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Partially true; to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American service personnel, and MILLIONS of Japanese, we targeted a couple Japanese cities and brought Japan to it's knees.
Actually, we fire bombed nearly every city in Japan larger than a village. It was far more than a "couple". In LeMay's own words we "...burned everything worth burning..." in the entire country. Millions of Japanese were killed that way. In the fire bombing of Toyko, there may have been as many as 180,000 Japanese killed. And then there was Dresden. Given that I have relatives from Dresden, you might want to reconsider going that route. Dresden was a central rail hub, and a source of considerable production capacity for the Third Reich, as well as home to more than a few Nazi units. Death tolls by lie-berals and defeatists have been sorely exaggerated for years (as I am sure your going to try to do), as has the military and industrial importance understated by the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_IISuffice to say, from folks THAT WERE THERE, Dresden was FAR from non-military. Not to mention the Nazi's were pounding London.....payback is hail!
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The atom bomb was superfluous. Not necessarily because it was unnecessary to use it, but rather because it was actually not as destructive as an incendiary raid.
physical destruction wasn't the objective.....forcing the Imperial General Staff to accept surrender was the objective, and it worked. they could muddle through the fire bombings, but the atom bomb finally focused their attention.
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"..not since Japan."
I may be splitting hairs here, Stan; but didn't many of Japan's cities by 1944 have a multitude of shops used for military production spread far and wide in residential districts?
Gives somewhat of a justification for LeMay's bombing campaign against Japan, at least to my mind.
I reckon, but most of the population was starving, pilots were down to one mission flights, Kamakazees....their Navy was history so they were prepared for women and children to commit hari kari with a garden hoe when troops hit their beaches and fight to the death. Japan's industrial complex capability in Nagasaki and Hiroshima wasn't the determining factor for those hits..... Wrong, dead wrong, on Hiroshima, as pointed out by Steve_NO.
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dated a girl who's father lived through hiroshima.
Prolonged suffering via repeated bombings promoted anger and a will to fight. The fact that the "bomb' caused so much destruction in one fell swoop initiated the move to surrender.
He had no bones about telling me this, and how he hated the military for it. And resented my presence in his daughter's life....
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Joe;
As usual, you miss the point. As pointed out beforehand, MOST of, if not nearly ALL of, those villages and cities had military installations and production facilities: just like we did here. So, you hit everything that was a target, with the capabilities at hand.
We targeted 67 cities in the last six or seven months, all of which had significant military production capacity and installations (Tokyo, included). Hiroshima was a primary military and production location. Nagasaki lacked the military production and installations of the other parts of the nation, and was targeted because it was left, and because in order to bring about the end of the war prior to an absolutely hellish invasion (on all sides), it was hit. I don't want to fight the whole war over again, I merely wished to point out that you were wrong in saying that we bombed a "couple" of cities. Regardless of the justification or rectitude of the cause or lack thereof, Japan was subjected to the most intense bombardment in the history of mankind. Millions of Japanese were killed in these cities. The atom bomb was superfluous. Not necessarily because it was unnecessary to use it, but rather because it was actually not as destructive as an incendiary raid. If you engage a war like Japan did, against an enemy that has to hit you back and damned hard to make you surrender, and you diffuse your military and industrial capacity throughout your nation in almost all cities and neighborhoods, you have to expect to take huge casualties when your homeland is hit. And, frankly, that's what happened. Japan attacked, they were being beaten, they would not surrender without taking a pounding on their homeland, their facilities were in and around and surrounded by civilian areas that would be and were hit by attacks, and that's what happened. War is hell, and if you get in one, you have to anticipate casualties. Whining and crying over casualties after a war is ridiculous; it was necessary to effect the defeat of Japan. If you want to blame someone for those civilian casualties, blame the Japanese high command, and that blame would be more accurate though still as ridiculous as blaming us for fighting back. The nukes dropped were a HUMANE end to the war, compared to the alternative.
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"..not since Japan."
I may be splitting hairs here, Stan; but didn't many of Japan's cities by 1944 have a multitude of shops used for military production spread far and wide in residential districts?
Gives somewhat of a justification for LeMay's bombing campaign against Japan, at least to my mind.
I reckon, but most of the population was starving, pilots were down to one mission flights, Kamakazees....their Navy was history so they were prepared for women and children to commit hari kari with a garden hoe when troops hit their beaches and fight to the death. Japan's industrial complex capability in Nagasaki and Hiroshima wasn't the determining factor for those hits..... Wrong, dead wrong, on Hiroshima, as pointed out by Steve_NO. Oh? Which part, that the industrial capability wasn't the determining factor for the bomb, or the Japanese Navy was still formidable? Or there weren't women/children/old people with hoes prepared to committ suicide? The only one that didn't know Japan was defeated was the Emporer and he needed convincing.
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Of all the hyperbole about the War of Northern Aggression being "morally right" because of slavery Careful: I've never called the War of Northern Aggression "morally right"--except possibly on the Confederate side. of WWII being... well, if you can't see being morally right when combatting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, I can't fathom what planet you're on.... What's your position, then? Is it morally compulsory for you to fight every existing bad guy? Yes? How, then, would you define "bad guy?" How about somebody who commits large-scale extortion and murder? Would such a person be a "bad guy" under the proper definition? Yes? So...you're saying that if such a guy existed, it would be morally imperative to extort hundreds of billions of dollars from hundreds of millions of people to finance the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in the pursuit of him?
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain--that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." --Lysander Spooner, 1867
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Joe;
As usual, you miss the point. As pointed out beforehand, MOST of, if not nearly ALL of, those villages and cities had military installations and production facilities: just like we did here. So, you hit everything that was a target, with the capabilities at hand.
We targeted 67 cities in the last six or seven months, all of which had significant military production capacity and installations (Tokyo, included). Hiroshima was a primary military and production location. Nagasaki lacked the military production and installations of the other parts of the nation, and was targeted because it was left, and because in order to bring about the end of the war prior to an absolutely hellish invasion (on all sides), it was hit. I don't want to fight the whole war over again, I merely wished to point out that you were wrong in saying that we bombed a "couple" of cities. Regardless of the justification or rectitude of the cause or lack thereof, Japan was subjected to the most intense bombardment in the history of mankind. Millions of Japanese were killed in these cities. The atom bomb was superfluous. Not necessarily because it was unnecessary to use it, but rather because it was actually not as destructive as an incendiary raid. If you engage a war like Japan did, against an enemy that has to hit you back and damned hard to make you surrender, and you diffuse your military and industrial capacity throughout your nation in almost all cities and neighborhoods, you have to expect to take huge casualties when your homeland is hit. And, frankly, that's what happened. Japan attacked, they were being beaten, they would not surrender without taking a pounding on their homeland, their facilities were in and around and surrounded by civilian areas that would be and were hit by attacks, and that's what happened. War is hell, and if you get in one, you have to anticipate casualties. Whining and crying over casualties after a war is ridiculous; it was necessary to effect the defeat of Japan. If you want to blame someone for those civilian casualties, blame the Japanese high command, and that blame would be more accurate though still as ridiculous as blaming us for fighting back. The nukes dropped were a HUMANE end to the war, compared to the alternative. As usual, you miss the point. I've made no moral judgment whatsoever in my posts. You WERE in fact, trying to minimize the impact of the casualties by saying it was merely a "couple" of cities and you are the one who continues to make excuses for the casualties by saying that they were justified and the like. I'm merely pointing out that whatever the justification or lack thereof, the experience of the Japanese was pretty much unprecedented in the history of the warfare.
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"..not since Japan."
I may be splitting hairs here, Stan; but didn't many of Japan's cities by 1944 have a multitude of shops used for military production spread far and wide in residential districts?
Gives somewhat of a justification for LeMay's bombing campaign against Japan, at least to my mind.
I reckon, but most of the population was starving, pilots were down to one mission flights, Kamakazees....their Navy was history so they were prepared for women and children to commit hari kari with a garden hoe when troops hit their beaches and fight to the death. Japan's industrial complex capability in Nagasaki and Hiroshima wasn't the determining factor for those hits..... Wrong, dead wrong, on Hiroshima, as pointed out by Steve_NO. Oh? Which part, that the industrial capability wasn't the determining factor for the bomb, or the Japanese Navy was still formidable? Or there weren't women/children/old people with hoes prepared to committ suicide? The only one that didn't know Japan was defeated was the Emporer and he needed convincing. The determining factor for the hit on Hiroshima was the production and military capacity. As for Nagasaki; those were not the factor, and I've never said that they were. In fact, I've said the opposite.
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Of all the hyperbole about the War of Northern Aggression being "morally right" because of slavery Careful: I've never called the War of Northern Aggression "morally right"--except possibly on the Confederate side. of WWII being... well, if you can't see being morally right when combatting Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, I can't fathom what planet you're on.... What's your position, then? Is it morally compulsory for you to fight every existing bad guy? Yes? How, then, would you define "bad guy?" How about somebody who commits large-scale extortion and murder? Would such a person be a "bad guy" under the proper definition? Yes? So...you're saying that if such a guy existed, it would be morally imperative to extort hundreds of billions of dollars from hundreds of millions of people to finance the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in the pursuit of him? Comprehensible blather would be appreciated.
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Joe;
As usual, you miss the point. As pointed out beforehand, MOST of, if not nearly ALL of, those villages and cities had military installations and production facilities: just like we did here. So, you hit everything that was a target, with the capabilities at hand.
We targeted 67 cities in the last six or seven months, all of which had significant military production capacity and installations (Tokyo, included). Hiroshima was a primary military and production location. Nagasaki lacked the military production and installations of the other parts of the nation, and was targeted because it was left, and because in order to bring about the end of the war prior to an absolutely hellish invasion (on all sides), it was hit. I don't want to fight the whole war over again, I merely wished to point out that you were wrong in saying that we bombed a "couple" of cities. Regardless of the justification or rectitude of the cause or lack thereof, Japan was subjected to the most intense bombardment in the history of mankind. Millions of Japanese were killed in these cities. The atom bomb was superfluous. Not necessarily because it was unnecessary to use it, but rather because it was actually not as destructive as an incendiary raid. If you engage a war like Japan did, against an enemy that has to hit you back and damned hard to make you surrender, and you diffuse your military and industrial capacity throughout your nation in almost all cities and neighborhoods, you have to expect to take huge casualties when your homeland is hit. And, frankly, that's what happened. Japan attacked, they were being beaten, they would not surrender without taking a pounding on their homeland, their facilities were in and around and surrounded by civilian areas that would be and were hit by attacks, and that's what happened. War is hell, and if you get in one, you have to anticipate casualties. Whining and crying over casualties after a war is ridiculous; it was necessary to effect the defeat of Japan. If you want to blame someone for those civilian casualties, blame the Japanese high command, and that blame would be more accurate though still as ridiculous as blaming us for fighting back. The nukes dropped were a HUMANE end to the war, compared to the alternative. As usual, you miss the point. I've made no moral judgment whatsoever in my posts. You WERE in fact, trying to minimize the impact of the casualties by saying it was merely a "couple" of cities and you are the one who continues to make excuses for the casualties by saying that they were justified and the like. I'm merely pointing out that whatever the justification or lack thereof, the experience of the Japanese was pretty much unprecedented in the history of the warfare. I said, frankly, that we targeted a couple of cities for non-military/industrial capacity reasons; Nagasaki being primary. As for minimization of the casualties; nope, just realization that given the situation you either kill a few thousand, or a few million. Draconian choice, and the right one was made.
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It's all moot.
Obama is going to apologize for it at the upcoming ceremony....
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I reckon, but most of the population was starving, pilots were down to one mission flights, Kamakazees....their Navy was history so they were prepared for women and children to commit hari kari with a garden hoe when troops hit their beaches and fight to the death. Japan's industrial complex capability in Nagasaki and Hiroshima wasn't the determining factor for those hits.....
Wrong, dead wrong, on Hiroshima, as pointed out by Steve_NO. Oh? Which part, that the industrial capability wasn't the determining factor for the bomb, or the Japanese Navy was still formidable? Or there weren't women/children/old people with hoes prepared to committ suicide? The only one that didn't know Japan was defeated was the Emporer and he needed convincing. The determining factor for the hit on Hiroshima was the production and military capacity. As for Nagasaki; those were not the factor, and I've never said that they were. In fact, I've said the opposite. The Kure shipyard near Hiroshima was destroyed and virtually every vessel destroyed/wrecked before the bomb.....we mostly agree here, I think. But, to believe the Japanese had any military industrial might left is a stretch. I agree with dropping the bomb.
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the problem was that the Japanese had no concept of honorable surrender. it had been part of the western military code for centuries that when resistance becomes futile, and honor has been satisfied, there is no shame in a surrender to overwhelming force. the victors often pemitted the surrendered troops the honor of marching out with honors of war...including keeping their colors and sometimes even their arms.
while Hitler was committed to dying in a bunker, his generals were not, and hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were surrendered by their officers. that never happened in the Pacific, and Okinawa and Iwo Jima had made it plain that the same could be expected of civilians,
the idea of surrender was dishonorable.....in a society where honor counted for a lot. no rational calculation was ever going to get the Imperial General Staff to go to the Emperor and say "the jig is up, we need to cut a deal". It took a weapon from hell.
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Given that I have relatives from Dresden, you might want to reconsider going that route. Dresden was a central rail hub, and a source of considerable production capacity for the Third Reich, as well as home to more than a few Nazi units. Death tolls by lie-berals and defeatists have been sorely exaggerated for years (as I am sure your going to try to do), as has the military and industrial importance understated by the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_IISuffice to say, from folks THAT WERE THERE, Dresden was FAR from non-military. Historical revisionism smells whether our former enemies do it or we attempt it. Dresden was payback for London, pure and simple. Our own people were uncomfortable with Dresden after the fact. This was Bomber Harris and Churchill's vendetta. War is hell, but don't try to justify Dresden as a strategic raid, it was payback for the same reasons we used incendiaries on Tokyo...psychological effect on the civilian populace. I don't personally have a major issue with Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Nagasaki or Hiroshima, you're at war and you do whatever it takes to win AND Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved countless American lives. However, I do have a problem with convicting people like Donitz and Raeder for war crimes then trying to justify Tokyo and Dresden.... wreaks of intellectual dishonesty.
Last edited by Foxbat; 08/04/10. Reason: addition
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Yep, totally concur. Dresden was Vendetta-driven warfare. jorge
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
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Given that I have relatives from Dresden, you might want to reconsider going that route. Dresden was a central rail hub, and a source of considerable production capacity for the Third Reich, as well as home to more than a few Nazi units. Death tolls by lie-berals and defeatists have been sorely exaggerated for years (as I am sure your going to try to do), as has the military and industrial importance understated by the same. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_IISuffice to say, from folks THAT WERE THERE, Dresden was FAR from non-military. Historical revisionism smells whether our former enemies do it or we attempt it. Dresden was payback for London, pure and simple. Our own people were uncomfortable with Dresden after the fact. This was Bomber Harris and Churchill's vendetta. War is hell, but don't try to justify Dresden as a strategic raid, it was payback for the same reasons we used incendiaries on Tokyo...psychological effect on the civilian populace. I don't personally have a major issue with Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Nagasaki or Hiroshima, you're at war and you do whatever it takes to win AND Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved countless American lives. However, I do have a problem with convicting people like Donitz and Raeder for war crimes then trying to justify Tokyo and Dresden.... wreaks of intellectual dishonesty. Sherman was the first general to break the modern Western tradition in warfare when he resorted to a total war strategy.
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not quite....Sherman practiced scorched earth/confiscation on a geographical scale not seen since the Wars of Religion in Europe. But it took the Spanish Civil War, and the Wehrmacht's invasions of Poland and Russia to perfect the art.
Bad as Sherman was, he wasn't shooting civilians out of hand.
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the problem was that the Japanese had no concept of honorable surrender. it had been part of the western military code for centuries that when resistance becomes futile, and honor has been satisfied, there is no shame in a surrender to overwhelming force. the victors often pemitted the surrendered troops the honor of marching out with honors of war...including keeping their colors and sometimes even their arms.
while Hitler was committed to dying in a bunker, his generals were not, and hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were surrendered by their officers. that never happened in the Pacific, and Okinawa and Iwo Jima had made it plain that the same could be expected of civilians,
the idea of surrender was dishonorable.....in a society where honor counted for a lot. no rational calculation was ever going to get the Imperial General Staff to go to the Emperor and say "the jig is up, we need to cut a deal". It took a weapon from hell. Correct...the Japanese citizen would have fought and died for the Emperor.
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