“I’m just not sold on the argument that “they were barbaric so we had to burn them to death”.” [Captain Walker, post 157]
“...(Why build a village to perfect a means of burning homes to the ground, if you didn’t actually intend to burn homes to the ground?)...” [Captain Walker, post 159]
The Imperial Japanese attacked the Allies. They made themselves into an enemy. Compared to that, the particulars of their motivation for doing so do not matter. And the details of how & where are secondary - by a very long stretch.
It might seem to amateurs that the construction of Japanese and Germans structures on weapons test ranges was something profound and sinister, but the real answer is no more than a detail: the armed forces were required to determine effects of weapons before deploying them in action. It had to be done in compliance with public law back then, and it’s still a requirement. Building structures that resembled potential targets, then hitting them with various munitions and measuring the results, was one way to do that.
In a similar vein, the existence of plans to strike targets in the territory of a potential adversary riles folks who have minimal experience concerning the military establishment. It all might seem alarming, but in reality, pre-planning is essential if anything is to be accomplished, when sudden realignments occur. All major commands keep staffs on hand. They spend lots of time and effort planning for contingencies, likely and unlikely. Commanders would be unwise not to require it.
Not to mention rehearsals....
It occurred to me that this debate happens every year on 6 August, and (moreso of late) on 13 February (anniversary of the first attack on Dresden, in 1945).
The self-appointed moral arbiters post their condemnations of Allied air campaigns, and criticize their inferiors (the rest of us) for daring to gainsay their orthodoxies. No counter-argument penetrates their self-righteousness; no restatement of fact, nor historical context, nor strategic constraint, seems to make a dent in their certitude.
Their claim to be in possession of an all-encompassing moral code and their eagerness to jawbone us lesser mortals into complying with their diktats can tell us nothing useful about the validity (or the flaws) of that code, but it might be giving us hints about the size of their egoes, and the level of their self-regard. Repeated attempts to enlighten them don’t seem to do anything except solidify their certitude.
Whatever the value of morality and certitude of conviction might be, it is unwise to give priority to moral strictures if they degrade military effectiveness. And the more total any given conflict becomes, the more unwise such behavior can be. Being moral won’t help us if we happen to lose the war thereby.
And if the Second World War cannot qualify when it comes to totality, it’s tough to imagine what might.
This underscores the point that I have been trying to make throughout the thread: the civilians were always considered fair game.
Whenever the subject of Japan and the Bomb comes up, there seems to be an element of the population that is incapable of considering even the idea that the Americans could have behaved viciously in order to achieve certain ends. Nobody wants to believe Steven Ambrose's "Citizen Soldier" or Norman Rockwell's "Homecoming G.I." were capable of any wrongdoing.
(It was only those "Japs" and "Krauts" who behaved badly dontcha know, the Americans were as pure as the fresh-fallen snow.)
All I know is that I had two uncle over there. One in the Marine Provisional, or whatever it was called, and the other on the USS Missouri. The one in the Marines told of how they were required to put all their personals in a brown envelope and write a farewell letter.
Said that when they heard of those being dropped they got their stuff back and went on one hell of a bender...even though it was piss warm beer.
The navy uncle had to make way to go into harbor for the surrender. He witnessed it up from the bridge. Also said they was some real tight ass people on those ships. They didnt know what to hell to expect.