Question About Japan and WWII

[Intelsucks]

I'm reading this book called "YOU ARE BEING LIED TO" which covers a vast number of subjects, political and non-political. The book claims that the US firebombed 5 or 6 times as many Japanese civilians with air raids than with the 2 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is even a line in there that says more people were killed during a 6 hour period than at any other point in history. Were you aware of this? Is this common knowledge and I've just been living under a rock? :shrug:

[Swede]

1. I think you are talking about the incendiary bombing of Tokyo.

They used incendiary bombs,knowing the firefighting capabilities of the city was almost nil. It started a firestorm,many of the houses where bamboo,causing extensive destruction.

[Kosmos Mariner]

6. Yeah, Tokyo was really bad....

...German cities were fire bombed as well...such as Dresden... really nasty stuff, but that is war, and it is never nice... :-(


:dem:

[Swede]

10. I don't think we can judge the allied leaders harshly.

It was war,and it was not at all certain who would win. If we judge by that prespective we can see that they were doing what they thought would end this war.

[DoNotRefill]

28. By that line of argument....

we shouldn't have judged the Nazi and Japanese leaders harshly after the war either.

That just doesn't wash.

[Muddleoftheroad]

34. Not exactly

The Axis leaders were bent on world conquest. The Allied leaders were trying to ensure that the world stayed free. It helps if you look at motivation.

Oh and it also helps if you look at who started the war. In Europe, it was the Nazis. In Africa, the Italians and in the Pacific the Japanese.

[DoNotRefill]

39. It depends....

Stalin certainly wanted world domination, didn't he? He was on the Allied side too, right?

As for who started the war, well, that's debatable. Was the war started by the firing of the first shot? If that's the case, then what about the Soviet Union's participation in the invasion of Poland in '39? Or was it started as a reaction to things like the undue harshness of the Versailles treaty coupled with mixed signals being sent in Europe, and the economic strangling of Japan in the Pacific?

The war didn't just suddenly spring out of the head of Zeus, it was the result of the politics beforehand. As the saying goes: "Warfare is politics carried to extremes".

[Muddleoftheroad]

40. Start of the war

Yes, wars do start with the firing of the first shot. And, although the previous treaty was a contributing factor, it did NOT start the war.

The Germans did. The Japanese did. The Italians did.

Now, as to the "economic strangling" of poor Japan, I assume what you mean is America's refusal to trade with Japan because we didn't like the fact that they were raping and murdering their way across Asia?

[Yupster]

49. Not to pick nits, but

at the time of the Katyn massacre, Stalin was on Hitler's side.

I'm sure he had plenty of other dreadful things on his record while he was on our side too, but we helped him because he was at war with our enemy.

[BonjourUSA]

72. The USA forever are and will be the first users of the nuclear weapon.

I think it's useless to talk again and again about this fact as a horrible crime if it's justified. War is war. We must avoid that it happens again.

The only right question is : was it justified ? Sixty years after, History seems to answer "no" because the shortage of equipements and materials Japan was on the edge of collapse and the capitulation unavoidable very soon.

If the American HQ knew it, the bombing can't be justified by the salvation of American lives. BUT only ... for political reasons. The USA had to mash Japan after the Pearl Harbor humiliation and to prevent that Japan is not again a military power in the
Pacific before a very long time and only with the US willingness

[annak110]

103. Oh sure we can, Japan was ready to surrender,

it was a despicable act.

[bpilgrim]

2. this is not common knowledge since we don't like to focus on OUR TERRORISM

but the fact is that more died due to the Hiroshima bombing over the long term than any of the other bombings of civilian populations.

which are well over 200k that have been documented by hiroshima city.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

35. And, so what?

Those bombings ended the war and saved not only American lives, but Japanese lives as well.

However, even if those bombings had just saved American lives, they would have been perfectly legitimate.

[bpilgrim]

48. actually

more lives would have been saved if we had taken our military leaders advice and accepted japans 1 condition sooner.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

55. Not hardly

The one way to save lives was for Japan to surrender. They did not. They continued to try and get a better deal.

[bpilgrim]

60. ending the war earlier wouldn't have saved more lives?

interesting logic you use.

well all of the military leaders in theater at the time disagree with you and you can count me in that bunch.

peace

[Muddleoftheroad]

64. Yes it would have saved lives

If Japan had surrendered. But presidents must weigh lives now vs. lives later, which is why he wanted Japan to surrender unconditionally.

Fair actually, since Japan attacked us.

[bpilgrim]

67. thank you

we performed a TERRORIST ACT by dropping those bombs on a defeated nation looking to surrender and wasted many lives on both sides in the proccess.

too bad we didn't follow our military leaders advice sooner rather than after we ran out of nukes.

peace

[RPG-7]

69. what's interesting about all this..

Is that you can't get around the fact that any workable definition of the word "terrorism" includes turning civilian cities and people into ash for no military purpose other than psy-warfare.

However the most vocal proponents of mass murder also think of themselves as "anti-terrorists" if the wrong people use such a tactic usually on far less grand scale.

If nothing else it shows what a nasty bag of hypocrites human beings are.

[Muddleoftheroad]

76. Not hypocritical

The Axis started the war. They made it clear it was not just a war, but a war of world conquest with no rules.

The Allies were fighting for world survival and freedom, so they played by the same rules.

[RPG-7]

80. yes, it's hypocritical

First off it's naive to pretend that the British Empire gave a damn about anything accept imperial competion from a German Empire. I think American intentions were more pure but the thing is I am an American. Things that seem so unplausible and an obvious obfucation of real intent when commited as foreign policy by others are hard to observe from the inside. Soviet archives released in the last few years from the Soviet invasion of Hungary make quite clear the policy makers believed they were acting with the highest sort of moral motivations and these are internal documents, they truely believed their own lies. The record from fascist Germany and Japan show the same belief in the benevolent actions of their bombs and bullets.

Second you still approve of tactics of terrorism, you just think the cause was just or provoked. Your opinion in other words of who the "bad guy" is can justify terrorism.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[the_boxer_]

92. I second that RPG-7

[Muddleoftheroad]

75. Not terrorist at all

To be a defeated nation, you have to surrender. They did not. They still had soldiers in the field, killing and raping like always.

[Name removed]

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[LeahMira]

84. Muddle, please read the rest of the story.

There are plenty of books published that tell the full story and not simply the propaganda we were all taught in school.

The atomic bomb was developed in order to put Hitler out of business. As it turned out, Hitler was put out of business before the atomic bomb had been fully developed and tested.

Meanwhile, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were spared most of the bombing that other Japanese cities were not. I believe John Hersey mentions this in his book "Hiroshima." They were spared specifically because the U.S. wanted to see precisely what the effects of the atomic bomb would be without any blurring from some previous bombings. Minus Germany to use as a test site, it was planned that the atomic bombs were to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki... for some time before the actual event took place. When it seemed that the Emperor might go out of business before there was a chance to drop the bomb in Japan, the U.S. did what it could to make sure that didn't happen.

Yes, Japan wanted to surrender conditionally. The Japanese wanted to hold on to a little dignity and honor. That's important in their culture. The U.S. could have accepted their surrender as it was offered. But we still had business with Japan. We had bombs to test, and darn if we were going to let their surrender get in the way of our plans.

[Muddleoftheroad]

88. Nations that start wars seldom get to end them their way

Japan wished things their way. Had they surrendered as we demanded, the war would have been over.

THAT is the real story. Instead, Japan negotiated. Meanwhile, they still had armies in the field and people kept dying.

Truman rightly ended that.

[the_boxer_]

94. LeahMira,

I think you left out the fact that the Soviets were poised to invade Japan, and of course, we couldn't have that either. So on top of not wanting to carve up Japan, we also needed a real live nuclear testing site.

It's sad that the line of history only remembered is the victor's version.

[LeahMira]

83. So we've been told.

Those bombings ended the war and saved not only American lives, but Japanese lives as well.

That's propaganda, and like any propaganda it has a small germ of possible truth, but only a small one and only a possibility. Read "Hiroshima in America" by Robert Jay Lifton.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380727641/qid=1070909489/sr=1-7/ref=sr_1_7/103-6180953-0136623?v=glance&s=books

You may not change your mind, but you will know more than you do now.

[Muddleoftheroad]

87. I know plenty

Including knowing folks who were supposed to be part of the U.S. invasion force.

Japan would have been devastated had we invaded. Millions would have died. Yes, they would fought like they did on Iwo, except everyone -- men, women and children -- would have fought us. Tons of Americans would have died and every Japanese city would have been destroyed.

It took two nukes to convince even their diehard military types that surrender was an option.

[comradebillyboy]

3. correct

the fire bombings of tokyo or dresden (see "slaughterhouse five") for example, were much deadlier than either hiroshima or nagasaki. during ww2 the us and uk routinly used incindiary ordanance against highly populated urban areas.

ww2 resulted in more than 50,000,000 deaths. most were civilians. and most of those in china and the former soviet union. none of the major powers in ww2 really were concerned about civilian casualties suffered by the enemy.

[bpilgrim]

4. actually

the cumalitive deaths from hiroshima are well over 200k

peace

[DoNotRefill]

25. I've seen casualty figures from the Dresden raid alone....

which was over 250,000 dead from that one raid. There's a fair bit of debate about this. The "body count" was in excess of 50,000, but the firestorm created crematorium-like conditions throughout the city center. It burns so hot that even concrete will burn. The City of Dresden was a refugee-collection point, and was filled with refugees. Most of their bodies were obliterated, so they weren't in the total "body count". Only the bodies in the outskirts remained to be counted.

If you travel through Dresden today, you can still see signs of the fire.

[durutti]

5. Great book!

All of the Disinfo books are pretty cool.

[JailBush]

7. Intelsucks, you ignorant slut...

America's biggest war crimes weren't committed in Japan at all; try Germany.

Just joking - I wasn't aware of this myself until fairly recently.

I was so amazed when I discovered the World War II fire bombings of Japan and Germany, I decided to research it and put some information on my website. See the following pages, and you'll see why I argue that we should celebrate 9/11:

http://www.geobop.com/symbols/911/4/index.htm
http://www.geobop.com/symbols/911/6/index.htm
http://www.geobop.com/symbols/911/ (9/11 Symbols home page)

Incidentally, I saw the movie "Slaughterhouse 5" many years ago. At the time, I thought it was an odd but cool (though horrifying) look at the horrors of war.

I don't recall if I read the book long ago, but the reviews alone are intriguing.

Another thing I didn't know: The CIA-backed Chilean coup occurred on September 11 and resulted in the deaths of about 3,000 people, similar to the tally from the Attack on America.

(My website is being revised and is in some disarray, which is probably why the images aren't showing.)

[Intelsucks]

12. I've been to Dresden Twice

There are still a few (not many) small reminders from the war. There is a church near the Elbe river that is still being rebuilt as we speak. They cataloged the pieces of the rubble and tried to use as much of the original sandstone blocks to rebuild it as possible. I think it will be finished in 2005 or 2006. My friends in Dresden told me that they heard that the fires could be seen from Berlin... That's about 100 miles away. That's almost impossible to comprehend. I've seen pictures of it after the bombing... it was completely leveled.

[JailBush]

8. The Philippine Insurrection

Another thing we aren't taught about in school is the "Philippine Insurrection," which can be thought of as the Spanish American War, Part II. I think I remember touching on it in history class, and I also recollect an old patriotic TV series that visited this event during one episode. (American GIs bravely fought against fierce jungle warriors armed with machetes.)

But I really knew very little about it and certainly wasn't aware of the scope of the killing. It's really amazing Filipinos don't hate Americans' guts. I guess time erased many of the memories and poverty erased the remainder.

[TexasMexican]

9. I thought it was common knowledge...

that we carpet bombed Germany and firebombed Japan.

IMO those tactics in that war were justified.

[JailBush]

11. Dresden wasn't a military target.

It was basically a big refugee camp. Philosophically, one might argue that ordinary German citizens deserved to die for not stopping Hitler - just as ordinary U.S. citizens desrve to die for not stopping Bush.

But Dresden's refugees weren't all German. The most famous refugee was Kurt Vonnegut, an American POW.

Politically, it was a disastrous error, as it cost the Allies the moral high ground.

[TexasMexican]

13. but did the politics of it really matter?

I do sort of come from the camp that the citizens of a nation are responsible for the government that they have, even more so in a democracy.

That being said, I dont think many wars have been won just because one side has "the moral high ground."

Its entirely possible to be completely right in your actions but still fail.

What did the bombing of Dresden actually cost us? I didnt cost us the war, it didnt make our allies bail on us and go to the other side. It did allow us now to blame our government for thier actions back them, but in the scope of the things considered its pretty irrelevant. It was wasteful, but all of war is wasteful.

[Devil Dog Dem]

14. No jews died in the Dreden bombing.

Because the good bergers of that city had helped send them all to concentration camps.

Hard to feel any pity for the people of Dresden.

War is hell, and I don't mean that flippantly.

[Name removed]

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[Silverhair]

101. Moral High Ground? The moral high ground ain't worth anything...

when you are getting shot at. And it didn't cost us any moral high ground. Are you saying that Hitler was more moral? Tell that to the 12 millions people that were "unfit to live".

By the time of the WWII bombing of Dresden, cities were targets, period.

Of course, almost 60 years later, for the comfort of an airconditioned room, and a soft chair, and no responsibility resting on your decisons, you can critize those who were there in the thick of it, and then you can feel so very superior.

[solinvictus]

15. Dresden and Hamburg

There were more casualties in those two fireboming raids than in the two atomics. Further, more Germans were harmed after the war in detention camps and concentration camps in both Soviet and western sectors.

[bubba_fett]

17. Japan was flattened

Tokyo was completely obliterated. I've heard that when occupation forces arrived they could hardly believe that the flat wasteland they were looking at was once the biggest city in the world. It wasn't just Tokyo either, pretty much every major city. Kyoto and Nara I think were the only cities spared because of their historical significance.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit hardest because they were major ports, and we knew that the japanese were already hurting from US embargoes (hence their bombing of Pearl Harbor). Japan, being an island nation can't survive on her own without foreign imports of iron and oil, etc. Also, I think one of the major factors was setting an example to the world.

One can hardly speak of "moral high ground" during the pacific war. Sure the japanese were committing horrible atrocities in China, they only sided with Germany to ally themselves with (who they perceived as) the winning team to save face. Yet we unleashed completely humiliating brutal force to avenge Pearl Harbor.

I know this may be sensitive today, the attack on Pearl Harbor was horrible, but did we really come out on top? Do the ends justify the means?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, my WWII history needs brushing up. Feel free to correct me.

[Yupster]

53. We also did much to save Japanese lives

during the war.

The Japanese had garrisons on hundreds of islands throughout the Pacific. Once we attacked an island, the Japanese pretty much fought to the last man in a hopeless struggle. We could have killed every Japanese soldier on every one of their garrisoned islands. We decided not too. We bypassed most of the garrisons and told them when the war was over.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. The firebombing of Tokyo was very bad indeed

100,000 people in a single night, most of them burned alive as fire bombs raged through the oldest section of the city, a jumble of wooden and bamboo construction on narrow streets. That part of the city had no military installations, no major industrial plants, and mostly women, children, and elderly people in residence. The industrial plants and the government and military headquarters were on the other side of the Sumida River.

The sole purpose was to terrorize the civilian population, which seems especially brutal, since the civilian population had no influence on the government whatsoever.

Tourists in Japan sometimes express disappointment at the lack of historical buildings in Tokyo. That's because the most historical part of the city was destroyed that night.

[SheilaT]

19. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had deliberately

NOT been bombed earlier in the war, and so were considered safe by the Japanese themselves. They were selected to be the targets of the atomic bombs precisely because they had not been bombed before. It made the horror and destruction all the more vivid.

[bubba_fett]

20. there are stories

of people who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, and fled to Hiroshima thinking they would be safe.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

74. Other way around

Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, Nagasaki on August 9.

[kodi]

21. i think the japanese and germans would have done the same thing

if they had been given the chance. thankfully they didnt get that chance.

the allies just did it first.

we can play all the parlor games we want and revise history to suit any modern conventionality of morality, but i am happy that the axis powers lost because most of us would either have never been born or dead already.

in modern warfare, not only armies die. that is a cold hard fact, i dont like it, no one does, but if a nation goes to war, what else is there to do to defend one's nation from defeat but destroy the opponent's war making capacities before it is done to you?

i would like to think that gandhi's method's were right, but i dont think for second that had he lived in poland instead of india he would have survived auschwitz....and neither did he.

[Vernunft]

33. Ask the people of Coventry

Germany has it´s own list of atrocities and it´s a pretty long one as well...

[Yupster]

54. Harry Turtledove wrote a short story

based on the premise that the Germans took India from the British in WWII.

Field Marshall Model is made governor of India, and he brings in this old guy who's organizing ptotests, Gandhi. Whiler eating lunch he has a nice talk with Gandhi, says what an interesting guy he is, and then has him taken out and shot while he's wondering if there's any dessert prepared for his lunch.

[RPG-7]

93. Churchill proposed killing him also

I think he probably would have if he had kept power after WWII.

[BigMcLargehuge]

22. balance it with a read of how Japan treated China

from 1905 - 1945.

25 million civilians dead...

The Rape of Nanking 400,000 murdered in three months
Unit 731 (and assorted dozens of other biotech weapons labs) untold dead from plague flea bombs, poison gas, and poisoned rivers and wells.

Lest we forget that Japan was the first country to air-raid a population center.

Yes, we firebombed Tokyo. Yes, we killed hundreds of thousands. Was it right? I guess in war it is... I don't know.

There is ample blame for all participants in both theaters.

[Orangeone]

23. The women and children

in Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn't commit atrocities in China.

I think you would feel differently if it was the U.S. getting burned up. It is totally justified if soldiers are targeted, but civilians? War is hell but it hasn't always been the case that civilians were wantonly killed.

[Yupster]

29. The theory of bombing German cities

was that you could kill armaments production by killing the workers.

I imagine it was the same theory in Japan, though I haven't heard that.

[BigMcLargehuge]

68. If I remember my history correctly

Japanese arms were increasing produced via cottage industry manufacturing, that is, civilians assembled Arisaka rifles and knee grenade launcher in their homes, often and usually in cities because the allies tended to bomb manufacturing plants.

[BigMcLargehuge]

70. the women and children of China

and Manchuria and Korea weren't soldiers either, but that didn't dissuade the Imperial Japanese army from released Plague fleas on them or poisoning their wells, or lining them up for machine gunning, trucking them off as forced sex slaves, or using them for bayonette practice.

All of which were done and are documented.

Like I said, there is enough blame to go around.

And, FWIW, Sherman's March to the Sea occured on American soil, sort of, though it was the Confederacy, and I feel the same way.

[DoNotRefill]

27. I'd like to point out....

that deliberately targeting civilian populations constitutes a war crime now. There's no doubt that we did exactly that in WWII.

[Muddleoftheroad]

36. It does NOW

At the time, it was a world war and a total war. And the definition simply didn't exist.

[Yupster]

57. When I taught college history,

I called that "The sin of presentism."

It's judging people of the past by the standards of today rather than of their own times. It's somethings historians should try to avoid.

[DoNotRefill]

24. absolutely true....

The Allies were the first to come up with many things. Think Concentration Camps were a Nazi invention? Wrong. The Brits were the ones who coined the phrase, during the Boer War. "Yeah, but they weren't extermination camps, right"? Depends on how you look at it. I've seen figures that state that 80% of "internees" didn't last 90 days in the British camps, due to the appalling conditions. Remember, these were Boer women and children only, no men allowed. They were placed in camps without even rudimentary sanitary facilities, and died of disease en masse and in short order. The Brits KNEW being sent to the camps was a death sentence, and kept feeding Boer women and children in anyway.

Think Eugenics was a Nazi idea? Wrong again. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, "three generations of idiots is enough." He wrote this in a Supreme Court decision allowing the court-ordered forced sterilization of poor people in America. This was BEFORE WWII. The Nazis often quoted AMERICAN sources in their eugenics movement.

Firebombings? That was us. Biological weapons? That was us too. (the first documented case was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, "Overprotector of Czechoslavakia", killed by Czech partizans that were trained in England by the SOE and equipped with a British-supplied anthrax-laden antitank grenade. His wounds were not life threatening, but the anthrax killed him a short while later. The "official" story said it was contracted from material in the horsehair seats getting into his wounds.) Nukes? Us again.

Ask your average American, and they'll tell you what a horrible person Hitler was, and how he'd stop at nothing to gain victory, while the Allies were the White Knights. Hitler did some really terrible things, and I'm not defending him in any way. Yet even Hitler had some scruples, often more than the Allies had. Hitler had a weapon in his arsenal which could have easily won him the war in several different ways. I'm talking about nerve agents. We were still using WWI technology, like mustard and phosgene gasses, which must be inhaled to be deadly, so gas masks are effective. The Germans had Sarin and Tabun, but refused to use them. For those not familiar with those, they're contact agents, not inhalants. In other words, if you get it on your skin, you'll die, a gas mask doesn't help at all. Our troops and civilian populations would have had no defense against it. The first we found out about them was after the invasion of Normandy, when we captured shells filled with it. Hitler could have wiped out the Normandy landings (or London during the Blitz, or Moscow in '42, or....) with ease, but he balked from using such a terrible weapon. The Allies had no such compunction, and used whatever was expedient.

History is written by the victors. The Japanese and the Nazis did terrible things, but so did the Allies. Stack the atrocities side by side, and in my opinion it's a draw. Ever hear of Katyn? It wasn't just Nazi propaganda....and if the Nazis and Japanese had won, I'm sure they would have held war crimes tribunals with Allied leaders in the dock, AND THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT TO DO SO.

/<rant mode OFF>

[TexasMexican]

30. "The Allies had no such compunction, and used whatever was expedient. "

So might does make right.

It wasnt having the moral high ground that won us the war, it was using using all the tools in our arsenal?

[DoNotRefill]

31. we won the war....

because fate or whatever frowned upon the Axis. (that, and the fact that Hitler was a LOUSY CinC, and the Axis had some crappy members, which I will not go into.)

There were perhaps six or seven points where Germany (and therefore the Axis) could have won the war. They only had to win ONE. They lost them all.

The "moral high ground" during WWII is a figment of the imagination. As evidence of this, I'd point out the Wehrmacht's slogan: "Gott mit uns". God is with us. We thought we had the moral high ground. We won the war, and wrote the history books. Therefore, we had the "moral high ground", despite the use of nukes, biological weapons, firebombings, terror tactics, massacres, et cetera. The Germans and Japanese thought they held the "moral high ground". They lost the war, and didn't get to write the history books. Therefore, they did NOT hold the "moral high ground", despite the use of terror tactics, massacres, the Holocaust, et cetera.

"Moral high ground" is a relative term. Usually, it's applied to the winners, regardless of how immoral they are. Do I think it was divine providence that we won? Nope. but by examining our own actions, I don't see how a rational person could think that we "held the moral high ground".

[tkmorris]

32. Your average WWII historian doesn't

Even just the average history buff doesn't.

But your average American does. There are precisely two events that your average American considers about WWII when they think about which side had the moral high ground. They are of course Pearl Harbor and the Germans attempted genocide of the Jews.

Thta's what they know. It's all they are taught. It's all I knew, even though as a young teen I thought I knew everything (didn't we all?), then I read Slaughterhouse Five. Then of course I read everything else Mr. Vonnegut wrote because while I knew I was intelligent, I was still humble enough to recognize someone who was both more intelligent than I and far more experienced.

Your AVERAGE American though has no clue. To them, Nazis = bad because they gassed Jews. Japan was bad because they performed a sneak-attack on us in Hawaii. Therefore we were right and that is all that matters. God bless America and hang another flag on the car Mabel.

[Muddleoftheroad]

37. Wow, what a rationalization

Why was the war fought?

It was fought by the Axis powers trying to conquer the world. In the case of the Allies, it was fought to survive and be free and free other nations.

That's all the damn moral high ground I need.

[DoNotRefill]

41. LOL!!! The Allies tried to free other nations?

Like Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia were "freed"?

America was "the arsenal of Democracy", right? Yup, the USSR was sure known for being a Democratic society under Stalin...

If WWII was fought by powers trying to "conquer the world", then why the delay on Germany's part in declaring war on the US until AFTER Pearl Harbor? Why not a declaration in '39, when America was totally unprepared for it?

The war was fought to keep Germany and Japan "in their place". The colonial powers didn't want Germany and Japan competing with them.

[JVS]

42. Compared to what the Germans had in store for them, USSR was a liberator

[DoNotRefill]

45. Tell that to the Polish survivors of Katyn.....

Oh, sorry, there weren't any. My bad.

I'm sure the people who died in the Gulag were glad they didn't die in a German camp...just as I'm sure the millions Stalin starved to death were glad he killed them before the Nazis could...

[JVS]

50. yawn

Communist occupation is better than nazi genocide. When the Russians liberated Auschwitz the people there were happy that they had come.

[Blue_Chill]

77. What you are saying is life in prison is better then the death penalty

Both options are horrible.

[JVS]

91. It isn't better?

[Muddleoftheroad]

43. Ah, so you expect perfection only?

How's that working out for you?

When you fight a war, you pick the best allies available at the time. There is an Arab saying, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." It works.

As for why Germany delayed attacking the U.S., they were smarter than the Japanese, that's why. They didn't really want the U.S. in the war and had hoped to avoid it. America, unlike Europe, was relatively isolated and had vast industrial power. Hitler wanted to consolidate his gains and not have to fight the U.S. as well.

Now, you claim, "the war was fought to keep Germany and Japan 'in their place.' " So the rest of us actually attacked Germany, Japan and Italy? Not the other way around?

[DoNotRefill]

46. What about...

the US provocations? Remember the Lend-Lease program? How about US Navy involvement in sinking German warships prior to war being declared between Germany and the US? Can you say "casus belli"?

As for "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", well, considering how many of his people Stalin killed, creating an alliance with him and giving him material support certainly strikes me as depriving us of the "moral high ground", unless you subscribe to "the ends justify the means".

[Muddleoftheroad]

47. Provocations

Sorry, by the time Lend Lease was going, the war was on. The war the Germans, Japanese and Italians started. How the U.S. or other nations responded to that planned world conquest is reaction, not action.

And when you are fighting for world survival, I do indeed subscribe to "the ends justify the means."

[DoNotRefill]

52. a war....

that the US wasn't involved in, unless supporting one side with guns, ships, and information qualifies as being "involved"....

[Muddleoftheroad]

56. When others try to conquer the world

We are ALL involved. It was only a matter of time.

[JVS]

51. Why are you so eager to find fascism on the side of righteousness?

[DoNotRefill]

61. I'm not....

the whole point is that BOTH sides did lots of evil shit. Pretending we didn't and only the Nazis did is preposterous.

[JVS]

63. Both sides tried to win the war

Nothing evil about that. But you have to be willing to do some brutal stuff to win. That is what "Total War" is all about. I'm glad that we didn't hold back, because I prefer the outcome of the war to the possible results of holding back.

[Muddleoftheroad]

65. The difference lies in the motivation

They wanted world conquest. We wanted to stay free. That's a hell of a big difference.

[Yupster]

62. I would agree with you

that the alliance with Stalin was a "deal with the devil," but without the Soviet Union, the war would have taken much longer, killed millions of Americans, and maybe wouldn't have even been won.

If you were a German soldier killed in the war, it was probably by a Russian, not an American.

[kodi]

73. germany had a treaty with japan to do so

strange as it was.

during the nuremburg trials the US prosecutor, justice robert jackson asked german foreign minister, von ribbentrop why germany had declared war on the US after pearl harbor. ribbentrop was said to have told jackson that germany had a treaty with japan to support japan. an incredulous jackson then asked von ribbontrop, "why, since your government had already broken so many treaties, that you decided to honor that one?"

having european friends who survived german death camps and chinese and koreans whose families where almost wiped out during japan's occupation of their countries, i have found some of these posts amazingly naive about the true nature of the japanese and nazi governments.

at the same time i have japanese-american friends whose parents were sent to an american concentration camp in idaho and know that the hands of the americans are not completely clean, but the americans did not exterminate them as vermin.

referring to WWII as basically a colonial war is strange indeed.

both the german and japanese goverments used as standard behavior the extermination of occupied populations. of the major allied nations, only the soviet union did anything approximating what the nazis and japanese did, and that nation was not a democracy, nor can we now 60 years later imagine the horrors the soviet people endured under stalin, who himself caused the deaths of 30 million of his countrymen or the from the occuping forces of the wehrmacht.

[TexasMexican]

96. I've always thought that was strange too...

Germany had already broken several treaties, and in the end they upheld the one treaty that probably hurt them the most.

Had Germany not delcared war on the US many Americans would have been happy to just fight Japan, after all they were the ones that bombed us.

[Yupster]

59. Just as a WWII interested student

what in your opinion were the 6-7 times you think the Axis could have won the war? I'd be interested to hear.

[DoNotRefill]

71. a few of them....

include Kursk, Stalingrad, the battle of Britain, d-day, et cetera.

During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had the RAF on the ropes, and were concentrating their efforts on RAF establishments, working to supress them and gain air superiority. There was an incident where a flight of German bombers flew off-course and accidentally bombed London. The Brits responded by bombing Berlin. Hitler changed the course of the air war, targeting civilian populations in retaliation, taking pressure off the RAF and allowing the RAF time to regain it's feet. Had he kept up the pressure on the RAF instead of being stupid, they could have gained air superiority, and Sea-lion might have been able to go forward.

Kursk: Had they changed plans at the last moment, and attacked 40 miles to either side then their compromised plans called for, they had a very good chance of enveloping the Soviets, and could have knocked them out of the war. Instead, they attacked into the teeth of the Russian defenses in depth.

The kickoff of Barbarossa: This was delayed by the Italians needing to be bailed out on another front in an unnecessary and strategically irrelevant operation invasion. Had it gone in May instead of late June, there's an excellent chance that the USSR would have been knocked out of the war that summer/autumn. As it was, it was touch-and-go. Had they gone in May, the majority of combat action could have been wrapped up prior to winter.


Zhukov and the Japanese: Had the Japanese kept any kind of pressure on Zhukov in Siberia, the USSR would have faced one of 2 choices: Pull their forces out, being chased all the way, and lose Siberia, or keep them there to stop the Japanese and lose in the west. The Japanese didn't keep pressure on them, so they were able to transition from the east to the west at a critical point.

Stalingrad: Von Paulus surrendered what, 600,000 troops? Had Hitler been rational, they could have fought their way out. Had the Romanians not been on the flanks, the encriclement wouldn't have happened in the first place. Had Goering not been a bombastic gas-bag and promised to resupply them by air, they could have been saved. IIRC, the German military lost fewer than 2 million dead throughout the entire war. Saving the 6th Army could have easily changed the course of the war.

D-Day: Had the germans used the green cross shells on the beachhead (they were there, they just had to be fired) the landing would have failed miserably It would have been at least a year before they could have tried again.

German treatment of occupied territories like the Ukraine: The Germans were originally welcomed as liberators. By treating the people badly, they turned from a potential asset into a huge liability.

This is certainly not all-inclusive.

[Character Assassin]

90. You need to check your facts

During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had the RAF on the ropes....

That is a rather unique assessment of the situation.

Hitler changed the course of the air war, targeting civilian populations in retaliation, taking pressure off the RAF and allowing the RAF time to regain it's feet. Had he kept up the pressure on the RAF instead of being stupid, they could have gained air superiority, and Sea-lion might have been able to go forward.

Göering's initial orders were to attack coastal convoys and bomb radar stations along the south coast, installations of the British aircraft industry, and RAF airfields. This dilution of effort was one of the principal reasons why the Luftwaffe eventually lost the battle. That, and the fact that the occupation of Denmark and Noray drew precious resources away from the German effort over Britain.

The short range of the German aircraft and the fact that they were fighting over enemy territory were two major disadvantages for the Germans. A downed pilot was a loss for Germany, and damaged planes were too often ditched at sea.

Stalingrad: Von Paulus surrendered what, 600,000 troops? Had Hitler been rational, they could have fought their way out. Had the Romanians not been on the flanks, the encriclement wouldn't have happened in the first place. Had Goering not been a bombastic gas-bag and promised to resupply them by air, they could have been saved. IIRC, the German military lost fewer than 2 million dead throughout the entire war. Saving the 6th Army could have easily changed the course of the war.

70,000 Germans died in Stalingrad, and 91,000 were taken as prisoners, including twenty-four German generals. Only 6000 ever returned.

[Yupster]

102. My critiques

1. Britain. The Germans were never close to knocking Britain out of the war during the Battle for Britain. As long as English pilots could eject over England, and as long as planes could be supplied from America or Canada, there was no way to win that one. And that doesn't even say anything about the fleet which could break up any invasion. The Germans were planning to cross the Channel on Rhine River barges that had about the same speed as the ships that Julius Caesar crossed on 2,000 years earlier.

2. Kursk. If the battle were wildly succesful, it could have pinched off the Kursk salient which wouldn't have changed the dynamics of the Russian front a bit. The hope for the battle was to hurt the Russians enough that it might take some power away from the expected Russian coming offensives. Dreams of conquering Moscow, or the Caucuses were gone by the time of Kursk.

3. Greece. This was truly a misadventure, and I believe that were the invasion started three weeks earlier, Moscow may have fallen. However, jumping from there to the end of the war is quite a leap. Napolean took Moscow too, and it didn't do him any good.

4. Zhukov-Japanese. Zhukov could have left a rearguard and brought everything else to Moscow regardless of what the Japanese did or didn't do. It's not like the Japanese were going to march 2,000 miles across the steppes after him. Kamchatka, and even Vladivostock could be lost temporarily to save Moscow.

5. Stalingrad. Yes, it was inexcusable to not order Sixth Army to break out, and it was inexcusable of Paulus not to try it as a last desperate try during the relief attempt, but again. If the army was able to break out, the lines could have been stabilized for the winter just about at the same place they were a year before. What would be lost to the Germans was a year. A year for the Russians to get stronger, and the Americans to get more into the war. Time was not on the Germans' side. This was not a war deciding event.

6. D-Day. The silliest of the list. The war was already over when the allies landed in France. D-Day wasn't even the worst thing that happened to the Germans in June of 1944. That would be Operation Bagration. The Germans simply call it "The Destruction of Army Gruppe Centre." In a disaster far worse than Stalingrad, the Russians overwhelmed and overran the entire center of their front in Russia, pretty much removing 45 divisions from the order of battle. The Russians didn't stop until they reached Warsaw. After Bagration, the war was over. Russia could no longer be stopped anywhere they chose to attack. D-Day no longer mattered.

Occupied Territories. This I believe was Hitler's best chance to win. If he invaded followed by herds of cattle, he could have turned the war into Russians versus Soviets, and maybe won. He could have even bushwhacked the Russians later if he chose to.

[Yupster]

58. Man this blame America for everything

really gets old.

[Blue_Chill]

81. yes it does

Even in WWII where good and bad were as clear as day we still can't get away from 'America bad!'.

I guess wen you look back on it, it's a lot easier to say what someone did is wrong. However I suspect that the very people complaining now wouldn't have showed any more mercy to the Japanese or Germans had they been a part of that war.

[Yupster]

26. Common knowledge

to those who have an interest in the war.

[rasputin1952]

38. Just a little clarification here...

The fire bombing of Tokyo was a deliberate attack with plenty of foreknowledge of what would happen. I will not discuss the "morality" of this; but the reality is, a LOT of people died in the bombing.
Specifically NOT targeted, was the Imperial Palace; basically, this was to 'hopefully ensure' the survival of the Emperor to be tried for War Crimes. (I know, there is a certain cycnicism there).

The Fire Tornado that encompassed Tokyo as it sucked in air to feed the flames, reached well over 6000F for a short period of time, and reached a few thousand feet in the air. Many items, (including people), were sucked into the vortex and incinerated instantaneously.

Dresden saw basically the same thing, but burned more violently because the combustibles were more than mostly paper and wood, and much would burn longer, and hotter. Vonnegut never got over the carnage, as he expresses in his writings, (especially Slaughterhouse 5).

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considered necessary targets at the time, (although neither of them were primary targets on those days), because of production of war materials. Hiroshima also had a POW camp where several hundred US aviators were vaporized as well, (with the knowledge of those who planned the operation).

There's more, a lot more, (including moralizations from several camps); but in a nutshell, none of these actions by ANY side were done in ignorance. There are always unknowns in war, but the basic premise is to "destroy your enemy's ability to wage war by whatever means necessary".

:kick:

edited: spelling

[happyslug]

79. Some clarification, tactics dictated by type of Planes used.

Dresden and Hamburg produced Firestorms, as Did Tokyo and Hiroshima, but Nagasaki did NOT produce a firestorm (not enough Combustibles).

As using AIR Power to aim at Civilian Targets (unlike occupational attacks at Civilian, a Crime the German Army did often) the Germans did use Air Power against Civilian targets during the Spanish Civil War but rarely during WWII (and did it again at Warsaw and Rotterdam) all of the German Air Attacks were tied in with a ground attack on those same cities (The attack was to “soften” the City defenses for the upcoming ground assault).

The reason for this had to do with the German Air Tactics than any concept of Humanity. The Germans (Like the Japanese and the US Navy) preferred Dive Bombers do to their greater accuracy at hitting targets (Till Smart Bombs came into play during Vietnam, Dive Bombing was the most accurate way to drop a bomb from the Air). This preference for Dive Bombing lead to the Germans Air Force killing less civilians while supporting their Ground Forces than did Allied Air Forces while Supporting Allied Forces. The German Air Force preferred the Accuracy of Dive Bombing over the Allied preference for Volume.

One of the reasons the Allies aimed at Cities is that the Allied Bombers of WWII were never designed for Dive Bombing and thus inaccurate to hit anything smaller than a city. For example the NO capital ship was sunk by level bombers during WWII (Dive Bombers, Torpedo Bombers and even Guns and Rockets from Fighters and Fighters bombers sunk ships BUT not Level Bombers with the Exception of the B-24 Liberators against U-Boats) this had to do with the lack of Accuracy of these level bombers hitting a target.

Once you accepted you could not hit a small target like a Ship, you than have to develop tactics to use the Planes you had and level bombing of Cities became the target (Even if that meant killing civilians and targeting Civilians).

Now the B-24 did sink many a U-boat, but the tactics were these, first Enigma (the German Code system) was decoded (the British had broken the Code) than the B-24 was sent to where the U-Boar was to Surface and sent its next signal. Using a low range radar the Bomber would wait till the U0Boat would surface and make a quick, SLOW, and LOW dive on it dropping depth Charges. Given the thin Armor on U-Boats this did the Trick even if none of the Charges hit the U-Boat. Without the Enigma the tactic would not work and did not work if the U-boar surfaced before the B-24 arrived (The U-Boat could than put up its Anti-aircraft Defenses and chase away the B-24). Thus any air Defense at all would have doomed even that tactic.

Thus the Allied Bombers of WWII were NOT capable of the Accuracy to AVOID hitting civilians, and once you accept hitting civilians targeting is just a small additional step. As to the Germans NOT targeting Civilian (I am restricting this statement of Air Attacks NOT ground actions) it was more to save Bombs and fuel than to save lives.

[rasputin1952]

85. Only partially true Happyslug...

The Battle of Britain began the bombing of British cities, London comes immediately to mind, with little care of civilian life lost.

A little later, V-1's and V-2's were set to land on British cities, i believe these came from the air as well.

Stalingrad was blown to bits by artillery as well as bombers.

HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were both sunk by japanese level bombers. In fact, the Japanese began, (but quickly dismissed), thinking about using more level bombing to attack more ships.

I agree that the thinking of the time was that precision bombing was best achieved by dive bombing; but saturation bombing became much more threatening to targets. As the war became more of a "total" war, all bets were off, and it became a war of attrition; as other events became known, there was a lot of animosity built up against both the Germans and Japanese.

Then you have Curtis LeMay: "Complete Destruction" was the only way he saw war. If there were a way, he would have advocated sinking Japan, and laughed at the Japanese as they drowned. He was one cruel SOB!

:kick:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

44. All too true.

The devastating firebombing of Japan was the strategy of the US to destroy the "will of the people" and the workers who produced the stuff of war.

The bombing of Dresden was an act of savagery to show the Soviets who were approaching the city that we "supported" them.

Up until the bombing of Madrid (by Germans) in the Spanish Civil War, outright war on civilians had been usually looked upon as barbarity. At least since the middle ages. Even the bloodbaths of WWI and our own civil war usually spared civilians.

This is certainly not to say that the Germans or Japanese were above doing so. The Germans started the bombing of civilians and the Japanese had no compuntion about warring on helpless civilians with incredible brutality. The "Rape of Nanking" was so awful that even their Nazi allies were appalled and attempted help the Chinese.

That the "good guys" would stoop to such tactics is an indicator of the saying about "becoming the enemy". America has a long history of targeting civilians. All one has to do is look at the "Indian" wars, the war against the Phillipine rebels, the many wars in central America right up to the present, not to mention the horror in SE Asia.

Of course, these things are not particularly popular subjects of discussion in the schools, media, or by politicians. Democrat or Republican. Tho' the Democrats usually just ignore it, while the Republicans either try to justify it, or downright lie about it.

But, the telling of history usually goes to the victors.

[RPG-7]

66. not common knowledge..

It is a fact though.

[Orangeone]

78. It just seems

like the logic is: USA is right & good, therefore whatever actions we take are good, no matter how inhumane. It's a very slippery slope.

[Scott Lee]

95. I saw that verified in the Hiroshima War archives

When I was living in Japan. There's a WHOLE LOTTA stuff about that war that our history books dare not whisper. It's too voluminous for this forum but I suggest that DUers read up on this stuff (including the ABCD Treaty that laid the groundwork for the attack on Pearl Harbor). It's a classic example of how Professor Lowen in his book "Lies My Teacher Told Me" was right. It's also a textbook example (no pun intended) of how effective the official Historical Revision Team is in this country.

[Muddleoftheroad]

97. So you mean Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor?

Or did it?

[DoNotRefill]

98. If you want to REALLY pick nits....

The US Navy fired the first shots at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese naval aviation assets ever got over the islands when they sank a Japanese submarine near Pearl Harbor.

[Character Assassin]

99. They found that sub not so long ago

I saw some piece on it on TV. They had a ceremony with some Japanese vets.

[rasputin1952]

100. One more nit to pick...

that midget sub would never have been fired upon, if it were not part of the plan to attack Pearl Harbor. It is easy to say that the Japanese gov't got those two killed.


Addendum: When a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine finds one of their own hacked to pieces, burned reyond recognition, or tortured to death; morality goes out the window. "Morality" in war is an oxymoron, as war is inherently immoral. The shock that PH had on this nation was replicated in part on 9-11; we grieved, but we want blood.
I want those responsible for the attacks as much as anyone, but I don't think that that the mindless destruction of human life is justified by what happened in either case. I always had to remember that my job as a soldier was to stop other soldiers, not destroy mindlessly. I will tell you this though; if I could have caught some of those that did criminal acts on my bretheren, I cannot guarantee that I would remember much through the rage.

:kick: