f423b7c1   
   XPost: us.politics, can.politics, alt.military   
   From: onyx@excite.com   
      
   Mr.Smartypants wrote   
      
   > US Strategic Bombing Survey Verdict   
   >   
      
   >   
   > General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany   
   > and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served   
   > as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb   
   > had nothing to do with the end of the war."   
   >   
   >   
      
      
      
      
   A sound and well thought out verdict, and believe me.  I'm the last one to   
   sit back in my easy chair and be a retrospective arm-chair general because of   
   having family who were in Bomber Command, being told stories that didn't make   
   it into the history books until well after WW2. I know why my uncles and   
   their friends bombed the hell out of cities that had fuck all to do with the   
   war.   And I know that Churchill knew about Coventry, but evacuating the   
   people would have exposed how they had broke the German communication codes,   
   so they let it happen.   The response was Dresden.   
      
   Both were cities that had little to do with the industrial war effort.   
      
   Thousands died in Coventry, and Dresden.   
      
   The common acceptance that the USA was faced with a massive land army and the   
   nuclear decision was the right thing to do, is commonly accepted propaganda   
   in my view.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)