The “Wanton Destruction” of Japanese Cities: Urban Area Bombing and American War Crimes in the Second World War

Abstract

From December 1944 to August 1945, American Army Air Corp bombers incinerated roughly 41% of Japan’s sixty-six largest cities—even before the near total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reflecting in 1947 on their successes, the US Strategic Bombing Survey concluded that the “air attack on Japan was directed against the nation as a whole, not only against specific military targets . . . [and that] the American attack against the total target was successful.” Undoubtedly, but what about questions of morality, legality, humanity? Where does America’s urban area bombing of Japan fit within the larger context of war crimes given that Axis officials were charged, convicted, and executed for acts contributing to the “wanton destruction of cities”? In this paper Charles Schencking explores the evolution and efficacy of American urban area bombing conducted against Japan within larger legal and conceptual frameworks ranging from General Gulio Douhet’s 1927 theory of air power to post-war attempts to assess and punish crimes against humanity.