The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

The impact of the leaflet and broadcasting campaign was difficult for the Allies to assess since almost all the public media in Vichy France treated the bombing as an unmediated crime. Allied intelligence was faced with a barrage of information showing that the bombing was defined by its “terror character.” One newspaper, the Petit Parisien, following the bombing of Paris in September 1943 claimed that “the barbarians of the West are worthy allies of the barbarians in the East.”99 The Mémorial de St. Étienne asked, “Will this destructive Sadism have no end? One is appalled before this mounting barbarity, this barbarity behind the mask of civilization.” The Allies recognized that the French reaction was not as simple as that, but there was increasing evidence that even among pro-Allied circles the mixed results of bombing raids provoked anxiety and hostility without at the same time undermining the acknowledgment that German targets were both legitimate and necessary.100 This ambiguity was evident from the reaction to two raids on Toulon on March 7, 1944. The first killed or injured an estimated 900 German soldiers and won wide approval; the second four days later missed the target and killed 110 French civilians to widespread complaints. One of the American crews shot down on the second raid was black, prompting racist comments about the quality and competence of American airmen.101 American bombing was identified in information from the French Resistance as the major sour...