Bomber Command Revisited: Revisionist Historians & Goebbels: The Debate Continues As to the Effectiveness of the Allied Bombing Campaign Against Hitler's Germany. Did the Results Justify the Human Cost? (Second World war)

ONE OF THE MOST RECENT and most critical commentaries on the morality and effectiveness of Bomber Command's attacks on Hitler's Germany following those of the CBC in its television program The Valour and the Horror and the Canadian War Museum's initial display on the role of bombing in the Second World War is a book written by Randall Hansen, a historian from the University of Toronto. Released in 2008 and entitled Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942-45, the author questions the morality and military effectiveness of the British-led bombing campaign against Hitler's Germany in which Canadian aircraft and aircrew played a major part. He concludes by implying that the attacks could be considered to be war crimes. Going beyond the criticisms of the earlier revisionist historians writing on the subject, Hansen's book includes phrases such as "baby killing" and "the cause of world peace would not be advanced one iota by killing German women and children." The principal target of his charges was Sir Arthur Harris, chief of Bomber Command. Allegedly stopped by the police one night for speeding, he was told by the officer responsible that, if he kept it up, he would kill someone. Quoted by an unnamed source, Harris is alleged to have replied, "1 kill thousands every night," which a comment which set the tone for the treatment of the RAF leader for the rest of the book.