Is Bombing Bad for the Bomber?

The question which secretly disturbs many a Christian mind was again openly voiced last week. The Bishop of Chichester, Dr. George K. A. Bell, speaking in Britain's House of Lords, deplored the bombing of German cities. "I am not for getting the Luftwaffe's tremendous bombing of Belgrade, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Portsmouth, Coventry, Canterbury and other places of military, industrial and cultural importance. But Hitler is a barbarian. There is no decent person on the Allied side who thinks we should make him our pattern or attempt to beat competitors at that market." The Bishop feared that the R.A.F. bombings would bring Britain a "harvest of hate," and impede postwar relations. And did the R.A.F.

intend to bomb Rome? The deed, he warned, "would rankle in the memory of every good European as did Rome's destruction by the Goths." Lord Lang of Lambeth (see p. 56), 79-year-old retired Archbishop of Canterbury, seconded the Bishop. Lord Lang was distressed by a tendency to "exult and gloat" over the bombings of Germany. He feared that this attitude would result in "a lamentable lapse" in Britons' outlook.

Said Lord Lang: "Recent attacks upon cities like Hamburg, Frankfort and Berlin seem to me to go a long way beyond what hitherto has been the declared policy of the Government and the Bomber Command." Viscount Cranborne, Government lead er of the House of Lords, gave the prelates a firm reply. He denied that R.A.F. bombings were terror raids, told how last summer's flights over Hamburg had cost the Germans 400,000,000 man-hours, insisted that industrial life ceases only when "the whole life of the cities in which they are situated [is brought] to a standstill . . .

making it quite impossible for workmen to carry on their work." He said: "It is to me full justification for the present bombing campaign. I can not give the Bishop of Chichester any hope that we shall abate our bombing policy. On the contrary, we shall continue it in increasing power and with more crushing effect until the final victory is assured." At the present moment, he added, "It is not the Government's intention to drop bombs on the precincts of Vatican City, nor, if it can be avoided, on the city of Rome." Then a Roman Catholic peer, Viscount FitzAlan, added: "I have the greatest possible affection for the present holder of the high office of Pope and I should deprecate strongly any thing that might put him to any personal inconvenience. At the same time we can not be blind to the fact that whatever may happen to the existing holder of the Holy See we always get another, and that is not a thing to be ignored. . . ."

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