Dan Carlin covered the firebombing of Tokyo in one of the Hardcore History podcasts. It was a fascinating listen, but I can't remember which episode it was.
The Firebombing of Tokyo
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Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#12Dresden was fire bombed too. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_firebombing I think 40m-50m civilians died in WW2. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties It sure would have been nice to avoid the war. America certainly didn't want to be part of it. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Reuben_James_(DD-245)
Yea, we should've let Hitler have Europe. Good idea.
It would have been a lot more difficult, but Russia was destined to overtake Germany even without the Allies help.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#13I really have problems with articles written 70+ years later about WWII making assumptions and conclusions about what one nation "had to" or "didn't have to do" to protect it's people and win the war.
Viewed through our modern lenses of morality, with almost a century of data to inform on these opinions, it seems unfair to claim "racism" when likely the real story is more muddied, and more influenced by other factors.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#14Dan Carlin covered the firebombing of Tokyo in one of the Hardcore History podcasts. It was a fascinating listen, but I can't remember which episode it was.
Just stared listening to Hardcore History, and that was the first one I listened to. He talks about the bombings of London, and the bombings that the Allies carried out as well.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-l...
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#15Dan Carlin covered the firebombing of Tokyo in one of the Hardcore History podcasts. It was a fascinating listen, but I can't remember which episode it was.
You may be thinking of logical insanity, which I also recommend.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-l...
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, we should've let Hitler have Europe. Good idea.
It would have been a lot more difficult, but Russia was destined to overtake Germany even without the Allies help.
I'm sorry, but that is at best an incredibly simplistic view. Russia got a lot of military supplies from the west, and Germany spent a huge portion of its air capacity on britan. If the allies hadn't taken north Africa and the mideast back, Germany would not have run out of oil either.
Your claim is just wishful thinking, not history.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#17People forget history is written by the victors. For example, on Sept 11th 1944, my hometown of Darmstadt (a unprotected city of little strategic importance that late in the war: it had a single north-south / east-west railroad crossing, that's it) was bombed with white phosphorus by the British. 10,000 civilians died in the first few hours. 1/3 of the city was leveled. It's not clear to me right now, but my parents…
People say history is written by the victors but still accept the standard narrative.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#18I really have problems with articles written 70+ years later about WWII making assumptions and conclusions about what one nation "had to" or "didn't have to do" to protect it's people and win the war. Viewed through our modern lenses of morality, with almost a century of data to inform on these opinions, it seems unfair to claim "racism" when likely the real story is more muddied, and more influenced by other factors…
Thank you for saying this. I am continually surprised by some of these articles attempting to use their 20/20 hindsight to pretend they know what was the right thing to do at the time.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#19It's a mistake to judge the actions of the past by the perceptions of the present.
Should we bomb civilians? No. Was the bombing of civilians a commonplace and accepted strategy in WWII? Yes.
So who is right--our present judgment of how civilians fit into warfare or the then-judgment of how civilians fit into warfare?
That is, I think, a reasonable and important question. The article's error is to assume that it knows the answer, perhaps even not to realize that the question is there to be asked or that it haunts the whole discussion. This oversight causes the author to write with pain, confusion, and a sense of indignation and to try to convey this pain, confusion, and indignation to us. Those of us who easily agree with the author's ethical perspective will comfortably join in the drum-beating and cry-rallying. But those who recognize that different times and cultures and situations raise real and serious questions about our perception of ethics will be slower to judge the past.
I'm thankful that we live in a time when we can tread carefully in how we wage war and can work hard to avoid civilian casualties. I agree that wherever possible, civilians--even enemy civilians--should be protected from violence. Killing innocents--even enemy innocents--is wrong. But I don't assume that every time is like ours. If you want to convince me that the bombing of Tokyo (or Dresden or anywhere else) is wrong, convince me that it was wrong by the lights of the people who did it, not be the lights of people who can sit comfortably in their air conditioned offices seventy years later, tapping our opinions into softly glowing screens.
Re: The Firebombing of Tokyo
#20People forget history is written by the victors. For example, on Sept 11th 1944, my hometown of Darmstadt (a unprotected city of little strategic importance that late in the war: it had a single north-south / east-west railroad crossing, that's it) was bombed with white phosphorus by the British. 10,000 civilians died in the first few hours. 1/3 of the city was leveled. It's not clear to me right now, but my parents…
On the other hand, Nazi Germany was pretty much "the devil" back then, and quite rightly so. Germans were bombing Britain, causing massive disruption and fear.
We'd like to hope that modern societies would refrain from war crimes even in the face of fear and irrational anger, but in the "war on terror" this has happened again, albeit on a much smaller scale.
I prefer not to pass judgement. I believe we should seek peace rather than "truth" whenever we can.