Did German and Japanese civilians deserve to be attacked with WMD during WW2?

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

a necessary evil? To fight evil. Right? One can certainly do more than hope.

Thats where a lot of people are incorrect. WW2 was not about "evil" that is debatable. It was to stop 2 major countries from taking over other sovereign nations as they were hellbent on world domination. They failed. War in itself is evil. No debate.But a necessary evil sometimes.

This may be true, as you say.

But that doesn't answer the question whether civilians can be targeted.

You need to remember that today people who do so are ostensibly called terrorists. The argument runs that no matter what your cause or justification is, you can't target civilians on purpose.

I am going to research the number killed by the 2 bombs , and then research the number of civilian lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan . I betcha the latter is much more.

Here's an interesting number for ya, the 2 day firebombing campaign of Tokyo is estimated to have killed more than the 2 bombs combined did.

a reply to: cavtrooper7

Yes, you will.

You fight a war to win. Only that, nothing more. If, in the process you can avoid killing civilians, you do so.

War is, as you say, a horrible thing. The more horrible you make it, the easier it is to avoid, I should think.

Drones, and the like, make it too antiseptic. Too clean. Video games.

War should be dirty. Nasty. Up close and personal. My dad has the nightmares to prove it. He'd just as soon not see any more. Having borne witness to more than one of his nightmares? I agree with him.

Verbatim- 'The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing at all' - Burke

To ignore the evils of the world is to become implicitous in its treachery. To state that civilians were intentionally targeted, is to an extent, overreaching. Infrastructure was the target, whether or not large parts of it were biological. Yes, the Japanese and German citizens suffered for the heinous crimes perpetrated by their countrymen. My sentiments on the matter can be twisted to justify the wrong doings of the world, but there are vast differences between driving home a point and slaughter of the innocents... And it would be my contention that retaliation against Japan was the first rather than the latter (being an American, I will not speak to Russian actions, as I do not know their suffering on a personal level). I do believe that all things considered, a great deal of restraint was shown.

I don't mention Germany, regardless of whether or not history has wavered on the matter, beause it was well know that every German citizen was ordered to fight till the end.

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

a necessary evil? To fight evil. Right? One can certainly do more than hope.

Thats where a lot of people are incorrect. WW2 was not about "evil" that is debatable. It was to stop 2 major countries from taking over other sovereign nations as they were hellbent on world domination. They failed. War in itself is evil. No debate.But a necessary evil sometimes.

This may be true, as you say.

But that doesn't answer the question whether civilians can be targeted.

You need to remember that today people who do so are ostensibly called terrorists. The argument runs that no matter what your cause or justification is, you can't target civilians on purpose.

I am going to research the number killed by the 2 bombs , and then research the number of civilian lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan . I betcha the latter is much more.

Here's an interesting number for ya, the 2 day firebombing campaign of Tokyo is estimated to have killed more than the 2 bombs combined did.

Yes , and that was an attempt to avoid what would come next.

a reply to: Gothmog

Exactly. This thread seems like a bait thread imo, does ANY civilian ever DESERVE to die in war? No. Did the Germans and Japanese kill their fair share of them? Yep.

The answer, no, of course not. While they followed their countries rule, it was not always out of being trustworhy or loving of it, but some where in fear as well. Some, sad to say, did not know better.

In Ukraine for example, many had to either side with the Soviets or Nazis, or meet the other consequences was outright death, to camps to starvation and or being sent to Siberia.

Yes. It's impossible to fight a war without civilian deaths.

a reply to: Talorc
Behave. He started up a thread about this specific question, not to answer all your questions and address all civilisations throughout history. Just behave.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Why did they drop 2 bombs on Japan.

They dropped two because the Japanese thought we could only make one. When two were dropped it was a huge bluff that we had more and so the Japanese would not have surrendered to just one nuke, but with "many" they had little choice.

It took 4 years with 30 facilities and 130,000 people to produce the material for the 3 bombs. The Japanese did not know the level we had invested in this project, but they did know it took an extremely long time to get the material and so one bomb would have meant they would keep fighting with the belief they would have years before the next nuke. The two bombs meant they miscalculated and so they had no clue at that point.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
When two were dropped it was a huge bluff that we had more

They had another one ready about the 24th August, then about 3 a month after that.

a reply to: Xtrozero

It wasn't actually a question.

It was an old joke I used to hear at the VFW as a kid that would be unacceptable to tell now but it had an element of truth.

If they had three they would have dropped three.


You are correct that it was also a bluff, but it wasn't just a bluff for the Japanese it was also a show for the Russians and China to some extent. China wanted revenge and Russia had ideas about control of Japan.

No but it has become par for course in America's global depopulation agenda.

Did around 1/3 of Laos' and Cambodia's civilian population deserve to be bombed to death because US was at war with Vietnam?

Ditto for Afghanistan, and Iraq via depleted Uraniam.

And Libya & Syria via Proxy, all WMDs nevertheless.

US is the only to have resorted to nuking another country, and one wasn't even enough.

originally posted by: Sovan
US is the only to have resorted to nuking another country, and one wasn't even enough.

Very true, as they refused to surrender after one. In fact a military coup was staged because the emperor was going to surrender after the 2nd one!

a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

Did German and Japanese civilians deserve to be intentionally targeted in WW2?

civilians were intentionally targeted in japan, just like they were in germany at first by the british and the U.S. on occasion then that changed to attempted precision bombing which wasn't all that precise.

the bombing in germany at the beginning by the british was to bomb everything,( Strategic Bombing). the idea was to destroy morale, and make the place uninhabitable. this was to make the cities where production for the war effort was taking place in, to displace the work force and the ability to work. results were marginal, some cities it worked good in some it didn't. you might look into the british Dehousing Paper, and the Area bombing Directive.

the Dehousing Paper and Area Bombing Directive later on would be changed to Area Bombing ( Carpet Bombing), which they found worked much better for them.

when the U.S. started bombing in 1942, the U.S. Government and the USAAF commanders didn't want to target indiscriminately. it was thought the with the new Norden bombsight that precision bombing would be more effective.
now the idea of precision bombing was a target as the aiming point that had a 1000 foot circle around it, called the target area which only about 20% of the bombs hit the area. the rest just fell willy nilly due to wind and miss drops. but this was a very good system due to the huge tonnage of bombs dropped during the day and night. but it should also be noted that the U.S did indeed use fire bombing tactics in germany, one such attack killed 50,000 civilians in hamburg. in training and testing for fire bombing the U.S. built a village over and over again at the Dugway proving grounds, that cost over a 1/2 a mill each time it was rebuilt in 1942 dollars.

in japan the bombing campaign wasn't as long in germany. after Doolittle's raid there wasn't any bombing of the home islands at all until june1944, that was due to the first B29's leaving out of india to china then to japan. this wasn't very successful.
it wasn't until the the capture of the Mariana Islands that more successful raids began to happen.

some time in 1945, i forget when the date it started the U.S. would drop over 63 million leaflets over cities in japan warning and telling people to leave,that they intended to bomb major cities where war time material production and shipping was done. sometimes they would include the names of the cities, survivor's of Hiroshima say that they had leaflets dropped over their city in late july or early august, but it was not listed.

as for the nukes, there were five cities chosen as targets, Kokura, one of japan's largest munitions plants was there, Hiroshima, an embarkation port for the army ,industrial center, and was a major military headquarters, Yokohama, aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries, Niigata, a industrial port,steel, aluminum plants and an oil refinery,and Kyoto, a industrial center. Kyoto was removed from the target list because of historical, religious and cultural significance, and replaced by Nagasaki.

Nagasaki was one of the largest seaports in southern japan, Mitsubishi had four of the largest, shipyards, electrical shipyards, arms plant, and steel and arms works there. unlike the the other five on the list Nagasaki wasn't on the do not bomb list and was attacked at least five time in regular bombing raids, and never attacked using fire bombing due to it was hard to find at night on radar.

none of the targets for the nuclear weapons were meant to target civilians, they were military targets, or industrial targets that would reduce the output of the japaneses war machine.

so if you do a little research you will see, the U.S. wasn't all that into targeting civilians, as others were but they did do it.

Did German and Japanese civilians deserve to be attacked with WMD during WW2?
well i guess that depends on how you look at it,

if they were just poor saps going to work and didn't want anything to do with the war i say no.
if they were all gung ho and did everything in their power to help their country win the war which they started i say yes.

oh a side note during the fire bombing tests, it was found that it was a lot easier to set a japanese city on fire, but a german city wouldmore than likely burn uncontrollably.

It was a total war. A war for survival of western democracy.
Sure, civilians don't "deserve" to die.
Back then though? The Allies had two choices, use every weapon at their disposal or consign hundreds of thousands more of their own people to death.

A no brainer in my opinion.

originally posted by: luciddream

originally posted by: muSSang
It's a hard call, Japan would not surrender unconditionally, so a invasion plan was drawn up, this would of cost the allies more lives than the WMD's had taken.

I think the nukes were justified, remember if it wasn't nukes it was going to be bats armed with insidinary timered bombs. So in hindsight the WMD's actually saved lives.

This is what they teach so people think it is justified, The truth is Japan was already defeated, food supply cut short and other import restriction.

It was simply US gov had to show their new technology to the world on fisherman, women and children.

Lol you actually think Hirohito cared that food supplies were short? I'm sure he was just fine. Secondly the US dropped fliers over both cities urging people to leave for weeks. Hirohito didn't think a weapon like that was possible and ordered people to stay in their homes.

Get your revisionist history out of here.

originally posted by: skunkape23
If I had been in Truman's shoes, I would have dropped the first nuke on an unpopulated area.
Let them see what we've got and give them a chance to surrender.
Dropping the atomic bomb on a densely populated area was an unnecessary and barbaric act in my opinion.

It was a valid military target, because it was a factory city.

When you destroy their means of making war goods you destroy their ability to make war

Germany also learned that the hard way

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

originally posted by: Bluntone22
When you start a war and have your factories surrounded by civilians you are asking for those civilians to be killed. Especially when you factor in that a bomber in ww2 aiming for a target could easily miss by a half mile.

Yes, sure, but that may explain many bombing runs in WWII but surely not Dresden nor the two cities in Japan. Both were beyond that.

Nope, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial cities, both produced military hardware, both were obvious and valid military targets.

That is why they were hit, and not Tokyo.

It was not as you obviously think, just to cause mass civilian casualties, the civie casualties were just the collateral damage from destroying Japans war production.

Cracks me up how this generation thinks war has rules, using words like "deserve". The last war we won was because of nukes. All the other wars since then have ended after decades of blood and agreeing to end it. Something that could have been done before a war.

a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

Germans? WMD? When did Germany get hit by an atomic bomb?