World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders Make Their Final Toast

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "As we come up on Veteran's Day, Barrie Barber reports for the Dayton Daily News that the last Doolittle Raiders symbolically said goodbye to a decades-old tradition and to a history that changed the course of the Pacific war in World War II. Gathering from across the country together one last time, three surviving Raiders sipped from silver goblets engraved with their names and filled with 1896 Hennessy cognac in a once-private ceremony webcast to the world at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Robert E. Cole, 98, led the final toast to the 80 members of 'the Greatest Generation' who took off in 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers April 18, 1942, from the deck of the USS Hornet to bomb Japan four months after a Japanese surprise naval and air attack on Pearl Harbor. 'Gentleman, I propose a toast,' said Cole, as about 700 spectators watched one final time, 'to those we lost on the mission and those that passed away since. Thank you very much and may they rest in peace.' Acting Secretary of the Air Force Eric Fanning said the raid showed the courage and innovation of the World War II airmen flying from a carrier in a bomber that had never seen combat to attack a heavily defended nation and to attempt to land at unseen airfields in China in a country occupied by Japanese troops. More than 70 years after the attack, Edward J. Saylor, 93, remembered ditching at sea once he and his crew dropped their bombs and several close calls with being discovered by the Japanese Army while making his way through China. 'This may be the last time I see them together,' said the 92-year-old raider who has attended Raider reunions since 1962. 'It's a little sad for me because I've known them so long and know the story of what they did in 1942.'"

Comments

What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

May the Japanese casualties rest in peace as well.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Such sympathy does not apply to the side that starts a war and loses. Food for thought, when America remembers all the wars it has started and lost.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chill, dude, WWII is over. Quit holding a grudge.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[shikaisi]

More to the point, what about the Chinese casualties? The often ignored result of the raid was that the Japanese, in reprisals against any family, village or town that they thought might have helped the escaping Doolittle raiders, murdered about 250,000 men, women and children. That number is not a typo. It is not a mistake or an exaggeration. Two hundred and fifty thousand Chinese were slaughtered by the Imperial Japanese Army during the search for Doolittle's men.

Now please remind me again why I should care about the Japanese casualties.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Drethon]

IMHO such sympathy does not apply to the leaders who started the war but the innocent casualties still have my sympathies.

Not so sure about those who blindly followed those leaders without thought or due to political brainwashing and my brain isn't working well enough on a Monday morning to get that deep into philosophy...

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[jalopezp]

Dead citizens in Tokyo were for certain not involved in massacring the Chinese. Why should you care about Japanese casualties? For the same reason you care about anyone that dies needlessly in a war.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Falconhell]

Sympathy applies for all war casualties, there is no more stupid waste of life.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

I don't agree. For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so, I'm not completely averse to the Japanese remembering their civilians lost in the war. Personally I have little use for Japanese sanctimony about the use of the A-bombs, but commemorating the dead is another matter. Even remembering, if not commemorating, their rank-and-file war dead, while a touchy subject, doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me. Many of the rank-and-file had little choice but to "serve".

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

May the Japanese casualties rest in peace as well.

Quoting the PP not because I agree with him, but because moderating him to -1 is censorship. That's ironic considering that one of the freedoms veterans fought to defend is freedom of speech. Don't bother me with "Slashdot is a privately owned forum, it's not the government censoring it", blah, blah, blah. This case isn't going to the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, modding down somebody who made a controversial, but not needlessly inflammatory or insulting remark, is stifling debate. That isn't how things are supposed to work in this country.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[drinkypoo]

It does, however, make sense to care less about the casualties of a nation which failed to stop its people from committing such atrocious acts.

Yes, I realize that works the same way, and that nobody should feel too bad if the USA gets wiped off the map.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

You make an excellent point. I would be interested in a cite about the number of Chinese killed, not because I doubt you, but out of historical interest. We should also remember that the Chinese provided great support and assistance to the survivors of the Doolittle raid.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[drinkypoo]

For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so,

Pop quiz: Who sold the Nazis fuel and metal so that they could run around killing motherfuckers? Answer, the USA. We fueled the war deliberately, kept it going until Europe was in a shambles, then entered the war. It permitted us to reduce a bunch of our excess population, and come out of WWII with massive economic concessions that made us the world's #1 superpower.

Many of the rank-and-file had little choice but to "serve".

You always have a choice. You never get considered to be more moral for being unwilling to die rather than kill people. You're just selfish. Understandably so, but that changes nothing, especially for the people you kill.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[GTRacer]

I really don't like the inability to confirm a mod-choice. I'm sorry, jalopezp, that was supposed to be Insightful.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[rvw]

Many of the rank-and-file had little choice but to "serve".

You always have a choice. You never get considered to be more moral for being unwilling to die rather than kill people. You're just selfish. Understandably so, but that changes nothing, especially for the people you kill.

Get real man! Many of those people, whether serving as soldier or at home doing their normal stuff, didn't even realise they had a choice. Especially in Japan it's in their culture and in their blood. They're raised like that, from the first day of their life. You have to be pretty clever and independent to stand up to that and survive without being put in some kind of institution because you're ill or crazy or criminal.

No TV, no internet, facebook, phone, twitter or google. Even radio was sparse with limited stations. It's easy talking. Even with what I know now I am not sure I can withstand the pressure if it comes to it.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[JoelWink]

The Nanking Massacre (AKA "Rape of Nanking") is just one example of the atrocities committed by Japan. From the late 19th century through WWII the Japanese goverment was extremely militaristic and hell bent on expanding their empire by any means necessary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Drethon]

Don't immediately assume malace when ignorance is a simpler answer. Not that I know WTF I'm talking about most of the time ;p

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chill, dude, WWII is over.

November 11th was the end of World War I (28 July 1914 - 11 November 1918; the USA got involved in 1917).

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those damn civilians who started a war by going about their daily business! It's great that they died painfully by being burned to death!

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Goaway]

Remind me again what you are doing to stop the American military from killing innocents in its wars?

Also, to which extent do you feel you deserve death for what they are doing?

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[shikaisi]

I would be interested in a cite about the number of Chinese killed.

"The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid—America's First World War II Victory" by Craig NELSON. London: Penguin Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-14-200341-1. See pages 226-228.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Bigbutt]

You are coming to the posting early. As the thread matures, other folks will come along and mod him (or her) up. That's how it works with a system of unpaid moderators. You'll get the folks who will mod him down and others who'll mod him right back up. Eventually it'll balance out and the more thoughtful will have moderated him to +5 Insightful.

[John]

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>November 11th was the end of World War I (28 July 1914 - 11 November 1918; the USA got involved in 1917).

Wow, not only did you not RTFA, you did not read (or understand) that the F'ing summary is talking about a tradition from a WWII event. At least make ignorant comments or trolling 'corrections' on things that are true or that you actually understand.
  Slashdot where have you gone?

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Hopefully you're right. Posting "why the hell did you mod him down" sometimes helps that. It does when I have mod points.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[clovis]

RE:
"The entire attack would not have happened except for a delay by some US political figure whose name I forget at the moment to see the Japanese Ambassador."

You are totally wrong - the attack was absolutely going to happen when it did. The planes were already in the air.

The sole purpose of the ambassador's visit was to present the declaration of war immediately before the attack so that Japan could not be accused of a "sneak attack". It planned to be timed so that there would be only a moments delay between the declaration and the actual attack so that there would not be time to warn the American bases.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[drinkypoo]

Remind me again what you are doing to stop the American military from killing innocents in its wars?

No. I never told you to begin with. I'm not going to tell you about anything I'm doing besides proselytization.

Also, to which extent do you feel you deserve death for what they are doing?

Less than the average citizen, but more than someone who isn't contributing at all. Dramatically less than the typical one-percenter (for lack of a better term.)

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Bigbutt]

It's already at Score 2 Insightful. :)

[John]

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Drethon]

Just curious, what is your opinion about those killed in 9/11? I'm pretty sure many Taliban were attacking the US due to people killed by the US in the middle east.

Not saying either side is right but any idea from a certain point of view...

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Japanese Ambasador and his aide were not aware of the attack they were just Pawns in the game of war. Warmongers among Japanese already made a different plans. You cannot reason with people like these, that's why every peace loving nation, such us US, needs a strong army.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuche.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

That the US entered WW2 for liberty, justice and democracy is just about as stupid as saying the Union attacked the Confederate States to liberate black people.
The US was happy sitting out of WW2 selling at high prices materiel to Germany and English alike. Making enormous profits by the way. Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor it is conceivable that the US wouldn't have given a rat's ass about the destiny of europe, the jews or far east asia. This is the reality.
Of course the poor americans that fought were indoctrinated to believe they were fighting for higher ideals, nobel ideals. But so were the german soldiers, the italians, the french, the japanese.
Nations fight wars because of greed. It's a simple power grab.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

nobody should feel too bad if the USA gets wiped off the map

Like the way that Japan and Germany were wiped off the map? And if our goal was to wipe them off the map, why did we send food and other aid after victory?

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[alex67500]

>>November 11th was the end of World War I (28 July 1914 - 11 November 1918; the USA got involved in 1917).

Wow, not only did you not RTFA, you did not read (or understand) that the F'ing summary is talking about a tradition from a WWII event. At least make ignorant comments or trolling 'corrections' on things that are true or that you actually understand.

  Slashdot where have you gone?

It still took the USA 2 years and a cowardly attack on Pearl Harbour to pull their fingers and start getting involved.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me again what you are doing to stop the American military from killing innocents in its wars?

Also, to which extent do you feel you deserve death for what they are doing?

Feeling good about himself by pontificating on the internet?

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[quacking duck]

I don't agree. For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so

Since you seem a bit confused about the reason the United States of America joined the war effort let me educate you. The USA practised an isolationist policy and refused to join World War II to defeat Germany and its allies until Japan carried out an attack on Pearl Harbor. The entire attack would not have happened except for a delay by some US political figure whose name I forget at the moment to see the Japanese Ambassador. When the Japanese Ambassador and his aid heard of the attack from the person they were meeting they were gravely disappointed. There is a fact-based movie about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor; not the crap movie made of recent vintage.

(Bold emphasis mine.)

Not the poster you're responding to, but if this fact-based movie you speak of is Tora! Tora! Tora!, you're forgetting key details.

In that movie it's made quite clear that the entire attack would happen whether or not the Japanese ambassador saw the US official. That delay was also secondary to another delay caused by a Japanese security directive that meant the regular typist(s) couldn't type up the last of the 14-part message, and a much slower hunt-and-peck non-typist with enough security clearance had to be used instead.

Whether that part of the movie is accurate is also largely irrelevant, since in reality the 14-part message was neither a declaration of war nor severed diplomatic relations (though combined with intercepted Japanese instruction to their embassy to destroy their decoding gear, it was taken as a strong indicator that either would've happened shortly afterward). Documents revealed in 1999 also strongly suggest the Japanese military convinced the government not to do so before their surprise attack happened.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

US sent food so Germans did not have to depend on Soviets.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[laie_techie]

I don't agree. For all that I've no use for people who don't realize that, unlike many recent ventures, the US fought WWII for very good reasons, and probably saved millions of lives by doing so

Since you seem a bit confused about the reason the United States of America joined the war effort let me educate you. The USA practised an isolationist policy and refused to join World War II to defeat Germany and its allies until Japan carried out an attack on Pearl Harbor. The entire attack would not have happened except for a delay by some US political figure whose name I forget at the moment to see the Japanese Ambassador. When the Japanese Ambassador and his aid heard of the attack from the person they were meeting they were gravely disappointed. There is a fact-based movie about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor; not the crap movie made of recent vintage. You really ought to read a few non-fiction books about World War II before posting on the subject.

See the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! It portrays the Americans as being dumb beyond reason, but shows that the talks with the Japanese Ambassador were a sham. I've heard that the attack on Pearl Harbor was to buy Japan more time to invade the Philippines before the US got involved.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[jythie]

Given how easy it is to get normally good people to do terrible things with a surprisingly small amount of peer pressure, I am comfortable extending sympathies even to those who one might call 'brainwashed'. While we like to think of ourselves as strong, it has been shown a disturbing number of times just how easy it is tweak someone into such behavior.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Dead people have little need for food. If we went about wiping Germany off the map, the Germans wouldn't have had to rely on the Soviets or anyone else for food.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Thanks.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Drethon]

You make an excellent point. Reminds me of the experiments where a person was made to think they were executing someone in the name of science. While a part of me keeps saying the brainwashed are weak, I need to remember I'm probably not any stronger and am deluding myself to think otherwise.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[drnb]

Dead citizens in Tokyo were for certain not involved in massacring the Chinese.

The Doolittle Raid attacked a small number of specific military targets, they were not carpet bombing a city. The raid was largely symbolic for the US and psychological for the Japanese, it did very little damage. If you are a civilian working at a war munitions factory in Imperial Japan you *are* involved in the massacre of the Chinese civilians.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Just curious, what is your opinion about those killed in 9/11? I'm pretty sure many Taliban were attacking the US due to people killed by the US in the middle east.

The Taliban didn't plan or execute the 9/11 attack.

For that matter, how do you know that the Taliban even gave a rat's ass about the Middle East? The Taliban were Pashtun, and it's questionable whether they cared about anyone in Afghanistan outside their tribe, let alone Arabs in the Middle East. OBL was tolerated by the Taliban in large part because of the money he gave them.

If you believe that 9/11 was in retaliation for American actions in the Middle East, you should also believe that the US invaded Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. One is as plausible as the other.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Oligonicella]

"There is a fact-based movie"

Little wonder you posted AC .

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm so that would be the Americans then in most cases . You also caused this war by forcing Japan to open up to trade with you at Gun point to teach them the lesson the nation with the most modern large navy is right.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Oligonicella]

It wasn't "the US", it was the liberals of the time. Nations start wars because of greed and ideology amongst other things. Sometimes it's for extermination. Your philosophy is too simplistic.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[lxs]

And you wouldn't have a space program.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Oligonicella]

That's spelled douche.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a goddamn piece of shit troll spouting bullshit like there's no tomorrow.
you know not of what you speak, and can go fuck yourself.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Chickenlips]

Sorry, but I have to say that the United States has never been a "peace loving" nation. I learned that in public school too, but a closer examination of history, especially the last decade, clearly lays that premise to rest. The U.S. was born in by way of war. The U.S. has never hesitated to use it's military for economic gain (Mexico, Central and South America from centuries past). I don't believe we had a valid reason for entering WWI. President Wilson had to so some fancy maneuvering to get the U.S. into it (General Smedley Butler can shed some light, circa 1930's). WWII was necessary, and Roosevelt saw the writing on the wall long before 1941. He had actually reinstated the draft, and, to the limits of his authority, began nudging industries toward fulfilling military needs. It's true that prior to December, 1941, Americans wanted no part in Europe's war (see WWI). Roosevelt had also been giving Britain military aid (Lend-Lease act).
After WWII, unlike after WWI, America didn't disarm. Not something a "peace loving" nation would decide to do. The "Cold War" with the Soviets was but a convenient excuse to continue to pour GDP into military might. The U.S. could have maintained military supremacy over the Soviets with a fraction of the amount of GDP actually spent.
The focus on the military industrial complex served, as an aside to this conversation, to allow other nations to take the lead in consumer electronics. By the end of the "Cold War", nary a TV, radio or any other commercial electronic device (save computers, but they went later) were designed or manufactured in the U.S. Ironically, the fact that military electronics are now essentially manufactured by a potential future foe (China) makes me feel even less safe than if China actually had a military strong enough to threaten the United States.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Chickenlips]

"The US was happy sitting out of WW2 selling at high prices materiel to Germany and English alike. Making enormous profits by the way. Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor it is conceivable that the US wouldn't have given a rat's ass about the destiny of europe, the jews or far east asia. This is the reality."

You're of course referring to George W. Bush's grandfather, when you speak of profiting off of the war (by giving material support to the Nazis):

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

Not that the U.S. wouldn't have been happy sitting out the war if it could have, profiting from both sides, but Roosevelt knew that eventually the war would engulf the United States like it or not. He had begun, in 1940, the process of putting the U.S. on a war footing, as well as siding the the Allies. Prescott, on the other hand, never met a Nazi he didn't like. Pretty sickening.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[real gumby]

The imperial government of Japan bears full responsibility for the pacific war, no question about it.

Having said that, I do take exception to part about it being a "cowardly attack." It's was a brave, gutsy move, and it could have succeeded (although even if it had succeeded it probably would only have delayed the inevitable). The US blockade on Japanese shipping and imports had caused intolerable problems so something had to change. Disastrously, what changed was an expansion, rather than reduction, of the war.

Please do not interpret this as any defense of the Japanese. Both of my parents faced Japanese invasion -- and not all of my relatives survived the occupation. I would not have been born had the Americans not been willing to enter the war and completely finish the job. But even with all of that I cannot consider the attack on Perl Harbor to be in any way "cowardly" -- unless you can take the position that violence is always the coward's way out (a position I do respect, though perhaps cannot share).

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Pop quiz: Who sold the Nazis fuel and metal so that they could run around killing

Pop quiz: were all 150 millions Americans of a like mind and did they act in perfect concert during WWII?

As for for FDR's cynical, but perhaps justified, treatment of such actions during the war, perhaps you'd like to read the descriptions of the very people whose research uncovered this treason. You can start here. Should the "business people" responsible been tried for treason after the war? Hell yes.

We fueled the war deliberately

You mean by things like the Lend Lease Act? Ask the British if they objected to US aid prior to our entry into the war.

then entered the war

You mean an America with a strong isolationist sentiment, and a desire not to get hundreds of thousands of her own people killed, didn't enter the war until after we were attacked by Japan, and then a few days later, Nazi Germany declared war on us? That's true.

It permitted us to reduce a bunch of our excess population

You mean the population that people were concerned had a declining birth rate, due to the Great Depression? At any rate, it wasn't a very effective policy for reducing our population. As horrific as our losses of over 400,000 Americans were, it reduced the population by only 0.27%. Then the whole thing was undone by the millions born in the post-war baby boom. A seriously failed policy.

One other minor problem: there is absolutely no evidence for the absurd notion that we wanted to "reduce a bunch of our excess population".

You always have a choice.

Technically that's true. If somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to either join the military or be shot now, and you choose the bullet now, your heirs will be free to praise you morality. Until and unless that happens to you, shove your sanctimony.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Nabbing a few German scientists and engineers needn't have stopped us from wiping out the rest of Germany.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Bengie]

Most people are victims of circumstance. Very few people are inherently "evil". The deaths shall be mourned. Sentient beings should be not fighting each other.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[westlake]

Dead citizens in Tokyo were for certain not involved in massacring the Chinese

But the mass killing of Chinese civilians did not begin with the Doolittle Raid or even the Rape of Nanking. Nanking Massacre. Events which to this day the Japanese government has never been willing to deal with honestly.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[HornWumpus]

The US _didn't_ maintain conventional military superiority over the Soviets. We held them off with threats of nukes.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was stupid, they started a war they could not win, knowing they could not win and without a clear idea of what they were trying to achieve by winning.

The exit strategy they were after was to take all the goals they wanted / needed and make the Americans give up trying to retake them without success when US casualties got too high .

They misunderstood the level of isolationism in the US at the time and dragged the US into the war when they didn't have to fight. Yes I know they were hurting from the oil embargo but given enough time they could have solved that. After all the US corporations had no qualms about selling to the Germans even after America joined the war.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[HornWumpus]

Joe Kennedy gets a pass from you. Political hack!

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[SonnyDog09]

It *was* cowardly in that they attacked before declaring war.

If you are going to start a fight with a sucker punch, you get no sympathy when the other guy kicks your ass.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

This. And it wasn't Secretary of State Cordell Hull's fault. Hull kept Ambasador Nomura waiting only about 20 minutes, and the attack had already happened. Roosevelt had advised Hull not to let on to the Japanese ambassador about the attack.

Nomura was already nearly an hour late for his scheduled 1:00 PM meeting. The attack began roughly around 1:20 PM DC local time.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice post. But....why did you waste such time and talent feeding a troll?

I guess your time and talent are yours to do with as you please.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

BEcause it wasn't in the US's national interests to get involved. That's the nature of US foreign policy.

So who the hell cares how long it took the US to get involved in another European war when it's explicit policy since it's founding was to NOT get involved in European wars?

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[ebno-10db]

Nice post. But....why did you waste such time and talent feeding a troll?

A compulsion is a terrible thing to waste.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[CrimsonAvenger]

It still took the USA 2 years and a cowardly attack on Pearl Harbour to pull their fingers and start getting involved.

Umm, no.

The USA was selling war material (planes, tanks, etc.) to the UK as early as 1940. In violation of its own Neutrality Laws and international standards of neutrality.

The USA took over the garrisoning of Iceland from the UK before Pearl Harbor, allowing the British troops who had been stationed there to be sent to Africa (which reinforcements helped keep Egypt from falling to the Axis).

The USA was actually fighting the Germans BEFORE Pearl Harbor - look up USS Reuben James sometime, and pay close attention to dates.

What the USA was not, before Pearl Harbor, was AT WAR. Alas, we didn't have a Mutual Defense Treaty with China, Poland, France, or the UK. Just as the UK & France didn't go to war against Japan just because the Japanese were being dicks in China, we didn't go to war against Japan just because the Germans were being dicks in Poland....

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[spitzak]

If you believe that 9/11 was in retaliation for American actions in the Middle East, you should also believe that the US invaded Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. One is as plausible as the other.

I'm not sure what you are getting at. I am certainly no fan of the Iraq war, but I am pretty confident that most people involved in it thought at least some of their reason and an achievable goal was to liberate the Iraqi people.

Then again, the idea that the 9/11 terrorists felt they were retaliating for some (perhaps perceived) injustice from America seems pretty likely, too!

So I guess your sentence makes sense to me, in that both ideas have similar (ie high) plausibility. Thought it might not be what you are trying to argue.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it was the Japanese embassy's mistake in timing that made them attack before the declaration of war. They intended to do so but miscalculated the timing and delivered the declaration about 3 hours after the attack had stopped.

I'm not excusing them; they should have done better. But they did intend to declare war, they just f'ed it up. Interestingly enough, the perception created by this cowardly act because fo the mistake in timing only fueled the American population's commitment to crush the Japanese because it was viewed as cowardly.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Goaway]

Less than the average citizen, but more than someone who isn't contributing at all. Dramatically less than the typical one-percenter (for lack of a better term.)

That's a lot of careful consideration that you just applied to only yourself and not to all those dead people.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sympathy applies for all war casualties, there is no more stupid waste of life.

So it's LESS stupid and pointless to hang a black guy in a tree than for him to voluntarily pick up arms and fight for a cause he believes in?
There's MORE of a point to just randomly abducting and killing someone for shits and giggles, then to defend one's homeland?
Fuck off, asshole.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I need to remember I'm probably not any stronger and am deluding myself to think otherwise."

Being capable of thinking of this and being honest with yourself about it does make you stronger, however.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Xest]

"Technically that's true. If somebody puts a gun to your head and tells you to either join the military or be shot now, and you choose the bullet now, your heirs will be free to praise you morality. Until and unless that happens to you, shove your sanctimony."

To be fair the situation was no different to Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, yet the people opted to rise up and fight their respective governments. These people were living in police states no less effective, brutal and oppressive than that created by the likes of Hitler.

Those soldiers who fought for and the civilians who didn't not oppose are complicit in the war whether they like it or not. Unless they explicitly acted against, then they're being given an excuse they do not deserve.

Even if people were being told at gunpoint they have to serve then you're making out that they're making a simple choice about survival and nothing, but it's not that simple. If you serve then yes you may survive but you're explicitly going to have to try and take others lives. If you take or try to take others lives for the sake of self-preservation when you know your side is in the wrong then you're still a bad person whether you like it or not. By serving you're not just saying "Well it was that or die", you're saying "Well I'd rather not die so I'm going to kill others instead" - that's not really any better than if you willingly say "I want to kill others".

If you serve and sabotage or defect when the opportunity arises then that's one thing, but that wasn't widespread enough for that to be a common enough case to absolve even a decent proportion of soldiers of blame. The unfortunate reality is that most soldiers fighting for the axis powers actually thought they were in the right, and most civilians were accepting of what was going on and hence therefore complicit.

You only have to look at France post-invasion, some fell into line with their new Nazi dictators, but others formed Free France and opposed even though they faced the exact same threats of violence to themselves and their families as any axis soldiers who served would've faced in opposing.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[drinkypoo]

That's a lot of careful consideration that you just applied to only yourself and not to all those dead people.

That is in fact exactly the opposite of what I'm doing. I'm applying the same standards to everyone. You want to apply different standards to different people.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Goaway]

You just said all the people of one nation deserved to die for not stopping the war.

But for yourself, it apparently matters how hard you tried, even if you didn't succeed. Not for them, though.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Drethon]

Never said I was stronger, just trying to be less stupid... and not alway succeeding.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[david_thornley]

No, the US was heavily involved against Germany earlier.

I've seen evidence that Chamberlain wanted to keep the US out of the Anglo-French war against Germany. That changed around the time of the fall of Norway and France, though, when the US began serious rearmament for WWII. In the meantime, the US started ignoring all the international law about the duties of neutrals. I haven't personally found a blatant violation before sending 50 destroyers to Britain (check out the Hague convention on neutrality in naval warfare), but the USN was shadowing German ships when they could and broadcasting information in the clear before then.

In September 1941, the USN was told that it was to wage war against Germany. The USN wasn't all that successful at first, but it was attacking U-boats. The US was already refitting British warships.

Now, how would it have helped to have the US in formal war against Germany at that time? The US Army and Army Air Force were seriously unready for war, and the Navy was already at war. The declaration of war sure didn't seem to inconvenience the Germans for a year or so.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[david_thornley]

The Fourteen-Part message was not a declaration of war, although it sure looked like one for the first thirteen. The fourteenth, sent a bit later, was not a declaration of war but rather a breaking of negotiations.

The actual declaration of war was put together after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[david_thornley]

Small correction: Nomura wasn't delivering a declaration of war. The US assumed it was at first, because of how the first thirteen parts read. The fourteenth part was anticlimactic, simply breaking off negotiations.

The declaration of war came later, after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[david_thornley]

The US was happy sitting out of WW2 selling at high prices materiel to Germany and English alike.

Actually, once the war started the trade with Germany pretty much stopped. The US had Neutrality Acts to forbid trade with belligerents, but those were quickly amended to "cash and carry" laws allowing belligerents to trade with the US, provided they supplied their own ships and paid for what they bought in dollars. These rules were applied for a while equally to the wealthy empire that dominated the seas and the indebted power with the small navy, but they were changed to be more favorable to Britain.

The US was happily trading with everybody before the war, but then again the British were trading with the Germans before the war. Just before the war started there were Germans trying to get armor plate for the Royal Navy delivered before it became impossible.

Had the Japanese not attacked, the US would have, well, built up a massive military with only one plausible use, given the British a lot of war materiel without payment, repaired British warships, and fully joined the naval war in the Atlantic. We know that because that's some of what the US did before the Japanese attack.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a retired US veteran. I was in Luxembourg last week and stopped at both the US and German cemeteries--they're only a couple of kilometers apart.

The Germans have no nation. They can't fly the Nazi flag. Modern Germany won't acknowledge them, and those without descendants who remember them are completely forgotten.

Given that neither they nor the Japanese had any real way to refuse their governments' orders, any human being grants them a certain amount of sympathy.

Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[BalthCat]

Ah, so for the act of a nation, its citizens are cursed? No. The responsibility of citizens for their nation has limits.

Godspeed and thank you

[Drethon]

...

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Drethon]

Godspeed an expression of good wishes to a person starting a journey.

Yes the phrase had a religious connotation originally but it does not really any more (to me anyway). Do you prefer god's speed or goodspeed (which to me sounds more like wishing someone a speedy journey to a known destination whereas godspeed or god's speed is more wishing a person a good journey to a destination which I do not and cannot know)?

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[ebno-10db]

Would it have lessened his contribution if he had? His service is far more important than any religious differences you may have with him. Interestingly, there are few "Jesus Saves" postings on Slashdot, presumably because it's an inappropriate forum. For some reason, Evangelical Atheists think themselves different.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Nephandus]

Depending on what he thought he was doing and why, yes, very much so. We've got a better argument than almost all the evangelical politicos who natter and troll all the time here...and a great many now on this very topic. Besides, I recall mixing religion with politics, much less warfare, being something of an issue...at least if a conservative does it.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Drethon]

I find it sad that my annoyance of the assumption my post is religious is getting higher ratings than my post thanking those who fought and died for us regardless of weather or not it included a religious consideration. Feel free to rate me into the basement but I believe the sacrifices of those who fought it WW2 is among the greatest actions of a people in history.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

It begs the question, "can we just stop using that expression altogether?" It sounds queer.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Drethon]

I'll stop using godspeed if everyone else stops using LOL.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[lgw]

It begs the question, "can we just stop using that expression altogether?" It sounds queer.

I see what you did there, twice. How easily we forget the origins of words. You make a fair point, and I bid you goodbye.

Re:Godspeed and thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Godspeed and thank you

Flying-Speghetti-Montsterspeed and thank you.

FTFY

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[wonkey_monkey]

Perhaps you should learn the difference between celebration and commemoration.

Imagine Japan doing the same

[Opportunist]

Just imagine Japan doing a celebration of pilots raiding Pearl Harbor. Or how about Germany holding annual celebrations for pilots of the Blitz?

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be unimaginable because losers do not celebrate their defeats. We celebrate and cheer our heroes because they crushed our enemies.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Difference being, they lost.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, neither of those two nations were provoked into war by a devastating sneak attack on a major naval base, and behaved rather differently during the war than the Americans did, so I'd hardly be surprised if the reaction to such a celebration might be different.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm sure you also wanted millions to die on both sides, for the Allies to take Japan through conventional means as well. Right?

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Ogive17]

Have you ever gone to Pearl Harbor? It's a hotspot for Japanese tourism. Americans also go to Hiroshima when site seeing in Japan.

Remembering historic events does not indicate rubbing it in the face of your former enemy.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[SJester]

You really should have posted as Anonymous Coward; your comment is too stupid to have associated with your name. There is a difference between celebrating an act of aggression vs an act of defense or defiance. Both the Pearl Harbor raid and the Blitz were attacks carried out by expansionist aggressors. The Blitz was in fact deliberately targeting civilians, and both were not fought against incredible odds by a small force using unproven equipment with uncertain support.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Just imagine Japan doing a celebration of pilots raiding Pearl
> Harbor. Or how about Germany holding annual celebrations for pilots of the Blitz?

So many pseudo-intellectuals posting things like this. Do you not understand you would not dare say such things in those societies in the reverse?

Do you enjoy your freedom to speak? Good. I'm glad.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

And for us to have gotten there after the Russians, leaving Japan divided for the next 50 years like Korea and Germany...

Re: Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. So the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki only killed military personal and miraculously left civilians completely unharmed. What a technology to vaporise only combatants.

Americans. You are do full of it.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Drethon]

Do you have similar reservations about the celebration of D-Day or the liberation of concentration camps? Not to mention the tens of thousands of POWs freed at the end of the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#Empire_of_Japan.

Yes history is written by the victors and the US has screwed up plenty of times but I haven't come across much evidence that any of the Axis powers in WW2 were richeous in any way.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[LordLucless]

Australia would like to talk to you about ANZAC Day.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Deadstick]

that any of the Axis powers in WW2 were richeous in any way.

Or even righteous.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Drethon]

Stuck on an old version of IE with no spell checker due to IT policy and too lazy this morning to paste it into Word to make sure I got it right... or maybe I'm just inventing new words, I don't think the English language is confusing enough yet!

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

And for us to have gotten there after the Russians, leaving Japan divided for the next 50 years like Korea and Germany...

You do realise that the americans were the ones that agreed to the division of europe ? Yalta rings a bell ? And they were the ones to divide Corea in two ? The narrative that the Soviets just took by force half of europe is bullshit. Dear leaders Roosevelt/Truman and in lesser part Churchill together with their ally Stalin fucked half of europe and asia in the deal they made for the postwar order.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have similar reservations about the celebration of D-Day or the liberation of concentration camps? Not to mention the tens of thousands of POWs freed at the end of the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war#Empire_of_Japan.

Yes history is written by the victors and the US has screwed up plenty of times but I haven't come across much evidence that any of the Axis powers in WW2 were richeous in any way.

And the allies were richteous in what way exactly ? Pray tell.
They commited "war crimes" just as easily as the axis powers. Only thing being the victors in the war has its advantages.
You brainwash your population to think the war was fought for moral reasons, you the good guys against the bad guys. And having god on your side gives you all the justification you need to carry out the ordeal. The end justifies the means.

Stop reading comic books about world war 2 and learn real unbiased history. It's never simple as it seems.

Re: Imagine Japan doing the same

[ebno-10db]

Americans. You are do [sic] full of it.

I'm not sure your comment even deserves a response, but are you saying that only Americans commemorate their veterans? Today is Remembrance Day in the UK and throughout the Commonwealth. Wave to those folks over our northern border - they were fighting WWII before we were. Do you think Russia fails to commemorate its veterans of the Great Patriotic War? (don't forget to thank them, because otherwise Nazi Germany would likely still be around). Should I go on listing the specifics for most of the Allies, or do you get the point?

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Drethon]

Sure the US has fucked up and is doing so more often than it used to but can you point to specific examples where the government supported war crimes that could not be considered strategic actions (yes that is a massive grey area but can you define any of this in black and white in a way everyone will agree to)?

Not saying all of this is 100% true and unbiased but given I was born 30 years after WW2 its the best I have to go on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II

Death rates of POWs in WW2:
Chinese POWs held by Japan: 56 reported survivors at the end of the war (meaning nearly 100% were killed)
U.S. and British Commonwealth POWs held by Germany: ~4%
Soviet POWs held by Germany: 57.5%
Western Allied POWs held by Japan: 27%
German POWs in British hands 0.03%
German POWs in American hands 0.15%
German POWs in French hands 2.58%
Japanese POWs held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides according to James D. Morrow
Japanese POWs in Chinese hands: 24% (though it seems like they have reason to be pissed off)

"However, Japanese civilians "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy." According to Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned.""


In some cases the US in fact court martialed American soldiers due to war crimes (even though many were ignored). As best as I can tell the US as a whole did not support war crimes even if a number of people in power did, whereas both the Nazis and Japan Empire at the highest levels supported and encouraged atrocities. If you have indications to the contrary, please show me the reports.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[HornWumpus]

Roosevelt was half dead at Yalta and his aid Algir Hiss worked for the Soviets.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Drethon]

Did I bring Vietnam into the discussion? Didnt think so

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[lxs]

No need to imagine.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Roosevelt was half dead at Yalta and his aid Algir Hiss worked for the Soviets.

After Yalta there was Potsdam. And Truman was there doing deals with Stalin.
Unless you think Truman and all his advisors were secret agents of Stalin.
Whichever way you look at it, half of europe was given to the Soviets as a war prize (look how well democracy worked for those poor bitches in eastern germany, poland, hungary, romania, bulgaria, tchekoslovakia, estonia, lithuania and latvia).
The US didn't even try to "liberate" them in the intervening years.
We europeans have to thank Gorbachev much more than the americans if we finally have a unified europe.
So the US as a herald of peace and democracy my ass. It's bullshit.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

they do celebrate their war heroes.
international relations is not always pretty.
its often ugly as hell.

part of being a soldier is giving up your personal freedoms and qualms to be the willing blunt instrument of your nation.
its not an easy choice.
its not always a pretty choice.
its done out of a willingness to serve your nation

its key to remember that in the end civilization is a veneer. a very thin one. we strengthen and thicken it with diplomacy and peace treaties, and rules...but every now and then that veneer cracks, and the ugly mass underneath is revealed. the truth of the hidden ugliness is simple: might makes right, and in the choice between us and them, the decision is always "us".

soldiers willingly five themselves to the service of that choice, trusting that their leaders will use their skills and even their life appropriately, for the betterment or protection of their fellow citizens back home.

thats why you'll not fight many people even more anti-war than the average guy serving in the military. we know the true cost of conflict, and hope to avoid it more than almost anyone else. not out of a desire to save our own skin, but a desire to spare the world from seeing that true ugliness. those cracks take a long time to heal.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[HornWumpus]

We kept Stalin from unifying Europe. So say thanks and leave it at that.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. I've been to Pearl Harbor, and recently, too. I found most of the Japanese tourists to be suitably respectful, particularly at the Arizona memorial.

There were some exceptions, particularly from a younger (I would guess early- to mid-20s) group I encountered aboard the Missouri, but for the most part I have no problem with paying respects to both sides. Things like this should always be remembered objectively, and learned from, so that it does not happen again.

Re:Imagine Japan doing the same

[Talderas]

Churchill was the one fighting against the eventual Soviet hegemony but he was pretty powerless in lieu of America contributing the bulk of manpower on the allied front combined with American politics and it being an election year in 1944. Britain was at its limits. During Overlord they were scraping personel from other military services to find about 40,000 men to fill in for the losses caused during that invasion. Britain had it's bargaining power before 1944 but after it was all in America's court.

Re: Imagine Japan doing the same

[SJester]

I expected a reply like this. We don't commemorate Hiroshima; we are ashamed by it. It may have been necessary, it's possible it ended the war early, these are debatable topics. But there is no parade, we aren't proud. Sometimes you do what seems best at the time with the information you have. Sometimes you only have bad options. If you want to paint Americans with a broad brush, at least use real data points to found your typecasting. This is completely and entirely different than the Doolittle Raiders which is the actual topic under discussion, and I'd appreciate if you'd leave the strawmen in the fields.

Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms and way of life.
Without these brave men and women, we would not be the mightiest, richest, most powerful nation on Earth.
God Bless America.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms

Veterans since 2001 deserve no thanks for serving Barak Bush. Enjoy being violated by TSA, freedom lover.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Deadstick]

Unfortunately, our thanks hasn't much of a material side: If you're a librarian or a mail carrier or a DMV clerk you have today off, but if you're only a veteran you have to go to work.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms and way of life.
Without these brave men and women, we would not be the mightiest, richest, most powerful nation on Earth.
God Bless America.

OK, seriously? Are you saying that we fought wars for, essentially, money and power? No. GTFO my 'Merica, you just don't get it. Here's how it went down:

"Well, boys, Japan just blew the shit out of Pearl Harbor and sunk a good chunk of the fleet. Who wants to go on a stupid-brave suicide mission just to prove a point, and then probably get captured and tortured without mercy? All of you, huh? OK, let's GO!"

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Drethon]

Be glad these people fought so you can have the right to express this opinion. In my opinion the wars that came afterward had little to do with our freedoms but I don't think things would have turned out as well if we were currently under Japan Empire or Nazi rule today.

My bent $0.02 and I don't care where you'd like me to shove it, I'll give my opinion when it suits me and you are welcome to do the same.

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

I am American and you can take your self richeous attitude and shove it up you ass. And btw, fuck god also.

Ironic coming from a person living in a country in which their currency is labelled 'In God We Trust."

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that I'm not agreeing with you, I just think it's funny how people voice their opinions so often by simply stringing together the same old drivel that has been passed down through the generations.

Seems like everyone's still so obsessed with showing their individualism by proudly wearing uniforms.

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just prayed for you.

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Drethon]

No disagreement there, just suggesting to state your own opinion rather than merely suggesting others "fuck off". I've found everyone (including myself) is usually right... and usually wrong. It is just a question of how much of each at any given time ;p

Re: Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

BREAKING NEWS: Some people disagree with their leaders !!!

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

...another place, same time...
Here's how it went down:
Politician1: "Thank you for your contribution. Rest assured that using misguided patriotism and nationalism we can achieve our goals in record time."

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

Without these brave men and women, we would not be the mightiest, richest, most powerful nation on Earth.

China is right on your heels in terms of richness and without the foreign debt (in fact the American debt they own is more than double their own foreign debt -- 8% vs 117% debt vs gdp). The Sino-Russian alliance is more than a match in terms of military might and power (in the realpolitik sense), some argue that Russia alone is a match (despite the huge economic disparity).

Recent events have shown that the self-proclaimed mightiest nation of earth is great at posturing, but knows to back down when the eastern powers have had enough. So no, you're not *still* the "mightiest, richest and most powerful" nation on earth. You had your run at Hegemon, and just like the British Empire before it, the sun is setting.

Glory to Mother Russia 3

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

England bides, The sun shall rise again.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Anonymous Coward]

Soldiers don't make policy, they enforce it.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[BeaverCleaver]

US soldiers these days are serving because they chose to. There isn't conscription or a "draft" to force people to become soldiers and enforce unjust foreign policy. So no, I don't accord them any more respect than any other citizen who chooses to work for an employer whose actions are dubious.

I am concerned, however, about how bad conditions must be in the USA that getting sent overseas to (possibly) get killed while enforcing unjust foreign policy seems like sensible choice of employment for so many young people.

Re:Thank You Veterans

[Patent Lover]

On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms and way of life. Without these brave men and women, we would not be the mightiest, richest, most powerful nation on Earth. God Bless America.

How original. Brought to you by Wal Mart!

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[ebno-10db]

I don't know why you mention chemical weapons and atom bombs, since the Doolittle Raid involved neither. Nevertheless HE and incendiaries do kill people. They're not celebrating the violence of the mission, but the value of, and the the sacrifices made by, the men who flew that mission. That's what Veteran's Day is about. Considering the idiocy of getting into many of the wars we've gotten into, or started, in recent decades, you may forget that WWII was fought for very good reasons, and that the US was attacked by Japan. The US fight in the Pacific probably saved many lives elsewhere in Asia, the surrounding archipelagos, and Australia. We were allied with just about every other country fighting Japan. The penchant of the Imperial Japanese Forces for mass slaughter was not just propaganda. Good news though: we won, and have been at peace with Japan for 68 years. None of the Doolittle Raiders have complained about that.

Barry Barber

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my middle school history teacher! Back in the mid 90's he had all of us write questions to WWII soldiers and we got video responses from all of them. Very cool teacher who was/probably still is a huge techie. Great to see him doing well!

Who paid the price.

[willy everlearn]

Doolittle's raid had little/no actual strategic value.

The price tag was..... I have read estimates that between 300 thousand to 1 million Chinese paid the ultimate price for getting the crews out.

Not taking away from the valor of the crew. They deserve our undying respect.

But, the price paid for it..... I wonder.

willy

Re:Who paid the price.

[Drethon]

The short of it is the Doolittle raid led to the battle of Midway which is considered a major turning point of the war.

http://www.angelo.edu/content/news/1466-doolittle-raid-remembered-for-impact

Re:Who paid the price.

[Deadstick]

What Drethon said. The Doolittle raid was a major embarrassment to the Japanese military, and it became clear that any repetition would be followed by rolling heads. As a result, some major naval assets were pulled back into home-waters defense, and that contributed a lot to the outcome at Midway.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doolittle's raid had little/no actual strategic value.

The price tag was..... I have read estimates that between 300 thousand to 1 million Chinese paid the ultimate price for getting the crews out.

Not taking away from the valor of the crew. They deserve our undying respect.

But, the price paid for it..... I wonder.

willy

WRONG

The Japanese response to the Doolittle raid was to attempt to seize Midway Island and the ensuing Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway ( Middow Kaisen?) in the Pacific Theater of Operations was one of the most important naval battles of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's worst naval defeat in 350 years.

The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific.

The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself. ....

Re:Who paid the price.

[smpoole7]

> Doolittle's raid had little/no actual strategic value.

I may be a little older than you, but I'm surprised at the number of people nowadays who don't know what actually happened in WWII. It has been over half a century now, so at most it gets a chapter in the history books, highly condensed. I had the great pleasure of reading (among other things) Admiral Nimitz's history of that war, very detailed, with a look at every decision -- juggling horribly short assets against needs everywhere.

In fact, the Doolittle Raid had a significant strategic impact -- it caused the Japanese to redistribute their forces. In particular, they strongly weakened their carrier forces in the Indian Ocean. It also strengthened Yamamoto's position in favor of the Battle of Midway, which was the turning point of the entire Pacific war. (Some revisionist historians now want to argue with that, but their heads are filled with revisionist cheese. Losing several aircraft carriers in a single battle meant that Japan would never again be able to take the initiative.) :)

I hate war. As Sherman said, "War is hell." But if you attack me, or threaten those I love, I'm a typical American: I gitterdone, the entire time wishing that you'd just kept your mind right and left me alone. I'm not saying that everyone feels that way, but I am typical.

Only those who've seen the suffering can begin to imagine how awful war is. My Veteran's Day story comes from Sandy's grandfather, who was in a foxhole in St. Vith when the Germans kicked off the Battle of the Bulge. In my eyes, he was a freakin' hero, and I begged him to talk about it.

All he would say was, "I lost a lot of friends that day." Nothing more. I felt ashamed for bringing it up, and we changed the topic.

Yes, you can argue about Korea, Vietnam, et. al. But go back and read histories written by Nimitz and others who were there. No, there wasn't a great deal of fear that Germany or Japan could actually occupy the United States, but there was still a very real possibility that Japan and Germany would win. We've gotten cocky nowadays, but back then, what with bad torpedoes, ossified admirals who didn't want to use that "newfangled" radar, planes that couldn't keep up with the Mitsubishi Zero, it was anything but a guaranteed thing.

As for the results of an Axis victory, I suggest a good dose of Turtledove or other alternative history. It wouldn't have been pretty. At all.

Re:Who paid the price.

[smpoole7]

You beat me to it (my more long-winded post can be found below), but precisely. PRECISELY. The Japanese military knew that the raid was just that -- a raid, and no more -- but they still felt compelled to respond. And Yamamoto won his argument for Midway as a DIRECT result of that raid.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Drethon]

Yeah, with all due respect to willy everlearn (I suspect most people here are intelligent most of the time, I know I'm not some times), I wish people would back up potentially inflamitory statements. It tends to sent off my I know I read otherwise flag and my must reeducate style rants :)

Re:Who paid the price.

[smpoole7]

> It tends to sent off my I know I read otherwise flag and my must reeducate style rants :)

Hah. Me as well. :)

Actually, if we're honoring heroes, here's one bunch that rarely gets a mention nowadays: the submariners who served in the Allied Navies in WWII. I'm going from memory, but at the end of the war, Nimitz chose to do his change-of-command ceremony on the deck of a submarine. He wanted to honor the fact that (here's the memory part, don't hold me to this) something like only ONE IN TEN (or was it one in twenty???) of those who served on submarines in the Pacific survived the war.

The losses were staggering. Being in the sub service was tantamount to a death sentence in WWII, but they did it anyway.

Re:Who paid the price.

[T.E.D.]

We've gotten cocky nowadays, but back then, what with bad torpedoes, ossified admirals who didn't want to use that "newfangled" radar, planes that couldn't keep up with the Mitsubishi Zero, it was anything but a guaranteed thing.

Can't emphasise this part enough. If you know nothing else about WWII in the Pacific, a person should really acquaint themselves with the Battle of Midway.

We had some advantages, and some disadvantages. But without incredible sheer luck, and the willing essentially suicidal sacrifices of the men of Torpedo Squadron 8, things would have turned out completely differently. If the same strokes of luck had happened for the Japanese instead of for the US, the balance of our entire carrier force would have been wiped out (which was what the Japanese plan was when they forced that action in the first place). Had that happened, at best it would have been years before we could have built enough replacements to make it a war again.

BTW: Of Torpedo Squadron 8, only one man (and none of the planes) survived their runs. Their planes were hopelessly obsolete, and scored no hits on either their carrier targets or enemy planes. However, their pitiful attacks drew the air cover down at just the moment other squadrons of US dive-bombers arrived on the scene from high altitude, and oddly found the skies up there uncontested...

Re:Who paid the price.

[Anonymous Coward]

actually it had tremendous value.

the purpose of the raid wasnt to harm industry.
japan's war machine claimed their country to be invulnerable. that we lacked the will to fight, the ability to fight, and could not touch their homeland. they used carriers to attack us, effectively on our home turf, and we lacked the capability to return the favor.

and they were right. we DIDNT really have hte ability to hit mainland japan. we had only 3 carriers in the pacific, and they possessed no long range attack craft at the time. plus, by then, japans military assets were not sitting in a dock waiting ot be hit, like ours were.

so we took some b25s, put them on a carrier with specially trained crews, and we punched them in their home turf, showing that fortress japan was NOT safe from attack.

Re:Who paid the price.

[smpoole7]

> But without incredible sheer luck ...

Yep. Part of that "sheer luck" thing was catching the Japanese carriers while they were refueling the planes. Our terrible planes and ordinance wouldn't have done nearly as much damage otherwise.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Blakey Rat]

The Japanese were already slaughtering Chinese for the most petty reasons long before Doolittle engaged their help. (Hell, since 1937-- before WWII technically began!)

I don't think the raiders can be held responsible for that.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Talderas]

Doolittle's raid had strategic value in hindsight. I don't think anyone ever anticipated Japan responding and undercommiting forces for Midway which would lead to a turnaround. The purpose of the Doolittle raid was purely PR. It was to show the American people that we weren't going to sit by and let Japan run rampant in light of the setback in the Philippines. We were commited to war on two fronts and in no position to do anything for months if not a year out. Doolittle Raid (April 1942) and Operation Torch (November 1942) were our first punches to show commitment.

Re:Who paid the price.

[DerekLyons]

If the same strokes of luck had happened for the Japanese instead of for the US, the balance of our entire carrier force would have been wiped out (which was what the Japanese plan was when they forced that action in the first place). Had that happened, at best it would have been years before we could have built enough replacements to make it a war again.

Less than a year actually... for every heavy carrier we had at Midway, we had four more already under construction. (The US would ultimately build 26 heavy carriers in WWII. We had more carriers in service in 1942 alone than the Japanese had during the entire war.) The ratios for cruisers, tin cans, submarines and oilers was even higher... for aircraft, unimaginably higher still. The main effect of a Japanese victory would have been for Japan to be more heavily entrenched in the Southern Pacific.
 
But that wouldn't have changed much in the long run.
 
WWII, like many wars in the industrial era, was essentially a war of attrition between two dueling economies - and in the case of US vs. Japan... Japan was screwed from day one. Their only hope was to win 'on points' (by making US victory too long or too costly), because they couldn't win long term on straight force-on-force. (The page Grim Economic Realities goes into this in some detail.) Even though it would take some years for all the effects to play out, they lost the war at Midway because they couldn't fight evenly force-on-force after that and thus couldn't force a win 'on points'.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for reference, while Midway was a turning point in the war, if the US lost it would have just happened again, at some other battle down the road. By the time the war started, 13 Essex-class fleet carriers were already under construction; 13 more were ordered when the war started. CV-9 (the USS Essex) was launched in July, 1942; by one year later 6 more were in the water. Each Essex was individually more powerful than each of the three Yorktown class carriers that fought at Midway.

At Midway, three of the US's 4 fleet carriers fought and 1 was lost. Even if the US lost all 3 carriers, they had twice as much carrier power in the water 12 months later. 9 more were launched the next year. Midway was a big battle, and Japan looked terrifying at the time, but the simply reality was that Japan had a small fraction of the industrial output that America had. Their ability to replenish losses was just poor, and there really was no way they could have won.

Re:Who paid the price.

[T.E.D.]

Actually, if I read that right, it would have been almost exactly a year, assuming no further losses, to get back up to rough parity. One would imagine the Japanese would do whatever they could to inflict those "further losses" in the meantime, but I agree that sooner or later their luck would have run out. It just happened sooner.

Re:Who paid the price.

[Anonymous Coward]

Was I wrong in the estimates of Chinese dead? What did I miss? A price was indeed paid.

Re:Who paid the price.

[willy everlearn]

Would someone explain to me where am I wrong?

I asked a question about a half a million lives?

As long as they were someone else's?

Jingoism

[Anonymous Coward]

On this Veterans Day, I would like to thank all veterans for serving our country for protecting our freedoms and way of life.

That applies to WWII veterans and Revolutionary War veterans. Everybody else?

Please explain how the Korean , Viet Nam, and the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan have protected my "freedom" and "way of life"?

Explain to me how the death of my loved ones in the military has protected my "way of life" or my "freedom"?

My way of life was destroyed and freedom eroded in 2001 when my retarded Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, put the DHS in place and pretty much put us on track to being a police state and curtailing many of my Fourth Amendment Rights.

My way life ceased to exist when my Government felt the need to spy on all of us.

To me, the true freedom fighters are the ones protesting against the wars, against the Big Money controlling our government and folks saying "Hey! Wait a minute here! WTF does Iraq have to do with terrorism?!"

I am grateful that they are folks who volunteer - even if it is just to pay for their education - to risk their lives for our country - don't get me wrong.

But let's not kid ourselves into thinking these wars are all about freedom and way of life - whatever "way of life" means. That's all jingoism to get the masses to go along with wars that do not hold up to scrutiny.

Fighting Germans and Japanese who want to control the World? Absolutely!

Invading a country because they may - sort of- possibly have weapons of mass destruction?

Please. If that's so important, then when is the N. Korean invasion? Or Chinese?

Re:Jingoism

[clovis]

Please explain how the Korean , Viet Nam, and the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan have protected my "freedom" and "way of life"?

You included Korea and Vietnam. How can you be so ignorant? How can you not know the difference between life under the communist regimes as practiced by the Soviet Union in those days, or even as practiced today in North Korea and Vietnam?
Your way of life, revised:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
http://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/why-north-korea/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation_camp

As for the first Iraq war, look it up yourself.
As for the second Iraq war, I have to agree with you.
As for the Afghan war, sometimes it's simply revenge, and sometimes that's appropriate. See Ender's Game.

Re:Jingoism

[Nephandus]

Consider what most soldiers actually consider "freedom" too. Most weren't fighting for many rights at all, but the expectation of denying them. They were fighting for their own myopic rights to authoritarianism. Only a tiny minority throughout history ever believed in freedom of speech, for instance. Most believe in enforcing sexism (mostly for women, ironically) and general religious or quasi-religious "tradition" based privileges.

Then there's insisting on innocence, on the explicit grounds they got paid to do whatever shit they did. No sense of irony there at all. The Nuremberg defense was always very popular in the US among the government's proud attack dogs, on and off their pissing grounds, which they even expanded. Remember the colonies that didn't want anything to do with the Feds to begin with? The Army took care of that and the following rebellions of the unwilling citizenry. Know how we "liberated" Hawaii from its population? That's obviously leaving out the tradition of the Army vs the continental natives...and even white pioneers they pretended to be "civilizing" the property of(f).

Re:Jingoism

[rubycodez]

You are the ignorant one. So the Soviet Union was bad, that justifies warring on a SE asian country? and using a defoliant on the crops of *our allies* in that war to drive people to cities more under our propoganda, so that hundreds of thousands (again of *our allies*) starved and had horrible birth defects

As for Korea, look at the real history, where the U.S. took part part in war crimes including a slaughter of 100,000 "leftists", innocents and political prisoners.

First gulf war, we caim to aide of ally. That I'll agree is justifiable.

Why do you reference a fictional novel as justification for warring against people who *did not* attack us on 9/11. On 9/11 we were attacked by a group of Saudis who were formerly U.S. agents/mercenaries in Afghanistan.

Re:Jingoism

[Anonymous Coward]

You included Korea and Vietnam. How can you be so ignorant? How can you not know the difference between life under the communist regimes as practiced by the Soviet Union in those day

How can you be so ignorant?
- Former-Soviet here, we might not have lived like princes, but it was a pretty decent life, my mother country of course, joined the USSR out of free will..We knew about the gulags of course, but I find it priceless that the keepers of Gitmo feel they have the high horse to comments in such a way.
- North Korea exists only as a buffer zone between Russia/China and American forces in Japan and Guam.
- You lost in Vietnam, clearly they valued the pseudo-Soviet lifestyle more than yours.
- Oddly, China-backed communist Thailand was A-OK (presumably because the spread of communism was actually okay, as long as it was Chinese communism and not the kind that helps the USSR?).
- Afghanistan being about revenge is so hopelessly naive it's adorable. Don't forget who armed and trained the Mujahideen in the first place, and leveling the entire country to go after a single scapegoat is just silly. The US went in for the same reason the Soviets did - the vast mineral riches below the surface. Not to mention the 9/11 attackers were Saudis.
- The first Gulf war was an internal Arab League affair and really none of the Us' business.

That being said, way to avoid the question. Aside from cheap oil from Kuwait, how did any of these wars serve to protect your "freedom" and way of life? Was there ever any threat of any americans being sent to the Siberian gulags? Was Vietnam going to invade you and force communism onto you:? Was North Korea going to invade you?

Re:Jingoism

[Anonymous Coward]

First gulf war, we caim to aide of ally. That I'll agree is justifiable.

That was to protect the oil interests of some very powerful and rich people - like the Bush family.

And also, we kept a MONARCHY in place?!

Plah-ease!

And the Kuwaiti state is just a US puppet state.

That was not justifiable at all!

Re:Jingoism

[rubycodez]

puppet state - any time I saw Bush holding hands with arab leader, it seemed, not to put too fine a point on it, that our president was what in baseball parlance would be called "the catcher"

Re:Jingoism

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair, we weren't at war with "a SE Asian" country. We were supporting our ally, the Republic of Vietnam, against an aggressor, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as part of the long term strategy of "containment" of communism. Considering that the USSR was expanding Communism through instigating local uprisings to destabilize a country and then invade to bring it under it's umbrella, it was determined that containing the Communist threat was a better option than attempting to roll it back or appease it. Vietnam was one major conflict within the grander scheme of the containment strategy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment

Re:Jingoism

[clovis]

First we must not forget that, all else being said, it was the Soviet Union that stopped the Nazis cold and thus ended the threat of fascist expansionism. The world owes a great debt to the Soviets, and especially to the Russians who fought, and to the Russians who fell.

"Former-Soviet here, we might not have lived like princes, but it was a pretty decent life, my mother country of course,
joined the USSR out of free will"

Are you seriously claiming that because "you lived a pretty decent life" that the millions of deaths that happened during collectivization are OK?
The only countries that anyone claims "Voluntarily joined" the Soviet Union was the Baltic states, and that was really stretching the definition of voluntary. Have another look at The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

As for how these wars affected "our way of life", it affected it very little because we won.

Almost the entire 20th century was filled with hot and cold wars between democratic governments vs autocratic governments, whether fascist, communist, or socialist. Some were in head to head conflicts such as WWII, others were proxy wars such as Korea and Vietnam. By and large, the expansion of autocratic governments has been stopped through military warfare and economic warfare.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[GenieGenieGenie]

The US fight in the Pacific probably saved many lives elsewhere in Asia, the surrounding archipelagos, and Australia. We were allied with just about every other country fighting Japan.

If everyone had just surrendered to the Japanese, there would have been much fewer deaths in the Pacific theater in WWII. The point of fighting that war was not about saving the quantity of lives, but the quality of them.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Drethon]

Given some of the reports of the war crimes committed by Japan (yes some of these may be the victor writing the history but I don't see many reports refuting this) I'm not sure things would have been better if we surrendered to them. Some of the crimes I believe were committed when the resistance of an area was effectively eliminated...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Can't a bunch of old farts get together and drink

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . without everyone making a international political fuss about it? War is terrible for all . . . and these lucky few just want to celebrate that they managed to get their hairy asses out of that shit alive.

Leave 'em alone.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[ebno-10db]

The Japanese government was installed by the United States after WWII

To their benefit, and I don't give a damn about complaints of paternalism. The US occupation of Japan was one of the most beneficent occupations of a vanquished enemy in history, and whether the motivation was genuine beneficence, ensuring that Japan never threatened us again, or a bulwark against the communists, doesn't change the fact.

Furthermore, the Japanese are free to to change their Constitution, but have chosen not to do so. The "under our direct control" may have been true in the 50's, or arguably the 60's, but certainly not in the 40+ years since. Do you think we'd invade Japan if, for example, they told us to close our bases there? We didn't invade the Philippines when they did so, or France, or New Zealand when they broke the ANZUS agreement.

Re:Can't a bunch of old farts get together and dri

[VortexCortex]

Kind of hard to leave 'em alone when they've got webcams on commemorating (not celebrating) soldier's sacrifice at their last get-together for all the world to see, eh?

Many Japanese were glad when news of surrender came and the war was finally over for them too. Not all their civilians were war mongers. I agree: War is hell for all involved, but for some it's more hellish than for others.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[cold fjord]

I am quite content to both commemorate and celebrate the victory of the allied powers over:

Imperial Japan
Nazi Germany
Fascist Italy

I am quite happy to welcome the friendship of, and cheer for, democratic Japan, Germany, and Italy.

The world would be a very dark place indeed had the former regimes not been defeated.

Now their peoples and nations are shining examples to the world - long may they live and prosper.

Re:Can't a bunch of old farts get together and dri

[cold fjord]

Sometimes it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

now, China...

[harvey the nerd]

China's aggressive govt is looking a lot like Japan's aggressiveness 90 years earlier...

Re:now, China...

[quacking duck]

I'd dispute that. Though they're no doubt capable of inflicting massive damage, the Chinese military does not have the overconfidence borne of defeating a major power in war, like the Japanese had against Russia.

Re:now, China...

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, the "aggressive China government" you see now was then hiding out in north-west China plotting a future back-stab.
Allied China was the Republic of China, better known today as "Taiwan".

Re:now, China...

[Rick Zeman]

I'd dispute that. Though they're no doubt capable of inflicting massive damage, the Chinese military does not have the overconfidence borne of defeating a major power in war, like the Japanese had against Russia.

Exactly. Being that you know something of early-mid 20th century history, are you allowed to participate in this thread?

Re:now, China...

[cheesybagel]

In fact they arguably lost their attempted invasion of Vietnam in the 1970s.

Re:Can't a bunch of old farts get together and dri

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . without everyone making a international political fuss about it? War is terrible for all . . . and these lucky few just want to celebrate that they managed to get their hairy asses out of that shit alive.

Leave 'em alone.

Nobody is making an international political fuss about it. Just a few random commenters on libertarian slanting blogs like Slashdot.

World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders

[Anonymous Coward]

World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders Make Their Final Toast

I hope they didn't burn it.

Re:World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders

[Anonymous Coward]

World War II's Last Surviving Doolittle Raiders Make Their Final Toast

I hope they didn't burn it.

No, but they might have gotten bombed.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[T.E.D.]

The penchant of the Imperial Japanese Forces for mass slaughter was not just propaganda.

No, it was most certainly not. I follow a WWII twitter feed (@RealTimeWWII). They sent one last week talking about the Japanese airdropping food into Chengde full of plague-infected lice.

Now this is the kind of thing that is so cartoonishly evil that I immediately hit Google looking to debunk it. Nope, it happened (note: that link is the human-rights equivalent of a goatse link. Don't click it lightly). In fact, they did a great deal of research into weaponing diseases before discovering that infected lice survived being dropped from altitude better than free diseases do. Then they used it. Over half a million people died.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Charliemopps]

There is no end to war. It's as much a part of us as air and water. Better to learn from it, learn our history, learn the kind of men it takes to end such things and the loss we as a people experience when those men die, than to pretend it never happened. There ARE worse things than war. The continued existence of the 3rd Reich would have killed far more people that the war ever could have, not to mention the effect on human rights and freedoms it would have had. Celebrate violence when violence is the better alternative to a greater evil.

Pinpoint raid, not carpet bombing

[drnb]

Yes, those damn civilians who started a war by going about their daily business! It's great that they died painfully by being burned to death!

The Doolittle Raid was not like the fire bombings that would come in 1945. The attacking bombers were small in number, carrying rather small loads and attacking at a low altitude where they had decent accuracy for the day. They were conducting pinpoint attacks on specific military targets, they were not carpet bombing a city. The raid was largely symbolic for the US and psychological for the Japanese, it did very little damage.

If you are a civilian working on a military base or working at a war munitions factory you legitimately *are* part of the war.

Japan celebrates its war criminals ...

[drnb]

Just imagine Japan doing a celebration of pilots raiding Pearl Harbor.

While the pilots themselves were not war criminals, merely military personnel following legitimate orders to attack a legitimate military target. Actual war criminals, including those who committed atrocities against civilians and prisoners or war, are explicitly included in annual commemorations of Japan's "heroic war dead".

This is one of the major sources of ill will between Japan and its Asian neighbors who were victimized by Imperial Japan. It suggests a lack of sincere remorse.

Or how about Germany holding annual celebrations for pilots of the Blitz?

What Japan does every year is more like including the SS camp guards in their memorial service.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the British Empire is fine, they're good folks.
Imperialist America, too.
Stalinist CCCP are fine, too.

Italy is far too corrupt to fairly be qualified as a democracy, The US is an oligarchy at best, so this whole democracy fetish is silly. Japan was in much better shape during the Imperial days, their economy hasn't grown since the 80s and they're less relevant day by day - not to mention they're castrated and barely sovereign as they're still not allowed to have their own military. Neither Japan nor Italy are shining examples to the world; Germany maybe, if you ignore that the nonsense in Greece and Spain is in part because someone needed to take the fall for Germany.

What are your thoughts on Russia's democracy, is it also a shining example to the world?

Korean War was not controversial ...

[drnb]

South Korea was an unambiguous invasion. The people of the South supported and fought along side us. The fighting was authorized by the United Nations. The Korean War was not controversial like Vietnam, it is merely "forgotten".

Regarding the attitude of getting it done while wishing the enemy had left my country and its friends alone, that characterizes the WW2 vets I grew up around very well. Other than SS troops, which they view as political and part of the problem, the recognized the necessity of it but regretted the killing. Considered it a great waste for both sides.

Executing? Re:What about the Japanese casualties?

[Fubari]

Executing? Perhaps you meant electrocuting (shocking) for science, as per this: Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures .
A fascinating read, and yeah it has creepy implications about what people can do. Something everybody should know about.
Excerpt: The experiment... measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience

You make an excellent point. Reminds me of the experiments where a person was made to think they were executing someone in the name of science. While a part of me keeps saying the brainwashed are weak, I need to remember I'm probably not any stronger and am deluding myself to think otherwise.

Re:Executing? Re:What about the Japanese casualtie

[Drethon]

Thank you... dyslexic one here...

Embargo, not blockade

[drnb]

The US blockade on Japanese shipping and imports had caused intolerable problems so something had to change.

There was *no* blockade. There was an embargo. The U.S. told Japan that as long as it invades/occupies China we would not sell oil, steel, etc to Japan. The change the U.S. *wanted* was for Japan to withdraw its troops from China.

Re:Embargo, not blockade

[real gumby]

Yeah, they wanted Japan out of China, and deservedly so. The US was doing the right thing.

I don't quibble over "blockade" vs "embargo" -- they blocked Japan from the panama canal, for example. But regardless, it was economic pressure, and the Japanese imperial war council chose to respond by fighting. This kind of pressure (called "sanctions" these days, I suppose from the UN sanctioning the restrictions) doesn't work much better now than it did then, unfortunately, though I can't think of much of a better alternative.

Why can't everyone just get along?

Re:Embargo, not blockade

[Talderas]

There was an embargo and Japan was concerned that attacking British, Dutch, and French holdings would drag the US into the war. There are two questions. The first is whether Japan had intents on the Philippines or whether dislodging the US forces there was a necessary step in combination with the attack on Pearl Harbor in order to open up the way towards Australia without leaving a hostile garrison at their backs. The second is whether the US might have gone to war with Japan gobbling up the British, Dutch, and French holdings over concerns that Japan would attack US holdings.

Re:Embargo, not blockade

[Anonymous Coward]

The Panama Canal was a US possession. Not letting someone use your property isn't a blockade any more than not allowing them to use Pearl Harbor to store their boats would have been. Furthermore, the attack was seen as cowardly because they attacked without declaring a state of war, it was about as brave as hitting a guy a bar in the back of the head because be was sitting at your table.

Re:Embargo, not blockade

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, the attack was seen as cowardly because they attacked without declaring a state of war, it was about as brave as hitting a guy a bar in the back of the head because be was sitting at your table.

No. It was about as brave as hitting an armed uniformed military guard in the back of the head because he is guarding the gate to a military base. This was not Nanking where they bayonetted women and children. This was a military base where they bombed sailors, marines and soldiers. The civilians who died off-base were largely killed by friendly fire, US shells returning to earth.

As far as the Japanese military commanders of the attack on Pearl Harbor knew the politicians were declaring hostilities before the attack.

Catching an enemy by surprise, when they are asleep is a valid tactic. One still practiced by the US military.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Rich0]

Indeed - much of Japan's huge success following WWII was the result of Demings work on statistical process control which was rejected by established US industry, but accepted by the occupying government. The result was that Japanese industry rapidly became far more capable of producing quality products at a low cost compared to the US industry of the day. Of course, everybody uses statistical process control these days.

The post-WWII occupation of Japan really is a good example of how to do occupation. However, it probably was only possible due to the local culture, and the surrender of the established authority in Japan. If the orders had been to fight to the death the occupation would have been a lot different.

Re:Executing? Re:What about the Japanese casualtie

[jythie]

I don't know, 'execute' is not that far off since the experiment involved simulating the subject being killed or at least rendered unconscious by the shocks.

Re:Executing? Re:What about the Japanese casualtie

[GumphMaster]

No, he certainly did not mean "electrocuting" (to kill by electricity) any more than "executing" (to murder; assassinate). Both words mean death although the former is more specific about the cause of death. The Milgram experiment involved the use of electric shocks, not electrocution.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Anonymous Coward]

People also seem to take the whole demilitarization of Japan as that's something that actually happened. Despite maintaining only a "Self Defense Force", the JDF Is considered the 24th strongest military in the world with 250,000 active service people and 650,000 in reserve.

The Japanese maritime self defense force has in active service 20+ attack submarines, 5 amphibious assault ships (called Helicopter destroyers, but the biggest is comparable in size to the biggest American LHDs), 8 guided missile destroyers all equipped with the Aegis system, the most advanced fire control system every designed, and 40+ small destroyers. Their navy is about 6th in strength when compared to the US, Russia, China, England and France.

Their Air Force has about 70 fighters based on the F-16 and around 200 F-15s in active service, along with aerial refueling tankers and a large fleet of transport aircraft and helicopters.

Their "self-defense force" is larger and better equipped than most of the nations in the Pacific by a significant margin.

And after Japan's surrender?

[Guppy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#Surrender_and_immunity

After Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupation. MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731, including their leader, in exchange for providing America, but not the other wartime allies, with their research on biological warfare.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[techno-vampire]

There's another major Japanese war crime that's getting more and more forgotten as time goes on: the Bataan Death March. Not only were American and Filipino POWs starved, they were beaten and killed simply because they couldn't march any more. And, when the local civilians turned out to help by offering them food, the guards refused to let them get close enough to do any good and often knocked the offerings onto the dirt and ground them in.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[cheesybagel]

What are your thoughts on Russia's democracy, is it also a shining example to the world?

The Putin/Medved dynamic duo you mean?

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[Drethon]

I think some memebers of the Doolittle raid were forced on the march too. Could be wrong though.

Re:Why must we celebrate violence?

[david_thornley]

Surrendering to the Japanese in WWII meant having your economy trashed, arrogant Japanese soldiers around who knew they were above the law, and often your civilians massacred. Conquering Japan probably saved millions of lived.

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