----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 4:03 PM Subject: Re: Chinese manned space flight
> > (In World War II, the US used flights of 500 to 1000 manned > > bombers to destroy 62 cities [in Japan] and two [more] flights of > > one bomber each to destroy two more cities, using nuclear > > weapons.) > > Russell Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responded: > > I had no idea that the US used those sorts of numbers in their raids - > was this only after Okinawa was taken? > > No, the big raids started earlier, from one or more islands, further > away; I cannot remember which ones (it has been 30 or more years since > I read these histories). > > ... Most of the other airfields used in the island hopping > campaign were barely able to support a squadron of B-17s or B-29s. > > Yes. That is why people started to say `The difficult we do > immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.' > > ... The supply of bombs and fuel to the airfield(s) for > each raid must have been an enormous undertaking. > > Yes, it was. The war, against both Germany and Japan, ended up taking > about a half of US gross domestic product in 1944. > > It is thought that from an organizational point of view, one reason > the generals wanted `1000 bomber' raids is because they knew the > complexity of the organization would show how good they were for the > US military. It is also why Yamomato was opposed to the war before it > started; he knew how many resources the US could put into it, if the > US decided not to accept a negotiated peace after a few months. > > Funny how one stray bomb making an Iraqi orphan is a huge drama > throughout the Western world, and yet less than 60 years ago we were > carpet bombing entire cities into the ground with unguided iron bombs. > > This is an example of new technology enabling people to be more > concerned about killing civilians. But this new technology is much > more recent than 60 years. Remember, people feared bomber and > missle-carried nuclear weapons through much of the Cold war. > > Indeed, it is often said that one of the various reasons that > motivated so many in the US to move to suburbs after WWII is that they > understood that atomic weapons would destroy cities even more > completely than conventional bombs. > > But by the mid or latter 1950s, possible military use of hydrogen > bombs meant that even those who had moved to suburbs could expect to > burn or be killed by a `hard rain' (i.e., radioactively hard fallout). > So people just worried. > > Joan Baez composed the song, `A hard rain is gonna fall'. No, my home boy , who was named after a well known brin-l member, wrote that song. :-) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
