Wings of Judgment American Bombing in World War II

by Schaffer, Ronald

• ISBN13: 9780195056402
• ISBN10: 019505640X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-09-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

World War II--"the good war"--is here viewed from a new angle of vision, one that sheds fresh light on how major decisions were reached. More than just a book on the strategy and outcome of American bombing in World War II, Wings of Judgment tells about choices in war, decisions that determined whether hundreds of thousands of people lived or died and whether famous cities and great monuments of civilization survived or were destroyed. It is about the bombing of Dresden and Berlin and of dozens of cities and towns all over Germany and about the preservation of Rome and Florence. It is about the incineration of Tokyo, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the sparing of one of Japan's most beautiful and holy places, the city of Kyoto. Describing U.S. air raids that terrified inhabitants of enemy nations and citizens of enemy-occupied countries, it raises serious questions about the military and moral effects of American bombing. It also tells of American efforts to avoid killing civilians needlessly. Taking us behind the scenes at military headquarters, Schaffer shows that even the toughest warriors occasionally found themselves offering moral arguments for their actions, arguing that they were made right by enemy atrocities, by the justness of the Allied cause, and by the numbers of lives of American servicemen that Allied bombing might save. About the Author: Ronald Schaffer is Professor of History at the California State University at Northridge.

Author Biography

Ronald Schaffer is Professor of History at California State University at Northridge. He has held Woodrow Wilson and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships and has previously taught at Columbia University

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xi
Leaders of the American Air War	p. 3
American air War Doctrine and the Bombing of Civilians	p. 20
American Air Operations in Europe: Occupied Countries and Axis Satellites	p. 35
The Bombing of Germany: Early Operations	p. 60
The Bombing of Germany: Transition to Douhetian Warfare	p. 80
The Bombing of Japan: Preparing for the Fire Raids	p. 107
The Bombing of Japan: From Tokyo to Nagasaki	p. 128
The Bombing of Japan: American Perceptions of the Moral Issue	p. 149
Reactions to the Moral Issue: Accounting for the Variations	p. 177
Epilogue	p. 190
Notes	p. 219
Essay on Sources	p. 252
Index	p. 263
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