Posted on 04/20/2018 9:55:26 AM PDT by ExpatCanuck
“I have worked with the Japanese and I have yet to find a single one who is not trustworthy, kind and caring. So carpet bombing them is a repulsive idea.”
I suspect you were not around them personally in 1943. They were vile. I direct you to the horrors and sport murdering in Nanking, their behavior in Manchuria at Unit 731 and it’s gruesome human experiments, the utter brutality with which they treated POWs. The hell ships. The slave labor, forced rape and slavery of Korean woman, rampant beheadings of anyone they pleased. The brutality of Kempeitai, even some covered up instances of cannibalism on POWs. It wasn’t just their leaders, the animal mentality was widespread.
The reason the ones you met are so nice are because they utterly got their asses handed to them as wages of their prior cruelty and finally learned their lesson.
They were repulsive during the war and had their old ways beaten out of them.
No we didn't. Long after the war, tourists to North Vietnam heard that the Vietnamese couldn't understand why our bombing campaign was so limited. They also secretly admited that they recognize the Americans intentionally avoided civilian casualties.
The huge majority of B-52 strikes that could be characterized as carpet bombing were in the South.
Other than providing a fig leaf for Nixon how did those negotiations work out?
Other than providing a fig leaf for Nixon how did those negotiations work out?
The US wasn’t capable of conducting large scale strategic bombing of Japan until the fall of 1944. Then the war ended about one year later.
The one thing we know is that, if things were different, they wouldn’t be the same.
Do you believe the North Vietnamese won the Tet Offensive too? One thing you are ignoring is that the Democrats in Congress and their press supporters, led by Walter Cronkite, are the ones that enabled the North Vietnamese to secure victory from the jaws of defeat. When war is televised to the American public on a daily basis her citizens grow tired of war much quicker. If WWII had been televised, Germany, Japan, & Italy would have emerged the victors.
Actually, I’ll correct your correction. A Nuclear bomb is a proper term for either Fission bombs or Fission/Fusion bombs. Atomic bomb is a subclass of Nuclear weapons as is a hydrogen bomb, but it is specific to neither.
http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_5.html
Early variants of the B-17, like based at Clark, were lighter and longer ranged.
B-17 C’s and D’s.
Bingo!!! Some folks just don’t realize the logistics. Doolittle anyone?
Dad was a air corp veteran based for three years in New Guinea. It was pure hell on earth: exhausting heat, torrential rains, mud, water, headhunters, cannibals, 20 foot long snakes, etc.
Dad was a air corp veteran based for three years in New Guinea. It was pure hell on earth: exhausting heat, torrential rains, mud, water, headhunters, cannibals, 20 foot long snakes, etc.
After reading your link, I’m left with the impression that Gen. In terms of what strategic targets were destroyed, Gen. LeMay knowing how to use his B-29’s made him one of the greatest warfighters the US, or any other nation, has ever produced. They basically shut down Japan’s war fighting ability.
Very informative link. I’d suggest everyone should read it.
One thing I love about the movie Strategic Air Command is all the footage of the B-36 and the B-47. It’s the only known footage I know of with a bunch of B-47’s flying in formation.
BTW, My father worked on the analog computer for the tail guns of B-52’s.
I heard the B-36, like the B-24, had a fuel leak problem in the fuselage.
What if we had dropped a half dozen of atomic bombs on them?
One is as likely as the other.
We were not able to strike Japan with that kind of force at that time. The Doolittle Raid resulted in the loss of all aircraft and most of the crews.
You try doing that on the scale necessary to "carpet bomb" and you will quickly run out of planes and crews.
It was a logistical impossibility. We didn’t have anywhere near the force to do it. Even assuming we had bombers that could reach Japan, their Zeros would have shot them down like flies.
We eventually did that. Except this writer might not understand what “carpet bomb” means, how its done, and how it is/was rarely done.
On the other hand, dropping napalm and phosphorous onto structures that are mostly paper and thin wood was a little worse than carpet bombing.
Wasn’t that the strategy against Germany? We did win there but it still took 4 years.
The Pacific was a different theatre of war, different cultural mindset.
I still struggle with the decision to make the Soviets an ally. I try to be sympathetic to FDRs position at the time. Stalin was a heinous murderer...at the same time he was useful, it seems, in opposing and opening up an eastern front against the Nazis.
Some say that midway was the turning point....I tend to disagree with that. Personally, I think the turning point was the struggle for Guadalcanal, and the subsequent loss of their position in the southern Solomons.
>The Marines do not want the Navy to get the credit, so they, of course, try to make Guadalcanal the turning point. Fact is, before Midway we were continually on the defensive, the war was going all Japan’s way; after Midway it was the Japs that were continually on the defensive, the war had tilted our way.
The case is made for the Marine victory at Guadalcanal being the ground war turning point, but not for the war in general. Had not the war at sea already been turned (at Midway) the Marines could not have even been landed to do what they did. The Navy fights for control of the sea, the sea had to first be in our control before Guadalcanal could have been fought.
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