two of their cities were in ashes.
If we're going to be pedantic, GG, it was hardly just Tokyo was it?
Phosphorous bombs were dropped on mostly wooden cities all over Japan as part of Lemay's strategy. Burned to the ground, most of them. Far more civilians died because of fire bombing than did because of the two nuclear bombs. As the intelligent, sober McNamara said ' had we lost the war, we would have been tried as war criminals'.
Perspective, eh?
Last edited by WES; 02-21-2022 at 02:43 PM.
If we're gonna be pedantic, Wes, you'll see I wrote:
"but the fire bombing of Tokyo would have created far more ash than either of the two nuked cities."
which clearly doesn't claim that Tokyo was the only city firebombed. It doesn't even imply that there was more ash in Tokyo than other fire-bombed cities, though there was, what with it being the capital, full of wooden houses and fire-bombed shedloads.
I'm not really that interested in getting into the war crimes argument. My best mate from the OU is doing an MA in WW2 - mine was WW1 - and he had an essay on the bombing of Germany that we chatted about while he was doing it. I'm a pacifist crusty, he's a retired RAF Wing-Cmdr, but he's a bit less supportive of Dresden than I am.
Wes, decent, honest Indian soldiers were fighting through Burma at the time. If nuking and firebombing those swine saved the life of one, single Gurkha, Sikh, Baluchi, Pathan, Garhwali etc then of course it was worth it.
You try to invade India without knowing the LBW law and see what you get.
It is not a war-crime to slaughter those who were delaying Indian independence. Fact. {I'll also think you'll find the average Jap is happier now they've lost and they have a liberal democracy imposed by Yank occupation and a very successful economy than they were living under a military dictatorship. So it's not a war crime to bring their happiness about as quickly as possible.}
Gurkhas worship the Goddess Kali, and if it's good enough for Her then it's good enough for me.
{Just to be absolutely clear, I'm being 100% serious here. Not just the Kali stuff I assume you think is me speaking my usual *******s. But about a swift end being better for the Indians who delayed the independence fight to volunteer - 2.5m of them - to fight fascism to keep GB and make India free. And the swift end being better for the Japs who now live in a rich, free society as opposed to a fascist dictatorship. This is my studies, not the tramp lager, talking.}
GG is just being cocky after their 16 year old made complete mince of the chess world champ yesterday.