I get this.
My point is with the revisionists who engage in various contortions to try to make the case that the bombing campaign against Japan was one where the US simply had no other choice than to target population centers, or that the destruction caused to the population centers was actually unintended. It was clear that before the Americans even entered the war that we considered the Japanese civilians a fair target, and that we were simply going ignore the principles of just war that the West had embraced for centuries.
(It was those "Japs" and "Krauts" who committed the war crimes, you see. And the idea that the American citizen-soldier who fought in WWII was just as capable of committing murder on a large scale is just too much for some to handle.)
“...My point is with the revisionists who engage in various contortions to try to make the case that the bombing campaign against Japan was one where the US simply had no other choice than to target population centers, or that the destruction caused to the population centers was actually unintended. It was clear that before the Americans even entered the war that we considered the Japanese civilians a fair target, and that we were simply going ignore the principles of just war...” [Captain Walker, post 140]
It’s always fascinating when a forum member engages in moral equivalizing.
But in so doing, you have willfully ignored a basic principle: win the war first, then worry about morality. Try it any other way, and you flirt with disaster.
Not a contortion, not revisionism, just a simple observation concerning outcomes.
Concur
Revisionists would have to change the Japanese Warlord Tojo and his commitment to war at all costs to retain Japanese honor. Which wasn’t going to happen.
After the two atomic devices were dropped the emperor who was a god to the Japanese stepped in and ended it.
As for the Lemay incendiary bombing campaign, yes Lemay was waging a bombing campaign prior to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. History tells us that the AAF had enough incendiary bombs ready to completely level every major city and production facility, most of which were located within cities, in order to shorten Japanese sustainability followed up by a landing. The Landing and invasion would have met with very stiff resistance by all Japanese whether they were carrying sharpened bamboo sticks or were able to cobble together a defensive Army. But they were done.
Japanese resolve was to Die With Honor every man, woman, and child.
Lemay’s intensive incendiary bomb campaign would have eventually killed far more Japanese in the two Atomic devices and saved civilian lives as they would have been committed to defending the homeland to the death.
As to fourth device, we did not have enough atomic material ready and at that point in atomic history it took a long time to produce enough material to make the three devices that we had, one of which was tested at White Sands.