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Japanese denial of WWII crimes
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I don't think that's entirely accurate. They actually weren't that accurate in Europe. The idea of precision bombing from altitude is a bit of myth. One that the public were sold at the time, but wasn't really true.
It's true to say that the definition of "precision" would vary over the decades. The precision of a 1940s four engined bomber would not be anywhere near as accurate as a 21st century laser guided missile.
But by comparison with their British Allies, the USAAF bombing Germany set out to be, and was, way more accurate and discerning. The Americans flew by day and aimed at specific military and industrial targets. The British, once they realised how fanciful their original tactics were, just tried to hit cities at night and destroy them en masse. The Area Directive made no pretensions to differentiate between "military" and "civilian" targets in a particular city.
The American day-bombing tactics also reinforced, by necessity, the likelihood of concentrated bombing on small areas. Flying without the cover of darkness or fighter support, which pretty much described all raids on Germany until late 1944, required bombers to fly in tight formation for reasons of self defence. An American plane that fell out of formation over Germany was easy meat for German fighters.
A study of the Hamburg firestorm raids of 1943 illustrates the difference between the British and American objectives. The British aimed for the residential suburbs; the Americans deliberately targeted individual aircraft and submarine factories. Far from being a "round the clock" operation, at least one of the American daylight raids on Hamburg that week was so concentrated that most people in the city didn't realise a raid was taking place. Of course with all the mayhem of the firestorm the night before, there was enough ongoing destruction to distract most of them from the raid on industrial targets that was taking place.
The Americans never had any qualms about massive destructive anti civilian raids on Japan. I don't think the Pearl Harbor comparison is a valid one. After all, whatever you say about the dastardly nature of the Japanese surprise attack/pre-emptive strike, there is no doubt that Pearl Harbor was fundamentally a miltary target.0 -
Snickers Man wrote: »...But by comparison with their British Allies, the USAAF bombing Germany set out to be, and was, way more accurate and discerning. ....
Might depend on how you define "accurate"
Some missed Dresden by 120 km.In the fall of 1944, only seven percent of all bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet of their aim point.In Europe the Norden likewise demonstrated a poor real-world accuracy. Under perfect conditions only 50 percent of American bombs fell within a quarter of a mile of the target, and American flyers estimated that as many as 90 percent of bombs could miss their targets.
In Europe they flew much higher then the Norden had been trialled with, and in Japan they flew higher and faster again. It was impossible to be accurate like that.316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden, dropping 771 tons of bombs.[58][59] The rest misidentified their targets. Sixty bombed Prague, dropping 153 tons of bombs on the Czech city while others bombed Brux and Pilsenccording to American pilots, it was the result of a navigation mistake: at the same time, a massive bombing of Dresden was under way, 120 km north from Prague.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Bombing_of_PragueThe 379th bombardment group started to bomb Dresden at 12:17 aiming at marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district west of the city centre as the area was not obscured by smoke and cloud. The 303rd group arrived over Dresden 2 minutes after the 379th found that the their view was obscured by clouds so they bombed Dresden using H2X radar to target this location. The groups that followed the 303rd, (92nd, 306th, 379th, 384th and 457th) also found Dresden obscured by clouds and they too used H2X to locate the target. H2X aiming caused the groups to bomb inaccurately with a wide dispersal over the Dresden area.
Not that accurate maybe.0 -
WW2 bombing never was accurate unless it was very low level and daytime. Even then it was inaccurate. Do not be fooled by the 'smart bomb's used today - most of that is PR guff, those weapons amount to a minute fraction of what is dropped but they give civilians a 'feelgood' factor that innocent women and children are not being killed/maimed.
The bombing of the Normandy beaches prior to invasion was not very accurate - The US made wildly optimistic claims about its prowess at ‘precision’ bombing.
In the 30 minutes preceding H-Hour 329 Liberators and Fortresses of the US Eight Air Force dropped 13,000 bombs – not one fell on Omaha Beach. Heavy bombing formations remained incapable of dropping the majority of their load within a five-mile radius of their target. 'The Air Corps might just as well have stayed at home in bed for all the good that their bombing concentration did' according to a 1st Division officer.(D-Day, Beevor, page 910)
Elsewhere in the book he mentions a remark current at that time in relation to aircraft – ‘If it is grey we duck, if it is brown they duck and if it is silver we all duck.’0 -
Might depend on how you define "accurate"Originally Posted by Snickers Man
...But by comparison with their British Allies, the USAAF bombing Germany set out to be, and was, way more accurate and discerning. ....
Some missed Dresden by 120 km.
......
Not that accurate maybe.
It is usually accepted that in the European arena that the USAAF set out their stall to avoid civilian casualties. This was one of the main reasons for their long held view that daytime raids were worth the risk. They may not have been accurate but they attempted to be.0 -
jonniebgood1 wrote: »It is usually accepted that in the European arena that the USAAF set out their stall to avoid civilian casualties. This was one of the main reasons for their long held view that daytime raids were worth the risk. They may not have been accurate but they attempted to be.
You could argue they also they attempted to do the same in Japan...Over Japan, the B-29s encountered the jet stream, fierce winds above 25,000 feet that added as much as 250 mph to an aircraft’s speed relative to the ground. The jet stream pushed the bombers over the target too fast for the Norden bombsight to compensate. Flying against the jet stream, the speed relative to the ground was so slow that the airplanes were sitting ducks.
Daylight precision bombing faltered, especially on the missions from the Marianas. The weather permitted only four days a month of visual bombing. The long distances and high altitudes consumed so much fuel that the bomb loads were relatively small. There were frequent aborts and ditchings as Twentieth Air Force worked the kinks out of the new bomber under combat conditions.
Arnold and the AAF were under tremendous pressure to produce strategic results and help bring the war in the Pacific to an end. Hansell stuck doggedly to daylight precision bombing, although repeated efforts against such targets as the Nakajima-Musashino aircraft plant near Tokyo were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, the clamor was building in Washington to switch to incendiary area bombing. The Office of Scientific Research and Development had developed the highly effective M-69 incendiary bomb, to which the Japanese style of construction was starkly vulnerable. Japanese industry, including cottage industries making military parts and equipment, was so integrated with populated areas that it was difficult to draw the line between them.
The Japanese regarded surrender as dishonorable and fought to the last in battle after battle. The possibility loomed that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would be necessary. Plans projected a landing force of 1.8 million US troops and anticipated massive casualties. The US was no longer as reluctant as it once had been to bomb enemy cities.
LeMay, who was the more aggressive commander and who had gotten better results with the B-29s in India and China, replaced Hansell at XXI Bomber Command in January 1945. XX Bomber Command was phased out and its aircraft and crews were transferred to the Marianas.
It had become apparent, LeMay said, that "we weren’t going to be able to defeat Japan using high-altitude precision bombing before the scheduled invasion was to begin."
Acting on his own initiative, LeMay ordered a massive low-level night mission against Tokyo with incendiary bombs March 9. Three wings of bombers would attack from the altitudes of 4,000 to 9,200 feet. The aircraft were stripped of excess weight, including most of the guns. Flying lower and less heavily laden, the B-29s carried more than twice as many bombs as before. The strike force found landfall by radar and bombed with intervalometers set to space the bombs 50 feet apart. About a fourth of Tokyo was destroyed and some 84,000 people were killed. It was supposedly while touring the firebombed area that Emperor Hirohito came to the conclusion that the war had to end as soon as possible.
LeMay continued to order precision attacks and to use high explosive bombs when targets and weather were suitable, but the emphasis had shifted to incendiary bombing at night. It systematically laid waste to Japan’s large industrial cities and by July, had reduced overall Japanese industrial output to some 60 percent from the 1944 level.
LeMay and Arnold believed that the incendiary bombing would eventually bring on a Japanese surrender. Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, and President Truman were not convinced. The Japanese military hardliners were prepared to accept enormous casualties and destruction and had assembled a force of 2.3 million troops in the home islands to throw back an invasion. Truman decided to use the atomic bomb.0 -
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You could argue they also they attempted to do the same in Japan...
Its a harder argument to make as the last few paragraphs of your quoted paragraph indicate. In his book 'horror in the east' Laurence Rees indicates that there was a prevailing attitude amongst many western countries that Japanese were not equals. To me it seems that this was reflected in the American bombing attitudes in a manner comparable to the way Nazi Germany treated its enemies in the east differently than those in the west. That may seem an over the top comment but remember the bombing of Japan culminated with 2 atomic bombings- I would ask if the 'humane' attitude of the european USAAF would have carried out an atomic bombing of a German city?0 -
Maybe you missed this earlier
http://www.onlinemilitaryeducation.org/posts/10-most-devastating-bombing-campaigns-of-wwii/
Ask yourself the question in reverse. Imagine the allies had the experience of 5 or 6 years of was with Japan before the war in Europe began. Then had all the technology they had in Japan available in Europe. Would they have used B29's and atomic weapons rather than fighting another 6 years of war?
Remember they didn't really need to invade japan. Its navy and air force were obliterated. It was blockaded by subs and ships. Cut off in effect. There some argument for the idea that the destruction of japan, wasn't only a message for japan, but also for Russia.0 -
I don't think the difference in attitudes can be attributed to war weariness if that is the point being made. There was more to it than that.
There was a difference in attitudes by Americans towards Japanese in many parts of that country, this is well documented even in laws in some states.
http://jicproject.wikispaces.com/Anti+Japanese+Sentiment+Before+WWII
http://archive.vancouver.wsu.edu/crbeha/ja/ja.htm
http://mason.gmu.edu/~jboggs/openseason/background.html
http://kaga.wsulibs.wsu.edu/cdm-imls_2/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/wsuvan1&CISOPTR=1463&CISOBOX=1&REC=10 -
My point has nothing to do with war weariness. Its simply the poor accuracy of the technology, the limitations of aiming from altitude and speeds, and the availability of the technology at that point in the war.
You can have all the attitude you want. But if you can't physically and technically carry it out, its really irrelevant what the attitude is.
There a whole other side of it too. Where massive funds and resources are poured into a project, there's often enormous pressure to get results and use what every is the outcome of all that expense. The US big bomber programme is an example.0 -
You can have all the attitude you want. But if you can't physically and technically carry it out, its really irrelevant what the attitude is.
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If the quote above is true then how do you explain the explicitally different concepts of daytime riads (USAAF) and nighttime area bombing (RAF).
What was the point in flying in daylight, endangering ones own pilots, if we discount the sought accuracy.
The difference is outlined here:The Allied Practice
In practice, the Allies carried pursued two types of bombing campaigns against Germany. These were precision bombing and area bombing.
Precision or Pinpoint Bombing: Never as precise as claimed, the primary objective was to destroy a specific military or industrial target using aerial bombardment. Civilians were often killed in these kinds of operations. However, their deaths were considered an unfortunate result of the inaccuracy of precision bombing, the intent was not to target and kill civilians wholesale. By and large, the British pursued this kind of bombing in 1940 and 1941. It was abandoned by the RAF in favor of city-killing, area bombing in February 1942. The US followed suit in December 1943, after the disastrous second Schweinfurt raid, but continued to pursue both area and precision bombing until the end of the war in Europe. In operations over Japan, the USAAF overwhelmingly conducted area bombing.
Area Bombing (also called Strategic Bombing): In contrast to precision bombing, area bombing targeted entire cities, consisting of many square miles, and not specific military or industrial targets. During area bombing runs wave after wave of bombers, including as many as 1,000 airplanes, would sweep over a wide expanse and drop hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of bombs on the target city.
The concept of area bombing held that cities, as vital centers of economic production, were in themselves legitimate targets. Following this reasoning, it ran that if an entire urban area was destroyed it would dislocate the industrial labor force, thereby making it more difficult for the enemy to produce the war materiel necessary to keep up the fight. Similarly, the logic of area bombing also ran that the enemy's industrial workforce was in itself a legitimate target. Kill enough of the enemy's laborers and industry would grind to a halt. In connection with this there was the question of shattering the morale of the belligerent population. Killing as many civilians as possible and rendering as many homeless as possible was thought to have a dramatically negative effect on the morale of the civilian population. Once morale had been undermined it was assumed (hoped) that the enemy would capitulate (see Douhet's Concept above).
Area bombing could consist of dropping purely high-explosive bomb loads. More often, however, it entailed using a bombing method called "firebombing" in which high-explosives and incendiary bombs were dropped during the same air raid. Firebombing was employed simply to achieve the maximum amount of destruction possible. The objective was to send as many bombers as possible over the target in as rapid a succession as possible in order to create a self-fueling firestorm. First dropped would be the high-explosives, in order to blow apart buildings, destroy water mains, and wreck roads. Incendiary bombs filled with phosphorus (later napalm) would then be dropped in order to cause huge fires. A third wave of bombers would drop fragmentation or time-delay bombs in order to kill firefighters arriving on the scene and thus keep the fires burning. This firestorm would grow so hot that it would create its own wind tunnel effect and burn absolutely everything, including steel. Firestorms caused by bombing could burn for days, until all of its fuel had been exhausted.
The British perfected firebombing and employed it against many German cities, particularly older ones which had crowded streets and mostly wooden structures. The destruction of Hamburg and Dresden, are the best known examples of cities destroyed by bombing created firestorms, while in Japan Tokyo and other cities were incinerated by firestorms caused by the USAAF.
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/war.crimes/World.war.2/Bombing.htm0 -
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jonniebgood1 wrote: »If the quote above is true then how do you explain the explicitally different concepts of daytime riads (USAAF) and nighttime area bombing (RAF).
What was the point in flying in daylight, endangering ones own pilots, if we discount the sought accuracy.
The difference is outlined here:
I don't think you've taken in what you quoted. The US assumed their heavily armed bombers could defend themselves. They couldn't they were massacred. Something the British has learnt since 1939. The US had to relearn that lesson. They didn't restart daylight bombing till they had fighter protection the whole way to the target The British couldn't do that, as their fighters didn't have the range, and also their bombers weren't as heavily armed to begin with.
Ultimately the US had to learn the lesson about accuracy themselves also. The British had already learnt this lesson earlier in the war.0 -
I don't think you've taken in what you quoted. The US assumed their heavily armed bombers could defend themselves. They couldn't they were massacred. Something the British has learnt since 1939. The US had to relearn that lesson. They didn't restart daylight bombing till they had fighter protection the whole way to the target The British couldn't do that, as their fighters didn't have the range, and also their bombers weren't as heavily armed to begin with.
Ultimately the US had to learn the lesson about accuracy themselves also. The British had already learnt this lesson earlier in the war.
You are not for some reason answering what I asked. Again as quoted above you refer to the USAAF partaking in daytime raids.
the question I asked is regarding the USAAF policy of flying at daytime when regardless of their bombers defence capabilities it was more dangerous than flying at night:
"What was the point in flying in daylight, endangering ones own pilots, if we discount the sought accuracy."
My contention is simply that the reason they flew daytime raids was to increase accuracy- as per explanation in link I previously gave, i.e. demonstrating a different attitude to that of the US bombing campaign in Japan.0 -
?jonniebgood1 wrote: »ass u me
...er I dunno if I should decline a date politely or be insulted?...
Your question is based on a flawed premise....that the British didn't bomb during the day, and that the US didn't bomb at night. However the US AND British both started out with day light raids and were slaughtered. The US ended up using (relearning) much if the techniques and technologies invented/learnt by the British.
There's also another flawed premise. That the US didn't try daylight raids, or to be accurate in Japan. They did and was just as much as a failure as it was in Europe.0 -
For exampleThe B-26 entered service with the Eighth Air Force in England in early 1943, with the 322d Bombardment Group flying its first missions in May 1943. Missions were similar to those flown in North Africa with B-26s flying at low level and were unsuccessful. The second mission, an unescorted attack on a power station at IJmuiden, Netherlands resulted in the loss of the entire attacking force of 11 B-26s to anti-aircraft fire and Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters.1939 - disastrous daylight raid on German warships off Wilhelmshaven - 22 Wellingtons are caught in a cloudless sky in broad daylight by flak and Luftwaffe fighters, guided for the first time by German radar. 12 bombers are lost to Luftwaffe fighters.0
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...er I dunno if I should decline a date politely or be insulted?...
I should make clear that the boldening text was pointing out they should not have made the assumption you suggest.
as in assume>>>ass u me0 -
?
...er I dunno if I should decline a date politely or be insulted?...
Your question is based on a flawed premise....that the British didn't bomb during the day, and that the US didn't bomb at night. However the US AND British both started out with day light raids and were slaughtered. The US ended up using (relearning) much if the techniques and technologies invented/learnt by the British.
There's also another flawed premise. That the US didn't try daylight raids, or to be accurate in Japan. They did and was just as much as a failure as it was in Europe.
The question is not based on the flawed premise, rather it is based on a generalisation. I note you have not answered it...
Do you accept that in the European part of the war the USAAF to a large extent carried out their bombing missions by day and that the RAF to a large extent carried out their bombing at night?0 -
Sure.
And they started the same in Japan.The difficulty of strategic bombing had been seen on June 15th, 1944, when a raid on Yawata’s iron and steel works resulted in just 2% of the complex being damaged. On August 20th, a raid on the same plant led to 18 bombers being shot down out of 70 planes – an attrition rate of 25%. The target was barely touched. Such losses for so little reward convinced many crews that strategic bombing was untenable.The first bombing raid against Tokyo occurred on November 24th. The city was 1,500 miles from the Marianas. Brigadier-General Emmett O’Donnell flying the ‘Dauntless Dotty’ led 111 B-29’s against the Musashima engine factory. The planes dropped their bombs from 30,000 feet and came across the first of a number of problems – accuracy. The B-29’s were fitted with an excellent bomb aimer – the Norden – but it could not make out its target through low cloud. Also flying at 30,000 feet meant that the planes frequently flew in a jet stream wind that was between 100 and 200 mph which further complicated bomb aiming. Of the 111 planes on the raid, only 24 found the target.
In January 1945, Curtis LeMay flew to the Marianas to take control of 21st Bomber Command. The 20th Bomber Command, which had been based in India and China, was also transferred to the Marianas and LeMay was given command of this as well. Both units became the 20th Air Force. By March 1945, over 300 B-29’s were taking part in raids over Japan.
However, flights over Japan remained risky as there were very many young Japanese men who were willing to take on the risk of attacking a B-29, despite its awesome firepower (12 x .50 inch guns and 1 cannon). When Japan introduced its ‘George’ and ‘Jack’ fighters, the number of casualties for the 20th Air Force increased and the damage done by the bombers was not really worth the losses. In March 1945, the capture of Iwo Jima meant that P-51 Mustangs could be used to escort the B-29’s. P-61 ‘Black Widows’ gave night time protection to the bombers during night raids. The Mustang was more than a match for the ‘Jack’ and ‘George’ fighters and daylight bombing raids over Japan became less hazardous with such protection.
LeMay still experienced one major problem though. The investment the Allies were getting for the number of bombs dropped was small. The bombers were not having a discernable impact on manufacturing in Japan. Pinpoint bombing was simply not giving the returns that LeMay wanted.0 -
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No the point (or suggestion) being was made was the change of attitude dictated the change in bombing policy. A suggestion is also being made they could have been accurate if they wanted, and that they were more accurate in ETO than the PTO.
The facts don't support that. In fact there's a myriad of technical and practical reasons for why the bombing policy and practice happened as it did. Also its not credible to ignore the time line, where the bombing in Japan was based on previous experience in the ETO.0 -
No the point (or suggestion) being was made was the change of attitude dictated the change in bombing policy. A suggestion is also being made they could have been accurate if they wanted, and that they were more accurate in ETO than the PTO.
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Refer to Posts 32 &33, then 40 & 41
The USAAF flew daytime over Germany while at the same time night time over Japan. You cannot have the same accuracy at night as during the day. The change in late 1944/ early 45 saw a massive increase in damage done as they used a mix of incendaries as well as explosives. They also began flying lower altitudes in Japan.
The facts don't support that. In fact there's a myriad of technical and practical reasons for why the bombing policy and practice happened as it did. Also its not credible to ignore the time line, where the bombing in Japan was based on previous experience in the ETO.0 -
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At this point I think you're just ignoring the physics of it, and the links with facts rather circumstantial opinion.jonniebgood1 wrote: »...You cannot have the same accuracy at night as during the day. ...
Try hitting football with a tennis ball at night from 5m away.
Then try the same thing from 200m away during the day with someone jostling you. Then imagine there are clouds between you and football.
Often the US bombed using the British night time radar (during the day) to aim as the targets were obscured. Also they had to fly higher during the day than at night. You can't have a bigger miss than bombing the wrong city 120km away in daylight.0 -
At this point I think you're just ignoring the physics of it, and the links with facts rather circumstantial opinion.
Try hitting football with a tennis ball at night from 5m away.
Then try the same thing from 200m away during the day with someone jostling you. Then imagine there are clouds between you and football.
Often the US bombed using the British night time radar (during the day) to aim as the targets were obscured. Also they had to fly higher during the day than at night. You can't have a bigger miss than bombing the wrong city 120km away in daylight.
Could you summarise the point you are making here?0
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