Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: fffreeze220 on July 24, 2003, 04:19:02 AM
-
Today 60 Years ago "Operation Gomorrha" startet. It rained bombs for 10 days on Hamburg. 20.000 killed in 1 nite. The goal was to vipe Hamburg from the map.
-
Was that the first 1000-plane raid?
-
Yes think so - chosen because it was on the coast and could be found by Bomber Command.
-
nah, first 1,000 bomber raid was on Cologne in May 1942, second being against Essen a month later.
-
come a long ways in 60 years ... never get away with that today - though if we had, we wouldn't be losing a GI a day in Iraq..
-
Originally posted by Eagler
come a long ways in 60 years ... never get away with that today - though if we had, we wouldn't be losing a GI a day in Iraq..
Damn, at least put the bait on a line...letting it sink to the bottom makes it too obvious. :)
-
true eagler, today it would just take 1 missile or a/c instead :)
-
Originally posted by GScholz
Like in 1945 you mean?
sorry, mistyped what i meant, i just edited :)
-
Isn't Gomorrha that giant turtle that flew and shot fire out its butt?
-
Originally posted by fffreeze220
Today 60 Years ago "Operation Gomorrha" startet. It rained bombs for 10 days on Hamburg. 20.000 killed in 1 nite. The goal was to vipe Hamburg from the map.
Why would the Luftwaffe do such a thing?
-
Originally posted by fffreeze220
The goal was to vipe Hamburg from the map.
The American goal was the Klockner(?) aero engine factory and the Bloom and Voss yards, not the city.
-
I mourn for those who died in the raid on Hamburg. I've read the accounts.
http://www.valourandhorror.com/BC/Raids/Firebomb1.htm
Still, I can't imagine the horror of dying or even surviving such a terrible assault.
I hope such never happens again. To anyone ... for any reason.
-
"Sow the wind..."
It was an awful war all the way around.
-
i think mathman is on to something. maybe what really happened was that the scientists got that giant turtle that shoots fire out of its bellybutton to burn the city into the ground in exchange for more sweet sweet radiocative lettice
-
Originally posted by Dowding
"Sow the wind..."
It was an awful war all the way around.
And the English were just as bad as the Germans, or even worse, when it comes to this particular method of butchering civilians...
Well, at least the Germans dont put up statues over their butchers, so I guess there has been some progress there at least.
-
Originally posted by GScholz
Sorry Furball, not good enough. Still took only one A/C back in 1945 (think big-booms in Nippon) ;)
yup, but 1943 it didnt, which was 60 years ago :p
-
And the English were just as bad as the Germans, or even worse, when it comes to this particular method of butchering civilians...
The hero master-race more than made up for their 'deficiency' via other methods, eh?
-
Originally posted by Dowding
The master-race more than made up for their 'deficiency' via other methods, eh?
Point being? That since the Germans killed more innocent civilians than the Brits did anyway, what the Brits did is ok?
-
Point being?
Hello? I believe you kicked this off with "...the English were just as bad as the Germans, or even worse...".
That since the Germans killed more innocent civilians than the Brits did...
I like how you compare the systematic genocide of millions of people in a superbly ochestrated and resourced process to what the Allies did. Neat. Neither in scale nor in design are they remotely similar.
And here's the difference: when the Allies won, the killing immediately stopped. If the heroic master-race had won, do you think the killing would have come to a sudden halt?
-
The war wasnt won by firebombing civilians, it was won else where.
Sneaking in at night to kill civilians didnt beat the lw, stop the wehrmacht or liberate a single death camp.
Most of what was learned about the Death camps came to light at the end of the war. Not when Harris was planning how to "dehouse" German Civilians.
-
Originally posted by Batz
The war wasnt won by firebombing civilians, it was won else where.
Sneaking in at night to kill civilians didnt beat the lw, stop the wehrmacht or liberate a single death camp.
Most of what was learned about the Death camps came to light at the end of the war. Not when Harris was planning how to "dehouse" German Civilians.
So if someone tried to "raize to the ground" New York, Washington + all other american cities..... the americans wouldn't retaliate?
-
The war wasnt won by firebombing civilians, it was won else where.
You can't possibly know what the outcome would have been without the bombing. No-one can. Basing your argument on the idea that you have that ability weakens your whole point.
Sneaking in at night to kill civilians didnt beat the lw, stop the wehrmacht or liberate a single death camp.
See point made above. So, all those planes, pilots, fuel and ammo expended in defending the Nazi regime from the air-raids had absolutely no effect on the German war effort?
Most of what was learned about the Death camps came to light at the end of the war. Not when Harris was planning how to "dehouse" German Civilians.
So?
-
The night terror raids werent heavily defended. Do a search on nightfighters.
I am talking the Brit (Harris) dehousing policy. The Brits knew from their experience with Germans bombing their cities that it would not in all likelyhood break their will. All it did was up the body count of women and children. The daylight raids were more efffective not in what they hit but because it forced the lw up where it was destroyed. That didnt happen at night.
That doesnt weaken my point it does just the opposite in showing Harris' bloodlust.
Dont claim morale superiority. The terror bombing by the brits was just as much a crime as any other.
Which goes to Steve's point.
-
But they were defended then? A few posts ago you were saying the complete opposite.
The holocaust was a completely different crime to the 'crime' of night-bombing. It was one of systematic extermination of races and peoples; if the British (and Americans) were so intent on the murder of innocents, as you might say, why didn't they nuke Germany? Why didn't they systematically machine gun people besides freshly dug pits in the ground? Why didn't they build camps in which to gas people and then incinerate them at a rate of hundreds of thousands a month?
You're trying to level a mountain.
-
quote "undefended" in my post.
Harris did have a "system". He "systematically" went about terrorizing civilians. The war ended early for him. Had the war been more difficult for the allies, ie the Russians, then the us might well have "nuked" berlin. The russians were on the verge of victory.
The only thing that stopped Harris was that Großadmiral Dönitz surrendered.
You imply that Harris had to terror bomb German cities as if it was crucial to the war effort. Or that it some way makes up for the death camps. A crime is a crime.
BTW German night fighters didnt constitute "the lw". What defense they put up was meager using mostly planes that had no use in daylight. So yea there was "defense" but for the most part was meaningless. Hardly enough to change the course of the war.
-
Harris did have a "system". He "systematically" went about terrorizing civilians. The war ended early for him. Had the war been more difficult for the allies, ie the Russians, then the us might well have "nuked" berlin. The russians were on the verge of victory.
And the death camps - remind me please? Did the Allies set any up? Did they intend to set any up? Your argument seems to be that the Allies set out to exterminate the German people like the Germans set out to exterminate the Jews or gypsies. Well, all I can say is that they weren't quite as efficient were they?
A crime is a crime.
Kind of like how speeding and axe murdering your entire family are crimes? A crime is a crime, but that coverall statement hides a whole bunch of nuances.
Clearly we are never going convince each other of the validity of our opposing viewpoints, so let me put this to you. Would you agree with the following statement: "The Allies were as bad as the Germans in the prosecution of the war and their treatment of civilians."
-
"The Allies were as bad as the Germans in the prosecution of the war and their treatment of civilians."
No (excluding the Soviets). I never said that. But terror bombing civilians is a crime.
Kind of like how speeding and axe murdering your entire family are crimes? A crime is a crime, but that coverall statement hides a whole bunch of nuances.
No more like blowing up your house then puring gasoline on your entire family and killing them and/or gassing your entire family. Both are equally horrid.
Again Harris wasnt firebombing civilians to stop death camps. He was trying to kill them. The fact there were death camps is irrelevent to his terror policy. They are 2 seperate crimes. Is firing bombing civilians as evil as gassing jews? Yes.
Look at Israel. Does an Arab nail bomber blowing him self up justify an Israeli response of missiles into crowds of Arabs?
Ofcourse not.
Anyway, this is old ground and has been whooped back forth.
-
Originally posted by Dowding
Hello? I believe you kicked this off with "...the English were just as bad as the Germans, or even worse...".
[/b]
LOL, and now you are reduced to ripping quotes in half to make them look bad or something?
I like how you compare the systematic genocide of millions of people in a superbly ochestrated and resourced process to what the Allies did. Neat. Neither in scale nor in design are they remotely similar.
[/b]
They are similar in end result though... Dead innocent civilians, women and children mostly. And as I have been saying in post after post on this subject, it matters little to the victim what the color was on the uniform of the murderer. But then you show up with some retarded "sow the wind" BS...Innocent civilians are just that, no matter what excuse you try to come up with after you have slaughtered them.
-
The point is the attack on civillian houses and districts.
THe goal wasnt the industry.
-
you reap what you sow.....
-
Action A is bad.
Action B is even worse.
Actor C takes action A.
Actor D takes action B.
Observer Z notes that actor C is as bad as actor D.
Observer Y counters that actor D is clearly worse than actor C, and implies that the actions of actor C weren't bad after all since Action B was so much worse.
Funny. :)
-
How pathetic. It's one thing to remember a tragedy of war and the innocent victims of it and quite another to attempt to use it as a Nazi apologist "The Allies were just as bad if not worse" tactic. There be true morons here.
-
Arlo that defense is as you suggest logically flawed. However there are two variants of it:
'the Germans weren't so bad after all - just look at all the slaughtering the allieds did!"
and
"the allies were pure saints compared to the nazis - look at all the slaughtering they did!"
Both are erroneous.
The facts are simple. The Nazis have a horrible record. The Soviets have one that is very bad. The US/UK have a relatively good one, except when it comes to the bombing of civilians. Even there precision bombing was the order of the day (at least in theory) for the Americans.
-
Originally posted by StSanta
Action A is bad.
Action B is even worse.
Actor C takes action A.
Actor D takes action B.
Observer Z notes that actor C is as bad as actor D.
Observer Y counters that actor D is clearly worse than actor C, and implies that the actions of actor C weren't bad after all since Action B was so much worse.
Funny. :)
hehe exactly ... and thats called magic circle :D
and happen things like 1 freedom country bringing freedom to other freedom country...... and people are dieing in name of freedom and only one way out is to bring THEM freedom
:D
-
This is the deal Santa - I DO believe the Allies were pure saints compared to the Nazis. The Nazis kicked off an aggressive war of conquest and enslavement and genocide. They killed 6 million people directly and systematically and millions more civilians due to enslavement and through conflict with the Soviet Union. So it gets on my tits when people try to paint the Allies with the same bloody brush, understand? Yes the Allies did bad things, yes, civilians died - but compared to the blood on German hands its a drop in the ocean.
"The Allies were just as bad as the Germans" is apologist BS of the highest degree.
That's all I have to say on this subject. ;)
And BTW, the Americans also area bombed in Germany, in addition to the firebombing of Tokyo.
-
yeah yeah yeah and enola guy brough freedom to millions of japs... yeah yeah .. no blood, just freedom and saint ideas
-
Still would have been nice if Harris ended his days in 1945, dancing his way to hell at the end of a short rope. I live in Hamburg, My wife is from Hamburg. Our Grandmother had to run 2 miles to the Alster on the night of the firestorm to avoid being burnt alive. Doing more research this past week, I found that the bombers on that raid flew right over where my house is, A lanc crashed not a kilometer from here( and boy do I hope the crew managed to bail and float down into the inferno,instead of quickly riding it in) My house is on a top edge of the Firestorm area. There was a picture of my street in the Hamburger Abendblatt yesterday, nothing but burnt out shells. When they were doing plumbing work a couple of years ago, they had an 8foot deep hole dug in front walk in front of the apartments I live. The hole was filled with blackened old bricks the whole way down. On my way to work everyday I pass where the firestorm started. 35,000 people died in the area I live in one night, I wonder how many in my basement, and if they were the lucky ones who were carbon monoxcided. 35,000 thats 7+x the WTC. Old people, women and children mostly. They survivors spoke of whirlwinds of flame, hurricane force winds sucking people into buildings. blizzards of sparks, a sound like an organ of hell. Infernal heat everywhere, asphalt roads melting and people being trapped in the molten asphalt. Around 40,000 people died totl during the bombing raids that week. Less then 1% were from the 8th AF. I don't fly lancs in AH anymore.
-
I spent Saturday afternoon helping out a veteran of those raids. I'm of the same opinion as him on the matter of justification.
I don't fly lancs in AH anymore.
But you still fly LW planes like the FW-190 or 109? Planes that were hopping over the channel to drop bombs on sleepy little English seaside villages before strafing the local church?
How about the Ju-88? Used to bomb London to bits or Warsaw or Stalingrad?
How about the Stuka? Still on your 'active' list? Used to bomb the crap out of anything and everything from Poland onwards including the strafing of refugee columns in France.
Your moral justifications for flying or not flying a particular plane are entirely your perogative...
-
Ahh...I was going to post but I can usually only stand 10 minutes of reading the tripe in the "geopolitical" posts in here..
It never changes..
..but fortunately my 10 minutes is up.
Carry on..
..as I know you will.
-
40k died? Of 1500k? Now that's really really bad efficiency. Better luck next time.
-
What is your position about the V2 ?
Deadly and undetectable at this time ... and aimed at civilian.
The only thing that protected civilian was the progression of allied troops in Germany.
Instead of trying to determine who was acting the worst between the Allied and the Axis why don't you speak about more consensual subject like food ,beer or girls ?
Your discution won't end and you will end throwing mud at each other.
-
I guess this is not a good thread in which to start singing Johnny Cash songs, is it?
-
lol Gscholz :D If I ever get to Norway, you'll be providing all the prey - I've seen those Norwegian girls and they look very similar to Swedish ones. ;)
This discussion is as pointless as ever, of course.
-
The sad thing is that there are some people out there that wished Nazi Germany hadn't been defeated.
Can anyone compare anything to what the Nazi's did? I mean the Gestapo even killed their own.
-
On a side note, I did eat my young..
Found out even though they were very small you still have to spit the bones out..
-
Originally posted by Replicant
The sad thing is that there are some people out there that wished Nazi Germany hadn't been defeated.
Can anyone compare anything to what the Nazi's did? I mean the Gestapo even killed their own.
Sure! :( The Communists are far far worse. For example Stalin deliberatly killed some 20-30 million of his own people from 1925 to the late 1930s - this alone makes him worse than anything the Nazis did, they "only" :eek: managed to kill 12 million in their deliberate extermination efforts over their 12 year regime. Lets not forged Stalin also signed off on the start of WW2, sined off on and participated in the joint Nazi/Soviet invasion, partion enslavement and ultimate extermination of Poland and many of her citizens. Then of course there was the NKVD led Katyin massacre of 20,000 Poles right of the bat in 1939. Remember, Poland was the country that suffered more than any other in WW2. Then they went on to enslave half of europe for 50 years.. Of course it gets even worse if you start to add in Mao, Pol-Pot etc etc...
The truly sad thing is that there as still some people today, even on this BBS, who lament the communist defeat in the cold war, wish they won and think that stalin was a great leader... I wont name specific names, it would be impolite, but a hint is, one of those names may include the letters, in no particular order, b, o, r, o, d, and a... :mad:
-
Man, wars start, you just don't know who's gonna die before they end, do ya?
-
Originally posted by Pooh21
Still would have been nice if Harris ended his days in 1945, dancing his way to hell at the end of a short rope. I live in Hamburg, My wife is from Hamburg. Our Grandmother had to run 2 miles to the Alster on the night of the firestorm to avoid being burnt alive. Doing more research this past week, I found that the bombers on that raid flew right over where my house is, A lanc crashed not a kilometer from here( and boy do I hope the crew managed to bail and float down into the inferno,instead of quickly riding it in) My house is on a top edge of the Firestorm area. There was a picture of my street in the Hamburger Abendblatt yesterday, nothing but burnt out shells. When they were doing plumbing work a couple of years ago, they had an 8foot deep hole dug in front walk in front of the apartments I live. The hole was filled with blackened old bricks the whole way down. On my way to work everyday I pass where the firestorm started. 35,000 people died in the area I live in one night, I wonder how many in my basement, and if they were the lucky ones who were carbon monoxcided. 35,000 thats 7+x the WTC. Old people, women and children mostly. They survivors spoke of whirlwinds of flame, hurricane force winds sucking people into buildings. blizzards of sparks, a sound like an organ of hell. Infernal heat everywhere, asphalt roads melting and people being trapped in the molten asphalt. Around 40,000 people died totl during the bombing raids that week. Less then 1% were from the 8th AF. I don't fly lancs in AH anymore.
And my father grew up in a street in London where the only building standing were the block of flats that they lived in.
If the nazi b*stards had a bomber as capable as the lanc, you think they would have used it against british/any other countries cities??
Europe spent virtually the entire first half of the last century either at war with, or worrying about war with germany. So don't act like you did nothing wrong.
-
Dowding wrote:
This is the deal Santa - I DO believe the Allies were pure saints compared to the Nazis.
Well everything is relative. I happen to agree with you in the sense that if you compare allies (excluding Russians) to nazis, then the nazis are a lot worse. What I was trying to point out was that this does not necessarily mean that the allies were all good.
So it gets on my tits when people try to paint the Allies with the same bloody brush, understand? Yes the Allies did bad things, yes, civilians died - but compared to the blood on German hands its a drop in the ocean.
Am not trying to paint them with same brush. Am trying to remain objective. Even with the Germans killing some 10 million civilians or somesuch, the deliberate killing of hundreds of thousands of refugees/citizens held up in cities is STILL a bad thing. It's nothing compared to the nazis, that is true, but it's still pretty bad.
The nazi regime was a sick and twisted one with no moral compass. The allies were the good guys here. And in 90% of the cases they did the honourable thing - but still at times they stooped to methods better left to their enemy.
"The Allies were just as bad as the Germans" is apologist BS of the highest degree.
Read my post again and you'll see that I never made that claim (if you're referring to me that is). I am saying that the nazis were horrible and that the allies also did some pretty bad things. But there's a clear distinction in degree.
That's all I have to say on this subject.
'Winners write history'. Had Germany won a lot of US/British airforce people would have been executed for genocide. Ironic, huh?
FWIW, I disagree with the carpet bombing of German towns. The Americans at least tried to hit military targets. with the exception of the two nuclear bombs. The latter I think saved more lives than they took, but I am not sure you can say the same about say the firebombing of Dresden or Hamburg. So I disagree with this part of the war but let there be no doubt; I am very thankful for the fact that the Germans lost. There are no illusions in my mind about what kind of a regime the nazi one was and how many (endless) times better the UK/US was/is. Am just saying that we need to be open enough to recognize a bad thing regardless of which side does it. And 'bad thing' is different from 'horrible thing', so i am not equalling the two.
-
Like I said, the Allies did do some horrific things. But I stand by the assertion that relative to the Nazis or the Japs it was a drop in the ocean. That does not neccessarily justify those acts, but it puts them in perspective.
Read my post again and you'll see that I never made that claim (if you're referring to me that is).
I wasn't aiming that comment at you, or anybody in particular. But I have seen it on this board, and I think it is a common view. The worrying thing is that young modern Germans seem to hold that view too, according to a newspaper I was reading the other day.
The statement 'the victors write the history books' has some truth to it. But all too often it is used as a thinly veiled apologist argument i.e. the crimes were not as bad as made out because of hype and propaganda.
The Americans at least tried to hit military targets.
Apart from the firebombing of Tokyo you mean?
Am just saying that we need to be open enough to recognize a bad thing regardless of which side does it. And 'bad thing' is different from 'horrible thing', so i am not equalling the two.
I am in complete agreement and have said as much previously. But its the second sentence that people have problems with - they are not prepared to make that judgement.
-
Originally posted by Furball
And my father grew up in a street in London where the only building standing were the block of flats that they lived in.
If the nazi b*stards had a bomber as capable as the lanc, you think they would have used it against british/any other countries cities??
Europe spent virtually the entire first half of the last century either at war with, or worrying about war with germany. So don't act like you did nothing wrong.
Since I doubt very much whether Pooh was actually active in the Nazi party in wartime Germany he can act like he did nothing wrong - bombing of Dresden btw was considered by many in Britain to be a war crime and for that reason it was many years before the statue of Arthur Harris was put up.
War is a nasty messy business and there are very few black's and white's - was fighting Hitler's Germany a just war - yes, was Stalin worse than Hitler - probably, where the Allied forces blameless in terms of death of civilians and prisoner's of war - of course not.
-
I was talking about the country when i said that, not him personally.
Threads like these just bug me very much.
-
Originally posted by Furball
Threads like these just bug me very much.
Like most others. That's why there are war's after all. If everyone was looking at things a completely objective and calm way there wouldn't.
Was the genoicde in germany actually a war crime? Weren't the most jews killed within germany's borders by police not military, so this would be an internal affair? This of course doesn't makes things less horrible, but comparing if one war crime is worse than another war crime...