How would you bomb Japan? Just in time, of course, for the regrettable annual atomic bomb observation, comes an online version of “the straightforward poll of Compton and Daniels which asked 250 scientists at the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory arm of the Manhattan Project in pre-Trinity July, 1945” how they should use “any new weapons.”
(FWIW, as of this writing the most popular answer among poll respondents was the same as the most popular answer among scientists in July 1945.)
The Edge of the American West 
22 comments
August 2, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Spike
Well, apparently I’m more of a heartless bastard than 85% of scientists circa 1945…
August 2, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Oog
You’re right, Eric. We should have skimped on the nuke and gown for the Okinawa times a thousand. That engagement, just prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs, that one went really well for all involved.
August 2, 2010 at 9:01 pm
eric
I never said anything of the sort. In fact if you read the linked post you’ll find quite the opposite.
August 3, 2010 at 5:10 am
Tyler
The questionnaire you linked to is a very biased leading question. The answer choices are interesting, though.
I highly recommend Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s book about the end of the war, “Racing the Enemy,” to anyone interested in questions such as these.
August 3, 2010 at 5:31 am
Charlieford
“… reliably draws shouty people. … the tweed flies.”
Nice.
Along the same lines (I think), I try to stress that a) our intense focus on the morality of using the atom bomb at Hiroshima/Nagasaki–with our concommitant neglect of the morality of bombing in general–reflects our present concerns as a generation living under the threat of all-out nuclear war, and b) the real ethical issues–for just war theory–arise not when you start dropping atomic bombs on people, but when you start bombing them–period–from 20,000 feet or so.
Because of the imprecision of the weapons, it’s been necessary in most cases to fnd large concentrations of people and infrastructure so the weapon will have something to destroy. (Vietnam and the Gulf War might have moved beyond the range of those constraints–I’m not sure.)
So, we say we’re bombing bona fide military targets and anything else is “collateral damage,” which is usually strictly speaking true, but you can’t really say all that collateral damage is strictly unintended. Well, you can sayt, I suppose.
A really odd but fantastic book by the way: A History of Bombing, by Sven Lindqvist
http://www.amazon.com/History-Bombing-Sven-Lindqvist/dp/1565848160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280842162&sr=1-1
August 3, 2010 at 6:58 am
eric
I highly recommend Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s book about the end of the war, “Racing the Enemy,” to anyone interested in questions such as these.
We covered that, its virtues and flaws, in the linked thread.
August 3, 2010 at 6:59 am
eric
Charlie, I remember looking at Lindqvist’s book when it came out and unless my memory plays me false, he uses David Irving’s estimates of casualties at Dresden. That’s not a good thing.
August 3, 2010 at 7:02 am
Charlieford
Yeah, he’s not a real historian, so unlike us, he makes stupid mistakes, but there’s still good stuff in there.
August 3, 2010 at 7:05 am
silbey
http://www.thenation.com/blog/142580/white-house-cover-how-truman-edited-hollywoods-first-movie-about-atomic-bomb
August 3, 2010 at 7:19 am
Ben Alpers
The bombing of Dresden is more complicated, too. Frederick Taylor’s book on Dresden is excellent…as is Tami Davis Biddle’s 2008 review essay on Dresden in history and memory (I used the latter this year in my summer program on WWII memory in Germany).
When I teach Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or Dresden) my approach is similar to Charlieford’s above: 1) getting my students to think about the IMO more significant ethical line of accepting strategic bombing in general; 2) getting them to consider why instances of strategic bombing events–the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and Dresden–get framed so differently in retrospect from other deeply destructive bombings of axis cities–e.g. Tokyo and Hamburg.
August 3, 2010 at 7:27 am
Ben Alpers
Department of Preview Button, Please:
This…
getting them to consider why instances of strategic bombing events…
…should have read as follows:
getting them to consider why certain instances of strategic bombing…
August 3, 2010 at 7:43 am
jacob
While we’re on the topic of Lindqvist, can anyone suggest a better book on the history of air raids and strategic bombing?
August 3, 2010 at 8:00 am
Ben Alpers
Michael Sherry’s THE RISE OF AMERICAN AIR POWER is excellent, though as its title suggests it focuses on the US context (and it’s over twenty years old now….which in turn makes me feel old).
August 3, 2010 at 8:09 am
Anderson
From the linked 2008 thread:
The combined shock of the atomic bombs and Soviet entry pushed the Japanese cabinet to the point where they could accept the unconditional end of the war, but things happened so fast that there’s really no way to tell whether one or the other would have been sufficient in isolation
I think that’s very smart, and that critics tend to treat the situation as a missed opportunity for a controlled experiment in applied ethics. It’s difficult to argue that the U.S. had any duty to wait (a week? a month?) after each “step” to see whether the Japanese would tumble.
Also, it’s remarkable how recent research into the intransigency of the Japanese leadership brings us around to agree with the U.S.’s decisions on much more limited evidence.
We had no way to know what was being said in meetings with Hirohito, etc. We *did* know that, by all indications, the Japanese were relentless in defense, treated surrender with contempt, and gave no real clue that they would surrender.
Political feelers sent out by the saner Japanese pols could not be taken very seriously, given that the militarists were in the saddle.
August 3, 2010 at 8:15 am
silbey
@jacob
Tami Davis Biddle is excellent: http://www.amazon.com/Rhetoric-Reality-Air-Warfare-International/dp/0691120102/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280851973&sr=1-1
as is Robin Neillands:
http://www.amazon.com/Bomber-War-Robin-Neillands/dp/1585674575/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280852076&sr=1-1
August 3, 2010 at 8:32 am
Anderson
Silbey, I haven’t read Neillands, but what sense of “excellent” applies to a book that, if the Amazon review may be credited, argues that the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 was “necessary” for ending the war?
Wikipedia cites the wonderfully named Sir Douglas Evill:
British historian Fredrick Taylor mentions a further memo sent to the Chiefs of Staff Committee by Sir Douglas Evill on 1 February, in which Evill states interfering with mass civilian movements was a major, even key, factor in the decision to bomb the city center.
August 3, 2010 at 8:47 am
silbey
Silbey, I haven’t read Neillands, but what sense of “excellent” applies to a book that, if the Amazon review may be credited, argues that the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 was “necessary” for ending the war?
The sense of “excellent” where it’s a comprehensive look at both the American and British bombing efforts in Europe and an examination of the military factors that went into the Dresden bombing. I don’t know that you have to agree with Neillands’ conclusions about that to recognize the value in understanding the case he lays out.
Valuable on the Pacific War is Kenneth Werrell’s _Blankets of Fire_
August 3, 2010 at 10:18 am
Ben Alpers
To be clear on the import of the Evill memorandum that Taylor discusses (and Anderson mentions above): the point of interfering with the movement of refugees was to prevent the redeployment of German troops to the collapsing eastern front, thus easing the movement of Soviet troops westward.
As Taylor points out (on pp. 187-8 of his book on the Dresden bombing), what makes Evill’s memo particularly “chilling” isn’t so much the goal of disrupting civilian movement as it is the fact that the way to do so was to strike at the very heart of a city, destroying its transportation infrastructure. As the British learned from the bombing of Coventry, such destruction has a much more profound impact than does the destruction of war industries, which are easier to repair.
August 3, 2010 at 10:39 am
eric
Yeah, he’s not a real historian, so unlike us, he makes stupid mistakes
I don’t know about that; I think it’s more in the character of Amity Shlaes using a certain unemployment series because it suits her argument. It’s not as if Frederick Taylor’s book isn’t widely available, with its (as I remember) quite exhaustive commentary on how to count the casualties at Dresden.
August 3, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Charlieford
Um, not to get all detailed and stuff, and maybe I’ve misread, but I think Lindqvist’s book pre-dates Taylor’s by several years. Shall slack be extended?
But, he’s primarily interested in cultural-political type dynamics, I think, and that’s where he most thoughtprovoking (or was for me).
August 3, 2010 at 12:59 pm
eric
Sorry, Charlie. I expect you’re right about the dating, but the information was available, even if Taylor’s book wasn’t. I mean, there was already in 2002 or 2003 a prima facie case you shouldn’t trust David Irving. On the other hand as I indicated at the start all comments I have made about this book in this thread are based on my memory of it and therefore are not to be trusted. Clearly a post about how and why to estimate casualties at Dresden is in order.
August 3, 2010 at 1:19 pm
eric
As a placeholder: Bergander had it at 35k in his 1977 book at Reichert (which is possibly what I was thinking of) and 25k in 1994.