[noskynethere]

Is soldier versus civilian really such a different thing? It seems more like a gradient, to me -- you support your country by building bombs / planes / etc., that's very different than just living peacefully on your own farm.

It's important to recall that every nation's entire economy was subsumed in the war effort. American "civilians" wanted to kill Japanese; Japanese "civlians" probably hated Americans (there was a lot of racial prejudice in that era, on both sides).

Civilians may not have been combatants, but they were very much a part of the war machinery, and as such became a strategic target.