Comments by "Evan" (@MrEvanfriend) on "‘Butcher’ Harris: The Man who Engulfed Germany in Flames I War History" video.

  1. People calling Bomber Harris a "war criminal" are taking an ignorant and myopic viewpoint that ignores the realities of WWII. This was not the 21st century, they didn't have the capability to drop a single 2000lb JDAM and destroy exactly what they wanted to. Even the vaunted Norden bombsight used by the US that could "drop a bomb in a pickle barrel from 20 thousand feet" could only do so if that "pickle barrel" was about the size of downtown Berlin. With the technology available, area bombing, incendiary bombing, and other tactics which might seem excessive or inhumane today were the only reliable method of destroying important military and industrial targets. And the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign was instrumental in the Allied war effort against Germany.
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  2. Strategic bombing isn't a "war crime".
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  3.  @beninwarrior4579  That's nonsense. Tokyo was a legitimate military target, and the firebombing wreaked destruction on the Japanese war effort. This was before modern precision guided munitions, there was no reasonable way to destroy pinpoint targets and minimize collateral damage. To compare strategic bombing with legitimate military goals in mind to genocide is disingenuous.
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  4.  @beninwarrior4579  Tokyo was a strategic target. Bombing it helped destroy the Japanese ability to make war. You have no idea what you're talking about.
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  5.  @beninwarrior4579  You are taking a naive and myopic viewpoint and using an absurdly broad definition of "war crimes" that has nothing to do with reality. The reality of the matter is that the Empire of Japan needed to be stopped at all costs. They were busy raping and murdering their way through Asia and the Pacific, committing atrocities that appalled the Nazis. Destroying a city like Tokyo, which had significant military, political, and industrial value, was an entirely legitimate strategic aim regardless of the collateral damage. There was no way with the technology of the era to destroy all the legitimate strategic targets in Tokyo without causing collateral damage. This wasn't like it is today, where one B-2 can fly over and drop a handful of bombs which will all be guided precisely onto preselected targets. That technology didn't exist. If you wanted to destroy all the legitimate targets, you had to destroy everything around them as well. Your emotional response is misplaced and stems from a lack of understanding of the realities of the war. It isn't "war crimes", it isn't "genocide", it's nowhere even remotely close to equivalent to actual atrocities like the rape of Nanking. It was strategic bombing of a legitimate military target, with a legitimate strategic goal in mind. Stop being willfully stupid.
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  6.  James Henderson  No. We shouldn't have.
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  7.  James Henderson  That's misleading and you know it.
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  8.  James Henderson  Either you're being facetious or you have an extremely flawed understanding of history. I hope it's the first one.
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  9.  James Henderson  And bombing isn't a "war crime". What strategy would you have suggested?
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