No doubt, Fred. The Pacific War was a savage affair, probably more savage than the European War. Considering that the best bombsight technology was pitifully inadequate to the task, the allies admitted as much and reverted to area bombing. Debates on this topic are interesting, but the application of current morality ex-post facto seems futile. The allies did not begin this war and if the axis had not initiated it, there would have been no casualties at all.
And Rotterdam and Coventry and sundry other places which had death tolls which were quite minor compared with what the Allies did in Western Europe within a few years.
However, if one overcomes the horror of the bombings as perceived at the time, the fact is that there were usually legitimate military reasons for such bombings well beyond razing a city and killing its residents to shorten the war.
Coventry was a significant war industry centre.
Dresden was a significant war industry and transport centre which the Soviets wanted neutralised to assist their advance.
I don’t recall any Allied units in Europe, or elsewhere, which even began to do anything like the vileness of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen in the East (let alone the Nazi extermination camps) or the Japanese pretty much wherever they went and found Chinese or Anglos, all of which was visited upon innocent and defenceless civilians.
Let’s get the Japanese unspeakable acts into perspective against what the Allies did to Japan. Actually, why bother? There is no comparison between the militarily judged Allied bombing campaigns aimed at bringing the war to a swift conclusion against an enemy which could have surrendered at any time after it became clear it was going to lose and, on the other hand, the vile Japanese depredations as they advanced in their conquests, such as their predilection for torturing and bayoneting unarmed prisoners and civilians across their arc of influence from China to Guadalcanal.
The Allied actions were generally a response to the total and amoral war initiated and waged by the Axis powers in contravention of the contemporary laws of war, not to mention the faintest notions of human decency
At a specific level, do you think that it was wrong for Lt Col Clem Cummings to order at Milne Bay that he didn’t want his Australian troops of the 2/9th Bn to take any Japanese prisoners, indeed that his final order was ‘I don’t want any bloody prisoners - and I don’t think you will get any. Kill them all.”?
Do you think that Cummings’ order might have been influenced by the dead Australian troops found wired to trees and tortured in various ways and bayoneted by the Japanese?
Do you think that Cummings and his troops might have been inclined to contempt for the Japanese by specific acts such an Australian soldier found dead with his own bayonet shoved up his arse by the Japanese?
Might it not be that such gratuitous barbarity by the Japanese, long before we knew of their equally gratuitous barbarity on the Bataan Death March and the Burma Railway and just about everywhere else these brutes went about their monstrous offences against humanity, naturally engendered in the Allies that they were righteously engaged in exterminating worthless brutes whose stock in trade was offences against humanity?
Because, frankly, I share that common opinion of the time and can’t see any logical or moral reason against it. Unless one happens to be a Japanese militarist of the time.
That’s sad for the poor bastards in Japan who copped the Allied bombings, but it’s no more sad for them than for the poor bastards who copped the enslavement, mindless brutality, torture, and death as the Sons of Nippon spread southwards in a war of naked aggression run by people whose morals and views of the laws of war make chimpanzees seem sophisticated.
Men do not doubt that I agree with you, this does that I set the sides of the civil, not because they never requested and are always the victims regardless of their edges. The madness of some have paid a huge to their people, while the German Nazi and not all Japanese warriors were not fanatics. and when I think there still gents who think that a good war would solve many problems, keep me from these crazy gentlemen, who n’on still not understand that leprosy is ala war of humanity.
friendships Fred
Arithmetic lacks moral content but perhaps it can be instructive on the issue of the relative morality of firebombing and nuclear bombing of Japanese cities.
While the figures for casualties in Japan’s wars of aggression in China and the Pacific are rubbery, not least because nobody knows for sure, the following are as good as any. Japan lost about 2.7 million people in WWII of whom a little under 600,000 were civilians. China lost about 15 million people. About a million Vietnamese died in the great famine of 1944-45 after the Japanese forced farmers to replant their rice fields with fibre crops to aid the Japanese war effort. A similar number starved to death in the Philippines and more than two million died in the Dutch East Indies through Japanese mismanagement or the diversion of civilian food crops. Peter Thompson, Pacific Fury, William Heinemann, Sydney, 2008, pp. 491-2
Then we can look at the vast range of other murderous exercises by the Japanese, such as the Burma Railway where about 13,000 Allied POWS died and, although it is usually ignored or forgotten in the West, somewhere around 100,000 Asian labourers also died under the heel of Nippon. Or the loss of perhaps 100,000 Filipinos in Manila in 1945 as the Japanese retreated. Not to mention perhaps a couple of hundred thousand ‘comfort women’ drawn from Korea and conquered territories (but never from Japan).
What is missing from these selected figures is the proportion of the populations killed and abused.
But the proportion of the populations killed is also missing from the condemnation by critics of nuclear weapons being used against Japan. Instead they focus on the admitted horror of roughly 225,000 more or less immediate casualties as their whole argument. Which happens to be around the same number of the rather more individual, brutal and senseless victims of Nippon on just the Burma Railway and Manila in 1945 (forgetting Manila in 1942 after it was declared an open city). Or about a quarter of the deaths Japan caused by the famine in Vietnam. Or one eighth of those in the NEI. And nowhere even remotely near the deaths in China at the hands of Nippon. Which the critics of the firebombing and nuclear bombing choose to ignore, along with a long list of other arithmetically and morally inconvenient actions by Nippon.
Arithmetically, the Japanese have nothing to complain about.
Morally, they have even less to complain about.
And anyone who thinks Japan was an innocent victim because it was firebombed or nuked suffers from selective arithmetical, moral and historical blindness. Or just plain ignorance.
Just posted this in the photo section as interestingly this question is popping up there under Harris’ “Grim Reaper” portrait.
Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris will always remain a polarizing figure. Not only on his seemingly ruthless decisions, but also as to whether his style of bombing campaign not only was the most effective use of Allied air assets, but also the best use of the the industrial bases of both Britain and America in general. And as to whether there were better, slightly less bloody alternatives to his plans of area bombing cities. Personally, Harris is far from my favorite Allied war chief, as far as air marshals go, I prefer Ike’s deputy–the vastly unheralded Sir Arthur Tedder (who couldn’t stand either Harris, nor Monty IIRC).
In any case, whether Harris was purposely targeting civilians, or he was just bombing targets and areas in spite of them, is subject of debate. But one thing is for certain, the accuracy of aerial delivered WWII ordnance was almost completely random, especially while conducting operations at night, there was little alternative but to sadly, tragically destroy large segments of the civil population located near industrial targets.
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Soviet attack wasn’t actualy needed. After ww2 the communist of France , Italy and probably Holland could easy take the power by the legal way via elections. However they were banned soon by the govenmens , intalled by allies.
And while i almost ready to believe the American stayed in Europe to defend them from Soviets - why has they not withdrew after the Soviet threat was self-eliminated. From which enemy the USA now “defend” the Europe? From CHina, Al quaeda,Russia, Iran, domestic anti-semitism or may be want JUST to keep them under control?
This question seems bother europeans more and more.
Relax, Chevan. Most Americans are wondering why we continue to have soldiers and airmen in Europe. Most want them out of there. It’s an unnecessary expense for no gain. If we want to have a presence in Europe, port facilities are basically all that we need and we already have those as well as some forward air bases in Germany and in Great Britain. I doubt the Europeans are “nervous” about American troops in the neighborhood. They are probably nervous about losing the millions of dollars they earn supplying these bases and troops, however. They’ll get over it and move on. Americans don’t control Europe. The Europeans do.
Maybe what makes everyone nervous is a man called Putin who seems to be addicted to power and who shuttles between the presidency and premiership as if it were a game of badminton, making a mockery out of the word “democracy”. When he retires and disappears from public life will I truly believe that Russia is on the way to becoming a democracy. Until then, it remains in the orbit of a quasi dicta- oh well, you can finish that word yourself.
We know from unhappy experience that the only thing “legal” about Communists winning elections in post-war Europe is the election itself, after which there would be no more elections except for the “Potemkin” kind. Thank you, no.
Hi, Are you sure you have reason my dear Royal744, the United States are 'they so providential that? Chevan has some reason in the fact that many people do not know the Russian mentality and as you would not think like a slave you will not have to understand, if we compare the égémonies of the two peoples, Americans lag far in the lead I think, have a bit if the Vietnamese needed you, if the lifestyle that you give them their proper. Nobody is a prophet in his country and every people is different and the real mistake is to believe that one can impose his lifestyle around ignoring the roots of the people own themselves.
friendships Fred
PS: This is not a criticism against you, may simply reflect that one must have when it comes to the history of every people and that your ausi well for the Russians than the Americans.
I’m sorry, Fredl but I have difficulty understanding what you are trying to say. Tu peux ecrire en Francais si tu veux, pourvu que tu emploies des termes simples et utilises une structure des phrases simples.
Well, I think Firebombings are war crimes indeed. But if thrde crimes are put on trial or not depends on who have committed them and who won the war. Of course I would not expect to see Harris in a tial for war crimes even I think he’s a war criminal
What about other types of bombing?
I understand the natural human sentiments behind greater opposition to the intentional infliction of injury and death by some methods, but in the end does it make any difference what is used to injure or kill?
Given a choice, I’d rather die instantly from a clean head or heart shot. Whether it was from a lead .22 or an incendiary .50 or a .303 dum-dum or an anti-tank round that magically went off on my helmet or cigarette case is immaterial to me.
However, I very much don’t like the idea of dying at the wrong end of a flamethrower, phosphorous anything, garotte or bayonet. I also don’t like the idea of being permanently maimed by an anti-personnel (or anti-tank or anti-anything else) mine or a flechette or shrapnel from a land or aerial weapon.
But some of these weapons are still perfectly ‘legal’ in warfare while others aren’t and others are subject to campaigns to ‘outlaw’ them (although I have yet to see any do-gooders mount a campaign to outlaw IED’s, fertilizer bombs, etc which are traditionally used by people with no regard for law, life or anything but their own fanatical beliefs and absolutely no concern for whom they kill or injure), for no good reason that I can see. They all kill and do nasty things to people in different ways.
If firebombing is wrong, isn’t all other bombing wrong?
If all other bombing isn’t wrong, what’s wrong with firebombing?
Bonjour Royal744, je te présente mes excuses, car j’ai un problème de traduction avec Google Translate. Et cela ma trompé sur ton post. Tu a en partie raison, et Chevan aussi. La présence américaine en Europe a été un facteur de paix, il faut le reconnaitre. Mais la difficulté aujourd’hui, c’est qu’il n’y a plus “l’enemie” russe et cela pose le problème de savoir quel est notre enemie actuel. C’est un des grands problèmes car pendant des années on savait contre qui se protèger. Par contre je voudrais savoir se que tu dit dans cette phrase, le traducteur ne la traduit pas dans le bon sens. Peux tu me dire le sens de ta phrase " We know from unhappy experience that the only thing “legal” about Communists winning elections in post-war Europe is the election itself, after which there would be no more elections except for the “Potemkin” kind. Thank you, no. " Et pardon de mettre un peu emporté, mon anglais date de plus de 30 ans et j’ai un peu de mal à comprendre le sens des phrases.
Amitiés Fred
I think the difference is very simple: flamethrowers, garottes, bayonets, anti-personnel mines or flechettes are arms intended to be used in the battlefield, between soldiers, while firebombing was mainly used against defenseless civilians as it happened in Dresden or Tokyo. Same as you, given a choice I would prefer to die instantly with a clean head or heart shot while carrying or even better shooting an assault rifle against the enemy than been fried at home along with my sons and wife during a firebombing .
Regards,
What about artillery? Because I notice that is conspicuously absent from your list? And almost every weapon you’ve mentioned indeed has been used in urban areas against “targets” that may have been, inadvertently or on purpose, civilians…
Whenever bombing of civilian targets is brought up people always mention Dresden and the Atomic bombs, seemingly forgetting that Germany and Japan did likewise to other cities. They were successful in more or less ways but it was not all as one sided as many would try and portray.
Good point.
And I’d condemn the Allies for it if they had started bombing civilians as part of WWII. But they didn’t. They just got a lot better at it than the Axis as the war progressed. Coventry and Rotterdam were outrages at the time, but compared with the casualties in later Allied raids they were minor.
Still, the Axis started bombing civilians, and murdering them in their tens of thousands in other ways long before the Allies mounted any major bombing campaigns, let alone firebombing. It’s simply a case of the biter bit.
That doesn’t make it morally justifiable, but I don’t see much in war that is morally justifiable apart from exercising the right to defend one’s nation against an aggressor. In practice the exercise of that right is pragmatic rather than moral, so if the enemy is using gas or firebombing or any other weapon why shouldn’t you? Sticking to Marquis of Queensberry rules in a gutter fight is a sure way to get beaten. You don’t have to feel good about kicking the other guy in the balls or poking his eye out with your thumb and biting his nose off, but if that’s what you have to do to survive an attack by an aggressor who’s kicking you in the balls and trying to poke your eye out with his thumb and trying to bite your nose off then, although it’s not conduct I want to see, I don’t have a problem with it. And I don’t see any grounds for complaint by the aggressor, or anyone else, if you used his way of fighting more successfully against him than he managed against you.
There is also a significant degree of inexcusable ethnic arrogance and or historical ignorance in the comments which routinely come from those well-intentioned but emotionally rather than historically informed critics of firebombing and the atomic bombs.
Although some have heard of Nanking, I have yet to find anyone in social discussion who opposes the atomic bombing of Japan (I have yet to find anyone outside moderately serious military history circles who has the faintest notion that firebombing did more damage in Japan than atomic bombs) who has the faintest idea about, among the many mass-homicidal actions of the Japanese directed at other races, the well-documented Sook Ching massacres or what the Japanese did in Manila in 1941 and 1945 or what the Japanese did on the Bataan Death March in 1942 or at Sandakan in 1945.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but Japan’s depredations throughout Asia and South East Asia deprive it of all right to complain about reaping the whirlwind it sowed.
Japan didn’t get firebombed or nuked because of, as some would have it, amoral capriciousness by the Allies. It happened because Japan embarked upon the most brutal, vicious and unjustified campaign of aggression and enslavement in the past few centuries and because Japan wouldn’t surrender even when it knew it was beaten.
Every military action that happened to Japan was its fault, from start to finish, just as it wasn’t the fault of every nation that Japan attacked and invaded that it was attacked and invaded by Japan, from start to finish.
Compared with Germany, which ultimately was defeated by troops on its soil who destroyed what was left from the air bombing as they advanced across the land, Japan got off bloody lightly by surrendering after, so far as the populace was concerned in comparison with Germany, a relatively short and limited war from the air.
All things considered, Japan and the Japanese got off lightly. Not that this is an allowable view when confronted with the emotional outrage of ill-informed teachers, social workers and others of almost no knowledge on the subjects upon which they hold well-meaning and passionate beliefs founded, unfortunately, in passionate ignorance.
Well said.
There is something trivial and even malevolent with “Monday morning quarterbacking” and historical revision (and I’m as guilty as anybody else).
Decisions are made by people on the wire - with their *** on the line. These people rarely have all necessary information and they sometimes ignore what is available. Sometimes they are held accountable - often they are not.
Perhaps this quote sums it up “Now and again in history long-forgotten decisions and long-suppressed emotions, under the direction of some invisible impulse, generate elemental forces which, like gigantic and slowly rolling dice, work out their horrible and destructive course, guided by chance alone.” IF ONLY IT HAD NOT BEEN SUCH A WET SUMMER; Theodore K. Rabb. From WHAT IF?, edited by Robert Cowlet
Riffing off RS*, I wonder how many “critics” realize that Japan was ‘terror-bombing’ China by 1931–often without the faintest notion of going after military or industrial targets…