J. M. Spaight

James Molony Spaight , CB , CBE (born October 7, 1877 in Affock, County Clare , Ireland, † January 8, 1968 in Bath ) was a British lawyer and a leading theorist of the air war. he younger son of the farmer Robert Saight (1845-1888) visited the rinity College, Dublin , which he in 1905 with the LL.B. and LL.D. Graduating. Previously (1901) he had entered the civil service and soon after served in South Africa . In November 1907 he married Constanze Elisabeth († 1962), the daughter of Colonel William Fitz Henry Spaight from Ardnatagle. Spaight specialized in international martial law and wrote 1911 "War Rights on Land". In 1918 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and transferred to the recently founded Aviation Ministry, where he remained until his retirement in 1937. In 1923 he was part of the British delegation to the Lawyers Committee in The Hague . In 1930 he became director of the Ministry of Aviation. He specialized in the law of aerial warfare and concentrated on air strikes of urban areas. His views on military objects and targets changed during World War II. Previously, he believed that air raids could win wars with fewer deaths. But the war was so "total" and dependent on mass industrialization, which blurred the dividing line between military and civilian objects.