9 - Where Loyalties Lie: English Catholic Responses to Allied Strategic Bombing in the Second World War

Summary

Obliteration bombing, as defined, is an immoral attack on the rights of the innocent. It includes a direct intent to do them injury. Even if this were not true, it would still be immoral, because no proportionate cause could justify the evil done; and to make it legitimate would soon lead the world to the immoral barbarity of total war.

In 1944, the American Jesuit Fr John C. Ford published an article entitled ‘The Morality of Obliteration Bombing’ which brutally chastised the American and British governments for their approach to strategic bombing. He argued that it was possible for modern war to be waged without the need to resort to ‘obliteration bombing’. To Ford, ‘obliteration bombing’ grossly exacerbated the sufferings of war and blurred the lines between combatants and non-combatants. Although he did not question the morality or justice of fighting the war, Ford strongly criticised how the western Allies were waging it. His article, which emerged just before the allied invasion of France, was a clear sign of dissent from a key aspect of allied strategy. However, other Catholic leaders in allied countries took a very different approach to strategic bombing. In Great Britain, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales refrained from engaging in debates over the morality of bombing. Their reluctance to speak out on this controversial issue revealed that they were more concerned about presenting a united front in support of the British and allied war effort.

The experience of sustained aerial bombardment – by the Luftwaffe, by the pilotless V1 and V2, and even by the Italian air force – has left a clear impression on Britain's collective memory of the war and has embedded itself in popular myth. Historian Mark Connelly wrote that ‘To the average (if there is such a thing) Briton, words such as Dunkirk, Spitfire, Hurricane, Battle of Britain, blitz carry great meaning. They may not have any detailed interest or knowledge of the Second World War, but these words touch a chord in them.’ The experience of being bombed resonated with British civilians, helping to sustain an image of their nation standing defiant in the face of appalling evil. However, the RAF's engagement in the bombing of Germany, Italy and occupied Europe yielded a different perspective, producing what Connelly described as a ‘deep malaise, ignorance and discomfort’.