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Old 02-09-2012, 01:07 AM
Sternjaeger II Sternjaeger II is offline
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Talking

You are omitting one pivotal point: the area bombing was Harris' idea, not Churchill's. Yes,he received pressure from Stalin, and realised that with the American intervention he was going to lose the grip on the ETO,so something needed to be done,but according to Churchill's memoirs,he was always reluctant about the de-housing, exactly because he saw the effects of the Blitz and because by the time they did it the war was virtually over,and they would have had to deal with the aftermath.

Harris is guilty for his lack of vision and what I think is his personal revenge and will to be remembered in history,but the toll to pay for his vanity was u reasonably high.

LeMay was way more ruthless than Harris,he was a proper cowboy,flying lead formation and imposing a strict discipline among his air force. He himself reckoned that if the Japanese caught him they would have tried and executed him for war crimes,so by his own admission he was well aware of what he was doing. He hated his enemies.

Once again,I don't wanna judge the men, they took tough decisions in difficult times, I'm only saying that celebrating them is really out of place.