"Adam C. Lipscomb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Generally a good post, but let me add one set of numbers
>
> The Allies firebombed Dresden, bombing runs on Berlin were common,
From:
http://www2.una.edu/dburton/ABomb.htm
Earlier Fire-Storm Bombing comparisons to 1st A-bomb:
Hamburg (Germany) Fire-bombing - (July 1943) - 60,000 to 100,000 killed.
Dresden (Germany) Fire-bombing - (Feb. 1945) - 75,000 to 175,000 killed
Tokyo Fire-bombing - (March 9, 1945) - 16 square miles destroyed, 200,000
killed.
Hiroshima - A-bomb - (Aug. 6, 1945) - 4 square miles destroyed 70,000 killed
immediately.
There was absolutely no excuse for the fire bomb of Dresden. There was no
military objective that was to be met that way. From what I understand from
someone familiar with the subject, the people who firebombed Dresden did it
more to see if it would work than any sense of revenge. That is scary.
If you notice, the firebombing of Tokyo resulted in more deaths than Kat
quoted for the combined death toll for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, that
bombing is scarcely discussed. The fact that it only took two bombs to
cause that destruction instead of thousands captured the imagination of the
world. While it is bad that those people died, it is probably good that the
world's imagination was captured by the destructiveness of these bombs.
Otherwise, the reluctance to use them in greater number would probably not
have existed.
Dan M.
