I think the reference may have been to the efficacy of the effort at ending the war sooner, which is a topic of some debate I believe. You watch something like

I think the reference may have been to the efficacy of the effort at ending the war sooner, which is a topic of some debate I believe. You watch something like 12 O’Clock High and wonder whether this “maximum effort” they were seeking to find (beyond which even the most dedicated and capable crewmen break down) was… worth it. The deliberate terror bombings that constituted some part of the effort, especially in the mid and late years, were also and separately awful, though the ethics somewhat muddied by the targeting of civilians having undergone a tit-for-tat ratcheting up early in the war, and yeah, the whole death camps thing. But there too the question of whether those deaths served any useful purpose, as far as ending the war sooner or reducing its scope, makes the whole thing even sadder.