaart Antwerpen / Ghoos, J.D. - Antwerpen : De Vlijt, 1984.)The story of the bombing is on page 31. There is an illustration, but there is a copyright by the Stadsarchief Antwerpen Efrasnel 21:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

What about Beirut?
The city was bombed in 1982, 1993, 1996, and 2006 but it seems no one mentions it. Robin Hood 1212 15:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

A number of villages, towns and built up urban areas were hit during the Korean war. This should be included.

--Avimimus (talk) 19:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Instead of detailing the bombing of Cologne
...it should be for example mentioned the Soviet bombing of Helsinki (then widely protested). --84.234.60.154 (talk) 23:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Recent large-scale edits
I reverted the numerous new edits by User:84.234.60.154; the first thing I noticed was the new lead sentence was missing essential commas, alerting me to a possible lack of expertise in editing. After that, I noticed the first bombing of a city was taken from the beginning of the article making the first mention be the second city getting bombed. I'm sure your ideas about the article are valid, but please discuss any large-scale edits before digging in, rewriting the lead and throwing sections around. It's true this article can use improvement. Let's start a conversation. Binksternet (talk) 00:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I actually ended cleaning up this article. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Now. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

What it still needs is the German bombing of USSR and the Allied bombing outside Germany (like destruction of Caen). --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

And maybe Yugoslav Army in Croatia. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

And I guess also some other conflicts I can't think about now (not notable enough? maybe). --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Please add citations to the information you added. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Taking this to talk page
WHAT. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 01:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I would advise you to take a less confrontational approach to editing. You were making large scale changes (including significant deletions) to an article without any talk page discussion or any edit summaries, except for confrontational ones like ""Turkish camp" is not city (als **** off)". That kind of editing style will not get you very far here. Binksternet simply asked you to discuss the changes you were making. You will often have to justify large scale changes rather than simply edit warring over them and then posting "I actually ended cleaning up this article" when you are finished. Wikipedia works by consensus and you need to respect that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * So, let's talk about Turkish camp not being a city. I have no idea how close to a 'city' the camp was. Where is Ain Zara, Libya? How built up was it? What was the closest civilian dwelling to the target site? Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Mazatlan or Tripoli?

 * In the Mazatlan section, it says that "Mazatlan then got the distinction of being the 2nd city in the world after Tripoli"... implying that Tripoli was bombed. Is this merely referring to Ain Zara or was Tripoli actually bombed? If so, there should be a section written about bombing Tripoli. Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Arab-Israeli conflict
Arab and/or Israeli cities were also bombed in the previous wars, right? I'm not expert on these. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 10:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Aerial bombing since World War II - Korean War

 * '' There were also plans to use nuclear weapons against North Korea and the People's Republic of China.

I miss citation/reference to support that claim, else its just conspiration theory 62.47.148.100 (talk) 02:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Korean War lol. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 02:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Terror bombing
I have rewritten the article on Terror bombing shifting the emphasis from yet another article on aerial bombardment to focus on the use of the term. For those of you developing this article there may be some useful sections or sources contained with the terror bombing article before I reworked it. Terror bombing (at 16:23, 16 May 2009) --PBS (talk) 10:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Moral and ethical arguments
The article needs a discussion of the moral and ethical arguments on aerial bombing. Currently it lacks any of that and only has a brief mention of international law. Tempshill (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Aerial bombing of troops (Italo-Turkish War) versus a city (Mazatlan)
This is a glaring error at the very start of the article. If the section is a history of the aerial bombardment of cities, then Mazatlan is the first instance of that. I don't see why this should be a difficult issue, but I am mentioning it here before editing out or revising the subsection. I think a major problem with this article is that editors may want to write on matters not covered by the article's title, since the title is, frankly, oddly restrictive and just not intuitive. Why 'of cities'? Bombing of 'towns', though, can be discussed, but perhaps not 'villages'? Why not 'aerial bombardment of civilians' as an alternative title, to contrast with 'aerial bombardment' in general, or as a specific military tactic?Haberstr (talk) 21:02, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * In most cases civilians are not targeted (very difficult to see them in the dark from 20,000 feet) what are targeted are static targets within cities or until weapon delivery systems became more accurate the cities themselves. In this case cities and towns are interchangeable as the traditional designation of a city having a cathedral (or is it 5 MacDonalds?) is arbitrary. --PBS (talk) 22:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * By the way, I realize you (like me) are trying to figure out how to be all-inclusive without having 5 or 6 main articles semi-duplicating each other. In any case, I didn't mention targeting, but certainly there are words from the planners that demoralizing and dehousing civilians was the intent of area bombardment by Britain. I don't know if we have that for the Nazi attacks in Guernica, but what happened seemed to involve low-level bombardment and strafing where the 'bombers' could see what they were doing. It would usually (but not always) be unwise for an article on 'aerial bombardment of civilians' to speculate much on motive; often readers can be shown results and can speculate on their own whether civilians were targeted. About the cities includes towns but perhaps not villages: the British bombed villages during the 1920 Iraq revolt, so that could be legitimately alleged as terror bombing but would not be allowed into this 'aerial bombing of cities (and towns)" article.Haberstr (talk) 22:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Terror Bombing
Talk:Terror_bombing All contributions to the current discussion would be welcome. Sherzo (talk) 12:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Area bombardment

 * ''SOMEONE CHALLENGE THE NEUTRALITY OF THIS ARTICLE PLEASE!!! Iraqi civilians were killed by "aerial bombardment of cites"?!?  Would whoever posted this please look up the definition of bombardment??  Nothing but super-precise, laser-guided Tomahawk missiles were used in Iraq--to pinpoint SPECIFIC targets (the OPPOSITE of bombardment).  Also, the 10,000 figure is total B.S.  That's almost half the number killed in Hamburg during WWII (which actually WAS bombarded, with the express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible).

I removed the above recent addition because the author seems confused between "Aerial bombing of cities" and "Aerial Area bombardment" of cities.
 * I agree that the 10,000 figure needs a source.
 * But Hamburg was not bombed with the "express purpose of killing as many civilians as possible". It was that "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers" Air Ministry directive issued to RAF Bomber Command on 14th February 1942 Philip Baird Shearer 12:17, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think you are a little bit "blue-eyed" - the consequence out of: "Operations should now be focussed on the morale of the enemy civilian population and in particular, the industrial workers" was to attack the residential areas of Hammerbrook, Hamm, Eilbek etc. etc. to destroy their homes, but these houses were occuppied by civilians - therefore the task was to kill as many civilians as possible - I invite you to show you around here in Hamburg - which areas had been bombed.

Citius Altius Fortius 08:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Semantics, Lord Cherwell and Churchill, explicity said that they wanted to germany to become smoldering ruins, the way that you siad it is everithing, but still it dosent change the fact that the were responsible for the death of thousens of innocent civilians, to focuse on the moral of the enemy civilians, that is totally againts the international ruling of war, to involved in military operations the death of inocent civilians. Erick Muller 14:16, 11 June 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.245.246.116 (talk • contribs) 20:31, 11 June 2007


 * Actually the rationale behind the Area Bombing of the German cities was a policy known as de-housing, and meant what it said. The intended effect was to burn out the housing of the workers in the industrial areas leaving the German Government with a massive housing problem, which would demand considerable resources to be transferred from other areas of the Nazi war economy, i.e., armaments, etc. Whether the workers were present at the time of the attacks was immaterial, evacuation of these civilian workers to safer areas being a matter for the German Government, and not under the control of the British.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.96.202 (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Hugo Sperrle
An article called "Bomber Boys: Good men doing an ugly job" by Patrick Bishop, in BBC History magazine Vol 8 no 3, March 2007 page 17 first paragraph, states that:
 * Hugo Sperrle, commander of the German Air Fleet Three, was not charged at the Nuremberg trials with war crimes relating to the Blitz, for fear of drawing attention to the damage done to German Cities.

Patrick Bishop who writes in the Daily Telegraph has written a book called "Bomber Boys: Fighting back 1940-45" that is scheduled to be published in April 2007. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * This conflicts with our articles on Sperrle and the High Command Trial where Sperrle was indicted on four counts but was found not guilty. The High Command Trial article links to the UN law report of the case and indeed Sperrle was a defendant. I think Bishop is wrong on this point. Lisiate 22:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

AFAICT he was tried for other war crimes not the Blitz: see talk:Hugo Sperrle for the full quote by Jörg Friedrich about this: "who as commander in chief of German Air Fleet 3 led the bombing of London and Coventry. ... But Taylor did not even charge him with that bloody act ... If Charles Portal or Hugo Sperrle had run amok through Berlin or London with a machine gun, then Taylor would of course have charged him for the action. At least that is what he later wrote. According to the legal position in Nuremberg, it was not the willful killing of noncombatants that determined the crime, but the direction of fire. The horizontal fire of a machine gun is illegal; the vertical direction of the bomb munitions, on the other hand, is legal" --Philip Baird Shearer 20:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * He couldn't have been charged with War Crimes for attacking London, Coventry or elsewhere - it wasn't actually illegal to attack defended cities, only undefended ones. This is why Göring wasn't charged at Nuremburg for the Luftwaffe's attacks on the UK either. The UK and German cities were all defended, either by AA guns (Flak) or fighters, or, more usually, both. If a city or town was liable to be attacked from the air then it was the responsibility of the governing power to evacuate the civilian personnel to a place of safety, out of harm's way. The UK did this for children in 1940 - see Children's Overseas Reception Board. For whatever reasons, the German Government didn't.


 * As regards Sperrle not being charged with 'War Crimes' for 'fear of drawing attention to the damage done to German Cities.' I can assure you that in the then-prevailing Allied attitude to the Germans the majority of people felt the Germans got what they deserved, and quite frankly, didn't give a shit about the German citys, the majority having too many more pressing concerns on their minds, such as trying to pick-up their lives from where they had been so rudely interrupted in 1939. The fact that the British in the very bad Winter of 1945/6 sent to Germany food that they could hardly spare themselves, to help the German people, says a lot about the 'evil' British.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.96.202 (talk) 21:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)