“It might account for Japan’s panicking into error. Unless hindsight is wrong, and it is never wrong, they are headed dead into the fire swamp. Uh…Midway.”
Apologies if this is slightly off-topic re: bomb the emperor vs not bombing him.
My father was a middle-school teenager in Tokyo during the war and witnessed the Doolittle Raid first hand. I thought his, admittedly very limited, viewpoint might be of some interest in regards to the morale effect on the Japanese civilian population.
He recalls that he was playing outside in his front yard when he suddenly heard a distant pop pop pop of anti-aircraft fire. He looked up to see expanding black puffs of smoke in the sky and then a very fast, very low flying airplane shot across the city. The anti-aircraft fire was ineffectual and didn’t appear to touch the bomber. Dad speculates that the gunners were inexperienced and didn’t lead the aircraft properly and thus he saw a stream of exploding black clouds trailing the speeding aircraft without damaging it.
When the aircraft was lost from sight, he ran to inform his friends and then they all ran to his house to search their magazines for a likely identification. Dad says that early on in the war that there were lots of books and magazine-type publications available that discussed the various world’s fighter planes and bombers and their known specifications. It was extremely popular among the young boys to read up and be the first to correctly identify any military planes they saw flying. Dad had a very good view of the unknown plane and positively identified it as an American Mitchell bomber! How exciting that the Americans had come to fight in the skies over their homes! (he goes on to say that throughout the war, and especially towards the end, it was the best thing ever to watch and cheer on the pilots as they dogfighted over Tokyo. They had no sense at all of the serious nature of warfare and it was like a movie, except far better)
The next day there was a single headline in the newspaper, informing the citizens that the Americans had staged a pointless and ineffectual raid, led by the notorious Captain Doolittle. In fact the actual headline was something along the lines of, “Mr. Do-Nothing accomplishes…nothing”. Thereafter, Dad always heard him referred to as Captain Do-Nothing by the adults.
As to the effect on morale, Dad says that from his perspective there was no change at all in attitude among his friends and neighbors. The belief seemed to be that nothing was accomplished and that the raiders obviously could not hurt anyone. So who cares?
I asked him about bombing the emperor during the Doolittle Raid, as discussed in this thread. His personal opinion is that, at the time, it would have been a huge mistake to attempt to kill the Emperor. He believes that it would have caused outrage among the population and created even more support for the war. Perhaps if he had been killed when the war was going poorly, it may have made some difference. But at this early stage, the people were feeling confidant and would have seen it as an inexcusable provocation.
Granted this is all from the perspective of a teenage boy recalled by an 82 year old. Interesting nonetheless.
Thanks, Prongo.
Very cool.
Thanks Pongo,
Priceless!
Crane
In 1993 I was told this personally by at least two Japanese people, one was a tour guide in Kyoto and the other a senior officer of the Japanese bank I worked for at the time.
It’s worth noting that Kyoto was originally on the short list list for the atomic bomb - precisely because it -was- undamaged. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who had honeymooned in Kyoto and liked the city, very firmly ordered General Groves to take it off the list. Nagasaki was substituted.
They certainly are. The planners considered and rejected a daytime attack. They considered the risks too high because the opposition would be alerted before the bombers reached their targets, and the defenses would be too strong. Attacking the palace would have made a daylight raid absolutely necessary, and they ruled out a daylight attack against any target. It turns out they were wrong, but they only discovered that through hindsight.