"The tragedy of common sense
it that it is not
very common."
(Albert Einstein)

"Politically correct Christianity
is tolerated but despised.
Full Gospel Christianity is
respected but persecuted."
(Unknown)

"If you marry the Zeitgeist
you will soon become widow."
(Goethe)

"To reach the source of a river
you must swim upstreams."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

"I note that all those,
who are positive to abortion
already are born."
(Ronald Reagan)

Hiroshima — history's worst act of terrorism?

There is a topic that has been aching within me for some time. During the past year, I have read several articles in newspapers and magazines and on the Internet, and seen a number of programs on both Swedish Television, Viasat History and Discovery channels, where attempts have been made to revise the classical view on the Second World War (WW2), and some other wars. When it comes to WW2, it is not seldom suggested that the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany were pure war crimes, because these bombings lacked strategic value and had no bearing on the outcome of the war. On the contrary, they prolonged the war, since the German population became infuriated by the bombings and for this reason were even more inclined to continue the war than if those bombings had never taken place.

When I write this, almost exactly 60 years have passed since the two atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. TV and newspapers have focused their attention on this with programs and articles. One of Sweden's major newspapers (and with major I mean in circulation numbers, not in the level of journalism) called the atomic bombs on Japan "history's worst act of terrorism". So typical Sweden, and a clear expression of the USA-hatred cultivated among the Swedish cultural elite (read "cultural dregs"). I feel as if the right time has come to try to formulate my thoughts regarding these matters. Thoughts, which are hardly politically correct, but which I feel a strong need to share with others. In this article I will discuss the bombings of Germany as well as the atomic bombings over Japan in the WW2 context.

Let me start by saying what is absolutely forbidden to say in Sweden (and probably in many other countries as well):

— I think the Allied bombings of German cities (Hamburg, Dresden etc) were justifiable.
— I also think the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be justified. Had I been the American president, I am convinced that I too would have decided to drop those bombs, and that I afterwards, for the rest of my life, would have felt that I had done the right thing.

Now, after having evoked the reader's dismay, anger, disgust, sadness, rage or whatever emotion these words from me might cause, I will attempt to justify the above statements in the following text. I am very well versed in military history and military technology, as I have always been interested in these subjects. My bookcase is full of factual books about aircrafts and air battles etc, mainly from WW2. So I dare say that I actually know what I'm talking about and that my thoughts are well-founded (though they can of course be criticized, just like anything else). I will, in the following text, take the opprotunity to give the reader a general knowledge about some of the most famous weapons in the WW2 arsenal and also clarify some common misconceptions regarding these weapons.

Let me, before I continue any further, declare that I hate war. War is a consequence of man's evil nature. My Christian faith tells me that violence and war can never be defeated by violence and war. This will only lead to new wars and a never-ending spiral of death and violence. Therefore, God has decided to eradicate evil, once and for all, with love. What Jesus wanted to teach us was the way of Love. But, at the same time we live in a fallen world (according to the Bible and according to what we can see with our own eyes), where there is real evil, in abundance. To create communities, where people can live a safe and descent life, in anticipation of the day when evil finally will be defeated, God has ordained a protection for Man. Police, against internal enemies, and military, against external enemies (which I discuss in further detail in my pages about the Christian faith). Many young people dream of a world where there are no police or military. Who does not?! But unfortunately evil will not be appeased by weakness. The Bible tells us how Jesus, on several occasions came in contact with Roman soldiers. Not once did he tell the soldiers to abandon their profession (unlike the young rich man, who was encouraged by Jesus to give away all that he owned, and the prostitutes, who were told to stop selling their bodies, and the thieves who were told to stop stealing). Nothing in the Bible indicates that it is wrong to be a soldier. The Bible says it's wrong to kill because of personal motives; vengeance, hatred, greed etc. When it comes to soldiers and wars, the Bible has nothing to say.

Evil is not appeased by cowardice and compliancy. Before WW2 started, Great Britain and France time and again succumbed to Hitler's demands, hoping that he would eventually be satisfied. All in order to avoid a war (had they stopped him directly, the Second World War might have been prevented and 50 million human lives spared). Hitler scorned "the idiots and weaklings" and came immediately with new demands (this is how evil always works). Eventually it came to a point (when Hitler invaded Poland, which was in alliance with UK and France), when no more concessions could be made, and thus started World War II. Winston Churchill remarked, after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Hitler, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."). Churchill knew that it is impossible to compromise with evil. Evil wants everything and gives nothing back, so it's better to put a stop to it directly. There were people in Britain and elsewhere, who regarded Churchill as a warmonger, because he didn't succumb to Hitler. Several Swedish newspapers also saw Churchill as a threat to "peace" (i.e. peace on Hitler's conditions — Pax Germania, where the Nazis ruled the whole of Europe). The majority of journalists seem to have the remarkable ability to almost always, in almost every matter, draw the wrong conclusion.

Without England and the United States, Hitler would have conquered the entire Europe. I will not in any way belittle the millions of Russians who sacrificed their lives during the war, and whose contribution to its outcome was crucial. But because the reinterpretation of the history of the Second World War is particularly targeted at the U.S., there is no reason to defend the Soviet part in the war (because almost no one denies it). Besides, without the U.S. assistance, both materially and militarily, it is doubtful whether the Soviet Union and England together would have been able to defeat Hitler. And we should not forget that the Soviet Union at first was allied with Nazi Germany and took its share of the pie, e.g. half of Poland. If Nazi Germany had won the war, all European Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, chronically ill, disabled, mentally retarded, mentally ill etc would then have been eradicated. The only reason, and I say the only reason, that this did not happen, was that the Allies defeated the evil monster (i.e. Hitler) before he had time to complete his plans in full (he unfortunately succeeded in part). It was thus the soldiers and not the European peace movement that put a stop to Hitler (we know now for example that the British peace movement in the interwar period was sponsored by Nazi Germany — each tank and fighter plane that was not built because of the peace movement's influence to disarm, was to Germany's advantage — here Lenin's epithet "useful idiots" comes in handy).

Needless to say, soldiers have also been in the service of evil. The Nazi armies etc fought for an evil and perverted cause. But, at the same time it was soldiers who saved the world from this malignant hydra. Among many of the West's spoiled youth there is a contempt for soldiers. Student's and other young people demonstrate against war (though, oddly, almost only against the U.S. and Israel). They forget that without soldiers they would have neither freedom of speech, nor freedom of the press, nor freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag (author unknown).

The freedom of speech that we take for granted in the Western societies today, have been paid for in blood. Millions of people have died to give us this freedom. Without soldiers, Europe in our time may well have been ruled by evil, bloody dictatorships — Marxists, Nazis or Islamists, or other groups.

But let us now return to the actual topic, which we might call historical revisionism. There is a lot to be said here, but I will try to be as brief as I can (politically correct statements can often be presented in a single, short sentence — controversial opinions require a more lengthy and thorough argumentation).

At the start of World War II, the generally accepted doctrine on how airplanes should be best used, was that wars could be won by bombing the enemies' industries and fuel depots, and thus force a surrender. This was regarded as the most humane thing to do, because it would result in relatively few civilian casualties. The Nazis were not confined by any such humanitarian concerns. We need only to be reminded of the terror bombings of Guernica (portrayed in Picasso's famous painting with the same name), Warsaw, Rotterdam and London. What did hundreds of thousands of civilian victims matter to the German Master Race! "Untermenschen" (sub-humans) were consumable items and nothing more, with a value lower than animals, according to their way of reasoning.

Initially, the Allies followed their doctrine. Bombardments during daytime were considered preferable because the precision increased greatly. It was believed that medium bombers, such as Blenheim and Wellington, could fly in and precision bomb industrial targets in Germany during day time, and then return home without any major losses. These planes were considered to have sufficient speed and be so strongly armed with machine-guns for self-defense, that they could manage without escort fighters (and, at this time there were no fighters with sufficient range to escort bombers all the way from England to Germany and back). The British had, however, grossly underestimated Germany's effective anti-aircraft guns and their extraordinary fighter, Messerschmitt Bf 109, and the skill of the German fighter pilots, and had to pay a high price for this. At certain attacks against German targets, not one single Blenheim bomber returned. All were shot down! 100 per cent! Such losses were of course unacceptable.

To bring the war into Germany was considered extremely important. A fully intact Germany, with all its industry functioning to full capacity, would have been almost impossible to defeat. The problem was now that precision bombings of industries with medium or heavy bombers during daytime had proved too costly. Thus the Allied changed their doctrine. A new head of the British bomber fleet was appointed, Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Harris (he soon got the nick-name "Bomber-Harris"). He argued that bombers alone could get Hitler on his knees, if one switched to night bombardments and used heavier and faster planes with more powerful armament. One of the planes that met these requirements was the famous four-engine Lancaster bomber, which could carry up to 10 tons of bombs. According to many experts, the Lancaster is regarded as the best bomber of WW2 (USA's most famous heavy bomber during this war was the famous Flying Fortress, with the designation B-17).

Avro Lancaster — according to many experts, the best bomber during WW2. In a special version of this bomber a 10 ton bomb, called "Grand Slam", could be carried. This bomb, which fell with supersonic speed, was used against bunkers and railway bridges and similar targets (the Grand Slam could penetrate 6 meters thick bunker roofs, made of military quality concrete).

An independent study, carried out at Churchill's request, showed that the hit rates during air bombardments were significantly smaller than previously thought. At day bombardments, you had to be satisfied if the bombs fell within one kilometer off the target. Night bombardments were even worse. Only 20 percent of the bombs fell within 5 kilometers from the target. Often the Germans didn't even know which facility the Allies had attempted to bomb. A large part of the challenge lay in identifying the target satisfactorily. They were often very cleverly camouflaged. Another problem was the weather, where haze and clouds could make it nearly impossible to locate the objective. Harris felt that the only possibility to achieve sufficient effectiveness and acceptable losses, was through night bombardments, where a large number of planes made so called "carpet bombings" around all the target area. The most extensive raids included more than 1,000 planes. To be able to roughly find the right mark, various, very clever and sophisticated radio navigation systems were invented (systems that the Germans in different ways tried to interfere with, to make the Allies miss their targets, and which sometimes caused the bombs to hit civilian targets instead).

Obviously the casualties among civilians were large, when square kilometers of areas were covered with thousands and thousands of bombs. But the Germans had given themselves the right to impose such actions on civilians in other countries. Admittedly, the Germans did not initially bomb civilian targets in England, but at one occasion on August 24, 1940, by mistake, bombs were dropped over residential areas in London, whereby the British responded by bombing Berlin a few days later. Hermann Göring once said, during the early war, "No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You can call me Meyer." He had also promised the German people that bombs would never fall over Berlin. That allied bombers should reach Berlin was utterly unthinkable to Mr. Meyer, sorry I mean Mr. Göring.

And now the unthinkable had happened. The Germans themselves claimed that the bombing of London was a mistake. Anyway, Harris now felt that the time had come for the Germans to get a taste of their own medicine. Someone, I'm not sure if it was Harris himself, said of the bomb raids on German cities, "You sowed the wind and reaped the storm". I think Harris regarded the bomb attacks on Germany as a legitimate punishment, given the ruthlessness of German behavior in the countries they attacked, especially on the eastern front. When the Germans attacked Stalingrad 200,000 civilians died during the air bombardment, that preceded the German offensive on the city (i.e. roughly the total number of victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — see below). Of Stalingrad's 500,000 original population, 1,500 were still alive when the Germans surrendered after seven months of bitter fighting!

Between 200,000 and 400,000 German civilians are estimated to have been killed by Allied bombing raids during WW2. Although these numbers are terrible, you have to compare them to the countless millions of civilians who were killed by the Germans in the war. During the Blitz, i.e. the German terror bombings of England, from September 1940 until May 1941, about 45,000 civilians died and another 50,000 were wounded (many of them became severely incapacitated). Approximately one million houses were destroyed by these bombings. One has to have a certain amount of sympathy for the British decision to let the Germans have a taste of their own medicine, and with interest added! The Germans certainly seemed to have no inhibitions when it came to killing civilians. These were, as said above, just sub-humans and had no other value than possibly as slaves in the German war industry. The Nazis murdered repeatedly, knowingly and intentionally, all residents (including children) in entire villages in retaliation for maybe a German soldier being killed by partisans near the village in question. Civilians were shot, starved to death, beaten to death, driven into houses which were then set on fire, towed out to sea or lakes aboard barges, which then were sunk etc, etc. The ingenuity of the Nazi Master Race when it came to killing people, seemed to have no limit. It is estimated that the Germans deliberately, and often planned, in different ways (starvation, mass firing squads, hangings, gassings, fire, drownings etc) murdered 17 million civilians and prisoners of war during World War II (including the victims of the Holocaust). This figure does not include so called collateral damage, i.e. the civilian casualties in connection with German bombings and artillery attacks.

I am not alone in thinking that the Supermarine Spitfire (Britains's no. 1 WW2 fighter), with its elliptical wings, was a beautiful aeroplane. Someone said, "A plane too beautiful to be a weapon". Spitfire had a great development potential and continued to evolve throughout the war into a more and more potent fighter, with higher top speed and stronger armament. It had an outstanding maneuverability (better than the Mustang — see next picture), and its ability to outturn the notorius no. 1 German fighter during the Battle of Britain (BoB), the Messerschimtt 109 (Me-109), greatly contributed to the British victory in BoB. It is often said that the other primary British fighter during the BoB, the Hawker Hurricane, shot down more enemy planes than the "Spit". And this is indeed true. The Hurricane was an excellent fighter, but inferior to the Spit in many aspects (and inferior to the Me-109). The tactics therefore, during BoB, was to let the Spits take on the German fighters, while the Hurricanes dealt with the bombers. It is highly unlikely that the Hurricane could have won the BoB on its own. One weakness of the Spitfire was its rather limited range (here the Mustang excelled), but it was primarily developed for home defence, and not for long range escort of bombers. And as a home defence fighter the Spitfire was in the absolute top league.

The British losses during the night bombardments of Germany were at first quite small, but fairly quickly the Germans developed very effective night fighter airplanes, controlled by ground radar to intercept the bombers, and the losses increased. USA, on their part, after having entered the European WW2 theatre, focused on day bombardments from very high altitude, with mainly the B-17 bomber (called the "Flying Fortress" — this plane did indeed live up to its name because it had 13 heavy machine guns, placed in different towers and other locations, as protection against attacking fighters). At first, the German fighters had difficulties reaching the high-flying B-17 bombers, and the anti-aircraft artillery on the ground was very inefficient at these altitudes. But the Germans quickly improved their fighters so they could reach the American Fortresses and also constructed new anti-aircraft guns, that were effective at high altitude. And the losses soared. Day bombings were thus extremely costly, but gave better precision, and the United States continued with this until the end of the war. When the legendary fighter P-51 Mustang eventually arrived, the Allied had finally got a fighter with enough range to escort bombers deep into Germany and back. Only then, the losses began to decrease. It is said, that when Göring saw Mustang fighter planes over Berlin, he realized that the war was lost. Overall, throughout the air war over Germany, between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. 8th Air Army lost the incredible number of 35,000 planes and 150,000 crew! The British lost 55,573 airmen out of a total of about 125,000, that is almost 50 percent. The Allied bomber offensive against Germany must be considered in light of these and other similar figures.

The P-51 Mustang — by many aviation experts regarded as the best fighter of WW2. The Mustang was a result of a British specification for a new fighter, which was given to North American (a famous American aircraft manufacturer). At first the plane was fitted with an American Packard V12 engine and had very mediocre prestanda, especially at high altitude. After the Packard engine was replaced with a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 (which was the engine of the famous Spitfire fighter and the Lancaster bomber) the Mustang got outstanding performance — exceptional speed and maneuverability and range. For the first time the Americans now had a fighter plane that could escort their B-17 bombers all the way to Berlin and back. The secret behind the Mustang was its symmetrical, laminar flow wing, which generated very low drag at high speeds. The advantage of this wing is shown by the fact that the Spitfire, with approximately the same engine and weight as the Mustang, had a top speed of 645 km/h compared to the Mustang's top speed of 725 km/h. The Spitfire also had much shorter range. This is not intended to in any way discredit the Spitfire, which was an exceptional plane by its own right (se previous picture)

At first, the raids were not targeted against residential areas, and the civilians who were affected were those living close to industrial complexes. At times, as said above, mistakes were made and residential areas bombed, but this was the exception and not the rule. When the Allied consciously began bombing civilian targets, the intention was to break down the morale of the German people. This idea proved wrong, and the result was instead that the German morale was strengthened (at least initially). The Germans had the same intention when they terror bombed London. Also here the effect was the opposite. In any case, it is not difficult to understand the Londoners' sympathizing with the bombing of German cities, considering what they themselves had suffered.

The best of the German night fighters was perhaps the Heinkel 219 (He 219). The "television antennas" on the nose of the plane are radar antennas. German radar technology was inferior to British throughout the war, mainly because the British had early in the war invented a new type of vacuum tube, the magnetron, which meant a quantum leap in radar technology (magnetrons are still used today in radars and midcrowave ovens). Some of the He 219:s had an unusual gun arrangement consisting of powerful canons in the fuselage (halfway between the cockpit and the tail) angled almost 90 degrees upwards and slightly forwards. This was called "Schrägemusik" (a German derogatory term for "jazz music"). The idea was to sneak under the bombers, where there were no or relatively few guns, and then open fire from below.

The Germans seemed to the Allies as almost invincible. In retrospect it's easy to say what the Allies should and should not have done to, as gently as possible, bring Germany back to order. Much like in court when someone has been found to use too much violence in self-defense. If you are attacked by several people in the middle of the night, it's not so easy to determine how hard to hit back, and it is quite understandable if you punch with all your force (if you dare and have the ability to defend yourself — most people don't). Unfortunately, courts (especially in Sweden) have little understanding for such things (though they seem to have a huge consideration when a villain beats to death an ordinary, well-behaved man or woman — then they don't spare any benevolence on the villain, who is often sentenced to the mildest punishment possible according to the law). In any event, the Allies undoubtedly felt a certain desperation faced with the seemingly invincible German war machine.

One of the most famous fighter planes of WW2 was the jet fighter, Messerschmitt 262 (Me 262), called "Schwalbe" (Swallow) with a top speed of almost 900 km/h. In 99,999 percent of all contexts regarding WW2 (documentaries, books, articles etc) it is stated that the Me 262 was the world's first jetfighter (this is incorrect which will be discussed below). At first Hitler wanted the Me 262 to be a high speed bomber and it was impossible for his generals to persuade him that it was a high speed fighter that was needed and not a bomber. Because of Hitler’s stubbornness the entrance in the war of the Me 262 as a fighter was delayed several months. Eventually Hitler gave in and Me 262 was designed and armed for the fighter role.
A soon as the air war of WW2 is discussed there is a standard assertion that always pops up, "If only Hitler had ordered more Me 262:s and not delayed its production as a fighter, all Europe might have spoken German today" (about the same thing is said about many of Hitler's other wonder weapons). I regard this as pure nonsense and I suspect that the reason for such claims is that Germany lost the war and we therefore can be generous and say some nice things about them. After all, they lost and why should we kick someone who is lying down.
Of course the Allies feared the German wonder weapons. Today, when we know the limitations of these weapons and how relatively few the Germans managed to produce, we can draw the right conclusions. But the Allied leaders did not have access to that knowledge. Today it is quite clear that the Me 262 was a very advanced jet plane, yes! But it was definitely not the first jet fighter. And it had great limitations.
The jet engine was invented in the 1930s by a British officer and engineer, Frank Whittle. The Germans, who were preparing for war, realized early that Whittle's invention could be very useful in the coming conflict. The British military leaders were reluctant to give Whittle money so he could continue his work (why waste money when there will never be another war). But when it became evident that a war was imminent, funding was given to Rolls-Royce and other engine manufacturers to promptly develop practically useful jet engines. The truth is that Great Britain had a squadron of fully operational jet fighters (Gloster Meteor) at the beginning of August 1944, two months before the Germans had their first Me 262 squadron (source: Turbojet — History and development 1930-1960, written by Anthony L. Kay, The Crowood Press, 2007, page 62).
The Me 262 and the Meteor never met in battle. There are two reasons for this. Firstly there were so few jet fighters on both sides so the probability that they should meet was very small. Secondly the WW2 jets had very short range. The Meteor could not escort the bombers to Germany and the Me 262 could not fly from Germany to England (Germany had by now lost its bases in France etc). So we can't say for sure which plane would have proven the best in air combat. They both had their advantages and disadvantages. The Me 262 engines were very unreliable and fast movements of the throttles had a tendency to cause the engines to stall. The Meteor engines were considerably more reliable. On the other hand the Me 262 had some advantage in top speed.
That the Gloster Meteor was not inferior to the Me 262, and rather was a much more solid concept, is shown by the fact that the Me 262 was not used operationally after WW2, while the Meteor participated in the Korean War as a fighter and attack plane and was not retired from front line service until the end of the 1960s. It was used as a target tug until 1982. The Meteor was sold to many countries; Israel, Denmark, France, Brazil etc. A few Meteors found their way to Sweden.
There was, generally speaking, only one aspect where the Me 262 was years ahead of its time. It was the first plane that had swept-back wings, which give much better high speed performance. Today this is standard on fighters and jetliners. In this aspect the Germans were pioneers and after the war other countries started to build jet planes with swept wings, often based on the original wind tunnel data from Germany.

Even when the British were no longer alone in the war, but had both U.S. and USSR on their side, the Germans seemed to be superior in most aspects. They always appeared to have wild cards up their sleeves. New super weapons (jet- and rocket planes), V1- and V2 rockets, super tanks like Tiger and Panther and much more. In addition, it was believed that the Germans were on their way to produce a nuclear bomb (which they actually were). The Allies felt increasingly desperate, and eventually they deliberately began to bomb German cities. During the raids on Hamburg and Dresden more than a thousand planes attacked in waves. First they dropped various types of demolition bombs, and then tens of thousands of phosphorous bombs, that set fire to a large part of the buildings. The whole city became a sea of fire, and there were fire storms of hurricane force, that sucked people into the fire. During these raids more people were killed than at the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. Exactly how many people that died during the infamous bomb raid on Dresden nobody really knows, but some estimates put the number as high as 135,000! Horrific numbers! But personally, I think it served the Germans right, considering how they behaved. Of course it was terrible for all the children, who were killed and wounded of made orphans, but one can say that it was the Germans themselves who brought this upon their own children. No one had forced them to try to conquer the world and enslave or wipe out the rest of mankind. They just received due punishment, in my opinion!!! They were not forced by Hitler, but cheerfully and willingly joined in his insane plans (of course there were Germans who did not sympathize with Hitler — but innocent people died on both sides). They informed against their neighbors for having spoken ill about Hitler, and if they discovered Jews who had managed to hide themselves, they reported this to the police. All this was done out of free will, since they loved Hitler and hated the Jews from the bottom of their hearts. I am convinced that the vast majority of the inhabitants of Dresden cheered when they saw newsreels of German bombers dropping their cargo over Warsaw etc. In the beginning the Germans were fully in favor of the war, when they won one victory after another and the losses were relatively small, that is, until they got a taste of their own medicine. So I do not feel one bit sorry for the adult Germans who died in the seas of fire during the Allied bomb raids over Germany. And I believe this also was how the Allies saw it. Simply as a revenge. And why not (please read my article about the Holocaust — it might be easier to take in my reasoning then)?!

A common opinion is that the terror bombings lacked strategic importance, and that they were continued even when Germany had lost the war. Thus the Allies were guilty of war crimes. That is not as I see it. Let me explain:

1. In the text above I have shown that there was not many options for the Allies to choose between. Precision bombing did not work (other than in exceptional cases, with elite bombing squadrons) and the Allies were therefore compelled to resort to mass bombings, whether they wanted or not. Moreover, most of the bombing was not directed against cities, but against plants that produced weapons, bearings etc, oil terminals and the like.

2. The Allied air bombardments forced the Germans to allocate 2.5 million soldiers (including fighter pilots) and other personnel for the air defense of German cities and industries (to manage anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, radars, air combat command centrals, fly and maintain the fighter planes etc). Soldiers, who otherwise might have met the Allies at the beaches of Normandy. The Allied invasion of Europe would then surely have failed, and they would have been back to square one again (not to mention the terrible losses during the failed invasion attempt). Furthermore, it took a lot of industrial resources (man hours and material) to design and produce all these anti-aircraft guns, fighter planes and ammunition that were utilized. These resources could otherwise have been used to produce offensive weapons such as tanks and bombers.

3. After 1944, almost the entire Luftwaffe was involved in home defense, instead of attacking the Allied forces. The Allied bombers with escort fighters shot down thousands and thousands of German fighters. Major resources were spent to build new planes and train new pilots.

4. The bombings wiped out large parts of the German industry, the factories for producing synthetic gasoline, airfields etc, etc. In this way the number of available tanks, planes etc were reduced drastically, and in addition there was hardly any fuel to those at hand. Despite the bombings, the Germans still built tens of thousands of tanks per year. One shudders to think what would have happened if they instead had been able to build five times as many tanks per year.

5. The bomb attacks killed and wounded great numbers of skilled industrial workers etc, forcing the Germans to use uneducated slave labor in their factories, which had a detrimental effect on the quality of the German weapons (slave workers were not only less skilled, they often consciously sabotaged their work).

6. Enormous health care resources were used to take care of all injured in the bombings, resources that could otherwise have been spent on better care for wounded German soldiers, who soon would have returned to the front.

7. Considerable resources were used to restore all that had been destroyed during the bomb raids, so that people at least got a roof over their heads and had water and food. These resources could otherwise have been used to fabricate weapons etc.

There is no doubt that the German weapons were very effective and of high quality (although sabotage from slave workers made many complex German weapons prone to failure). Their tanks were, from 1944 until a few months before the end of the war, totally superior to the Allied tanks, with perhaps the exception of the Russian tanks (e.g. T-34). Only in extremely rare cases could an American or British tank destroy a German Tiger or Panther in a one tank versus one tank battle (in 1944 the British upgunned some of their Sherman tanks with a canon powerful enough to destroy a Tiger — this Sherman version was called Firefly, and was of good use to the Allies).

Germanys heaviest tank, the Tiger or Panzer VI (the picture above shows a Tiger I, which was later upgraded to Tiger II with even more powerful armor and cannon). A Sherman tank (the most common American and British tank model, constructed in America) could fire armor-piercing grenades with its cannon against a Tiger's front armor from only a few feet away, and every grenade just bounced. At the same time the Tiger, with its formidable 88 mm gun, could demolish a Sherman from a distance of several kilometers (a few times Tigers succeeded in destroying Allied tanks from 4 kilometers afar!) The only chance for a Sherman to incapacitate a Tiger was by coming from behind, where the Tiger was not as heavily armored. If five Shermans simultaneously attacked a Tiger, the calculation was that four of them would (in the worst scenario) be destroyed before the Tiger was demolished. One weakness of the Tiger, which the Allied learned to exploit, was that the gun turret, due to its heavy weight, rotated slowly (360 degrees took about minute). If a Sherman came from the side, quite close to the Tiger, using its high speed, the Tiger's tower couldn't keep up with the Sherman, and with a bit of luck the Sherman tank could get behind its opponent, where it would be able to penetrate the armor.

The cannon shots just bounced on these steel monsters, while almost every German shot made an Allied tank explode. The Germans used to call the Sherman battle tank "Ronson", an English famous cigarette lighter brand, its slogan being "Lights first time, every time". This was attributed to the Sherman tank having a tendency to catch fire or explode when hit by a grenade, because of an extremely inappropriate placement of the ammunition supply (this was later changed). One single Tiger tank could destroy tens of Allied tanks in a matter of minutes, while almost everything shot against the Tiger was ineffective. Most of the German tanks, which were destroyed on the Western Front, were destroyed at rocket attacks by Allied fighter-bombers (such as Hawker Typhoon and Tempest). Every German tank not produced or arriving at the front, whether due to the factory being destroyed, the workers killed or lack of gasoline (the German tanks actually did not have diesel, but gasoline engines), saved the lives of many Allied soldiers.

The Russian T-34 is generally regarded as the best WW2 tank in an overall perspective. It was simple to produce and very reliable. The T-34 was superior to all German tanks regarding armor and penetration ability of the gun, until the Tiger and the Panther entered the battle field (these "supertanks" were constructed as a response to the T-34). Unlike the American and British and German tanks the T-34 had a diesel engine, which contributed to its reliability.
The Germans, and especially Hitler, were obsessed with complex, technical solutions, preferably in the mega-scale, and the Tiger was no exception. For the same number of man hours and the same amount of raw material, as it took to produce one Tiger, the Russians could manufacture around 18 T-34:s (I don't remember the exact number but it was around that order of magnitude). Five (normally less than that) T-34 could, with high probability, destroy one Tiger, so the German idea of building complex supertanks (and superplanes) was wrong from a strategical point ov view. After the five T-34:s had destroyed their Tiger and perhaps only one survived, there remained at least 14 (13+1) T-34 (out of the original 18), which means that the T-34 was a better weapon than the Tiger, although perhaps not as impressive.
The Tiger and the other German supertank, the Panther (a medium tank — Tiger was a heavy tank), were very heavy and prone to break down because of, among other things, an underdimensioned drive-line. A battalion of T-34:s could easily drive 200 km up to the battle front line without any problems. If a battalion of Tigers, or especially a Panther battalion, tried to do the same, perhaps 50 percent or more broke down due to mechanical failure. The Tiger and the Panther therefore had to be transported by train to a place as close to the front as possible.
During the war the Germans managed to manufacture around 1,800 Tigers and about 6,000 Panthers, while the Russians and Americans built more than 100,000 T-34:s and Shermans. There were of course other tank types in the German arsenal (as Panzer IV), which were built in greater numbers, but they were equal or inferior to the Allied tanks.

8. And as I said before, Harris and many others thought that the Germans only got what they deserved. And considering how they behaved in the occupied countries (extermination of 6 million Jews, 3,5 million Russian prisoners of war murdered by starvation etc, etc) I agree with this. The same people, who a few years earlier had jeered when Jews had to scrub the streets in German and Austrian cities by hand, or when SS soldiers threw out Jewish infants from the fifth floor while evacuating Jewish apartments, now ran around like burning torches on the streets of Dresden. I find it hard to feel sorry for them. Obviously innocent people were hit. The children, as I mentioned before. Terrible!!! But the parents were the ones who themselves brought it upon their children. Of course, not all Germans laughed at the treatment of Jews and other persecuted groups. But innocents were hit on both sides. Sadly! Primarily, I still think it was right. We know today that the support for Hitler was much higher among the general population than previously thought. Even during the last days of the war, the civilian population handed over Jews, who had managed to escape from the camps, to the SS, who immediately shot them. This cannot be explained by anything other than pure evil.

So therefore I will not join in the historical revisionism of the Allied bomb raids on Germany. The allegation that the war was already won on 13 February 1945 when the bombs fell over Dresden, is wrong. This attack took place just a few weeks after the so-called Battle of the Bulge, which lasted between Dec 16, 1944 and Jan 28, 1945. The Germans had managed to concentrate all its resources and made a last desperate and completely unexpected assault on the Allies, who were driven back under heavy losses. It all came as a shock to the Allies, and it was feared at first that they would be driven back into the sea. A new Dunkirk, in other words. The Germans, once again, seemed almost invincible. Eventually, the Allies got started, when they had recovered from the initial shock and the weather improved, so that the superior Allied air force could attack the German forces. The Battle of the Bulge proved to be one of the Hitler's biggest military mistakes, because the Germans lost their best pilots and their best tank crews and soldiers, and enormous quantities of equipment that could not be replaced. But even if the German offensive came to a halt, the Allies could not feel safe. Maybe the Germans had new surprises up their sleeves. The Allies were constantly taken by surprise by new German super-weapons, such as the rocket plane Me 163 Komet, with a top speed of 960 km/h. All these super-weapons came too late and were too few in numbers (e.g. depending on the bombings of the factories that manufactured them), to affect the outcome of the war. But they scared the life out of the Allies every time they appeared. An additional thing, that certainly made the Allies furious, were the German V1- and V2-rockets that constantly were raining over London, killing almost 10,000 people and injuring many more. It is easy to understand the Allies' lack of empathy for the German civilian population.

The German rocket plane Me-163, also called "Komet", had a top speed of 959 km/h and could climb to 40.000 feet in just 4 minutes. After attacking the Allied bomber fleets, the Me-163 was supposed to glide back to base (it had only fuel for a few minutes in full power). The Me-163 was a very dangerous plane to fly and more pilots died from accidents than in battle. The rocket fuel was very explosive and the Me-163 had a tendency to explode if the fuel was handled carelessly during fueling. The Allies had no countermeasure against this advanced plane except for bombing their bases and trying to intercept them while landing. Scary as they were, the rocket planes came too late, and were too few, to be of any significant importance for the outcome of WW2. But they still scared the Allies stiff everytime they appeared.

It's easy to sit in your snug armchair, 50 years later, when you have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge how the war ended, sipping a good cup of tea, and discussing your opinions about how the Allied military commanders should have operated. As I said initially, an increasing number of books are now written, and on various TV-channels programs are broadcasted, that analyze and criticize Harris and Churchill and others. Sometimes both Churchill and Harris are referred to as war criminals and terrorists. On the Internet you find numerous sites declaring the same message. Personally I do not regard the Allied bomb attacks on German cities as war crimes. It was a terrible war, but to be honest it was the Germans who started it, and they had to pay a high, and in my opinion, fair price, for their monstrous crimes. They were seduced by Hitler and Goebbels. Yes! But they willingly let themselves be seduced!!!

But what about the atomic bombs over Japan? Which was the intended subject for this article. On August 6, 1945, history's first atomic bomb was dropped over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, the next bomb fell over Nagasaki. On September 2, Japan surrendered unconditionally.

When the Allied forces in the Pacific (the majority were American units, but also British, Australian and New Zealand units participated) were approaching Japan, the Japanese fought with increasing desperation and devotion, and the Allied losses rose. During the invasion of Okinawa, 13,000 American soldiers lost their lives, while 36,000 were wounded. The Japanese losses were even higher. It is estimated that at least 100,000 Japanese soldiers and between 80,000 and 100,000 civilians died. Thousands of soldiers and civilians committed suicide when it became clear that the battle was lost. Only 3,500 Japanese soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, indicating with which fanaticism the Japanese were fighting.

The Allies realized that the cost in human lives would be enormously high in an invasion of Japan itself. And also the cost in terms of Japanese lives. It was known that the civilian population had been trained to act as human shields. It was envisaged that the invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost about 126,000 American soldiers' lives, a price that seemed too high (in the Japanese propaganda, the U.S. was warned to try to invade Japan — Okinawa was just a small taste of what the Americans could expect in mainland Japan, it was said). The Japanese death rates would most likely be vastly higher (at Okinawa, five Japanese soldiers died for each American). Not only Japanese soldiers but also civilians would have to pay a terrible price. Thus it was decided to scare Japan into surrender by the new super weapon — the atomic bomb. Only three bombs had been produced so far (one had already been used to test its function, so only two remained), and the suggested alternative to drop an atomic bomb over an uninhabited island and letting invited Japanese military leaders and politicians see the effect of this bomb, to scare them into surrender, was thus dismissed.

Every day a vast amount of Allied soldiers died in battle in the Pacific war theatre. Others lived under great hardship as prisoners of war in Japanese camps. Not to mention all civilians who died in the concentration camps, where the Japanese had incarcerated hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Japanese had at this time the same Master Race mentality as the Nazis. They behaved as barbarians in China, Korea etc and murdered millions of people. They raped women and young girls, then forced a hand grenade into the vagina, pulled out the fuse pin and walked away. Older Chinese and Koreans still hate the Japanese intensely, which is not hard to understand. Recently we have read about Chinese attacks against Japan (only verbal, fortunately). The reason is that China wants Japan to apologize for their barbaric acts in China during WW2. Japan has expressed regret for the abuses that took place, but has never come forward with a proper apology. The problem is that people in shame cultures (like the Asian cultures and Islam) have great difficulties (yes, it is not only difficult but almost impossible) to say "Forgive me, I regret what I did". According to their way of thinking, that would be "losing face", which is unbearable and worse than to die. Here we see a major difference compared to the Christian culture, where instead you "lose face" if you do not ask for forgiveness when you have wronged.

In a recent book (2007), Nanjing, the Chinese journalist Iris Chang describes what is known as the Nanjing Massacre (her own grandparents managed to escape the massacre). The massacre in Nanjing is relatively unknown in the Western world, and is still denied by many Japanese (the opinions in Japan about the extent of the massacre are divided). After the city had been occupied by Japanese forces in December 1937, a terrifying bloodbath took place during a couple of months. The orders given to the Japanese soldiers were to mercilessly kill everyone in town. The brutality was prodigious. Women were raped and then murdered. Children were murdered indiscriminately. The number of victims are estimated by Japanese researchers to between 100,000 and 200,000, while other researchers indicate figures of between 100,000 and 300,000 (Wikipedia) — according to Chang the number of dead is around 300,000. The probable death toll in Nanjing is thus probably of the same order of magnitude as the total number of victims of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Allies were most certainly aware of the Nanjing Massacre at the end of the war, although the exact number of dead was unknown and probably underestimated. Under all circumstances, this type of Japanese brutality surely contributed to the U.S. decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan.

The Japanese made themselves repeatedly guilty of the most heinous war crimes. In February 1944, as the Japanese 55th Division fought against the British 7th Indian Division in Burma, the Japanese captured the British central first aid station. All the sick, wounded, doctors, medical staff etc were murdered. Unnecessary to say, the 7th Indian Division henceforth took very few Japanese prisoners of war. For the reader who does not understand what I mean, I can explain that this means that all Japanese soldiers, that the Division ran across, were simply shot.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that the Allies were furious and tired of the Japanese, their cruelty and fanaticism. They just wanted a quick end to the war with as little losses of their own as possible. To protect Japanese lives was hardly given any high priority. Some military officers meant that the most efficient would be to drop a bomb on a Japanese city hitherto unscathed by bombing. In this way the effects of a nuclear bomb would appear even clearer. After the bombing against Hiroshima, Japan still refused to surrender unconditionally. The Americans knew that the Japanese leadership were shaken by the Hiroshima bombing, and concluded that, without delay, a further bomb should be dropped to give the Japanese the impression that USA had an unlimited stock of these bombs (while in fact they had no more, and it would take months before the next bomb was ready). And it had the desired effect. One month later, Japan surrendered. In reality, the politicians and military leaders still refused to surrender, but the Emperor commanded capitulation and by doing so probably risked his own life (this suggests that the proposal to demonstrate the atomic bomb on an uninhabited island with Japanese politicians and generals as spectators would have been fruitless).

In Hiroshima and Nagasaki a total of 220,000 people died (including those who later died from radiation damage). Then, of course, there are all the injured, many with permanent disabilities. However, at an invasion of Japan, many times that number would have died and been wounded.

The atomic bombs probably saved more lives than they took. And especially American lives. A U.S. presidential primary task is hardly to rescue the lives of Japanese soldiers, at the expense of the lives of the country's own soldiers. If the President of the United States has to choose between 126,000 American soldiers or 200,000 Japanese soldiers dying, I think the choice is pretty obvious (I don't know how accurate the a priori estimation of the Japanese losses were, but it was quite certain that the number would be great). Particularly given that it was actually Japan that attacked the United States (and other countries) and not the opposite. And moreover considering the Japanese brutality against both civilians and prisoners of war. That civilians would suffer was of course regrettable, but the Japanese themselves had shown complete disregard for civilian lives in their warfare.

A further argument against an American invasion of Japan appeared in a program on the Swedish "Kunskapskanalen" (the Knowledge Channel), entitled "The War" (3 May 2010, at 10 p.m.). According to this program, the Japanese threatened to shoot all American prisoners of war, if so much as one single American soldier set foot on Japanese soil (we are talking about 200,000 prisoners). An American invasion would thus have led to 200,000 U.S. soldiers being murdered. It is hardly surprising that the Japanese threat made the U.S. more prone to choose the nuclear option. I have, by the way, seen movie clips, where American pilots, who had been shot down over Japan, were decapitated in front of cheering spectators (to bomb the holy Japan — the Empire of the Sun — was inexcusable, and parachuting over Japan meant immediate execution — although during the last year of the war this became less common). I can imagine that the American leaders and soldiers had very little sympathy for the Japanese people.

I have also seen pictures of atomic bomb victims. Horribly burnt children and other unbearably awful things. Of course, this is dreadful, and one would wish that these children could live and play and laugh and cry like children do and should do. But it was the Japanese themselves who brought this suffering upon their own children. Regrettably! The depraved culture of death that characterized Japan in the 1930s and the 1940s (called the Bushido culture, which was a distortion of the old Samurai culture), bestowed, just like the Nazi death culture (and today the Islamic), unimaginable suffering over their own children! Evil has a tendency to eat up even its own.

One aspect rarely mentioned is that many more Japanese people died in conventional bomb attacks against Tokyo and other Japanese cities (as in the Dresden attack etc), than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ten years ago, on the 50th commemoration of the atomic bombings over Hiroshima, I saw a program on Discovery. An elderly man from the U.S., who had been a soldier during the battles in the Pacific, told his story. He had become a prisoner of war and was involved in building the infamous railroad through Burma — often called "The Death Railway" (those of the readers who have seen the movie "The Bridge On The River Kwai" will know what I'm talking about). For this they exploited Allied prisoners of war and local people as slave labor, who were treated with great brutality and cruelty. A total of 250,000 slave workers took part in the construction, of which nearly 100,000 died of starvation, disease, deprivation, torture etc. When the railroad was completed, the Japanese decided to shoot the survivors to do away with all witnesses (the Japanese knew very well that their treatment of the slave workers was a violation of all the laws of war). Only one day before this mass murder was planned to begin, Japan surrendered (as a result of the atomic bombs). The old veteran said, "I don't know what to make of the atomic bombs, but one thing I know, without them, I and tens of thousands more Americans would have been murdered. So the bombs saved my life".

A further reason why the American politicians wished for a quick end to the war against Japan, was the fear that the American public would tire, and that the political support for the war would end. This was also something that the Japanese counted on with ice-cold logic. If they fought desperately enough, killing and wounding as many American soldiers as possible, the American people (who in their eyes was a cowardly and pathetic people) would no longer accept the war, and the politicians would then be forced to give up the demand for unconditional surrender. President Truman and his advisors estimated that it would only be possible to continue the war against Japan for perhaps a maximum of another six months. Would Japan be able to resist United States so long (which they probably could have), well then they would have been able to gain an "honorable peace settlement" and maintain its sovereignty. And the Japanese politicians and soldiers, who were responsible for all the terrible war crimes, would escape punishment. Unconditional surrender was therefore the only acceptable option for the U.S. (and for justice), and thanks to the atomic weapon, the opportunity was given to achieve a quick surrender by Japan.

A common objection, regarding both Germany and Japan, is that if the Allies had been satisfied with peace, and had not insisted on unconditional surrender, the war might have ended much earlier than currently was the case, and terror bombings and atomic bombs would not have been necessary. At least one year before the end of the war, the two countries were at the retreat, and had probably been willing to make any kind of peace and even return conquered areas. Nazi Germany tried on several occasions to bring about a separate peace settlement with the West (i.e. U.S., England and France). The idea was that they then would be able to concentrate all their resources against the Soviets and hopefully stop them. Something that the West refused to agree to. An honorable peace or separate peace settlement with Germany or Japan was not an option for the Allies. In view of the terrible crimes committed by these two countries, the only option was an absolute, unconditional surrender, where those guilty of the atrocities could be tried and sentenced by the victorious powers (an idiot can figure out that if these trials had occurred before German and Japanese courts, all the accused would have been acquitted and probably also received medals).

There were many who believed that the war crime trials would be the victors' way to get revenge. Before the first Nuremberg trial (there were a whole series of trials in this city, but the first is the most famous, because in this trial Göring and the other top Nazi leaders stood in the dock), many of the German leaders' defense lawyers (who were all German officers) were convinced that the whole thing would be a show trial. The revenge of the victors. Afterwards these lawyers actually confessed that it had been a fair trial. Several of the accused Nazi leaders were acquitted, some were condemned to short or long prison sentences and some were hanged. At the trial, evidence in the form of thousands of witnesses, tons of Nazi original documents with certificates of authenticity from German archivists, and quantities of objects and photographs, were presented. Göring himself held a long defense speech that lasted for many hours, which shows that the accused had the freedom and opportunity to defend themselves. Churchill thought it was unnecessary with a trial and wanted to put all the Nazi leaders in front of a wall and shoot them without further ado. Fortunately, this did not happen. Thanks to the Nuremberg trial(s), the Holocaust is documented beyond any reasonable doubt. But anyway, the guilty ones should be tried and sentenced, and so they were. The road to this was bloody, but the blood that flowed in Germany and Japan, the people themselves had drawn upon themselves. This is my firm belief!

Today, when we have access to the German and Japanese war archives, and know exactly how many tanks, guns, fighter planes etc the Germans and the Japanese had, and how large was the production in their war industry, we obviously have entirely different conditions to assess the situation during different periods of the war. Sure, it might be interesting for military experts to analyze, based on what we know today, what might have happened if the Allies had decided not to bomb German cities or not to drop atomic bombs on Japan. To study historical events in the light of what we know today, is one thing. This is how you can work in historical research. But to accuse the Allied commanders of incompetence, or even of being war criminals, based on what we know today, is an entirely different matter. This is unfair and incorrect! England's and America's actions must be judged by the knowledge that was available then. So even if Churchill, Harris, Roosevelt and others were wrong in their conclusions, and that "the terror bombings" did not contribute to the end of the war, but only caused civilians unnecessary suffering, this does not necessarily suggest that they drew the wrong conclusions from the then accessible input data. Moreover, it's far from certain that they were so wrong, which I have tried to describe above.

In addition to the above, i.e. that the guilty parties must be punished, there was an additional reason for the Allied demands on Germany's and Japan's unconditional surrender. The First World War ended, as we know, with Germany losing the war. In this case, it was not about unconditional surrender. Germany was not occupied by the victorious powers, and the German troops could quietly withdraw from the French, Belgian etc territories after the war ended. By the so called Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to disarm and were thereafter only allowed to have a very limited military force. Moreover, they had to pay huge war reparations, as the victors concluded that the Germans started the war.

Many Germans felt cheated and according to them Germany had not been actually defeated on the battle-field, but the country had been betrayed by its own politicians. Stabbed in its back. Because Germany, at the end of WWI, had strong brigades deep in France and Belgium, the country was far from defeated. So why did Germany surrender? The only possible answer seemed to be treason.

That so many Germans were convinced that Germany had never been defeated, but that the defeat was due to treachery, was a very dangerous belief, since it led to Hitler's dangerous and daring war adventure to establish the country's honor. It's one thing to be defeated in an "honest" war, and quite another thing to be betrayed. The first can perhaps be accepted, the second requires vindication. This may explain why so many Germans supported Hitler's decision to rearm in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and then begin the aggressive expansion policy that led to WW2. As they saw it, it was all about restoring Germany's honor.

This insight had importance for the Allied demand for unconditional surrender. After the end of the war there should be no doubt whatsoever that Germany and Japan were totally and irrevocably military defeated and humiliated, and that their military power and resources were completely wiped out. And every German and Japanese citizen should know that this was the case. In this way a new war, where these two countries would try to revenge themselves, could perhaps be avoided (and it has up to now, almost 70 years later, been avoided).

Last but not least, I think that the attempts at historical revisionism is a betrayal of the millions of Allied (British, Russian, American etc) soldiers who were killed or became disabled during the war. They gave their lives and their health for the freedom that immature, ignorant, spoiled, demonstrating Swedish teenagers take for granted. It is also a betrayal of the tens of millions of Allied soldiers, who fought in the war and survived without major physical injury. They gave years of their lives for our freedom, and then all too often had to return home to unemployment, wives who had abandoned them etc, and psychological traumas for life. That immature teenagers don't understand this is one thing. They are immature, and need to get dry behind their ears before they can understand. But the intellectuals, who write books and articles about "history's worst act of terrorism", cannot be excused in this way. They know. The question is whether they are evil or just plain stupid? Or perhaps extremely ignorant. It varies for sure, but too many probably qualify among the intellectual psychopaths (which I describe in more detail here — not yet translated to English).

 

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