Atomic debate: bombing Japan

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
The firebombing of Dresden was a British operation though, wasn’t it? To the best of my limited knowledge, the US tried to limit its bombing operations in Europe to “targeted” missions. Of course targeted missions with the technology of the time wasn’t exactly percise, and often failed to destroy the target or limit collateral damage. But so far as I know the US refrained from carpeting European cities with incindiaries in the way they did in Japan or the British did in Europe.
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However, this is in part due to the different theatres of war - the geography, the vulnerabilities of the enemy, and the weapons platforms available. USAAF leadership in Europe didn’t firebomb German cities because

  1. German cities weren’t as vulnerable to that tactic, for a variety of reasons,
  2. The B-29 was not available until much later in the war, when USAAF suqadrons in England were already loaded with B-17s and B-24s, and
  3. Since the British and Canadians were already doing the firebombing anyway, why replicate the effort? The advantage of the dual Allied bombing effort in Germany is that you could satisfy both theories of stretegic bombing. (It’s also worth noting that British/Cdn bombers didn’t attempt a lot of precision bombing in part because their planes simply weren’t built to do that.)

By comparison, Japan (a) was inherently more vulnerable to fire bombing, (b) wasn’t being heavily bombed until the arrival of the B-29, and (c) nobody else was doing it.

It’s preposterous, post-hoc rationalizing to pretend they wouldn’t have A-bombed Germany just because Germans are white. I’m not going to pretend the anti-Japanese racism wasn’t really vicious, because it was, but it’s worth noting that the U.S. was fighting the war in Europe every bit as hard as they were in the Pacific. If the U.S. had produced an A-bomb in time to drop it in May 1944, you’d better believe Stuttgart or Koln or some other luckless city was going to get it in the pants.

22

If I recall correctly (And I may well be wrong.) the Dresden mission was a combined operation, utilizing both USAAC and RAF forces. But, you’re right that it was a departure from normal US tactics, and that it was a British planned operation. ‘Bomber’ Harris was a bloodthirsty bastard, IMNSHO.

I’m not trying to claim that the US military wasn’t more concerned about enemy civilian casualties in the European theatre than it was in the Pacific theatre, within in the outlines of the plans for the strategic picture. If Germany had still been in the fight, I don’t think that there’s much room to doubt that the A-bomb would have been used over Europe. Certainly the focus of the Manhattan Project was to perfect the bomb before Hitler could get his going - and then the first target would have been Heidelberg, I believe, where Heisenberg was working on his bomb project.

23

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
If I recall correctly (And I may well be wrong.) the Dresden mission was a combined operation, utilizing both USAAC and RAF forces.
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It was a combined operation, as was the probably more destructive and deadly, although less noted, bombing of Hamburg.

24

[QUOTE=RickJay]
It’s preposterous, post-hoc rationalizing to pretend they wouldn’t have A-bombed Germany just because Germans are white.
[/QUOTE]

Einstein and Co. who suggested the building of nuclear weapons planned for their use against Germany.

25

Iwo Jima and some of the other island fighting indicated that the Japanese would fight to the death for something they conquered. On what basis would anyone conclude they would fight less for their homeland? And there was an (abortive) coup waged to try to prevent the surrender after Nagasaki.

It needed to be made clear - Japan was going to lose everything, and it would cost the allies nothing. There was going to be no chance for a Japanese to die for the Emperor, and take a couple of Americans with him/her. One by one by one, their cities would cease to exist. And there was nothing the Japanese could do about it.

That’s the message, sent and received.

"Hiroshima was first. Nagasaki was second.

Tokyo is next.

Maitta?"

Regards,
Shodan

26

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
If I recall correctly (And I may well be wrong.) the Dresden mission was a combined operation, utilizing both USAAC and RAF forces. But, you’re right that it was a departure from normal US tactics, and that it was a British planned operation. ‘Bomber’ Harris was a bloodthirsty bastard, IMNSHO.

[/QUOTE]

Attacking Harris has always struck me as the easy way out. The rationale behind the British Strategic Bombers was actually an antiwar, rather than a blood thirsty one. The policy was based on the concept that attacking civilian/industrial targets would make war less likely, rather than worse. The idea was that exposing the home front to the horrors of war would make it impossible, much as people argue now that a draft would make a war unpalatable.

You have to remember the short and long term background faced by Harris. Britain was defined at the time by the WWI experience. The intention was to work out any way whatsoever that the Somme/Passchendaele experience could be prevented from occuring again. Attacking the enemy’s capacity to fight a war was seen as a way of shortening and winning the war. This isn’t to say it worked as planned, but at least, from the British point of view, the war of attrition occured in the east not the west.

The short term background as well was that of British isolation, British inability to directly attack the Germans, discontent about the war at home, and a German attempt (pretty successful) to starve the UK out of the war. Britain in WWI had attacked the German heartland through a naval blockade - with the Nazis controlling Europe that was going to be impossible. Starving a people is not IMHO any better than bombing them (applies to Japan too). So the UK, in desperate need of striking back at the Germans (who, let’s remember, were pretty whole heartedly in favor of the war at this time), and began a strategic bombing campaign. And lets not forget the Blitz. The fact it wasn’t as succesful as RAF and USAAF attacks on Germany isn’t the issue. Given half a chance the Germans would have raised British cities to the ground, and then ploughed them with salt.

So Harris presided over a policy of strategic bombing. While he supported it, for reasons detailed above, blame Churchill for allowing it, if you want. The policy was area bombing not precision bombing because precision bombing didn’t work. The death rates of RAF crews on night raids were high enough - day raids could not have been sustained for any period of time. As for Dresden, well, it was a communications center, it was a legitimate military target, and while large numbers of civilian casualties aren’t IMHO a good thing, I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it.

Nor Hiroshima or Nagasaki either, to tell you the truth. Carrying on and invading Japan would have, I am guessing, killed more Japanese than died in the two bombs. Starving them out would have done as well. People can talk about peace feelers all they wish, but the Japanese government had a choice. They could have surrendered at any time. They didn’t, and bad things went on to happen. While I accept there were other reasons for dropping the bomb other than forcing a surrender (frightening the Russians) I think the results without it would have been more horrific, both for Americans, Japanese, and the countries they had occupied.

27

It was more of a political effect rather than a military one. Japan had been trying to end the war (although on relatively favorable terms). The Soviet Union was planning on entering the war against Japan after Germany surrendered for a share of the spoils. So the Soviets didn’t want Japan to surrender too early. So when Japan approached the Soviet Union and asked if they could put out some feelers about a negotiated peace with the United States, the Soviets strung them along - the Soviets led the Japanese to believe that there was a real prospect of the United States agreeing to an easy peace so they wouldn’t surrender.

Then when the Soviets were ready, they declared war on Japan and rolled across Manchuria. The Japanese suddenly realized they had been fooled and there had never been any chance of a negotiated peace.

28

From what I’ve read, the situation was the opposite. American military intelligence underestimated the amount of military equipment Japan had stockpiled for the defense of the home islands and the occupation forces were surprised to see how much the Japanese still had left.

29

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Then when the Soviets were ready, they declared war on Japan and rolled across Manchuria.
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And accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in what became North Korea, if I am not mistaken.

30

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
What would’ve been planned as an (I assume you mean non-nuclear) encore? If all the major cities had been bombed out (with the exception of Kyoto, which War Secretary Stimson had ordered be left untouched, and of course the atomic bomb candidates) I imagine that any future bombing campaign would’ve been less effective. Bombing the countryside obviously wouldn’t be as destructive in terms of lives or infrastructure as bombing the center of Tokyo had been.

Perhaps I’m wrong and their was more left to destroy, but from the history I’ve read of the US bombing campaign, that wasn’t the impression I was left with.
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I cannot give you a reference, but I did see a copy of the plans years ago while in university. One of my profs showed me. (Us, actually, this was no big classified secret then.) 50 cities. They were still standing after being bombed before, but if they had proceeded, there would have been absolutely nothing left. 50 Dresdens. That was in the cards before it was decided to use the A bomb. They seemed determined tho get this war wrapped up pronto.

31

[QUOTE=Shodan]
"Hiroshima was first. Nagasaki was second.

Tokyo is next.

Maitta?"

Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

If I remember correctly, we only had the two bombs at the time. It would have taken awhile to build another one and ship it over. Not TOO long, but long enough that they were hoping the Japanese would surrender after the second bomb.

Does anyone remember the anecdote told in “Jaws” about the sinking of the … what was it? The Indianapolis? After it was returning from delivering the bomb? It was such a top-secret mission that it was almost a week before anyone realized it was missing. The survivors were kept floating that long, some eaten by sharks while waiting. I believe that was a true story. Imagine if it had been sunk on the way TO delivering the bomb.

32

[QUOTE=villa]
Attacking Harris has always struck me as the easy way out. The rationale behind the British Strategic Bombers was actually an antiwar, rather than a blood thirsty one. The policy was based on the concept that attacking civilian/industrial targets would make war less likely, rather than worse. The idea was that exposing the home front to the horrors of war would make it impossible, much as people argue now that a draft would make a war unpalatable.
[/QUOTE]

I agree. Harris can become an easy scapegoat for the the RAF, and Great Britain, during WWII. And he didn’t work in isolation. For that matter, as you point out, he wasn’t acting to create his own operational strategy but rather following a plan given to him by his civilian government.

I don’t think that Harris was a monster. A very, very angry man, yes. But not a monster. Of course, anything that one wants to say about Harris is usually applicable to Churchill and others in the British government at the time. And, as you point out, ending the war as decisively and as quickly as possible is a goal I can support, and would have supported at the time, I believe.

That doesn’t change that I still think he was a bloodthirsty bastard. And while I accept the argument that the policy was one he was required to carry out, my understanding is that he took a certain pleasure in creating nightmares, like Dresden.

Little Nemo, my memory agrees with yours. The majority of the planning staff at the Pentagon couldn’t imagine the situation in the Japanese home islands. And, of course, the apparant fanatacism of the Japanese civilians on Iwo Jima and Saipan truly horrified anyone who used that for a model for the cost of an invasion of Japan.

Daniel Gallery has a very readable WWII memoir, mostly focusing on his capture of a U-Boat on the high seas, that touches on this topic. He’d been assigned to the Pentagon during the planning stages, and when he tried to point out that an island nation like Japan couldn’t maintain an industrial economy in the face of the kind of blockade that existed at the time, he was shouted over - it wasn’t something that the primarily Army planners could accept or consider.
Siam Sam - you’re right. Both that the two bombs used represented the sum of all the fissionables that the US had refined at the moment, and that the story about the sinking of the Indianapolis mentioned in Jaws was fairly accurate.

33

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Certainly the focus of the Manhattan Project was to perfect the bomb before Hitler could get his going - and then the first target would have been Heidelberg, I believe, where Heisenberg was working on his bomb project.
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That is curious, my understanding was that there was some sort of deal that Freiburg and Heidelburg would be left alone, as would Oxford and Cambridge.

Neither side (supposedly) could bring themselves to destroy places where they had studied as exchange students.

I can’t find any cites - which is annoying.

34

People advocate blockade like it was some kind of peaceful alternative. Do you understand how a blockade works? The product being interdicted was food. And the Japanese government had made plans on dealing with the growing food shortages. The first step was going to be killing all non-Japanese - POWs and forced laborers. Then the “non-essential” members of society - children and the elderly - would have their food rations cut off. The remainder of the Japanese civilians would have their rations reduced to the point of slow starvation so they could keep working up to the point of death. The military would get priority (and have the guns) so they would have lasted the longest. Of course, things probably wouldn’t have gone completely according to plan - even in Japan some soldiers would have rebelled at the idea of their own family members dying. There’d have been mutinies and civil war which would have gotten worse once the food supply got low enough for units to start fighting each other for their own survival (and for the fresh meat). Japan wouldn’t have just been defeated by a blockade - it would have been destroyed. But on the plus side, we have maintained our moral superiority by not bombing two cities.

35

To see the effects of a close-to-full food blockade, I’d recommend reading The 900 Days by Harrison E. Salisbury about the Seige of Leningrad. I agree that submission by seige would have been barbaric.

I too have always heard the story that Heidelberg and Oxford were mutually excluded from bombing, which might have been a mistake for the Germans given the Cowley plant in Oxford producing lots of tanks.

I just haven’t seen any evidence of this. I am not denying it might exist, but I haven’t seen it. Churchill I am not a fan of, but that is because of his pre and post war record more. Harris has become a target, without any kind of consideration of what else should have been done.

36

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
People advocate blockade like it was some kind of peaceful alternative.
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I’m not advocating it as a non-violent alternative to using the A-bomb. Nor was Gallery. He was suggesting that the need to invade to force the war aim of unconditional surrender on Japan was based on assumptions that were failing to take into account the effects of the combination of the blockade and the strategic bombing campaigns. His concern wasn’t for the Japanese people who would be killed by using the A-bomb, nor for the same casualties that would be imposed on the civilian population in the event of an invasion. His concern was that invading would be an unecessary waste of American lives.

From what I recall of the tone of his memoir, there was some ambivalence for having not done more to stop the use of the bomb, but that is hindsight talking, and I didn’t get the impression that he’d had any moral qualms at the time for the use of some kind of super bomb.

villa, you may be right. My reading was a bit more cursory, and mostly third or fourth sources, about the planning behind the Dresden raid. I never bothered to check the sources, so my opinion of Harris may be being influenced by other’s prejudices. My interest in WWII is mostly in the naval affairs anyways, so I tend to pick up the other parts piecemeal.

As for my suggestion for using the A-bomb to take out Heidelberg, and Heisenberg’s team, that was based on nothing more than my own estimates of the dangers of a Nazi regieme in command of something like the A-Bomb. If there were some kind of bye for university towns, so be it.