Okay, this is my “conventional wisdom” understanding, which I expect and welcome corrections to –
Some of this is hindsight, we know there was a much higher level of “fight to the death” in WW2 Japan than there was in Germany at the same time. US military knew it based on their hand to hand experiences in the Pacific. Japanese POWs were fewer, I’m sure the “captured guy hiding a grenade” stories moved quickly (though I’m not sure how common that actually was). We found out later about the kamikaze pilots. That may have played a role in the “we have to bomb the population.” Of course, racism also had something to do with it, both in US and Japanese actions throughout the war.
e: None of the above is meant to justify bombing civilians.
There was also an element of frustration involved - initial efforts at traditional strategic bombing had resulted in few noticeable effects because the Japanese war machine was more dependent on labor than on machinery, and could easily be reconstituted at new locations. And Japanese cities were immensely flammable - it didn’t take long for a new, uglier conclusion to be reached.
Postwar analysis of the terror bombings of Japan were not dissimilar to the conclusions reached by the analysis in Europe, though - in both cases, it was a waste of resources that murdered civilians for no substantial gain.
Okay, this is my “conventional wisdom” understanding, which I expect and welcome corrections to –
Some of this is hindsight, we know there was a much higher level of “fight to the death” in WW2 Japan than there was in Germany at the same time. US military knew it based on their hand to hand experiences in the Pacific. Japanese POWs were fewer, I’m sure the “captured guy hiding a grenade” stories moved quickly (though I’m not sure how common that actually was). We found out later about the kamikaze pilots. That may have played a role in the “we have to bomb the population.” Of course, racism also had something to do with it, both in US and Japanese actions throughout the war.
e: None of the above is meant to justify bombing civilians.
There was also an element of frustration involved - initial efforts at traditional strategic bombing had resulted in few noticeable effects because the Japanese war machine was more dependent on labor than on machinery, and could easily be reconstituted at new locations. And Japanese cities were immensely flammable - it didn’t take long for a new, uglier conclusion to be reached.
Postwar analysis of the terror bombings of Japan were not dissimilar to the conclusions reached by the analysis in Europe, though - in both cases, it was a waste of resources that murdered civilians for no substantial gain.