NECESSITY of killing?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 141901

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "deborahhbbrd" <hubbada at u...> 
wrote:
 
Deborah:

> Hitler and Co. are useful examples; let's look at the other side. 
> And here some of my memory is in senile remission, but the facts are
> look-uppable.
 
> Dam-busters. Bombs that bounce on water, and in so doing get into 
> the right place to breach German dam walls and flood Nazi 
> installations in the valley. There was a book; also I think a 
> movie. But before there was anything, there was a designer of the 
> bouncing bombs.

> This is History Channel stuff, but it convinces me. The designer – 
> the bouncing-bomb boffin – treated the design problem as an 
> exercise in logic and applied science. He applied his mind to the 
> problem, and designed what he'd been asked for. And the squadron 
> took off into the unknown. The bombs worked; but so did the 
> Luftwaffe, and after the raid some aircraft were badly damaged and 
> some had dead or injured crew members, and some never returned. And 
> suddenly it wasn't a logic puzzle any more, and he was deeply
> traumatised at his own role in killing those young men he'd known 
> and admired; his own role in death which had become real to him in 
> a way he'd never expected. He gave up weapons design at that point.
 
> So, we have a man, acting under orders and most certainly for the
> Greater Good at that time, who didn't give his soul a thought until
> the killing for which he was responsible actually happened. And 
then,
> having collided with reality and mortality, he bailed out.

Geoff:
You are referring to Barnes Wallis (1887-1979). The film was "The 
Dambusters" (1955).

Actually, he continued with weapons design afterwards. He was 
involved with the development of the 12000lb bomb in 1944 and the ten 
ton Grand Slam in 1945; after the war he was on the design team which 
developed swing-wing aircraft.

There are other instances like this. I was watching a BBC progamme a 
few weeks ago about the bombing of Hiroshima and the horrific 
aftermath.

I suppose one has to argue that these events have a strategic purpose 
in aiming to shorten the war. I am sure that US friends here on the 
group would agree that if their troops had had to fight their way 
across every island and then up the Japanese home islands to win, the 
human cost would have been far, far higher than it was.

One event which I, as a Brit, have always considered dubious was the 
bombing of Dresden in 1945 when RAF commanders, knowing that the city 
was bursting at the seams with civilian refugees and almost an open 
target, went ahead with the raids which created a firestorm. In this 
case, I think that there was more an element of bloodymindedness than 
greater good.

I might return to what I wrote in yesterday in  message 141860:

"Thinking over this topic, I felt perhaps I should extend the
definition as little to be:
"the unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another for some
personle gain."

Murder is usually committed to satisfy some personal need of the
perpetrator: getting revenge, getting rid of a rival, covering up
another crime to mention but a few...."

Although historical hindsight has cast shadows over some of these 
events, if those involved were, in their hearts, genuinely working 
for the greater good - the overthrow of tyranny and oppression - then 
in wizarding world terms, their souls should be intact.