Posted on 01/11/2008 10:05:46 AM PST by starlifter
JERUSALEM - President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial's chairman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
As President Bush Stated: the Palestinian Authority headed by Hamas government must abandon the path of terrorism, dismantle the terror infrastructure, honor agreements and recognize Israel’s right to exist. By doing so they will find us a willing partner in peace. However, we will not enter into any kind of partnership with a party which refuses to recognize our right to live in peace and security. 2002
What happened? George
The Holocaust was just too monstrous for people to believe. Much the same as no one believed the stories about what the Japanese were doing to our men when they were captured.
As to dropping bombs on the camps themselves? I can only imagine that Bush made yet another of his infamous malpropisms and that he did not really mean this.
Funny, that’s what I heard. But I am from Texas, so I guess I get his accent.
But we were still at a clumsy stage, the much vaunted Norden bomb-sight just wasn't up to putting bombs on a specific target.
The Army Air Corp knew it too, in fact checking crew manifests for raids in 44 -45 (B-17 and B-24) one will see that frequently instead of listing a bombardier, there is a "Nose Gunner", always a trained enlisted man in that position.
I can't believe that this wasn't discussed during his USAF flight training.
You are right. After the NAZIs gained power in the 30’s, these camps popped up all over the country and they predate the Jewish genocide. So it was not surprising to have photos of camps. The accuracy of a 500 lb bomb from a B17 was within a half mile. Thats why we sent up to a thousand at a time with 8000 lbs of bombs a piece. We didn’t know where in the city we were hitting, but we would certainly hit something.
In hindsight people think it was a foregone conclusion that we would win the war. That was only apparent in late ‘44 when were firmly on the continent. Right up until the end of the war we had to hit their war machine relentlessly. We could have bombed their concentration camps to no avail, but we would save more lives getting that war won faster.
But we were still at a clumsy stage, the much vaunted Norden bomb-sight just wasn't up to putting bombs on a specific target.
The Army Air Corp knew it too, in fact checking crew manifests for raids in 44 -45 (B-17 and B-24) one will see that frequently instead of listing a bombardier, there is a "Nose Gunner", always a trained enlisted man in that position.
I can't believe that this wasn't discussed during his USAF flight training.
We bombed the rail lines when we got on the continent and could do it with dive bombers at close range. Carpet bombing individual rail lines would be absurd. It doesn’t take all that much to rebuild a line. The rail centers were heavily supplied with FLAK guns too. Keep in mind that these are not the surgical strikes of today. We took 47000 casualties in the 8th air force alone, 26,000 dead.
Even the greatest skeptic rarely thinks of this....If bombing the camps was remotely effective, why didn’t we do it to camps in the Philipines where OUR OWN TROOPS WERE? My Uncle languished in a concentration camp at Santo Thomaso for nearly 4 years alongside American servicemen. If it was effective to bomb them, why didn’t we do it? Because it was not effective.
“So, Jorge is saying it was better to bomb them to death than the Nazis too gas them??? Huh???”
No he’s saying we should have stopped the mass slaughter of innocents in these camps. If you weren’t so wrapped up in your ‘jorge’ hatred you could see that.
“If it was effective to bomb them, why didnt we do it? Because it was not effective.”
It wasn’t effective and we didn’t have the resources. Plus an attack on those camps would likely have led to the surviving guards killing the prisoners.
“Right. Sure. How stupid are you? “
Apparently not quite as dense as you.
“IF YOU BOMB the darn camp, you are going to kill the inmates pal. Apparently you know nothing about how inexact science bombing was in WWII.”
He wasn’t referring to bombing the ‘inmates’ slick.
“It was carpet bombing. Dropping tons of bombs with few actually hitting directly on the target.”
No it wasn’t carpet bombing. Carpet bombing is a modern term used for the B52s tactic of a very heavy density of bombs on broad but targeted area. In WWII the target was pretty much wherever the bombs landed.
“There was no way to bomb these camps without destroying the entire camp, thus kill all the prisoners. “
It was an emotional statement uttered shortly after he exited the camp. You seem to know something about emotional responses so perhaps you can understand that he was thinking with his heart and not necessarily with his Commander in Chief mode.
“You cannot allow 12-25 million illegals into the country and open the borders making us the new European Union, and keep this nation safe. If you are a solid Jorge is right all the time type, then you are what you are.”
He’s not the only one pushing for open borders, why do you only attack him? Failing to even spell his name correctly reflects more on you than it does on him.
You seem to disagree though with his sentiment that the US should have done more to stop the Nazi atrocities of WWII.
Right. Your the smart one and everyone else is dumb. Sure Hillary. Sure.
One of Gen. Curtiss LeMay's contributions prior to leaving for the Pacific was the "Bomb on Lead" tactic. Instead of each bomber lining up on the target & dropping on it's own bombardier's signal, the bombers would all drop simultaneously when the lead bombardier in the lead bomber signalled 'drop'. Bombing on the signal of a Master Bombadier had better effects than having everybody taking their best shot regardless of experience or skill.
Bomb loads were dependent on the amount of fuel carried and a few other factors. The further the B17's were expected to fly to the target, the smaller the bomb load. Long range missions like Berlin might mean that the planes were carrying as little as 3,000-lbs of ordnance. Incidentally the B24 & the British Lancaster had much greater payloads.
My point was that the Norden bombsight simply wasn't up to delivering the load onto a set of railroad tracks or specific buildings.
How Dubya could have been unaware of this and made such a statement ..."We should have bombed...".
I would have expected such a statement from Jon Carry or Slickwillie, the Bride at every wedding, the dead guy at every funeral, but Dubya was trained as an Air Force officer and pilot.
Shirely he was aware of the volumes of post WW2 studies we did on the effectiveness of air campaigns?
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