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Tokyo WWII firebombing, the most deadly bombing raid, remembered 70 years on
- avoidsilkboard 12y agoMoral of the story : When in war, be on the winning side.
- rdl 12y agoAs long as you preface that with "Avoid war if at all possible, but " then I think it's quite reasonable.
- hkmurakami 12y agoThis is why I can perversely justify the United States' gargantuan military spending as being "smart". When push comes to shove, force will prevail. Unfortunately. =/
- ekianjo 12y agoHow about: don't wage war on innocent folks/civilians ?
- baddox 12y agoTo add to the horror, realize that the vast majority of Americans will adamantly defend these bombings as well as the atomic bombings, using verbatim talking points taught to them as children in public schools.
- toephu2 12y agoand Japan does not? (referring to the Nanking massacre) or rather what country doesn't?
- hkmurakami 12y agoI went through both the US and Japanese systems concurrently. Both systems are working well, as intended.
- kazinator 12y agoExcept that Johnny can barely read, while Shigeru can write 1500 kanji with his eyes closed. :)
- adventured 12y agoMeanwhile Japan has a mere 22 nobel prizes since 1940. America has 330. Japan has seen zero economic growth for over 20 years. America's GDP has doubled in that time. America has the best universities, by far. Japan does not. America has the most productive, technologically advanced, large economy on earth. Japan has been stagnant for decades. Writing 1500 kanji with your eyes closed doesn't appear to be very useful in the real world.
- excelphysicslab 12y agoFor more than 100 years about one out of four American Nobel Prize winners were foreign born – and in the past 3 years, nearly half of American laureates were immigrants. Note that this does not include second/third generation immigrants.
- adventured 12y agoOnly one in four? I would have guessed higher. Albert Einstein also chose to become an American. What you're describing is the greatest honor a country can receive. There is no higher compliment, than the best and the brightest the world over seeking to immigrate to your shores. They have been seeking America out for centuries because it was and still is an immense land of opportunity.
- coupdejarnac 12y agoI'd love to read a writeup comparing and contrasting the two systems.
- officer_gotcha 12y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
- Mithaldu 12y agoGerman school teachings don't defend anything. Instead they spend, for many students, roughly two years in a concentrated block of instilling guilt and horror over what happened in WW2.
- iopq 12y agoThat's because they lost. The winners get to write history.
- Mithaldu 12y agoJapan lost too, but, as much as i love the country, its people and its ideas, they have largely chosen to not teach their citizens that war did happen.
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- Mithaldu 12y ago> Comparing the crimes of Germany and Japan during WWII is beyond ridiculous. I am not, i am talking about the difference of treatment of the entire event decades afterwards. > The entirety of Germany society turned into the KKK Saying this as a german: Haha, fuck you too buddy, you and the horse you rode in on. You are so unbelievably ignorant, or so harshly trolling, that you are a prime example of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
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- ekianjo 12y agoThere are certain stupid people among Abe's camp who pretend that nothing happened in Nanking, but as far as I know Japanese officials have apologized for the country's war crimes on several occasions. How about the US ? Have they ever recognized their (previous and ongoing) war crimes?
- dba7dba 12y agoGerman cities still have plagues/statues/memorials everywhere to remind people about the holocaust and the past. In Japan, you will not find a single prominently placed memorial to remind people about the wrongs Japan did, unfortunately. Even the few small ones that had been placed in country side have been taken down in recent months/years thanks to Abe. And interestingly, Abe's mother's ancestors are from Korea supposedly.
- ekianjo 12y ago> German cities still have plagues/statues/memorials everywhere to remind people about the holocaust and the past I don't attribute much importance to monuments and statues. Do people actually care about them ? There were monuments to the ones who fell during 14-18 all over Europe and it did not prevent any of the European countries to enter a large scale bloody war all over again 20 years later. So what are the monuments good for?
- dba7dba 12y agoGermany: Reminding one's population of the country's sins is the true sign of sincere apology. Japan: When you actively rewrite history books to hide your past sins, you cannot be apologizing sincerely.
- ekianjo 12y ago> Japan: When you actively rewrite history books to hide your past sins, you cannot be apologizing sincerely. I agree with you on this, but if you think Japan is the only country rewriting history books my friend, you are deeply mistaken. Look at what US kids are taught about History, and cry.
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- tzs 12y agoThe atomic bomb was not available until AFTER the war was over in Italy or Germany. Edit: the deleted comment this was in reply to was claiming that the US could have dropped the bomb on Italy or Germany, but picked Japan for racist reasons. Namely, they wanted to see what atomic bombs did to people and Japanese people would be more acceptable to the public for such experimentation.
- notreal 12y agoYou know that Japan was preparing for intense defense fight in case the main island gets invaded, right? Here is from War Journal of the Imperial Headquarters: "We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight." In light of this, what do you suggest US should have done?
- gdwatson 12y agoOffered terms short of unconditional surrender.
- jordanb 12y agoThe Potsdam Declaration was the offer on the table from the Allies. It mentioned unconditional surrender but the actual terms were much more nuanced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration In particular it promised that Japan would be allowed to govern herself after an occupation. The Russian role in all of this is also pretty nuanced. They didn't sign the Potsdam Deceleration because they weren't yet at war with Japan. Once Russia was in the war then the status of Potsdam became questionable for the Japanese government, it was a classic high-pressure sales tactic. "Take this offer before it expires." The emperor mentioned the atomic bomb as a reason for the surrender in his rescript, but that was likely just a face-saving excuse. The government already demonstrated its willingness to let the entire population of Japan die fighting the allies so it doesn't seem too reasonable that they'd quibble over the means.
- InTheArena 12y agoThe point of view then was that the war occurred because Germany had no truly been defeated in World War I. All where concerned with not seeing another world war. In addition, there is no evidence that any peace proposal would have been acceptable to the cabinet at this time.
- ekianjo 12y agoCome on, the Japanese were already about to surrender when they learnt that the Russians, having dealt with the German side of the front, would land in Japan. Japan was already utterly destroyed by that time, it was only a matter of time for total capitulation.
- woodman 12y agoNote: The following is written from the perspective of an individual who accepts that states are necessary, and that war is justifiable. This isn't something I personally believe, but something that the vast majority of people do - not just Americans. I don't remember any talking points being taught to me as a child, but I guess that would be the case with any good brainwashing. I am familiar with the justifications for targeting Japanese civilians for conventional and nuclear bombing though, something along the lines of Japan being prepared for total war - down to child combatants with sharpened sticks. In war you have two options for ending hostilities, complete annihilation or political resolution (surrender, cease fire, etc). If Japan went into total war mode, and they made it clear that they would if necessary, then they remove the political resolution option. So with that in mind, it is not a stretch to say that firebombing and nuking hundreds of thousands saved millions of Japanese lives. Consider the fact that this firebombing occurred 1945-03-09, and the Japanese were still wanting to fight for another five months, until the second atomic bomb drop on 1945-08-09. The only thing that brought them to the table was the idea that their enemy possessed a weapon where a single bomb could level a city, they had no idea how many atomic bombs existed.
- ekianjo 12y ago> The only thing that brought them to the table was the idea that their enemy possessed a weapon where a single bomb could level a city Utterly wrong. This has been shown many times that the A-bomb was not the decisive part. It was the upcoming involvement of Russians on the Japanese front. Please stop spreading explanations for 5-years olds.
- Crito 12y agoIt occurs to me that by asserting that the American nuclear bombardment was not justifiable because the Japanese were not sufficiently terrified of it but were sufficiently terrified of a Russian invasion, we are saying something quite extreme about the nature of an invading Russian army. Does anybody know what narrative is taught in Russian schools to Russian children?
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- dba7dba 12y agoCount me in as one of those who defend these bombings, and the atomic bombings. For the allies to take over Okinawa island, it took 80+ days of near constant combat, resulting in U.S. manpower losses of over 82,000 casualties, including non-battle casualties (psychiatric, injuries, illnesses) of whom over 12,500 were killed or missing. All this for an island of 463 square miles. And the size of entire Japan is 145,925 square miles. And Japan was actually saving up their best troops/planes/ships for the defense of the main Japanese islands. And let's not forget how many Japanese soldiers and civilians were killed in Okinawa battle. Many, many more Japanese civilians would've been killed if an invasion took place. School girls were being instructed on how to use grenades/homemade weapons to try to kill invading US troops. Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals (awarded for combat casualties) were made to prepare for the invasion of Japanese main islands. After Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, they still haven't exhausted the stock.
- baddox 12y agoYour argument is that the U.S. military was justified in committing an awful act because, if it hadn't, it would have instead chosen to commit an even more awful act. I would prefer that it not commit any awful acts.
- dba7dba 12y agoMe too. I would prefer no wars at all, but japan did start the war.
- flyinglizard 12y agoThese were different times, where it was still legitimate to win wars. Today's warfare is a long and costly attrition, sparing lives in the short term but taking a much bigger toll in the long term. WWII was won, with an unconditional surrender, followed by rebuilding and indoctrination. Not merely a cease fire which just flames hostilities in preparation for another round (e.g. Middle Eastern conflicts).
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- aric 12y agoI agree in spirit. It's worth including "private" schools in your statement. Depending upon local culture, non-government schools often have curriculums as ignorance-inducing as curriculums of government schools. Encouraging nationalism and a lack of self-awareness, criticism, and skepticism is a recipe to foment, forge, and forgive atrocity. There exists an alarming number of people who fail to even question the ethical basis of Vietnam, let alone be concerned about human rights and atrocities of powers that subject them and the rest of the world in the present or in a more distant past.
- InTheArena 12y agoGo take a look to Hell to Pay by D.M. Giangreco. Compared to the alternatives - mass starvation of the Japanese by blockade, or tens of millions of Japanese deaths, and one million American deaths, it's looks like a bargain, and it was viewed at the time as the last, best chance, to avoid invading japan. The specter of nuclear war makes us wish we had never opened that Pandora box, but anyone making the decision in the past could not have made it any other way.
- carsongross 12y ago"Just following orders." God, help me never.
- Anechoic 12y agoIf you're interested in the context of this type of "strategic" bombing, and how it played into the U.S. decision to use the atomic bombs in WWII, listen to the "Logical Insanity" episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-logical-insanity/ http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-42-blitz-l... It's long, but quite informative.
- Mithaldu 12y agoI wish this were at the top for this thread. Dan Carlin's summaries and analyses of the decision making at that time are wonderfully thought-provoking. The concept of logical insanity in particular is one i see consistently reproduced in every part of modern society.
- howlingfantods 12y agoEveryone should watch Grave of the Fireflies. And then cry for a week.
- coupdejarnac 12y agoThis reminds me of Robert McNamara's rule for proportionality in the movie The Fog of War. What amount of brutality is necessary to achieve a political objective?
- timr 12y agoThere's an interactive map at the Tokyo-Edo museum (great museum; highly worth your time if you're there) that shows the progression of the bombing campaign over time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_biWi-lXTM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_biWi-lXTM The scale of that is mind-boggling. I had no idea, the first time I saw it, the amount of destruction involved. It rivals Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we (in the US) almost never hear about it. To put a more human face on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo#mediaviewer/File:Tokyo_kushu_1945-3.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo#mediaviewer/Fi...