🚀 go-pugleaf

In ba.general Hugo S. Cunningham <checkwebsite@cyberussr.com> wrote:


> On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:32:26 +0000 (UTC), Merlin Dorfman
> <dorfman@green.rahul.net> wrote:

...

>>>>     You are right that the USAAF tried to limit itself to military
>>>>targets in Germany (albeit with limited success) while the RAF 
>>>>deliberately set out to "de-house" workers, keep them from sleeping
>>>>at night, etc.  In total war, it is difficult to separate the workers
>>>>from the fighters.
>>
>>> I don't quite see the point of your last sentence.  Bomber Harris had
>>> little interest in separating them.
>>
>>     Well that IS the point...de-housing workers impedes the war
>>effort when industrial production is as essential to the effort as
>>soldiers are.

> Bomber Harris was the only one blatant enough to carry the reasoning
> that far.  LeMay claimed, with some validity, that Japanese industry
> drew on subcontractors working out of sweatshops in residential areas.

     Indeed there was a good bit of military production done in
Japanese homes--from uniforms to engine parts.  But the complete
incineration of Tokyo (which caused far more deaths than Hiroshima
or Nagasaki) might be claimed to be an excessive approach to 
eliminating that production.

..

>>> Being burned alive (or badly injured by burns) is substantially more
>>> gruesome than a siege by submarine blockade.
>>
>>     It's not clear to me that burning is more cruel than
>>starvation.  Burning to death is at least over quickly.

> Being "blown to bits" is over quickly, but lingering for days with
> 3rd-degree burns is not.

     My impression is that most of the deaths during the massive
firebomb raids were, if not instantaneous, quite quick and tended
to be more from asphyxiation (all the oxygen going to the fire)
than from burns at all.  Any cooking likely took place after death.

> At the time of the surrender, Japan still had about 6 months of food,
> though they were on short rations.  The real "starvation" was of
> Japanese industry, cut off from fuel, metals, and other raw materials.

     ...and if they had not surrendered, that food would have
gone to the military, not to civilians.
     The starvation of industry would affect future production,
but not the ability to fight with what they had at the time.

...

>>> Churchill and FDR knew what Harris and LeMay were doing.  Any guilt we
>>> might have felt about bombing German civilians vanished, however, as
>>> Nazi death camps were liberated at the end of the war.  The Germans
>>> deserved Bomber Harris, and ten times more...
>>
>>     I can only agree with that if it can be shown that strategic
>>bombing shortened the war.  And I don't believe it's true, much less
>>that it can be proven.

> No serious scholar argues that Harris's carpet-bombing shortened the
> war.  There was more to be said, however, for the USAAF's targeted
> bombing in the final months of the war -- knocking out fuel supplies,
> delaying the deployment of V-1s until it was too late,  and destroying
> Germany's rail network.

     Strategic bombing didn't affect a large portion of the fuel
supplies except in the ability to move them as rapidly as the
Germans would have liked.  Damage to roads and railroads was
quickly repaired, but the time required did make some difference,
just as the labor and materials did.  The question is how much
difference, and the answer is: usually not much.
     BTW it's been stated that, by the end of the war, British
night bombing using Oboe and Pathfinders was as accurate as
American daylight bombing.

>>  Really the only important result of the
>>strategic bombing was the elimination of the Luftwaffe fighter force
>>so there was no German air power to oppose the Normandy invasion.

> Strategic bombing helped somewhat by reducing fuel supplies,
> especially for the new and unmatched jet fighters.  Of decisive
> importance for air superiority in 1944 was deployment of the "Mustang"
> fighter, given a long enough range with new Rolls Royce engines to
> challenge and defeat German fighters over the German homeland.  If the
> invasion had been delayed another year (and the Soviets had not
> defeated Germany in the east), German jets would have reclaimed air
> superiority over the continent.

     The availability of Mustangs and Thunderbolts to escort the
bombers over Germany, and to carry out ground attacks "on the way
home" or completely independently, was a big factor.  But this is
not strategic bombing!  I've never claimed that tactical air was
not a factor.  It was very important.
     (BTW the Rolls Royce engine [the Merlin!] gave the Mustangs
great high-altitude performance, but weren't a big part of their
increased range.  That was due to the use of drop tanks, not to
mention forward bases after the invasion.)
     The ME-262 jet fighters would not have been a factor,
strategic bombing or no, because of lack of fuel.  And strategic
bombing was only a small contributor to the lack of fuel.  
(Russian capture of Romania was a much bigger factor.)  And
RAF Meteors were in production by 1945--they were not deployed to
the front because they weren't needed, so why risk the loss of one
over enemy territory; but they could have been if needed.

...

>>Don't get me started on the Allies not doing anything to stop or slow
>>the Holocaust (although a very good case can be made that the
>>Holocaust was essentially over before the Allies were in any position
>>to do anything militarily;

> Yes.  If they had tried to bomb the gas chambers, given the gross
> inaccuracy of Allied bombing, we would now be reading revisionist
> tracts blaming nearly all Jewish deaths on the Allies.

>> they could have done much more with
>>diplomacy and propaganda than they did,

> Agreed.  They could have leafletted occupied countries as early as
> 1942 not to cooperate with arrests and deportations.  They could have
> added Germany to the leafletting later, especially after decisive Axis
> defeats in July 1943.

>> and also note that they did
>>nothing to stop the genocide of Hungarian Jews in 1944, when they
>>could easily have done something militarily).

> Even then, Hungary was under firm German control.  Publicity and
> explicit threats of postwar retribution might have worked; immediate
> threats of terror-bombing reprisals against German civilians might
> have worked, except that Harris was already doing that anyways. 

     Military action could have interfered with the transport of
the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.  And the leaflets could have made
it clear that those who participated in or collaborated in the
transport would be held accountable after the war.  As far as I
know, nothing like that was ever done.

...

>>>    The cruel standards that seemed justifiable against Nazi Germany
>>> were transferred with less justification to Japan. 
>>
>>     I don't agree.  The Japanese were at least as cruel towards
>>civilians in occupied countries as the Germans were.  So if that
>>cruelty justifies mass bombing of civilians, it was justified
>>against Japan as well.

> They were comparably cruel to captives, but lacked the same malice
> toward run-of-the-mill civilians.  The Rape of Nanjing was somewhat
> unusual.  They are blamed for 10,000,000 deaths in China, but most of
> the losses were due to war, the dislocations of war, and incompetent
> administration (something like Bush in Iraq).  They did not view
> Chinese as an inferior race to be exterminated; instead they wished to
> coopt them.

     Talk to people who lived through the Japanese occupations of
Guam or the Philippines.  There was a great deal of gratuitous
cruelty.  I can't speak for Malaya or Indonesia but I suspect the
same was true there.
     There were massive executions in China in response to the
Doolittle raid.  That was deliberate, not due to incompetence or
the dislocation of war.

...

>>> Don't get me wrong.  I am an admirer of FDR,  ranking him "great" with
>>> Lincoln and Washington.
>>
>>> My point was that, in prosecuting a vast and necessary war, he did
>>> worse things than G.W. Bush is accused of.
>>
>>     I still disagree; there is not the excuse for w that what he
>>is doing could be claimed to make any positive contribution towards
>>winning the war (whatever "winning" means).

> List his crimes as you understand them, so that I can compare them to
> FDR's record.

     How about "making aggressive war," to quote the Nuremberg
charges?
     I'm sure I could formulate something on the lines of failing
to implement proper accountability for Abu Ghraib, or to preclude
such problems in the future.
     Formulation of charges related to Guantanamo or "extraordinary
rendition" will have to wait for more complete disclosure of the
relevant facts.


>>>>> Executing 8 suspected Nazi saboteurs after a farcical, mostly secret
>>>>> "trial."  Bush talks about it, but he hasn't done it.
>>>>
>>>>> Failure to appoint lawyers for all detainees
>>>>
>>>>     There is a bit of historicism here.  Neither the Geneva 
>>>>Conventions nor anything else called for that kind of treatment of
>>>>spies, which is what they were: enemies behind the lines and out 
>>>>of uniform.  If the Germans had been in uniform they would have
>>>>been treated as POWs.  Out of uniform they were spies and lucky
>>>>not to be just shot out of hand.
>>
>>> That tends to be true of Bush's "unlawful combatants" as well, but his
>>> NGO critics don't buy it.
>>
>>     What, the "unlawful combatants" are spies?  I think that can hardly
>>be supported. 

> Al-Qa'ida operatives posing as non-combatant civilians in foreign (eg
> Western) countries qualify as spies.

     I'm not sure I agree.  They may plan to be saboteurs, but I
find no evidence that they are seeking classified information that
they want to transmit to foreign governments or citizens.  The
established justice system seems more appropriate to handle these
cases.

> In Afghanistan, I understand that we gave Taliban fighters PoW
> treatment as "levee en masse" in their own country.  

     And properly so; but weren't there exceptions?

>>And many of them were in whatever passes for a uniform
>>in that war.  The hypocrisy is that we claim we treat them in 
>>accordance with the Geneva Convention even though we claim they are not
>>entitled to it.

> The ones in "whatever passes for a uniform" are not the ones we claim
> are not entitled to PoW status.

     I'm not sure that's true.  Many were captured on the battlefield,
not behind the lines or in raids.

>>  They probably are entitled, but we don't treat them
>>that way.

> Al Qa'ida operatives posing as non-combatant civilians in foreign
> countries?

     See above.