Whos Ready For VJ Day !!!

All history is biased. Especially the versoin written by the victory which throughout most of history has been the predominate version or perhaps even only version to survive until we started digging stuff up and peicing things together

I see what you mean, for sure. I wasn't really saying anything either, just being a smart ***. I wonder if I see the event maybe a little like as if I were alive then - with relief more than anything else. I don't know.

I do think that "celebrating" it isn't really right. I mean, I guess the end of a war is something to be thankful for, but to me it's more of a time to think about it, or learn from it. No parties for me, thanks.

Don't say that! You'll incite a religious debate!
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I fully agree with this sentiment, as I suspect many others do, as well. The rationale for the strategic bombing campaigns has generally been that in an industrial age where battle involves large conscript armies using weapons of much greater lethality than ever before and with far more reliance on supply lines and communication than ever before, it makes sense to target the source of supplies, communication, and conscripts. Simply destroying supply dumps and factories is not enough. Industrialized nations can simply rebuild, and likely have prepared for this eventuality. This is the major part of the argument used for attacking centers of population.

Another major factor is simply accuracy. Because of losses, the British switched from daylight pinpoint bombing runs to nighttime area bombing early in the war. This had the effect of a marginal reduction in British losses while greatly increasing German civilian casualties. Note that the London Blitz was still ongoing at the time. The US also discovered that its much heralded Norden Bomb sight was much less accurate than advertised even in daylight. The solution in both cases was to increase the number of bombs dropped and to make up for inaccuracy by bombing a larger target. That is, aim for the entire city rather than a given factory.

The third major factor is thus: inestimable cruelty breeds indifference. It has been argued that the death and destruction brought on the world by the Nazis justifies the means, however extreme, through which they were destroyed.

Ultimately, similar logic was applied to Japan, with the added caveat that it was thought unlikely the Japanese would ever surrender otherwise.

The logic itself gets thinner the further removed you are from the events of 1940. Therefore, the fire-bombing of Dresden seems questionable. The fire-bombing of Tokyo...how much were those mom and pop operations downtown really contributing to the Japanese war effort? The extremely heavy bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail...never worked at all.

To me, the development of smart munitions was inevitable. What I don't understand is why it took so long for it to happen (Operation Desert Storm...) when the Hs 293 and FX 1400 were operational by 1943 (the Japanese used human guidance for their smart weapons rather than their allies' radio guided weapons).

Were we really so indifferent to cruelty and suffering until 1991?