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Parker, R.A.C., "Struggle for Survival: The History of the Second World War", Oxford University Press, 1990.
He concludes with a mention of a total of 22,000,000 homeless, and then goes on to discuss the atomic raids.
In the Second World War, strategic bombing reached a climax with the American bombing of japan in 1945...
The Army Air Force proceeded to renact, in a much shorter time span, the original experiences of RAF Bomber Command over Germany. Until 9 March 1945 their bomber striking forces concentrated on daylight, high altitude, precision attacks, mainly against aircraft factories. Bomber crews ran into bad weather, found high winds at bombing altitudes, and saw their targets less than half the time in december 1944 and during less than one fifth of their bombing runs in February 1945. Most bombing was radar-guided and highly inaccurate. At best, 17 per cent of bombs fell nearer than 3,000 feet from the aiming point. Moreover Japanese fighters, handled by what remained of their experienced airmen, inflicted heavy losses, which rose in January 1945 to 5.7 per cent... By the time the Mustang fighter squadrons were ready for action, the B-29s had begun to follow new tactics, of low-level raids at night with a high proportion of incendiary bombs. Like the RAF attacks on Germany these raids set fire to houses, partly to reduce the productivity of industrial workers, partly to destroy morale by terror. On 9 March 1945, 334 B-29s set off for Tokyo and dropped incendiaries on a densely-populated area of dwellings, mostly made of wood and bamboo. Stong winds set off a fire-storm visible from 150 miles away. Sixteen square miles were burnt out. One quarter of Tokyo's buildings - 267,000 - were destroyed, 1,000,000 people lost their homes and about 80,000 people died. As a mechanism for slaughter, the American air force had caught up with the RAF some months before the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Until then Americans had shown distaste for area bombing, as an unpleasant British practice. General Kuter, assistant chief of the US Air Staff, thought it 'contrary to our national ideals to wage war against civilians'... Among the American public, moral inhibitions against the bombing of Japanese civilians were weaker than in the case of Germans because of the hostility inspired by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour followed by the notorious Japanese ill-treatment of American prisoners, and reinforced by the general acceptance of racialist sterotypes. Even so, the authorities claimed they were attacking 'military objectives'. General Arnold, the head of the US Army Air Force, told Stimson that although small-scale Japanese war production was dispersed among individual houses in Japanese residential areas, the USAAF tried to minimize civilian casualties. Ignorance and eager self-deception came together in varying proportions to quiet worried consciences.
In the next four weeks after the Tokyo raid, five more cities lost 37 square miles of buildings. Then such raids ceased until late June, partly because stocks of incendiary bombs ran low, partly because attention shifted to the support of the invasion of Okinawa. Between late June and the end of the war on 14 August, fifty-five cities were attacked, with populations ranging from 30,000 to 325,000. On average about half of the built-up area was destryoed in each. On 27 July came an innovation: Le May, the commander of the B-29 offensive, arranged to have leaflets dropped on eleven cities giving warning that they were about to be attacked, and next night six of them were. He followed the same procedure twice more. By that time, American aircraft roamed safely over Japan, as the number of effectively trained Japanese pilots had dwindled during the Okinawa campaign. When weather permitted specific targets to be seen, precision bombing went on by day against economic objectives, while area bombing continued...
The Army Air Force proceeded to renact, in a much shorter time span, the original experiences of RAF Bomber Command over Germany. Until 9 March 1945 their bomber striking forces concentrated on daylight, high altitude, precision attacks, mainly against aircraft factories. Bomber crews ran into bad weather, found high winds at bombing altitudes, and saw their targets less than half the time in december 1944 and during less than one fifth of their bombing runs in February 1945. Most bombing was radar-guided and highly inaccurate. At best, 17 per cent of bombs fell nearer than 3,000 feet from the aiming point. Moreover Japanese fighters, handled by what remained of their experienced airmen, inflicted heavy losses, which rose in January 1945 to 5.7 per cent... By the time the Mustang fighter squadrons were ready for action, the B-29s had begun to follow new tactics, of low-level raids at night with a high proportion of incendiary bombs. Like the RAF attacks on Germany these raids set fire to houses, partly to reduce the productivity of industrial workers, partly to destroy morale by terror. On 9 March 1945, 334 B-29s set off for Tokyo and dropped incendiaries on a densely-populated area of dwellings, mostly made of wood and bamboo. Stong winds set off a fire-storm visible from 150 miles away. Sixteen square miles were burnt out. One quarter of Tokyo's buildings - 267,000 - were destroyed, 1,000,000 people lost their homes and about 80,000 people died. As a mechanism for slaughter, the American air force had caught up with the RAF some months before the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Until then Americans had shown distaste for area bombing, as an unpleasant British practice. General Kuter, assistant chief of the US Air Staff, thought it 'contrary to our national ideals to wage war against civilians'... Among the American public, moral inhibitions against the bombing of Japanese civilians were weaker than in the case of Germans because of the hostility inspired by the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour followed by the notorious Japanese ill-treatment of American prisoners, and reinforced by the general acceptance of racialist sterotypes. Even so, the authorities claimed they were attacking 'military objectives'. General Arnold, the head of the US Army Air Force, told Stimson that although small-scale Japanese war production was dispersed among individual houses in Japanese residential areas, the USAAF tried to minimize civilian casualties. Ignorance and eager self-deception came together in varying proportions to quiet worried consciences.
In the next four weeks after the Tokyo raid, five more cities lost 37 square miles of buildings. Then such raids ceased until late June, partly because stocks of incendiary bombs ran low, partly because attention shifted to the support of the invasion of Okinawa. Between late June and the end of the war on 14 August, fifty-five cities were attacked, with populations ranging from 30,000 to 325,000. On average about half of the built-up area was destryoed in each. On 27 July came an innovation: Le May, the commander of the B-29 offensive, arranged to have leaflets dropped on eleven cities giving warning that they were about to be attacked, and next night six of them were. He followed the same procedure twice more. By that time, American aircraft roamed safely over Japan, as the number of effectively trained Japanese pilots had dwindled during the Okinawa campaign. When weather permitted specific targets to be seen, precision bombing went on by day against economic objectives, while area bombing continued...
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