Backroom Errata

[Montmorency]

Racist anti-Japanese propaganda may have had some effect on attitudes on the ground, with a marked difference in approach between the European and Pacific theatres (but then, Japanese behaviour rather encouraged this too). However, I see little difference in attitudes towards Germany and Japan in the air war. The resources and strategies for the immensely destructive air war on Japan were developed for use on Germany.

The impression I've gained over time is that:

1. Most military men and politicians didn't really consider ethical questions at a remove one way or another, or not more than idly
2. The civilian population couldn't hold their leaders to account because they couldn't realistically have been aware of the details of the campaign (such as they existed), and in principle would not have tended to disagree with the general idea of bombing enemy cities to further the war effort/exact retribution
3. Some influential (Anglo-American) interwar doctrine put a lot of stock on air supremacy and materiel/industrial destruction from the air, and during the war the actual effectiveness of this doctrine would have been a lesser consideration compared to inter-service competition and the commitment of fixed infrastructure

Some tidbits I learned from Wellerstein:

1. The A-bombs were an order of magnitude deadlier than firebombs relative to area affected. It's not surprising, since the explosive yield in kilotons was about an order of magnitude greater than what could be achieved by a even whole bomber command of B-29s.
2. Everyone knows there was an internal ethical debate over the use of the weapons brewing among the Manhattan Project scientists before fruition, but even the general American public got into, even before the surrender had been finalized. The Japanese themselves had some awareness of the debate already as the process of occupation began, but I gather (understandably) we don't have much of their perspective on the issue. Other than the standard postwar line, potentially propaganda, that the power of the atom presented an unanticipated Sword of Damocles that could not be countered short of honorable surrender, but that doesn't imply an ethical valence to the bombing itself.

We should always keep in mind that a retrospective student can achieve a better grasp of both the big picture and the nitty gritty facts than almost anyone at the time could hope for. When you think about it, it's existentially terrifying how irrational, ill-informed, and uncertain so much human action is in real time.