Operation Meetinghouse

[sniperplays]

Hirohito:”this is a great national loss”
Truman: hold my beer

[The_Honcho]

My grandfather was in a B-24 crew stationed at Okinawa during this, he told me that during the night you would just see the entire horizon facing Japan covered in a orange hue, like the dawn from Okinawa.

[akken]

"if we lost the war, we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals"----General Curtis LeMay

[dannycrockett]

Gen Curtis Lemay was behind that bombing. My father at 22 years old was one of those pilots. Lemay would later quip that Hiroshima was "nothing, we burned, baked, and scorched more Japs on March 9th of "45" than Hiro and Nagasaki did combined".
My dad wrote his memoirs, we never knew he was writing, and left them for me to put together after his death in 2001 at 80 years old. Dad had never once spoke of the 49 bombing campaigns he flew to anyone other than my mother, so my heart skipped a beat when I realized he had left 87 type written pages. Of March 9th 1945, he wrote was singing aloud for last bit of the mission in, I can hear him now as I write this, and the memory takes me back there. (At this point my dad switched to writing in a present tense, and I realized that he wrote well and almost poetically) He is singing Paper Doll, a song I never cared much for. We are in the 2nd wave, no matter, little chance of being shot down at this stage and I feel safer than I would driving late night on a busy Chicago road. Jesus H Christ, Tokyo is lit entire and we are flying over a gigantic volcano or the portal to Hell itself. Nobody, nothing can be alive down there. Cal says something comical as usual, but I can't really hear him. Why, I am wondering, are we wasting anymore ordinance on these rats?END

Later in his writings, dad would say that it was only after the war when he and my mom visited Japan (1959) and toured every museum and archive that he began to experience waves of guilt and horror over all that had happened. He wrote that "the waves never really bothered me during the day, but the "ghosts of these children and their mothers came to me many nights in my sleep and pointed their cooked and crooked fingers at me in accusation."

For most of my early childhood, it would be maybe twice monthly where I'd wake to the sounds of my father screaming in his sleep. My room was right next to his and mom's so I always shot awake. Strangely, my sister and brother seldom woke. It was terrifying for me as a little kid because it sounded as if he was being tortured, burned maybe. Then I would hear my mother's sweet voice as she whispered him down to a safe place. "It's okay now, " I would her her tell him repeatedly, it's okay now." And my giant, strong father would actually whimper as if he doubted her. Sometime I'd hear his say through his tears and sweat, "are you sure?" he would ask, are you sure they're not here?" And my mom would promise his that they were absolutely not here, and that he was just dreaming again and could go back to sleep. The following morning would be identical to every weekday morning. My dad would be upbeat, dressed in suit and tie and ready to continue climbing to the top of that national insurance company where he'd eventually retire as Senior V.P.
It took my decades to discover that "they, " my father's demons, were long dead Japanese women and children.
I've been working to put my dad's work, his memories, as well as my mom's, into a book that I hope to finish by next year. It was my mom who pieced it all together, telling me that their visit to Tokyo all those years ago had started the nightmares. She said it was an exhibit on the firebombing and napalm assault on that city of wood that struck his heart so fiercely. And that a picture, and single photo, would haunt him for many, many years. It was a photo of a dead person, likely a mother, who was nothing more than bones. The heat was so intense that it had strippend the flesh instantly, and this mother figure of bones was still cradling the skeleton of a child, with the obvious skeleton of a small dog laying beside them. Mom said that my father had told her after one of his nightmares that he somehow knew he'd killed them, and that it was they who came to him deep in the night for all those years and miles later.

My mom passed last year at 100 yrs old. She was in dementia, and every time she'd walk past a pic of my dad on her dresser that showed him at 21 in officer's uniform, she would stop and salute.
Sorry for the long diatribe but may as well finish. My dad was actually healthy when he died. He'd gone to buy a birthday card for a neighbor at a 7-11 type store and three teen's carjacked him when he came out in broad daylight. He resisted and was dragged for 3 blocks by his jacket that had caught in the door. A Nigerian immigrant, driving a city bus, who had only been in America for three years, saw the scene and cut the car off, forcing the 14 year old driver to stop, but it was too late for my 80 year old dad. He'd suffered massive head trauma and was dead at the scene. All three teens are free today. At court, the one who actually went to trial, tried to say that the entire incident was because my father had called them the big racial no-no. Speaking to her before sentencing, my mother simply said to the girl, "I would have much preferred that you simply said I'm sorry.

Again, I apologize for dragging on. I have long been working on this book and you get this angst to talk about it. This great YouTube piece gave me the opportunity to bore everybody with my own personal crap. LOL.

[dkf]

Yes, conventional and incendiary bombing did much more destruction than the atomic weapons, but it took the atomic weapons to make Japan realize that they needed to stop the war.

[miloshbrunno]

They learned, don't mess with guy who has bigger stick!!! 🇺🇸

[joelspringman]

"It even caught the attention of the emperor."
Duh, do ya think??

[Rudest]

Japan : Bro it was just a boat
America:my boats are like my dogs

[Sterben]

Nobody talks about what Japan was doing in China during this war and that they were told repeatedly to stop. This is what happens when the sleeping giant awakes ! Glad Japan is different now and took their country back from the military.

[Munthasir]

One important fact to mention was that United States didn’t expect even half of the bombers to survive till the destination. Thats why there were so many bombers that were sent expecting perhaps a little less than half of them will make it. In the end the lack of air defense means the city was lit up.

[acun]

They don't say "War is hell" for no reason.

[MrReed]

The bombing by the Allies on Dresden, (The Dresden Firestorm), is also worth mentioning...Witnesses described that a giant tornado made of fire was created..

[thescarletandgrey]

Yet the emperor still refused to permit surrender.

[joeykonyha]

The firestorm was so intense that some of the bombers were nearly flipped over from the fire driven winds welling up from the ground. Bomber crews reported being able to smell the burning human flesh of the dead.

[bencoss]

didn't know what the operation name was, but I've seen those pictures before.

[alicannon]

"War is hell"
- Gen. W. T. Sherman

To win a war, you must slaughter all the demons. 😮

[MadScientyst]

A national loss?!
That was damn near total annihilation....IMO

[theoriginalcornisgood.]

As the view of a part Chinese person born and raised in SEA where Japanese war crimes were committed and due to the war crimes it is still mourned and not forgotten as it can't be. Imperial Japan had it coming. Stay on your island modern Japan. Not to say America is any good since it isn't and is no where near an innocent country but we do have to say thank you for giving imperial Japan what they deserve for harming civilians.

[kimdurig]

It's hard to believe they kept fighting at that point, if they only knew what was to come .

[markhawes]

Japan started the party was surprised at the ending hangover.