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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-43546839
Horrific story, every day is a school day but this is a grim lesson
Malcolm Gladwell's podcast on Frederick Lindermann is an interesting listen in regard to this.
“He would not shrink from using an argument which he knew to be wrong if, by so doing, he could tie up one of his professional opponents.”
At Churchill's request Lindermann investigated the effects the bombing of Hull had on the morale of the population there - he then told Churchill the opposite of what he had learned and Churchill acted on that false information - and this was the result. A dodgy dossier.
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/15-the-prime-minister-and-the-prof
"Dehousing"!
It got flattened during the war some horrific pictures online... Interesting architecture mix in hamburg
Not about Hamburg, as such, but Bomber by Len Deighton is a very good look at experiences from both sides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_(novel)
Horrific story, every day is a school day but this is a grim lesson
The thousand bomber raids that carpet bombed cities were pretty horrible. Of course using precision bombing the allies did not target civilians. The entire blitz campaign killed fewer people than some of the single raids by the RAF
much the same way when phosphorous bombs were dropped on the wooden German cities.
The victors get to say what was acceptable.
Clearly appalling and horrific, and yes, history is written by the victers, but if the roles of the two sides were reversed, I doubt the Luftwaffe would have done any differently.
On a related note Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut is worth reading
that podcast is grimly compelling listening, thanks for sharing cranberry
Ultimately, there is no morality in war, there's no point in getting involved in it. People will do what people do. When push comes to shove, there are no rules.
Tis very easy 80 years on to apply our morality to what happened "then".
So if the Bosch had won, you would be speaking German, you would have no trade unions, no opposition, all the jews would be dead ( maybe the muslims as well), the gay population would have been erdiciated, mental illness would have been treated by extermination, as would have physical disability ....
Unfortunately many people died in Hamburg ... but not the 6 mio the regime killed in the death camps... let alone the others
War isn't the most politically correct environment ... but the reason that you can moan about Brexit, the Scottish referendum, civil partnerships, the minimum wage, and life not being fair is because the allies won.
Okay - they didn't do everything right. But the word, in general, is much better place because of it.
It's life ... don't be too smug because you are free and comfortable.We are a in a stage of politics where people seem to feel that democracy is wrong - only the intelligent, well-read or trendy left should be allowed to run things ... democracy has it problems i.e sometimes it does go your way ... but it might be better that the other options
Tis very easy 80 years on to apply our morality to what happened “then”.
Not really- it was controversial at the time.
I don't think it was that controversial at the time. There was debate of course, and plenty of bomber crew accounts refer to their own concerns - but these are almost invariably also balanced by their recognition that the war needed to be won.
Hamburg and Dresden were dreadfully 'successful' bombing raids where a lot of factors combined in favour of the attacking force renderring them far more deadly than the norm.
I think it is incredibly difficult to put oneself into the mindset of what was happening then. Plenty criticise the Dresden raid but at the time no one knew the war was nearly over.
And this thinking has led to RAF bomber crews never receiving the campaign medal they should have done, despite the 55,000 men lost.
Did the carpet bombing shorten the war?
Was there not a radio 4 'play' on one of the anniversaries of the war where all throughout the day they used short sections to piece together both the stories of one of the bomber crews as well as a family on the ground about to be bombed. I remember it being compelling listening where you ended up glued to the radio waiting for the next segment. It really took it all home to you in a most horrible way
On a related note Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut is worth reading
Not strictly war focussed but “Confessions of a Yakuza” gives an amazing insight into the aftermath in Japan, as well as being an amazing book
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Yakuza
Not really- it was controversial at the time.
No doubt, but there was a huge enemy force maybe 10 miles away that would not have spared anyone had they made land in the UK. It’s an experience and threat that none of us have ever experienced since.
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<div>Was there not a radio 4 ‘play’ on one of the anniversaries of the war where all throughout the day they used short sections to piece together both the stories of one of the bomber crews as well as a family on the ground about to be bombed. I remember it being compelling listening where you ended up glued to the radio waiting for the next segment. It really took it all home to you in a most horrible way
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Yes.
That was a dramatisation of len deightons bomber real time.
I've literally just finished the audio book of it. Thouroughlt reccomend.
- By the end of the war 1/3 of German production was anti-aircraft guns. That's a lot of tanks and submarines Germany were denied.
- Bombing forced Germany to pull valuable fighter squadrons away from the Eastern Front.
- There was always a (small) risk of Stalin doing another deal with the Germans and leaving the UK on our own. Stalin *loved* area bombing and it helped keep him on-side.
- Britain had to be seen to be doing something. You could hardly ask the USA to join the war if you weren't even fighting it yourselves.
- We talk about 6 million lives - that was just the beginning. "The Hunger Plan" involved starving 35 million people to death. Stopping Germany winning was necessary at all costs.
- WW2 was the definitive attritional war. It didn't matter where you wore the enemy down, as long as you did.
But most of all, what else would we have done? It's like the campaigns in the Med, you can point out their flaws, but what other options were there? An invasion of Mainland Europe across the Channel was years away, something had to be done.
So yeah, Area bombing is piss poor way of waging war. Comparatively Ineffective, morally dubious, illegal in some cases but it's hard to think of anything better.
I can't think of a serious historian who makes a case otherwise, anyone offer one?
If anyone hasn't heard this it might be worth a listen, a recording of a raid from a Lancaster:
"Dan Snow introduces Wynford Vaughan-Thomas's experience as he joined the crew of an RAF Lancaster Bomber in action over Berlin."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076rvh
Bomber Harris was a notoriously bad driver - when he was stopped for speeding one night the copper said to him ‘you could have killed someone sir’, to which he replied ‘officer I kill thousands of people every night!’...
My reading of it has been that Hamburg was in some ways a bit of a fluke, and he didn’t achieve anything like those ‘results’ again until much later in the war, whilst losing a huge number of aircraft and crews in the Battle of Berlin in late 43, early 44.
The unpleasant fact is that military targets are usually hardened and difficult, whereas if you remove the supporting infrastructure in that locality then the military in that area cannot function for long.
The U-boat pens were protected by thick layers of concrete and required high precision bombing at a considerable cost to the flight crews and planes.
It was a very deliberate decision to destroy the soft infrastructure which included civilian workers and their families.
Genghis Khan understood this technique.
Bloody horrible but don't for one second imagine if the boot was on the other foot it would have been any different.
Did the carpet bombing shorten the war?
One of the ‘best’ A-Level or GSCE History questions right there. The A-bomb certainly shortened the war, but Hamburg, Dresden and the rest? Very difficult to say.
The western allies had to be seen to be doing something to keep Russia on-side. The ‘second front’ hadn’t really been opened yet and the Russians had only just stemmed the tide at Stalingrad. Bombing was, in 1943, probably still the most effective way the western allies could hit Germany without unacceptable losses (unacceptable being a very different level on the Eastern front).
Did it make it easier for the likes of Goebbles to stir up a fight to the last? Almost definitely.
Did it weaken Germany productivity? Probably.
Would Germany have triumphed otherwise? No, Germany was doomed the second they declared war on America, albeit at a much higher price.
No winners in a war, just comparative losers.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and everyone knows about the Nazis and the holocaust, but have a read about the Red Army advance into Prussia and Upper Silesia in particular if you want to be appalled by indoctrinated hatred combined with drunken violence. The sack of Gdynia being a particularly dreadful example. The Red Army routinely raped and murdered recently freed slave labourer women from their own country.
I can’t remember if it was Konev, Rokossovsky or another lionized Soviet commander who was confronted by a journalist about the conduct of his troops. Apparently he thought for a couple of seconds then said “I don’t give a ****”.
Good to ponticate ...
‘my uncle was killed as part of bomber command.... was it right? Dunno - but we are still allowed to vote ....
I am guessing at 24 he thought he was doing the right thing ...
Did it shorten the war ... when if didn’t make it longer ...
BTW ... the atomic attacks on Japan were straightforwardly wrong
BTW … the atomic attacks on Japan were straightforwardly wrong
The atomic attacks killed about the same number of people as liberating a single pacific Island. Without the Atomic attacks there would have been a lot more Islands to liberate and then the Japanese mainland.
They saved a vast number of lives both Japanese and Allied.
BTW … the atomic attacks on Japan were straightforwardly wrong
That’s very simplistic. Remember that the US Navy had just been facing kamikaze pilots and civilians on Okinawa who threw themselves off of cliffs rather than be ‘taken’ by the Americans. I seem to remember the yanks were estimating casualties of c 400,000 to defeat Japan by ‘conventional’ means. The cynical view is that they were worried the soviets would rock up and snatch Japan right at the very end.
Ask yourself this. If you were Truman, how could you sell a campaign to your electorate that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their sons knowing you probably had the means to end it quickly? Be honest, then see if you can be so black and white.
I can’t remember if it was Konev, Rokossovsky or another lionized Soviet commander who was confronted by a journalist about the conduct of his troops. Apparently he thought for a couple of seconds then said “I don’t give a ****”.
I googled: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Vasilevsky
It was one of the others, then!
I knew it wasn’t Zhukov or Chuikov.
BTW … the atomic attacks on Japan were straightforwardly wrong
It was absolutely the right thing to do. The fact that they had to drop two bombs demonstrates the mentality of the Japanese government and how they were prepared to sacrifice their citizens at all costs rather than give up.
It’s good to have healthy debates around stuff like this by the way. Not wanting to derail the thread further, but a good example for me is Iraq.
Was it a good decision from Bush Jnr and Blair to go after Saddam? No. Definitely no if you’re going to lie about the reasons (either some vague notion of terrorism even though a dictator like that would keep religious fundamentalism in check or just sexing up a dossier).
Stand back and look at the bigger picture, though. In my opinion Bush Snr and Major and the rest should have gone all the way to Baghdad in 1991 when they had the ‘moral high ground’ and had already allowed the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds to come out in support. The prime reason 2003 shouldn’t have happened is that it should have got sorted 12 years earlier. Would the outcome have been any different? Don’t know, but if Saddam had to go, it should have been 1991 and not 2003.
Anyone interested watch Ken Burns Vietnam. 18 hour, 10 part documentary series on the war there. The series is extensively researched, with plenty of witness views from all sides. The series will give you an idea of how soldiers have to remove any shred of humanity from their feelings not only to kill the enemy, but just too stay alive. To see how the lines of warfare can become horribly blurred google 'My Lai'
The Vietnam series was really very good. There were the guys who were reluctant at first, but soon realised that if they wanted to get out alive, then they had to put their values aside to a certain extent.
I specifically remember the guy who said something along the lines of “I only killed one person in Vietnam, that was the first one, the rest were all just ‘gooks’ or ‘VC’ or whatever”. To stay alive, he had to convince himself the other side weren’t human. ‘Men’ like to brag and speculate about what they would do in a firefight, but unless you’ve actually been there and found out, it’s all just talk. I’m sure there are ex services folk on here who really know. I don’t!
This very sobering thread is a good reminder on the importance of smashing fascist ideas before they take root
It seems to be pretty clear that the people the west regarded as evil dictators (Saddam, Gaddafi etc) were actually holding the whole place together. Under Saddam Iraq was a secular, fairly civilised place for the vast majority of people, Libya was so civilised that migrants from Africa got as far a Libya and found it so nice they stayed with good jobs in the oil industry, now they keep going to Europe. The whole region has gone up in flames.
I really can't see any case that deposing these secular leaders was a good idea.
You can claim that this is all hindsight *but* that can't be the case since the West propped up these regimes for years precisely to avoid what happened.
Albert Speer comments in the Whirlwind episode of the World at War about the Hamburg raid are quite interesting and poignant. IIRC He says it was the first time he saw it was possible to break the will of the German people and three more raids like that might have ended the war (the program then mentions that the allies didn't have the capability at the time to mount more raids of that ferocity).
I don’t think it was that controversial at the time. There was debate of course,
If there was debate then there was controversy.
I specifically remember the guy who said something along the lines of “I only killed one person in Vietnam, that was the first one, the rest were all just ‘gooks’ or ‘VC’ or whatever”.
Dannyh, the guy is John Musgrave and his insights throughout are gut wrenching. The one you quote is particularly poignant. He describes what he did in his head as a strategy that would keep him alive. I was literally in tears watching the last episode of that series.
I seem to remember the yanks were estimating casualties of c 400,000 to defeat Japan by ‘conventional’ means
The USA are still using the stockpile of purple hearts that they had prepared for the invasion of Japan.
In addition the casualties from the individual atomic bombs was fewer than that of the fire bombing of Tokyo (the Japanese use of wooden buildings making them very vulnerable). The difference was it was just one plane rather than a fleet.
It was absolutely the right thing to do.
Cobblers. The purpose of the atomic bombs was a show of strength from one of the two emerging super powers.
This very sobering thread is a good reminder on the importance of smashing fascist ideas before they take root
Fascism: "radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce".
Care to name any politician in a liberal democracy that comes even close to this? Russian, China, Turkey maybe, but not the USA or the UK. Trump's an old man nearly half way through his term with zero control of the media or even his own party.
Are Britain or the USA showing any sign at all of becoming a dictatorship? Both have the weakest governments in living memory.
Britain's right wing extremists are literally a handful of mindless skin heads. They're showing no sign of any kind of increased support, quite the opposite they're too busy infighting.
The Nazi were serious, and they came to power on the back of mass starvation and WW1. Liberal democracies don't just gradually become Fascist states.
When one of the Political Parties has a private Army that outnumbers the UK Army the panic can start.
In addition the casualties from the individual atomic bombs was fewer than that of the fire bombing of Tokyo (the Japanese use of wooden buildings making them very vulnerable). The difference was it was just one plane rather than a fleet.
Very much this. Japanese towns were made of paper and wood. The USA was annihilating city after city with comparable casualty numbers.
Cobblers. The purpose of the atomic bombs was a show of strength from one of the two emerging super powers.
Because the USA wouldn't have been remotely interested in defeating an bitter enemy that had killed up to 10 million people in China and elsewhere with every weapon available. Japan were a higher priority than Russia at that time.
I fly to Hanover then travel by train to Bielefeld, done it for years. The tonnage of bombs, the devastation of the civilian population was immense along this route.
The journey ends before the viaduct, destroyed by the biggest non atomic bomb, until last year. Most British people do not have a clue what happened to German civilians in ww2.
This is an excellent book that examines this exact question.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/highereducation.news
This is an excellent book that examines this exact question.
Crap review though, in the first paragraph it conflates war crime with a moral judgement. The two are completely different. Dresden was a war crime because one of the objectives was to block roads with refugees. That's illegal.
Was it morally wrong? I don't think so, other people will think it was. Legality and morality are two different things.
Cobblers. The purpose of the atomic bombs was a show of strength from one of the two emerging super powers.
Is an alternative view.
If you had been Truman, what would you have done?
These are the kind of conversations we have to keep alive if we are going to stay critical and thoughtful.
Another example I feel chimes well the notion that the road to hell is paved with good intentions:
Mogadishu 1993. The Americans are all piss and vinegar about being fully involved in UN peacekeeping (or at least as much as they ever were). They end up in Somalia with unreliable partners in a UN peacekeeping role. They get snagged in an absolute balls up involving a couple of lucky hits with RPGs on tail rotors and keep doubling down to rescue their personnel. Eighteen dead if I remember. National outcry. Pull back from peacekeeping in future, we’re being mugged off etc.
One year later, Rwanda. A UN peacekeeping force largely denuded of US might and swagger has to basically stand by and watch a medieval genocide being conducted largely with clubs and machetes. A bit further down the line a UN armored convey is stopped by a single bamboo pole on a road just around the hillside from Srebrenica. Without real US commitment the peacekeeper’s bluff is called and they halt, despite the fact they are in armored cars versus guys in DPMs with assault rifles.
I don’t have the answers, but the short-termism of a lot of this stuff is like the definition of insanity!
Ultimately, there is no morality in war, there’s no point in getting involved in it. People will do what people do. When push comes to shove, there are no rules.
Kinda this......^^
Fascism: “radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce”.
Went to look at a house today in Tuscany up in the hills behind Massa Marittima. The old boy selling the place, a retired medical doctor of about 65 years, had a load of photos of Mussolini and of fascist matches in the 50s/60s. Also know if a few other older Italians who have Mussolini on their phones or still carry an old fasces keyring with them (Google fasces-there comes the word fascism). Really no wonder that the new Italian government is there.... Still a strong underlying feeling here.
Hamburg destruction WW2
Yeah, but, yeah, but..... They started it.
The GF's mum has told me stories about her dad never having spoken to his wife or children about his time in the Eastern Front. When friends or family got together all the men/veterans would sit themselves in another room and talk amongst themselves.
I've talked to people who said that they were told at school that if they did not behave they too would be sent to Dachau..... And that was before the war had begun.
The general population knew what was going on. There is no doubt about it.
If those people in Hamburg were working in the factories, or if those in Cologne heard about it and it was bad for morale, then so be it.
Cobblers. The purpose of the atomic bombs was a show of strength from one of the two emerging super powers.
Forgot to mention that this was (sort of amusingly) pretty pointless in any case. On the day Truman became president, Stalin was far better briefed about America’s atom bomb than Truman.
Stalin was worried, sure, but he understood the ‘game’ better than most. Being almost totally devoid of any scruples, he was also able to ‘play the game’ in a less restricted way than politicians who actually had to get elected.
OoB - JRM comes close. Next.
The real obscenity though is I’m down in London the other day and find a RAF fly past getting in the way (come to Yorkshire, we see those aircraft on a regular basis) and I fail to find any mention of the tens (hundreds?) of thousands the RAF has killed in the celebratory shenanigans.
Ok I accept they may have some role in defending our country (whatever that means - and I have no idea how the U.K. would look today if we’d lost) can we also accept they killed a hellavulot of people.
Quiet reminiscing on all sides please.
I think the view at the time was that the Germans ‘had sowed the wind... ‘ as the saying goes. Hard to disagree.
I'm always fascinated in the the belief that the USA's entry was a decisive factor, Stalingrad to me was a majim turning point.
I've just had to Google majim thinking that I'm an educated fool. Now I just feel bitterly disappointed.
Cobblers. The purpose of the atomic bombs was a show of strength from one of the two emerging super powers.
I used to think this, I'm not so sure now. Japanese soldiers and pilots were hard ****ers, Guadalcanal, Iowa Jima and Okinawa were bloody brutal affairs...that country would have never have been beaten without tens of thousands of more American lives being lost. The yanks did an equation and decided dropping those bombs was the better option.
I’m always fascinated in the the belief that the USA’s entry was a decisive factor, Stalingrad to me was a majim turning point.
It was the absolutely the decisive factor.
The industrial might of the US supported the Russians and helped achieve the victory at Stalingrad.
Without this aid then it would of been possible the the USSR would of collapsed in 1942.
https://ww2-weapons.com/lend-lease-tanks-and-aircrafts/
The USA alone provided the Russians with 501,660 tactical wheeled and tracked vehicles, including 77,972 jeeps, 151,053 1-1/2-ton trucks, and 200,622 2-1/2-ton trucks.
<div class="bbp-reply-author">raybanwomble
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that country would have never have been beaten without tens of thousands of more American lives being lost
Well, that's debatable- I think the same outcome could have been achieved with conventional bombing, Japan's ability to make war was already collapsing. But the real persuasive argument for me is, a longer war would have killed more Japanese people. And then of course we've no idea what would have happened after- without the horror of hiroshima, would we have been so averse to using nuclear weapons after?
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Myself, I think Hiroshima is easy to defend. Nagasaki, not so much.
Having spent considerable time in japan and having many friends from there, they are the most nationalist bunch of people I have ever met and based on what we know of the Pacific campaign up to 1945 I am surprised they stopped after only 2 A Bombs.
Morality of war is a very difficult conundrum.
I am a pacifist by instinct but can see a moral justification for war in some circumstances. Using a utilitarian approach - greatest good of the greatest number - leads you to this. did certain actions increase or decrease the total number of deaths?
Taking that as a starting point then some war actions can be seen as morally justifiable. the DD landings, the first atom bomb etc. some actions such as the bombing of Dresden cannot. Dresden had nothing of military significance and it was a pure act of retribution for the destruction of Coventry was it not? The second nuke was simply a live test. Japan would have surrendered after one bomb.
Between these two sets of pretty clear cut examples lies a whole load of grey areas.
AS for not judging the actions of 80 years ago by the standards of today - pure bunkum. Ethics and morality was codified by great thinkers a long time before WW2. Morality and ethics stands outside of time. If its wrong now it was not wrong then
Its something I have thought about and read about a lot given my pacifism and hatred of facism which clearly sets up a dichotomy. My thought is that if you can clearly say by killing these people now less people will be killed in future then its morally justifiable. If you cannot then its not.
On the atomic bomb you have to consider the mindset of the Americans at the time...after Pearl Harbour they needed to re-assert their 'dominance' or power and strike back with something that was at a whole other level, something that the Japanese couldn't hope to replicate....enter the Atomic Bomb. The Americans were going to strike back at mainland Japan..it was either area bombing with the new batch of high altitude bombers they were developing at the time (B29) or the Atomic bomb...arguably the atomic bomb killed less people than a long and sustained carpet bombing campaign, the Japanese were a pretty tenacious people so would not have given in very quickly and easily in the face of carpet bombing, and the atomic bomb had a much more powerful and devastating show of force and impact on their morale. If the war in Europe was not already over by then, I reckon it would have been over pretty quickly after Hiroshima with the threat of an atomic bomb being dropped on Berlin.
It says in the BBC account at the start of this thread that Hamburg was a 'perfect storm' of things that came together to cause the devastation...it was not replicated when they bombed other cities, so not sure if the firestorm was the intended outcome or something that surprised the military planners at the time. But again you need to put yourself in the mindset of the people at the time...people who thought they were fighting for their lives, that their lives were under threat. They were scared. I don't think the bombing of Hamburg, or indeed our policy of carpet bombing German cities was particularly controversial at the time if it were debated in public.
These are the kind of conversations we have to keep alive if we are going to stay critical and thoughtful.
I agree with this. Our duty these days is to never forget and to keep the two world wars in our minds as a reminder about what is possible if we don't maintain our values and fight for them. It is becoming especially important as those people alive during the war who can give those first hadn't accounts are now becoming fewer and fewer. Those who complain about always talking about the war etc. need to be reminded of the reason why we should continue to be reminded of it. Human beings have the tendency to keep making the same mistakes...there is hundreds of years worth of history that demonstrate this. We need to break the cycle somehow and find other ways of solving difficult international problems.
Thoughts on the aromic bombs
1. The US had decoded Japanese ciphers and knew by early '43 that the Japanese wanted to sue for peace, and were making overtures to the Portuguese and Swedish Embassies to talk to the US ambassadors stationed there. The State Dept instructed the US ambassadors to rebuff every attempt, as the Japanese wanted the Emperor to remain head of State
2, The US had beaten Japan by April 45 the high altitude carpet bombing of Tokyo was just as devastating as the atomic bombs and Japan was ready to surrender, the Japan govt officials interviewed after the was have all said they would have surrendered given the chance, and had a plan to do so in place
3. There was no need to Invade Japan, it had no resources, no Allies, it knew the Russians were coming. The idea that the Japanese would fight to the last man, was already some thing the US were keen to avoid.It's unlikely it would have gone ahead, certainly there was no appetite in the US pacific Army for such an invasion.
I don't think the war was "shortened" by overly much, maybe a month or so, and arguably it did little to nothing to save US or Japanese lives but the weapons did show the world what they could do, and there's been little appetite to ever do that again (so far) so that's something I guess.
Why was there any difference between Dresden and thousands of other raids? In my mind there wasn’t. As seen at Hamburg it required a combination of factors to produce the firestorms seen at Dresden and Hamburg. The dumping of thousand of tons of incendiaries into a city was only part of the picture.
if you can justify Guernica, Coventry, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne I don’t understand why Dresden is any different. I know there have been lots of arguments as to why it is different, I’m just not sure I believe them.
The best discussion I have read of the morality of dropping the atomic bombs in WW2 was in George McDonald Fraser's (writer of Flashman) autobiography of hs time with Fourteenth Army Quartered Safe Out Here
He was a relatively new addition to a light infantry section which had fought the Japanese throughout the Burma campaign and fully expected to have to carry on fighting them for several more years.
The fighting was brutal against a barbaric enemy who refused to surrender even when starving, out of ammunition and isolated from their formations. Bunkers were cleared at the point of the bayonet and casulties were high.
Dropping the bombs saved many British and Empire lives as well as American and saved many others from the trauma of years of infantry combat. At the time Fourteenth Army were know as the "Forgotten Army" and little seems to have changed in the interim.
The Americans took all those lessons learnt about strategic bombing & the utilising of accurate meteorological data to aid incendiary strikes to bomb North Korea back into the dark ages. It does help explain why they aren’t their greatest fans.
so not sure if the firestorm was the intended outcome or something that surprised the military planners at the time.
Though the raid used heavy bombs to open up buildings prior to dropping incendiaries. A similar technique was used the year before in Lubeck with similar results (though on a smaller scale). The wind generate by the fires was strong enough to get the massive bells in the Marienkirche swinging and ringing! Well, before they fell out of the tower.
So, yes, the planners knew what they were doing.
Imagine sitting on an aircraft carrier facing this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PsI79eO23K0
We have become more impervious to stuff like this in the media age, but even so.
If you were Truman and knew that it was going to cost hundreds of thousands of the lives of your countrymen (and more of the Japanese) to defeat Japan with ‘conventional’ means (whatever that means in a pitched battle), and you knew you had the ability to finish it there and then, what would you do?
I doubt they took the decision lightly, but at the same time, I think there was only one realistic course of action.
Yes the planners knew what they were doing alright and did their best to get better at it, but my point was that it didn’t always ‘work’ to the extent that it did at Dresden.
I've just finished reading this.
Thoroughly recommended if you want a rounded picture of the end of the war in the East.
Yes the planners knew what they were doing alright and did their best to get better at it, but my point was that it didn’t always ‘work’ to the extent that it did at Dresden.
It helped if there was a medieval town centre that had a preponderance of largely wooden bulidings. Harris preferred old towns as targets because they were burnable and so much better on the newsreels. The raids had surprisingly little net effect on German morale but British cinemagoers enjoyed them immensely.
Dresden is very different from Hamburg, though.
Spring 1943 versus spring 1945 certainly calls into question the ‘necessity’ of Dresden above all else.
Strategically, Dresden made little sense, tactically it was very questionable given what is now generally accepted as being its aim.
The real trick is not to get into a war in the first place!
dannyh
...The real trick is not to get into a war in the first place!
True. One way would be to eliminate any possibility of making a profit out of a war.
Most wars have a mercantile reason submerged in the background.
We can in a small way place todays morals into yesterdays events, Not in the sense that it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but in the context that we now view carpet bombing or nuking cities as wrong.
It seems us Humans have to learn lessons in the most tragic way.
But the trouble with learning lessons is that they often either get forgotten about, or certain elements learn the wrong lessons from it.
Britain’s right wing extremists are literally a handful of mindless skin heads.
The easily identifiable ones? Its the ones hidden in plain sight that should be the concern. Complacency is a killer.
Complacency leads to what this whole thread is about with its potential consequences.
It helped if there was a medieval town centre that had a preponderance of largely wooden bulidings.
As with Lubeck.
<div class="bbp-reply-author">johnners
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The raids had surprisingly little net effect on German morale
It should never have been a surprise. All the way through the war people claimed that bombing would destroy german morale, while seeing that this didn't happen to british morale. How many genuinely believed it is hard to say, motivations were complicated and a lot of the official rationale was justification or excuses or strategising
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WW2 Thats the one were we went to war to save Poland and then in 1945 gave Poland to another dictator.
Good one ! At least we got the NHS
20- 30 million Russian casualties give or take a million. They flattened Stalingrad before the ground campaign started and killed more in that than the UK lost in air raids in the whole war. War is not good.
It may well be true that 'victors' get to write history, however it's not that one-sided. Take the air war against German in WWII.Mention the town of Dresden and what does it conjure up ? almost globally it is accepted that it was a war crime by the 'planners' or the young men ordered to undertake the task. Fortunately the Germans are impeccable record -keepers. and gives an insight into why. The German Propaganda Minister Goebbels seized on this raid and immediately multiplied the number of deaths by a factor of 10,even now despite the true figure been accepted by Dresden itself the inflated figure is still used to sully the bravery of the airmen -British and American who risked their lives .The Communists, post -war, even used the raid to attack the West, despite the attack itself originating in a request by Stalin at the YALTA Conference. Goebbels was also able to convince the world that Dresden was a charming little town of no military significance that had somehow escaped the 'Total- War' drive of the Third Reich. Far from it, Dresden was not only a major railhead to move German troops ( and jews to the camps) but is was also engaged in manufacturing military equipment. At the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 the de-militarisation of Dresden arms manufacturing was a condition imposed by the Allies. Hitler slowly recommenced this production in Dresden along with every where else.Few Jews were killed in the raid because most had been enthusiastically exported to the camps by the Dresden authorities.Ironically some escaped transportation because of the raid itself.Some 1500 Czech resistance fighters didn't die in the raid because they had already been guillotined in the town's gaol.Yes, the raid itself was horiffic, as are all such attacks, but don't let the Nazi propaganda machine reach out over all the years to continue to besmirch the memory of of the men and women who fought for what was undoubtedly a just cause. I know Britain is a Country eating itself alive as it is fashionable to decry every historic action undertaken by its inhabitants, however can I ask you please to properly educate yourselves about the 'Air War'. A good start would be the excellently-researched "Dresden- Tuesday 13 February 1945" by Frederick Taylor.I know your minds are not closed.
slightly odd first post on a MTB website
BTW … the atomic attacks on Japan were straightforwardly wrong
Having spend much time in Japan, and with Japanese friends, I have thought of this many time however I recently read Quartered Safe Out Her and in it it gives an interesting perspective from a soldier (in this case in the 14th Army) who was actually on the ground fighting, I believe the same comments could be raised about the Western or eastern Fronts.
In summary, if you can degrade the enemies ability to fight, no matter how much, then you limit the amount of poor sods on the front line who have to lose their lives to defeat them.
In summary, if you can degrade the enemies ability to fight, no matter how much, then you limit the amount of poor sods on the front line who have to lose their lives to defeat them.
That presupposes that the enemy wishes to carry on fighting.
Actually I think it was the Russians entering the war against Japan at the last minute that brought the war to a close quickly. Japan knew it couldn't fight 2 super powers.