BOMBING POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25457, 11 February 1944, Page 3

BOMBING POLICY

BRITAIN’S OBJECTIVE ANSWER TO CRITICISM / i RUGBY, Feb. 9. The Bishop of Chichester (the Right Rev. G. K. A. Bell, D.D.) in the House of Lords to-day initiated a debate on the bombing of enemy towns. . Bishop Bell said he desired to challenge tne Government on its policy which permitted the bombing of towns on the present scale, especially with reference to civilian non-combatants and non-military and non-industrial objectives. He referred to the joint declaration by the United Kingdom and French Governments at the beginning of the war that their intention was to spare civilians and preserve in every way possible the treasured monuments of human achieyements. The Secretary for the Dominions and Leader of the House (Viscount Cranborne), replying for the Government, said that if the bishop were asking for an assurance that the purpose of the intensive attacks on German cities was to hamper, and if possible to bring to a standstill, German 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. Rotterdam and Warsaw

Viscount Cranborne recalled that Rotterdam. Warsaw, and other nonGerman cities were destroyed before a single British bomb fell on German soil. He added that certainly it was not the Government’s intention to drop bombs in the precincts of Vatican City, nor. if it could be avoided, on the city of Rome, but he thought it was right that we should face hard facts frankly. War could not be carried out without suffering, very often to those not immediately responsible for causing the conflict, he added. In the circumstances of to-day we could not expect to find means of conducting hostilities which did not involve suffering. We had to weigh how much suffering would be caused and put it. against the results we expected to achieve by the means we might feel obliged to take. The only true cure for to-days miseries was to bring the war to a victorious end and to liberate the occupied countries, Viscount Cranborne continued. The purpose of the present offensive was to achieve that happy result at the earliest possible moment, and it had been carefully planned with precisely that aim. Targets had been chosen with a definite view to making it more difficult.for the Germans and their allies to carry on the war. Helping the Russians

“We have never concentrated on small, sleepy country towns or villages,” he said. “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 be in the front line. We were holding a vast proportion of German fighter Dianes on the western front, Viscount Cranborne said. Up to 80 per cent, were being held there, and this greatly facilitated the efforts of our heroic Russian allies. He asked the bishop to think not only of the Germans suffering through the raids, but also the people of the occupied countries, “who at present are enduring intolerable anguish at the hands of the armies of the enemy. We must also recall the intolerable conditions of our men in ■ Japanese camps.”