[Bubba_Leroy]

Here is another reason that the Japanese don't want to remember this - it further justifies the use of atomic bombs by the U.S. against Japan.

The Japanese refused to surrender. There was no question that they had lost the war. We firebombed every major Japanese city and still they refused to surrender. It was only after we had dropped our SECOND atomic bomb with the threat of endless more that they finally surrendered.

The Japanese were much like the muslim fanatics that we are at war with today. Now Japan is an ally. There is a lot to be said for bombing a fanatic culture into oblivion.

[cactmh]

Who remembers the rape of Nan King? I bet the Chinese do.

[stuartcr]

Do you consider fighting to the death at the Alamo an honorable thing, or a fanatical thing?

[sphinx]

I once met a survivor of the Tokyo raids. She was a young girl at the time; had to go for water the next day across a bridge covered with the dead. Her attitude now? Japan started the war, waged a dirty war in China and elsewhere, and reaped the whirlwind. Moral: don't start wars, and fight them cleanly if you get into one.

[Don Myers]

The Japanese shouldn't have started the fight.

[lady lawyer]

After things like Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March, what kind of attitude was the American military and public supposed to have about the Japanese?

[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.

Also remember that even after Nagasaki it took a tie-breaking vote by Hirohito to surrender. Yeah, there's lots about the war they want to forget.

NaW.
(And I like Japan, Germany and Italy so much better now than when they were totalitarian dictatorships...)

[GoredInMich]

Well, an obvious dart at the US war plan to defend itself against enemies, by threatining the use of nuclear weapons to defend itself.

Well, ask a survivor of Bataan or Corregidor about the Japanese.

It was total war. The only thing the Japs understood was force, kinda like Hitler.

US Marines took 12,000 casualties on Iwo Jima, and the US did NOT falter. Why would we deviate from protecting ourselves in this day and age?

The Slimes is a putrid kitty-box liner

[AzJP]

Or, since the Japanese empire was/had crashed and impotent, we could have easily (easy in 1945) blockaded the island and let them whimper into inertness...without dropping those bombs. We had 'em surrounded. By '45 their air force was down, their navy sunk, and their army hiding in caves.
...'course 'muricans don't think that way. Not then. (Not later at Waco.)
Oh yes, if we'd built a fence around 'em, prison like, and let them figure-out how to feed themselves, McArthur wouldn't have had a job.

[Junior]

but many people are not aware of the napalm attacks at all.

Because they weren't napalm attacks. Incindiary bombs were used, and napalm is an incindiary device, but it was not used for the massive firebombings that levelled so many cities during the Second World War.

[Grampa Dave]

In your great way of stating what should be obvious, but isn't to fuzzy minded liberals, you posted:

The Japanese were much like the muslim fanatics that we are at war with today. Now Japan is an ally. There is a lot to be said for bombing a fanatic culture into oblivion.

Not a single Japanese fanatic, who was killed on a Japanese ship, sub, plane, on the ground, in a cave, in a tank or in Japan ever hurt another innocent person.

Not a single Japanese Fanatic leader killed during WWII or executed for war crimes ever hurt another innocent person!

This is the only way to handle the current Islamic Fanatics, kill all of them and their financial backers!

Give peace a chance by killing all who would kill us! In spite of what the liberals and the others would try to have us believe, dead terrorists harm no one. If dead terrorists can't harm us, then kill all of those still alive! The formula is simple. It worked in WWII and will work now!

[aculeus]

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?

[Fzob]

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.

[ctdonath2]

100,000 People Perished, but Who Remembers?

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

[uncbob]

How many now about the RAPE of NANKING or the 100,000s civilians laughtered by the Japanese Army in China

[Billthedrill]

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.

[bandleader]

The Japanese got EXACTLY what They DESERVED!They waged war (with their AXIS Partners)on The World!!The only way to end a war is to utterly and completely destroy your enemies and their will and ability to resist defeat!!!The Japanese had a number of opportunities to surrender!!!!The problem was that that word(Surrender)wasn't in their vocabulary!!!!!!!!!!

[rockfish59]

new york times building hit by hi-jacked plane!
but who cares?

[Paleo Conservative]

We firebombed every major Japanese city and still they refused to surrender. It was only after we had dropped our SECOND atomic bomb with the threat of endless more that they finally surrendered.

Actually we deliberately did not fire bomb a handfull of cities so that the effects of an atomic bomb could be more accurately documented.

[NativeNewYorker]

Given how militarily docile the Japanese have been since WW II, I'd have to say our strategies and tactics were a total success.

A modern parallel action in the Middle East would likely be similarly successful. Which is why the Times so wants to deter it.

[Amor Vincit Omnia?]

This is to everyone here. I'm not trying to be offensive here, but you all seriously need to get a grip on reality! The fact is that these bombings happened over 50 years ago. Can't we all just forgive each other and our ancestors for the events of World War II (that includes incidents on every country's part) and move on with the future?! For us newer generations at least, there is nothing we could have done or can do to change whats happened; but we can accept the past and move on. Lets forgive, but NOT forget, and make the future a better place by learning from those events whether they have turned out in the end to be "right" or "wrong". Come on, the future is waiting on us, lets face it head-on instead of shrinking from it because of our past!!