PBS SHOW TO ARGUE ALLIES AS BAD AS NAZIS

[Matt308]

What do you mean ABW, like the Civil War was about slavery (modern interpretation) when in actuality it was about $$ ?? Never forget the power of the pen.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

What do you mean ABW, like the Civil War was about slavery (modern interpretation) when in actuality it was about $$ ?? Never forget the power of the pen.

It has been turned into the war over slavery. Yes, slavery was one of the reasons but that was somewhat later in the war when Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation. The present day media has pretty much suppressed the real reasons for that war. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel slavery is right, I do not believe it should be allowed in any way shape or form, but let's keep the history books correct.

 

[Haztoys]

Or as Max Hastings put it, "The British precision bombed area targets and the Americans area bombed precision targets".

Gives food for thought.

The statement of "precision bombing" in the 1940's was a fantasy...It never happened ...The US could not do it in day light ...And the Brit's could not hit the broad side of a barn at night..It was propaganda..And the start of the US's BS of a nice clean sort of war to make the American people feel good ..That's still happening to day in Iraq..

One thing to get this thread back on track...Did the Allies know the Stalin was such a butcher at the time .. Or did he show his colors after the war..Roosevelt was thinking he had Stalin all cover ...Stalin played him like a fidel

( not busting the Brit's balls its just with the tec they had at the time it was hard to do in day light ..Let a lone at night..Hats off to the hard fighting RAF flyers..)

 

[wilbur1]

War is war if they or you dont like it go start your own little country. what the germans at the time did was wrong and that is what EVERY AMERICAN fought against the japanese also did their own holocaust AGAINST THIER OWN PEOPLE! Say what you want against the US in ww2 ......but i will tell you 1 thing i will stand up and fight for what MY country did!



Im an american citizen and a soldier everybody else can KISS my a##

 

[Marcel]

The statement of "precision bombing" in the 1940's was a fantasy...It never happened ...

617th squadron showed differently. They did some pretty accurate bombing on several occasions. It could be done when one had the opportunity and will to do so.

 

[Old Wizard]

You've got to remember that many of the folks that operate in the world of the university don't have that good a grasp on the real world and tend to lean a bit leftish. It's hard to find much good to say about a major war other than the results were satisfactory. As far as atrocities go, the folks in Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America could show us a thing or two.

 

[Marcel]

You've got to remember that many of the folks that operate in the world of the university don't have that good a grasp on the real world.

Now where did you get that idea? They are people living in the real world like you and me.

 

[Haztoys]

War is war if they or you dont like it go start your own little country. what the germans at the time did was wrong and that is what EVERY AMERICAN fought against the japanese also did their own holocaust AGAINST THIER OWN PEOPLE! Say what you want against the US in ww2 ......but i will tell you 1 thing i will stand up and fight for what MY country did!



Im an american citizen and a soldier everybody else can KISS my a##

I think I came across way wrong here.. ..I to am American and support my country ..And even the war in Iraq.. Just think the bomb was not as precision as history makes it out to be ..And my statements were not against the US in ww2 at all.. Its just with the tec at the time it was hard to get bombs that close..And "I" feel the the Germans and Japanese started it and they got what was coming to them to stop what they started...I to will and have on this forum stood up for what MY country did ...No shame here..

I'm one who would like to see us get the job done in Iraq ..This nice war gets more American kids killed ..Then if we would get ugly with them and I wish we would get it done ...And I'm agains the nice way of war .. Its sort of like nice jails ..Does not work...

Its called WAR for a reason...Sorry if I came across wrong and uppset you Wilbur..They started it and we did what it took to stop it ..

 

[Hop]

Almost all the bombing done by Bomber Command was area bombing because the couldn't get accurate enough to hit specific targets

45% of the bombing done by BC was area bombing, 55% attacks on precision targets.

Interesting fact about Hamburg was the firestorm only resulted in 45 days of lost production

Bear in mind that Hamburg was the largest armaments centre in Germany, and that the city suffered an equivalent to total loss of production for a significant period. As Middlebrook puts it:

The general conclusion was that the Battle of Hamburg caused a loss of war production equivalent to the normal output of the entire city for 1.8 months of full production. Output returned to 80 per cent of normal within five months but full recovery was never achieved.

He gives as an example U boat production, with estimates that lost production accounted for 23 - 27 boats.

I don't think it's that ridiculous Njaco, the reason being that it's true. Why else bomb the major cities when it was well known that the factories weren't located there ?

Factories were located in the cities. The German police report on the damage at Hamburg, for example, lists the following destruction:

Industrial and war-industry firms 580
Warehouses 7
Office buildings 379
Commercial premises (mostly shops etc.) 2,632
Banks, insurance offices etc. 88
Public utility premises 13
Transport premises 13
Public offices 145
Nazi Party offices 112
Military premises 80
Police, fire and civil-defence premises 197
Bridges 12

But the theory behind area bombing is that even the factories that aren't hit directly still lose production, because of disruption to water, gas and electricity supplies, blocked roads, scattered workers etc.

Middlebrook gives the example of Blohm und Voss shipyards in Hamburg, which suffered very little direct damage.

Before the raids on Hamburg, Blohm und Voss had 9,000 workers show up each day.

The day after the heaviest raid, 300 turned up for work.

A couple of days later 1,500 were back at work.

On the 1st September, more than a month after the raids, 5000 were showing up each day.

1st October, 2 months later, it was 7000.

1st November, 3 months after the raids, 7500.

In Hamburg war industries as a whole, on 1st October, 2 months after the raids, the percentage reduction in workers:

German men - 37.7%
German women - 55.4%
Foreign men - 60.2%
Foreign women - 66.7%
Total - 47.7%

And the reduction wasn't because the workers had been killed. The total death toll at Hamburg was about 45,000 out of a population of about 1.5 million. That's about 3%.

Not only was the percentage decline in industrial workers much larger than the overall percentage killed, but it was much larger in absolute numbers. At the start of October, 2 months after the bombing, attendance at Hamburg's war industries was down from 634,000 to 331,300. Over 300,000 workers had disappeared.

The difference between bombing (on all sides) and the holocaust is that bombing was intended to win the war by attacking the enemy. The holocaust was intended to eradicate those designated as enemies, even though they were doing nothing to help the enemy war effort.

 

[timshatz]

The statement of "precision bombing" in the 1940's was a fantasy...It never happened ...The US could not do it in day light ...And the Brit's could not hit the broad side of a barn at night..It was propaganda..And the start of the US's BS of a nice clean sort of war to make the American people feel good QUOTE]

Haz, you might want to read Max Hasting's "Bomber Command" which goes into great depth on the subject. While it is very true that Bomber Command had terrible results in the begining of the war, Hasting's shows that they got much better as the war went on. Using Target Marking, Master Bomber, Bomb Mix, Offset Bombing, ect, they managed to drop the mean target error for bombs dropped to less than 400 yards. It's a good read and goes over the details far better than I can in a short post on the board.

 

[Freebird]

Does anyone know the name of that German city that was bombed purely because of a civilian population? I can't seem to remember....Coventry? or.....

Out tax $$ hard at work.

Dresden....

Well let's also remember that the "true" Nazis aware of all that Hitler Himmler were up to numbered less than 15% of the entire German population. I find this fact particularly scary to think about, that so little could lure so many into such a pointless war.

I think the aftermath of the war would have been much different, Germany could argue that it was simply a conflict with UK Allies over power domination except that the death camps were so horrific that the Nazi regime was condemed as monsters

PBS SHOW TO ARGUE ALLIES AS BAD AS NAZIS

IT'S ALL ONE 'WAR'

TO

TO if they argue that the Allies bombing of civilian targets "crossed the line" then there is some justification to that argument, there were military leaders at the time that disagreed with the strategy, both on moral military grounds.

However to argue that the Axis were no worse than the Allies, after the Holocaust the Rape of Nanking, is absurd

 

[FLYBOYJ]

However to argue that the Axis were no worse than the Allies, after the Holocaust the Rape of Nanking, is absurd

And don't forget the treatment of POWs by the Japanese but you summed it up perfectly!

 

[ToughOmbre]

TO if they argue that the Allies bombing of civilian targets "crossed the line" then there is some justification to that argument, there were military leaders at the time that disagreed with the strategy, both on moral military grounds.

However, if the Allies refrained from bombing civilian targets and the war lasted longer than it did, and say 600,000 American soldiers died instead of 405,000, what is the moral obligation to those that were killed needlessly, and to their families. This would be my main argument to those that say Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary.

However to argue that the Axis were no worse than the Allies, after the Holocaust the Rape of Nanking, is absurd

Absolutely!

TO

 

[Freebird]

However, if the Allies refrained from bombing civilian targets and the war lasted longer than it did, and say 600,000 American soldiers died instead of 405,000, what is the moral obligation to those that were killed needlessly, and to their families. This would be my main argument to those that say Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary.

TO

Pardon me, I should have been more specific, I was referring to the European bombing, which was known to have very little effect on Axis production, and especially the most destructive raids in '44 '45 when it was clear the the germans were losing. The raids on the oil plants were
effective, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't think "Dresden" etc was justifiable, as it didn't have much effect, compared to the cost in civilians. Just IMHO, there were arguments on both sides of the issue.


As for Hiroshima Nagasaki, I would have personally tried to blast an small military target, {Small base/port on the coastline} to demonstrate the power.

However, if it didn't work I would agree with your argument to use it on Hiroshima to end the war {saving 100,000's of casualties on both sides} Also I suspect that the Allies did not know how deadly the radiation fallout would be.


As to the argument "did we ally ourselves with a brutal dictator?"

Yes we did. Was there another option? I don't think so.....

 

[timshatz]

I don't know if "Allied with a brutal dictator" really holds. The Soviet Union was in the war before the US. While it is true, we gave material support to the SU, we did it on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Seems more common sense than anything else. When in the fight of your life, looking for points of disagreement (ideological or otherwise) between yours and a potential Allied power is stupid and possibly suicidal.

 

[Freebird]

I don't know if "Allied with a brutal dictator" really holds. The Soviet Union was in the war before the US. While it is true, we gave material support to the SU, we did it on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

Seems more common sense than anything else. When in the fight of your life, looking for points of disagreement (ideological or otherwise) between yours and a potential Allied power is stupid and possibly suicidal.

Who's we??

I guess from the British Empire point of view, it was Hitlers choice to push Russia into the war, it more or less "dropped in our lap", and it made common sense from any way you look at it.

But that's one of the arguments that they use "But Stalin was as bad as Hitler"...

 

[ToughOmbre]

Pardon me, I should have been more specific, I was referring to the European bombing, which was known to have very little effect on Axis production, and especially the most destructive raids in '44 '45 when it was clear the the germans were losing. The raids on the oil plants were
effective, I don't have a problem with that. But I don't think "Dresden" etc was justifiable, as it didn't have much effect, compared to the cost in civilians. Just IMHO, there were arguments on both sides of the issue.

I agree with your points about Axis production (mostly aircraft) and oil. However it would be hard to imagine that bombing the civilian population centers did not help to shorten the war. And morality (what morality is there in war anyway?) aside, that was what IMO what counted.

As for Hiroshima Nagasaki, I would have personally tried to blast an small military target, {Small base/port on the coastline} to demonstrate the power.

Maybe, but I think that would have been a waste of a bomb, and we only had two, I think. If they didn't surrender after the first attack on Hiroshima, there's no way they would have surrendered after an attack on a "small military target".

As to the argument "did we ally ourselves with a brutal dictator?"

Yes we did. Was there another option? I don't think so.....

And what has proved to be true in history over and over, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

TO

 

[pbfoot]

45% of the bombing done by BC was area bombing, 55% attacks on precision targets.



.

I believe thats wishful thinking just in 1945 alone Bomber command flew 67,483 sorties and dropped 181,000tons of bombs that is approx 20% of the total for the whole war and this is how the tonnage breaks down
Attacks on
cities 66,482 tons 36.6%
troops and defences 26081 tons 14.4%
transportation 28102tons 15.4%
attacks on oil 47510tons 26,2%
naval 11149tons 6.1%
Luftwafffe 637tons .04%
specific industries 1236tons .07%
other 552 tons .02%

 

[trackend]

IMO. What was bombed, not bombed, shot, nuked or anything else boils down to this. The Axis forces were determined to conquer as much of the rest of the world as possible the Nazis wanted to either exterminate or subdugate anyone they took a dislike to, as did the Japanese. The Allies did not invade and enslave most of Europe nor did the Allies walk all over the far East raping and killing indiscriminately. Nor did they start bombing cities full of civilians. The Allies did what the felt they needed to do in order to end the war as quickly as they could with the minimum of loss of life to their own people.
At the time Shooting Bombing, Burning and eventualy dropping the A bomb were all used to achive this.
They did not give a s*** what some guy would say in 60 years time in fact the guy would have quite likely not been born to say it in the first place if the Allies had lost.
When the A bomb was dropped very few people at the time said that it was a terrible thing and should not have been done. Most, especially the guys who had fought their way across a large part of Asia or Island hopped across the pacific and seen half their mates killed or the civilians whos cities had been Blitzed said whoopee we can live the wars over.
Hindsite is real easy 62 years later, but at the time it was a big different kettle of fish.
As for Russia Stalin didnt give a toss about his people so like wise neither did his generals using millions of lives in order to win as quickly as they could.
20,000,000 dead I wonder how any nation would react to losses and atrocities on that scale. We like to believe a bit differently than those of the Red Army but we can only guess on that.

 

[Haztoys]

The statement of "precision bombing" in the 1940's was a fantasy...It never happened ...The US could not do it in day light ...And the Brit's could not hit the broad side of a barn at night..It was propaganda..And the start of the US's BS of a nice clean sort of war to make the American people feel good QUOTE]

Haz, you might want to read Max Hasting's "Bomber Command" which goes into great depth on the subject. While it is very true that Bomber Command had terrible results in the begining of the war, Hasting's shows that they got much better as the war went on. Using Target Marking, Master Bomber, Bomb Mix, Offset Bombing, ect, they managed to drop the mean target error for bombs dropped to less than 400 yards. It's a good read and goes over the details far better than I can in a short post on the board.

Looks if my point of view was off...I will do my home work on this ...