...a substantial target worth hitting
February 14, 2015 5:42 PM Subscribe
On the night of 13/14 February 1945, RAF Bomber Command carried out a raid on the city of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, Germany. For all intents and purposes, this was a standard mission undertaken in much the same way as any other sortie...
Warning - some graphic images inside
"I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforth be more strictly studied in our own interests rather than that of the enemy."
...a process that was ultimately abandoned when America got the A-bomb and the only remaining enemy was those non-European Japanese.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:10 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
...a process that was ultimately abandoned when America got the A-bomb and the only remaining enemy was those non-European Japanese.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:10 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
"Asked later about the morality of the campaign, LeMay replied: "Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier." General Curtis Lemay. (My personal opinion it was indeed a war crime)
posted by dealing away at 6:12 PM on February 14, 2015
posted by dealing away at 6:12 PM on February 14, 2015
One of my favorite passages in literature is the "unbombing of Dresden" in Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five."
posted by Oyéah at 6:15 PM on February 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 6:15 PM on February 14, 2015 [11 favorites]
There's no question in my mind that going to war is sometimes necessary. But the idea that there's a "moral" way to fight a war is, in my mind, largely illusory. It only serves those who benefit from war. So yes, go to war if we must -- but stop lying about what's required to fight a war, which ultimately amounts to the killing of human beings.
posted by Slothrup at 6:17 PM on February 14, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Slothrup at 6:17 PM on February 14, 2015 [8 favorites]
One of my favorite passages in literature is the "unbombing of Dresden" in Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five."
It's an episode I knew first from Vonnegut; I'm glad that it has been getting more careful attention recently. Maybe we are finally far enough from the event itself to be able to discuss it.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's an episode I knew first from Vonnegut; I'm glad that it has been getting more careful attention recently. Maybe we are finally far enough from the event itself to be able to discuss it.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
a process that was ultimately abandoned when America got the A-bomb and the only remaining enemy was those non-European Japanese.
We didn't need atomic weapons to destroy Japanese cities. Indeed, the deadliest raid -- by far -- that the US, indeed, that *anybody* ever did wasn't Hiroshima or Nagasaki, it was the Operation Meetinghouse raid of March 9th, 1945 on Tokyo. 10 square miles of Tokyo burned. At least 100,000 dead, at least half a million injured. This isn't a picture of Hiroshima.
WWII was the first war where, from start to end, on all sides, there really was no difference between civilian and military. Everything of the enemy side was a target, their military, their shipping, their cities, their people.
It seems to me that looking at "morality" in war -- you know, an activity that involves killing the enemy until they beg you to stop -- is somewhat of a rum gimmick. Is there any difference between bombing a city with one bomb or a million smaller ones? Does it matter? Certainly not to the tens of thousand who died, the hundred of thousands who were injured, and the millions who were left homeless.
And when it comes to suffering? The bombings of Dresden, or Tokyo, or Hiroshima probably don't match the effects of the German and US unrestricted submarine warfare campaigns. The civilians of Stalingrad suffered deeply, but from siege, not from bombings.
There is more than one way than one way to cause a million people to suffer deeply, and thousands to die, and in WWII, we used almost all of them.
posted by eriko at 6:48 PM on February 14, 2015 [54 favorites]
We didn't need atomic weapons to destroy Japanese cities. Indeed, the deadliest raid -- by far -- that the US, indeed, that *anybody* ever did wasn't Hiroshima or Nagasaki, it was the Operation Meetinghouse raid of March 9th, 1945 on Tokyo. 10 square miles of Tokyo burned. At least 100,000 dead, at least half a million injured. This isn't a picture of Hiroshima.
WWII was the first war where, from start to end, on all sides, there really was no difference between civilian and military. Everything of the enemy side was a target, their military, their shipping, their cities, their people.
It seems to me that looking at "morality" in war -- you know, an activity that involves killing the enemy until they beg you to stop -- is somewhat of a rum gimmick. Is there any difference between bombing a city with one bomb or a million smaller ones? Does it matter? Certainly not to the tens of thousand who died, the hundred of thousands who were injured, and the millions who were left homeless.
And when it comes to suffering? The bombings of Dresden, or Tokyo, or Hiroshima probably don't match the effects of the German and US unrestricted submarine warfare campaigns. The civilians of Stalingrad suffered deeply, but from siege, not from bombings.
There is more than one way than one way to cause a million people to suffer deeply, and thousands to die, and in WWII, we used almost all of them.
posted by eriko at 6:48 PM on February 14, 2015 [54 favorites]
WWII was the first war where, from start to end, on all sides, there really was no difference between civilian and military.
That's a very modern perspective. The Thirty Years' War, for instance, reduced the population of the German states by an estimated 25 to 40 percent and those were not all soldiers.
posted by Slothrup at 6:54 PM on February 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
That's a very modern perspective. The Thirty Years' War, for instance, reduced the population of the German states by an estimated 25 to 40 percent and those were not all soldiers.
posted by Slothrup at 6:54 PM on February 14, 2015 [13 favorites]
So it goes. The bomber crews imagined the destruction, but not the deaths. How things might go if we were able to step out of the moment and imagine how to go about explaining ourselves to our grandchildren? Or the descendants of the survivors? In retrospect I suppose it's easier to go backwards, to imagine how a Brit might think about dropping bombs anywhere in Germany in 1945. Even that would take us--we children of the 21st Century--quite a bit of twisting and turning to accomplish, and few of us would care to make the trip. It's easier to let indignation pop up and cover that ground for us. Boy, war sure does suck.
I have trouble with any feeling but horror at the destruction of Dresden. I reserve outrage, horror's milder cousin, for the loss of the historicity woven into the cityscape. I can't imagine being among those piles of bodies, doing the job so many people did, separating the rubble from the rest, piling rubble, burying the rest. Those who know how the experience seems to soak into one's skin--impervious to soap and water--will draw the curtain over their imagination more quickly than will most others.
I'm content to let the air-crews deal with their memories in their own way. It's too bad that some sort of lesson didn't come from all this.
posted by mule98J at 7:00 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have trouble with any feeling but horror at the destruction of Dresden. I reserve outrage, horror's milder cousin, for the loss of the historicity woven into the cityscape. I can't imagine being among those piles of bodies, doing the job so many people did, separating the rubble from the rest, piling rubble, burying the rest. Those who know how the experience seems to soak into one's skin--impervious to soap and water--will draw the curtain over their imagination more quickly than will most others.
I'm content to let the air-crews deal with their memories in their own way. It's too bad that some sort of lesson didn't come from all this.
posted by mule98J at 7:00 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
War is an exercise in moral relativism. "Please rank the following atrocities in order of moral outrage: a) The Bombing of Dresden b) The Blitz c) Nagasaki d) Auschwitz-Birkenau"
posted by DarlingBri at 7:05 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by DarlingBri at 7:05 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
On a happy note, modern Dresden is quite a beautiful city. The Germans poured a lot of money into improving it after reunification and it worked. Also helps the city had a legacy of being beautiful, the nickname "Florence on the Elbe" isn't just tourist promotion. The rebuilt Frauenkirche is particularly beautiful. Definitely worth a visit if you're in that part of Germany.
posted by Nelson at 7:08 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:08 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
"In order of moral outrage", Auschwitz-Birkenau will inevitably rate first, because there's something a lot more outrage-inducing about killing a hundred-thousand people one - or a few - at a time, vs. killing them all at once. Which is why it's so easy to hate an enemy who distributes videos of their executions of foreigners in their own occupied territories and it doesn't require an act of war like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 for President Barack Obama to officially ask Congress to authorize a three-year limited war against ISIL, which immediately raises the question "Limited War?" "What? No Shock And Awe?"
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:27 PM on February 14, 2015
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:27 PM on February 14, 2015
We didn't need atomic weapons to destroy Japanese cities
Indeed there is the argument that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a demonstration to Stalin - I wonder if the bombing of Dresden was to demonstrate to the Russians the power of allied strategic bombing.
Maybe to demonstrate to a sceptical Stalin that the western allies had indeed done significant damage to the enemy.
Also the Russians had on hand 2.5 million or so battle hardened troops, unknown numbers of reserves, armour with knowhow and tactics far superior to the western allies, a huge tactical airforce and a war economy at the top of its stride. Who knew if they would stop at Berlin.
posted by mattoxic at 7:32 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Indeed there is the argument that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a demonstration to Stalin - I wonder if the bombing of Dresden was to demonstrate to the Russians the power of allied strategic bombing.
Maybe to demonstrate to a sceptical Stalin that the western allies had indeed done significant damage to the enemy.
Also the Russians had on hand 2.5 million or so battle hardened troops, unknown numbers of reserves, armour with knowhow and tactics far superior to the western allies, a huge tactical airforce and a war economy at the top of its stride. Who knew if they would stop at Berlin.
posted by mattoxic at 7:32 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
The British and American leaders at the time certainly believed that Dresden was a substantial target worth hitting in force as part of their renewed efforts to push Germany to the brink – it was, after all, a key transportation centre, the apex of three major rail lines which served 28 army trains a day in February 1945, as well as a hub for the manufacture of radar equipment, gun sights, bomb fuses and other components.
If I had lived in England during the Battle of Britain, and had to wonder every night if my family would lose the bomb-and-rocket lottery, I would have told you that the bombing of Dresden didn't go far enough because the Germans didn't immediately surrender. Their innocent people died, our innocent people died at other points-- no shit, it was a war. And there's not a lot of debate about who started it, unless you want to get into some Treaty of Versailles-based apologist stuff.
It's easy to scold and and preach Campus Liberal-level ahimsa seventy years on. People at the time just needed that shit to stop.
And the fact remains that if we didn't destroy Dresden and its population, the Soviets would have eventually done it, but with that personal touch that Stalin brought.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:45 PM on February 14, 2015 [22 favorites]
If I had lived in England during the Battle of Britain, and had to wonder every night if my family would lose the bomb-and-rocket lottery, I would have told you that the bombing of Dresden didn't go far enough because the Germans didn't immediately surrender. Their innocent people died, our innocent people died at other points-- no shit, it was a war. And there's not a lot of debate about who started it, unless you want to get into some Treaty of Versailles-based apologist stuff.
It's easy to scold and and preach Campus Liberal-level ahimsa seventy years on. People at the time just needed that shit to stop.
And the fact remains that if we didn't destroy Dresden and its population, the Soviets would have eventually done it, but with that personal touch that Stalin brought.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:45 PM on February 14, 2015 [22 favorites]
There is also some validity to the official arguments made by the Truman Administration to justify the bombing of Hiroshima. The unexpected ferocity of Japanese forces, their fighting almost to the last man, and the shocking mass suicides of civilians at Okinawa and Saipan speak to this.
As for Nagasaki, I'm simply not sure. mattoxic's argument makes as much or more sense as anything I was able to garner from reading about the history of the period.
posted by psmealey at 7:46 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
As for Nagasaki, I'm simply not sure. mattoxic's argument makes as much or more sense as anything I was able to garner from reading about the history of the period.
posted by psmealey at 7:46 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
Neither Germany nor Japan have started a war, nor tried to commit genocide, for the better part of a century. So there's that.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:55 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:55 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
My father, who lost many of his friends in WWII, and who helped rescue and clear-up work after the (much less destructive) fire-bombing of Coventry, strongly believed that bombing Dresden was a justified action. As LastOfHisKind points out, we've had a sort-of peace, or at least a lack of WW3 for a long time now.
posted by anadem at 8:26 PM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by anadem at 8:26 PM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
The only Latin phrase I know is Dulce bellum inexpertis.
posted by 724A at 8:29 PM on February 14, 2015
posted by 724A at 8:29 PM on February 14, 2015
Last week’s edition* of the Radio 4 programme Making History covered this.
An interesting perspective that I hadn’t heard before is that part of the reason Dresden is specially remembered not because of the loss of life or destruction was unprecedented, but because it happened so late in the war and even more because of the post-war cold war dynamic — it suited the Eastern bloc to use it an example of the the barbarity of the West.
*The downloadable podcast version goes away in a few days, but it should be available indefinitely via the iPlayer.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 8:31 PM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
An interesting perspective that I hadn’t heard before is that part of the reason Dresden is specially remembered not because of the loss of life or destruction was unprecedented, but because it happened so late in the war and even more because of the post-war cold war dynamic — it suited the Eastern bloc to use it an example of the the barbarity of the West.
*The downloadable podcast version goes away in a few days, but it should be available indefinitely via the iPlayer.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 8:31 PM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kind of difficult for me to join in a discussion about abstract justifications for certain types of warfare after that picture with the baby carriage.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:31 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:31 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
The firebombing of Dresden still hurts my heart. Much of the city - including the famed Opera House - was still in ruins when I visited in 1987. I know it has been properly rebuilt since then, but the destruction still pains me.
War is awful.
posted by MissySedai at 8:57 PM on February 14, 2015
War is awful.
posted by MissySedai at 8:57 PM on February 14, 2015
My grandfather was a Marine aboard a US Navy light cruiser in the Pacific. His best friend was killed on Okinawa, and as his ship was one of the first to drop anchor in a Japanese bay, he got to go visit Hiroshima about two months after the bombing. Here's his thoughts that he shared in letters home to his fiance:
I'm glad someone mentioned the 30 Years War, because it's interesting how much we have wrapped rules and etiquette around warfare, which when played out against the history of mankind and warfare, is just a short blip. Historically, no one was safe. The Mongols annihilated entire cities (by hand), the English ravaged the French countryside and cities during the 100 Years War. William the Conqueror scoured the North, destroying crops and supplies, which resulted in the starving deaths of tens of thousands, if not over a hundred thousand. It's well that we take this time to recognize the horror, so we can do our best to avoid slipping into the pattern of behavior that has haunted our history for thousands of years.
posted by Atreides at 9:07 PM on February 14, 2015 [26 favorites]
I still think we should have dropped a few more Atomic bombs, and done away with an occupational force. We are too easy on the people who started this war. If they were dished out some of their own medicine, they would probably think twice before they decided to expand again. One way of looking at it and you can’t blame them. If I were forced to live in these damned islands I’d rather be fighting a war than living like these people do. Under the conditions I have seen I don’t see how they have enough men healthy enough to form an army. But the U.S., good Samaritans that we are, will step in and show them how to live. --- I saw in the press news where three Army Sgts. Were given dishonorable discharges and ten years at hard labor for killing a Jap and his son in a brawl in Tokyo. Two months ago they would have gotten a medal for it, but now we must show the Japs that we are a peace [end page three] loving nation, and make an example out of three men who may have been fighting and seeing their buddies killed all the way from Gudalcanal to Tokyo. What about the Japs that killed and tortured our men? They are eating our chow and living better than they have all their life.
Well, I guess that’s enough Gum-beating for one night. I know you are tired of these so-called letters I write, but I’m not as bitter as I sound, but sometimes I just have to get those things off my chest.
Today a bunch of us went to Hiroshima, scene of the first atomic bomb. It is impossible to even attempt to describe the destruction wrought by ordinary bombs, but this was ten times as bad. [end page three]As I grew up, I never heard my grandfather say a negative thing about the Japanese, even when I started taking the language and sent him a postcard with a few simple sentences in it. He thought it was pretty fascinating. I do think what he wrote home fresh in the moment was probably indicative of a the general feeling, though, and can see why many in the military may not have had qualms with the bombing of cities.
For miles there wasn’t a thing left standing, and where big buildings had been, there was only rubbish of concrete and rocks. In an area much larger than Bristol [Bristol, Virginia - Ed.] there wasn’t a building. Two or three miles from where the bomb hit there was a building or two left, but the interior was demolished. Iron window frames in large stone buildings were torn out. It was dropped about 0830, while everone was going to work. Just one plane, and since they had been bombing the navy yard at Kure and missing Hiroshima proper, an alert or raid wasn’t sounded. Over a hundred thousand Japs were killed. That sounds fantastic, but if you could walk thru the ruins it is easy to see how that many could be killed. ---
I'm glad someone mentioned the 30 Years War, because it's interesting how much we have wrapped rules and etiquette around warfare, which when played out against the history of mankind and warfare, is just a short blip. Historically, no one was safe. The Mongols annihilated entire cities (by hand), the English ravaged the French countryside and cities during the 100 Years War. William the Conqueror scoured the North, destroying crops and supplies, which resulted in the starving deaths of tens of thousands, if not over a hundred thousand. It's well that we take this time to recognize the horror, so we can do our best to avoid slipping into the pattern of behavior that has haunted our history for thousands of years.
posted by Atreides at 9:07 PM on February 14, 2015 [26 favorites]
From Restricted Data — Heisenberg’s Dresden story: A wartime atomic mystery. Was the United States planning to drop an atomic bomb on Dresden unless Germany surrendered?
American research, design, and testing of firebombs for use against Japanese and German residential targets began in late 1940: see Who Made That Firebomb?:
posted by cenoxo at 9:07 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
American research, design, and testing of firebombs for use against Japanese and German residential targets began in late 1940: see Who Made That Firebomb?:
The atomic bomb represents, in a sense, a case of a special almost-one-off invention meant to be something novel and terrible. The firebomb, by contrast, is a weapon developed for a doing terrible things as a regular mode of operation. That is, the moral arguments in favor of the atomic bombs are usually structured in the form of “we had to do this twice in order to achieve a greater good.” It’s harder to do that with firebombs because we used them so many times. It’s one thing to say, “ah, once or twice we had to target large numbers of civilians to make a point.” It’s another to make the targeting of civilians your everyday job, when you start measuring success less by knocking out specific military targets and instead by total area destroyed.Atomic bombs are expensive, but napalm-based incendiaries are cheap and plentiful.
So who made that firebomb? A now all-too-familiar mixture of American industry, universities, and government. The list of contractors involved in American incendiary weapons during World War II includes Brown University, University of Chicago, Du Pont, Eastman Kodak, Harvard University, Monsanto, Standard Oil Development, and Stanford University, among others, all working under the auspices of Vannevar Bush’s Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Chemical Warfare Service, and other parts of the military.
posted by cenoxo at 9:07 PM on February 14, 2015 [3 favorites]
Atomic bombs are expensive, but napalm-based incendiaries are cheap and plentiful.
Yeah, but nuclear explosives are a lot more energy dense and therefore missile friendly.
posted by PMdixon at 9:14 PM on February 14, 2015
Yeah, but nuclear explosives are a lot more energy dense and therefore missile friendly.
posted by PMdixon at 9:14 PM on February 14, 2015
So it goes.
posted by DigDoug at 9:23 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by DigDoug at 9:23 PM on February 14, 2015 [5 favorites]
What is there left to but weep at this history and weep at our contemporary inability to understand any of it. :(
posted by salishsea at 9:27 PM on February 14, 2015
posted by salishsea at 9:27 PM on February 14, 2015
And so it goes...
posted by Samuel Farrow at 9:33 PM on February 14, 2015
posted by Samuel Farrow at 9:33 PM on February 14, 2015
.
posted by drezdn at 9:58 PM on February 14 [+] [!]
Eponytragic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:06 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 9:58 PM on February 14 [+] [!]
Eponytragic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:06 PM on February 14, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've always been a little mystified at the idea of "rules" and "codes" and "conventions" being attached to something like warfare. If large groups of people are killing each other as often and as quickly as possible, isn't that situation by definition the lack of those things?
"I'm going to kill you but only in this
posted by gottabefunky at 12:20 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
"I'm going to kill you but only in this
posted by gottabefunky at 12:20 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
...universally agreed-upon way."
(Which I guess governments to do their own citizens all the time, so there's that. But on a much smaller scale.)
posted by gottabefunky at 12:21 AM on February 15, 2015
(Which I guess governments to do their own citizens all the time, so there's that. But on a much smaller scale.)
posted by gottabefunky at 12:21 AM on February 15, 2015
"We know you are using Dresden which we have not bombed because it is a hospital area for the wounded but you are storing vital parts for airplanes and tanks and if you don't cease and desist, we will bomb you"
"Two months later, after tens of thousands of deaths, in retaliation for firebombing, the United States embargoed the export of airplane parts to Japan, thus imposing its first economic sanction against Japan.[1]
On 5 June 1941, the Japanese flew more than 20 sorties, bombing the city for 3 hours. About 4,000 residents who hid in a tunnel were asphyxiated.[2]"
It's all a fucking waste.
posted by clavdivs at 12:42 AM on February 15, 2015
"Two months later, after tens of thousands of deaths, in retaliation for firebombing, the United States embargoed the export of airplane parts to Japan, thus imposing its first economic sanction against Japan.[1]
On 5 June 1941, the Japanese flew more than 20 sorties, bombing the city for 3 hours. About 4,000 residents who hid in a tunnel were asphyxiated.[2]"
It's all a fucking waste.
posted by clavdivs at 12:42 AM on February 15, 2015
That's an interesting link about the leaflets, clavdis. Do you know of a source that isn't a recalled personal account? Human memort being what it is, and all.
posted by alasdair at 1:12 AM on February 15, 2015
posted by alasdair at 1:12 AM on February 15, 2015
Interesting Google challenge. I won't answer for the Brits and like Mule98j (heh) said, I left that up to crews conscious. I have no visible proof. Never was as far as I know perhaps that was Vonneguts point (s)
I have talked to two survivors from Dreden, one POW who was in SH-1.
And a citizen of Dresden age 14 at the time. Also a side door gunner from the raid, all in the same room. My secondary source was of Luftwaffe knowledge that the Dresden was no longer an open city. This comes from the resident, a flak gunner. The leaflets, i think, did not exist but we're really this:
"We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end, if you make it necessary for us to do so. You cannot stop it, and you know it."
posted by clavdivs at 2:00 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have talked to two survivors from Dreden, one POW who was in SH-1.
And a citizen of Dresden age 14 at the time. Also a side door gunner from the raid, all in the same room. My secondary source was of Luftwaffe knowledge that the Dresden was no longer an open city. This comes from the resident, a flak gunner. The leaflets, i think, did not exist but we're really this:
"We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end, if you make it necessary for us to do so. You cannot stop it, and you know it."
posted by clavdivs at 2:00 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
As horrible as the bombing of Dresden was, and it truly was, I have to wonder about the sanity of somebody who seriously thinks that it could compare to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 25,000 killed in what was at least ostensibly a raid on a major industrial center, as opposed to 1.1 million killed in a sustained, mechanistic act of genocide against noncombatants. I feel awfully comfortable in saying that, between the two atrocities, Auschwitz-Birkenau was clearly the worse of the two.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
If I had lived in England during the Battle of Britain, and had to wonder every night if my family would lose the bomb-and-rocket lottery, I would have told you that the bombing of Dresden didn't go far enough because the Germans didn't immediately surrender. Their innocent people died, our innocent people died at other points-- no shit, it was a war.You're speaking for yourself, not for everyone here in Britain or in Germany who witnessed the war first hand. There is not a simple division between the pragmatists who lived through it and we naive campus liberals preaching against it now. Victor Gregg was a British POW in Dresden at the time of the bombings, awaiting execution, and has said and continues to say it was an inexcusable atrocity:
the affair was a war crime at the highest level, a stain upon the name Englishman that only an apology made in full public view would suffice to obliterate.posted by Catseye at 3:42 AM on February 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
There's no question in my mind that going to war is sometimes necessary. But the idea that there's a "moral" way to fight a war is, in my mind, largely illusory. It only serves those who benefit from war. So yes, go to war if we must -- but stop lying about what's required to fight a war, which ultimately amounts to the killing of human beings.
This is far easier in retrospect. The real challenge is applying this to current conflict, some of which any particular observer may not see as "war", but rather choose to characterize as "terrorism" to fulfil their "moral" exigency.
posted by fairmettle at 5:14 AM on February 15, 2015
This is far easier in retrospect. The real challenge is applying this to current conflict, some of which any particular observer may not see as "war", but rather choose to characterize as "terrorism" to fulfil their "moral" exigency.
posted by fairmettle at 5:14 AM on February 15, 2015
I have zero problem with making Japan and Germany reap the whirlwind.
posted by whuppy at 5:32 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by whuppy at 5:32 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
What seems to go unsaid in this thread is that this was a war the Germans started, simply because they wanted their neighbors' land. This was a war which had already caused millions of civilian deaths, not even counting the millions of murders the Germans had committed of their own citizens. What goes unsaid is that the Germans tried to subdue Britain by terror bombing of London, rather than attacking airfields, which would have made a better military objective. The firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg were merely more effective than the bombing of London and Coventry and other civilian targets. Does anyone seriously think that the Germans would not have done it to London if they'd had the idea and the means?
It is terrible when civilians die in war. But are civilians, as a group, really morally exempt when their nation sends their sons off to kill other people's civilians? Are the Japanese exempt from responsibility for the Rape of Nanking?
As for whether Hiroshima was necessary, let's not forget that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one thousand Japanese troops invaded the Imperial Palace to attempt to find the Emperor's surrender speech recording, so they could prevent the surrender. At the time (my father was in training for the landings) people thought 100,000 Americans and 1,000,000 Japanese would probably die before the Home Islands were taken.
I have no problem with the firebombing of Dresden or with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If any two groups of people ever had it coming, the Germans and the Japanese in 1945 fit the bill.
posted by musofire at 5:42 AM on February 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
It is terrible when civilians die in war. But are civilians, as a group, really morally exempt when their nation sends their sons off to kill other people's civilians? Are the Japanese exempt from responsibility for the Rape of Nanking?
As for whether Hiroshima was necessary, let's not forget that even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, one thousand Japanese troops invaded the Imperial Palace to attempt to find the Emperor's surrender speech recording, so they could prevent the surrender. At the time (my father was in training for the landings) people thought 100,000 Americans and 1,000,000 Japanese would probably die before the Home Islands were taken.
I have no problem with the firebombing of Dresden or with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If any two groups of people ever had it coming, the Germans and the Japanese in 1945 fit the bill.
posted by musofire at 5:42 AM on February 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
This was absolutely horrifying and unjust and it was entirely the fault of the Nazi regime.
posted by seymourScagnetti at 5:45 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by seymourScagnetti at 5:45 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
This has me in tears. I cannot fathom intellectualizing this. What a horrific tragedy, along with all the others that happened or will. I feel for them all.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:12 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:12 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
One thing I am never going to forget is a very old English lady telling me about Zeppelins dropping bombs. She was in her cups at a pub and started talking about why her husband drank himself to death during The Blitz and started channeling some of what he'd told her about being a kid getting bombed by giant balloons in the sky. I thought that I was, once again eating next to an insane person. I just wanted food and had no idea what she was talking about, but it was interesting as she went on about being an air raid warden during the following war. And then I put it together and said "Wait, you were talking about Zeppelins earlier? You saw that shit?"
What a thing to have seen. Terror from the sky and just a few clumsy bombs. Took the train out to Heathrow the next day and wondered about the splash patterns on the brick buildings.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:51 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
What a thing to have seen. Terror from the sky and just a few clumsy bombs. Took the train out to Heathrow the next day and wondered about the splash patterns on the brick buildings.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:51 AM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
> It's easy to scold and and preach Campus Liberal-level ahimsa seventy years on.
At the time, “Opinion polls made during the blitz found respondents divided evenly on the question of bombing enemy civilians – 46% for, 46% against.”. If opinion polls were split on bombing civilians while those being polled were under siege themselves, it's clear that support for area bombing was not universal.
Bomber Command was denied a campaign medal at the time, and the only one awarded to survivors was struck by a jingoistic rag 67 years after WW2 ended. So it would seem that the Dresden Bombers' reputation is only now being rosy-washed for nationalistic goals. “Bomber” Harris repeatedly denied requests to focus on industrial targets, and it was concluded in a recent RCAF article that “ Harris’ high authority and medium level of responsibility, … coupled with a chain of command that failed to keep him in check, ultimately led to a situation bordering on dangerous command or abuse of authority.”
Harris's statement that “… the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself” is for me on a par with Eichmann's ‘Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient …’. Both are inexcusable.
posted by scruss at 7:03 AM on February 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
At the time, “Opinion polls made during the blitz found respondents divided evenly on the question of bombing enemy civilians – 46% for, 46% against.”. If opinion polls were split on bombing civilians while those being polled were under siege themselves, it's clear that support for area bombing was not universal.
Bomber Command was denied a campaign medal at the time, and the only one awarded to survivors was struck by a jingoistic rag 67 years after WW2 ended. So it would seem that the Dresden Bombers' reputation is only now being rosy-washed for nationalistic goals. “Bomber” Harris repeatedly denied requests to focus on industrial targets, and it was concluded in a recent RCAF article that “ Harris’ high authority and medium level of responsibility, … coupled with a chain of command that failed to keep him in check, ultimately led to a situation bordering on dangerous command or abuse of authority.”
Harris's statement that “… the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself” is for me on a par with Eichmann's ‘Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient …’. Both are inexcusable.
posted by scruss at 7:03 AM on February 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
The Myth of the Good War
From 1914 to 1918 as many as 18 million people died, while more than 70 million died from 1939 to 1945. The immensely important difference was that almost all of those killed in the first world war were soldiers in uniform, while the peculiar – and peculiarly horrible – distinguishing feature of the second world war was that up to 50 million of the dead were civilians. That would be the true face of the new war.posted by dephlogisticated at 7:43 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
The conventions of war...War used to be huge family fights between greedy "nobility," war was played like a game, with living lines of colorfully dressed soldier dollies to absorb arrows, later bullets. Why Europeans put up with the aristocracy for so long is easily comprehended as most Europeans were their slaves.
We of this current era should take.a long look at the forming reality of corporate directed warfare, criminal activity mimicking dynasty, and religion used as a weapon by very clever profiteers. The present is grim and the future moreso. I think we are seeing a the repeat of The Hundred Years War, different circumstances somewhat, are we into it 10 years, or 95 here in Schlachthaus Erde?
posted by Oyéah at 7:46 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
We of this current era should take.a long look at the forming reality of corporate directed warfare, criminal activity mimicking dynasty, and religion used as a weapon by very clever profiteers. The present is grim and the future moreso. I think we are seeing a the repeat of The Hundred Years War, different circumstances somewhat, are we into it 10 years, or 95 here in Schlachthaus Erde?
posted by Oyéah at 7:46 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
At the time, “Opinion polls made during the blitz found respondents divided evenly on the question of bombing enemy civilians – 46% for, 46% against.”. If opinion polls were split on bombing civilians while those being polled were under siege themselves, it's clear that support for area bombing was not universal.
So I lived in New York in 2001 (and still do) and I was struck with the different responses to the attack: it seemed like half the people I knew were all "Make them suffer as we have suffered" and the other half (in which I find myself) thought "I know how terrible this is and I would never support doing this to someone else."
Which is to say, it is interesting how people respond in such opposed ways and I wonder what it is, psychologically, that determines where one ends up.
posted by dame at 7:47 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
So I lived in New York in 2001 (and still do) and I was struck with the different responses to the attack: it seemed like half the people I knew were all "Make them suffer as we have suffered" and the other half (in which I find myself) thought "I know how terrible this is and I would never support doing this to someone else."
Which is to say, it is interesting how people respond in such opposed ways and I wonder what it is, psychologically, that determines where one ends up.
posted by dame at 7:47 AM on February 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
The scary part about the above comment is, opinion forming is a high art and science funded by those with the most to gain from atrocity, emotion and finance. Sanity is a rare commodity in this whipped up world, twirled by the lackeys, of lackeys, of ministers who answer to numbers, and take calls in the night from powerful individuals who fear mathematics.
posted by Oyéah at 7:57 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 7:57 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Freeman Dyson, who developed analytical methods to help the RAF bomb German targets during World War II (MeFi discussion):
I remember arguing about the morality of city bombing with the wife of a senior air force officer, after we heard the results of the Dresden attack. She was a well-educated and intelligent woman who worked part-time for the ORS. I asked her whether she really believed that it was right to kill German women and babies in large numbers at that late stage of the War. She answered, “Oh yes. It is good to kill the babies especially. I am not thinking of this war but of the next one, 20 years from now. The next time the Germans start a war and we have to fight them, those babies will be the soldiers.” After fighting Germans for ten years, four in the first war and six in the second, we had become almost as bloody-minded as Sir Arthur.
posted by elgilito at 8:09 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
I remember arguing about the morality of city bombing with the wife of a senior air force officer, after we heard the results of the Dresden attack. She was a well-educated and intelligent woman who worked part-time for the ORS. I asked her whether she really believed that it was right to kill German women and babies in large numbers at that late stage of the War. She answered, “Oh yes. It is good to kill the babies especially. I am not thinking of this war but of the next one, 20 years from now. The next time the Germans start a war and we have to fight them, those babies will be the soldiers.” After fighting Germans for ten years, four in the first war and six in the second, we had become almost as bloody-minded as Sir Arthur.
posted by elgilito at 8:09 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is unequivocal proof that war is an appalling crime against humanity.
However, I'm an ardent pacifist but I personally am not sure what I would believe if I were living in London in 1945 - no, I'm wrong, I'd have been in favor of doing maximum damage because I imagine my principles would have gone out the window a couple of years before in the face of overwhelming existential threats.
It's a complex issue which I've read and thought about a great deal. Today my opinion is that Dresden was "probably unnecessary but" and Hiroshima/Nagasaki were "completely unnecessary and simply a "message" to the Soviets". Further thought or information might move the dial though.
I have difficulty second-guessing the actions of a society quite literally fighting for its existence against quite literally Hitler...
But don't act as if this is some historical thing. The US government did much the same thing at a somewhat smaller scale in 2003 with "Shock and Awe" - except instead of the opponent being the greatest military force ever up until that point in history, it was a tinpot little dictator with less military or economic might than the state of California, and instead of being a response to thousands of bombing raids on its soil over years with hundreds of thousands dead, it was a response to absolutely nothing at all.
"Both" political parties supported this, every major metropolitan daily except one (the SF Gate, bless you) and so did the majority of the American people. If you were a voter at the time and you didn't strongly register your disapproval of these actions, you are complicit.
If you aren't going to learn from atrocities like Dresden and won't prevent them being repeatedly endlessly by your own democratically-elected government today, please spare us your Monday morning quarterbacking of history.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:05 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
However, I'm an ardent pacifist but I personally am not sure what I would believe if I were living in London in 1945 - no, I'm wrong, I'd have been in favor of doing maximum damage because I imagine my principles would have gone out the window a couple of years before in the face of overwhelming existential threats.
It's a complex issue which I've read and thought about a great deal. Today my opinion is that Dresden was "probably unnecessary but" and Hiroshima/Nagasaki were "completely unnecessary and simply a "message" to the Soviets". Further thought or information might move the dial though.
I have difficulty second-guessing the actions of a society quite literally fighting for its existence against quite literally Hitler...
But don't act as if this is some historical thing. The US government did much the same thing at a somewhat smaller scale in 2003 with "Shock and Awe" - except instead of the opponent being the greatest military force ever up until that point in history, it was a tinpot little dictator with less military or economic might than the state of California, and instead of being a response to thousands of bombing raids on its soil over years with hundreds of thousands dead, it was a response to absolutely nothing at all.
"Both" political parties supported this, every major metropolitan daily except one (the SF Gate, bless you) and so did the majority of the American people. If you were a voter at the time and you didn't strongly register your disapproval of these actions, you are complicit.
If you aren't going to learn from atrocities like Dresden and won't prevent them being repeatedly endlessly by your own democratically-elected government today, please spare us your Monday morning quarterbacking of history.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:05 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
The US government did much the same thing at a somewhat smaller scale in 2003 with "Shock and Awe" - except instead of the opponent being the greatest military force ever up until that point in history, it was a tinpot little dictator with less military or economic might than the state of California, and instead of being a response to thousands of bombing raids on its soil over years with hundreds of thousands dead, it was a response to absolutely nothing at all.
Another interesting historical footnote is that certain elements within the U.S. government and military did this on a much larger scale, and covertly.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Another interesting historical footnote is that certain elements within the U.S. government and military did this on a much larger scale, and covertly.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 9:23 AM on February 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
> Another interesting historical footnote is that certain elements within the U.S. government and military did this on a much larger scale, and covertly.
Absolutely - though I imagine few people reading this were American voters in 1965. The saving grace of the Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia War is that the American Left did against all odds manage to mobilize public opinion against this war and shut it down before even more war crimes were committed. As a reward, they were marginalized and reviled by the "two" parties ever since, progressives becoming the Cassandra of the American political scene, always predicting correctly and yet never believed.
It's sad that, while Europe has managed to finally learn something from centuries of warfare and keep the atrocities down to a dull roar (particularly in the case of the UK since the Troubles are over), the United States seems to have learned less than nothing at all.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:35 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
Absolutely - though I imagine few people reading this were American voters in 1965. The saving grace of the Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia War is that the American Left did against all odds manage to mobilize public opinion against this war and shut it down before even more war crimes were committed. As a reward, they were marginalized and reviled by the "two" parties ever since, progressives becoming the Cassandra of the American political scene, always predicting correctly and yet never believed.
It's sad that, while Europe has managed to finally learn something from centuries of warfare and keep the atrocities down to a dull roar (particularly in the case of the UK since the Troubles are over), the United States seems to have learned less than nothing at all.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:35 AM on February 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
If Sherman had had Lancasters and Incendiaries, could he have used them to prevent Jim Crow?
In a way, Dresden was the last great "hurrah" of Bomber Command. The damage had already been done: thousands of airmen had died, thousands of aircraft had been downed, and only in the last few months of the war was Bomber Command able to really make a significant contribution. Before that, most of the (huge) resources allocated to it had gone to waste. So Dresden was a case where they had the bombers, they had the bombs, and the Germans probably wouldn't pose a significant threat, so they might as well do it.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:36 AM on February 15, 2015
In a way, Dresden was the last great "hurrah" of Bomber Command. The damage had already been done: thousands of airmen had died, thousands of aircraft had been downed, and only in the last few months of the war was Bomber Command able to really make a significant contribution. Before that, most of the (huge) resources allocated to it had gone to waste. So Dresden was a case where they had the bombers, they had the bombs, and the Germans probably wouldn't pose a significant threat, so they might as well do it.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:36 AM on February 15, 2015
Speaking of last hurrahs, the Europeans were able to find the wherewithal to commit one last round of atrocities at the end of the colonial period, post-WWII.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:41 AM on February 15, 2015
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:41 AM on February 15, 2015
But are civilians, as a group, really morally exempt when their nation sends their sons off to kill other people's civilians?
Yes. The answer is, yes they are.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:36 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yes. The answer is, yes they are.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 10:36 AM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
But are civilians, as a group, really morally exempt when their nation sends their sons off to kill other people's civilians?
No. If they were, then the truck-driving PFC is exempt from strafing, but the bayonet-wielding infantryman is not. (Let's assume your nephew works for a defense contractor, and your state rep voted for a war-bond.) Wherever you stand on this slippery slope, it still leads down. Whether you agree with your country's policies or not, you are subject to the results of its actions.
I won't argue that waging a war is never necessary. I also subscribe to rules of conduct for the military. That means I have to support certain mutually exclusive ideas. That's nuts, for sure, but there it is.
posted by mule98J at 12:31 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
No. If they were, then the truck-driving PFC is exempt from strafing, but the bayonet-wielding infantryman is not. (Let's assume your nephew works for a defense contractor, and your state rep voted for a war-bond.) Wherever you stand on this slippery slope, it still leads down. Whether you agree with your country's policies or not, you are subject to the results of its actions.
I won't argue that waging a war is never necessary. I also subscribe to rules of conduct for the military. That means I have to support certain mutually exclusive ideas. That's nuts, for sure, but there it is.
posted by mule98J at 12:31 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Dresden as well as the Cologne bombings were terrible and pretty much a war crime. All Army Air Corps. that I have talked too and interviewed were almost of the same opinion that these bombings should not have happened.
posted by clavdivs at 1:48 PM on February 15, 2015
posted by clavdivs at 1:48 PM on February 15, 2015
Injustice begets injustice and war. And some wars are about aggression and greed mixed in with an inflated sense of injustice. The only reason I can possibly see for the US to have its monster military and armory is that aggressors only respect strength. We evolve towards peace, and ideally, we'll evolve enough before we all kill each other. The motivation for war in Iraq was greed for military contracts and oil. I find it especially repulsive. The veneer of patriotism and protection from terrorism was so thin that it was easy to see through, but we still did it, and caused so much death and pain and trouble and more war. War perpetuates itself. It's horrific to kill thousands of people in an especially grim manner. Each individual death is a horror, whether it's from a bullet, a mine, a bomb, a flamethrower or a plane hitting a building.
I was/am distressed by the lack of news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you don't see the result of the drone strike, the bomb, the bullets, the mines, you don't really care much. The economic draft means that the enlisted ranks are generally not the kids of those in power. The veteran with prostheses or PTSD isn't in your neighborhood. Profiting from war is immoral, and should be prohibited as an 11th commandment.
posted by theora55 at 2:22 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was/am distressed by the lack of news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you don't see the result of the drone strike, the bomb, the bullets, the mines, you don't really care much. The economic draft means that the enlisted ranks are generally not the kids of those in power. The veteran with prostheses or PTSD isn't in your neighborhood. Profiting from war is immoral, and should be prohibited as an 11th commandment.
posted by theora55 at 2:22 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Many of those armchair generals debating the use of atomic weapons against Japan are using that well-known instrument physicians call "the retrospect-oscope." They should consider the desperation of those actually fighting or affected by the war in 1945.
Casualties in battles against Japan had mounted greatly as the US and allied forces neared the Japanese homeland. The brutality of the Japanese army toward captured soldiers (more than 500,000 killed) and occupied civilians (12-20 million killed) was well known. Furthermore, the Japanese military was using suicide (kamikaze) attacks quite effectively, and had indoctrinated civilians to participate or to commit suicide (22,000 suicides in Saipan for example). Despite its greatly depleted military, Japan's will to fight had NOT decreased, and it was able to INCREASE the toll against the American forces as the war progressed.
Had the US not used the atomic weapons, an invasion of Japan would have been a certainty. Millions of Japanese civilians would likely have died. From the perspective those likely to fight or to send people into battle, projections were that 250,000 US servicemen would have been killed and over a million wounded. It is difficult to imagine public reaction if even a fraction of those casualties had materialized and then it had been revealed that a super weapon that might have have ended the war not been used. The American public and the American military wanted to save American lives, and there was neither the time nor the patience for second guessing.
Those arguing that Soviet Union joining the fight would have convinced Japan to surrender without the atomic attacks are not credible, in my opinion. Japan had no hope of winning the war already. It's navy was gone, and its substantial army in Manchuria had no transport to the home islands. It's strategy, if it could be called that, was to save face by making an invasion so costly that the US and its allies would seek an armistice rather than total victory. This essentially was the hoped for response from the US since the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Even if there were some in the Japanese government advocating surrender, there were many who were not. AFTER the atomic weapons were used, there was an attempted coup by a faction that wanted to prevent the emperor from surrendering. In any case, given the brutality of Soviet occupation of Germany and other Eastern European countries, it's hard to imagine that Japan would have been better off being divided as Korea is, and the atomic weapons prevented that.
I have never spoken to a single person that lived through a Japanese occupation or whose parents lived through one that had any misgivings about the use of the atomic weapons. Likewise for those who were likely to fight in the invasion. In fact, one daughter of Chinese parents who lived through the Japanese occupation told that she wished that even atomic weapons had been used. I would venture she is not alone.
Those weapons were horrible. No one is arguing that. The vast majority of the people killed and maimed in those attacks did not deserve it. But the same is true for the millions (both Japanese and American) that did NOT die or were NOT maimed because those weapons were used.
SOME CASUALTY NUMBERS
Battle of Tarawa (20-23 Nov 1943) (four days)
US ~3,700 (1,600 killed 2,100 wounded)
Japan 4,700 killed
Battle of Saipan (15 Jun - 9 Jul 1944) (3.5 weeks)
US 1~3,000 (3,400 killed 10,000 wounded)
Japan 24,000
civilians 22,000
Battle of Iwo Jima (19 Feb – 26 Mar 1945) (1 month)
US ~26,000 (6,800 killed 19,000 wounded)
Japan ~19,000
Battle of the Philippines (20 Oct 1944 - 15 Aug 1945) (10 months)
US ~52,000 (14,000 killed 48,000 wounded)
Japan 336,000 killed
Civilians unknown
Battle of Okinawa (1 Apr - 22 Jun 1945) (3 months)
US ~50,000 (12,000 killed 38,000 wounded)
Japan ~80,000 killed
Civilian 40,000-150,000
Estimated civilians killed by Japanese forces China and the Far East: 12-20 million
Estimated POWs killed in Japanese custody: >500,000
Invasion of Japan (projected)
US >1 million (250,000 killed 1.2 million wounded)
Japan 5-10 million, mostly civilians
posted by haiku warrior at 3:28 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Casualties in battles against Japan had mounted greatly as the US and allied forces neared the Japanese homeland. The brutality of the Japanese army toward captured soldiers (more than 500,000 killed) and occupied civilians (12-20 million killed) was well known. Furthermore, the Japanese military was using suicide (kamikaze) attacks quite effectively, and had indoctrinated civilians to participate or to commit suicide (22,000 suicides in Saipan for example). Despite its greatly depleted military, Japan's will to fight had NOT decreased, and it was able to INCREASE the toll against the American forces as the war progressed.
Had the US not used the atomic weapons, an invasion of Japan would have been a certainty. Millions of Japanese civilians would likely have died. From the perspective those likely to fight or to send people into battle, projections were that 250,000 US servicemen would have been killed and over a million wounded. It is difficult to imagine public reaction if even a fraction of those casualties had materialized and then it had been revealed that a super weapon that might have have ended the war not been used. The American public and the American military wanted to save American lives, and there was neither the time nor the patience for second guessing.
Those arguing that Soviet Union joining the fight would have convinced Japan to surrender without the atomic attacks are not credible, in my opinion. Japan had no hope of winning the war already. It's navy was gone, and its substantial army in Manchuria had no transport to the home islands. It's strategy, if it could be called that, was to save face by making an invasion so costly that the US and its allies would seek an armistice rather than total victory. This essentially was the hoped for response from the US since the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Even if there were some in the Japanese government advocating surrender, there were many who were not. AFTER the atomic weapons were used, there was an attempted coup by a faction that wanted to prevent the emperor from surrendering. In any case, given the brutality of Soviet occupation of Germany and other Eastern European countries, it's hard to imagine that Japan would have been better off being divided as Korea is, and the atomic weapons prevented that.
I have never spoken to a single person that lived through a Japanese occupation or whose parents lived through one that had any misgivings about the use of the atomic weapons. Likewise for those who were likely to fight in the invasion. In fact, one daughter of Chinese parents who lived through the Japanese occupation told that she wished that even atomic weapons had been used. I would venture she is not alone.
Those weapons were horrible. No one is arguing that. The vast majority of the people killed and maimed in those attacks did not deserve it. But the same is true for the millions (both Japanese and American) that did NOT die or were NOT maimed because those weapons were used.
SOME CASUALTY NUMBERS
Battle of Tarawa (20-23 Nov 1943) (four days)
US ~3,700 (1,600 killed 2,100 wounded)
Japan 4,700 killed
Battle of Saipan (15 Jun - 9 Jul 1944) (3.5 weeks)
US 1~3,000 (3,400 killed 10,000 wounded)
Japan 24,000
civilians 22,000
Battle of Iwo Jima (19 Feb – 26 Mar 1945) (1 month)
US ~26,000 (6,800 killed 19,000 wounded)
Japan ~19,000
Battle of the Philippines (20 Oct 1944 - 15 Aug 1945) (10 months)
US ~52,000 (14,000 killed 48,000 wounded)
Japan 336,000 killed
Civilians unknown
Battle of Okinawa (1 Apr - 22 Jun 1945) (3 months)
US ~50,000 (12,000 killed 38,000 wounded)
Japan ~80,000 killed
Civilian 40,000-150,000
Estimated civilians killed by Japanese forces China and the Far East: 12-20 million
Estimated POWs killed in Japanese custody: >500,000
Invasion of Japan (projected)
US >1 million (250,000 killed 1.2 million wounded)
Japan 5-10 million, mostly civilians
posted by haiku warrior at 3:28 PM on February 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I can't think of Dresden without thinking about the Rotterdam Blitz. Visit Rotterdam and there isn't a historic site to be found... except the St. Lawrence church.
posted by xtian at 5:50 PM on February 15, 2015
posted by xtian at 5:50 PM on February 15, 2015
The horrors of war are too easily forgotten with the passing of generations. Intellectualizing this stuff may be the only guard we have against allowing them to happen again in the future.
posted by psmealey at 6:16 PM on February 15, 2015
posted by psmealey at 6:16 PM on February 15, 2015
That's almost exactly what folks were thinking mid 1945.
How's that working for us.
posted by clavdivs at 7:26 PM on February 15, 2015
How's that working for us.
posted by clavdivs at 7:26 PM on February 15, 2015
Not great. What's the alternative?
Apparently rationalizing and whitewashing atrocities before, during, and after the fact.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:24 PM on February 15, 2015
Apparently rationalizing and whitewashing atrocities before, during, and after the fact.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:24 PM on February 15, 2015
I'm not seeing any whitewashing going on. The emotional impact of the images in the OP is undeniable. That people are not responding to these images and facts in a way that you deem appropriate is entirely your prerogative, that doesn't make it whitewashing.
Of course we can all decry that horrors of war with requisite sensitivity and outrage. So what?
posted by psmealey at 8:27 PM on February 15, 2015
Of course we can all decry that horrors of war with requisite sensitivity and outrage. So what?
posted by psmealey at 8:27 PM on February 15, 2015
Doing that might be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn't reveal anything new or particularly interesting.
posted by psmealey at 8:34 PM on February 15, 2015
posted by psmealey at 8:34 PM on February 15, 2015
that doesn't make it whitewashing.
We seem to have different definitions of whitewashing. If that term is too problematic for you I am happy to keep it at rationalizing.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:34 PM on February 15, 2015
We seem to have different definitions of whitewashing. If that term is too problematic for you I am happy to keep it at rationalizing.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:34 PM on February 15, 2015
Doing that might be emotionally satisfying
Ah yes the mind reading has begun. Excellent. Now what am I feeling? Extra points for being creative.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:37 PM on February 15, 2015
Ah yes the mind reading has begun. Excellent. Now what am I feeling? Extra points for being creative.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 8:37 PM on February 15, 2015
I'm not exactly sure why you take issue with analyzing or yes, even rationalizing events of the past. It's what historians do. It's what humans do. As for that snark, that's a waste of time. have a nice evening.
posted by psmealey at 8:39 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by psmealey at 8:39 PM on February 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One comment deleted. Let's keep the discussion centered on the topic, please.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:40 AM on February 16, 2015
posted by taz (staff) at 6:40 AM on February 16, 2015
"Not great. What's the alternative?"
A great question. I believe that these horrors like Dresden were a product of a war weary society who made a wrong decision. But after the war, the allies sought to keep Japan and Germany militarly weak by treaty.
I'm afraid those countries may have to re-arm if some world wide settlement is not agreed upon.
posted by clavdivs at 7:10 PM on February 16, 2015
A great question. I believe that these horrors like Dresden were a product of a war weary society who made a wrong decision. But after the war, the allies sought to keep Japan and Germany militarly weak by treaty.
I'm afraid those countries may have to re-arm if some world wide settlement is not agreed upon.
posted by clavdivs at 7:10 PM on February 16, 2015
Now seems like a good time to quote Winston Churchill's repugnantly pragmatic comments some time after the terror bombing of Dresden.
Also worth noting that Churchill was also pressuring for the rapid development of anthrax bombs to be dropped on German cities. The United States went as far as building a typical German village at the Dugway Proving Ground in the Utah desert to use in the testing of early non-nuclear WMDs.
posted by quartzcity at 9:39 PM on February 16, 2015
Also worth noting that Churchill was also pressuring for the rapid development of anthrax bombs to be dropped on German cities. The United States went as far as building a typical German village at the Dugway Proving Ground in the Utah desert to use in the testing of early non-nuclear WMDs.
posted by quartzcity at 9:39 PM on February 16, 2015
What goes unsaid is that the Germans tried to subdue Britain by terror bombing of London, rather than attacking airfields, which would have made a better military objective.
I don't believe this to be the case. Weren't the first attacks on London basically errors, by forces sent to raid airfields? The sustained attacks on London were in response to the bombing of Berlin.
posted by pompomtom at 1:27 AM on February 17, 2015
I don't believe this to be the case. Weren't the first attacks on London basically errors, by forces sent to raid airfields? The sustained attacks on London were in response to the bombing of Berlin.
posted by pompomtom at 1:27 AM on February 17, 2015
I don't believe this to be the case. Weren't the first attacks on London basically errors, by forces sent to raid airfields? The sustained attacks on London were in response to the bombing of Berlin.
That's not how I was taught it. Wikipedia seems to agree with musofire, to the extent that Wikipedia is reliable. Germany had tried to bomb British airfields, but their results were poor, mostly owing to weak German intelligence. The switch to bombing-as-terror was a strategic mistake, but not an error in the sense that they had really meant to be bombing other things.
Do you have a source for the idea that the Blitz had begun as an error?
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:37 AM on February 17, 2015
That's not how I was taught it. Wikipedia seems to agree with musofire, to the extent that Wikipedia is reliable. Germany had tried to bomb British airfields, but their results were poor, mostly owing to weak German intelligence. The switch to bombing-as-terror was a strategic mistake, but not an error in the sense that they had really meant to be bombing other things.
Do you have a source for the idea that the Blitz had begun as an error?
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:37 AM on February 17, 2015
Just due to laziness, wikipedia:
This was a result of a rapid escalation starting on 24 August 1940, when night bombers aiming for RAF airfields drifted off course and accidentally destroyed several London homes, killing civilians, combined with the UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill's immediate response of bombing Berlin on the following night.
I had been led to believe (vague rememberings here....) that Hitler was specifically against bombing London, precisely because of the threat of reprisals. Churchill ordered the Berlin raids, and then it all kicked off.
posted by pompomtom at 3:52 AM on February 17, 2015
This was a result of a rapid escalation starting on 24 August 1940, when night bombers aiming for RAF airfields drifted off course and accidentally destroyed several London homes, killing civilians, combined with the UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill's immediate response of bombing Berlin on the following night.
I had been led to believe (vague rememberings here....) that Hitler was specifically against bombing London, precisely because of the threat of reprisals. Churchill ordered the Berlin raids, and then it all kicked off.
posted by pompomtom at 3:52 AM on February 17, 2015
Oh, I see what you're saying. Aside from my own misreading and misremembering, I had remembered the issue as being framed around the Germans being divided on the topic, but then focusing on terror bombing and sticking with it. You're right that they had accidentally drifted off course, but surely the decision to stick with the terror bombing was fully intentional? The Berlin raids didn't force Germany's hand to use one strategy or another: Germany chose to respond as it did.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:23 AM on February 17, 2015
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:23 AM on February 17, 2015
Churchill played Hitler like a 3£ organ grinder. It was about resources, the Luftwaffes' BDA was marginal at best. If a sustained attack against southern air command would have be relized? A lot road in air superiority. IMO, one of the last "great" battles for potential survival. I do believe the US would have declared war early if Britisn lost its air superiorty and was facing imminent invasion. The question of what it could done is another matter.
posted by clavdivs at 1:09 PM on February 17, 2015
posted by clavdivs at 1:09 PM on February 17, 2015
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"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. We shall not, for instance, be able to get housing materials out of Germany for our own needs because some temporary provision would have to be made for the Germans themselves. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforth be more strictly studied in our own interests rather than that of the enemy."
posted by knapah at 6:00 PM on February 14, 2015 [4 favorites]