Is killing innocents ever acceptable as "collateral damage" in war?

if the deaths of a few civilians saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of men then that's a price I'm willing to pay. For example, the atomic bombings. If those civilians didnt die that would have ment the war would of had to carry on and millions of more people would have died. However, any other situation the killing of innocent people is horrible and should be punished by worse than death.

united states reinforcements contributed greatly to three allied victories in france at: cantigny (first major american battle), argonne (the largest in the united states military history, involving 1.2 million american soldiers), and château-thierry (one of the first actions under general pershing).

yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet yeet