Carpet Bombing in WWII

[Atilius]

Bombers won war on pacific - Japan lost almost all industry and they have no possibility to rebuild it.

This is a very strange assertion. The first strike by US land-based bombers against Japan wasn't attempted until June 15, 1944. In this raid, 68 B-29s based in China managed to hit a steel plant in Yawata on Kyushu with a single bomb. The last great carrier battle (the battle of the Philippine Sea) was concluded within a week of this. No effective attack by land-based bombers on Japan was made until December 18, 1944. By this time, most of the Imperial Japanese Navy and merchant marine were at the bottom of the ocean.

It is strange though that the Germans can commit all kinds of attrocities on the Russians and Jews which is counted as war crimes but the Firebombing of Tokyo is not seen as a war crime.

The murder of several million Jews, many of whom were German citizens, had absolutely no military utility. Strategic bombing at least had the goal of destroying enemy manufacturing, transportation, and war material.

Daylight precision bombing was so costly that inaccurate night-time area bombing was adopted by the US in Europe, although daylight bombing was never completely abandoned. The choice was to attack at night and inflict large civilian casualties or not to attack at all.

It should be noted that this approach was also adopted with regard to non-German civilians in occupied Europe. Prior to the Normandy invasion, a plan for air attacks on transportation facilities in France (to slow the arrival of German reinforcements to the battle area) encountered difficulty because it was believed that the plan might cause 20,000-40,000 French civilian deaths. The objections were overruled by Churchill and Roosevelt; fortunately, no more than 12,000 frenchmen were killed.

By the time Tokyo was firebombed on the night of March 9-10, 1945, the city as a whole was considered the target, but destruction of industry remained the aim. This was still due in part to the continuing high cost of daylight bombing and inaccuracy of night attacks, but reinforced by the fact that Japanese manufacturing was remarkably decentralized. Curtis LeMay (I will stipulate he is not an objective party) wrote in his memoirs:

...I'll never forget Yokohama. That was what impressed me: drill presses. There they were, like a forest of scorched trees and stumps, growing up throughout that residential area. Flimsy construction all gone... everything burned down, or up, and drill presses standing like skeletons.

Other sources testify to the Japanese practice of farming out piece-part industrial tasks to individuals who performed them in their own homes, even before the war.

The bombing was an ugly thing, but it can be plausibly argued that it ended the war sooner and saved as many lives as it took. The same can not be said about killing the Jews.

[naut]

Thanks for the replies! Very insightful.

Also does anyone know of any good books on the topic. I've looked at Wiki etc.

[Mount Suribachi]

Also does anyone know of any good books on the topic

Tail End Charlies by Tony Renell & John Nichol (yes, that John Nichol). Unbelievably moving book, had me in tears a couple of times. Looks at the war from the Human perspective of the crews (Bomber Command & 8th AF). Also does a good job of reclaiming the reputation Bomber Harris - basically he did what the politicians told him to do, and did it very well. Then when the war was over - in fact before it was over - they tried to distance themselves from him. It presents a very "warts and all" biopic of him, showing how he was often his own worst enemy when it came to his reputation, and refused to admit he was wrong when he clearly was (eg over supporting D-Day, or attacking oil installations) yet to the men of Bomber Command, he remains a hero, their hero. There is also a whole chapter devoted to Dresden, which refutes much of the propaganda that is spread about Dresden - most illuminating is the quote from a pamphlet published during WW2 by the city boasting of the many vital war industries based in the city. I'm also particulary fond of the quote by one RAF POW

We hadn't been fed for 5 days. A blast from the bombing loosened the doors sufficiently for us to get out and eventually find some potatoes to eat. We were marched through the still burning city and that is one of the happiest memories I have of 3 years captivity by one of the nastiest and most poisonous nations ever to seek to rule the world

The book also goes into the detail of the arguments put forward during the war both for and against strategic bombing, and it also highlights something I was never aware of, the number of bomber crewmen murdered by German civilians when they parachuted out. By their own admission, bomber POWs never felt truly safe until they were being gaurded by the Luftwaffe (who often risked their own lives to protect the POWs from the mob).

Also recommended, but not as good as the brilliant book above is Bomber Crew which came out at the same time as the Ch4 TV series. It doesn't go into the for and against arguments as much as TEC, focusing more on the training & experiences of the crews, but an interesting read nevertheless.