Tokyo fire bombing 70th anniversary: Survivors beg Japan to remember the forgotten 100,000

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tokyo-fire-bombing-70th-anniversary-survivors-beg-japan-to-remember-the-forgotten-100000-10096651.html
Unlike the Dresden firebombing by the RAF, this tragedy engfendered by the USAF, has been ignored, even in Japan, up to now. So I say RIP to all those civilans who died on this day 70 years ago. LL

I don't think it's been forgotten or ignored, LL, I watched a documentary about it just last week? It was Curtis le May's idea to deliberately set fire to Tokyo, as I recall......

Sadly, it's always innocent people that suffer most in wars nowadays; one of the many reasons I've come to detest politicians and generals that try to whip them up by inventing external threats and demanding 'patriotism'.

bb1 wrote:I don't think it's been forgotten or ignored, LL, I watched a documentary about it just last week? It was Curtis le May's idea to deliberately set fire to Tokyo, as I recall......

Sadly, it's always innocent people that suffer most in wars nowadays; one of the many reasons I've come to detest politicians and generals that try to whip them up by inventing external threats and demanding 'patriotism'.

Curtis Le May stated that if the US had lost the war he would have prosecuted for war crimes. I am afraid that it has been mainly ignored, everyone knows about Coventry, London and Dresden, but few about Tokyo. My son told me years ago about it; I knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki but not that Tokyo had been fire-bombed. LL

It's always been a War Crime in my book. The only thing that can be said in mitigation is that they probably didn't realise the extent of the horror they were unleashing.

Sabot wrote:It's always been a War Crime in my book.  The only thing that can be said in mitigation is that they probably didn't realise the extent of the horror they were unleashing.

They knew exactly what they were doing, ma petite, they had the example of Dresden a few months before. Bomber Harris was very proud of how many innocents were killed there, quite unrepentant. Years ago, I met a lady who dug her parents out of the melted pavement after the fire in Dresden died down. LL

Yes, but what is often forgotten in the Dresden business is that the town was a railway hub, and German troops were pouring into the Eastern Front. A big part of it was to aid Stalin.

Am I sorry for the innocent individuals who died? Yes, of course I am. I am also sorry for the people that died in the Blitz - let's not forget just who started this.

Am I sorry for the innocent Japanese civilians who died in Tokyo? Yes, of course I am. But I am even more sorry for the innocent Chinese who were raped, tortured and slaughtered in their millions by Japanese troops. And for all those prisoners of war who were treated with appalling barbarity by Japanese soldiers.

Anyone want to read a link to American PoWs being subjected to LIVE dissection by Japanese doctors? No, thought not.

Again, let's not forget just who started this.

It happens everywhere, bonny. The treatment of black people in the USA, the concentration camps in S Africa set up by the British to house the Boers, the slaughter of the Scots by the English at Culloden, the list is endless. I do not condone this kind of outage but I do not believe in 'the sins of the fathers shall lie on the sons unto the tenth generation.' I never forget that Hitler was Austrian, but I do not accept that his behavior should haunt the Austrians for ever - yes, I know they welcomed him when his troops occupied Austria, but that is a past generation, not the present one. Maybe I am being a bit simplistic, but that is me - what you see is what you get. LL

How about some sympathy for all those so-called 'comfort women', who TO THIS DAY are being dismissed by the Japanese government as of no importance?

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-popes-verdict-japans-comfort-women-11168

I think I was upset by it because it appeared to be unnecessary. The Japs were losing anyway, weren't they?

No, not really, Sabot. They had decided that they were going to fight for every single island, every bit of rock between the US troops and Japan. Every single one of them, men, women and children, was prepared to die rather than surrender.

Yes, they would have lost in the end, but the death toll would have been in the millions, on both sides. It was only Emperor Hirohito ordering them to surrender and 'bear the unbearable' after Nagasaki that stopped it. And even then, some of the Japanese military tried to stage a coup and carry on with the war on what was left of Japanese soil.

Bonny, I do not condone in any way what was done to those women, as I do not condone the Nazis's stealing of blonde, blue-eyed Polish and other children that looked Aryan so as to beef up the German racial stock.    It is a very emotive subject, let's face it.  Most atrocities are perpetrated by Governments, using the military forces, the police etc.   It is very hard to understand in what is now a 'reasonably safe and peaceful' time the mindset of those who lived over half a century ago.   The Japanese were tightly controlled by an autocracy, rather like the Russian Czars, where obediance to the Emperor came first, second and last.   Today's Japanese Emperor is a figurehead with the same kind of powers as Elizabeth II has, ie a constitutional monarch, unlike some of the Middle East rules who are autocrats with the power of life or death over all their subjects.   These are my thoughts, maybe I am naive so this is the last I am going to say on this.    LL

Thing is, LL, the people on the receiving end of bombs - wherever or whenever it happens - are almost always innocent civilians. And that is ALWAYS the way modern industrial wars end.

It wasn't OK for the Nazis to bomb London in 1940. And it wasn't OK for NATO to bomb what had been Yugoslavia at the end of the 20th century, either.

Nothing will ever change until people get it into their heads that war only brings misery - and riches for war profiteers. WW2 was, IMO, just about the only war in recent history that was unavoidable and neccessary, because the alternative was worse.

And this is anything but a safe and peaceful time - the wardrums are sounding all over the West right now.

How the Nazis bombed thousands of Germans – for TARGET PRACTICE: Uncovered classified documents reveal how Hitler used cities to test V-2 rockets
Most of the top-secret documents are written in coded German
They were issued to the mysterious 'Kommandostelle S' unit
They show how the desperate Nazis used their own settlements as targets
It means thousands of Germans died at the hands of their own leader
V-2 rockets were a final throw of the dice at the end of the war for Hitler


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2989668/How-Nazis-bombed-thousands-Germans-TARGET-PRACTICE-Uncovered-classified-documents-belonging-secret-SS-unit-reveal-Hitler-used-cities-test-V-2-rockets.html#ixzz3U6H6vihK
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

What can a person say about that, Bonny?

Not a lot, Lily. Worth remembering that that Nazis were working on plans to bomb New York, either with ballistic missiles or fast bombers - and they were streets ahead of the Allies in both fields. It's just as well so many of them dismissed nuclear weapons as 'Jewish nonsense'.

'The plan was to wrap the bomb with radioactive sand and have it explode high above New York casting a radioactive cloud over the city,” aviation historian David Myhra says.
'It was a kind of prototype dirty bomb.'
Goering
Losing control: Goering was particularly keen to promote his airforce and saw the plot to bomb New York as an ideal way to win Hitler's favor
'The standard aircraft of the day could not fly from Europe to the US because they could not carry enough fuel.'
'But by reaching sub-orbital altitude the Silverbird’s fuel life would be extended allowing it to bomb anywhere in the world.'
'It was wild science fiction'
'But Saenger had worked out all the mathematics. He was certain it would work.'
'Post-war analysis indicated that the space-plane would have burnt up during re-entry but this could have been overcome with thermal shielding.
'The underlying concept was sound but it was many years ahead of its time.'
Goering finally dismissed the plan and the Nazis looked at other ways to bomb the U.S. but never succeeded.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256953/Nazis-secretly-developed-plot-drop-radioactive-bomb-New-York-supersonic-space-rocket.html#ixzz3U6NQhHnL
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I remember The V2 Rockets. You heard them coming, and then they would suddenly cut out for what seemed like eternity. If you heard the bang then it hadn't hit you.
I was about six years old at the time, but then War was all that I had ever known.

I still have a problem with light aircraft. I freeze for a couple of seconds, until common sense takes over.

Just as well you didn't know what they were at the time, Sabot, or how big they were.



I hope that one in Trafalgar Square was a dud...

I saw something about them on TV somewhere this week; apparently, they're the only weapon that has ever caused more deaths to those building them than to their targets - tens of thousands of slave labourers died in their construction.

Sabot wrote:I remember The V2 Rockets.  You heard them coming, and then they would suddenly cut out for what seemed like eternity.  If you heard the bang then it hadn't hit you.
I was about six years old at the time, but then War was all that I had ever known.

I still have a problem with light aircraft.  I freeze for a couple of seconds, until common sense takes over.

That wasn't the V2, sabot, it was the V1 aka the doodlebug. They were designed to use up all the fuel, then run on a bit further until gravity took over and they nosedived towards the ground and detonate. Literally a flying long distance bomb. The V2 was the precurser of modern rockets. LL

Lamplighter wrote:

Sabot wrote:I remember The V2 Rockets.  You heard them coming, and then they would suddenly cut out for what seemed like eternity.  If you heard the bang then it hadn't hit you.
I was about six years old at the time, but then War was all that I had ever known.

I still have a problem with light aircraft.  I freeze for a couple of seconds, until common sense takes over.

That wasn't the V2, sabot, it was the V1 aka the doodlebug.   They were designed to use up all the fuel, then run on a bit further until gravity took over and they nosedived towards the ground and detonate.  Literally a flying long distance bomb.   The V2 was the precurser of modern rockets.    LL

Okay. If you like. I was only six years old. So I only remember the perpetual fear.

Sabot wrote:

Lamplighter wrote:

Sabot wrote:I remember The V2 Rockets.  You heard them coming, and then they would suddenly cut out for what seemed like eternity.  If you heard the bang then it hadn't hit you.
I was about six years old at the time, but then War was all that I had ever known.

I still have a problem with light aircraft.  I freeze for a couple of seconds, until common sense takes over.

That wasn't the V2, sabot, it was the V1 aka the doodlebug.   They were designed to use up all the fuel, then run on a bit further until gravity took over and they nosedived towards the ground and detonate.  Literally a flying long distance bomb.   The V2 was the precurser of modern rockets.    LL

Okay.  If you like.  I was only six years old.  So I only remember the perpetual fear.

I wasn't in London during the war and I don't think we got V1s on Orkney. But I have seen films of them and it must indeed have been very frightgening for children. LL

Wonderful! Thanks for posting that from the Glen Miller Story.

My mom told me many stories about those doodlebugs during the war but I was not alive then unlike you, Sabot.

I remember Lord Haw Haw. Germany Calling, Germany Calling. But my grandmother used to switch off the radio before he got into full speal. I might not have noticed otherwise.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tower-of-london-bomb-lives-at-risk-as-army-experts-prepare-to-defuse-buried-wwii-device-10129209.html

Bermondsey bomb: 'Lives at risk' as army experts prepare to defuse unexploded World War Two device
Alarming notice sent to residents warns people not to stay in their homes as lives could be at risk as explosives experts prepare to defuse unexploded WWII bomb



An army explosives expert works on the bomb at the building site in Bermondsey

Hundreds of families were today ordered to evacuate their homes at dawn as Army experts prepared to defuse a huge World War Two bomb unearthed by builders in the middle of a busy housing estate.

People living in the 200-metre blast zone of the half-ton bomb in Bermondsey, south London, were warned that failing to leave by 8am would put their lives at risk in the event of an explosion.

An evacuation notice sent to hundreds of residents reads: “The Army Disposal team have advised that if the bomb explodes, buildings in the 200-metre zone will be significantly damaged and those close to the bomb will be destroyed.

“Remaining in your home is placing your life at risk. This course of action is not advised.”

The stark warning came amid concerns the age and size of the bomb – thought to have been dropped by Luftwaffe planes during the Blitz on May 11, 1941 - is proving “problematic” for disposal teams. full story at link.