BOMBING OF TOWNS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 116, 11 February 1944, Page 5

BOMBING OF TOWNS

Bishop Challenges Present Government Policy

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 9. The Bishop of Chichester, in the House of Lords today, initiated a debate on the bombing of enemy towns. The bishop said he desired to challenge the Government on the policy which permits bombing of towns on the present scale, specially with reference to civilian non-com-batants and non-military and non-indus-trial objectives. He referred to the joint declaration by the United Kingdom and French Governments at the beginning of the war of their intention to spare civilians and preserve in every way possible treasured monuments to human achievements. The Dominions Secretary and the Leader of the House, Lord Cranbourne, replying for the Government, said that if the bishop was asking for an assurance that the purpose of intensive attacks on German cities was to hamper and if possible bring to a standstill war production. and not merely to sprinkle bombs broadcast ■with the object of damaging ancient monuments; he was very ready to give him that assurance. Germans’ Precedent. Lord Cranbourhc recalled Rotterdam and Warsaw and other non-German cities which were destroyed before a single British bomb fell on German soil. He added that it was certainly not. the Government’s intention to drop bombs in the precincts of the Vatican City, nor, if it could be avoided, in the city of Rome. But he thought it was right that we should face hard facts frankly. The war could not be carried out without suffering; very often, to those not immediately responsible for causing the conflict. ■ In the circumstances today we could not expect to find a means of conducting hostilities which did not involve suffering. We had to weigh bow much suffering would be caused and put it against tha results wo expected to achieve by monns we might feel obliged to take. The only true cure for the present miseries was to bring the war to a victorious end and to liberate the occupied countries. The purpose of the present air offensive was toi achieve that happy result at the earliest possible moment, and it had been carefully planned with precisely that aim. Targets had been chosen with the definite view of making it more difficult for tlie Germans and their allies to carry on the wnr. Cities. Not Villages. “We have never concentrated.” he added, “on small, sleepy country towns and villages. It would not only be unnecessarily brutal, but futile from all points of view. “For the purpose of winning the war all cities complementary to the German war effort must be considered to bo in the front line,” he added. “We are holding a vast proportion of German fighter ijjnncs on the wentern front. Up to SO per cent, are being held there, and this has greatly facilitated the efforts of our heroic Russian allies.” He allied the bishop to think not only of the Germans as suffering through the raids but also the people in the occupied countries, “who at present are enduring intolerable anguish at the hands, of the enemy. We must also recall the intolerable conditions of our men in Japanese camps.”