The Allied Bomber Offensive

Obviously a lot of them would be Japanese since more than 200,000 people died in the two atomic bombings alone. I reckon the writer has taken these deaths into the total.

By the way, when did this Tokyo raid take place? Precisely following your scenario of blaming the RAF and ommitting the USAF, I have never heard of it...

 

I would assume that he had included them. However, even discounting those deaths, that would make German & Japanese losses about equal.

The Americans first raided Tokyo on 15th June 1944 (largely ineffectual).
They launched fire raids on Japanese cities between 9th March and 14th August.
a sample:

9th March: Tokyo - this raid destroyed about 25% of the city
13th March: Osaka
15th March: Kobe
16th May: Nagoya
23rd May: Tokyo
25th May: Tokyo
29th May: Yokohama
5th June: Kobe
7th June: Osaka

About 40% of Japan's urban areas were destroyed in total.
Most cities had a population reduction of around 50% - though much of this was down to the evacuation of 10 million people to the countryside.

Having said that, the American raids worked - Japanese industry died.

 

Actually an awful lot has been said and written about the destruciton of Japanese cities from the air, with much (western) hand wringing over the loss of life. Tokyo was first raided on April 18 1942, the Dolittle Raid. The March 1945 raid resulted in a fire storm which actually killed more people, estimated at 100,000+, than either atomic bombing. While there were differences between the motives of the 20th USSAAF raids on Japan and Bomber Commands raids on Germany, I don't think either Harris or LeMay felt they were doing anything other than trying to win the war and didn't really care if that took killing large numbers of German or Japanese civilians.

 

Likely they didn't. And given the fact that neither Germany nor Japan had shown any compunctions about killing Allied civilians in the countries they attacked, the two of them really have no right to complain, IMHO.

The Japanese government had dispersed many war industries into civilian homes, in hopes of making them harder to hit. Whether we like it or not, this dispersal made the civilian homes legitimate military targets. Were there homes destroyed that didn't have any war industries in them? Probably some, although how many is questionable. And there was no way for the USAAF to distinguish between them.

 

Precision bombing was only possible, by night or day, if you could see the target. If you couldn't, you had to use electronic aids like radar - which in WW2 was only accurate to a mile or so. Such 'blind bombing' was in effect area bombing.

For the period September 1944 to April 1945 the weather was such that visual bombing was only possible in 30% of the USAAF's raids on Germany. In other words, they were area bombing for 70% of the time.

The most obvious difference between the efforts of the USAAF and RAF in bombing Germany, at least in the latter part of the war, lay in the presentation. The USAAF might say that they bombed a railway centre or factory, and neglect to mention that they'd flattened the town in which it was situated.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

Or put another way, the RAF precision bombed area targets where as the USAAF area bombed precision targets.

 

"Or put another way, the RAF precision bombed area targets where as the USAAF area bombed precision targets." :lol: :lol: :lol:

I like it!

 

Yeah, that wasn't bad.

 

However, one of the pilots who bombed Dresden, apparently felt very guilty at first until he saw the vapour trails of the V2's on his way home then all pity left him. Porsonally i can't make any judgement on him or the others, That was the way war was fought, it is now upto modern armies to learn and improve tactics.

 

That's a good attitude, GP. Unfortunately, you and I both know that there are a lot of people in this world determined to make the Allies the scapegoats for all the suffering that the German and Japanese peoples went through. And to do so, they can, have, and will smear the military personnel who carried out the air attacks on Germany and Japan. This behavior is, IMHO, both despicable and cowardly.

 

Agreed.

 

Speaking of despicable and cowardly the same could be said of the British Governments failure to issue a campaign medal to Bomber Command.

The men of Bomber command died in vast numbers attempting to carry out their orders. Ultimate responsibly for the RAF bombing campaign is not on the shoulders of the men in uniforms but the civilian government that commanded them.

 

true

 

All very true, but you'll never get the politicians to admit that. Nor is it likely that a campaign medal for the Bomber Command crews will ever be issued; the radical liberals and the politicians they support would raise all kinds of sand at the very suggestion. Not just in the UK, either.

 

Today, I heard that in the parliament of the german state of Saxony, the members of NPD(Nationale Partei Deutschlands=German national party), refused to participate in a silence minute in honour of the vicims of Holocaust.
They said as long as there would not be silence minutes in honour of the "hundreds of thousands of dead caused by the allied aerial holocaust", they would not participate in other silence minutes.

 

I doubt they would participate in a silent minute honouring the Holocaust victims anyway, even if a silent minute in remembrance of the victims of the Allied bombing was introduced.

 

You're probably right.

 

This also misses the point of cause and effect.

 

Of course, and quite obviously so....

 

Very true, but try telling them that! :roll: