Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs
Issue 5 - Evidence - May 16, 2007
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 12:05 p.m. to study on the services and benefits provided to members of the Canadian Forces, veterans of war and peacekeeping missions and members of their families in recognition of their services to Canada.
Senator Joseph A. Day (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. Today we will continue our examination of the issues surrounding the display ``An Enduring Controversy'' at the Canadian War Museum. To date, the subcommittee has heard testimony from representatives of veterans associations, the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.
Further, in an effort to conduct a thorough and balanced study of this unfortunate debate, the subcommittee has invited historians who have studied and written specifically about the exhibit in question as well as historians whose knowledge and perspective of the strategic bombing campaign warranted an invitation.
To the many members from veterans, academic and museum communities who have contacted members of the subcommittee on this issue, and to those who were invited to appear but who were unable to do so due to scheduling conflicts — which include Dr. MacMillan and Dr. Morton — your letters and written submissions have been helpful, and we thank all of you for that.
Appearing before us this afternoon are Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) David Bashow and Professor Terry Quinlan. Lieutenant-Colonel David Bashow is a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, RMC. He is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick and RMC. He specializes in twentieth century military history. He is an author of several books, but his most recent publication is a book entitled No Prouder Place: Canadians and the Bomber Command Experience 1939-1945.
Mr. Terry Quinlan is also with us. I would ask you, Mr. Quinlan, to expand on your qualifications and your work. My understanding is that you are a Professor of Conservation and Program Coordinator for the Applied Museum Studies Program at Algonquin College here in Ottawa.
Terry Quinlan, Program Coordinator, Professor of Conservation, Applied Museum Studies Program, Algonquin College: Thank you for offering me an opportunity to speak to the subcommittee. This was a last-minute offer to attend, so I have tried to cobble something together for you.
I understand my role here today is that of an educator, to provide a simple and concise overview of the exhibit design process. I have provided a submission for your review, which provides a highlight of the key areas of exhibit design in the context of professional museum operations.
Before I get into that, I will qualify who I am and my background. I coordinate the oldest operating museum studies program in Canada, at Algonquin College, with 35 years of operation. I hold a degree in education and am a graduate of the conservation techniques program at Sir Sanford Fleming College. I have work experience at several national institutions and with the Ottawa municipal government as an adjudicator of grants and assessor of local regional museums and their operations.
With all that being said, I will go to the document I have provided. I will provide a quick summation of the museum exhibit process.
Exhibits are the public forum of museum activities, from research and conservation to education and outreach. Museums are reaping the benefits of an increased audience with an upsurge in new museum construction and the creation of numerous galleries, all of which have stimulated an increase in design and construction at cultural institutions across Canada.
As The Manual of Museum Exhibitions states, as the opportunities and demand for exhibitions have increased, so too has the need for a broader understanding of where exhibition ideas come from, how exhibitions are developed, the choices with regard to the approach, who makes those choices, what exhibitions cost and what benefits can reasonably be expected from exhibitions in terms of engaging the public and creating new knowledge.
Museums often need to be reminded of the interface that exists between the institution and its public. The points of contact or interface range from the physical contact of visitors entering and progressing through the museum building mainly to visit exhibitions and possibly to meet staff, to the more tenuous contacts made perhaps when reading museum posters or publications. Many others, which may be described as indirect contacts, occur through third parties such as the media.
The museum as a provider of a public service needs to be aware of its role. So too do the public whom it serves, since they have a right to know what it is they are paying for, possibly by a contribution through taxation or by direct payment at the door. The public also may wish to be assured that the tasks entrusted to the museum in terms of safeguarding what might loosely be described as national heritage are incorporated in its role and are being adequately pursued. Ensuring an adequate level of understanding of the museum's role in a greater social context can be somewhat achieved through the development and formal adoption of a well-articulated mandate and clearly understood and practised policies.
A sound leaping-off point in the process of creating museum exhibits is ensuring a solid comprehension of the museum's mandate and the exhibition policy. Like other policy papers, the exhibition policy should be accessible to both museum staff and outside agencies and individuals. It should seek to clarify the whole basis upon which the museum undertakes its exhibition activity.
The exhibition process is complicated and requires a cohesive team of experts with eclectic skill sets to accomplish a multitude of tasks while addressing the budgetary constraints all too common to those engaged in collecting, preserving and presenting Canada's collective cultural past.
As opposed to reading through my brief, I will give a quick overview of the exhibit process. On page 2 of the document I have given an indication of the multidisciplinary character of the exhibition development process. It involves four teams of specialists: those engaged in audience; those in content; those in communication; and those in installation. This brief table is meant to give you an indication of the complexity involved in the exhibit design process and the complexity involved in those people who have those specific skill sets in those areas.
In Canada, currently, there are three distinct phases to exhibit design and fabrication. First is the development phase, where the exhibit concept is created, tested and refined. The outcome of that phase is the institutional understanding of what the exhibit is about, why the museum is doing it at this time in this way and at this particular scale. In my experience of being engaged in the creation of exhibits at regional and provincial levels, we tend to see shortcomings at this phase in the process. A particular shortcoming is a lack of clarity and robustness in the exhibit brief that is created by those specialists, particularly the curatorial staff and other specialists at the museum.
The second phase is the design phase. Here you have a transformation of the exhibit brief into a three-dimensional reality. Then you also have the creation of what is referred to as the design brief or an interpretive plan. The shortcomings here are in the creation of an exhibit text that fails to meet the needs of the visitors and those of the museum. Also, another shortcoming at this phase typically is a lack of clarity regarding how we will preserve our collections while they are on display.
The final phase is the implementation phase. Here you see the actual creation and installation of the exhibit. The end deliverable for this component is the actual exhibit itself.
The other key points that I will make centre around curatorship and the involvement of curators in the creation of exhibits. Curators have a fundamental role to play in the design, implementation and creation of exhibits at museums at national, provincial and regional institutions in this country. There is a reason for that. The rationale is that curatorial staff is heavily engaged in collections and in research. It is from them that we seek expertise for the design and implementation of interpretive plans for the institution. It stands to reason that curators would have a heavy impact and influence on the creation of interpretative plans, texts, script and exhibits.
With respect to the exhibition brief, the fundamental thing you are looking for is a definition of the core idea of the exhibit: what exactly is it that you hope to communicate to the public; what themes would go along with that; the story line; resource plan; and also public programming, because fundamental to the creation of any exhibit at any institution is the design and implementation of public programs to augment what is being said through the written text and through the visual media. Those are extremely important.
The written brief I submitted to the committee also covers the interpretive planning process. The key areas to focus are the interpretive plan itself and the creation of the thematic area, the communication objectives, the experience aims, the exhibit media options and special requirements and opportunities.
The script is created within the interpretive plan. Here things can get somewhat complex. What needs to be said specifically about the creation of script and text in exhibits is that the institution should, at the front end of the creation of the exhibit, be conducting rather comprehensive front-end assessments and evaluations. Speaking specifically of this particular exhibit, I am not sure if that was undertaken. I have not had an opportunity to review what components were submitted as part of the exhibit brief. It is common practice first to identify your audience and then to undertake front-end assessment so that you can clearly articulate the theme and the message to meet the needs of that target audience. I will not bore you with the specifics of how one creates text at an institution to achieve that goal, but they are in my brief.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the roles and responsibilities in an exhibit development process; they are outlined on the second last page, from the director all the way down to the project manager engaged in exhibit design and creation in Canada. This is a professional standard commonly accepted at most institutions. Those who have an understanding of the inter-workings at our national institutions will recognize this common process.
The Chairman: I appreciate your brevity; it will give us more opportunity for questions. It is important that our viewing public and those here understand that we have a full brief and that it is somewhat technical. We have had a chance to review it once but we will take some time to review it in more detail. We appreciate your coming on short notice to give us a background on this.
If there is an unexpected or unanticipated public reaction to a display, what would be the typical approach of the curator or the museum manager?
Mr. Quinlan: Typically, the director of the institution would engage the public through a communications officer and would likely provide some sort of media release to address whatever the issue is. That would be the common approach. From there, several different avenues could be taken: public consultations might be held; advisory committees might be created to assist the institution in establishing an end outcome; some form of mediation might need to take place. At a regional level, in this area of the world we have not seen a lot of controversy around exhibit, exhibit creation and public presentation.
The Chairman: Is it common to see changes as part of that assessment of the unexpected reaction? Would one ever see a change in either text or the manner in which the display is made?
Mr. Quinlan: Historically, in the museum community in North America we have seen that take place on several occasions. I refer specifically to the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute, and there are several other examples where amendments have been made to text and display. In fact, at some institutions, exhibits have never made it to the floor as a result of controversy surrounding content and message.
The Chairman: Is there a difficulty with respect to a museum's credibility in making changes in reaction to or as a result of an unexpected interpretation?
Mr. Quinlan: You could expect the institution to lose some credibility in the eye of the public.
The Chairman: Would it be typical, then, or at least not atypical, for a museum to resist making a change as a result of adverse public attention?
Mr. Quinlan: It is difficult to answer that question, as I think you would need to be privy to the motivation behind the decision of the institution not to make an amendment to text or display. It could be that they have a strong feeling about the script and the message being sent. They may feel strongly about the process they have employed to reach that point where they have created the design, the text, the supporting material, and public programs so they may be reticent to step back.
The Chairman: Thank you. Senator Kenny is the chair of our parent committee, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, and he represents Ontario in the Senate.
Senator Kenny: I appreciate your describing the process to us. If one follows the process that you have described, does it lead to a certain answer? Is this a science like mathematics, where if you follow the appropriate formula you will then get the correct answer? Is it possible to say ever in an exhibit that there is one correct way to do something?
Mr. Quinlan: No, that is not possible, because your audiences are different in how they interpret something. As an example, if I had an image of an apple in a display, you might see that apple as representing original sin; somebody else might see it as being the image of red; others might see an image of nutrition. The difficulty is articulating one message using simplified text and images and expecting everyone to perceive them in the same way.
Senator Kenny: It is possible for people who run museums to maintain their integrity as academics and come up with a number of different ways to characterize an exhibit?
Mr. Quinlan: Absolutely. It is possible.
Senator Dallaire: How is the link made between the pedagogical side, the education and didactic instrumentation presented, which is the realm of your museology responsibilities specifically, and on the other side the truisms of the historian who has the story and who potentially also has the tools that might ultimately be used, a uniform, a picture, and so on, and then of course the text? Do you facilitate the historian in selling that product to a wide audience, or do you have simply a support role? What is the exchange between the two?
Mr. Quinlan: If you are speaking about the exchange between the director, the curator, the exhibit designer and the institutional educator — because there may be a public programmer as well — they all have a part to play in the process. The end decision would be made by the director of the institution about the core message and how that message is communicated. One hopes that the institution has first identified its target audience; they can then communicate the message in a way that assists them in achieving their goal.
In the document I provided I have qualified text application perspectives in four specific fields. You are looking at either research and curatorial, educational and didactic, audience and narrative, or design and visual. There is one more, mentioned in the text but not the diagram, and that is the marketing approach, which also has a part to play in the creation of exhibits.
To answer your question, it is a multi-faceted, multi-team effort to achieve the outcome of how that message is articulated. First, you have to identify your audience through front-end assessment, which is something that needs to be done at institutions; second, there is support through formative assessments during the design phase; finally, you do a summative assessment at the end of the exhibit to see if you are communicating the message.
Senator Dallaire: One can take for granted then that there was a formal process throughout the implementation of the exhibits in the Canadian War Museum in which the multi-disciplinary group was meeting and exchanging continuously. It was not an exercise dominated by historians but with a variety of players who came to a consensus on the exhibit.
Mr. Quinlan: Particularly when you think of an exhibit in a holistic way and all elements of the exhibit. The text of the exhibit may have been primarily driven by curatorial staff. They conduct the research to create the curatorial essay, which is the basis for the script. The text may be have heavily influenced by curatorial staff. How that message is articulated through the use of visual imagery, colour, lighting design, traffic flow and public programming is a holistic approach done by all elements of the institution.
Senator Dallaire: There I am in the front of a panel; to get the message I have the size of the words, the choice of words, pictures, maybe more specifics of the dimension, content, script and so on. That sort of projection has an idea behind it. It has an historic point, but it also has a theme. That group came out with a theme and why they want to present it this way. Would that be correct?
Mr. Quinlan: To a certain point, but it could be that the message being communicated to the public and being perceived by certain elements of the public is not what the institution was trying to articulate. That is entirely possible, as in my example with the apple.
Senator Dallaire: Whatever they did create had a thematic entity to it. It was not created by one technician; all these people got together. The end result is a deliberate thought process and multi-disciplinary exchange on how the idea is presented. If you get a feeling that a certain theme has been sold one way, is it because that is what they are trying to do, or could it have been projected that way even though that was not the intention?
Mr. Quinlan: That is entirely possible. It could be that at the end of the process someone realizes that the message they are trying to communicate is not coming across; it is the complete opposite or a different version.
Senator Dallaire: If you modified it, it does not mean that you are changing the story. You might be bringing forward information that you originally wanted to and people see it a different way.
Mr. Quinlan: You would support that through summative assessment or evaluation at the tail end of the exhibit. You then allow the public to view the exhibit. You identify, as part of the evaluation process, some of the key things. You might ask the public in the evaluation whether they received this message while viewing this exhibit. If you get a consistent response of ``no,'' you should not feel bad about making amendments to your exhibit.
Senator Atkins: Are most exhibits driven by text?
Mr. Quinlan: It is hard to say whether most are. Text is support material and a support technique used in most exhibits. Most exhibits nowadays have textual support.
Senator Atkins: There are several components to an exhibit: headlines, copy, pictures and photographs. They say a photograph is worth a thousand words. What is the most important component of a display, in your opinion?
Mr. Quinlan: I think that is specific to the actual display. It is hard to say what would be the most important element of a display. It would be influenced by many factors.
I am a conservator by trade. My interest lies in the tangible, in the material culture. I am a big fan of exhibits that actually have artefacts that have provenance and history attached to them and that can be used to communicate that message. I am also in support of exhibits that use audio visual materials or that are engaging through the use of public programs or public interpreters.
It is hard to say what I would consider to be the most important element. I think what ends up being the most important is that which assists you in communicating your message effectively to your audience.
Senator Atkins: Would you say that a photograph can demonstrate quicker than almost anything else in supporting the context or the content of the context?
Mr. Quinlan: That will really depend on your audience. Let me give you an example. If I am putting on a display at a university-based museum and the particular display deals with natural history collections, say molluscs or clams, I may create an exhibit that is heavy in text because my target audience would be graduate or post-graduate level students. I will not inundate them with simplistic images of the elements of a shell or clam, but I could provide them with rather complex theories and concepts about that biodiversity related to that particular species in the written text, and that would work extremely well with that audience. On the flip side, say my target audience is a group of grade 3 to grade 5 students. I may rely heavily on visual images and public programming as a means of communicating to that group. Again, it comes down to your target audience. To whom are you trying to communicate your message, and for what end?
We need to recognize that our institutions are also trying to produce revenue. I briefly mentioned marketing as a component of exhibits and the way exhibits are designed. Sometimes you are trying to reach a fairly large audience so that you can produce revenue as well.
Senator Atkins: You replied to Senator Kenny saying that there is more than one way to say the same thing.
Mr. Quinlan: Absolutely.
The Chairman: To clarify your answer to Senator Atkins, is it possible that a photograph accompanying text will lead an interpretation of the text in a particular direction?
Mr. Quinlan: Certainly.
The Chairman: Has there been any study of the effect on the audience of where something appears in an exhibit? In particular, is there any knowledge about the final message that is seen before someone leaves an exhibit? Does that have a more important role to play in the exhibit?
Mr. Quinlan: I am not sure what you mean.
The Chairman: There is a sign and some text and a picture at the end of a room. You walk around the room and go out the door. You are leaving the exhibit area, and the final message is there. Has any research been done specifically on the effectiveness of demonstrating a point by having a particular message at the end of an exhibit area that the people who have been there will take with them?
Mr. Quinlan: I do not know of any quantifiable studies that have been undertaken to indicate that what visitors see as they exit an exhibit would be the primary message they would carry away from the exhibit. It is possible some exist.
The Chairman: When you are establishing an exhibit, do you worry about what the last display will be?
Mr. Quinlan: My particular method is to have a credit panel shown at the very end of the exhibit to ensure that when they exit the exhibit, the public are aware of all the people who have been engaged in the creation of the exhibit. I do not know of any study done to quantify whether that is truly effective or really what people leave the exhibit with.
Senator Dallaire: I would think that if the layout were of a general theme like World War II, you would probably put the display chronologically, and there would be something at the end to sum it up. That methodology would probably be there to remind people.
My specific point is the following. We are talking about the science of this. You are into science. Museology may not be as clinical as math, but it is a science. You are a professor. You have peer review and intellectual rigor in what you are doing. If you were presented with a display, given your experience and academic background and looking at the technical elements of the display, you could probably say, ``This is the story they want to put out.'' Could you not do that? You could look at the size of the letters and the content and placement of the pictures, and you could dissect that and say, ``This is ultimately what they want to achieve.'' Is that not be correct?
Mr. Quinlan: I would like to think that I could look at it objectively and come to a conclusion of whether a message is being communicated, yes.
Senator Dallaire: Five or six of your colleagues with the same skills might have diverging dimensions, but generally speaking you could come out with an average assessment; is that right?
Mr. Quinlan: Typically.
Senator Dallaire: If that is possible, that leads to me to believe that you can have an objective look that is not purely a historian's word, but you can look at what is being presented to you and deduce from that what was wanting to be said. You are not actually getting the historian's credibility, if he has the story right, but you have the presentation analysis of the story, and that is what they are trying to present. You could actually deduce that. If that is the case and if there is, potentially, a skewing of the story because of how it is presented, that could be modified without putting in doubt the history of it; is that not correct?
Mr. Quinlan: Certainly. Could I add something?
Senator Dallaire: Do not qualify that.
Mr. Quinlan: If, in retrospect, you attempted to do that with the particular exhibit that we are all sitting around the table discussing, you would have an extremely difficult time because of such strong media coverage. It has reached the point where a Senate subcommittee is addressing it.
Senator Dallaire: Yes, because in time your jury has been tainted.
Mr. Quinlan: Yes, but outside of that, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
The Chairman: Thank you. That was helpful.
We will now turn to Lieutenant-Colonel Bashow. He has provided us with his latest text, as I indicated, plus three different summaries. I do not think he will go through all of those today, but he can give us a précis and then we will get into questions.
Lieutenant-Colonel (Ret'd) David Bashow, Adjunct Professor, Royal Military College of Canada: Thank you. Let me say at the outset that I am honoured to participate in these discussions. In recent weeks, you have heard from witnesses who either were participating veterans or were representing veterans' interest groups. Today, I hope to bring a somewhat different perspective to the table: the objectivity of a professional historian tempered with the empathy and the understanding of a long-serving operational aircrew member and senior air force officer.
The particular issue under question today happens to be an area of specialization for me, and so it was a great honour for me earlier to present each of the members with a copy of my latest book. You should know that it represents more than five years of scholarship and research on my behalf, and I think it breaks significant new ground with respect to the contributions made by the bomber offensive in bringing the war to a successful conclusion for the Allied powers in 1945. Your final exams will be mailed to you next week.
Let me echo the words of previous witnesses by declaring my unfettered and enthusiastic support of the Canadian War Museum as an institution. It is an outstanding facility that I believe for the most part pays eloquent and appropriate tribute to our nation's proud military heritage. While we Canadians like to be thought of as the peaceful kingdom and an unmilitary nation, it is an undeniable fact that Canada's commitments in war and, in particular, during the two global conflicts of the 20th century, have significantly shaped and influenced our development as a distinct nation and our recognition as such upon the world stage. While I agree with previous witnesses that the Second World War gallery within the museum is a superb tribute to Canada's warriors and to the significance of their contributions, I respectfully submit that the same cannot be said with respect to the section pertaining to the bomber offensive.
When so much military history needs to be acknowledged by an institution, there is always a danger of oversimplification. That, I believe, is what has happened with respect to the following misleading and simplistic generalization contained in the major display panel, entitled ``An Enduring Controversy'':
The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead, and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.
I fully acknowledge that this particular representation is but a portion of the overall display. However, its prominent placement and its juxtaposition with other particularly visceral photographs and negatively slanted or judgmental remarks that highlight moral and humanitarian concerns while largely ignoring the strategic and tactical value of the results obtained by the bombing render it, in my opinion, Bomber Command's enduring legacy within the museum. I find the tone of the statement judgmental through the implied linkage of needless civilian deaths for limited war gains, and when coupled with various ancillary display elements, the chosen words only serve to reinforce that impression.
I acknowledge that the bombing has generated controversy as to the results obtained and at what cost, particularly from scholars of history, philosophy and economics, although I would suggest that the word choices of ``bitterly contested'' are both inflammatory and an overstatement of the actual fact. There were those who questioned the bombing right from the outset, but to put the opposition in perspective, they always numbered in a minority. Most, such as Cosmo Lang, a wartime Archbishop of Canterbury, ultimately came out in favour of the bombing campaign. Public opinion polls of the day verify that the citizens of the Allied nations were made fully aware of the intentional bombing of the Axis industrial centres and they confirm that the bombing enjoyed very widespread public support.
During the war's closing months, an extremely effective propaganda campaign was waged by the Germans against the bombings. It was channelled through the neutral countries to various Allied news agencies, and it highlighted, amongst other things, the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. This disinformation included grossly inflated civilian casualty figures of up to 1,000 per cent. In fact, early in 1945, far from being just an innocent and beautiful baroque city subjected to wanton destruction by the allies, Dresden was an armed camp, a vital communications, transportation and staging hub for German forces fighting on the eastern front, and host to scores of factories engaged in highly significant war production, including the massive Zeiss Ikon complex. It had been a very long time since Zeiss Ikon had made anything as innocent or innocuous as a holiday snapshot camera.
The bombing of Dresden was actually done at the behest of the Soviets, who were then conducting major offensive operations around 100 kilometres east of the city. Once the war was over and Dresden had fallen behind the Iron Curtain, it was not to the Soviets' advantage to trumpet this bombing request to the new world order. Later still, Holocaust denier David Irving exacerbated an already skewed view of the bombing, and that was then perpetuated in Canada by the McKenna brothers when their misrepresentative series, The Valour and the Horror: Death by Moonlight aired on the CBC in the 1990s.
Today there are those who continue to condemn the bombing. One of the most prominent recent examples is the British philosopher Anthony Grayling, who has actually implied a moral equivalency between the Allied strategic bombing campaign and the 9/11 attacks. Part of the problem, I believe, is a widespread current propensity to view historical decisions and the actions that resulted from those decisions through the lens of current day sensitivities. History can be properly judged only within the context of the times during which it occurred. Hindsight, as the saying goes, invariably benefits from 20/20 accuracy. Lost in much of the debate is the fact that Nazism was a thoroughly repulsive and evil force bent upon world domination and mass genocide, and it needed to be stopped quickly and by whatever means were available at the time.
Much recent scholarship — and this includes some very respected sources from within Germany — has credibly put challenge to the naysayers through diligent reassessment of primary source and archival material, much of which was not broadly available until recently. These efforts paint a much more positive assessment of both the direct and the indirect achievements of the bombing campaign.
The Allied bombing of the Third Reich and other Axis nations was totally in synchronization with Britain's overall peripheral war strategy. It took the offensive to the enemy from the war's commencement, demonstrating to all that Britain and the Dominions did not intend to acquiesce to the totalitarian powers. It provided offensive relief to the Soviets when no other major commitment, and that included a premature land campaign, could be generated. It also mollified the Americans, for while they had agreed to a Germany-first overall war priority, they wanted to conclude operations in Europe as expeditiously as possible and then dedicate all Allied efforts against the Japanese in the Pacific. Therefore, there was a lot of pressure from both the Soviets and the Americans to expedite an invasion of Northwest Europe long before Britain and the Dominion forces felt they were ready to do so. To this end, the bomber offensive was in many ways a sophisticated form of guerrilla warfare, attacking the enemy on its peripheries. This was embodied in the aerial bombing of enemy industrial targets, conducted at a time when a full, head-on land confrontation was not yet viable.
The bombing offensive dealt significant blows to the enemy's economic and industrial engines, forcing an exceptionally demanding, costly, resource-intensive decentralization of industry. The impact of the strategic direction was staggering, in terms of both the manpower committed to this new direction and the additional reliance placed on limited strategic materiel resources. It also seriously overburdened a transportation network that was already stretched to the limit. Furthermore, the defences required just to honour the bombing threat were highly significant, including, by 1944, nearly a million service persons to man the anti-aircraft guns as well as four fifths of the Reich's fighter aircraft resources and many tens of thousands of pieces of versatile field artillery, which were therefore denied usage at the fighting fronts.
Furthermore, the need to produce so many defensive fighters did not permit the Germans the luxury of developing their own countering strategic bombing force, and the concentration of air assets to the defence of the Reich denied or limited vital air support to their own troops at the fighting fronts and also meant that Allied troops in combat operations on the continent were subjected to much less enemy air bombardment than otherwise would have been the case.
The bombing also incited the Nazis to pursue some highly costly but largely ineffective retaliation campaigns, such as the various vengeance rocket or V-weapon programs, while other much more viable initiatives, such as a priority focus upon the jet and rocket fighter programs and high-technology Type XXI series of U-boats, were either stymied or marginalized.
Decentralization, although innovative, was extremely inefficient, particularly in an industry that had relied so much on centralization for efficiency in the first place. Along with the additional burdens placed upon the vulnerable transportation systems, it generated an imperative for even more petroleum products at a time when the Allied bombing was making oil a priority target. It also forced the Germans to abandon or curtail some sinister nuclear, biological and chemical warfare programs, several of which had demonstrated great developmental promise. Additionally, when Bomber Command was seconded to General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in the spring of 1944, it greatly assisted, through the destruction of enemy air defences, oil resources and transportation networks, the successful invasion of Germany through the Normandy beachheads later that year.
Some critics, including the distinguished Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who had been a member of the postwar United States Strategic Bombing Survey team, took, not surprisingly, a narrow economic view of the destruction rendered by the bombing, especially with respect to finished products. Galbraith in particular appeared to be mesmerized by Germany's ability to actually significantly increase fighter aircraft and tank production during the latter years of the war. This influence has been embodied in a representative Galbraith quote on the ``Enduring Controversy'' panel, and it has undoubtedly played a role in the panel's diminution of the industrial impact on the campaign.
However, detractors of the campaign have either forgotten or do not acknowledge that German war production was, by Hitler's direction, operating at much less than total capacity until after their defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943. At that point, Germany went into a 24/7 total war footing, and that kick-start to industry was coincidental with the commencement of the Anglo-American Combined Bomber Offensive in the wake of the Casablanca Conference in January 1943.
It is difficult to conceive of what the Germans would have been able to accomplish had they not been forced into a demanding industrial decentralization program, had they not been forced to honour the bombing attacks through so much bolstering of their homeland defences, had they maintained uninterrupted use and control of their production facilities, and had they maintained unimpeded use of their very diversified transportation networks. Lost in much of the debate is the fact that much of the increase in production was borne on the backs of millions of slave labourers. Although the numbers of finished products increased in the later years of the war until close to the final collapse, quality control suffered dramatically, due in part to passive resistance and deliberate sabotage by the slave labourers, but also due to the shortage of strategic materials that was brought about by the bombing.
The production increases associated with tanks and fighters is, at any rate, a moot point. By the time these assets were available in numbers, the Allied counter-oil bombing campaign had denied them the fuel needed to carry them into combat. Even Galbraith and his followers have acknowledged the impact of the bombing on oil, on the transportation networks and on strategic materials. According to the American and the separate British postwar bombing surveys, the bombing destroyed virtually all of Germany's coke, ferro-alloy and synthetic rubber industries; 95 per cent of its fuel, hard coal and rubber capacity; 90 per cent of its steel capacity; 75 per cent of its truck producing capacity; and 70 per cent of its tire production. In spite of the increased production rates of some war fighting equipment, it still created huge aircraft and armoured vehicle production losses. The treatment of oil as a priority target in 1944 not only limited Axis combat operations, but it also drastically reduced the amount of fuel that was being made available for training purposes.
The campaign was also very successful in mining the western Baltic. It forced the German navy to operate virtually exclusively out of the eastern portion of the sea, and it also required them to garrison some 40 divisions to secure and protect the surrounding land masses during the latter months of the Soviet advance. This would ultimately tie down a full third of the land forces available to fight the approaching Red Army, thus further assisting the Allied war effort by ensuring those forces were unavailable for the final defence of the Reich.
That the bombing caused massive civilian casualties is undeniable. My numbers are very close to those of the Canadian War Museum. Nearly 600,000 civilians perished in the Greater German Reich alone due to the bombings, and those numbers include nearly 130,000 displaced persons and thousands more prisoners of war. Although those numbers are large, they pale in comparison to the genocide perpetrated upon the peoples of Europe and Eurasia by the Germans and their allies.
In addressing a frequently recurring criticism that an inordinate percentage of war resources was expended by Bomber Command, leading authority Richard Overy maintains that percentage was rather modest overall. He said:
Measured against the total for the entire war effort (production and fighting), bombing absorbed 7 percent, rising to 12 percent in 1944-45. Since at least a portion of bomber production went to other theatres of war, (and to other commands), the aggregate figures for the direct bombing of Germany were certainly smaller than this. Seven percent of Britain's war effort can hardly be regarded as an unreasonable allocation of resources.
While it is true that moral issues have generated considerable debate with respect to the bombing campaign, even leading German authorities have acknowledged that the area bombing policy, conducted as it was during the Second World War, was entirely legal. In fact, it has only been fully legislated against since 1977 in the wake of Vietnam War, when the first protocol to the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbade deliberate military attacks upon civilians.
Civilian casualties were an inevitable product of the bombing campaign, of which the partial and very public, open mandate was to de-house the enemy industrial worker population and to shatter its will to wage war. One must also realize that while the deliberate slaughter of the German workforce was never mandated, collateral damage was certainly expected. The Western trend of building residential areas around industrial facilities inevitably produced further casualties. This reality was compounded by the fact that Bomber Command, as it operated during the Second World War, and in spite of some isolated precision bombing capabilities, such as the Ruhr Dams Raid by 617 Squadron in May 1943, was, in the overall sense as it applied to the main force, a blunt instrument. Even as technological advances were brought online, the command lacked the surgically precise targeting capabilities of today's weapons systems.
In sum, collateral damage to civilians was considered a necessary adjunct to the bombing. Moreover, it is not as if the various totalitarian regimes had not provided numerous examples of area bombing before the start of the Allied bombing offensive. The bombing of the Chinese coastal ports by the Japanese, of Barcelona and Guernica by Franco's fascists, and of Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Bath and Bristol by the Germans all support this point.
I wanted to close with some thoughts on the human element of the equation, but time does not permit me to do so. You can read the long, formal presentation I put forward to you gentlemen today. I would, however, like to mention that I believe the human element of the display is somewhat missing. That is a very important element. The operational tour and the way they conducted themselves against absolutely incredible odds and staggering defences is a real triumph of the human spirit, and I do not think it has been given the proper credit. We can talk about that later, if you wish.
Having said that, with respect to psychological impact upon the enemy, German morale, in spite of claims to the contrary, did suffer as a result of the bombing. Much recent scholarship confirms this. According to the German historian Götz Bergander:
In reality, the air raids on cities and industry shook the foundations of the war morale of the German people. They permanently shattered their nerves, undermined their health and shook their belief in victory, thus altering their consciousness. They spread fear, dismay and hopelessness.
When used tactically during the latter stages of the war, bombing also generated a lack of resistance in the German urban areas that undoubtedly hastened the surrender. Based upon experiences such as had occurred at Ortona, Italy, and elsewhere in northwest Europe, it saved many casualties on both sides by frequently avoiding the need for bitter house-to-house fighting.
In closing, while the campaign has been the subject of considerable controversy with respect to the results achieved and the costs entailed, the bombing offensive took the fight to the enemy. Its very existence created a poor man's second front that bled off significant German resources from the eastern front, and it also demanded the diversion of massive amounts of materiel and manpower from all Germany's primary combat commitments and initiatives. It dealt highly significant blows to Germany's industrial infrastructure, and it paved the way, through the destruction of Germany's air defences, its road, rail and sea transportation networks and its petroleum resources, for a massive land invasion through Normandy in 1944, which was now being generated at a time when the Western allies felt they could prevail over such a formidable challenge.
Senator Atkins: Thank you for being here and for providing us with your book, which is a most interesting read. Your book contains a passage by Martin Middlebrook, who said, ``A country fighting for its very existence cannot afford to have strict boundaries of morality in the means by which it saves itself. It is sheer humbug to suggest that the use of bombers at this time was wrong when it was touch and go whether Britain survived at all.''
Does the display panel reflect that statement?
LCol. Bashow: I do not believe that it does, quite frankly. I do not believe it reflects the fact that in terms of offensive action, which was desperately needed from the outset, for myriad reasons that I discuss in the book, the only offensive operation available to the Allies — initially Britain and the Dominions — was the bomber offensive. The British Army, except for operations in North Africa and to an extent in the Far East, spent most of the first three years of the war training in Britain. There was no opportunity to take the offensive in any other way.
In terms of the morality issue, the whole development of policy at the start of the war was deliberately non- provocative. It was restricted to reconnaissance, leaflet dropping, and attacks on enemy ports and on enemy shipping. It did not go further than that through the period of the Phoney War until the invasion of the Low Countries in April and May 1940. In May, with the devastation of Rotterdam, the gloves came off for the first time. The then head of Bomber Command, Sir Charles Portal, who was about to be named Chief of the Air Staff, asked for permission to bomb oil facilities east of the Rhine, which was granted. It developed gradually from that into an attack by virtue of area bombing. They had tried daylight raids under visual flight rules for target identification and they were being decimated early by the German fighter forces. Consequently, they switched to night raids and the stealth that darkness offered, including an element of survival. However, it did not offer navigational and targeting accuracy.
The whole concept of area bombing of industrial targets was forced upon them by the circumstances of the day. Until a broader precision capability developed in the last year of the war, there was no alternative to this. You must understand that the area bombing of the industrial cities occupied only 45 per cent of all Bomber Command's efforts throughout the war. The remaining percentages were diversified against naval and other forms of targets. There were always designated industrial aim points or public utility aim points within those areas, but it is true that the area bombing would default to that if the specific aim points could not be identified. As I said earlier, part of the open, publicly declared mandate was the de-housing of the industrial workforce and all the disruption that that would cause.
Senator Atkins: You have a problem not only with the headline and the text but also with the photograph.
LCol. Bashow: I have a problem not only with the content of the text but also with the juxtaposition of other things. If I were king, I would remove the quote by John Kenneth Galbraith. Even though he was a highly respected economist of great stature and his pronouncements have been given historical weight, he has a very skewed view of this. He was in much disagreement with other members of his survey team and was mesmerized by the specific production capabilities in the latter years of the war and the fact that the Germans were able to produce 3,000 fighters in the month of November 1944, just before the final collapse. Galbraith took a narrow view that did not include the destruction of priming materials and so forth.
Senator Atkins: Are you aware that the panel of reviewers from the Canadian War Museum are concerned about historical revisionism because, in their view, there is great danger in tinkering?
LCol. Bashow: If I may be so bold, there has been some historical revisionism with the exhibits in the first place. I do not think it is deliberate, but it is an oversimplification and tells only part of the story. There seems to be undue focus on the negative elements of the bombing campaign. The moral issues are viewed through the lens of present-day sensitivities. It does not at any point tabulate the actual results of the bombing campaign in terms of the direct contributions and the damage inflicted. Much emphasis has been placed upon laying waste to acres and acres of German cities and the killing of civilians, whereas many other photos are available of destroyed factories such as the Krupp works at Essen, Germany, and other enemy factories and military installations that we do not tend to see. That is not the overall impression that you get from this display.
To my way of thinking, a synergism is associated with all of the various displays of photos, such as the one drawn from a German city that depicts piles of dead bodies. That are many equivalent photos of dead bodies to be drawn from Bath, Bristol, Coventry and London during the Blitz and from Warsaw, Rotterdam and others. I do not see those photographs on display. Nor do we see photos of the bodies of air crew members shot down over Europe while on operations. There are lots of those photos available as well. There was a tremendous cost. There should be separate panels that tabulate civilian casualties on the Allied side and on the Axis side, as well as the air crew losses on both sides. That would be an appropriate way of displaying it.
Senator Dallaire: We looked at many cities of World War II that were extensively damaged by bombing campaigns on both sides. However, there was also a great deal of destruction of cities due to fighting in built-up areas. We bombarded many areas with artillery, bombers and direct fire, resulting in many civilian casualties because they were not able to escape because we could not warn them. If as part of a campaign we destroy cities in which civilians will become casualties in order to protect our troops and to mount successes in the conflict, should a different analysis be done when we are preparing to bomb cities where the population is involved in producing the weaponry or the logistics for the opposition campaign? Are there different sets of human rights or parameters that should be used in both cases, one when we are in direct fighting, blasting the living daylights out of them, or the other where we are doing it indirectly by defence and depth, by wearing down the enemy in its logistics and production capability of weaponry that ultimately we will face?
LCol. Bashow: There is not, within the context of the time, sir. In fact, it is not a new story. For example, laying siege to cities and the destruction of those cities is a very old form of warfare. The shelling of ports is also a very old form of warfare. This is an extension of the same thing. It has to be viewed in the context of the times. Within the context of those earlier times and the Second World War, the precision bombing or targeting capabilities were not present. Now, because our technology is much better, we can lob that Tomahawk missile through the second-storey window far left and not touch anything else. The public understands this, in terms of restricting collateral damage. The ability to restrict collateral damage simply was not there at that time, and as I said, because of the Western propensity for building up residential areas around industrial infrastructures, there was going be collateral damage. I cannot really find a moral reason for not conducting that in the first place.
Senator Dallaire: I was not even looking at collateral damage. I consider that bombing the supporting industries or the logistics capabilities — mobility, fuel or whatever — that are supporting the campaign is directly part of the campaign. Those are targets, just like facing the guy 200 metres away and blasting him out of a house while there are still civilians inside. It is the same campaign.
The question of precision and non-precision collateral damage is interesting. We just saw Israel blast the living daylights out of Lebanon with aerial bombing in an interdiction role. We still use that methodology today. We did it in the Kosovo campaign when we went after the infrastructure. Civilians were killed in that. We can use the term ``collateral'' but they were right inside the target areas. Should we be looking at that differently than the use of force in World War II?
LCol. Bashow: Because the ability to control the use of force, technologically and tactically, has now matured to the point we can consider that, and because deliberate targeting of civilians has been illegal since 1977, the rules for the conduct of warfare have changed from that time.
Senator Dallaire: Perfect. Thank you very much. That is exactly what I am trying to get at. The rules and humanitarian laws of armed conflict have shifted and the capabilities within those rules have now shifted to be able to avoid some of the extensive-damage methodologies used in previous wars.
LCol. Bashow: Yes, sir.
Senator Dallaire: In your book, you describe the moral issue and the argument's downside:
If the bombing of Germany had little effect on production prior to 1944, it is not only because she had idle resources on which to draw, but because the major weight of air offensive against her had not been brought to bear. After the air war against Germany was launched on its full scale, the effect was immediate.
You stand by your premise that the aerial campaign was an essential instrument in winning the war.
LCol. Bashow: Yes, sir, I do. I do not maintain that it could have won the war all by itself. Ultimately, there was going to have to be a serious land conflict. Did it pave the way for it? Was it a synergistic thing? Absolutely, yes. It could not have been done without it.
Senator Dallaire: After I read this, look at the interpretation on that display board and whether or not something else should be added to it to balance it out. Note that this was after the British had been bombed at home:
From this point onwards, British authority no longer felt obliged to exercise due care and restraint with respect to minimizing collateral civilian casualties in the Germany industrial centres. Furthermore, this policy direction enjoyed widespread public support at the time.
Should we not see the British public also reflected on that board? It should say that they supported that air campaign, and not simply say that what we did was perceived to be against the rules of law of the time.
LCol. Bashow: Absolutely, yes. Furthermore, public opinion polls are broadly available on that and they are in the book.
I would suggest a rather significant rewording of the panel as noted in part of the handout. You have that on my shopping list of how things could be readdressed. I would change the wording of the panel to this:
Although the value and the morality of the strategic bomber offensive has been vigorously debated, the bombing offensive took the fight to the enemy. It provided a means of hitting back at the enemy when no other form of sustained and significant offensive action was yet viable. It provided hope to both allied civilians and to Europe and Eurasia's enslaved masses that they were not being forgotten. Its very existence created a ``poor man's second front'' that bled off significant German resources from the Eastern Front and it also demanded the diversion of massive amounts of material and manpower from all Germany's primary combat commitments and initiatives. It dealt highly significant blows to Germany's industrial infrastructure, and paved the way, through destruction of Germany's air defences, its road, rail and sea transportation networks, and its petroleum resources, for a massive land invasion through Normandy in 1944 now generated at a time that the Allies deemed they were ready for such a formidable undertaking.
There is no need to avoid the cost in civilian casualties. That is a fact, it happened. So be it: that is war and it is total war. It should be up there. In balance, I think the Allied casualties should be there, for example, those that occurred during the Blitz and thereafter. Also, when those casualties occurred should be noted, because that was part and parcel of the decision-making process to formulate the area bombing policy and to go with it. The timing was part of the driver. Remember that all the bombing that took place on Rostock and downstream on Cologne was post-Blitz.
The Chairman: Professor Bashow, I am glad that you went to your proposed modifications. You had a very convincing presentation today. Notwithstanding, because of the other witnesses, including historians, there is clearly an ongoing disagreement with respect to the issue of the value and to an extent the morality of the strategic bombing campaign. We have seen both sides of that. It has been clear to us that the issue of the morality and the usefulness or the effectiveness is being taken personally by the air crews that participated and their representatives. We are looking for some possibility of modifications. Let us assume there was nothing sinister in the preparation of this panel. It is simply being misinterpreted and interpreted in a manner that was not intended. We are looking for possible modifications, and you have given some suggestions.
In what you just read out there are extra words over what appears in the document provided. Where did those extra words come from?
LCol. Bashow: I just think it needs a few more words. For example I would not call the panel ``An Enduring Controversy.'' The fact that there is an enduring controversy has already been presented in a panel previous to the ``Enduring Controversy'' panel. The first panel on the right-hand side when you walk into the exhibit is about bombing for effect. The moral issues are already highlighted in that panel. They are being reemphasized in the ``Enduring Controversy'' panel.
The Chairman: You are proposing a change of title from ``An Enduring Controversy'' to ``The Allied Strategic Bombing Campaign.'' However, there are displays of the Nazis bombing Coventry and London. Is the message not about strategic bombing in general as opposed to Allied strategic bombing of Germany?
LCol. Bashow: When we come to that particular point in the exhibit, we are homing in on the Allied side of it. Strategic bombing is covered as soon as you enter the gallery with a display on bombing to win on the first side and in earlier panels. In fairness, mention is made of Germans bombing civilian targets to begin with too. That is one of the things that precipitated the Allied response. When we get to the Allied strategic bombing campaign, I believe we are talking about the specific value added and the costs incurred as a result of that specific bombing campaign. My suggestion was a tentative title, a possibility. The title ``An Enduring Controversy'' again flags the moral and negative elements when they have already been flagged.
The Chairman: Surely the issue of the value and the morality of strategic bombing is not just a test of the Allies' strategic bombing of Germany; it is rather the broader issue of strategic bombing going both ways.
LCol. Bashow: I think there could be a reasonable approach and a reasonable compromise.
The Chairman: That is where the controversy lies. Is this a moral thing to be doing and is it useful? You make a strong argument one way but others disagree. Surely it is the concept of strategic bombing in its broadest sense, not just the Allies' bombing of Germany, that is in question.
Senator Dallaire: Mr. Chair, would you include Hiroshima in that too?
The Chairman: Some people would call that precision bombing. The definitions are part of the problem.
LCol. Bashow: If you are prepared to make a case for that.
The Chairman: Absolutely. We are looking for compromise. Have these words been made available to the Canadian War Museum?
LCol. Bashow: I was not asked for them, sir.
The Chairman: Is there anything else you would like to add?
LCol. Bashow: I believe the John Kenneth Galbraith quote has skewed the dialogue so much in the past, by virtue of the man's reputation. Either it should be removed or other quotes should be put up for balance. For example, there is a quote by his colleague Paul Henry Nitze, also an extremely well-respected economist and the person who hired Galbraith to be part of the team. Quotes by Richard Overy or Richard Holmes could be used to provide balance if the Galbraith quote is left in. The dissenting airman's quote, the moral objections from an air crew member, is well and good, but if you have it there are also lots of quotes from air crews supporting the bombing campaign that could be included. Again, it is all about balance. The positive quote that appears is from the Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Arthur Harris, and I think that that is automatically somewhat jaundiced or suspect to begin with considering the reputation of the source. I would prefer to have a positive quote from an air crew member if you were going to do that.
I talked about photos of the heaps of German casualties. If you wish to do that, fine, but then there are parallel displays you can make from all kinds of elements of the German bombing or the German V-1 and V-2 attacks of 1944 and 1945. I talked about the photos of the burned-out German cities including acres of residential areas destroyed. Yes that is part and parcel of it, but destroyed factories, infrastructure facilities and military targets are part of it as well.
Generally speaking, I feel for the human element of this equation. The air crew have been depersonalized in this particular forum, in this element or subset of the display. As I go around the corner and look for example at fighter operations, which is my background, and the fighter pilots, I see lots of smiling faces, young men in the prime of life, and their personalities just reach out to you. I do not find that in the Bomber Command part. There seems to be a subconscious effort to almost dehumanize the Bomber Command air crew. They were not just mindless automatons or drones going over every night raining death and destruction on the Third Reich. They were young men with hopes, dreams and promises for the future, but I do not see that part of their personalities coming through. That element becomes synergistic with the others and collectively they form the whole negative impression of the display. I would choose some different photographs too and I have suggestions with respect to that.
Senator Dallaire: There is quite a famous Doonesbury Vietnam cartoon with two B-52 pilots at 35,000 feet dropping all those Mark 82 bombs in Cambodia while discussing baseball game results. That anti-Vietnam perspective of bombing is a smell of ``anti'' in what has been projected versus what is an attempt to bring forward the actual weaponry and use of that weaponry in total war. The way you have been describing it brought immediately back that same projection and that is why it is so important that the technical side is heard.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, on your behalf, I would like to thank both of our witnesses for being here. We thank you for your help and for the copy of your book. We assure you the information obtained today will be taken into consideration in our deliberations on this matter.
The committee adjourned.