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Legitimate Targets in Aërial Bombardment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

Paul Whitcomb Williams
Paul Whitcomb Williams*
Affiliation:
Instructor in Government and Tutor in the Department of History, Government and Economics, in Harvard College
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Extract

The first non–stop flight to Europe was, perhaps, a victory for the cause of peace and international goodwill, but to those who have followed the developments in aerial warfare and the attempts which have been made in recent years to formulate rules for the conduct of belligerent operations in the air, this and successive flights come as a reminder of the still nebulous state of international air law.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , July 1929 , pp. 570 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1929

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References

1 The London Times, January 13, 1926.

2 Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-five Years, Vol. II, p. 102.

3 See Hudson, Manley O. & “ The American Reservations and the Permanent Court of International Justice,”, this Journal , 22, 776. (1922)Google Scholar.

4 Viscount Grey, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 276, “ War is the same word as it was a century ago, but it is no longer the same thing. It used to imply a contest between armies; it will henceforth, by common consent mean he destruction, by chemical agencies of the crowded centers of population; it will mean physical, moral, and economic ruin.”

5 Spaight, J. M. &, Air Power and War Rights 12. (1924)Google Scholar.

6 Moore, John Bassett & International Law: Some Current Illusions and Other Essays 189 Google Scholar.

7 Rodgers, W. L. & “ The Laws of War Concerning Aviation and Radio,”, 17 628. (1924)this Journal,Google Scholar.

8 Colby, Elbridge & “ Aerial Law and War Targets,” , 19 715 (1924)this Journal,Google Scholar.Future conditions of warfare may invalidate any rules which at the time of their adoption may be pertinent enough. In the last war there was an attempt to apply the rules governing land and naval warfare to aircraft, for they were developed as branches of those services. This attempted assimilation failed. See “ The Recent and Future Growth of Aerial Law,” by H. D. Hazeltine in Air (July, 1918), Vol. II, p. 78.

9 Art. 15, Actes de la Conference de Bruxelles, p. 299: this Journal , Official Doe. Apr. 1907.

10 Art. XXV of the Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land.

11 IX Hague Convention, Art. 2.

12 Declaration No. 1, Hague Conference (1899). U. S. Foreign Relations (1899) p. 531. For the discussion relative to the adoption of this article, see Moore, Current Illusions and Other Essays, p. 193.

13 Art. 25 of Hague Convention IV. “The attack or bombardment, by any means whatsoever,of undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings, is forbidden.”

14 Declaration No. XIV, Hague Conference (1907). U. S. Foreign Relations (1907),Part 2, p. 1246.

15 Moore, Current Illusions, supra, p. 241.

16 Bombardment, published by the Air Service Tactical School, Langley Field, Ya., (1926),pp. 50-51.

17 Conférence sur le Bombardement et L’Aviation de Bombardement, Captain Dagnaux, of the Centre d’Études de l’Aëronautiqus, Versailles (1923).

18 Hazeltine, op. cit., p. 117.

19 J. W. Gamer, this Journal , Vol. XVIII, p. 71.

20 Poison gas factories, however, were located at Carlsruhe.

21 J. M. Spaight, “ Air Bombardment,” British Year Book of International Law, p. 21.

22 J. M. Spaight, Air Power and War Rights, pp. 12, 18.

23 J. M. Spaight, Air Power and Air Rights, p. 18.

24 Articles 22, 23, 25, 26.

25 Article 24. The term “ military objective ” was of British coinage, and appears nowhere in the American draft, which designated specifically what objects might or might not be bombed. The American delegation complained that a simple reliance upon this term left 4oo much to the discretion of the individual commander. See J. B. Moore, supra, p. 194.

26 The italics are my own.

27 Article 25 merely applies principles already recognized in codes of land and naval warfare to aerial bombardment. Article 27 of Land Warfare Regulations; 5 of the Naval Bombardment Convention.

28 Art. 24, par. 2, Hague Rules, 1922.

29 J. B. Moore, op. cit., p. 195. The distinction occurs in the original American proposal.

30 Art. 24, p. 4, Hague Rules, 1922.

31 Elbridge Colby, op. tit., p. 706. J. M. Spaight, Air Power and War Rights, p. 227.

32 Art. 24, par. 3, Hague Rules, 1922.

33 Spaight, Air Power and War Eights, p. 222; Bombardment, published by The Air Service Tactical School, supra, p. 8.

34 See C. C. Turner, The Struggle in the Air, p. 144.

35 The only reason more factories were not bombed in the World War was that the comparatively small number of aircraft forced the belligerents to conserve their air power and to use what bombs they carried, in most cases, only against poison gas, chemical, and munitions factories. There were in all sixty raids on London, however, and the Zeppelins flew at such a height to escape anti-aircraft guns that the bombardment was extremely general and ineffective. Aeroplanes can fly much lower, and bomb with much greater accuracy than the Zeppelin.

36 Conférences sur le Bombardement et L’Aviation de Bombardemmt, supra, p. 71. German steel manufacturers claimed a thirty per cent decrease in the efficiency of the workers during the period of air attacks on the Saar and Lorraine Luxembourg in 1916. See also Bombardment, published by The Air Service, supra, p. 63. “ Industrial centers, especially those devoted to the manufacture of war material, are important strategical targets.”

37 Anti-aircraft defense at night is far more difficult. The difficulties of finding and aiming at aeroplanes during the night is out of all proportion to the advantage which the agroplanes have. In the World War it took on the average of 1500 shots to put a single plane out of action. See “ Aerial Bombing,” by Major A. H. Hobley and H. B. Inglis, presented at the spring meeting, 1924, of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.