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15 comments

[–] the_target 2 points (+2|-0)

the naplam carpet bombings were actually more destructive and why they surrendered. the naplam on japan was also a war crime in the eyes of the general who did it, saying if they had lost then he would have been charged with war crime.

[–] [Deleted] 2 points (+2|-0)

Got a source for that?

[–] PhunkyPlatypus 2 points (+2|-0)

He's.... Mostly correct, if the details are a bit off. Just real quick, it wasn't napalm but Incendiary bombs

Curtis lemay is quoted as once saying

As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.

The other half of @the_target 's sentence is from a different quote of his.

Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.-Curtis Lemay

[–] F6F_Hellcat 2 points (+2|-0)

It was the biggest fuck you in world history.

After Hiroshima America asked for Japan's unconditional surrender. Japan went silent, so America says, OK, have another one.

[–] PhunkyPlatypus 2 points (+2|-0) Edited

There's certainly still healthy debate surrounding the necessity to drop the second nuke. Granted, a lot of it is from armchair historians. But there's a lot of different possibilities for the their reasoning, Boukert brings up a common one in response to your comment. It may have even been a mistranslated message.

Unfortunately there's a lot of noise in that search, which makes it difficult to really determine anything for certain.

[–] Boukert [OP] 1 points (+1|-0)

Some say the second was indirectly meant to show the soviets they had more then 1 bomb