yen said:
I don't believe the fact that they had 1000's of Japanese Kamikazi's ready to go in either. The bombers flew in without much conflict at all. Why? The Japanese air force had already been nearly wiped out. We had no resistance on our way to bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(This is just one of MANY that I have found...there are many sites that have this info. Especially now that they have opened A LOT of old classified documents to the public recently. The fact is that the word Kamikaze means what?! Oh thats right it means : a member of a Japanese air attack corps in World War II assigned to make a
suicidal crash on a target (as a ship).
Think about it)
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The Sixth Army assessed that there were 5,000 enemy combat planes of all types within range of intervention. In addition, an estimated 4,000 - 5,000 training planes could be used for kamikaze attacks. [/font]
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The Sixth Army also believed that the Japanese would fight the decisive battle on Kyushu, and commit all of their aircraft, primarily in kamikaze attacks. Upwards of 10,000 aircraft would be available to the Japanese to conduct an all-out suicide air offensive against the transport ships and landing craft. These attacks would be strengthened by the probable widespread use of the suicide-piloted rocket plane (BAKA), which was modeled after the German V-1 rocket bomb.[/font]
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USAFPAC estimates said that Japans airforce was limited in numbers and capabilities. 2,000 would be first line aircraft, while the remainder would be training planes or obsolete models. It was expected that an intense and violent air reaction would occur prior to landing, and probably consist largely of kamikaze attacks. [/font]
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The attacks would include both massed air attacks, and frequent small sorties. However, it was assessed that no more than 500 to 800 aircraft would be sacrificed in attempts to prevent the Allied landing, therefore this threat would be manageable by the massive Allied naval and air invasion force. There was the belief that the Japanese were going to save the preponderance of their aircraft for the decisive battle on the Tokyo Plain, which would come in the spring of 1946. [/font]
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The kamikaze attacks against the U.S. fleet at Okinawa came after the aircraft flew more than 500 miles over open ocean. Many inexperienced pilots lost their way and never reached the American fleet. This great distance also allowed the fleet to receive early warning from picket ships and scramble fighters to engage the kamikazes. Bad weather in the target area also hampered the kamikaze pilots from acquiring their targets. With all of these difficulties, the Japanese ratio of planes launched to planes successfully striking their targets was 1 in 9. [/font]
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The Japanese flew 1,840 "special-attack" planes during the battle for Okinawa. A ratio of 1 in 9 would equate to approximately 202 planes striking their targets. The U.S. Navy reported 192 ships hit by kamikaze planes during the battle of Okinawa; of these, 15 were sunk. [/font]
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Although the damage inflicted by the Kamikaze planes was superficial, they managed to kill 12,300 American servicemen and wound 36,400.[/font]
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For the defense of Kyushu the Japanese were to employ upwards of 10,000 kamikaze planes. [/font]
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It is highly probable that the Japanese suicide attack hit ratio would have been higher, probably closer to 1 in 6 or 1 in 7. At these ratios, 1,400 to 1,600 kamikaze aircraft would have hit American ships. With their targets being transports, the casualty rate per hit would have been higher than at Okinawa where destroyers were the primary target. [/font]
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In addition to the kamikaze aircraft, the U.S. fleet also would have had to deal with all of the Japanese Navy's special attack boats and midget submarines. Even if the suicide attacks were only marginally successful, the U.S. attack ratio would have eroded still farther. If the Japanese did succeed in delivering 1,500 hits against the transports, the mythical "Divine Wind" may well have blown again, turning away another invasion fleet. [/font]
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On 18 July 1945, the Joint War Plans Committee issued another Memorandum for the President to assist Truman in preparing for the Potsdam Conference. This memorandum again highlights the misunderstanding of the situation on Kyushu at the strategic level. It claimed;[/font]
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"the nature of the objective area in Kyushu gives maneuver room for land and sea operations. For these and other reasons it is probable that the ground cost in ground force casualties for the first 30 days of the Kyushu operation will be on the order of that for Luzon. Naval casualties will probably be at about the same rate as for Okinawa."[/font]
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With the casualty ratios of those battles applied to Operation Olympic, the estimate for U.S. casualties would have been 94,000 killed and 234,000 wounded. The total casualty estimate of 328,000 equates to 57 percent of the U.S. ground forces slated for Olympic. On the Satsuma Peninsula, the V Amphibious Corps casualty estimate would have been 13,000 killed and 34,000 wounded, or approximately 54 percent of the Marine force. This casualty estimate for VAC is made without any additional Japanese forces moving into the 40th Army's zone. Add to these estimates the results of kamikaze attacks against transports, and the battle for Kyushu would have been devastating to the American people[/font]
yen said:
What about us putting INNOCENT Japanese American civilian in our own personal concentration camps. Is this not wrong?
, hmmmm how do you want to compare the two? Oh thats right you really can't.
First off they were Internment camps or Relocation centers. Although this in retrospect is not very cool, we felt at the time it was necessary to prevent spies etc, and to maintain national security. While there was schools, medicine, stores.....visits by Red Cross etc. I could go on and on about how it might have been uncomfortable but not an EXTERMINATION camp as you are trying to put it.
Let us just get some things out of the way.
We A. Have publicly apologized for this.
We B. Have paid restitutions.
Now lets look at the Japanese government and their WAR CRIMES! and POW camps....I don't know if you can possibly stomach them though so I won't go into detail. I will just point out a couple of things.
They A. NEVER apologized
They B. NEVER paid restitutions to the POW's AND INNOCENT CIVILIANS (captured or killed)
They C. Write it out of their history books.
Man read up before you jump onto something!