Because I'm older now and had more time to research it - I don't believe that should have lowered our moral standing by the war of annhilation we conducted against the civilians of Japan. When we did that, we followed the lead of the barbaric ideologies we were opposing and rejected our founding as a Christian country.
We had a segment of our military forces who were both committed to the faith that the "bomber will always get through" - that strategic bombing could win all by itself and nobody but the low-born and the stupid would be needed for that grimy infantry war far below them.
bombing cities didn't work for the Germans against the Brits and as we found out in Europe, daylight "precision" bombing was inaccurate and wasted aircraft and young men's lives - so we adopted the Brit's tactics of massive, relentless night bombing of cities to kill civilians.
From there, it was an easy slide further down that moral sink to the apocolypse we conducted in Japan. Because of the high winds of the Jet Stream and the flaws in the Norden bomb sight, those very expensive and finicky B-29s had no real tactical or strategic effect up until January 1945. We had expended thousands of young Marines and soldiers to seize Saipan and Tinian - and then Iwo Jima - to secure the bases and the safe havens for those B-29s and they couldn't do anything at all until Curtis LeMay took over and committed those B-29s to low-altitude night incendiary attacks on cities with the express purpose of burning those cities out of existence and killing as many civilians as possible.
It was inhumane, unnecessary, and a genuine war crime - one that has influenced what the world would think about us for all time.
We had the Japanese completely defenseless by late 1944/early 1945. Our submarines had cut off all supplies of any kind to the Home Islands and the B-29s usefully mined the entrances to their ports. Our carriers roamed all around Japan and attacked every target within reach. Japan did not have the resources to go on and everybody knew that.
But the leadership had committed to total and complete defeat for Japan and the Bomber Mafia had to "prove" their thesis.
The more I learn about that war, the more I am sure that we could have secured victory against the Japanese without butchering civilians or invading them. We just had to cut them off and wait for them to give up.
As Colin Powell said about the Iraq army....
First we’re going to cut it off.
Then we’re going to kill it.
You might be right and make good points. Morally there were many questionable decisions on both sides, but by and large it is very difficult in my mind to compare our sins against those of the Axis powers who initiated the conflict.
It is an interesting argument and one that hopefully we never have to consider in the future.
The “strategic bombing campaign” as they called it in Europe did serve a useful military purpose. It pulled significant resources from the Eastern front allowing Russia a bit more breathing space (especially their air force) as most of the German fighter planes were occupied attacking the bombers. Once the P51’s were able to escort bombers all the way to Berlin they pulled even more fighter aircraft from the Eastern front and we were able to destroy the Luftwaffe on both fronts. As Herman Goering said, he knew the war was over when he saw the P51’s over Berlin.
The performance of the Russian Air Force improved dramatically and relatively consistently with the increase in the bombing campaign in the West and in the last year of the war they were quite successful against the Wehrmacht. It is difficult to gauge what impact the thousands of diverted fighter planes had to the Eastern Front but it certainly made a difference as Russian air attacks continued to grow in effectiveness against the Germans.
People forget how much pressure the Russians were under because the US and the Brits took a very long time to invade France and open up the second front. Italy and North Africa were effective but still paled in comparison to the war in the East, but every little bit helped.
While the bombing campaign against cities raises moral questions it undoubtedly took some pressure off of the Russian forces in the East. It consumed huge resources for Germany to try and defend herself not just in men and material (primarily fuel) but as the war proceeded and less fighter opposition was encountered our escort aircraft did major damage to the German’s supply chains by destroying trains, trucks, and other movements.
It can be argued that had it NOT been for the bombing campaign in the West the Luftwaffe might have potentially turned the tide on the Eastern front. The Germans would have also had a lot more artillery on the Eastern front as well being used as flak guns to defend cities and industry. The impact of the bombing campaigns did cause major disruptions to German logistics and it caused a large loss (and commitment) of resources that Germany could ill afford. The Red Army took the brunt of the fighting in the European theater. We delayed D-Day for a very long time - some would say too long as the Russians bled so the main contribution we made up until D-Day was the bombing campaign.
The entire war was brutal. However, considering the behavior of Germany (or Japan) during the war we had little sympathy. Even the much disputed raid on Dresden did significant damage to essential factories and transportation. Too many forget that the Germans initiated the Blitz before abandoning the Battle of Britain because they did not have good bombers. They even continued with V1 and V2 rockets that were best described as terror weapons.
It was total war demanding unconditional surrender. The bombing campaign turned the conflicts in both theaters into a war of attrition and materials that the Axis powers could not win. The bombing was inaccurate so carpet bombing was the only way to strike targets and we missed more often than we hit. I don’t deny that.
Had either Germany or Japan been able to bomb American cities and industry they would have hammered us. Had they gotten the bomb first they would have certainly used it much as we did.
History is full of questions, but the men of WWII made the decisions they thought were best at the time without the benefit of hindsight. We now have that luxury.
Predictably, higher education in both America and Europe focus heavily on our strategic bombing campaign as a moral question on our part to criticize our nations with very little attention given to the behavior of Axis forces.
The Germans were brutal. To become a POW on the Eastern Front meant a brutal death not to mention the ethnic cleansing campaign of the holocaust to include other groups as well. The Japanese were inhumane to most everyone they encountered including our POW’s.
The only way to truly defeat them was what we did.... right or wrong. It was really the last war that we “won” and it was ugly by necessity.
Just my .02. My Army training was certainly focused to avoid civilian casualties but it was not possible with inaccurate dumb bombs of WWII and those cities did contain factories and materials for the war effort in both Germany and Japan.
The effectiveness and moral costs of it will be debated forever.
The more I learn about that war, the more I am sure that we could have secured victory against the Japanese without butchering civilians or invading them. We just had to cut them off and wait for them to give up.
I disagree, but you state your case well. I would just point out that throughout history, long wars usually devolve into savagery. All you have to do is look at the US Civil War and look how differently it was conducted in the last year relative to the first year.