Posted on 05/04/2024 7:00:50 PM PDT by DoodleBob
No
5.56mm
Certainly he did, because the truth is often awful. No doubt about it.
Still, an extremely brave man that Gen. Patton was, he did not mince words in this regard.
He loved talking straight, he was not a politician nor a fussy booksmart “intellectual” who pussyfooted around issues.
He was a military man from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
And he really had “balls of steel”. He took “feces” from no-one, not from his enemies, and not from his colleagues.
I admire him, and I doff my hat before his memory.
From Mission With LeMay, page 369:
Suppose that you are interviewing me now. Suppose that you ask, “If you had had the incendiary bombs in your stockpile, the ones you asked for and didn’t get, would you have flown more incendiary missions against Japanese targets, just as fast as you could mount them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think those attacks would have been as effective as the first series which occurred in March?”
“Yes. Probably even more so. The destruction and demoralization in Japan was being rapidly accelerated. Had increased like cube root.”
“Do you think that by relying solely on incendiary attack, you could have knocked Japan out of the war, thus precluding any invasion of the Japanese homeland until after the collapse came?”
“Yes. I think it could have happened.”
“Then it would have been possible to force Japan out of the war, and thus end the conflict, without actually employing atomic weapons?”
“It might have been possible.”
I don’t want to be a Monday morning quarterback. Never did. I’ll say again: I think it might have been possible.
It depends what the goal of defeating Japan was. If it was the reason the US and British gave for cutting off their oil supplies before Pearl Harbor, i.e. end Japanese imperialism in Asia, that was already accomplished by forcing them back to their own island. If the goal was (for the first time in American history) unconditional surrender of an enemy, well unprecedented demands cause unprecedented resistance which could only be overcome with an unprecedented response.
An excellent examination of this topic (available from JSTOR):
Hiroshima and the Historians: History as Relative Truth, KENNETH B. PYLE, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly , Summer 2013, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 123-132
In hindsight, the fight between Japan and China was over who would control Asia.
Knowing what we know now, I would have much rather had the Japanese in charge than Communist China. China is doing their own version of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
General LeMay sought to pursue the enemy and prosecute the war as best he could. LeMay was very much aware of the sacrifices made for all missions, and he would not make the atomic bomb missions to be more than an efficient use of available weapons.
Many of the commanders of Allied Forces had their own, individual opinions about, the willingness of Japan to surrender, plus the ability of Japan to surrender, the value of entreaties, the reliability of a variety of representatives, the reliability of communications channels, and their own impressions of the accumulated information available to the President.
Again, the order to use the atomic bombs, eventually resulted from the concern about limiting casualties.
That took priority over various commanders and other officials guestimates about, when the Japanese would surrender - something that nobody knew.
We are all fortunate that the atomic bombs were used at the end . . . instead of a beginning.
It’s a good example of the pitfalls of consequentialism. Nations (and people) think they need to choose between morality and consequences. But if they choose the latter they usually end up with neither.
Too bad that the Hamas leadership hasn’t realized that last quote yet...
As was EVERY advancement in weaponry power in the long (and endless) history of warfare.
Ok, but how DO you want to die in warfare?
...or at least WINNING.
Absolutely not. Saved at least a million lives.
2 Peter 3:9
Before we begin, Gentlemen, please arrange your armchairs in a circle...
And here we are today, with all 57 states agreeing that
there are more than 2 genders,
men can give birth,
Gazans just want to breathe free, from the ____ to the ___
...
I am right now in the first few pages of “Killing Patton”.
Good point about surrender. Since the United States in its entire history had never demanded that any enemy (not even King George III) “surrender unconditionally” they could not know what an enemy would do when backed into such a corner. But then maybe making that demand created the situation that (in your opinion) could only be resolved by the incineration of hundreds of thousands of non-combatant women and children (along with wiping out the center of Christianity in Japan)? I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
https://www.catholicarena.com/latest/2021/8/8/lubyxf9jdoqr8ms29oo755ia1wu2mw
Damage assessment was at its infancy during World War II. Before the Normandy invasion in June 1944, detailed and reliable ground information describing the extent of damage done to Germany’s industrial base by the combined allied bomber offensive was not generally available.
Strategic operations, such as the Schweinfurt raid of 1943, used aerial photographs to determine the effectiveness of its various bombing campaigns. "Bomb" damage was assessed in two distinct phases: preattack and postattack analysis. In preattack analysis, the function of an industrial system was established.
This analysis featured collaboration between photo-interpreters and industrial engineers, allowing for an appraisal of both the area and locations of the industrial system and the functional components of the system. This process was a precursor for any subsequent damage assessed against a particular target. The postattack analysis summarized the damage from the bombing strikes in a damage interpretation report.
From this report, options to reattack, feasibility of reattack, and the degree of production loss were assessed. The meager beginnings of a damage assessment cell called the Allied Central Interpretation Unit created the art and science of battle damage assessment.
The information available to the allies on the effect of bombing German industrial systems was derived primarily from aerial photography and supplemented with interrogations of prisoners of war (POWs), and friendly agents working behind enemy lines.
To justify the tremendous effort spent by the allies in both blood and treasure, and to validate the US Army Air Forces strategic bombing doctrine, on-the-spot investigation of the targets was required to assess the final results. The strategic bombing missions, by their very nature, were flown great distances behind enemy lines.
As a result, actual damage could not be verified by allied ground forces until after the territory had been captured, delaying the ground truth verification of the bombing by weeks, months, or even years.
Following Robert McNamara's 1940 - 1942 involvement at Harvard Business School - in a program to teach analytical approaches used in business to officers of the United States Army Air Forces - he entered the USAAF as a captain in early 1943, serving most of World War II with its Office of Statistical Control.
One of his major responsibilities was the analysis of U.S. bombers' efficiency and effectiveness, especially the B-29 forces commanded by Major General Curtis LeMay in India, China, and the Mariana Islands. McNamara established a statistical control unit for the XX Bomber Command.
The Unknown World War II in the Northern Pacific
Only vessels under Soviet flag, manned by Soviet crews, carried out the entire USSR-bound Pacific shipping. Just as it was stated in the Report of the People’s Commissariat of External Trade: “Soviet steamers, exclusively”.
There were no convoys. The vessels sailed across the ocean one by one without any escort, although many historians and officials still write about “Pacific convoys” in their publications.
In accordance with the Lend-Lease Agreement, American and Canadian shipyards performed repair work on the Soviet vessels. Some 30 Soviet fishing and factory ships of People’s Commissariat of Fishing Industry were repaired under this program, and always returned home with Lend-Lease cargo aboard.
During 1941–44, the Japanese Navy and Coast Guard stopped and detained Soviet transport ships 178 times for periods from several hours to several months. Submarines of the combatant states patrolled the area. The great sea battle of Komandorsky Islands took place near the routes of Soviet vessels.
A total of 23 Soviet ships were lost in the Pacific Ocean. Of those, nine were stranded on the rocks by storms, crushed by ice floes or blown in Soviet minefields. The remaining 14 were destroyed either by enemy action or friendly fire.
Heavy B-29 “Superfortress” bombers operated from the airfields of western China against military and industrial facilities in Manchuria and Japan. On July 29, 1944, one of them landed at the Soviet air base near Vozdvizhenka village in Primorye region.
Colonel (then-Major) Solomon Reidel of VVS, ferried the interned B-29 to Moscow. Under the personal order of Josef Stalin, the aircraft was fully disassembled and reverse-engineered into the Tu-4, the first Soviet long-range bomber with nuclear-carrying capacities. The work was performed under supervision of famous plane designer Andrey Tupolev.
Two other “Superfortresses” followed suit in November. Another battle-damaged B-29 crashed on the slopes of Sikhote-Alin mountain ridge. The crew bailed out over taiga, and wandered in the woods in separate groups for nearly a month. Eventually everyone was rescued by the combined efforts of crewmembers, local indigenous people and the VVS (Soviet Air Force).
All interned Americans were sent across Siberia to Uzbekistan, to a remote camp near Tashkent, which was established specifically for them. From there the NKVD staged four “escapes” of the internees across the border to Iran, then to the British occupation zone south of Tehran, and eventually to the USA. 291 American airmen returned home this way.
Vladivostok was Off Limits to all western allies during World War II. U.S. Naval Intelligence officers attempted to get to, and explore around, Vladivostok, but all failed at gathering (1 succeeded in getting to Vladivostok).
IMHO: Japanese transportation of raw materials from Korea to Japan, was effectively sheltered by Russian "neutrality" throughout all of World War II, until August 1945 - despite some successful U.S. Navy submarine operations in the Sea of Japan.
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Is there a part of the text you pasted in that’s relevant to something that someone said here on FR?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki both look far better then Detroit.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLs8yxTVAAAjgyP?format=jpg&name=small
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