The Fire Bombing of Tokyo -- March 10, 1945

[DrSchadenfreude]

The Fire Bombing of Tokyo -- March 10, 1945

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945)

    On the night of March 9–10, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan.[1] Bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack of World War II. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved largely inadequate; 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.

The attack on Tokyo was an intensification of the air raids on Japan which had begun in June 1944. Prior to this operation, the USAAF had focused on a precision bombing campaign against Japanese industrial facilities. These attacks were generally unsuccessful, which contributed to the decision to shift to firebombing. The operation during the early hours of March 10 was the first major firebombing raid against a Japanese city, and the USAAF units employed significantly different tactics from those used in precision raids, including bombing by night with the aircraft flying at low altitudes. The extensive destruction caused by the raid led to these tactics becoming standard for the USAAF's B-29s until the end of the war.

There has been a long-running debate over the morality of the March 10 firebombing of Tokyo. The raid is often cited as a key example in criticism of the Allies' strategic bombing campaigns, with many historians and commentators arguing that it was not acceptable for the USAAF to deliberately target civilians, and other historians stating that the USAAF had no choice but to change to area bombing tactics given that the precision bombing campaign had failed. It is generally acknowledged that the tactics used against Tokyo and in similar subsequent raids were militarily "successful." The attack is commemorated at two official memorials, several neighborhood memorials, and a privately run museum.

[Deleted]

Japanese civilians were preparing to fight to the death with the threat of a coming invasion.  They were all totally devoted to the emperor, and they would have ALL taken up arms against invading Allied forces.

This is a well known FACT and is all the justification we needed to fire bomb them.  Demoralizing the enemy is a major factor in defeating him.  If we had not firebombed and nuked them, many more on BOTH sides would have died in ground combat.

Some people want to twist the truth.

[Buckeye Dale]

War is hell.
- General William Tecumseh Sherman

[DrSchadenfreude]

Mar 10, 2020 18:29:09 GMT -5 @muttthemaster said:

Japanese civilians were preparing to fight to the death with the threat of a coming invasion.  They were all totally devoted to the emperor, and they would have ALL taken up arms against invading Allied forces.

This is a well known FACT and is all the justification we needed to fire bomb them.  Demoralizing the enemy is a major factor in defeating him.  If we had not firebombed and nuked them, many more on BOTH sides would have died in ground combat.

Some people want to twist the truth.

    The tragic irony is that Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. military, ultimately, agreed in the August 1945 armistice to allow the Japanese royal family to remain in power-- after we had nuked the civilian populations of two Japanese cities and napalmed several others.  (Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Nimitz all disagreed with the decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

    The moral issue here is about the ethics of waging a genocidal war on civilian populations.  It's a war crime that the U.S. repeatedly committed in the 20th and 21st centuries.  The Nazis and Japanese were guilty of similar war crimes, (especially in Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and China) but that doesn't justify our own conduct.

    I know that Cowboy Ra mey disagrees with the concept of waging war on civilian populations-- as he has made clear in his condemnation of Sherman's march on Atlanta and Savannah during the American Civil War.