strategic bombing!!!!!!!!

[ickysdad]

What do you all think??????

http://yarchive.net/mil/strategic_bombing.html

[Lightning]

Hi ickysdad,

Informative! Revealing! Myth-puncturing! Authoritative from the German point-of-view!

Well done!

Regards,
Lightning

[Trexx]

quote:Originally posted by ickysdad

What do you all think??????

http://yarchive.net/mil/strategic_bombing.html


UTTERLY FASCINATING!
I ate that up. Thanks!

[WarBirdMan]

Nice icky!I like the fact that it's the german point of wiew!:D

[ickysdad]

yeah but convincing our British cousins of this is what's tricky!!!! LOL I've actually been trying to go on the offensive about people down playing US contribution in WW1 & WW2. I've listened to this & that for the past 4 years i've been on the net and it gets tiresome!!!! Not so much this board though please don't get that impression.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by ickysdad

yeah but convincing our British cousins of this is what's tricky!!!! LOL I've actually been trying to go on the offensive about people down playing US contribution in WW1 & WW2. I've listened to this & that for the past 4 years i've been on the net and it gets tiresome!!!! Not so much this board though please don't get that impression.


Without the contribution of the US Germany could not have been defeated. Even the Red Army marched on american felt boots and rode on american trucks. The US defeated Japan, with peripheral help.
Look at Churchill's statement immediately after Pearl Harbour ...

OTOH there were niggles between the allies. My father told of returning home in a US transport after four years in North Africa and in Italy. They were battened down below decks, fed poor food and were not permitted access to the PX where the US crew supplemented the same poor food.

[ickysdad]

yeah but remember I added an "LOL" and I said this board wasn't so bad!!!!!!!!! As far as lend-lease goes we also supplied the SU with 40% of it's explosives,60% of it's aviation fuel, a huge % of it's radio equipment,just about all advanced alloys like aluminum used in the later VVS fighters ,and on ,and on.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by ickysdad

yeah but remember I added an "LOL" and I said this board wasn't so bad!!!!!!!!! As far as lend-lease goes we also supplied the SU with 40% of it's explosives,60% of it's aviation fuel, a huge % of it's radio equipment,just about all advanced alloys like aluminum used in the later VVS fighters ,and on ,and on.


I was just pointing out that even on the most basic level the arsenal of democracy enabled the Red Army to march. The contribution of the US to maintaining the very basis of allied forces capacity to combat the axis is often unrecognised. Oil, food, shipping, explosives, fertilizer, machine tools to Britain, boots (and katyusha rockets too I suspect) to the USSR. No US = no win.

[GregP]

Nice post. Great stuff.

[Kutscha]

What L/L did was allow the Soviets to devert materials to immediate and nessesary defence needs because they knew what was being sent. Most (over 50%) of L/L arrived after mid 1944.

Here is an article on trucks, http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

What the USA sent to the Soviets,http://www.geocities.com/mark_willey/lend.html
Quite impressive.

[ickysdad]

quote:Originally posted by Kutscha

What L/L did was allow the Soviets to devert materials to immediate and nessesary defence needs because they knew what was being sent. Most (over 50%) of L/L arrived after mid 1944.

Here is an article on trucks, http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

What the USA sent to the Soviets,http://www.geocities.com/mark_willey/lend.html
Quite impressive.

Yes as far as maybe trucks,tanks,ect. ,but as far as raw materials like aviation fuel,aluminum,rubber,ect. this was not the case. Besides that website seems to show the Russians building something like 2,000,00 trucks themselves utterly imposssible.
also try this link....
http://www.wargamer.com/articles/lldocefx.asp

[Kutscha]

All I can say is that V.F. Vorsin must have got his info from someplace. It is possible he included 'tractors', like the Ya-12, in his truck count.

Just for interest, http://rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com/index.htm

[Wuzak]

quote:Originally posted by ickysdad

Yes as far as maybe trucks,tanks,ect. ,but as far as raw materials like aviation fuel,aluminum,rubber,ect. this was not the case. Besides that website seems to show the Russians building something like 2,000,00 trucks themselves utterly imposssible.
also try this link....


Explain why it would have been impossible for the Russians to build 2m tanks over 5 years? The chart does show the production increased throughout the war.

[ickysdad]

Wuzak,
Well consider this in 1940 the SU produced 145,390 auto's , 124,176 in '41 , 34,976 in '42 , 49,266 in '43 , 60,549 in '44, and 74,657 in '45. In trucks & buses in 1940 they produced 139,879 , in '41 118,704 , in '42 32,409 , in '43 46,720 , in '44 55,167 ,and in '45 69,662. This comes to 489,014 auto's(with well over half that total before '42) & 461,541 trucks/busses(again well over half before '42). Tractor production 1940 31649 , 1941 23827 ,1942 3520, 1943 1063 , 1944 3154 and in 1945 7728 . Combines and Locomotive production basically stopped during the war as well as railstock production.All these figures from Mark Harrison's "Accounting For War" and derived from official Soviet sources..There is no way the SU was producting around 300,000 trucks a year in '41 through '45. What those figures at that website have done is (on the line on Domestic vehicles availiable) added up the total vehicles availiable as of those dates(not an indication of number manufactored) for a grand total. In other words on a certain date the SU had say 300,00 trucks availiable ,next year because of domestic production/lend lease minus losses they may have 350,000 availiable but doesn't mean 350,000 were produced.
The allies gave the SU over 500,00 trucks in 42 through 45 while the SU produced 220,000 auto's & 203,00 trucks in that time.Alot of the trucks produced in '40 & '41 were destroyed during the first year or wore out by the time LLL got really started.

[Wuzak]

Thanks for clearing that up ickysdad.

[PMN1]

quote:Originally posted by ickysdad

yeah but remember I added an "LOL" and I said this board wasn't so bad!!!!!!!!! As far as lend-lease goes we also supplied the SU with 40% of it's explosives,60% of it's aviation fuel, a huge % of it's radio equipment,just about all advanced alloys like aluminum used in the later VVS fighters ,and on ,and on.


From Max Hastings' Armageddon

Among many other commodities, the United States supplied to the Soviet Union 500,000 vehicle, 35,000 radio sets, 380,000 field telephones and a million miles of signal wire. Few Russians were ever allowed to know that they marched to Berlin in boots manufactured by the US under Lend-Lease, or that much of the Soviet Union’s aircraft production was made possible by American aluminium supplies. Moscow never acknowledged that, from late 1943 onwards, only 20% pr the Luftwaffe was deployed on the Eastern Front, because the remainder was fighting the Western allies over Germany.

[Trexx]

I swerved into this concise bit of literature and it is realative. There are many references to specific types of planes. And ultimately a clear explanation as to why the United States developed a "technical superiority' doctrine for the armed forces.


United States Strategic Bombing Survey:

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#tuspbph

[alyster]

How much did they hit? lol that should be asked how much could they miss with 1000 heavy bombers carring loads of bombs.
Anyway, it wasn't only that they destroied alot, u know which is destroied can also be rebuilt. And man repontsible for German industry was Speer, a very smart man. Thanks to him the Germas were able to keep the factories rolling and fresh planes on the airfields. However which they lacked was feul. You know you don't make feul out of nothing when you have no oil, so that problem goes back to several places: Army group Süd, Rommel, Romania etc.
So did the bombs go to the right place? Yeah they did. Did that hurt Germany ? Well more planes on runways then u can use shows that it didn't hurt the industry much.


However topic I want to talk about when talking about strategic bombing, is the civil loses. Hamburg was destroied, Tokyo and Yokohama were 50% destroied. The list is long and casulties were high. Most of them were women, children, old poeple - the ones who weren't fit for the army.
Now lets go over few bombing in closer look:
July of 1943, Hamburg. Huge masses of bomber bombed that city for days. Even worse they used carpet bombing, which greated a huge firestorm. The hit on Germany was so hard that casualty list was finished in 1951! There were 40'000 dead people(among them were 5000 children). Mostly they were civilians, who had nothing to fight with. Shame on RAF!

Now if u think that's bad, then think again. August 6th 1945 on Tokyo radio:
The authorities still can not define the final amout of casulaties. Med services are unable to distinguish the wounded from the dead, not to mention identtify the casulties. The explotion was so awful that allmost all the living things, animals and humans - simply burned up in the immeasurable heat or were killed by the blow. ...
Hiroshima


80'000 dead, not much accomplished. Few days after Hiroshima another bomb fell on Nagasaki: 70'000 dead.
Many say that nukes were the things which made Japan surrender, however the "nuke people" don't want to admit, which "US Strategic Bombing Survey" admits: Japan would of surrenered even with out nukes, Soviet-Japan war nor Allied invasion to Japan. So 2 citis with 150'000 dead people were killed with no acual result!
Shame on all the USA!


Now if u think nukes were bad, let me tell u what japanese ace Takeo Tagata tought. He said that the March 10th bombing on Tokyo's living areas were worse! He was to Hiroshima after the bomb, he was to many places after heavy bombing, so better belive him.
I can't imagion what was in Hiroshima and I sure as hell don't come clos to imagioning Tokyo after the bombings.
Shame on USAF!



These cities were not the only ones destroied. They are just few in 2 countries full of them. And in the end, the bombings didn't bring more use then huge civilian loses. So to my mind strategic bombing is one of the worse crimes of war in WW2, I'd rank it right next to holocaust!

[PMN1]

quote:Originally posted by alyster

How much did they hit? lol that should be asked how much could they miss with 1000 heavy bombers carring loads of bombs.
Anyway, it wasn't only that they destroied alot, u know which is destroied can also be rebuilt. And man repontsible for German industry was Speer, a very smart man. Thanks to him the Germas were able to keep the factories rolling and fresh planes on the airfields. However which they lacked was feul. You know you don't make feul out of nothing when you have no oil, so that problem goes back to several places: Army group Süd, Rommel, Romania etc.
So did the bombs go to the right place? Yeah they did. Did that hurt Germany ? Well more planes on runways then u can use shows that it didn't hurt the industry much.


However topic I want to talk about when talking about strategic bombing, is the civil loses. Hamburg was destroied, Tokyo and Yokohama were 50% destroied. The list is long and casulties were high. Most of them were women, children, old poeple - the ones who weren't fit for the army.
Now lets go over few bombing in closer look:
July of 1943, Hamburg. Huge masses of bomber bombed that city for days. Even worse they used carpet bombing, which greated a huge firestorm. The hit on Germany was so hard that casualty list was finished in 1951! There were 40'000 dead people(among them were 5000 children). Mostly they were civilians, who had nothing to fight with. Shame on RAF!

Now if u think that's bad, then think again. August 6th 1945 on Tokyo radio:
The authorities still can not define the final amout of casulaties. Med services are unable to distinguish the wounded from the dead, not to mention identtify the casulties. The explotion was so awful that allmost all the living things, animals and humans - simply burned up in the immeasurable heat or were killed by the blow. ...
Hiroshima


80'000 dead, not much accomplished. Few days after Hiroshima another bomb fell on Nagasaki: 70'000 dead.
Many say that nukes were the things which made Japan surrender, however the "nuke people" don't want to admit, which "US Strategic Bombing Survey" admits: Japan would of surrenered even with out nukes, Soviet-Japan war nor Allied invasion to Japan. So 2 citis with 150'000 dead people were killed with no acual result!
Shame on all the USA!


Now if u think nukes were bad, let me tell u what japanese ace Takeo Tagata tought. He said that the March 10th bombing on Tokyo's living areas were worse! He was to Hiroshima after the bomb, he was to many places after heavy bombing, so better belive him.
I can't imagion what was in Hiroshima and I sure as hell don't come clos to imagioning Tokyo after the bombings.
Shame on USAF!



These cities were not the only ones destroied. They are just few in 2 countries full of them. And in the end, the bombings didn't bring more use then huge civilian loses. So to my mind strategic bombing is one of the worse crimes of war in WW2, I'd rank it right next to holocaust!


End the war and the bombing ends.

The day that civilians were 'off limits' ended when industrialsation started and civilians started making the weapons that killed - it doesn't matter to the bullet, shell etc whether the person making it was happy in their job, it will still wound or kill - Depiste the boming the Germans increased production so what could they have been produced with no bombing?

Japan would have had to surrender eventually but how long would that have taken and even if you dont give a damm about the combattents how many Japanese civilans and how many people in occupied territories would have had to die in the process?

When the Americans invaded Saipan, 22,000 of the Japanese civilian population died in the fighting, committed suicide or were murdered by Japanese troops to stop them falling into the hands of the Americans and this was on territory that wasn’t even theirs let alone their sacred homeland.

If an invasion of the Japanese mainland had been necessary the casualties would have been horrendous – even if you don’t give a dam about the allied troops who would have been killed then think about this – during the American invasion of Okinawa, 10% - 30% (depending on where you read it) of the Japanese population died in the fighting between Japanese and American forces, the population of mainland Japan at the time was around 70 million – I’ll let you do the maths.

Even after the two bombs were dropped there were those in the Japanese military who wanted to fight to the death and tried disrupting the Emperor's surrender speech.

If you have spent 4 years and god knows how many billions of dollars to develop a weapon that could end the war and you don’t use it, how are you going to explain it to the families of all those who died in the extra duration of the war ---- hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of Japanese civilians and military personnel (and their descendents), tens of thousands of British, American, Australian and New Zealand military personnel (and their descendents), several thousand British, Australian, New Zealand, American and Dutch nationals (and their descendents) in internment camps and what I have found a lot of people who are against the use of the bomb have forgotten, hundreds of thousands of people(and their descendents) in occupied territory who would have had to endure many more months of aggressive Japanese occupation.

As for days/weeks away from surrender, when they did eventually surrender, they had over a million men under arms on the Home Islands, over 5,000 kamikaze aircraft plus at least the same for conventional attacks - that’s a lot of potential dead allied forces with continued fighting.

Something else that may have been in the US planners minds, the Japanese had already used balloon bombs on the US but their small incendiary and anti personnel devices didn’t do much than burn some areas of forest (killing 5 people in the process). The small payload however would have been ideal for some of the nasties coming out of Unit 731 in Manchuria (even if they didn’t have full knowledge of what was going on here they would have known that Japan had used bioweapons in China.

[Hop]

quote:July of 1943, Hamburg. Huge masses of bomber bombed that city for days. Even worse they used carpet bombing, which greated a huge firestorm. The hit on Germany was so hard that casualty list was finished in 1951! There were 40'000 dead people(among them were 5000 children). Mostly they were civilians, who had nothing to fight with. Shame on RAF!

Workers in Hamburg war industries:

30th June 1943: 634,000

1st October 1943: 331,300

Workers at Blohm und Voss shipyards:
Before the raids: 9,400
Day after the firestorm: 300
1st August: 1,500
1st September: 5,000
1st October: 7,000
1st November: 7,500

Damage to buildings in Hamburg:

253,400 houses and flats were destroyed (56% of all residential property in Hamburg)

580 industrial and war industry companies destroyed

7 warehouses

379 office buildings

2,632 commercial premises

88 banks and insurance offices

26 utilities and transport premises

143 public offices

112 Nazi party offices

80 military premises

197 police, fire and civil defence premises

12 bridges

The net result of all that was a huge loss in production. Many of the workers never went back, and instead fled the city to live in the countryside. Many had to be evacuated due to the housing crisis (900,000 were made homeless). Production of non-military goods, supposed to be reduced to allow for more weapons, had to be maintained to provide for the goods destroyed in bombing.

Hamburg lost about 2 months total production. Five months after the raid, production was still at only 80% of the pre raid levels, despite the fact Germany was vastly increasing production at the time.

[alyster]

quote:PMN1:
End the war and the bombing ends.

The day that civilians were 'off limits' ended when industrialsation started and civilians started making the weapons that killed


If you put it that way, then 9/11 was Osama's strategic kamikaze bombing and nukeing London would be glorious day, cause the civilians working there are produceing funds for the military.
So why do we have double standars? When we do it and kill 80'000 people it's ok, when they do it and kill 5000 people they are the most horrible people on the planet. The way of the west is horrible and I hope the time of the land of the evening will get over soon.
Also when talking about double standars, then in 1941 at the time of the Blitzkrieg in France, the German army was moving to Holland with strong airforce support. Now some moron general had put the military targets too close to the civilians and Luftwaffe had hard time hitting the military targets. So one single bomb droped on a civilian target. Anyway next day whole western world was talking that Luftwaffe makes terror attacks at their cities and these monsters kill people who have nothing to do with the war. However 2 years later at Hamburg they talked different: oh we're so glorious to kill a whole city!
Also do u happen to know why japanese pilots hate the americans? Most pilots in Japan were smart boys. They knew the world, could speak english, had read alot, before the war they liked the US. Why did they hate it after they saw the action? Cause what US bombed was mainly hospidals and civil targets. However Japanese never targeted the civil targets when bombing the west. Some bombs may have fallen on few houses, but they were never the targets, not even in Pearl Harbor. It was against the bushido.
Also when talking about Japans air attack on Pearl, then now days many historians say that US knew all about that hit. They were waiting for it. You know US had Monroe doctrine at the time and could not join the war due to that, so they needed a big reson for it - the Pearl, which was basicly given away for Japanese to attack.


quote:PMN1:
- Depiste the boming the Germans increased production so what could they have been produced with no bombing?


Who cears, they didn't have feul enough to run all the things they prouduced in the acual war, why would they have enough feul to run the much bigger army and airforce?

quote:PMN1:
Japan would have had to surrender eventually but how long would that have taken

I guess I forgot to mention that the US strategic bombing survey said it would of hapened before the end of 1945! With out any invasion to Japan - so much less people would of died!
Japan wasn't stupid, they knew they were fighting alone the whole world. Also bushido teaches japanese to give up when they have lost the war and by 1945 every1 knew who'd win.
Also when talking about Japan, the strategic bombing didn't have as big effect on industry as in Germany, de facto most of Japans industry was moved to Manchuria.

[Ricky]

Oh boy - the old 'was the nuke neccessary' topic.

It is odd, because there are 2 camps on this, both with very definite opinions.

One the one side, you have:

It was wrong, the Japanese were trying to surrender anyway, and it was just a matter of time before they lost whatever happened. All those civilian lives were lost for no reason.

On the other, you have:

It was necessary, the people who actually held power in Japan (the military) were not intending to surrender, and the only way to end the war would be to invade Japan intself, which would devestate the country, and also the invasion force. The nukes also gave the Japanese a chance to surrender without loosing face or being too bitter (a weapon so powerful none can stand against it) - although clever post-war management of Japan by the USA helped emnormously here. Also, the more cynical will point out that it was a good thing to show Stalin what we could do.
As to the lives lost, more died in the Tokyo firebombing than the nukes.


Personally, I tend to lean more towards it being a necessary evil, all points considered.

Strategic bombing? Well, it is fairly safe to say that all that effort would have been better directed at other targets. The mining of various waterways by the RAF apparently did more to disrupt production than flattening cities did, as it prevented the distribution of raw materials by barge.

[andyo2000]

alyster, hello. im running a bit late at the moment, so I'll be short.

1. 9/11 vs. Nuking Japan - wouldn't you say there's a large difference between a wartime act between the two warring nations, and a peacetime between a single group (non-state) and a soveriegn nation?

2. What source gave you the idea that Americans bombed hospitals and civil targets? i would love to read those if i could find them.

3. You quote the Monroe Doctrine. That doctrine never restricted the US to wage war on Japan, it merely restricted the rest of the world from waging war with either of the Americas. The US was still free to attack whomever they wanted. Also, the Monroe Doctrine was no longer in effect by that time. It had been replaced by the Roosevelt Corollary in the early 1900s and by WWII even that had become an old relic. In the 1930s, don't forget, the American official foreign policy was isolationism.

4. Bushido teached warriors to give up? Everything I've ever read would lead me to believe bushido taught warriors to fight to the death. Giving up was unfathomable for the Japanese. Just recently, the head of (Livegood?) a Japanese company accused of securities fraud committed suicide, why? The bushido code surely does not condone surrender, instead it would have multiplied casualties hundreds or thousands of times over, on both sides.

[alyster]

Hello,
Nice points.

1. If we'd be at peace time. We're at war if u haven't noticed, war against the muslems: west vs middle east. The bombs fall on both sides: NY, London, Madrid, Iraq, Afganistan etc. That war goes way back in time to the Middle Age, when muslems tried to invade us, the Europe and it has been going on ever since that: the crusades, today etc. So it is war.

2. I don't remember the original sourche, but I read what said about it in Albert Axell's book Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods. I think it was Takeo Tagata saying that or was it the author making a conclusion, however that's were the hate against americans came from.

3. However US wasn't interested in war with Japan, they used the Pearl as a reson to go to WW2, not to have their owne war with Japan. 65 years after that I'd say they played it right: they opened a keyhole to join the war in Europe. However, it is irrelavent here, main idea was that by this theory US let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

[Ricky]

Hi Alyster - and a big welcome to the forum by the way!:)

quote:Originally posted by alyster

2. I don't remember the original sourche, but I read what said about it in Albert Axell's book Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods. I think it was Takeo Tagata saying that or was it the author making a conclusion, however that's were the hate against americans came from.
It probably means that during the bombing of Japanese cities hospitals etc were bombed (as was everything else) - mind you, the Japanese have a huge double standard in the issue of treatment of civilians in wartime (not that this is an excuse for any actions of their opponants)

quote:Originally posted by alyster


3. However US wasn't interested in war with Japan, they used the Pearl as a reson to go to WW2, not to have their owne war with Japan. 65 years after that I'd say they played it right: they opened a keyhole to join the war in Europe. However, it is irrelavent here, main idea was that by this theory US let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

Hmmm... deliberately sacrificing their navy (the important part of any war spanning an ocean)???

The US had been placing sanctions etc on Japan for years trying to stop their war-mongering ways.

[PMN1]

quote:Originally posted by alyster

quote:PMN1:
End the war and the bombing ends.

The day that civilians were 'off limits' ended when industrialsation started and civilians started making the weapons that killed


If you put it that way, then 9/11 was Osama's strategic kamikaze bombing and nukeing London would be glorious day, cause the civilians working there are produceing funds for the military.



I wouldn't call it a glorious day but i wouldn't be surprised, it just amazes me its taken so long.

quote:

So why do we have double standars? When we do it and kill 80'000 people it's ok, when they do it and kill 5000 people they are the most horrible people on the planet. The way of the west is horrible and I hope the time of the land of the evening will get over soon.



Probably for the same reason we let millions starve to death whilst spending a fortune on pets ect, and the way of the east isn't exactly peaceful.

quote:

Also when talking about double standars, then in 1941 at the time of the Blitzkrieg in France, the German army was moving to Holland with strong airforce support. Now some moron general had put the military targets too close to the civilians and Luftwaffe had hard time hitting the military targets. So one single bomb droped on a civilian target. Anyway next day whole western world was talking that Luftwaffe makes terror attacks at their cities and these monsters kill people who have nothing to do with the war. However 2 years later at Hamburg they talked different: oh we're so glorious to kill a whole city!



Blitzkrieg, Holland 1941 - at least get your dates right and the Luftwafe did make a nasty mess of Rotterdam in 1940 and threated more of the same if there wa sno surrender.

quote:

Also do u happen to know why japanese pilots hate the americans? Most pilots in Japan were smart boys. They knew the world, could speak english, had read alot, before the war they liked the US. Why did they hate it after they saw the action? Cause what US bombed was mainly hospidals and civil targets. However Japanese never targeted the civil targets when bombing the west. Some bombs may have fallen on few houses, but they were never the targets, not even in Pearl Harbor. It was against the bushido.



The inhabitants of Singapore only imaginged the bombs did they?

quote:

Also when talking about Japans air attack on Pearl, then now days many historians say that US knew all about that hit. They were waiting for it. You know US had Monroe doctrine at the time and could not join the war due to that, so they needed a big reson for it - the Pearl, which was basicly given away for Japanese to attack.



Not really, there is another much simpler and more logical explanation, which is incompetence or complacency.

Either:

A) The high command was incompetent in failing to realise or react to the threat, and were subsequently dismissed from the military (Historically happened)

B) The high command were complacent in their apparent security with their early warning systems (for example Radar) and neglected to place a higher state of alert since their nation was not at war and not in immediate danger. For their complacency and incompetence the commanders were subsequently dismissed from the military (Historically happened)

or

C) The high command were part of a conspiracy to sacrifice hundreds of their countrymen and their best and most prestigious ships in order to draw a potential enemy into a war they were not prepared for and managed to keep silent despite the loss of their careers, the subsequent disgrace of being cashiered from the military and being recorded as amongst the most incompetent leaders in history and despite the fact that not a single person has come forward to say they have seen these instructions let alone produced any evidence as to their actual existence.

Oh and their weak, poorly armed and poorly armoured auxiliary ships (Aircraft carriers) were conviently at sea despite the fact that no-one could know their apparent importance, no-one knew their value and they had no prestige value in international relations (No real evidence to support except for some useful and some not-so-useful coincidences).

You decide, a series of coincidences, incompetence and complacency, or elaborate (As yet unsubstantiated) conspiracy theory. It's up to you.

If you choose "C", please explain why the Battleships were sacrificed and not the Carriers given that prior to December 7th the Battleship was still king.



Feel free to enjoy conspiracy theories (they can be fun, if a little silly!), but first ask yourself this:

If you were a military commander, itching to get into a war, would you:

1) deliberately sacrifice the biggest & best portion of your entire armed forces, at negligible loss to the enemy.

2) Be happy with being immediately sacked, and therefore playing no part at all in the war that you wanted.

(Thanks to Ricky or Simon for that part!!!)



As for Churchill not warning the US to get them into the war, well an attack by Japan on the US is not going to allow a US president to declare war on Germany – this is shown by what happened, although Congress authorised war on Japan on December 7th, it wasn’t until Hitler stupidly declared war on the US on the 11th December that the US declared war on Germany.

Without that declaration there would have been a very strong possibility that all the equipment the US was sending across the Atlantic would have gone to the Pacific instead to equip US forces fighting the Japanese.

quote:
quote:PMN1:
- Depiste the boming the Germans increased production so what could they have been produced with no bombing?


Who cears, they didn't have feul enough to run all the things they prouduced in the acual war, why would they have enough feul to run the much bigger army and airforce?



They only didn't have the fuel when the US turned on the synthetic oil plants.

quote:

quote:PMN1:
Japan would have had to surrender eventually but how long would that have taken

I guess I forgot to mention that the US strategic bombing survey said it would of hapened before the end of 1945! With out any invasion to Japan - so much less people would of died!
Japan wasn't stupid, they knew they were fighting alone the whole world. Also bushido teaches japanese to give up when they have lost the war and by 1945 every1 knew who'd win.
Also when talking about Japan, the strategic bombing didn't have as big effect on industry as in Germany, de facto most of Japans industry was moved to Manchuria.



[/quote]

Surrender by the end of the year - non combattents were dieing in South East Asia at the rate of 50,000 to 200,000 a month - doesn't take many months before the Hiroshima/Nagasaki casulties are reached.

[PMN1]

quote:Originally posted by Ricky

Strategic bombing? Well, it is fairly safe to say that all that effort would have been better directed at other targets. The mining of various waterways by the RAF apparently did more to disrupt production than flattening cities did, as it prevented the distribution of raw materials by barge.


Have you read a book called 'Target: Hitler's Oil' (cant remember the author at the moment but will edit when i get home) - it discuuses where Hitler got his oil from and the actions against it including a planned British/French air-raid on Baku etc in 1940.

[Kutscha]

What?!! The Rape of Nanking by the Japs not mentioned.[:0]

http://www.tribo.org/nanking/index.html

from another site: "Women of all ages (including children as young as seven and elderly women in their seventies) were violated, many of them being gangraped or attacked on multiple occasions. Some women were held captive so that the could be repeatedly abused. Rapes were committed in broad daylight, in front of spouses, children, or other family members, and with appalling frequency. The soldiers' usual practice, officially condoned by high-ranking officials so as to "avoid difficulties," was to murder the women when they were finished with them. This was most often done by cutting off their breasts and/or disemboweling them with a bayonet to the abdomen. Senior officers were not only aware of these acts, but participated in them as well.

Particularly disturbing is that the Japanese perpetrators derived great pleasure from these heinous crimes, while their superiors condoned and even supported them. One outstandingly revolting account is of several soldiers who, after raping and killing a pregnant woman, presented her fetus on a bayonet to their commanding officer, who replied with laughter. There were innumerable gruesome occurrences like this ...
acts of cruelty seemingly beyond human capacity ...
but commonplace, in the massacre of Nanking."

Lets not hear anymore crying about the poor Jap civilians on the Home Islands.

[alyster]

quote:It probably means that during the bombing of Japanese cities hospitals etc were bombed (as was everything else) - mind you, the Japanese have a huge double standard in the issue of treatment of civilians in wartime (not that this is an excuse for any actions of their opponants)

Nope, I don't think they were randomly droped bombs from B-29, but from Hellcats. You got 3 bombs on it, u have to aim them.

quote:Hmmm... deliberately sacrificing their navy (the important part of any war spanning an ocean)???


It sounded crazy to me too in the first place. However the damage at Pearl wasn't so big as many would like it to be seen. Many ships were sunk but repearing jobs on the others started right after the attack and in few days Pearl was capable of defending it's self again. Japanese didn't have enough power to take out whole Pearl, so they bombed mostly ships and airfields not the suport units. Also the 3(?) aircraft carriers were taken out of Pearl and in rest of the war they played an important role.
I don't remeber any books about it at the moment, I'll see if I can find any.


quote:and the way of the east isn't exactly peaceful.

So it makes it ok if for us to be violent? From all the peoples in the world the catholics had to do it.

quote:The inhabitants of Singapore only imaginged the bombs did they?

The amout on japanese bombs droped on civil targets is counted in numer of bombs or bombers, amout of bombs droped by allies is counted in millions of tonns.
Secondly find me a name of a japanese pilot who has gladly said that he bombed a hospidal. In US pilots who droped the nukes we're proud of it till their deaths.
Anyway don't mix up the crimes of war by Japanese with strategic bombing. Singapore fell so fast and most of the killing took place after the battles.



quote:Probably for the same reason we let millions starve to death whilst spending a fortune on pets ect, and the way of the east isn't exactly peaceful.


I don't get the link between the crimes of war and poverty. Pls explain the link.


quote:As for Churchill not warning the US to get them into the war, well an attack by Japan on the US is not going to allow a US president to declare war on Germany – this is shown by what happened, although Congress authorised war on Japan on December 7th, it wasn’t until Hitler stupidly declared war on the US on the 11th December that the US declared war on Germany.


Nope, but it surely fit well with Germanies total war idea. If US is part of the WW2, then they might aswell fight the Germans also - Germans didn't cear, at list the highest comand(a mistake if I might add).


And Kutscha, what do u think hapened in Berlin and whole Germany after May of 1945? You think the Germans were not raped by americans and russians(that's naive to think they weren't)? You think that the nazi criminals were not tortured in the prisons by jews?
That's the problem with it, we only find holocaust, few japanese rapes and miss droped bombs and think they are the devils. Have u ever seen what mess strategic bombing leaves? have u ever seen 80'000 burned bodies? has your grandmom ever hid in the woods frightened by Stalings population transfers(mine has)?
I don't understand u. You find few small resons and then think we can burn them alive? What gives you that right?
We're not better then them, even worse. Well you guys :D (no offence guys)

[Ricky]

And back to strategic bombimg as a war crime.
This one we have done before as well...;)

[ickysdad]

STRATEGIC BOMBING IS NOT A WAR CRIME PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Personally I think it's just best to ignore so-called revisionists that put the the Allies on the same plane with the Axis or trolls that go from board to board spreading thier venom though not necessarily referring to anybody here But I have seen it on other boards.............Once again a city is fair game if it's not declared an open city or if war material pass through it because it's a transportation center or if it has military forces stationed there or if it has defensive apparatus(AA guns for instance) installed around it trhen again it's fair game under the Geneva Convention or International Law. In the case I just listed then yes even the Luftwaffe bombing Rotterdam,Warsaw,Coventry , the Blitz or using the V-1/V-2 fall under the rules of war.
As far as the 9/11 debate NO THAT DOESN'T FALL UNDER THE RULES OF WAR because the perportrators took hostages to achieve thier missiom totally forbidden under the Geneva Convention.
Another thing as far as maybe US/British /Western Allies raping women/committing other warcrimes It's one thing when it's an individual action verse policy ,it never was a policy for the Allies to committ so-called war crimes something you can't say about the Axis. Remember it INIVIDUAL ACTION VERSES POLICY.
One other thing why don't instead of debating wether Allies wewre really better than the Axis just ask the people Japan & Germany conquered who was the better??? The Burmese were tickled to get rid of the British at first and the Inodonesians the same for the Dutch but they both were far more happy when the Japanese were expelled. In regards to the US the Phiillipino's actually had quite a guerilla organisation going for them and you can say the same for the nativces in New Guinea and the Solomon's who actively helped the Australians in resisting Japan. Ask the Chinese or Koreans who committed the worse crimes.

[ChrisMcD]

Just some extra details to add to the debate

1) Japanese bombing.

Apart from the German bombing of Guernica, a lot of the pre-war pessimism about the effect of bombing was heavily influenced by the Japanese 1932 bombing of Chapei (the Chinese quarter of Shangahi). This was an undefended city that had European quarters full of cameras and journalists. So the Japanese were able to flatten it at their leisure and photos/newstories were circulated worldwide. it is credited with heavily infuencing the British theory of "the bomber will always get through" - which considering Chinese AA and aircraft strength is a bit daft.

In short the Japanese were one of the earliest exponents of flattening cities.

2) American area Bombing of Japan

Remember that LeMay switched to area/incendiary bombing because the B29's were struggling to bomb accuratly and carry usefull bomb loads because of the unexpected jetstreams high up over Japan.

So, he was not deliberatly abandoning the American doctrine of precision bombing and adopting the British tactic of area bombing. it was forced on him by circumstances. As I understand it the Americans had not really appreciated just how devastating incendiaries would be on the 'paper' cities of Japan (to be cynical - if they had they would have gone for incendiaries earlier).

So the Americans only adopted area bombing over Japan when they had to.

3) British Area Bombing

The deliberate policy of killing civilians and making them homeless is not easy to defend. The best that can be said is the the Brits knew that it worked after seeing the results in London and Coventry.

Also, they had the embarassing experience of actualy analysing the automatic bomb release photographs of early bombing raids and realising that only about 5% (as I remember) of the bombers were anywhere near their targets.

On that basis there was not a lot of choice!

[andyo2000]

i completely agree with ickysdad's post...

and add that WWII was definitely a war of aggression. When I look at WWI, I don't see Germany as the evil monster so many say they are (including history teachers). They wanted to protect their empire, and thought the best course of action was to attack. But in WWII, Germany was very clearly the aggressor. Italy and Japan also attacked unprovoked. That counts for a lot when considering the motives behind each country's wartime decisions.

[alyster]

I don't agree with ickysdad. He got it totaly wrong! When have I said that axis were angels and allies the devils? I never said that axis war crimes were right, I'm just saying that allies also comit crimes of war and strategic bombing is one of them! In WW2 and bombing in Vietnam.
And 9/11 was a terror attack, but it also was a part of a war. Why wasn't it? You think few hostages are going to change it? No, west vs middle east is an old war and 9/11 was just a strike back into the hart of some people, just like Pearl Harbor, only this time they used strategic bombing like methots, which u think are so right, only when you use it.
And if it wasn't a act of war, why did US hit the Afganistan for that?

See ickysdad's post was classical and I was already waiting for it.
1) He got there patriotism
2) Stubborn thinking that US is the only right way
3) Fact that winners write history and if they want to say they didn't do war crimes, then they didn't do it. That's naive.
4) Bringing out few things from axis side and saying that they were the devils - and that makes the US an angel.
Once I was asked on whos side am I in ww2. I didn't give him the awnser, cause I didn't know. Now I know - there's no side to take in there, at list from my poit of view.

[ickysdad]

Then brush up on the niceties of international law and the Geneva Convention if you think I'm so wrong or your so right. As far as the strategic bombing of Vietnam was concerned ,if I'm not wrong, civiilian casualties were so low the North Vietnamese didn't even bring them up.
No you didn't say axis war crimes were right BUT you did indicate the Allies were on the same level as the Axis didn't you? Like I said there's a big difference between individual acts and policy.
On 9/11 once again under international law and the Geneva Convention you casn't take hostages to achieve a military end. Afghanistan was hit because they sheltered the terroist organisation that perputated it.
Now on your points about my "classical statement"
1. Patriotism???? Did you bother to read my part of the post where I said "that the Luftwaffe bombings of Warsaw,Rotterdam,Coventry,and the Blitz were well within the rules of war" ???? If patriotism was an issue I wouldn't hold that line.
2. No I don't think the US way is the only way ,I for one am against us being in Iraq further I don't agree with us always backing Israel no matter what and I don't definately don't agree with what happened at Abul Gharib prison BUT you do see the US punishing the ones responsible don't you? If I'm not wrong even in Vietnam & in WW2 the US/Allies punished thier soldiers for war crimes.Did the Axis ever do that before they were defeated?
3. As far as writing history well at least in the US you can dispute history which is far better then alot of parts of the world .
4. Yes the US/Allies were angels COMPARED to the Axis because of the scale of Axis actions & thier policy . You keep saying the "few things" the Axis did somehow 6,000,000 jews ,over half a million Gypsies, 16,000,000 Russian civillians ,or the inhabitants of the Czechoslavakian village of Lidice would disagree with you . Those numbers don't indicate a "few" to .
As far as individual war crimes go I have 2 examples one was where a USAAF pilot got in one heck of a dogfight with a German he ended being wounded but did get the best of the German who tried to bail out BUT the US pilot was so pumped up he kept firing and killed the German. Another one, a US soldier seen a group of 5 German soldiers coming up a trail he threw a hand grenade killing 3 of them and wounding one seriously ,he then tried to surrender(he was out of ammo for his rifle and the grenade was all he had) but the single unwounded German soldier shot him right then & there.
Technically in the above paragraph both the US pilot & German soldier committed a war crime BUT IMHO both could be excused BECAUSE unless you have actually been in a war it's hard to judge . have you ever fought in a war Alyster?

[alyster]

quote:As far as the strategic bombing of Vietnam was concerned ,if I'm not wrong, civiilian casualties were so low the North Vietnamese didn't even bring them up.

Yeah right. Approximately up to 300 000 dead. Which is the best part, many of them were killed in Cambodia, who wasn't even part of the war.

quote:On 9/11 once again under international law and the Geneva Convention you casn't take hostages to achieve a military end.

By Geneva Convention you can't do many things, still they were done in the war. Are you saying these things were standing outside the war? Or do you say to me that war before Geneva Convention was not a war at all?

quote:Afghanistan was hit because they sheltered the terroist organisation that perputated it.


And what right do you have to dismiss one goverment and replace it with another if u "help" them? If you wanted to kill the terrorists, then kill the terrorist, not replace the goverment.




2. The whole Abul Gharib should be crushed(not the prisoners but the building). The whole Quantanamo should be closed.
1) Most of the prisoners are held there against any international law
2) Quantanamo should belong to Cuba.


3. True, but like Churchil said, that the history would be kind to him, cause he intends to write it. If Hirohito* would of won, then we would be discussing the same thing however most of the world would think like me, not you. Now, most of the world, at list US, think the way u think.

* I wouldn't say that about Hitler nor Stalin :D


4. Being better or worse doesn't make someone angel or devil. Take 2 punks, punk A is better then punk B, but that doesn't make punk A a nice person. Or coke is better then fanta, still it doesn't make coke the best drink nor better then sprite. Or if dope is not as bad as some hardcore drug, then it doesn't make dope a good thing.
The axis numbers. Have you counted the dead jew bodies? The number vary from million to 6millions!
20million russians killed in the war, true most of them were killed by germans, but also u have to concider the russian training, equiment, strategy and Stalin's oders no step backwards(the ones who did were shot by NKVD).
Then the few allies crimes: they are few of the registered ones. If u let a army of millions into a country which has terrorised the world so long, you think these helpless wamen were not raped? the few SS officers murdered etc. Maybe western allies weren't so bad.
Finaly your end. No I have not been to a war. Estonia's last wars were in 1918-1920 and another time when estonians were fightin was in WW2.

Anyway this is getting ridiclous and off-topic. I understand u, your a american, I'd be talking the same thing if I'd be one, just that I'm not.

[PMN1]

quote:Originally posted by alyster




quote:
quote:and the way of the east isn't exactly peaceful.

So it makes it ok if for us to be violent? From all the peoples in the world the catholics had to do it.



Well you said 'The way of the west is horrible and I hope the time of the land of the evening will get over soon.' that suggests you think there is a better alternative and if it isn't east, what is it?

quote:

quote:The inhabitants of Singapore only imaginged the bombs did they?

The amout on japanese bombs droped on civil targets is counted in numer of bombs or bombers, amout of bombs droped by allies is counted in millions of tonns.
Secondly find me a name of a japanese pilot who has gladly said that he bombed a hospidal. In US pilots who droped the nukes we're proud of it till their deaths.
Anyway don't mix up the crimes of war by Japanese with strategic bombing. Singapore fell so fast and most of the killing took place after the battles.



Hardly millions of tonnes and the only reason the Germans and Japanese didn't drop as mnay as the UK or US is their bombers couldn't carry as much and there were less of them - when they attacked cities, they used maximum strength and bombload available. In the case of the firestorms it was a combination of number of aircaft, bombload they could carry and atmopsheric conditions, and if the Germans or the Japanese had the same combination then we could be talking about the firestorm of Coventry, London or Singapore.

If the killing happens after the fighting thats OK is it?

If I had just participated in ending in 5 days a war that had been going on for 3 1/2 years, I'd be proud as well.

quote:

quote:Probably for the same reason we let millions starve to death whilst spending a fortune on pets ect, and the way of the east isn't exactly peaceful.


I don't get the link between the crimes of war and poverty. Pls explain the link.



You said it was case of double standard, the leaders condemming the German/Japanese bombing then doing exactly the same thing - well what do you expect them to do, say 'Jolly good show old boy, dont worry, we'll continue fighting by the rules'

I brought up the link to poverty as we have many people condemming the bombing raids in war then spening a fortune on pets, gambling, tobacco and alcohol while people are starving to death in their millions in front of them on their TV screen - definate case of double standards.

quote:

quote:As for Churchill not warning the US to get them into the war, well an attack by Japan on the US is not going to allow a US president to declare war on Germany – this is shown by what happened, although Congress authorised war on Japan on December 7th, it wasn’t until Hitler stupidly declared war on the US on the 11th December that the US declared war on Germany.


Nope, but it surely fit well with Germanies total war idea. If US is part of the WW2, then they might aswell fight the Germans also - Germans didn't cear, at list the highest comand(a mistake if I might add).



My point is without a German declaration of war on America, America wouldn't have been at war with Germany (Roosevelt wasn't about to declare war on Germany even if he could) and the American public is very likley to have demanded EVERYTHING be directed to the war against Japan, aftre all, why send equipmnet to be used in a war that they are not in when its desperately needed in a war they are in.




And Kutscha, what do u think hapened in Berlin and whole Germany after May of 1945? You think the Germans were not raped by americans and russians(that's naive to think they weren't)? You think that the nazi criminals were not tortured in the prisons by jews?
That's the problem with it, we only find holocaust, few japanese rapes and miss droped bombs and think they are the devils. Have u ever seen what mess strategic bombing leaves? have u ever seen 80'000 burned bodies? has your grandmom ever hid in the woods frightened by Stalings population transfers(mine has)?
I don't understand u. You find few small resons and then think we can burn them alive? What gives you that right?
We're not better then them, even worse. Well you guys :D (no offence guys)




The raping done by US, UK and Canadian forces was not part of an organised campaign - the Soviet rapeing and pilaging was.

[ickysdad]

Alyster,
Oh good grief !!!!!
I mean as far as international law & Geneva Convention are concerned well I'm bringing up legal issues . Of course alot of "wrong things" are done in war but that doesn't make them war crimes. Afghanistan was invaded because of the Taliban's support for Al Quieda and alot of other terroists orgainisations they just as well had pulled the trigger themselves.
As far as Axis numbers what does it matter 1,000,000 or 6,000,000 Jews dying? The issue isn't numbers but the Nazi government's POLICIES !!!! It was the policy of Nazi Germany to exterminate the Jews and the Russians it wasn't the policy of the US to send troops into Germany and rape and whatever though to be sure thier were crimes committed but like I said it's a matter of individual actions of a few Allied soldiers verse government policy on the part of the Nazi's.
I think we just need to get back to the issue of the effectiveness of strategic bombing.

[andyo2000]

I would say strategic bombing is a necessary evil.

Once again, I use Clausewitz. (I really like that book :D). Strategic bombing cannot be disregarded. When a country goes to war it is not all fun and games. By saying strategic bombing should be disallowed, in my opinion at least, you are trying to remove the burden of war from the civilians. That is almost a crime in that many more soldiers will die. By the same token, you could say that we shouldn't kill soldiers in battle, hell, that's inhumane. Instead we could just matchup two countries' numbers, and predict the outcome.

This seems drastic, but it is what I associate with strategic bombing (at least the part of it we are discussing). Obviously strategic bombing's purpose (destroying the country's ability to make war) is moral and just. Unfortunately, killing civilians is a side effect. What I am saying is that if a country is willing to go to war, it must be willing to put a price on the head of every one of its people.

[Lightning]

Hi All,

I have complete respect for the bravery of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and the civilian populations of ALL the nations that fought in WWII. (Notice that I left out their governments.) When I look at the overall scheme of things, however, I believe the right side won.

In some cases, atrocities are in the eye of the beholder. Some acts, on the other hand, are universally recognized (at least by sane people) as being monstrous. If there are those on this Earth who are of sound mind who can truly look at those monstrous acts as being right, then the world is better off without them.

Regards,
Lightning

[alyster]

Link I got from another forum. Anyway if your not interested, then atlist take the minute to download the book, open it and in the begining there is a letter written by man who was in Dresden at the time of bombing. Another firebombing [V]


Edit: I think I forgot something [:I] the link :D
http://www.fpp.co.uk/overflow/Apocalypse.zip

[Double T]

Alyster:
Kurt Vonnegut, a native of Indianapolis, Indiana was an infantryman captured during the Ardennes Campaign/Battle of the Bulge.
He wrote "Slaughterhouse 5" and tells of the bombing of Dresden from his own personal experiences as a POW there. He was one of the few survivors.
We studied his works in High School.

I do think Lightning summed this up quite succinctly by the way.

Tim

[ickysdad]

Lightning,
I think you summed it up very well!!!!!!