Royan is simply a edifice municipality successful the southwest of France close connected the Atlantic Ocean. Home to 20 1000 residents, a vibrant sportfishing community, and 5 beaches, it transforms implicit the summertime erstwhile ninety 1000 tourists swarm onto the scene. Most are determination for the sunshine and advertised topless beaches. But Royan besides attracts radical funny successful the unsocial ways that the town’s homes and buildings were built successful the modernist benignant of the 1950s. Given that Royan was settled twenty-five 100 years ago, the architecture begs the question of why, alternatively of being an archaeological site, the municipality is studied for its full 1950s style. That’s due to the fact that this onetime refuge of Pablo Picasso was bombed to hellhole little than 3 weeks earlier the authoritative extremity of the Second World War. France had already been liberated, but Royan was said to beryllium the tract of a smattering of Third Reich dead-enders. They were the holdouts, remnants of the times erstwhile Nazi generals prioritized operations successful Royan due to the fact that of its coastal subject value.
What could person been a constabulary enactment was alternatively a full-scale bombing raid that killed 3 1000 civilians and conscionable twenty-three German soldiers. Howard Zinn was 1 of the airmen who rained decease connected Royan. The bombs that Zinn and different US and British soldiers utilized besides marked a caller epoch of barbarism during wartime. These missions constituted the archetypal clip an service dropped monolithic canisters containing what Zinn heard officers telephone “jellied gasoline.” This jellied gasoline would instrumentality to tegument and pain it to the bone. Its stickiness meant that nary magnitude of h2o could halt a assemblage from feeling arsenic if connected fire. Zinn did not marque the transportation until years aboriginal during America’s warfare successful Vietnam, but helium had been dropping what became popularly known arsenic “napalm.” In his publication The Politics of History, helium wrote: “At the time, it seemed conscionable different bombing, with a somewhat antithetic people and a somewhat antithetic cargo of bomb…I retrieve distinctly seeing, from our large height, the bombs detonate successful the town, flaring similar matches struck successful a fog. I was wholly unaware of the quality chaos below.”
Zinn successful the years to travel was vexed some morally and politically by the impersonality of the sidesplitting arsenic a bombardier.
Zinn wrestled with what helium did successful Royan, however his superiors could bid the bombing and wherefore helium obeyed, for the remainder of his life. While Zinn near the work successful a authorities of idiosyncratic motivation crisis, helium entered an anxious enlistee who instantly disavowed the get-out-of-the-war-free walk helium had been given.
“I could person remained successful the Brooklyn Navy Yard, wherever I had been moving for 3 years, and wherever our gathering of battleships and landing ships kept america exempt from subject service,” helium recalled. “But I could not carnivore to enactment retired of a warfare against fascism. I saw the warfare arsenic a noble crusade against radical superiority, militarism, fanatic nationalism, expansionism.”
Without the cognition of his parents, Zinn signed with the aerial corps. He preferred warring the Nazis to warring his parents, who, adjacent though they supported the warfare against fascism and adjacent though their ain lives had taught them the dangers of leaving a deranged, authoritarian bully unchecked, already had 1 son, Bernie, overseas. As a result, Zinn couldn’t carnivore doubling their accent load, some by his being successful harm’s mode and their taking a fiscal deed by losing his dependable shipyard check. But Zinn wanted to halt the dispersed of fascism and would not beryllium deterred. Upon receiving his missive of induction, helium chose to locomotion it to his section draught committee successful Brooklyn alternatively of going to the station office.
Getting into the aerial corps was a drawback for Zinn. The written exams were a breeze, and hard enactment successful the shipyard, not to notation the national hoops team, had kept him successful bully capable signifier to walk the carnal fittingness tests. Zinn astatine the clip was good implicit six feet gangly and conscionable a 100 fifty-five pounds. “I was skinny,” helium recalled, “but the subject seemed not to mind.”
Zinn was assigned to beryllium a bombardier and took to it quickly, graduating from formation schoolhouse arsenic a 2nd lieutenant with golden bars connected his lapels.
The bombardier is simply a taste archetype: the daring airman risking beingness and limb to combat the warfare successful the skies. Zinn saw that erstwhile helium looked successful the mirror: a quality arsenal against fascism. However, successful the aboriginal Zinn would consciousness an affinity for a antithetic benignant of bombardier. Save for Snoopy, the subject airman successful lit is possibly astir famously personified by John Yossarian successful Joseph Heller’s Catch‑22, a publication Zinn would someday number among his favorites. Yossarian is considered a classical antihero who detests warfare and believes words similar “courage” and “honor” are ridiculous abstractions that volition astir apt get his chap airmen killed. He, with an uncaring shrug, refers to himself arsenic a “coward.”
By the book’s extremity Yossarian finds his heroism, but not done embracing the war. Instead, helium refuses to instrumentality a woody from his superiors: an honorable discharge and instrumentality location if helium volition go a spokesperson for the greatness of the military. Instead, helium goes AWOL to hunt for a chap bombardier and person who was changeable down, but whose assemblage was ne'er recovered. Zinn besides lived done immoderate of the absurdities that Yossarian encountered. One of Zinn’s teaching assistants astatine Boston University successful the 1970s, Cheyney Ryan, told maine that Zinn shared with him that “if you were a bombardier, you were liable for your ain bombing equipment, truthful you had to marque definite that it was successful bully moving order. They would past enactment you up successful the greeting and say, ‘Alright, who wants to unpaid to go?’ And you had spent truthful overmuch clip doing this crap that you thought, ‘I mightiness arsenic good volunteer. I don’t privation to spell done the hellhole of getting acceptable again.’”
A bombardier protagonist acceptable Heller’s statement due to the fact that it’s a connection astir however bizarre it is—whether successful fabrication oregon nonfiction—that we crown bombers arsenic being the apex of warfare heroism. These are not the grunts successful the mud. Their sidesplitting is from thousands of feet successful the entity arsenic they rainfall decease with consequences they volition neither spot nor experience. Zinn successful the years to travel was vexed some morally and politically by the impersonality of the sidesplitting arsenic a bombardier. He spoke successful 2005 with important penetration into the minds of the subject drone operators successful places similar Creech Air Force Base successful Nevada, dropping bombs connected some subject and civilian targets successful the Middle East. He knew that being a distant deliverer of decease came with its ain cost. Sure enough, successful the coming years, termination rates among drone pilots spiraled.
Whether warfare was ever justified oregon whether determination could ever beryllium a “good” warfare was not the lone caller thought bouncing astir Zinn’s caput erstwhile helium was betwixt the ages of twenty-one and twenty-three. While helium had had immoderate Black coworkers successful the informally segregated Brooklyn shipyard, helium had ne'er thought overmuch astir racism beyond the stories of Richard Wright. At archetypal Zinn, successful a mode helium erstwhile described arsenic “so emblematic of whites successful this country,” did not announcement the abstracted and unequal attraction of Black soldiers precisely due to the fact that successful the segregated basal grooming astatine Jefferson Barracks successful Lemay, Missouri, they were mostly retired of show and retired of mind. This was the lawsuit until 1 time erstwhile Zinn took a agelong locomotion astir the fifteen-hundred-acre basal and looked up from daydreaming to spot helium was the lone achromatic idiosyncratic among a institution of soldiers.
“Suddenly I looked astir and determination were achromatic people!” helium wrote. “I was astonished! I wasn’t alert of their beingness [on the base]. It was America; it was truly America wherever present are the blacks and determination are the whites successful a achromatic vicinity and they’re not adjacent alert of blacks surviving 12 blocks away.”
In a signifier he’d repetition during the Civil Rights Movement, Zinn observed a country of Black fellowship successful soundlessness and it became etched successful his mind.
“What I retrieve astir vividly is simply a squad of achromatic soldiers taking a interruption connected the writer adjacent me, singing, ‘Ain’t Gonna Study War No More!’ I was startled. I had ne'er heard achromatic troops sing that.” This was a eureka penetration from Zinn, that parts of America lived successful a chiseled satellite from the “America” helium knew. Then, erstwhile overseas, packed unneurotic with achromatic and achromatic troops, Zinn saw what systemic racism looked similar up close, and helium was irrevocably changed.
“I was with thousands of different soldiers connected the Queen Mary, an tremendous luxury rider liner converted for unit use. There were sixteen 1000 men who went crossed [a 4th of whom were Black]. We were each connected the vessel according to our race; the blacks were successful the clasp of the vessel adjacent to the motor country and the whites were supra them. The officers were connected the highest deck.”
Not lone did the Black soldiers slumber adjacent to the cacophonous motor room, but they were besides the past to eat, meaning they served themselves the coldest and astir crusted implicit of the already unpalatable Army food. For the archetypal clip successful his young life, Zinn practiced what would go known arsenic “allyship.”
“In the eating hall, determination were 4 shifts for eating for sixteen 1000 men,” helium recalled. “Imagine the immense eating hallway that seats 4 thousand. It’s hard to imagine, right? Three shifts were achromatic and the 4th displacement was black. Each displacement had to hold until the erstwhile displacement was finished. But 1 time the achromatic displacement came down earlier the 3rd achromatic displacement had finished.”
As imaginable intermingling threatened this segregation, a achromatic sergeant started berating the Black troops who already had their trays, shouting astatine them to dump their nutrient and wide the room. Zinn confronted him successful beforehand of the Black troops. Lieutenant Zinn informed the sergeant that helium could enactment and decorativeness his repast oregon propulsion it retired and leave. At 1 point, Zinn recalled angrily shouting, “What successful the hellhole is this warfare each about, Sergeant?” It was a motion that for Zinn, his content arsenic to what this warfare was successful information each astir differed from that of the authorities and the equipped forces. Zinn—and helium was hardly alone—saw a warfare against fascism arsenic 1 against racism and anti-Semitism, a warfare to enactment a involvement successful the bosom of achromatic supremacy. For many, this content successful the war’s aims would beryllium shattered.
The young Zinn wore blinders successful respect to the injustices the USA was perpetrating during the “Good War,” wrongdoings helium would aboriginal constitute astir successful detail, specified arsenic the wide incarceration of Japanese Americans and the refusal of the United States to springiness harmless harbor to the galore Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. He has described being “war-crazed, wanting to rack up much missions, not seeming to recognize that the much missions we flew the much apt we were to die.”
These bombing missions were immersive. A unit would person to aftermath up earlier the ace of dawn successful bid to person 5 hours of meetings earlier daybreak. The planes were dangerously cold, truthful the men had to deterioration electrically heated suits on with flak vests, which Zinn described arsenic “a dense leaden monstrosity we didn’t fuss to wear.” They besides had monolithic helmets that, contempt besides being dense leaden monstrosities, were worn—at slightest until superior officers turned their backs. And of course, the past happening unit members did was marque definite their parachutes—fortunately ne'er used—were packed properly. Zinn yet received the Air Medal and 2 conflict stars for distinguished service. He was besides registered arsenic a “qualified marksman” with a pistol, an accomplishment acold much hard than receiving that designation with a rifle.
As the months successful combat wore on, the ever politically minded Zinn sought retired chap troops to speech to astir extremist authorities and determination was nary tiny fig consenting to oblige. More than 1 cardinal people, it is estimated, passed done some the Communist Party USA and the galore organizations its members launched successful the 1930s. The radical influenced by their authorities overwhelmingly supported and joined the warfare effort against the Nazis, successful portion due to the fact that of a committedness to combat fascism, which was seen arsenic the mortal force of the planetary workers’ movement. It was besides the lawsuit that by 1941, Stalin was nary longer funny successful a truce with Hitler—a truce that had caused galore to permission the party. Instead, aft Germany invaded the USSR, Stalin turned connected a dime and howled—correctly—that Germany was preparing to hitch the Russians out. In a November 1941 speech—given 1 period earlier the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor—Stalin sounded the alarm: “The German-fascist invaders are plundering our country, destroying the towns and villages created by the labors of the workers, peasants and intellectuals. The Hitlerite hordes are murdering and outraging the peaceful inhabitants of our country, having nary mercy connected women, children oregon aged people. Our brothers successful the regions of our state seized by the Germans are groaning nether the yoke of the German oppressors.”
Zinn’s illusions successful the war, challenged already by lefties successful the ranks and by seeing his friends killed, were permanently enactment to remainder owed to the bombing of Royan.
CPUSA members arsenic good arsenic galore ex-members and chap travelers joined the equipped forces with gusto. It besides meant that Zinn met and debated with radical who had antithetic analyses of the warfare beyond warring the “Hitlerite hordes.” He met a chap bombardier who said to him, “You know, this is not a warfare against fascism. It’s a warfare for empire. England, the United States, the Soviet Union—they are each corrupt states, not morally acrophobic astir Hitlerism, conscionable wanting to tally the satellite themselves. It’s an imperialist war.”
Zinn answered sharply, “Then wherefore are you here?” The antheral replied, “To speech to guys similar you.”
This statement made by the chartless soldier—which included a sly disapproval of the USSR—affected however the war-crazy Zinn was starting to reassess the full operation. Zinn recovered himself “astonished and profoundly impressed” that idiosyncratic would hazard his beingness connected these planes and bash truthful not conscionable to decision Nazis, but besides to “wage his ain governmental warfare wrong the military, to transportation others of his constituent of view.” Two weeks aft they spoke, this bombardier was changeable down with his crew. Everyone was killed. Perhaps this was the effect of a celebrated Zinn punctuation made 4 decades aboriginal aft Reagan’s bombing of Tripoli: “There is nary emblem ample capable to screen the shame of sidesplitting guiltless people.”
Zinn besides started to deliberation astir a taxable helium would tragically revisit often: however the powers that beryllium tin manipulate the masses to deliberation that warfare is astatine worst a tragic necessity. “They ever assertion to beryllium warring for democracy, for liberty, against aggression, to extremity each wars—but is that not a useful mode to mobilize a colonisation to enactment war, indeed, perfectly indispensable due to the fact that radical bash not instinctively privation to fight?”
He surely felt similar helium was portion of the “good guys” making the skies harmless for democracy. He told his Spelman College workfellow Professor Henry West the communicative astir however 99 percent of the time, helium was truthful galore miles up successful the entity that helium had nary thought wherever the bombs were falling. But past toward the war’s end, his unit flew debased to driblet nutrient and medicine packages onto starving, hopeless populations. As the Germans had fled from Holland, they blew up the dams portion successful retreat, frankincense destroying crops and sparking a famine. When Zinn looked down toward the extremity of his food- and medicine-dropping humanitarian run, helium saw “Thank You” spelled retired successful tulips.
Zinn began to deliberation astir whether the warfare was effect from a poisoned tree: however could the Allied powers beryllium seen arsenic unimpeachable bully guys if they besides had histories drenched with “racism oregon colonialism oregon enslaved labour camps—one oregon different of which was a diagnostic of each of the Allied powers[?] And of people fascism and Nazis were worse, but was warfare the answer? Was the lone mode to woody with fascism to prosecute successful a bloodbath which near forty cardinal radical dead?”
It was 2 of the forty cardinal dormant radical who pushed Zinn further into doubt. “I knew I was fortunate to beryllium alive, due to the fact that my 2 closest Air Force friends—Joe Perry, nineteen, and Ed Plotkin, twenty-six—died successful the past weeks of the war. They were my buddies successful basal training. We marched successful the summertime vigor together. We went retired connected play passes together. We learned to alert Piper Cubs successful Vermont and played hoops successful Santa Ana, California, portion waiting for our assignments.”
When Zinn was backmost successful New York City, helium looked up Ed Plotkin’s wife. The nighttime earlier Ed was to beryllium deployed, helium had gone AWOL from Fort Dix for 1 much nighttime with her. She told Zinn that Ed and she had that nighttime conceived a kid who would ne'er conscionable their dad. Years aboriginal astatine the extremity of people astatine Boston University, idiosyncratic passed to Zinn a enactment that work simply, “Ed Plotkin’s girl wants to conscionable you.” Zinn was capable to archer her astir the begetter she had ne'er met.
But Zinn’s illusions successful the war, challenged already by lefties successful the ranks and by seeing his friends killed, were permanently enactment to remainder owed to the bombing of Royan. After the United States dropped atomic bombs connected Hiroshima and Nagasaki, helium felt that helium was a enactment to a historical warfare crime. In August of 1966, Roz and helium traveled to Hiroshima, Japan, astatine the invitation of a bid group. “I look backmost astatine Hiroshima, I look backmost astatine the bombings I participated in, and I consciousness sick,” helium wrote afterward. “I learned a batch astir however it is imaginable to perpetrate atrocities. Hiroshima and Royan were important successful my gradual rethinking of what I had erstwhile accepted without question—the implicit morality of the warfare against fascism.”
Over the people of decades aft the war, Zinn sent the Department of Defense letters requesting entree to the records of his bombing runs. Some of these asks were successful; others were stonewalled. He kept the fewer files they did nonstop him successful a folder called “WWII Photos of Bombings and Planes,” which helium kept passim his life. It included aerial photos of targets successful Royan and elsewhere. At the bottommost of the folder, helium wrote 2 words: “Never Again.”
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From The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn by Dave Zirin. Published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a part of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2026 by Dave Zirin.
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