“ with its airmen, virtually untouchable in their ‘flying fortresses’”
The casualty rate for US B-17 pilots flying in Europe during WW2 was roughly 50%. It was higher in 1943, before there was fighter support. The B-17 attacking Schweinfurt on 10 October 1953 suffered 22% casualties (killed and POWs) - on one day.
I stand corrected: you are right about the B-17 'Flying Fortresses' - which are not the same as the B-29 'Super Fortresses' which did go virtually unopposed, but were of course only deployed against Japan. There remains the question of whether or not to use word 'cowardly', which must apply to the strategists doing the targetting (recent estimates put the Germans civilian body count at 1 M) before it can apply to soldiers taking actual risks. But even given the RAF/USAAF's huge casualty rates, the word can still be argued to apply to the airman as well: knowingly terrorizing civilians, at whatever military risk, even in reprisal, is still a cowardly act unbecoming a warrior. To be pondered.
I don’t know what you consider the code of a “warrior” but killing civilians is and has always been an integral part of war. Almost everywhere and always. The few exceptions are notable because they are so rare.
It’s easy for you to call soldiers, who risk their lives and often suffer - up to crippled and dead - “cowards” while writing essays in safety. Have you ever fought such wars, usually for years, with such risks? Especially before modern health care, when even minor wounds (by our standards) so often resulted in scaring, disability, or death. Do you hold your own life to such lofty standards, the kind beyond the reach of regular folks?
As for “strategists”, warfare has almost always unleashed horror on civilians. Even those rare wars that began with high standards (one civilian died at Gettysburg, from a stray bullet) - usually degenerated into deliberate attacks on civilians in some form (eg, the US civil war with the devestation of homes & farms in the Shenandoah Valley and Georgia).
Your moralizing about US killing of German civilians in the last years of WWII is bizarre considering what Germany did to civilians throughout the war - and what the Soviet Union did at the end and afterwards to Germans as revenge.
“War is hell.” Milton describes war in Heaven, with cannon and walls but no blood and death. Should you find yourself there, eventually, your high standards will find an apt subject.
“ with its airmen, virtually untouchable in their ‘flying fortresses’”
The casualty rate for US B-17 pilots flying in Europe during WW2 was roughly 50%. It was higher in 1943, before there was fighter support. The B-17 attacking Schweinfurt on 10 October 1953 suffered 22% casualties (killed and POWs) - on one day.
Fact checking?
I stand corrected: you are right about the B-17 'Flying Fortresses' - which are not the same as the B-29 'Super Fortresses' which did go virtually unopposed, but were of course only deployed against Japan. There remains the question of whether or not to use word 'cowardly', which must apply to the strategists doing the targetting (recent estimates put the Germans civilian body count at 1 M) before it can apply to soldiers taking actual risks. But even given the RAF/USAAF's huge casualty rates, the word can still be argued to apply to the airman as well: knowingly terrorizing civilians, at whatever military risk, even in reprisal, is still a cowardly act unbecoming a warrior. To be pondered.
I don’t know what you consider the code of a “warrior” but killing civilians is and has always been an integral part of war. Almost everywhere and always. The few exceptions are notable because they are so rare.
It’s easy for you to call soldiers, who risk their lives and often suffer - up to crippled and dead - “cowards” while writing essays in safety. Have you ever fought such wars, usually for years, with such risks? Especially before modern health care, when even minor wounds (by our standards) so often resulted in scaring, disability, or death. Do you hold your own life to such lofty standards, the kind beyond the reach of regular folks?
As for “strategists”, warfare has almost always unleashed horror on civilians. Even those rare wars that began with high standards (one civilian died at Gettysburg, from a stray bullet) - usually degenerated into deliberate attacks on civilians in some form (eg, the US civil war with the devestation of homes & farms in the Shenandoah Valley and Georgia).
Your moralizing about US killing of German civilians in the last years of WWII is bizarre considering what Germany did to civilians throughout the war - and what the Soviet Union did at the end and afterwards to Germans as revenge.
“War is hell.” Milton describes war in Heaven, with cannon and walls but no blood and death. Should you find yourself there, eventually, your high standards will find an apt subject.