Most heinous British war crime?

[Gladystweet]

Perhaps there is an agenda......

And for that reason...I'm out.

 

[hibbo'sclass]

Concentration camps during the Boer War.

Sinking of 4 Italian hospital ships during WW2.

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

What's war crime...









































...Asked the horse punching geordie div when he got arrested.

 

[hibbo'sclass]

Bloody Sunday, easy.

Which one?

 

[bignev23]

Where does the name Butchers apron name come from Nev?

I believe it's what the Union Jack is called by countries who have had blood shed in the quest for independence or to stop oppression from Britain, used regularly in Eire.

 

[thirdmantackle]

There is a long, long list to chose from.

Same as almost every colonial power

 

[peteblue]

I believe it's what the Union Jack is called by countries who have had blood shed in the quest for independence or to stop oppression from Britain, used regularly in Eire.

It is called the butchers apron by Irish Republicans. No other country uses that term......

 

[terry nodder]

Peteblue on the ropes here.

 

[TheFinnFan]

Red Wedding

 

[tsubaki]

Sorry, but the words of Arthur Harris on this come from an inherent position of bias. Dresden hadn't been touched prior to that raid because it was not of particular strategic value - it was terror bombing, pure and simple, and acknowledged as such by Churchill.

... who was desperate to avoid the blame for a policy he had supported, a not uncommon thing for Churchill to do.

I can see that side of the argument.

However the scale of what happened in Dresden was not targeting the munitions plants - it was simply levelling the city. At that point in the war Bletchley had broken nearly all the German ciphers. British/American intelligence could absolutely have targeted militarily significant targets without the widespread destruction.

Harris was right, though. Either you oppose area bombing on principle, or you accept that it had to take place because the bulk of Bomber Command wasn't capable of hitting specific targets (which they weren't, certainly not in the case of targets inside cities). To pick out Dresden as a horror different from Hamburg, Pforzheim, Coventry, Toyko or even the two atomic bombings makes no sense.

 

[COYBL25]

The price of a FREDDO today.

And the size of them too FFS

 

[Ashtonian]

Agree mate but how brave were those men to do that,unbelieve those men.

Yeah mate. All brave souls we will never forget.

 

[RaleighBlue]

... who was desperate to avoid the blame for a policy he had supported, a not uncommon thing for Churchill to do.



Harris was right, though. Either you oppose area bombing on principle, or you accept that it had to take place because the bulk of Bomber Command wasn't capable of hitting specific targets (which they weren't, certainly not in the case of targets inside cities). To pick out Dresden as a horror different from Hamburg, Pforzheim, Coventry, Toyko or even the two atomic bombings makes no sense.

Well, regarding the atomic bombings and Tokyo - those were definitely not British war crimes. Whether the atomic bombs were war crimes is up for debate (personal belief - Hiroshima, no; Nagasaki, yes).

Tokyo was also the seat of government. That's a clear strategic target. Hamburg was bombed in 1943, when the war was still very much in the balance (context matters, because we're talking about a purely imaginary notion of rules about killing each other). Hamburg was hugely strategic due to the shipyards and industrial factories - Dresden was a minnow compared to Hamburg from a purely militarily strategic point of view even in 1943, let along 2 months before VE day. Otherwise it would have been bombed earlier. Pforzheim is a fair point though, as it was clearly not militarily critical.

Coventry also cannot be classed as a British war crime. But Coventry was also the location of the most important munitions factories in Britain - hence it being a 'strategic bombing'. The bombings were carried out for a military purpose with civilian casualties as purely incidental.

Edit: By purely incidental, I do not mean to suggest that they were not secondary purposes. Which is one of the reasons defining 'war crime' in the context of a war like WWII is extremely difficult when there is any semblance of military purpose. I'm sure we can at least agree that the number of civilians that lost their lives during any one of these raids is horrifying from the human perspective.

 

[COYBL25]

The last scene in Black Adder Goes Forth, sums up beautifully the senseless loss of millions of men in the First World.
Soldiers really were nothing but cannon fodder and treated as such. Yet no one was ever held to account for this slaughter.

This for me.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Srebenica - Serbian butchers at their finest...Same thing would have happened to the inhabitants of Gorazde too if it wasn't for the brave men of the 1st Btn Royal Welch Fusiliers.