I've recently read up on the works of authors like David S. Wyman who argues that the Allied commanders were lazy, inconsiderate, or perhaps even immoral in their decision not to bomb Auschwitz or the railways connected to the camps. This is certainly a provocative stance to take, and I was curious how modern historians of the Holocaust tackle this issue. I thought the factual evidence presented by Dr. Wyman was incredibly well-researched, but I found the moral stances and the near continuous chastisement of the Roosevelt administration to be somewhat disconcerting in a work of academic history. In other words, it seemed like the author wanted Auschwitz to be bombed.
So: how have modern Holocaust historians reacted to Wyman's work? Should we be engaging in discussions of morality about the decision, or should academic historians always stick to the position of the impartial observer? Given how this issue (at least based on the evidence presented by David Wyman) nearly became more than a counterfactual, is it productive for historians to focus on something that never happened?
And a minor secondary question: did the Mosquito bombers actually have the range to hit Auschwitz and come back?
Hi, hopefully someone will respond directly to your core question of morality, but meanwhile, I thought you might get something out of these posts, by way of background, and specifically wrt your secondary question
/u/domini_canes in Why didn't the Allies bomb railroad lines leading to the concentration/extermination camps?
more from /u/domini_canes, and a now-deleted user, in What are some specifics on aviation during World War Two? (Detailed questions inside)
u/llordlloyd in Did the Americans have the ability to bomb railroad tracks in order to disable concentration camps during WW2?
/u/kugfelfang in Holocaust Question
These posts have all been archived by now, so if you have follow-up questions for any of the users, just ask here & tag their username to notify them.
My answer linked below by u/Searocksandtrees gives most of the answer. Although I am not familiar with Wyman's arguments, I'd be most surprised if they were backed by any deep understanding of bombing (as opposed to genocide, in which I'm sure his expertise is excellent).
The Allies struggled to effectively close railway communications in Normandy for most of the war, just across the English Channel. A massive RAF effort to destroy Berlin in winter 1943-44 ended in defeat and severe losses (the Bomber Offensive matched the Western Front in the First World War in its casualty rates). Auschwitz was much, much further away from Britain.
To suppose Allied heavy bombers could fly to their maximum range, into the most heavily defended airspace in the world, and return along an absolutely predictable path, mostly without fighter escort, shows complete ignorance of what bombers could do and what their crews were expected to endure.
This would be to bomb a target that would be repaired within hours of the bombers leaving. While a morally wholesome use of military resources, such raids would have been grossly irresponsible.
They would have inflicted almost no damage on the Nazi war machine, would have flown in the face of what the British and American public expected their sons and husbands to be used for, and would have represented a diversion away from using scarce and very expensive military resources to actually win the war.
They also would have saved very few Jews from the horrific genocide of the war years.