[conservativeharleyguy]

As much as I respect VDH and his massive scholarship of history and war, I have to disagree with him on this point.

I believe that we did not win WWII by killing millions of German and Japanese soldiers. We won by killing millions of German and Japanese women and children, in their cities and factories.

Whether or not they had sufficient numbers of quality personnel to man their submarines, fly their planes, drive their tanks, and shoot their rifles became immaterial when their shipyards, aircraft hangers, and armories were reduced to smoking piles of rubble, filled with the bodies of their industrial workers, surrounded by ruined cities and overtaxed, unsustainable farmlands.

Our ability to project our massive (and secure) industrial capacity in the form of aircraft and bombs, supported by our ability to mobilize and project sufficient troops to seize and hold the ground that our bombs cleared of resistance (or at least softened) was what prevailed.

Once we rolled out the B-29 and secured forward bases from which to deploy them, it was just a matter of cranking out enough bombs (or big enough bombs), and sustaining the will to pound them into submission - pretty easy to do when you are as pissed off as we were then.

[dervish]

I agree.

The warfare of targeted killings and sparing civilians, many of whom are really insurgents blending in, creates prolonged wars and indecisive outcomes.

[Mac from Cleveland]

What say you, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman?

“If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking”.

“I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy”.

“My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom”.

“We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, men and women, feel the hard hand of war”.

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over”

[PzLdr]

German military production peaked in September, 1944. The strategic bombing didn’t bite until later, with the key damage being the transportation system, and the Germans’ petroleum sources [already causing some problems in pilot training in ‘44].

On the other hand, tactical air played a MAJOR role in winning the war in the West, and making tghe Normandy ioperation a success.

[BroJoeK]

"I believe that we did not win WWII by killing millions of German and Japanese soldiers. We won by killing millions of German and Japanese women and children, in their cities and factories."

I'd say you hit the target, but not the bulls-eye.
Let's see if I can improve your aim. ;-)

1. First of all, allied bombing of Germany and Japan did NOT kill "millions" of civilians.
   In both countries, the number was less than half a million.
   In Germany's case, that is roughly the number of allied civilians killed by German bombing.
   In Japan's case that was less than 10% of the numbers of Chinese civilians killed by the Japanese army.

   Here is my source for such data.

2. Second of all, it was NOT the deaths of German & Japanese civilians which ended the war.
   Neither country's leaders cared a whit about civilian casualties.
   What certainly did hasten the end was allied destruction of German & Japanese factories, transportation and stores.

3. Third, all of which is NOT to say that civilian casualties didn't matter.
   They did matter, Big Time.
   Not in World War Two, of course, but in importantly helping to prevent World War Three.

That is the bulls-eye, imho. :-)