Greg: re Barrel Bombs
 

On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 14:27:25 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


All I am saying is anyone involved in WWII, military or civilian back
home, welcomed any opportunity to finally end the wars, even if it was
only by a day or two. The nation was desperate for the war to end but
the Japanese culture did not allow for surrender. It's us, the
following generation and the next that start questioning if it was right
to drop the A-bombs, but we are nothing but Monday morning quarterbacks.
None of us can put ourselves in our previous generation's shoes,
regardless of how much we read about it.

And I totally disagree with your terror tactic versus military. Indeed,
the bombing of Japan was purely a terror tactic to convince the Japanese
to surrender. You've already acknowledged that LeMay had half of Japan
burning anyway but they still wouldn't quit. He also regularly dropped
millions of leaflets warning Japanese citizens of impending bombings.
There is debate if a warning about the two A-bombs was given however.

People are ignoring the fact that the other thing that changed in
August 45 was that the US changed the terms of the surrender and let
them keep their emperor. If we had pitched that in July, who knows?
MacArthur has written about that.