Posted on 04/20/2018 9:55:26 AM PDT by ExpatCanuck
Just wondering if that would have put a halt to the Japanese aggression and given them a sense of what they were up against and what we were willing to do. Could it have saved thousands of American lives in the South Pacific? As an alternative history buff I’m curious about the opinions here.
Exactly. And it is one of the reasons we have kept a large standing military since then (mostly).
I posted this to solicit thoughtful responses and opinions from those who are equally curious about history as I am. And I am happy to say I’ve received many of them that have enlightened and informed me. Thank you for your own thoughtful response and opinion that my question was... wait... ‘stupid’ I think you called it. Yes, that’s what you called it. Thanks for your input. :-)
We did not have any bombers that were big enough and had the flying range required to do something like that. Also, we did not have a location where a long range bomber could reach Japan.
It was not until we took Okinawa and developed the B-29 could we effectively bomb Japan and then we burned down Tokyo.
We weren’t in any position to be able to do that immediately after Pearl Harbor.
The Doolittle Raid, however, showed that we WOULD do it and it slapped them in the face as to what was coming.
Would they have acted any differently? No, I don’t believe they would have.
My uncles fought those people across the islands in the Pacific; they would not surrender. They died instead.
Tokyo and other cities were firebombed, and they didn’t quit.
It took atomic weapons and the threat of complete extinction to bring them to their senses, and STILL some wanted to go to the bitter end.
Little Tommy Tucker, from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, asks: what if Napolean had a fully loaded B52 with nuclear warheads at the battle of waterloo?
Old Saturday night live skit.
No, a B-17 wouldn’t even come close. Thats so far off it’s ridiculous. A B-17 at slow speed distance cruise had a max target range of 1000 miles with a 6000lb bomb load, at very low speed. About 800 miles round trip with a full load.
The very southern tip of Japan is 1200 miles one way. Tokyo is 1900 miles one way. And no escort fighters. The 35 B-17s at Clark could have barely bombed Formosa and that’s it. Or.. they could have made a one way suicide mission with a small load.
To put it in perspective, a B-17s -ferry range- was 2624 miles with no bombs at all. A ferry flight to Tokyo would have been a very dangerous undertaking with minimal reserve. Factor in no weather information, navigation overwater in it’s infancy, no SAR force at all.
Not possible.
A gentle correction. We dropped two ATOMIC bombs on Japan, not nuclear. Not only is there a difference in the type of reaction, but nuclear releases a lot more energy and is much more powerful. This is a common error of our times, leading to the false claim that the US is the only nation to drop nuclear bombs on another country. The US never did. No entity on earth has done so.
Impossible.What If We Had Carpet Bombed Japanese Cities After Pearl Harbor?
We had neither the aircraft nor airfields close enough.
When asked by a reporter what to do about U-boat sinkings during World War I, Will Rogers is said to have responded: "Boil the ocean". "But how would you do that?" the reporter continued. Without a beat Rogers replied, "I'm just the idea man here. Get someone else to work out the details."
We didn’t carpet bomb Hanoi.
Or Haiphong.
Granted I was just a youngster at the time, but that really baffled me why we weren’t flattening the Communist cities.
We got around to it eventually. Curtis LeMay devised raids which killed hundreds of thousands of the enemy population.
B-36 was an amazing aircraft.
Have you ever had a coconut dropped on your head from a tremendous height? It can have a serious inhibiting affect on your aggressions. ;-)
B36 was never used in war.
But it convinced the Russians that it was dangerous
I used to live by Larson AFB as a Kid. I remember those things going over at high altitude. They looked like little silver plus signs in the sky.
That is a question which borders on the ridiculous. We had NO MEANS of bombing Japan. We had no bases close enough for even the B-17, we had no significant trained military, we had no B-29s, we did not have the munitions. It was months later that Jiamie Doolittle led some B-17s against Tokyo in a penny-ante raid which was done for the benefit of American people.
I could go on and on about this question and why it is nonsensical but recommend you read a history of the Pacific campaign to see just what had to be done, just why it was necessary to expend all those lives.
I flew the 36 and it was effective and intimidating.
It was rather slow but gave us time to get the B52 which is still very effective and will be for many more years.
Unfortunately, it was a few years before we had B52s. The miraculous Doolittle raid put Japan on notice that we were coming after them.
With what? From where?
ya this , read some History
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