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This was hardly exploding the myths of war
• BRUCE Kent, in his frankly disturbing plaudit for Nicholson Baker’s book Human Smoke (Exploding the myths of war, June 26), claims Britain “contributed substantially to the collapse” of the 1932-1934 World Disarmament Conference.
He claims: “We were not going to tolerate an American navy larger than our own.”
In fact Britain and the US reached agreement on new naval builds at the conference. Britain in particular agreed to build no new battleships. The conference was then wrecked by the intransigence of Japan and, from 1933, Nazi Germany. (Bruce Kent cleverly calls it the 1932 conference, to disguise Hitler’s involvement from 1933.) Britain only began to rearm in 1936, after Nazi Germany announced its intention to ignore all international agreements. Bruce Kent also claims that Churchill was in favour of “using poison gas against uncivilised tribes”. In fact this memorandum, written by Churchill as colonial secretary in 1922, related to non-lethal tear gas, and Churchill favoured it precisely because it could disperse rebel fighters “without casualties”. But in any case no such bombs were ever prepared or dropped, though pacifists often claim that they were. Bruce Kent also claims that “The RAF conducted raids on many German cities prior to the Coventry attack.” In fact the RAF obeyed the bombing moratorium agreed with President Roosevelt, which ruled out raids on civilian areas, from September 1939 to May 1940. In that time the RAF only attacked German warships and seaplane bases, often at terrible cost. The moratorium broke down when the Germans bombed Rotterdam. Even then, only very small warning raids were made on Germany until the Germans bombed London. Bruce Kent also claims that “ethics and legality had rapidly given way to no-holds-barred bombing”.
In fact all Allied bombing was lawful. Only the bombardment of undefended cities after surrender, as in the case of Rotterdam, was unlawful under the Hague Convention. The Allies never did any such thing. Bruce Kent also claims that “this country was actually blockading the continent... and thus preventing food imports and causing starvation.”
He claims this was news to him. That is because it isn’t true. The naval blockade was largely ineffective, unlike in the Great War, and did not cause starvation or anything like it, at any time. Bruce Kent says, “There was an American public campaign... to help to feed the French”. This was a propaganda campaign by anti-British agitators. France was far better fed than Britain throughout the war. Most British blockading activity consisted of the RAF dropping mines in the U-boat training areas in the Baltic. Bruce Kent tactically avoids mentioning that Nicholson Baker’s book, which he so admires, engages in Holocaust denial. Baker pretends that the lovely, nice, fluffy, cuddly Nazis only meant to send the Jews to Madagascar, but the evil British blockade prevented this, and then the evil RAF bombing put such pressure on the housing stock that it was an enlightened and rational policy to just exterminate the Jews to make room. Baker quotes wartime Nazi propaganda to this effect as if it meant a damn thing. Bruce Kent, by his approval of the book, appears silently to go along with it. There’s something very, very deeply, seriously wrong with that.
HUGO BARNACLE
Croftdown Road, NW5
Explanation
• I HAVE considerable respect for Bruce Kent and his untiring work for the peace movement. But his review of Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II reveals how dangerous it is to recount history from the source of diaries, various memoranda and anecdotal evidence, without explaining the interaction of the events detailed; without “gloss” as he explains.
If, as he says, he thought that the infamous air raid on Coventry was the start of indiscriminate bombing he was sadly wrong. The Coventry raid took place on November 14 1940 and the savage nature of the German attack on Poland (September, 1939), was well known. Was Bruce unaware of the mass raid on Rotterdam, (May 1940), and the beginning of the Blitz on London (September, 1940)? It is true that Churchill was trying to inveigle America to join the war but I know of no evidence that the Coventry raid played any part in the story.
To think of the Pacific as a US lake, as Bruce describes, needs serious qualification; much depends on what part of the ocean is under question, for Britain, France, and Holland all had considerable interests in the Far East and were highly involved with the politics of the area, especially those of Japan.
A “pre-emptive attack” is an expression used when one country takes action to forestall the aggression of another. At the time of Pearl Harbour (1941) there was no sign of the US attacking Japan. What the US was doing was applying sanctions to curb a most aggressive Japan that had been encouraged to expand owing to the 1940 disasters of Britain, France and Holland in Europe. Pearl Harbour was an opportunist dash for Far Eastern supremacy that Japan ultimately lost, but at a very high price in human lives.
Finally, one must question the claim that in the 1930s Britain was concerned with the growing size of the American fleet. The Washington Naval Conference of 1922 had reached agreement on the ratio of warships accorded to US, Britain, Japan, France and Italy. Before 1939 Britain was far more worried about what Nazi Germany was doing concerning its U-boat programme than the activities of a country that was seen as a potential ally.
PETER RICHARDS
Highgate Road, NW5
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