The post you are reporting:
It depends how you define "war-crime", and what you are measuring it against to decide whether it was one or no. In 1945, legally, probably not (qualified because there were certainly retrospective wriggles at that time.) It was, for a number of reasons, a military target.
However, there are many questions beyond this, eg scale, morality, changing evaluations ...But these aren't, strictly speaking, the criteria. That doesn't mean they aren't relevant, albeit parallel, issues though, for us at least to consider today, maybe with a view to our future moral philosophy. Brian encapsulates some of these well.
While considering the big questions, let's never forget the detail ... the very many precious individuals devastated by war. A few moments thinking of them, without any cloudy discourses of guilt/shame/anger/whatever, in Remembrance, will never be wrong.
