Review of  Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945  by Aaron William Moore

Turcotte, Jean-Michel

English

Scholars Commons

Canadian Military History
Volume 28 | Issue 2 Article 15
10-2-2019
Review of "Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of
the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945" by
Aaron William Moore
Jean-Michel Turcotte
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military
History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Turcotte, Jean-Michel (2019) "Review of "Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945" by
Aaron William Moore," Canadian Military History: Vol. 28 : Iss. 2 , Article 15.
Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/15
50 Book Reviews
Aaron William Moore. Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the 
Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2018. Pp. 259.
Among the long list of atrocities perpetrated by the belligerents of 
the Second World War, the bombing of civilian populations was one 
of the deadliest. Both Allied and Axis powers did not hesitate to 
target civilians with their bombers, causing thousands of victims as 
well as destroying an incalculable quantity of material and buildings. 
Considered within political and military circles as a promising 
strategy to crush enemy war industry and the “will to fight” of its 
population, strategic bombing defined civilians as legitimate targets 
in the context of total war. The total destruction of the enemy 
was the ultimate objective, justifying all strategies. The use of 
strategic bombing in the Second World War is the object of a large 
historiography. The well-known cases remain the bombing of London 
in 1940, the Blitz, the destruction of Dresden and the dropping of 
atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Scholars usually 
discuss two arguments: 1) the efficiency of this terror strategy to win 
the war and 2) its moral legitimacy considering that bombers killed 
mostly women, children and the elderly.1 Surprisingly, little has 
been written about how civilians reacted to this strategy and how 
bombing shaped their wartime experience and opinions on total war. 
Such history from below the bombs is exactly what Aaron William 
Moore proposes in his recent fascinating book, Bombing the City.
In Bombing the City, Moore, Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese 
Relations at the University of Edinburgh, examines the impact of 
strategic bombing on what he calls “ordinary urban people” during 
the Second World War in Great Britain and Japan (p. 1). Although 
these two countries were enemies and their populations the target of 
different kinds of bombing campaign, this comparative study shows 
the similar experiences of British and Japanese people. By looking at 
different opinions expressed by common people—builders, workers, 
1  For instance, some interesting works are Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality 
in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and Americans Ideas about Strategic 
Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);  A.C. Crayling, 
Among the Dead Cities (London: Bloomsbury, 2007); Richard Overy, The Bombing 
War: Europe, 1939-1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013); and Dietmar Süss, Death from 
the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II, trans. 
Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
1
Turcotte: Review of "Bombing the City" by Aaron William Moore
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2019
  51C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY 
housewives and students—on the destruction and death caused by 
enemy bombers, Moore argues that ordinary people, though victims of 
bombers, continued to support the use of this strategy on the enemy. 
The targeting of non-combatants was perceived by non-combatants 
themselves as a normal wartime practice. According to Moore, such 
levels of destruction in the Second World War were made possible and 
morally acceptable by common people. Without significant gender, 
class or age differences, British and Japanese populations embraced 
the killing of innocent civilians for the purpose of total victory. 
This argument is an interesting contribution to the voluminous 
historiography on strategic bombing, especially to the debate 
on the social and psychological effects of this strategy on civilian 
populations. Moore questions the collective memory of the Second 
World War as a “good war.” He claims that the experience of common 
people suffering bombing does not fit in the traditional Manichean 
narratives of “good and evil” between Allied and Axis, but rather 
made both camps victims of aggression (p. 5). Moreover, the popular 
postwar narratives of heroic victims of bombing is unsatisfactory to 
understand the complex impact of this wartime strategy and the 
acceptance by the British and Japanese populations of the “total 
war” idea promoted by authorities. Although the bombing of Britain 
and Japan had important national contexts, Moore shows the 
similarities of the civilian experience, especially in urban areas, as 
a transnational consequence of total war. By examining the cases of 
several cities, he shows that British and Japanese civilians expressed 
both their confidence in their cities’ capacity to protect them as well 
as their weakness and vulnerability under bombing.
In order to understand the perspective of the victims and 
provide a history from below the bombers, Moore examines writings 
produced by a heterogeneous group of civilians representing British 
and Japanese wartime societies. In particular, he looks at personal 
diaries, letters and memoirs and analyses how people depicted and 
reflected on aerial bombardments according to class, gender and 
age. Each chapter discusses events related to bombing as it was 
described by featured British and Japanese diarists. As explained by 
Moore, diarists were selected for being observant of the destruction 
caused by bombing, their assessments of the moral implication of 
such attacks and for representing a wide geographical spread. The 
first chapter stresses how the bombing created concerns for families, 
not only because of the destruction, but also because of the state’s 
2
Canadian Military History, Vol. 28 [2019], Iss. 2, Art. 15
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/15
52 Book Reviews
response to enemy bombers. As the war progressed and the bombing 
effects intensified, British and Japanese authorities intervened in 
their populations’ lives. For instance, diarists commented on the 
separation of family members due to the evacuation of children and 
labour mobilisation. At the same time, diarists maintained their trust 
in patriotism and their support for the war effort. Among the death 
and destruction, family survival remained a priority for common 
people. 
The second chapter discusses how diarists expressed terror, anger 
and faith. Such strong emotional responses were a psychological 
reaction, described by Moore as a mass demonstration of “fear and 
panic,” to enemy bombers (p. 73). In cities under attack, destruction, 
death, deprivation and chaos made life particularly difficult for 
civilians. Diarists also supported retaliation against the enemy. As 
anxiety and desperation grew among the population, some people 
even held faith that different “supernatural forces” could save them 
(p. 96). The following chapter examines descriptions by diarists of the 
physical destruction of their cities and the collapse of the urban system. 
It was not only a loss of housing, but of the complete environment 
of urban life, community and infrastructure. Hospitals, transport 
infrastructures, food markets and amusements were targeted and 
destroyed by the bombers. Confronted with this destruction, diarists 
describe the civilian response—a willingness to save their city and the 
systems that supplied urban centres—by performing different forms 
of sacrifice such as volunteering for fire-watching and home guard 
service. The last chapter explores how the bombing affected the way 
of life in British and Japanese societies. In particular, Moore exposes 
the impact of bombers on people and socio-economic structures 
according to gender, age and class discrimination and inequalities 
present in British and Japanese wartime societies. He claims that 
the perception of and reflection on sacrifice, suffering and total war 
differed for ordinary workers, women, children, teenagers and seniors. 
Moore concludes with a discussion on collective memory and 
the postwar pacifist narrative, which needs to be nuanced according 
to him. For Moore, people who endured the destruction caused by 
bombers embraced and supported the killing of enemy civilians and, 
in a certain way, the total war discourse. This argument challenges 
the popular anti-war tale proposed by survivors of bombing after 
1945. By doing so, he not only questions historians whom uncritically 
deconstructed the myth of national unity promoted by states in the 
3
Turcotte: Review of "Bombing the City" by Aaron William Moore
Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2019
  53C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY 
context of total war, but also questions the memory of the Second 
World War as a “good war” still presented in public discourse and 
historiographies in Allied countries. Finally, on a local level, Moore 
notes that the memory of bombing, which usually focuses on London, 
Tokyo and Hiroshima, should be re-examined as a larger experience 
in order to provide a nuanced reflection on this past. For all these 
aspects, the contribution of this book to our understanding of wartime 
atrocities committed against non-combatants and their impacts on 
“ordinary people” is innovative. 
The reading of Bombing the City is enthralling. Examples and 
quotes are numerous and meaningful and the text is well written. 
However, the absence of general descriptions of the bombing campaigns 
made it difficult to contextualise opinions and comments expressed 
by diarists between 1940 and 1945. Further explanation concerning 
sources and diarists would have been interesting for readers to better 
understand the approach used by Moore. In general, this study 
lacks a clearly defined démarche and methodology, especially in the 
introduction, which makes the argument difficult to follow for non-
academic readers. This book is likely addressed to graduate students 
and academics and less for the general public. Nevertheless, the 
contribution of this book to the existing literature on the impact of 
strategic bombing and total war on civilian populations is significant. 
Not only does Moore’s argument explore a shared perspective by 
ordinary people in Britain and Japan, but his approach is innovative 
by entangling Allied and Axis societies, showing a transnational 
consequence of this strategy. Moore’s fascinating study shows that 
war casualties and suffering from bombing were not a one-sided effect 
in the Second World War. The total war rhetoric was a global process 
among nations and peoples. Bombing the City is thus recommended 
for anyone interested in the history of aerial bombardment and 
civilian experiences of total war. 
jean-michel turcotte, john f. kennedy institute for north 
american studies
4
Canadian Military History, Vol. 28 [2019], Iss. 2, Art. 15
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/15


Wilfrid Laurier University

Canadian Military HistoryVolume 28 | Issue 2 Article 1510-2-2019Review of "Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts ofthe Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945" byAaron William MooreJean-Michel TurcotteThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian MilitaryHistory by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationTurcotte, Jean-Michel (2019) "Review of "Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945" byAaron William Moore," Canadian Military History: Vol. 28 : Iss. 2 , Article 15.Available at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/1550 Book ReviewsAaron William Moore. Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. 259.Among the long list of atrocities perpetrated by the belligerents of the Second World War, the bombing of civilian populations was one of the deadliest. Both Allied and Axis powers did not hesitate to target civilians with their bombers, causing thousands of victims as well as destroying an incalculable quantity of material and buildings. Considered within political and military circles as a promising strategy to crush enemy war industry and the “will to fight” of its population, strategic bombing defined civilians as legitimate targets in the context of total war. The total destruction of the enemy was the ultimate objective, justifying all strategies. The use of strategic bombing in the Second World War is the object of a large historiography. The well-known cases remain the bombing of London in 1940, the Blitz, the destruction of Dresden and the dropping of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Scholars usually discuss two arguments: 1) the efficiency of this terror strategy to win the war and 2) its moral legitimacy considering that bombers killed mostly women, children and the elderly.1 Surprisingly, little has been written about how civilians reacted to this strategy and how bombing shaped their wartime experience and opinions on total war. Such history from below the bombs is exactly what Aaron William Moore proposes in his recent fascinating book, Bombing the City.In Bombing the City, Moore, Handa Chair of Japanese-Chinese Relations at the University of Edinburgh, examines the impact of strategic bombing on what he calls “ordinary urban people” during the Second World War in Great Britain and Japan (p. 1). Although these two countries were enemies and their populations the target of different kinds of bombing campaign, this comparative study shows the similar experiences of British and Japanese people. By looking at different opinions expressed by common people—builders, workers, 1  For instance, some interesting works are Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and Americans Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004);  A.C. Crayling, Among the Dead Cities (London: Bloomsbury, 2007); Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013); and Dietmar Süss, Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II, trans. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).1Turcotte: Review of "Bombing the City" by Aaron William MoorePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2019  51C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY housewives and students—on the destruction and death caused by enemy bombers, Moore argues that ordinary people, though victims of bombers, continued to support the use of this strategy on the enemy. The targeting of non-combatants was perceived by non-combatants themselves as a normal wartime practice. According to Moore, such levels of destruction in the Second World War were made possible and morally acceptable by common people. Without significant gender, class or age differences, British and Japanese populations embraced the killing of innocent civilians for the purpose of total victory. This argument is an interesting contribution to the voluminous historiography on strategic bombing, especially to the debate on the social and psychological effects of this strategy on civilian populations. Moore questions the collective memory of the Second World War as a “good war.” He claims that the experience of common people suffering bombing does not fit in the traditional Manichean narratives of “good and evil” between Allied and Axis, but rather made both camps victims of aggression (p. 5). Moreover, the popular postwar narratives of heroic victims of bombing is unsatisfactory to understand the complex impact of this wartime strategy and the acceptance by the British and Japanese populations of the “total war” idea promoted by authorities. Although the bombing of Britain and Japan had important national contexts, Moore shows the similarities of the civilian experience, especially in urban areas, as a transnational consequence of total war. By examining the cases of several cities, he shows that British and Japanese civilians expressed both their confidence in their cities’ capacity to protect them as well as their weakness and vulnerability under bombing.In order to understand the perspective of the victims and provide a history from below the bombers, Moore examines writings produced by a heterogeneous group of civilians representing British and Japanese wartime societies. In particular, he looks at personal diaries, letters and memoirs and analyses how people depicted and reflected on aerial bombardments according to class, gender and age. Each chapter discusses events related to bombing as it was described by featured British and Japanese diarists. As explained by Moore, diarists were selected for being observant of the destruction caused by bombing, their assessments of the moral implication of such attacks and for representing a wide geographical spread. The first chapter stresses how the bombing created concerns for families, not only because of the destruction, but also because of the state’s 2Canadian Military History, Vol. 28 [2019], Iss. 2, Art. 15https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/1552 Book Reviewsresponse to enemy bombers. As the war progressed and the bombing effects intensified, British and Japanese authorities intervened in their populations’ lives. For instance, diarists commented on the separation of family members due to the evacuation of children and labour mobilisation. At the same time, diarists maintained their trust in patriotism and their support for the war effort. Among the death and destruction, family survival remained a priority for common people. The second chapter discusses how diarists expressed terror, anger and faith. Such strong emotional responses were a psychological reaction, described by Moore as a mass demonstration of “fear and panic,” to enemy bombers (p. 73). In cities under attack, destruction, death, deprivation and chaos made life particularly difficult for civilians. Diarists also supported retaliation against the enemy. As anxiety and desperation grew among the population, some people even held faith that different “supernatural forces” could save them (p. 96). The following chapter examines descriptions by diarists of the physical destruction of their cities and the collapse of the urban system. It was not only a loss of housing, but of the complete environment of urban life, community and infrastructure. Hospitals, transport infrastructures, food markets and amusements were targeted and destroyed by the bombers. Confronted with this destruction, diarists describe the civilian response—a willingness to save their city and the systems that supplied urban centres—by performing different forms of sacrifice such as volunteering for fire-watching and home guard service. The last chapter explores how the bombing affected the way of life in British and Japanese societies. In particular, Moore exposes the impact of bombers on people and socio-economic structures according to gender, age and class discrimination and inequalities present in British and Japanese wartime societies. He claims that the perception of and reflection on sacrifice, suffering and total war differed for ordinary workers, women, children, teenagers and seniors. Moore concludes with a discussion on collective memory and the postwar pacifist narrative, which needs to be nuanced according to him. For Moore, people who endured the destruction caused by bombers embraced and supported the killing of enemy civilians and, in a certain way, the total war discourse. This argument challenges the popular anti-war tale proposed by survivors of bombing after 1945. By doing so, he not only questions historians whom uncritically deconstructed the myth of national unity promoted by states in the 3Turcotte: Review of "Bombing the City" by Aaron William MoorePublished by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2019  53C A N A D I A N  M I L I TA RY  H I S T O RY context of total war, but also questions the memory of the Second World War as a “good war” still presented in public discourse and historiographies in Allied countries. Finally, on a local level, Moore notes that the memory of bombing, which usually focuses on London, Tokyo and Hiroshima, should be re-examined as a larger experience in order to provide a nuanced reflection on this past. For all these aspects, the contribution of this book to our understanding of wartime atrocities committed against non-combatants and their impacts on “ordinary people” is innovative. The reading of Bombing the City is enthralling. Examples and quotes are numerous and meaningful and the text is well written. However, the absence of general descriptions of the bombing campaigns made it difficult to contextualise opinions and comments expressed by diarists between 1940 and 1945. Further explanation concerning sources and diarists would have been interesting for readers to better understand the approach used by Moore. In general, this study lacks a clearly defined démarche and methodology, especially in the introduction, which makes the argument difficult to follow for non-academic readers. This book is likely addressed to graduate students and academics and less for the general public. Nevertheless, the contribution of this book to the existing literature on the impact of strategic bombing and total war on civilian populations is significant. Not only does Moore’s argument explore a shared perspective by ordinary people in Britain and Japan, but his approach is innovative by entangling Allied and Axis societies, showing a transnational consequence of this strategy. Moore’s fascinating study shows that war casualties and suffering from bombing were not a one-sided effect in the Second World War. The total war rhetoric was a global process among nations and peoples. Bombing the City is thus recommended for anyone interested in the history of aerial bombardment and civilian experiences of total war. jean-michel turcotte, john f. kennedy institute for north american studies4Canadian Military History, Vol. 28 [2019], Iss. 2, Art. 15https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol28/iss2/15

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Review of Bombing the City: Civilian Accounts of the Air War in Britain and Japan, 1939-1945 by Aaron William Moore

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