Anyone wanna play? I expect a few neo-cons to stick their hands up.

Curtis Lee May defended your freedoms sucessfully. End of story.

Fish on!

Incorrect, he did no such thinbg and disgraced the allies with his genocidal conduct.

Curtis Lee May helped create the deterrent within the Strategic Air Command, to be able to conduct Nuclear strikes. He helped the Allies win the war by decimating Japanese Cities.

Decimating Japanese cities of no military value. War crimes.

Japanese in no way to call upon war crimes. Decimating Japanese Cities reduces capabilities in which they can use against American military forces. Also note being, US Airforces in those days didn't have the precision armour and weapons we take for granted today.

Typical military doctrine was,

Fight war, destroy as much as enemy populations infrastructure and capability to fight the war at immense cost = make them surrender. This all before widescale or even use of Nuclear weapons. Global wars make sure that all gloves are off.

You can do all you want to compare our 'PC' fighting to their brutal war, but it is a different era, subject to different rules.

Firebombing cities is not a lack of precision, it's genocide.
Genocide is a war crime, therefore LeMay is a war criminal and should have shared the fate of Goering et. al.

Genocide is the elimination of a race, we weren't seeking the death of the Japanese as a people, we just wanted to hasten their downfall.

Firebombing Japanese cities was a necessity.



Hahaha, glad he didn't and died peacefully knowing that if you mess with the US, you get beaten the shit out of, which is a good message to tyrannical governments which tortured millions upon millions of Chinese and South Asian people's for neary 5-10 years. 751 anyone?

Global wars, without Nuclear weapons require similar weapons in which to wreak havoc. What would the US do in a nuclear war it didn't start which would be no different to what it did to Japanese Cities in World War Two?

Then why not do it through the constriction of supply lines and the elimination of manufacturing and military infrastructure instead of the bombing of civilian buildings wiht no military value?

Incorrect, most destruction was not of strategic importance.


Hahaha, glad Osama Bin Laden is going to die a free man knowing that you can strike at the heart of the US psyche and walk away unharmed.


So what of Stalin? What of China now?


WWI didn't. Horrific weapons were devised, yes, and almost exclusively used on enemy troops, not civilians.

How many American cities did the Japanese, or the Germans for that matter, firebomb?

Because they're too vague. If you destroy the factory and the surrounding inhabitants, you decrease there potential to make weapons.



I'd argue it was, it would divert large amounts of man power and time and effort for air defence of the homeland, rather than in the factories or work or army.



Because I'm sure he wanted the US in Afghanistan.



Nuclear confrontation. The desire not to have another world war after already having another one.



Because it was localised and became a deadlock, however in World War two, the devastation was widespread.



In world war two they were not.



Does it really matter? As for the Germans, they firebombed enough of England.

Curtis Lee May pulverised the Japanese and eventually moved it along towards surrender, thus ensuring that Japan would become a US orientated democratic state.

Having no where to live spreads disease more quickly, makes more people in Japan more desperate and unable to function as much as they could.

Why do you insist on mis-spelling Curtis LeMay's name, Ryan?

Because I'm British, and live in the home of the English language, when you do, you're allowed, ok?

Last names aren't like color and colour, Ryan, there's one correct way to spell them, that being the way the owner of the name does.

Anyway, we're getting off topic, I'll call him Curtis LeMay begrudgingly.

LB: Edited Flames

As would just destroying the factory. People can't manufacture 20th century weaponary in useful volumes without a factory.

What air defense? Towards the end of the war, US bombers were pounding Japanese cities at will. The Japanese war machine was gutted.

The same way you wanted suicide bombers on the tubes?

So torture is okay if they actually have a big stick to hit you back with? I'll take that as an implicit concession that the war was effectively over and that the continued rain of fire on Tokyo and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary.

There were still plenty of areas where the Germans could have turned their guns on French civilians. Maybe the Germans were just more ethical in their prosecution of war than the Americans?

Was LeMay English? This would be a valid argument were I highlighting the RAF retaliatory raids on Berlin and the firebombing of Dresden. As I am not, they are irrelevant.

"You brow us up, big boom, we be you friend now and speak Engrish." Japan was on borrowed time and was being beaten back all over the Pacific with heavy losses. Victory was assured without resorting to crimes against humanity.

And boosts the body count. More dead civilians, Ryan, you must be so proud.

And they can't even function properly and serve the state without a place to live and be secure.



Forcing them to surrender by aerial bombardment. Hey it can work, it worked for Kosovo.



No, I was being sarcastic.



Surrender wasn't an option for most of the Japanese political and military establishment, and the best they could do was a deadlock. Bombs away, Hiroshima obliterated, then Nagasaki, surrender confirmed.

If a country will not surrender to you, you have to use any means necessary to get it to capitulate.



Tell that to the Eastern Europeans. 90% of the Polish ruling class was liquidated and sent to concerntration camps. 20million Soviet civilians dead on Eastern front.



Ok, another one. Bombs in those days were not cruise missiles, did not have the ability of pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes bombs could miss their targets by miles.

Here's an example.

As in Europe, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) tried daylight precision bombing. However, it proved to be impossible due to the weather around Japan, as bombs dropped from a great height were tossed about by high winds. General LeMay, commander of XXI Bomber Command, instead switched to mass firebombing night attacks from altitudes of around 7,000 feet (2,100 m) on the major conurbations of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Despite limited early success, LeMay was determined to use such bombing tactics against the vulnerable Japanese cities. Attacks on strategic targets also continued in lower-level daylight raids.

Unlike the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were at least partially intended to force Japan to capitulate immediately, fire-bombing, which killed more civilians in total, was carried out as a long-term strategy to destroy Japan's ability to produce war materials as well as undermine the Japanese Government's will to continue the war.

Pity the point is to disable their war machine, not destroy the country utterly. The destruction of their war machine is better served by destroying factories, not homes.

Did they intentionally firebomb Kosovo or was the general focus of the operation there military targets?

I was well aware, I was making a point that actions can have negative outcomes, no matter your perspective.

At the time of the first bomb blast, the Japanese were already making peace overtures through Russia.

Any means? A fuel blockade would have been just as effective, maybe even moreso, and a lot lighter on for civilian casualties.

Not in WWI they weren't. Nice try at pouncing, but you're pouncing on shadows.

As they still can today. They can be fired at a military installation and hit a crowded marketplace full of civilians.


So he continued to attempt the precision daylight raids, but at night firebombed cities. I like this passage especially:

It suggests the firebombing raids were not attacks on strategic targets but on the vulnerable cities, cities filled with civilians.

In total war, the country is the war machine, everything is fair game since it's the survival of the nation on a whole. May not be morally right, but its justifiable in the name of defeating an enemy. The atrocities of Japan in China are not covered by this as it was blatant imperialism, same with Germany too.



The difference is the accuracy and technological expertise that has increased in warfare for the last 60 years, hence the irrelvantcy of mass bombing campaigns.



Russia ignored it because they signed the declaration at Yalta. And because it wanted to invade Manchuria. Peace with strings attatched is no peace at all.



Wow, another WW1 scenario in which the Japanese develop their own Weirmar republic, they would of sued for peace but left their ideology of conquest and war intact, with a weak and shaky democratic government. Hotbed of extremism.

Besides, the Japanese were already using alternatives since we pretty much blockaded the islands. Didn't stop them in the least attacking the US military.



Irrelevant, it does prove however that we're facing an enemy that couldn't be bargained with. Hence the need for an unconditional surrender.



The difference being they only hit one, not 100.



Night bombing is different because its, erm, night time bombing, they didn't have night vision in those days, hence blanket bombing of targets at night, since it was harder to pinpoint.



Because it was night time, accuracy is reduced sharply because of it.