Civilian Morale under Aerial Bombardment 1914-1939. Part 1
Abstract
Since 1914, war, preparation for war, recovery from war, and discussion of wars past, present, and future appear to have been the principal preoccupations of mankind. And from the time of the symbolic destruction of the "scrap of paper" which had supposedly guaranteed the neutrality of a nation, war has increasingly involved the nation as a whole - the man, woman, and child behind the lines as well as the soldier at the front. One of the most terrifying adjuncts of this total war has been the accidental or deliberate dropping of aerial bombs upon civilian populations. In the first World War such bombings were sporadic - sometimes amateurish. By the time of the Japanese attacks on China and the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, aerial bombardment of civilian centers had become an anticipated part of warfare. In World War II, of course, mass air raids upon the cities were widespread and commonplace. It is for the internationalists to examine the morality of this development, and for the military analysts to assess the strategical and tactical value of these attacks. Here it has been deemed appropriate merely to explain the circumstances under which such raids occurred and to attempt a review of the reactions of civilian populations in the period before World War II to their own involvement in this relatively new type of warfare. In a sense, therefore, this study provides a psychological background for the mass bombardments of the conflict which engulfed the world from 1939 to 1945.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1948
- Accession Number
- ADA953063
Entities
People
- Hilton P. Goss
Organizations
- Air University