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100,000 People Perished, but Who Remembers?
The New York Times ^ | March 14, 2002 | HOWARD W. FRENCH

Posted on 03/14/2002 8:01:56 AM PST by Bubba_Leroy

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To: Bubba_Leroy
But because 57 years ago this week a fleet of American B-29 bombers dropped 1,665 tons of napalm-filled bombs on Tokyo,

Napalm? It is my recollection that incendiary bombs were filled with magnesium.

Any experts care to comment?

21 posted on 03/14/2002 8:32:06 AM PST by aculeus
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To: Bubba_Leroy
In one horrific night, the firebombing of Tokyo — then a city largely of wooden buildings — killed an estimated 100,000 people. In the spring and summer of 1945, similarly devastating raids on over 60 Japanese cities occurred before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought World War II to an end.

A while back I recall reading something about Truman that stated that the failure of these attacks to finish off the Japanese was a very big factor in his decision to use atomics.

22 posted on 03/14/2002 8:33:52 AM PST by Fzob
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To: cactmh
The book The Rape of Nanking is banned in Japan.
23 posted on 03/14/2002 8:35:13 AM PST by OldFriend
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To: GoredInMich
US Marines took 12,000 casualties on Iwo Jima

More like ~30,000 total casualties, of which ~7,000 were KIA.

24 posted on 03/14/2002 8:35:18 AM PST by SMEDLEYBUTLER
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To: OldFriend
Really? This is very interesting to me. I've long wondered about how different countries have coped with WWII. I'm going to write a post on it one of these days and see what the brains here at FR can come up with.
25 posted on 03/14/2002 8:37:01 AM PST by cactmh
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To: mbynack
Naw, Iraq and North Korea aren't islands.
The island(s)of Japan were running out of everything and couldn't move an inch either in the air or on the sea to import diddly.
26 posted on 03/14/2002 8:37:43 AM PST by AzJP
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To: AzJP
Blockading Japan would have accomplished nothing and is a pacifists pipe dream. Read the truth about Japanese Imperial Fanatiscim at the war's end here.
27 posted on 03/14/2002 8:38:28 AM PST by Rebelbase
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To: Bubba_Leroy
100,000 People Perished, but Who Remembers?

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." - Stalin

28 posted on 03/14/2002 8:39:20 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: AzJP
Three-fourths of the Japanese army was still in Manchuria at the end of the war.
29 posted on 03/14/2002 8:40:02 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic
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To: aculeus
It is my recollection that incendiary bombs were filled with magnesium.

I'm no expert but that's how I remember it too. The Japanese vulnerability to firebombing had to do with the flammable materials they used to build their homes. But a quick Google search revealed the following:

Q: What is the single most destructive air raid of the war? A: This was an attack on the capital city of Japan by B-29 bombers on the night of March 9/10, 1945. In three hours 279 bombers released 1660 tons of incendiaries, including large numbers of oil-based incendiary devices on Tokyo. The official Japanese count found 83,793 dead and 40,918 injured. A total of 267,171 buildings were destroyed leaving one million people homeless. 15.8 square miles of the city had been burned to the ground, including 18% of the industrial area, and 63% of the commercial center.

30 posted on 03/14/2002 8:43:38 AM PST by Bernard Marx
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Comment #31 Removed by Moderator

To: Bubba_Leroy
How many now about the RAPE of NANKING or the 100,000s civilians laughtered by the Japanese Army in China
32 posted on 03/14/2002 8:45:52 AM PST by uncbob
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To: SodiumWarthog
Let us also remember that after the first atomic bomb was dropped, the Japanese did not immediately surrender is further proof of their irrationality at the time. Here you had the strongest industrial power in the world prove to you that they have a doomsday weapon and the willingness to use it, and still they thought they could force us to terms by making the thought of American casualties in an invasion unacceptable.

Japan's top scientists also knew what we had developed. Germany, the US and Japan all had people familiar with the atomic theory. Japan decided nuclear would take too long to develop, and started working on biological weapons. When the first bomb was dropped, they knew exactly what we developed, but continued to hold out until the second bomb dropped. Many people inside the Japanese government at the time believe they still would not have surrendered if they had known that the second bomb was the last one we developed.

33 posted on 03/14/2002 8:46:23 AM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: AzJP
You REALLY should study history a little more, especially the accounts of those who were THERE (on both sides).
34 posted on 03/14/2002 8:47:19 AM PST by pt17
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To: Grampa Dave
Uh, Dave, we didn't kill that Honda family, and their kid turned out OK.
That Mitsubishi factory? They made pretty darn good airplanes during WWII, and we didn't kill all of the Mitsubishi folks when we had a chance......
I'm sure glad King George didn't have a way to kill all your predecessors. Aren't you? Have a great day!
35 posted on 03/14/2002 8:47:34 AM PST by AzJP
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To: Richard Kimball
I lived in Japan 1951-1961 as an Army brat. Our maid, who was in her 20's at the time, worked in a munitions factory in Yokohama that featured a large red cross painted on its roof. The bombing destroyed her factory but the machinery was salvaged and set up again in caves dug into the soft sandstone cliffs around the city. She said the militarists planned to flight to the last man and would have continued after the Tokyo raid. The ordinary Japanese didn't understand what happened at Hiroshima...they thought it was just another bombing raid.
36 posted on 03/14/2002 8:56:51 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: shigure
I bet that you would be happy if I and several hundred thousand Americans were bombed into oblivion !.

Did you cheer when 3,000 innocent Americans were mass murdered on 9/11!

Yeah, I'm a total fanatic, when a group of fanatics attack my country on 7 Dec 1941 or 11 Sept 2001 and then threaten to kill my family and destroy my country.

Are you a supporter of these mass murderers, the Islamic Fanatics, who live to kill all Americans?

It pleases me to labeled a fanatic by a supporter of the real fanactics who would destroy all Americans if they had the means!

37 posted on 03/14/2002 8:58:46 AM PST by Grampa Dave
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To: pt17
I really got into Gordon Prange's works, especially his notes from interviews with Japanese when he (Prange) was in post-war Japan on McArthur's staff. Prange's works were the first suggestion I saw that much of internal Japan was becoming convinced that the entire empire would die where they stood. Even the fundamentalists that refused to have the royal family admit defeat were seeing no hope for a future.
I still think we could have blockaded Japan into inertness.
And that idea came from one of those interviews, a Japanese who thought America would do that and strangle the empire. If I remember correctly, he preferred suicide over begging for imported food, particularly chinese rice.
But, IMHO.
38 posted on 03/14/2002 9:04:28 AM PST by AzJP
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To: Bubba_Leroy
With the firebombings, we crossed the line that we had said was clearly beyond the pale of civilization," said John Dower, a leading American historian...

Well, yes and no. We certainly knew we were bombing civilians, but at that point in the war a major portion of war production was done in "Mom and Pop" shops in such places as Tokyo - Mitsubishi in particular had successfully farmed out aircraft parts production in that manner. That same system was responsible for production of auto parts twenty years later, which fueled the rise of the Japanese automobile and the onset of "just in time" supply techniques (there isn't much room in Japan to store inventory). There was, in fact, more military reason to bomb Tokyo than there was to bomb Hiroshima.

39 posted on 03/14/2002 9:06:24 AM PST by Billthedrill
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Comment #40 Removed by Moderator


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