soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:19:01 -0400, thornley@visi.com (David Thornley)
wrote:

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

Well, it was two nukes and a Russian invasion of Manchuria.

Also note that there was a qualitative difference in Hiroshima and the
March firebombing of Tokyo. Hundreds of planes (279 says Wiki) with
presumably some tens of them lost to ack-ack, fighters, and mechanical
failure. Calamity though it may have been, it was in a direct line of
events from the Japanese bombing of Chongqing in 1939 to the German
raids on Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Coventry to the Anglo-American raids
on Dresdren, Hamburg, und so weiter ... anyone with half a brain could
have forecast that sowing the wind in 1939 would lead to their reaping
the whirlwind some time later.

But Enola Gay! That was one plane visible in the sky, assumed to be a
weather recce, and a city was vaporized beneath it. The debate in the
war cabinet (see Japan's Longest Day) is fascinating for the theories
of how it could have happened (perhaps the Americans scattered
magnesium dust over the city that was ignited by the breakfast
cookfires?) and what could be done about it (restart Japan's abandoned
nuclear program?). Note that the Japanese knew less about Hiroshima's
fate than the Americans did, because radio communication was also
vaporized.

So it was a jaw-dropping event. One city gone today, another gone a
few days later. How many cities did Japan have to spare?

Tokyo, note, was still a working city in August 1945, months after the
first firebombing raid. It is possible that more people died in Tokyo
in March than died at Hiroshima in August, but their deaths did not
stop the city from functioning as the capital and nerve center of the
Empire.


Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
new from HarperCollins www.FlyingTigersBook.com