Fire and Air in the Sublime Bombing of World War II Aerial Warfare

Abstract

The landscape of trench warfare was a battlefield for military combatants pitted against each other in the country, whereas the landscape of firebombed cites was the result of military operations against civilians in the city. WWI was fought in the country and over the country; it was also fought on, in and sometimes under, the ground. The theatre of operations was the countryside with its fields, hills, valleys, villages, woods and wetlands. The immediate strategic objectives were positions in the country: that ridge or salient or village. Paris was a long-term and remote German objective. London was bombed in 1915 and 1917, and 1300 people were killed as a result of 225 tons of bombs being dropped on it (Bourke, 2005, p. 224). This tonnage and these casualties pale into insignificance compared with World War II (WWII).