I think it was Patton who when speaking of war said something along the lines of..."God, but I do love it so."
Both sides of this arguement so far have some pretty screwy thinking.
Bombing of Civilian populations....
Civilian centres are bombed to demoralise a country. Sons and Daughters who grow up to be soldiers and factory workers. Who death crushes the heart and soul of the father serving at the front. Mothers and fathers who work in factorys building war materials for an opposing Army. Who prop or tolerate a Government in power by complacency or other means.
Hurt the civil population and you hurt the war effort. Such is the nature of war since its first conception. Attack the village, burn down the house.
The idea of you bombed first so its your fault it happened.....
A simple concept in theory. Lets examine another with the advent and introduction of Nuclear weapons. Would we be sitting at our desks decades into the future advocating a Japanese retallitory strike with a nuclear weapon on New York had they been capable at the time on the principle that the Allies struck first?
Sympathy for Bomber Crews.....
Bomber Crews were airmen at War, no less than the fighter pilot companions, the infantryman or the sailor. Their job was not to view the whites in the eyes of their enemies. It was to kill from afar as many as they could. Bomber Crews of all nations went into enemy fire and fought and died as any other man at War.
You cannot play Hero to one kind and refute the actions of another. If you sympathise with the man who kills his enemy in the trench, then you must also sympathise with the Submariner who hides beneath the waves or the Bomber Pilot in the clouds.
War is an abhorrent part of mans nature. There are'nt many men who have fought and gotten dirty in War who will tell you any different. Dismembered bodies and fallen friends. Loss of loved ones and getting first hand knowledge of how inventive man can become when it comes to destroying his own kind.
There are few rules in war and none im aware of that have ever been totally complied with by any nation.
Some of you apparently have no idea of what war on the scale of the Great and 2nd world war was like. It wasnt like the Flight Sim you fly and not like the movies. You cannot sit in a thread and say Hartmann was unworthy unless you faced the risks he and others like him did.
Even the Nazi's, as despicable as that group were, had brave men amongst its ranks. To think otherwise is simply patriotic biased judgement based on the heart rather than the head.
