Good Bombing, Bad Bombing: Hollywood, Air Warfare, and Morality in World War I and World War II
2008; Oxford University Press; Volume: 22; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/maghis/22.4.25
ISSN1938-2340
AutoresFrank J. Wetta, Martin A. Novelli,
Tópico(s)Italian Fascism and Post-war Society
ResumoThe strategic bombing offensive in World War II represents both the most morally questionable Allied action of the war and the most popular topic for wartime combat films. In a discussion of the moral dimensions of the Allied victory, Richard Overy argued in Why the Allies Won (1996) that the “most striking moral paradox of the war years was the willingness of ostensibly liberal states to engage in the deliberate killing of hundreds of thousands of enemy civilians from the air,” a paradox explained partly by “the deliberate choice made by the western democracies to save the lives of their own populations by resorting to technological solutions rather than strategies with high manpower losses” (1). The conflict between proclaimed Allied ideals and the reality of strategic bombing opens a provocative window into military history. For classroom discussion, a profitable examination of important issues related to the special nature of air warfare can be made by comparing key scenes from Hell's Angels (1930), Bombardier (1943), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). The prewar—and decidedly antiwar—depiction of the morality of bombing in Hell's Angels stands in sharp contrast to the bureaucratization and moral clarity of air warfare in both Bombardier and Twelve O'Clock High. (These films are available on VHS or DVD and can be purchased at most online retail sites.)
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