why 6 aug 8.15am deserves silence

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by molly bloom
I find this unsupported by the evidence of the bombing campaign in Asia, either in Japanese occupied China, or the home islands of Japan.

Dropping napalm on largely wooden cities is not a way of minimizing civilian casualties, nor is it a 'surgical strike'.

It is when you compare the previously employed alternatives. High altitide "precision" bombing over Japan was utterly ineffective due to high winds at altitude causing bombs to drift unpredictably far off course. Early B29 missions had few bombs, if any, actually on the target area, and all those misses went somewhere.

You couldn't drop high explosive ordance successfully from low altitude, due to limits in navigation and time to set up the bomb run to target.

The remaining alternatives were low altitude use of incendiaries, or ceasing strategic bombing altogether and letting Japanese industrial production (much of which was dispersed throughout many small enterprises) operate unimpeded.

We didn't shy away from killing of civilians, but the primary intent was the destruction of militaraly useful industrial capacity.

[Q Classic]

We didn't shy away from killing of civilians, but the primary intent was the destruction of militaraly useful industrial capacity.

which is why kyoto, a non-industrial town, was also a potential target, and why in nagasaki, which was only a port and not too industrial, was targeted... and where the bomb detonated there, it hit the burakumin and the catholics, both of whom were not exactly part of the military-industrial complex.

no, what the atomic bombs were meant to do was not destroy the military-industrial capacity, but to show the japanese government that we could easily demolish their cities one by one until they gave up the fight.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

We didn't shy away from killing of civilians, but the primary intent was the destruction of militaraly useful industrial capacity.

which is why kyoto, a non-industrial town, was also a potential target, and why in nagasaki, which was only a port and not too industrial, was targeted... and where the bomb detonated there, it hit the burakumin and the catholics, both of whom were not exactly part of the military-industrial complex.

Kyoto was not a potential target. The cities of Nara, Kyoto, Kamakura and Nikko had been excluded from bombing by US forces due to their major historic and cultural significance and lack of military targets.

Perhaps you're thinking of Kokura, the original target for the Nagasaki bomb?

And Nagasaki was not merely a port, there was a naval base and several military-industrial fatories of various Mitsubishi and Mitsui companies, and several other items. Ground zero in Nagasaki was an aerial identifiable landmark (typical of WW2 bombing practice) formed by the shape of some of the dredged dock and port facilities, and in the approximate center of the major industrial and military facilities in the city. Most of the city population lived in the hills surrounding the harbor, not in the primarily commercial-industrial harbor basin.

no, what the atomic bombs were meant to do was not destroy the military-industrial capacity, but to show the japanese government that we could easily demolish their cities one by one until they gave up the fight.

And if you read the post of Molly's which I quoted and to which I replied, the subject was the use of low-level incendiary attacks and the bombing campaign in general.

The target list for the a-bombs was a lot narrower than for bombing in general, because the Japanese had relatively litttle heavy industry concentrations left at that stage of the war, and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Niigata, Fukuoka and Kokura were pretty "rich" target areas among what was left to bomb.

[Big Dave]

Originally posted by Verto
Sadly, many do. Some have come to believe the Japanese were on the doorstep of surrender and the US needlessly used the bombs to scare off Russia, get revenge for the Japanese atrocities, etc.

A brief review of history will disabuse that notion. The US/Allies lost over 100k troops invading Okinawa. The Allied losses invading Japan herself would have been staggering compared to what we lost taking Okinawa. Dropping The Bomb was justified (or creating a firestorm ala Dresden) but I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make that decision.

And yes, it's worthy of a moment of silence. As is Dresden, Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center, the slaughter of infants by Antiocus Epphinies, and many other moments in human history.

Did you know we've had roughly 57 years of peace in the past 3,000 years? It only takes one to start a fight, after that you're a victim or a combatant.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The fact is that if we had a moment of silence for every atrocity in human history worthy of one, we wouldn't talk much.

[MRT144]

maybe thats a good thing MTG