Greatest Generation? What Happened 70 Years Ago Will Change Your Mind! | Mickey Z.

[Tace]

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

March 3, 2015

On the night of March 9-10, 1945, General Curtis LeMay, head of the Twenty-first U.S. Bomber Command, brought an all-American brand of hell into the Pacific theater of the Good (sic) War as his bombardiers laid siege on Tokyo.

Tightly packed wooden buildings were assaulted with 1,665 tons of incendiaries. LeMay later recalled that a few explosives had been mixed in with the incendiaries to demoralize Japanese firefighters (96 fire engines burned to ashes, 88 firemen died).

One Japanese doctor recalled “countless bodies” floating in the Sumida River. These bodies were “as black as charcoal” and beyond identification. The total dead for one night was an estimated 85,000, with 40,000 injured and one million left houseless.

This was only the first strike in a firebombing campaign that dropped 250 tons of bombs per square mile, destroying 40 percent of the surface area in 66 death-list cities (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

By design, the Tokyo attack area was 87.4 percent residential and it is believed that more people died from fire in a six-hour time period than ever before in the history of mankind.

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http://worldnewstrust.com/greatest-generation-what-happened-70-years-ago-will-change-your-mind-mickey-z

[guillaumeb]

1. do not forget the Dresden firebombing either

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-dresden

happened February 13, 1945. Another glorious chapter of the war

[Diclotican]

6. guillaumeb

guillaumeb

Even if the firebombing of Dresden was a horrible crime - and who had few objectives in the war effort - it never started in a vacuum - and to be honest - Luftwaffe had its share of war crimes to account for - Coventry, East-London, Manchester, Liverpool, Rotterdam in The Netherlands - who even was a "open City" that means - after the legal justice in the early 1940s - a city that should not be bombed or its people not harmed in any way - but even then Luftwaffe bombed the city - and countless dutch was killed as a result when the docks was on fire, and the area around was firebombed... The same happened in many other city's like in Krakow Poland - and Warsaw who should be bombed many times from 1939 to 1944 when most of the city was bombed to the ground - and had to be rebuild more or less from scratch.... Need I point out how countless city's in Soviet Union who was razed to the ground thanks to how Luftwaffe operated - and where specially City's like Leningrad, who was under siege in 900 days - and where more than One million was starved to death before finaly the red army was able to get some help in to the city - and where Luftwaffe was doing its best to raze the city to the ground... And Stalingrad, who was bombed to rubbles in a few days when the 6th army was trying its best to go over Volga - and where ten of thousands of sivilians for the whole war was trapt between german troops and russian troops.. And I suspect many germans, who was in the know about what was going on - know it would be a time of reqoning when the war turned in 1943 - after the Stalingrad Catastrophe - even the generals, wrote in their diaries that they had some doubt Germany was able to win the war... And even Fritz Todt - the bulding inspector for all german infrastructure told Hitler allready in 1942 that it was doubtfull Hitler would win the war - as the ressourses was limited... After that communication - he was killed in a aircraft accident right after takeoff - and it have ever since been a rumor that Hitler got Todt killed, becouse Hitler was furious about the fact that someone was telling him the cold facts of the war effort. Albert Speer was then put in sharge of everything - and keept that post to the end of the war - and was spared the gallow becouse he admited guilt in the Nurenberg trials - even if he got 20 years prison time..

The bombing of Dresden was wrong - from the perspective of our own time - no doubt about it - even if Dresden was a important railroad connection point between the west and the east - and most of the german railroad was more or less cut off when in february 1945 the allied forces firebombed the city - the objective was to stop the railroads going from west to east - and from east to the west again - sadly at the time the war had been one for years, everyone was tired, and as the Nazi-regime was starting to loose ground methods who was not used before was used - and the bombs was not exactly smart either - rather dumb - and had to be used to a large quantity to make some effect... The railroad link between East and West was indeed severed by the bombing raids - but the City paid a horrible price for the bombing - as the city was more or less leveled to the ground - and ten of thousands of rather Innocent woman, men and children was killed by the fire who was so great that not even the most experienced fire brigades had a Chance to contain it - mostly as part of the city was made into a fireball, where one fire grow tighter with another - to make what was called "fire-storms" who ravaged great parts of the city - and killed all living things....

If anything - the bombing of Dresden - as the bombing of Coventry and many other City's by Luftwaffe and the allied forces - was showing how horrible war indeed was - and that when the war was over - we had all to fight to never encounter the same experience one more time... And even with a few mishaps now and then the last two and a half decades - It is seen as Europe do have been learing that war is not the best way to solve our differences - and I suspect from the perspective of the outside - many look at the majority of european as soft - decadent - and not willing to go to war when necessary. We are not soft - ot decadent - and willing to go to war - if we are given a sensible explaining to why... But we also have some horrible history of experience - and therefore hesitated going to war - we know what war is - and for the most part - doesn't want to experience it again - if we can..

Now - 70 year after the war - the history books about the war is still open - and tonnes of books is written about the different parts of the war - from the start in 1939 wen Hitler attacked Poland - to the end, when Germany was bombed back a century - or more - and where the atrocities was plentifully on all sides - Germany had been doing horrible crimes on their own - no one was innocent when the war ended...


And by the way - after WW2, when Germany as a whole had to rebuild from scratch - city's like Dresden was rebuild - even if in a different way then before, but even then, the east german government was using a lot of hard currency over the next 44 year to rebuild Dresden as it once was - from pictures, from paintings, and if possible after architects design going back centuries - so at least the outside of the buildings could resemble what was firebombed - even if the inside was modern... And even after Germany was united in 1993 - the rebuilding of Dresden continued more or less as it have had been for the last 44 years - and it was not until rather late most of the rebuilding of the city centre - was finished - and people could again visit some of the marvelous buildings who once was there - in Dresden even if the buildings had been razed to the grounds in 1945 - and had to be rebuild after the war..

Diclotican

[catbyte]

2. Yeah, but talk to a Pacific War vet who witnessed Japanese atrocities

against civilians. Horrific. War is hell. Are you saying we should have let Germany, Japan & Italy have their way?

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Wallace ( George, not Henry) brought him ( Le May) out of...

mothballs to run for veep in... I guess it was '68.

Seems Curtis wanted to turn all Southeast Asia into one large firestorm.

[Hoppy]

4. By way of fair comparison, read about the Japanese invasion of Nanking.

Japanese swordsmen made Jihad Johnny look like an amateur.

[Eko]

5. What someone else has done

In no way absolves us of killing mass numbers of civilians. You walk a dark road if the actions of others help shape your morality.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. Posted to for later. n/t

[TheCrankyLiberal]

8. Sadly those crimes were very popular among Americans

My dad recalls signs in town promoting "Walloping the Japs" and that his church was very vocal about defending America from any Asian immigrant they may come in contact with.. This wasn't the south either. It was 40's Midwest at it's finest. Back when you could keep a citizen's complacent support for war with egg creams and talking picture shows.
So many nostalgic people will neglect to say at whose cost was their comfort bought with. Not that there wasn't loss or tragedy. 40's America had that in spades. It was that the collectives concept of honorable force was so pure, naive that it was a piece of cake getting them to fight if they felt Main st was threatened.. PTSD was also not as rampant I feel in part because the populace still weren't jaded by the American dream.

[jomin41]

9. War

Most Americans would have preferred to stay out of WW2, even as of December 6, 1941. But once we were in the war, the object was to get it over with as fast as possible. By 1945, we were tired and were looking at the bottom of the barrel in manpower and money. England was in worse shape. I'm a real peacenik (veteran), but I'm not going to judge those who were there. Our victory was not guaranteed. Luck, both bad and good, is a huge component of war. Anything can happen, at any time.

[gregcrawford]

10. War is a license...

... to unleash the monsters within us. Anyone with the temerity to question the motivations for war (like the "attack" in the Gulf of Tonkin that never happened) is vilified as a "fuckin' Peacenik." What kind of diseased mind prefers war over peace?