Talk:Air raids on Japan/Archives/2012/October

Morality

In the section Morality it is mentioned that Some United States government and military personnel believed that the bombing campaign was morally ambiguous, however, but rarely voiced their views publicly. Are some of this personnel known by name? I was asked for some names in the review of the german translation. Best regards --Bomzibar (talk) 10:07, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Haywood S. Hansell was in favor of a continuation of precision bombing and the dropping of naval mines by B-29s; he resisted the shift to massive destruction of civilians and housing. Binksternet (talk) 15:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The only person named in the reference is Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, who it is stated was one of General Douglas MacArthur's key aides (he wrote that the raids were "one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in history". According to the source, he voiced this view in a memorandum to a lower-ranked officer in 1945 (a Lieutenant colonel), and I'd note also that MacArthur had no authority whatsoever over the air campaign which was run directly out of Washington D.C. until the last weeks of the war, so I don't think that a lot of weight should be put on this individual opinion (Dower states that some other officers shared it but kept quiet). I haven't ever seen claims that Hansell believed it was immoral to bomb Japanese cities (including firebombing raids); he believed that the firebombing raids were inefficient compared to precision bombing, but (somewhat reluctantly) conducted several such attacks. Nick-D (talk) 22:52, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I have added Bonner to the german article, thank you Binksternet and Nick. --Bomzibar (talk) 12:59, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Atomic Bombings

It is written that the Bockscar and all other involved aircraft reached Tinian after bombing Nagasaki, which is wrong. Because it had not sufficient fuel reserves to even reach the emergency air field on Iwo Jima it landed on Okinawa. Is only the article wrong about this or the reference too? --Bomzibar (talk) 13:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The wording was picked to avoid going into pointless detail about the plane running low on fuel (which isn't really necessary to note in an article written at this level). The source states that Bockscar and one of the other B-29s refueled at Okinawa and then proceeded to Tinian, where it landed before midnight, so there's no inaccuracy (the exact wording in the source is "He headed for Okinawa, frequently used by B-29’s in distress after Kyushu strikes, and brought the BOCK’S Car down safely in an emergency landing at 1400 with only a few gallons of fuel left. Bock came in soon after and together then went on to Tinian; all three planes were home by 2339." Nick-D (talk) 09:11, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for the clarification. --Bomzibar (talk) 10:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Another question because I have the Frank (1999) book not within reach: Does he mention if his death toll number from page 334 includes dead from radiation sickness? --Bomzibar (talk) 08:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes - his estimate of 410,000 fatalities takes into account likely under-counting in the US Strategic Bombing Survey and Japanese Government's estimates, as well as "latent atomic-bomb fatalities". Regards, Nick-D (talk) 09:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)