Japan was already in a very bad situation without atom bombs or the Russian intervention. The allies were quite capable of destroying Japanese cities through conventional bombing raids on a massive scale. Is there any evidence that the bombs made a major difference in bringing about surrender and that the Russian intervention alone would not have achieved the same result?
Also, I was under the impression that regimes assisted by western countries such as South Korea in the Korean war and the south Vietnamese regime in the Vietnam war engaged in terrible atrocities. Wouldn’t this mean that western countries that provided support for these regimes bear some guilt for atrocities that were committed? People are talking about the Japanese reaping what they sowed but didn’t the United States, Australia, Britain, etc. provide aid to regimes that engaged in terrible actions such as mass executions of suspected leftists?
I would be interested in knowing what people’s opinions are as to what the public in the west knew regarding the atrocities of the south Korean and south Vietnamese regimes and whether they can claim to have a clean conscience when supporting people engaging in activities reminiscent of what the Japanese did.
The question of A-Bombs right, or wrong has been thoroughly addressed in the linked thread. If anyone would like to add to that particular discussion please use the link. http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?3667-Should-the-atomic-bombs-have-been-dropped-on-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki/page60&highlight=should+atomic+bombs+have+been+used+on+japan
Nous savons a cause de notre malheureux experience avec les elections dans les pays comme Polande, Hongrie, et Czecoslovakie par exemple, que la deniere election “legal” c’est la premiere election. Après ca, toute les elections sont de la variete “Potempkin”, soi-distant faux comme une triste piece de theatre. Merci, non.
tankgeezer, do you have any thoughts as to ethical issues with the U.S. supporting regimes that engage in terrible atrocities? I can’t understand how someone can be genuinely outraged at Japanese atrocities yet condone the U.S. providing support for people engaged in similar activities. Are you suggesting that the south Vietnamese regime was not involved in actions reminiscent of what the Japanese did?
I wasn’t addressing any of the points you now describe, I was only addressing that your last comment (#162) belonged in a different thread, one which deals specifically with that subject.
Yes, I think I understand what you are saying about one of the points belonging in a different thread.
However, I am interested in people’s thoughts as to ethical issues involved in some of the postwar policies of western countries.
It appears to me that after the war the United States provided considerable financial and military support for regimes guilty of the same sort of atrocities as the Japanese. I am curious as to how people can justify this sort of conduct. If the Japanese actions were wrong why provide assistance to governments that are doing the same things. I cannot see how you could be genuinely outraged by Japanese treatment of U.S. POWs but not be upset over things the south Vietnamese did.
I have no doubt that any number of members will have something to say about your questions.
That is a different thread, and one not easy to relate to those not experience the existential threat of nuclear holocaust during the Cold War…
However, I am interested in people’s thoughts as to ethical issues involved in some of the postwar policies of western countries.
It appears to me that after the war the United States provided considerable financial and military support for regimes guilty of the same sort of atrocities as the Japanese…
Then don’t speak in generalizations. Specifically, which regimes and which human rights abuses. You’re going to have a very difficult time finding the equivalent to the Rape of Nanking…
Another example would be the behavior of the South Vietnamese regime towards dissidents.
All discussion regarding atrocities committed by the South Korean gov’t during the 1950-53 civil war have been moved to this thread: Masscre in Korea
Please continue any discussion on this topic there…
OK. Back to original topic.
How do you think, gents, does exist the way of use the firebombing tactic effectively against enemy military power not making civils to suffer so much?
The topic I was trying to discuss is general atrocious behavior by the western allies in the postwar period and is broader than just the atrocities in the Korean war.
If people are outraged by the behavior of the axis powers than shouldn’t they also be upset about actions committed by many of the regimes supported by the west?
I suppose I don’t see why moral standards would suddenly undergo a massive transformation in 1945 and make people accept conduct that was previously viewed as outrageous. Why would people have any reason to be upset with Hitler if only a short period later they choose to condone the very actions held against the nazis?
If people are outraged by the behavior of the axis powers than shouldn’t they also be upset about actions committed by many of the regimes supported by the west?
Which exaclty actions of pro-western regimes do you mind?
There are a handful of legitimate targets that won’t hit civilians too badly (fuel dumps and oil refineries). That’s about it though - the reality is that until the advent of guided weapons military targets are so small and hardened that they’re very difficult to destroy without destroying the entire city they’re surrounded by using either incendiaries or nuclear weapons. Carpet bombing military forces in the field was effective on the few times it was attempted, but was a horrendously inefficient use of resources.
So the only effective tactic was to bomb the cities , surrounded the military objects, otherwise it should be the waste of resources.But goal , anyway, was to damage the military industrial targets , not civils?
Several problems leading to this:1) At the time, few of the population lived in the suburbs. Instead, most of them lived in high-density housing surrounding the factories themselves.2) The UK knew from experience in 1940 that just bombing factories didn’t do much good - machine tools need a direct hit with a big bomb to destroy them. Fire does a slightly better job, but the best way is to destroy the transport links that provide it with raw material, the electricity and water supplies it needs to function and scare away the workers. As the raid on Coventry demonstrated, destroying a city centre is one of the few ways to actually do this - and probably the only practical one prior to late 1944.3) Bombing in the early war was extremely inaccurate - the average miss distance for a heavy bomber in 1940 at night was 5-10% of the distance flown, and it was suicidal to attack by day outside the range of fighter cover. Tales of bombers hitting the wrong country were common. It wasn’t until the USAAF came in with long range fighters and the willingness to take horrendous casualties that the Luftwaffe was ground down and day bombing again became practical. Even then, until pretty much spring 1945 the average miss distance of the USAAF during the day was higher than that of Bomber Command during the night. The reality is that hitting point targets only became possible on a war-winning scale with the invention of laser-guided weapons and their widespread introduction in the 1980s. Until then, it was area/carpet bombing, strikes by fighter-bombers against small, point targets that didn’t need big bomb loads or long range, or nothing at all.Essentially, until about 1980 the options were to send in short-ranged fighter-bombers using eyesight to hit targets accurately, send in heavy bombers to destroy an area (the same tactic as was used with nuclear weapons - they didn’t need to be all that accurate either, although electronic aids meant they weren’t too bad compared to WW2 bombers) or leave targets unmolested. A further issue is that the UK simply didn’t have the infrastructure or manpower to fight Germany in any other way but with heavy bombers until the entry of the USA into the war - they could build an amphibious army to invade Europe, or an Air Force, but not both. Given the horrible memories of the Trenches, they decided early on to try for the air option - and by the time the US entered the war and gave them other options it was too late to change course.This meant that the British had the choice of doing nothing but blockade Germany and finance various resistance movements (essentially exactly what they did in the Napoleonic Wars) or try night area bombing of city centres. The latter was considered politically unacceptable for various reasons (notably the fact that fear of invasion was very real when the decision was made) so they went with area bombing.The USAAC were trapped by their own doctrine that precision bombing by day was a war-winning weapon. This was developed in the 1920s when the service was fighting for survival - and when they applied it in Europe they had a rather unpleasant surprise when it became apparent that the sort of precision they were anticipating simply wasn’t possible in real world conditions. Faced with the same problem as the British, they adopted the same solution - area bombing until they could develop the technology to attack with real accuracy.
I found this comment in Spiegel Online
‘Bomber Command Made Decisive Contribution’
Professor Rolf-Dieter Müller, a German military historian who headed a commission investigating the extent of the civilian casualties in Dresden, said: “Germans have a contradictory and difficult relationship with the bombing campaign because the civilian losses were so great and one has the impression that Bomber Command wasn’t just bent on destroying Hitler’s war machine but on terrorizing the civilian population and crushing morale.”
“But Bomber Command made a decisive contribution towards the Allied victory over Germany,” Müller told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Without the Allied air raids, Hitler would have been able to carry on the war longer and more terribly, possibly with the use of poison gas and even nuclear weapons. In my opinion, the bombing was not just legitimate but even a necessary instrument to help end the war.”“Is it justified in war to factor in civilian losses and collateral damage? We judge by different standards today than in the 1940s. One overlooks the fact that the bombing crews suffered immense losses themselves, it wasn’t a cakewalk for the RAF or the United States Air Force. Germany must respect the fact that the British see the need to honor the bombing crews with a memorial.”
It’s further complicated by the effect on the Army of the fact that the very type of man who 20 years before had formed the junior officers and senior NCOs of the BEF signed up en masse for Bomber Command instead. This accounts for a large part of why the performance of the British Army in WW2 was so poor, and why units frequently failed to attack after taking far lighter casualties than their fathers had kept attacking after.
I’m personally coming around to the view that Bomber Command was the logical way to proceed when it wasn’t certain that the US would join the war. When it was, the logic behind it went away - but by that time the UK had put so many resources and personnel into it that it simply couldn’t change over before the end of the war. With perfect hindsight Bomber Command should have been a great deal smaller and focussed mostly on tactical bombing with a few squadrons doing the sort of thing 617 ended up doing. The personnel and industrial capacity saved should have gone into the Army, Coastal Command and RAF Army Co-operation.