"I think we may say that there are, at any rate, three rules of international law or three principles of international law which are as applicable to warfare from the air as they are to war at sea or on land. In the first place, it is against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks upon civilian populations. That is undoubtedly a violation of international law. In the second place, targets which are aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be capable of identification. In the third place, reasonable care must be taken in attacking those military objectives so that by carelessness a civilian 938 population in the neighbourhood is not bombed.."
- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, June 21, 1938
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/jun/21/foreign-office#S5CV0337P0_19380621_HOC_336
I am sorry, FRiend, but the powers that be in the UK knew exactly what international law was with regard to the bombing of population centers; we're not simply looking at this with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
” ‘...three principles of international law... applicable to warfare from the air...it is against international law to bomb civilians as such...targets which are aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be capable of identification...reasonable care must be taken in attacking those military objectives so that by carelessness a civilian...population...is not bombed.’
- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, in the House of Commons, June 21, 1938...” [Captain Walker, post 170]
Neville wasn’t really up to the job. He’d have been a disappointment to his dad, had old Joe lived so long.
Citing PM Chamberlain as justification for condemning Allied aerial bombardment strategies during the Second World War isn’t much of a gambit.
“International law” has never been set in stone. It’s a shadowy mishmash of vaguely good intentions forever in a fluid state, changing in accordance with the whims of the various nations and societies who purport to agree with it and claim to live by it; despite what attorneys, moralizers, and social engineers yearn for, it’s honored more in the breach than in the observance. Nations large and small cling to it when it suits them, level accusations of violations against adversaries when it suits them, and plead reasons of state when it suits them to ignore it.
The only individuals who take it seriously - in the United States at least - are deficient in understanding, incapable of leading responsibly, and ought to be kept as far from the levers of power as possible.
It is laughable to discover anyone at this late date who attempts to hang a guilty verdict on the UK government for any of its actions or policies of the period 1939-45. Ironic, too; it’s arguable that the UK was the most morally aware and morally compliant power to be involved in that conflict.