soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Apr 8, 9:19 am, thorn...@visi.com (David Thornley) wrote:

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> >The two atomic bombings each did less damage and killed fewer people
> >than massed attacks with conventional weapons. So why should I be
> >more afraid of 1 B29 carrying an atomic bomb than 300 carrying
> >conventional weapons?

For starters, there would be a greater chance for the authorities to
sound an alarm and give you a chance to get into a shelter if they
spot 300 bombers flying towards your city. The Enola Gay had an
uninterrupted bombing run against Hiroshima because the Japanese
thought she was just another spy/weather recon aircraft. The
population was hit hard as a result.

Firestorms were not as easy to create as the attacking bombers
desired. It took a certain set of circumstances for it to have a
reasonable chance of working, and with bombing campaigns, they usually
had to bomb even when they believed circumstances were not optimal.
Contrast that with atomic bombing, which virtually guaranteed
widespread damage even when the bomb itself misses its optimal target
by miles.

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> Why, historically, did the nuclear bombings have so much more effect
> than the firebombings? While large numbers of B-29s were dropping
> incendiaries on Japan, the Liaison Council was split 50-50 on
> whether to surrender, and the situation was deadlocked. The
> Japanese were able to agree to ask Stalin to talk to the Allies
> for them, but completely unable to agree on what to ask him to
> say.

Trivia Note: They eventually ended up sending three directives to
their ambassador: One was the "Soviets as emissary/mediator" proposal,
another was a trade deal (Soviets would provide transport), and the
third was a military alliance to "determine the future of Asia. Their
ambassador, not a partaker of whatever the Council was smoking, tried
to tell his superiors the proposal was madness, and nearly resigned
rather than deliver it.

> Two nukes later, and the situation was considerably changed.

Nit-Pick: The Hiroshima bombing prompted the famous 2nd meeting to
discuss surrender. The council heard of the second bombing while the
second meeting was in place, sometime after the Hawks in the room
stated their belief the US only had one bomb or else they would have
bombed other cities by now. The bombing of Nagasaki did not seem to
surprise anyone in the room, despite the earlier Hawk argument.

Another vote was taken, and the result was still 50-50. At this
point, the Prime Minister asked the Emperor what he recommended. The
Emperor recommended surrender, and the rest is even more history.

There is reason to believe the Hiroshima bomb was by itself enough to
prompt surrender. There was no way anyone outside of the Dove faction
and the Emperor's circle could have known it.

> Note that this is *two* nukes. The first one was not enough to
> convince the Japanese that the US had real nuclear capability,
> and they could stand the loss of one city.

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I have to disagree. The first bomb resulted in the second meeting to
be held again in a uncustomarily short time frame, with the further
rare event of having the Emperor in attendence.

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> >Poor management. Or hopeful management. Maybe both.

> Not knowing what they were doing. Strategic air war was a new
> thing (I'm not counting the comparative pinprick raids of earlier
> wars here). It took a long time to figure it out.

Note that the Allies had to do postwar studies of their bombing
campaigns to actually get a picture of what their bombing campaigns
did.

> >Certainly Churchill's observation of the hardening of British resolve
> >during the bombing of London by Germany was a clue that the whole
> >concept of strategic bombing needing rethinking.

> It was a clue, but in fact nobody was able to form definite conclusions
> from it.

Also note the German bombing campaign did not match the scale of
Bomber Commands bombing campaign, and would again be overwhelmed when
the USAAF entered the fray.

It is one thing when an enemy soldier learns not to be intimidated by
a single rifle shooting at him, but can be forced to take cover under
fire from a machine gun.

> Consider Bomber Command, and the belief that Germany could be defeated
> by dehousing the civilians. In other words, by something very similar
> to what caused the hardening of British resolve.

Nit-pick: Arthur "Bomber" Harris for one did not believe area attacks
on cities would do more than temporarily hurt German morale. He did
believe it would do widespread damage to German industries and
transportation, thus crippling their war effort.

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> This was the case for every new weapons system I am aware of.
> The proponents always claimed they would be more effective than
> they turned out to be in practice.

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Trivia: Prior examples of this include tanks, torpedo boats, and
submarines.