250,000 were killed by the US fire-bombing of Tokyo

[Recursion]

That's more than two and a half times as many as were killed by the atomic devices at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Why are we still talking about the nuclear bombings, but not the bombing of Tokyo?

[Schema Thing]

1. Don't be silly

The firebombings of Japanese cities should be discussed of course.

But not as a lame comparison to this at-the-time-new ultimate instantaneous killing device (which have only gotten much more lethal in the years since).

[Recursion]

3. Sure they should, but as far as I can tell except for this post they aren't.

But, like clockwork, come August the much less lethal nuclear bombings of two port cities are.

[PoliticAverse]

2. ...

LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

From: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War

[Recursion]

4. Tokyo and Dresden would definitely both count as war crimes had we lost

Honestly there's a stronger case for those two than for Nagasaki.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. We don't spend much time talking about Stalingrad either.

While you could argue the total casualties were larger in other places, they didn't happen in one big air burst that heralded the dawn of nuclear warfare.

[Recursion]

6. The dawn and, as yet, the sunset

Hell, even India and Pakistan have seemed to figure out that these things can't actually be used in anger again.

[MillennialDem]

13. Or Moscow or Leningrad or Kursk or Bagration or Berlin. The Eastern Front would have been

larger than WWI in its own right and was larger than the rest of WWII combined.

Of course the Germans were convicted for war crimes but I'm sure the Soviets would have been as well if they lost, though getting convicted by Hitler doesn't say much...

[edhopper]

7. I have always seen it placed at

100,000 to 140,000. Where did you get that figure?

(yes, still more than the A-Bombs)

[Recursion]

9. Sorry, misunderstood the post, let me try again

250K is the high end from Tipton (2002), including exposure deaths in the following winter. The low end is, as you said, about 100,000, which still exceeds (as you pointed out) the high end of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[edhopper]

10. Yes

if we include all causalities, killed, injured, displaced, later died. It starts approaching a million.

But your point does stand.

And the causalities from an invasion would have been massive on both sides.

[sarisataka]

11. Operation Meeting House

the night of 9-10 March, 1945 required three hours for ~300 B-29s to drop 2,000 tons of incendiaries. It destroyed 25% of Tokyo and killed upwards of 100,000.

Special Mission 13 targeted Hiroshima with 1 plane and 1 bomb. It destroyed 69% of the city and killed 70,000-80,000 in an instant.


Two versions of horror, but the second shows us the door to Armageddon.

[Recursion]

12. Cold Harbor was deadlier for a generic infantryman than Verdun

But I take your point.

[sarisataka]

14. When war gets personal

a grunt doesn't care. That guy with the AK is just as deadly as the ICBM but is much more immediate.