Why the Emperor prostrated himself

James Bogle brought to OnePeterFive a Catholic take against dropping those two bombs on Japan, on Nagasaki in particular as it was something of a holy city for us. The argument is lazy, at best.

One annoying critique, or canard, concerns the terms of surrender, which we've already handled. There is however a challenge not yet addressed on this blog: whether bombs even were worth it. It occurs to me that this is the necessary background into what induced Japan to soften its terms.

Bogle points out that bombing costs money. It cost a lot more in the early 1940s, because most bombs... missed. If they didn't miss the chemistry posed limits on how much damage they did and on how far they were effective.

For various reasons, both sides figured that they could make it up in volume. First Schiklgruber ordered the shift of the Battle of Britain to the Blitz - against bombing RAF and toward bombing Coventry. This did not make that side of mine ancestry any more inclined to swap out the blue for black. Then upperclass twits like Lord Cherwell figured that since they'd started it, we should do the same for Dresden. Dresden did have some military value - but mostly outside where the people were living. So that bombing didn't work either. (Cherwell was born a "Lindemann", so maybe felt he had something to prove.)

We are in agreement that carpet bombing was an expensive mistake. But what if it could be made cheaper?

The true constraint on bomb damage, as Bogle knows, isn't chemistry. It's physics: it's mc². Assemble enough nonchemical ordnance, and that frees up bombers to do conventional work. Like guarding those convoys, or knocking out carriers and the Yamato. Blasting civilian concentrations remains a mistake, but a less expensive mistake.

We could also cite Malcolm Gladwell's probable-best book, The Bomber Mafia. Precision bombing - "smart bombing" - was meanwhile lowering the cost of hitting those military targets.

Now we're ready for the actual argument. On to why Fogle even poasted what he poasted. (I mean, besides that he doesn't read here, and, yeah, I'd understand why trads might not love every poast I poast...)

I actually don't think that Fogle holds any brief for the Axis (as some "trads" held at the time), especially not its Shinto side; any more than the Pope at the time did. Likewise it's risible that Fogle has been secretly rooting for the eventual victor of the war to gobble up Hokkaido too, which he would have (make the Mosir, Ainu again?).

I can only conclude that Fogle's was an exercise in pandering. He's singing The Very Sorry Song. He's making his (lame) argument to show the Japanese establishment he's one of the good 'uns. Then maybe-just-maybe Japan will be more inclined to set up Nagasaki as a Catholic site.

I grant to the Nihonjin more credit to their IQ.