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Posted: 3/24/2006 5:53:01 PM EDT
[#1]
What isn't too well known among the public is Operation Starvation
The U.S. conducted an extensive mining campaign (Operation Starvation) against Japan in the closing months of World War II. From March through August of 1945, U.S. forces, primarily B-29 Bombers, laid 12,000 mines in major ports and in the Shimonoseki Strait. 650 ships were sunk or seriously damaged by these mines. The table below illustrates the outcome of this operation. Total Deadweight Tonnage Entering Japanese Ports, March-August 1945* MARCH 1945 -------850,000 APRIL 1945 --------775,000 MAY 1945 ----------580,000 JUNE 1945 ---------330,000 JULY 1945 ----------250,000 AUGUST 1945 ------150,000 *These figures, interpolated from data found in older bar charts, are approximate from:www.cnsl.spear.navy.mil/ships/pioneer/mine_warfare.htm |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:09:00 PM EDT
[#2]
I remember seeing some show about Germany sending atomic know how to Japan on the History Channel. This link is in line with what I remember from the show. www.jref.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1464.html |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:13:48 PM EDT
[#3]
A large portion of the Japanese arms were made in their cottage industry. The civilians made many of the munitions in their homes and neighborhood shops. That was unlike Germany where they mostly had very large factories. We attacked the factories which in Japan's case, happened to be in the neighborhoods. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:20:22 PM EDT
[#4]
I believe that the word you are looking for is retaliation.
Say it with me boys and girls “Reee tal Eeee Ayyy Shun.” Good, I knew you could |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:24:23 PM EDT
[#5]
People make weapons, people grow food, people make paper that's used by the military, people support operations.
If I burn down a city, it is no longer capable of supporting military operations either physically or economically. This is where the term "total war" comes from. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:32:40 PM EDT
[#6]
Serious question here…
Person #1 gets drafted by his country, put in uniform, given a crappy rifle and ten rounds of ammunition, and gets shipped out to defend some hellhole of an island. Person #2 doesn’t get drafted for some reason or another… Why is it OK to kill person #1 but not person #2? People throw around the term “innocent civilian” all the time like civilians are somehow more innocent than a soldier. I think that’s just a load of BS. Wars are nasty business, and it pays to end them as quickly as possible. I believe that in a war you should find the quickest way to win and then kill or destroy anything and everything necessary to achieve that objective. And if killing or destroying something won’t help you win then you should leave it alone. In my example above, if Person #1 was on a small island that was cut off and useless to our military, then it would be wrong to go kill him just because he’s a soldier. On the other hand if Person #2 is working nights from his house to make rifle stocks for the enemy then I don’t have a problem with dropping a bomb on his house. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:33:11 PM EDT
[#7]
The war on terror will reach a "total war" scenario. I hope it will be before all is lost. World War III has already started; some people have not realized it yet.
Bob |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:35:27 PM EDT
[#8]
Hitler defined the rules by bombing London. After that, when the Allies went on the offensive, they were repaid in kind.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:39:20 PM EDT
[#9]
It had mostly to do with pure and simple effectiveness.
In Europe, specifically against the Germans, factories were big and large structures that you could identify from the air. They were easily identifiable and could be targeted. Usually the lead bombardier would toggle on the factory concerned and if everyone else in his squadron (16-24 aircraft) toggled at once, given the circular probable error of the day, you could hit it. In Japan, they found out that the jet stream (blowing from west to east) was throwing planes all over, and many of the Japanese industry/factory targets had been built in wooden buildings that could not be identified, or hit, very easily. Curtis Lemay got tasked with this. Noone really cared how it got done, he was just told to knock out targets. They went from the original plan, which was copied from European doctrine, to Lemay's. (Lemay commanded in Europe so this was pretty original on his part.) They went from 30,000 feet to like 9,000. Night instead of day, incendiaries instead of HE, and since the Japanese night fighters were a shambles they left most of the gunners behind. Hit the city anywhere and let the fires knock things out, as they didnt know where things were, anyway. Not really all that different from British tacics-a function of the limitations of the weapons, mostly. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:39:56 PM EDT
[#10]
Actually European wars for the last couple centuries almost never concerned civilains. But in WWII, it was realized that destroying civvie populations hurt the military. And I think part of it was racism. I sincerely doubt we would ever have dropped a nuke on Berlin. (But we should have right after the Soviets took the city, and hit Moscow next.) |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:42:46 PM EDT
[#11]
We went after industrial centers that were producing the armaments enabling the Japanese to continue the fight. When the enemy can no longer produce weapons, amunition, vehicles, planes, armor, artillery, etc, his ability to continue the fight is limited. The Japanese also made themselves a real nuissance in their tactics and their refusal to surrender. After seeing the losses just on a little spec of dirt like Okinawa, the leadership of the US had every right to believe that trying to invade the Japanese home island would be even worse. Thus the decision was made to try and use the atomic bomb to break their will and force their surrender. Yes, lots of people died. Including innocent women and children. But the Japanese brought that on themselves. Their attrocities during WWII were as mean and nasty as the Nazi attrocities, even if they didn't manage to slaughter 6 million Jews. To my knowledge, no one has been able to do a comprehensive documentation of Japanese war crimes because they didn't keep records like the Germans did, and because most if not all of the responsible leaders killed themselves rather than be captured or surrender. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:44:30 PM EDT
[#12]
hmm... you do realize that by this rationale, Al-Qaida was justified in flying planes into our fucking buildings on 9/11... right? I mean, the WTC was a major economic power house, and the destruction of it sank our economy a good bit; so, since Al-Qaida's goal is to eliminate the US by any means possible, then by your argument it was okay for them to kill innocent civilians in order to help that goal come to fruition. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:44:55 PM EDT
[#13]
Talk to some old school folks from the Philipenes sometime. They absolutely despise the Japanese. And with good reason. The most awful story I have heard from someone who lived through that nightmare was that a group of Japanese soldiers wanted to rape a young mother who happened to be holding her young child. They grabbed the child away from his mother, threw him into the air, and then caught him on the bayonet of one of their rifles. The lady I knew was 10 at the time she saw this. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:45:53 PM EDT
[#14]
That too. We had no real way of dropping a single bomb onto a single target like we do today. The tactic was to take tons and tons of conventional dumb bombs and try to saturate a target area with them. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:47:05 PM EDT
[#15]
We weren't. Everybody was trying to develop The Bomb. It is by the grace of God that we managed to get it first. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:47:12 PM EDT
[#16]
Funny I watched the same special. They said that the Tokyo firebombings killed more people than Hiroshima and Naggasaki.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:47:24 PM EDT
[#17]
I don't have time to read the thread, and I'm sure this has been posted, but in case not, we did it because it saved American lives. It would have cost far too many <American> lives to invade the country. Even Democrats back in those days were loyal to America, as hard as that may be to fathom these days.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:49:14 PM EDT
[#18]
actually, the democrats of that day are the modern day republicans and vice-versa. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:50:05 PM EDT
[#19]
Just my opinion but they fucking deserved it.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:50:07 PM EDT
[#20]
Bullshit. Quit using these revisionist labels.
Which is how you make war. It's never pretty. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:53:00 PM EDT
[#21]
Once more, two big oceans provided us with the insulation necessary to win WWII. The oceans have always been a natural protection for the US. Invading us has always been problematic because of them. Unless you are MS-13, in which case you can just walk across the border while we smile at you... |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:54:41 PM EDT
[#22]
hmm... instilling fear among innocent civilians is the definition of terrorism. With all of the recommendations around here of stringing up alleged terrorists and the general pro-torture sentiment, I find it surprising that people around here don't see how similar their views on the treatment of civilians in a war is to the terrorists. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:56:10 PM EDT
[#23]
+1 and there were times when we dropped leaflets naming 5 cites and telling them that 3 of the were going to be bombed. It was up to the Japs to decide if they wanted to bug out. I dont think Hiro or NAgasaki were on them though. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:56:16 PM EDT
[#24]
No, the real reason WAS NOT RACISM DAMMIT!!! Stop drinking the lefty revisionist kool-aid!! The bombing of Japan was done FOR A STRATEGIC PURPOSE. We were faced with a fanatical enemy who did not operate by any of the "civilized" rules of war. We did what we had to do. Nothing more, nothing less. And when it was all over, we rebuilt the place. Some of you folks need to read some history. Read what Doug MacArthur had to say about the Japanese. He had tremendous respect for their culture and their people. But he had no illusions about what was necessary to prevail in a conflict with them. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:57:36 PM EDT
[#25]
I think your fifty million estimate is a bit conservative. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 6:59:53 PM EDT
[#26]
There are complicating issues as well, WE genuinely tried Daylight precision bombing to absolutely horrid effect.
The problem was partially due to the fact that Japanese industry was so widespread, and partially due to the Jetstream which was not understood at the time. The Jetstream is the piece of the puzzle that most people ignore, it pushed the b-29's past the speed where it could bomb precisely. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:00:10 PM EDT
[#27]
It is certainly true the Dems of the 1940's were about equal on the conservative/liberal scale as today's Repubs are, but the Repubs of that era were not the Socialist idiots of today's Dems. It is silly to make that allegation. 
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:02:59 PM EDT
[#28]
Because person number 1 has a rifle and is shooting at you. Duh.
There IS a difference between a person in the field with a weapon actively engaged in an offensive plan to kill you and over-run your country and destroy your way of life, and a person who ISN'T doing those things. Still, in WWII the enemy's ability to produce supplies for their war effort HAD to be destroyed. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:03:38 PM EDT
[#29]
Because we were still sane enough to know then that all warfare is and always has been between peoples, not militaries.
GunLvr |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:04:06 PM EDT
[#30]
No, Truman should have allowed Patton to march into downtown Moscow.  |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:04:32 PM EDT
[#31]
+1 |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:04:55 PM EDT
[#32]
Lord, forgive this person of his utter stupidity, and cure the blindness that prevents him from seeing the difference between a group of rag-headed terrorists who believe themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner of anyone they don't like and a STATE POWER WITH A UNIFORMED MILITARY ENGAGING IN WARFARE IN RESPONSE TO AN ATTACK ON OUR SOIL AND A WORDLWIDE THREAT AGAINST FREEDOM AND CIVILIZATION ITSELF. Amen. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:07:55 PM EDT
[#33]
And in the position of the American President, if you are choosing between option A that will kill tens or hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who had already bled and suffered so much in a campaign to conquer Japan where hundreds of thousands or more probably millions of Japanese will be killed, or an option that just kills a couple of hundred thousand Japanese in a swift stroke that might prevent an invasion, the choice is clear. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:09:37 PM EDT
[#34]
I think you need to stop being an equivocator and terrorist sympathizer. If you can't tell the friggin difference between what the US military did in WWII and what those AQ jackasses did on 9-11, then you are too stupid to engage in a rational discussion. The US military spent the overwhelming majority of its time and effort trying to render the military power of a foreign state useless. US Marines weren't walking into Tokyo elementary schools with bombs and blowing themselves up deliberately targeting innocent people and trying to slaughter as many of them as they could wholesale. Grow up. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:15:36 PM EDT
[#35]
When it comes to killing civilians, you cannot justify one group doing it but then say another group cannot do it. Since you pointed out the fact that Al-Qaida isn't an official state, let's go with a state involved in terror: Iran. Are you saying that it is A-OK for Iran to fund and operate terror missions in Iraq that kill innocent Iraqis going about their daily routine? How about Syria, is it okay for them to assassinate the leaders of Lebanon and kill civilians in Lebanon to maintain their power over the region? Or, sticking with WWII, was it okay for Hitler to bomb the daylights out of London, killing tens(hundreds?) of thousands of British citizens? I personally find all of the acts morally reprehensible; however, I do acknowledge their strategic purpose. I don't however see the difference between a state in war killing civilians and a guerilla force at war killing civilians. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:18:05 PM EDT
[#36]
We both have the same goals, the destruction of an enemy state and consolidation of power. Since YOU were the one to bring up the moral justification of killing civilians in war, I say that by your logic terrorists -- whose goal is to prevent the independent operation of Iraq -- are okay killing civilians PROVIDED their goal is to "render the military power of a foreign state useless", and are not doing it for shits and giggles. EDIT: and you are the terrorist sympathizer, any organization, be it a state or a rag-tag band of guerillas, who engages in operations to instill fear in the populace of a country in addition to other strategic goals, is a terroristic organization. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:29:53 PM EDT
[#37]
removes part of the work force that would otherwise be rebuilding the factories in dispursed locations in basements
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:42:13 PM EDT
[#38]
Because Japans government was our enemy and all that supported it. GM |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:50:46 PM EDT
[#39]
The goal wasn't to instill fear. It was to destroy the enemies war making capability. 9-11 did nothing to destroy our war making ability. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:53:36 PM EDT
[#40]
Firebombing was popular on all fronts. But thanks for pointing out the Asian front was consistant with the rest of the war. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:57:35 PM EDT
[#41]
it's allways been that way ,firebombing London,Dressdon,or the twin towers! The hits don't usually hit the military instalations!
Doolittles raids weren't presice bombing just there to let the Japanish know we were on the job and going to kick some ass!! Bob 
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Posted: 3/24/2006 7:59:15 PM EDT
[#42]
There was a history channel show about this several months back. It was a German Uboat carrying Japanese nuclear material and a few Japanese officers. The Germans recieved the message that their government had surrendered while they were en route to carry out the attack. The disappeared the Japanese officers overboard and surrendered. EDIT: Boat was U-234. Google should find it. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:00:54 PM EDT
[#43]
Don't feed the  . |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:42:07 PM EDT
[#44]
Because it is war.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:42:10 PM EDT
[#45]
WWII - people making ammo and equipment for the military became military targets. Like many of the Japanese that were killed in the bombings. 9-11 and others - people going about their daily lives ambivelant to any war or cause. Please tell us how the latter is as justified as the first? |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:54:17 PM EDT
[#46]
There was NO civilian population everybody even the chidren worked for the war evert.
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:55:52 PM EDT
[#47]
The Japanese didn't have zoning rules for keeping factories in separate areas. They put munitions plants next to schools and such. There weren't any pure military or industrial targets. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 8:59:23 PM EDT
[#48]
Yup, a "regular" bombing run on Hiroshima or Nagasaki would have killed just as many. US bombing raids on other cities were killing 100K-200K on a regular basis. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 9:02:47 PM EDT
[#49]
+1 or maybe two or three million Japanese. If you start shit you better be able to see it through, they underestimated usand they lost the hard way, end of story. |
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Posted: 3/24/2006 9:04:59 PM EDT
[#50]
An army cannot fight if the country cannot produce any more machines of war. Destry the factories or the people that work in them. |
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