Editing Strategic bombing (section)

==The term "terror bombing" <span class="anchor" id="Terror bombing"></span>==
''Terror bombing'' is a term used for aerial attacks planned to weaken or break enemy morale.<ref>{{harvnb|Overy|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Uocntt1lGDUC&pg=PA119 119]}}</ref> Use of the term to refer to aerial attacks implies the attacks are criminal according to the [[Aerial bombardment and international law|law of war]],<ref>{{harvnb |Myrdal|1977|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VNS8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA252 252]}}</ref> or if within the laws of war are nevertheless a moral crime.<ref>{{harvnb|Axinn|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xMC5bIE-q7QC&pg=PA73 73]}}</ref> According to John Algeo in ''Fifty Years among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms 1941–1991'', the first recorded usage of "Terror bombing" in a United States publication was in a ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' article dated June 1941, a finding confirmed by the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>{{harvnb |Algeo|1993|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=egxyM6zK0PEC&dq=terror+bombing+goebbels+himmler&pg=RA1-PA111 111]}}: "Terror Bombing. Bombing designed to hasten the end of the war by terrorising the enemy population."</ref><ref>{{harvnb |OED}}: "intensive and indiscriminate bombing designed to frighten a country into surrender; '''terror raid''', a bombing raid of this nature".</ref>

Aerial attacks described as terror bombing are often long range strategic bombing raids, although attacks which result in the deaths of civilians may also be described as such, or if the attacks involve fighters [[strafing]] they may be labelled "terror attacks".<ref>{{harvnb|Brower|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=yfnEdIFlh2AC&dq=strafing+%22terror+attack%22&pg=PA108 108]}} mentions that Historian Ronald Shaffer described [[Operation Clarion]], an operation that involved both bombing and strafing, as a terror attack.</ref>

German propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] and other high-ranking officials of [[Nazi Germany]]<ref>{{harvnb |Kochavi|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bcfKhIPrU-UC&pg=PA172 172]}}</ref> frequently described attacks by the [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF) and the [[United States Army Air Forces]] (USAAF) during their [[Strategic bombing during World War II|strategic bombing campaigns]] as ''Terrorangriffe''—terror attacks.<ref group=nb>{{harvnb|Hessel|2005|p=[https://archive.org/details/mysteryoffranken0000hess/page/107 107]}} Goebbels used several terms including {{quote|''Terrorangriffe'' (terror raids) or ''Terrorhandlungen'' (terrorist activities) ... ''Terrorflieger'' (terror flyers or terrorist airman). No one in Germany used such terminology in connection with German bombing raids against cities in England}}</ref><ref group=nb>{{harvnb|Fritz|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=B-UgBAZmyMUC&dq=terror+bombing+goebbels&pg=PA44 44]}} {{quote|...&nbsp;Western Allies ... were "air pirates." "They are murderers!" screamed the headlines of an article emanating from Berlin on February 22. Not only did the writer denounce the allied "terror bombing", but he also stressed the "special joy" that the "Anglo-American air gangsters" took in the murder of innocent German civilians...}}</ref> The Allied governments usually described their [[aerial bombing of cities|bombing of cities]] with euphemisms such as [[area bombing]] (RAF) or [[precision bombing]] (USAAF), and for most of World War II the Allied news media did the same. However, at a [[SHAEF]] press conference on 16 February 1945, two days after the [[bombing of Dresden]], British Air Commodore [[Colin McKay Grierson]] replied to a question by one of the journalists that the primary target of the bombing had been on communications to prevent the Germans from moving military supplies and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale." Howard Cowan, an [[Associated Press]] war correspondent, filed a story about the Dresden raid. The military press censor at SHAEF made a mistake and allowed the Cowan cable to go out starting with "Allied air bosses have made the long awaited decision to adopt deliberate terror bombing of great German population centers<!--sic in the source--> as a ruthless expedient to hasten Hitler's doom." There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a longtime opponent of strategic bombing, [[Richard Stokes (politician)|Richard Stokes]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]], asked questions in the House of Commons on 6 March.<ref>{{harvnb |Taylor|2005|pp=413,414}}</ref>

The controversy stirred up by the Cowan news report reached the highest levels of the [[British Government]] when on 28 March 1945 the Prime Minister, [[Winston Churchill]], sent a memo by telegram to [[Hastings Lionel Ismay|General Ismay]] for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff in which he started with the sentence "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed...."<ref>{{harvnb|Siebert|2001}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb |Taylor|2005|p=430}}</ref> Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by [[Chief of the Air Staff (United Kingdom)|Chief of the Air Staff]] Sir [[Charles Portal, 1st Viscount Portal of Hungerford|Charles Portal]], and the head of Bomber Command, [[Arthur Harris|Arthur "Bomber" Harris]], among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one.<ref>{{harvnb|Taylor|2005|p=430}}</ref> This was completed on 1 April 1945 and started instead with the usual euphemism used when referring to strategic bombing: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests....".<ref>{{harvnb |Taylor|2005|p=434}}</ref>

Many strategic bombing campaigns and individual raids of [[aerial warfare]] have been described as "terror bombing" by commentators and historians since the end of World War II, but because the term has pejorative connotations, others have denied that such bombing campaigns and raids are examples of "terror bombing".