Talk:Air raids on Japan/Archives/2015/July

Napalm

In the documentary "Last Days of WWII," it is stated that the U.S. destroyed more Japanese cities with napalm than they did with atomic bombs. This might be an interesting fact to work in to the article. I did not find the work "napalm" in the article as it is currently written, and it may surprise some to learn that it was a common weapon of WWII. It's also explained in the documentary why it was so effective in Japan as opposed to Germany, due to different construction methods used in the cities of the era.

The same documentary discusses the psychological toll on U.S. pilots, who flew virtually unopposed near the end of the war. Many would break down and cry after a bombing run, and survivors who were interviewed still grappled with guilt.

Sorry, I no longer have access to the documentary, so I can't reference those aspects of the bombing campaign. Canute (talk) 18:27, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Atomic Bomb

I`m not sure why there is only one other suggestion here..the article looks pretty good..maybe somebody researched it before they wrote it. B. H. Liddell Hart wrote in his book on WWII that the US conventional bombing of Japan had all but ended the war..the Japanese were within days of surrendering primarily due to these air raids..Truman ok`d the drop to prove to the Russians he had it and to justify the expense to congress. 24.177.239.72 (talk) 18:34, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

The 'Results' section discusses this kind of thing. That view isn't taken seriously by modern historians, who attribute the Japanese Government's decision to surrender to the combination of multiple factors (the conventional bombing, the Soviet intervention into the war, the atomic bombings, the blockade, etc). Likewise, the US decision to use the atomic bombs was complex, and the bombs were genuinely seen as being necessary as a possible means to end the war without having to invade Japan. Nick-D (talk) 04:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

The year of any date mentioned should be clear even to a casual reader

The first sentence in Section 5, Firebombing attacks, is: "USAAF planners began assessing the feasibility of a firebombing campaign against Japanese cities in 1943." The end of this paragraph is: "...but this project was abandoned in 1944." The first sentence of the next paragraph says: "In light of the poor results of the precision bombing campaign and the success of the 25 February raid on Tokyo, LeMay decided to begin firebombing attacks on Japan's main cities during early March." This must mean 25 February 1943, and March 1943; right? Then for three full "pages" no year is mentioned. The next mention of the year is 1945 in a picture caption three full pages later. Finally, five full pages after that mention of 1943, 1945 is mentioned in the text. What happened to 1944? Eventually, I figured out that the whole thing took place in 1945.

We should not expect that every reader will carefully peruse an article from its beginning to its end. Some people skim an article; others are looking for something specific. We should make their effort as easy and accurate as possible. In an article of this type, the year of what is happening in a paragraph should be clear. The first mention of a date in every subsection (even small ones) of a section should include the year, and the year should also be included with any subsequent date mentioned in the subsection if there is any reasonable possibility that some casual readers might not be certain about what year that that date is referring to. It is better to mention the year a few too many times than risk confusing the reader by failing to mention it enough times. The year of what is being discussed, in an article of this type, should probably be visible on the reader's screen at all times, so that a mere glance can refresh the reader's memory.

I think Wikipedia should strongly recommend something similar to what I say just above. Wikifan2744 (talk) 18:59, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Human toll of air raids

I noticed this (very long) article minimizes the human toll and suffering caused by the air raids. The Japanese version of the article, for instance, includes many pictures of the wastelands the bombing turned Japanese cities into, and I'm sure there are survivors' accounts that would bring to life what this bombing looked like on the ground. But on the other hand, I could see these sorts of additions as being subtly POV, so perhaps this is why they were kept to a minimum? Yet in a sense focusing on monotonous accounts of raids and targets and factories and casualty numbers almost sucks the human element out of the story. Brutannica (talk) 16:23, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it might be worth writing a bit about the situation "on the ground." That might be a valuable addition, provided it stays neutral, as you said. GeneralizationsAreBad (talk) 16:26, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the article should cover the experiences of Japanese civilians and military personnel in greater detail, but what sources can be used for this? When I was researching the article the sources on the Japanese experiences of the raids tended to be either lightweight and difficult to use (eg, oral histories and the like) or focused on high politics. The copyright status of many of the photos of ruined Japanese cities is also questionable (many depend on tags asserting that copyright has expired on questionable grounds which are impossible to verify), so they need to be used with care in a FA here. Nick-D (talk) 23:18, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Photos first published in Japan before 31 December 1956 are in the public domain. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:30, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but often the images were uploaded with an assertion that they'd been published (or, from memory, that the photographer had died before whatever the critical date for that PD status is) but no details to verify this. The article does currently include several photos of the massive destruction of Japanese cities. If anything, the main shortcoming in the photos is the lack of good images of the Japanese defences - the best I could find was the fighter in a museum and the photo of an American bomber being shot down. Nick-D (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I was just about to point out that the Shizuoka photo may not be in the public domain—it was scanned from a book published in 1980. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:39, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I may not have time to do this over the course of the FAC, but I'll keep my eyes open for good photos at the library (I live in Shizuoka). I imagine there are a ton in the newpaper archives, at least, and I've seen books on the subject that may have photos they indicate were published before 1956. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I see the problem here. I realize that most military history articles don't go into civilian suffering (or even veterans' experiences) and it's not usually considered "encyclopedic" material. But then again, this event is considered a traumatic and pivotal episode in Japanese history and lingers in the national memory, so I think a good article would reflect this. Oral histories were pretty much what I was thinking of, but if they're considered lightweight maybe I should just drop the issue. Brutannica (talk) 05:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is the scale: there are so many tragic stories from the survivors (and outside observers) that there is no room for them in a summary-style encyclopedia article. Instead, these accounts are found in lengthy books. We should strive to convey the tragedy, but we are bound to fall short because of the format. Binksternet (talk) 06:15, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I should note that part of the reason I set out to note all the major raids in the article was to drive home to readers the sheer scale of the bombing, especially during the period May-August 1945. I was surprised at just how extensive the bombing was, and this seemed to be the best way to get the message across. The figures for the number of people evacuated from the cities and the proportions of the cities which were destroyed are rather "dry", but tell a terrible story. Nick-D (talk) 08:30, 6 July 2015 (UTC)