What are they shooting at?

[Napalm]

I couldn't see as to what they were shooting at. Not a sign of a flack emplacement or Herr Troppen anywhere. Where they just pissing off the local populace?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c62_1265144784

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=248_1265143879

[busterz111]

Nice Vids

Actually they used to Overfly the area and allways checked for Targets.It didnt take much for them to get down and fire on stuff.End of the war,Hit anything that moved.Most likely there was a Bit of Harassing nut the Good Majority were military Targets.

[JG 51]

Nice Vids

Actually they used to Overfly the area and allways checked for Targets.It didnt take much for them to get down and fire on stuff.End of the war,Hit anything that moved.Most likely there was a Bit of Harassing nut the Good Majority were military Targets.

Yepp, thats is tragic and part of the allied war crimes

[scotty1418]

I believe there were plenty of situations allied planes strafed anything and everything.

My friend's grandfather was caught in the midst of one of these as a young boy caught out in a farm field.

[NZMark]

Indeed - plenty of indiscriminate strafing took place.
One of my co-workers in the mid 90's had an uncle who was in a POW camp in Poland (taken POW in Crete) along with his brother. When finally liberated those with shoes were made to walk back, those without managed to get a lift on a train. The train was strafed by US fighters and his uncle killed along with several other KIWI troops...days after the end of the war.
Regards,
Mark

[hucks216]

Quite possibly part of Operation Clarion which was designed to destroy German lines of communications and morale.
As for it being an Allied War Crime, if they were going to prosecute pilots for this then the vast majority of fighter pilots from all sides would of had to of been prosecuted.

[Gran Sasso]

Yepp, thats is tragic and part of the allied war crimes

My friend´s mother and grandmother were attacked by allied planes while working on a field in spring of 1945 - altough only women were present.

[JG 51]

As for it being an Allied War Crime, if they were going to prosecute pilots for this then the vast majority of fighter pilots from all sides would of had to of been prosecuted.

Back in those days the winners war crime were judged as a fight for freedom, and in most cases still are. Of course the nazis did horrible things, but so did the allies. A lot of documentary's for instance discuss the bombings of Hamburg, Dresden etc. as if Hitler did not care about it and won´t even mention that the bombings actually were a terrible act. Of course he cared, otherwise he would not starting to bomb London in the first place which was nothing compared what the allies would do later in the war. I just want a more nuanced debate

[hucks216]

... Of course he cared, otherwise he would not starting to bomb London in the first place which was nothing compared what the allies would do later in the war. I just want a more nuanced debate

Let's be honest here - the ONLY reason that The Blitz and other bombing raids on Britain, and for that case Rotterdam, Warsaw, Belgrade etc etc, (as terrible as they all were) were not of the scale of Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim and countless other British & American raids on Germany was because Germany didn't have the ability to mount raids on that scale not because of any sense of morality.

[JG 51]

Let's be honest here - the ONLY reason that The Blitz and other bombing raids on Britain, and for that case Rotterdam, Warsaw, Belgrade etc etc, (as terrible as they all were) were not of the scale of Hamburg, Dresden, Pforzheim and countless other British & American raids on Germany was because Germany didn't have the ability to mount raids on that scale not because of any sense of morality.

I agree, I never said the nazis had any moral. My point is that it goes for the allies as well.

[tracman]

I agree, I never said the nazis had any moral. My point is that it goes for the allies as well.

Wow.

As happened in WW1, when the power of artillery and machine guns overwhelmed military ethicists abilities to deal with the consequences, air power's inherent capacities for destruction completely outstripped many's ability to deal with the consequences. Even casual research shows that there were concerns raised during deliberations of various doctrines developed in the 1920s and 30s regarding air combat and aerial bombing: suffice it to say, however, that the Germans began the concept of using destruction as an end in and of itself to frighten civilians, a trend which arguably started with the destruction of Louvain in 1914, and which continued in early WW2, with the idea that destroying cities and targeting civlians - albeit in a specific, targeted manner, would scare populations to Germany's tactical advantage.

Allied use of aerial bombing went through significant periods of moral hand-wringing: if you want to read a very good book that details this and offers an excellent bibliography, look at Max Hasting's "Bomber Command." Certainly, early efforts by the Allies were based on destroying physical infrastructure supporting the war: factories, refineries, etc.... The moral slippery slope began when those working those factories, civilians all, began to be seen by some as legitimate targets: this was a clear moral failure, and there is no doubt at all that there were many in the Allied camp who were at odds with this and who questioned its value. The reaction of many Allied soldiers and airmen when they finally got into Germany and saw the destruction was quite telling in that respect.

There were also large scale conceptual failures, such as the belief that carpet bombing would seriously affect local tactical issues. The failure of carpet bombing to destroy defenses arrayed in depth, as evidenced during such operations as Casino, Charnwood, Goodwood, Tractable, and Totalize, not to mention the destruction of many other cities due to their being important crossroads (Vire, St. Lo, Villers Bocage, Aunay sur Odon, etc....) without affecting German ability to simply bypass the ruins, was not really fully realized until after combat had taken place.

There is no doubt that, by mid-late 1944, the Allies means to destroy their Axis enemy had overcome their ability to fully realize the moral consequences of their actions, and fighter pilots zooming at low altitude had split seconds, if that, to determine if a potential target was civilian or military. It appears in that respect that many moral qualms went out the proverbial window. There is no doubt at all that thousands and thousands of civilians, if not millions, were needlessly killed by Allied efforts, and that priceless culture was destroyed for no valid military reason. Fact is, though, this was in hindsight. The Allies, at least the Anglo-American ones, broadly did not subscribe to the notion of killing innocents to scare others into submission, something the Nazi regime did espouse and something Soviet propagandists called for as well during WW2. It's interesting to talk to older Germans, to include those who fled in front of the advancing Soviets, all of whom (at least the ones I've talked to in the past 20+ years) state that they ran towards Allied lines because they knew, deep down inside, that Anglo-American Allies did not make it a policy of murdering civilians or deliberately targeting them.

There were clear moral failings on both sides: it's rather clear who was involved in the systematic violation of basic moral principles.

[JG 51]

Wow.

As happened in WW1, when the power of artillery and machine guns overwhelmed military ethicists abilities to deal with the consequences, air power's inherent capacities for destruction completely outstripped many's ability to deal with the consequences. Even casual research shows that there were concerns raised during deliberations of various doctrines developed in the 1920s and 30s regarding air combat and aerial bombing: suffice it to say, however, that the Germans began the concept of using destruction as an end in and of itself to frighten civilians, a trend which arguably started with the destruction of Louvain in 1914, and which continued in early WW2, with the idea that destroying cities and targeting civlians - albeit in a specific, targeted manner, would scare populations to Germany's tactical advantage.

Allied use of aerial bombing went through significant periods of moral hand-wringing: if you want to read a very good book that details this and offers an excellent bibliography, look at Max Hasting's "Bomber Command." Certainly, early efforts by the Allies were based on destroying physical infrastructure supporting the war: factories, refineries, etc.... The moral slippery slope began when those working those factories, civilians all, began to be seen by some as legitimate targets: this was a clear moral failure, and there is no doubt at all that there were many in the Allied camp who were at odds with this and who questioned its value. The reaction of many Allied soldiers and airmen when they finally got into Germany and saw the destruction was quite telling in that respect.

There were also large scale conceptual failures, such as the belief that carpet bombing would seriously affect local tactical issues. The failure of carpet bombing to destroy defenses arrayed in depth, as evidenced during such operations as Casino, Charnwood, Goodwood, Tractable, and Totalize, not to mention the destruction of many other cities due to their being important crossroads (Vire, St. Lo, Villers Bocage, Aunay sur Odon, etc....) without affecting German ability to simply bypass the ruins, was not really fully realized until after combat had taken place.

There is no doubt that, by mid-late 1944, the Allies means to destroy their Axis enemy had overcome their ability to fully realize the moral consequences of their actions, and fighter pilots zooming at low altitude had split seconds, if that, to determine if a potential target was civilian or military. It appears in that respect that many moral qualms went out the proverbial window. There is no doubt at all that thousands and thousands of civilians, if not millions, were needlessly killed by Allied efforts, and that priceless culture was destroyed for no valid military reason. Fact is, though, this was in hindsight. The Allies, at least the Anglo-American ones, broadly did not subscribe to the notion of killing innocents to scare others into submission, something the Nazi regime did espouse and something Soviet propagandists called for as well during WW2. It's interesting to talk to older Germans, to include those who fled in front of the advancing Soviets, all of whom (at least the ones I've talked to in the past 20+ years) state that they ran towards Allied lines because they knew, deep down inside, that Anglo-American Allies did not make it a policy of murdering civilians or deliberately targeting them.

There were clear moral failings on both sides: it's rather clear who was involved in the systematic violation of basic moral principles.

Thanks for a intresting and insightful answer . A lot of aspects are coverd. But I do think that one aspect of the anglo-allied bombings were directed against the civillians. During the war bombing citys were partly used to lower the moral of the germans which is a form of scaring civilians to submission. The mistreating of civillians continued after the war as well with an overall feeling of "make the germans suffer" at least til somewhere around 1947 when the Americans realized the value of Germany in the cold war.

[Gary T]

Yepp, thats is tragic and part of the allied war crimes

Back in those days the winners war crime were judged as a fight for freedom, and in most cases still are.

Tell me one German fighter pilot, bomber pilot ot Stuka pilot who was tried or considered a war criminal for strafing or bombing civilian targets?

[JG 51]

Tell me one German fighter pilot, bomber pilot ot Stuka pilot who was tried or considered a war criminal for strafing or bombing civilian targets?

No one, what has that got to do with anything? Killing civilians in that way still is a crime against humanity. And that goes for both sides but since the winners writes history we tend not to see the allies actions as war crimes which I think we should to make history more nuanced. We hear a lot about the terror of Stuka and so forth but not that much about the pointless terror of American bombers.

[Gran Sasso]

No one, what has that got to do with anything? Killing civilians in that way still is a crime against humanity. And that goes for both sides but since the winners writes history we tend not to see the allies actions as war crimes which I think we should to make history more nuanced. We hear a lot about the terror of Stuka and so forth but not that much about the pointless terror of American bombers.

Good point - from end 1944 to the end of the war they kept on bombing, just because they had to get rid of their bombs. Without any military logic.

Wasnt it Churchil or his "pet" Harris who stated "Bomb the germas back into the stone-age"? This tells all.