Why the US didn't Nuke Tokyo

Summary

This script explores the historical context and decision-making behind the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It delves into the grim rationale, influenced by the devastating firebombing of cities like Dresden, and the U.S.'s desire to demonstrate the power of its new weapon. The narrative challenges the simplified view of World War II, highlighting the complexities of warfare, civilian casualties, and the moral implications of such actions. It also touches on the overshadowing of firebombing by the atomic bombings and the selective focus in historical narratives.

Takeaways

• 📅 On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, marking a pivotal moment in history that thrust humanity into the nuclear age.
• ✈️ Six B-29 Stratofortress bombers were involved in the operation, with three having specific roles: weather reconnaissance, observation, and carrying the atomic payload.
• 🌟 The attack plane, named 'Enola Gay' after the pilot's mother, targeted Hiroshima due to its industrial significance and relatively intact state compared to other Japanese cities.
• 💥 The atomic bomb instantly vaporized thousands and caused extensive destruction and casualties through burns, debris, and radiation, affecting half of Hiroshima's population.
• 🔫 Three days post-Hiroshima, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with estimates of 40,000 to 70,000 dead, demonstrating the immense power of nuclear weapons.
• 🏙 The selection of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not due to their size or industrial importance but was influenced by the objective to showcase the bomb's impact on an undamaged city.
• 🔍 The script discusses the grim reality of World War II, including the firebombing of German city Dresden, which obliterated the city and resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
• 🔥 The U.S. strategy of firebombing Japanese cities, including Tokyo, was aimed at causing mass casualties and destruction to force surrender, but it led to immense civilian suffering.
• 🤔 The script raises questions about the morality of bombing civilians and the effectiveness of such tactics in achieving surrender, challenging the narrative of 'good' and 'evil' in war.
• 📚 It highlights the importance of historical perspective, questioning how history is written and which events are remembered or forgotten, particularly the overshadowing of firebombing by the atomic bombings.
• 🧠 The video also touches on the role of scientific and mathematical expertise in the development of nuclear weapons and the ethical considerations of using such technology in warfare.

Q & A

What was the significance of the date August 6, 1945, in the context of the script?

August 6, 1945, marked the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, from a B-29 Stratofortress bomber named Enola Gay, which changed the course of history and initiated the nuclear age.

Why were three B-29 bombers initially sent ahead of the main group on the mission described in the script?

Three B-29 bombers were sent ahead to check weather conditions at the potential targets, ensuring that the bombing run would be conducted under optimal visibility and atmospheric conditions for the payload delivery.

What was the role of the plane named after the pilot's mother in the bombing of Hiroshima?

The plane named Enola Gay, after the pilot's mother, was the actual bomber aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, having a clear view of the industrial city to execute the bombing run.

What impact did the atomic bomb have on the population of Hiroshima?

The atomic bomb vaporized thousands of people instantly, with many more dying from burns, falling debris, and radiation. It affected approximately 50% of the population of Hiroshima.

Why were Hiroshima and Nagasaki chosen as targets for the atomic bombings?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen due to their large urban areas, strategic value, and the fact that they were relatively intact compared to other cities that had already been heavily bombed, allowing the full destructive power of the atomic bomb to be demonstrated.

What was the role of Alex Wellerstein in the script?

Alex Wellerstein is a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology who specializes in the history of nuclear weapons and is known for creating the Nuke Map, an interactive tool that allows users to see the potential impact of a nuclear bomb on various cities.

What was the significance of the battle of Okinawa in the decision to use the atomic bomb?

The battle of Okinawa was a significant and bloody conflict that demonstrated the intensity of Japanese resistance and the high cost of an invasion of mainland Japan. This influenced the decision to use the atomic bomb as a means to potentially avoid further invasion and loss of life.

What was the Dresden firebombing, and how does it relate to the script's discussion on the bombing of Japanese cities?

The Dresden firebombing was a devastating attack by the Allies during World War II that destroyed the city and resulted in a large loss of life. It is mentioned in the script to illustrate the strategy of targeting civilian areas to force surrender, which was also applied in the firebombing of Japanese cities.

Why was Tokyo initially considered and then removed from the list of potential atomic bomb targets?

Tokyo was initially considered due to its strategic value, but it was later removed because it had already been heavily damaged by previous firebombing raids, leaving it in ruins and not suitable to demonstrate the power of the new weapon.

What was the role of the US Air Force's systematic firebombing campaign in the context of the atomic bombings?

The US Air Force's systematic firebombing campaign targeted Japanese cities to destroy war production and civilian morale. However, this extensive destruction also depleted the list of potential atomic bomb targets, as cities needed to be relatively intact to show the strength of the new weapon.

What ethical considerations are raised by the script regarding the bombing of civilian areas during wartime?

The script raises questions about the morality of targeting civilian areas, the effectiveness of such bombings in achieving surrender, and the historical narrative that often focuses on certain events, like the atomic bombings, while downplaying the scale and impact of other destructive acts, such as firebombing.

Outlines

00:00

💥 Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This paragraph sets the stage for the historical recount of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, a fleet of B-29 bombers, including one named after the pilot's mother, Enola Gay, initiated a bombing run over Hiroshima. The attack was devastating, vaporizing thousands instantly and causing widespread burns, debris, and radiation. The bombing of Nagasaki three days later further emphasized the destructive power of the new nuclear age. The speaker ponders why these two cities were chosen over larger, more industrially significant ones, hinting at a grim rationale related to the deadliest air raid in history.

05:01

🏛 The Grim Logic Behind Target Selection

The paragraph delves into the strategic decision-making behind choosing the targets for the atomic bombs. A committee was formed to brainstorm criteria for selecting cities with significant urban areas and strategic value between Tokyo and Nagasaki. The initial list of 17 potential targets was narrowed down to four: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. The exclusion of Tokyo from the final list is attributed to the devastating precedent set by the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, which destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands, illustrating the Allies' willingness to target civilian areas during World War II.

10:04

🔥 The Firebombing Tactics and Their Aftermath

This section examines the firebombing tactics used by the US Air Force against Japan, which were influenced by the British bombing strategies in Germany. The goal was to force surrender through the destruction of cities and the killing of workers, creating a refugee crisis. The firebombing was not only a military strategy but also a policy decision, with bombs designed to target civilian homes rather than factories. The most significant air raid in history, which killed 100,000 people in Tokyo, is highlighted, demonstrating the extent of the destruction and the impact on the selection of cities for atomic bombing. The paragraph concludes with the targeting committee's struggle to find intact cities to demonstrate the power of the atomic bombs amidst the widespread devastation.

15:05

🌐 The Legacy and Morality of Wartime Bombing

The final paragraph reflects on the legacy of the bombings and the moral questions they raise. It discusses the aftermath of the firebombing and the atomic bombings, the immense loss of life, and the displacement of millions. The speaker questions the effectiveness of bombing civilians to force surrender, citing evidence that such tactics often led to increased resistance rather than compliance. The paragraph also touches on the selective memory of history, where the focus on the atomic bombs overshadows the widespread firebombing, and how the narrative of the victors often dominates historical discourse. It concludes with a mention of a sponsor that helps learn math and computer science, highlighting the importance of these skills in scientific breakthroughs.

Keywords

💡B-29 Stratofortress

The B-29 Stratofortress was a long-range heavy bomber used during World War II, known for its high altitude and pressurized cabin. In the context of the video, it was the type of bomber that carried out the atomic bombing missions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, marking a significant technological advancement in warfare and a turning point in the war.

💡Atomic Bombings

The atomic bombings refer to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The video discusses this historical event as a pivotal moment that not only ended World War II but also ushered in the nuclear age, with profound implications for warfare and international relations.

💡Hiroshima

Hiroshima is the first city mentioned in the script to have been targeted and bombed with an atomic weapon on August 6, 1945. The video emphasizes the devastating impact of the bombing on the city and its inhabitants, which vaporized thousands instantly and caused widespread destruction, illustrating the sheer power of nuclear weapons.

💡Nagasaki

Nagasaki is the second city discussed in the script that was bombed with an atomic weapon on August 9, 1945, three days after Hiroshima. The video mentions the significant number of casualties and the obliteration of a residential neighborhood, further emphasizing the catastrophic consequences of nuclear warfare.

💡Enola Gay

The Enola Gay is the name of the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The video script mentions the plane being named after the pilot's mother, highlighting a personal connection to a historical event that changed the course of history and brought about the end of World War II.

💡Firebombing

Firebombing refers to the use of incendiary bombs to create firestorms in targeted cities, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. The video discusses the firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, which resulted in massive casualties and set the stage for the consideration of atomic bombing as an alternative to invasion.

💡Strategic Value

Strategic value in the context of the video refers to the importance of a target in terms of its military, economic, or political significance. The script describes how the targeting committee considered the strategic value of potential cities for atomic bombing, aiming to demonstrate the power of the new weapon and force a Japanese surrender.

💡Dresden

Dresden is a German city that was heavily bombed by the Allies during World War II, resulting in a massive loss of life and widespread destruction. The video uses Dresden as an example of the devastating effects of area bombing and the moral questions it raises, drawing parallels to the firebombing of Japanese cities and the subsequent decision to use atomic bombs.

💡Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the U.S. research and development project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. The video mentions this top-secret project as the initiative that led to the creation of the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, showcasing the intersection of science, technology, and warfare.

💡Nuke Map

The Nuke Map, as mentioned in the script, is an interactive tool created by Alex Wellerstein, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. It allows users to visualize the potential impact of a nuclear bomb on various cities, providing a tangible sense of the devastation that such weapons can cause, which is relevant to the video's discussion of the atomic bombings.

💡Moral Questions

Moral questions in the video pertain to the ethical considerations surrounding the use of atomic and firebombing in warfare. The script raises these questions in the context of the decisions made during World War II, such as the targeting of civilian populations and the long-term effects of these actions on the perception of warfare and its ethical boundaries.

Highlights

On August 6, 1945, six B-29 Stratofortress bombers were involved in a historic mission, with three checking weather conditions and the remaining three carrying out a bombing run that would change history.

The attack plane, named 'Enola Gay' after the pilot's mother, targeted the industrial city of Hiroshima, with devastating consequences.

The atomic bomb instantly vaporized thousands and affected 50% of Hiroshima's population, marking the beginning of the nuclear age.

A second bombing run on Nagasaki three days later resulted in an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 casualties, connecting both cities forever to atomic bombings.

The choice of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not due to their size or war industry but was influenced by the deadliest air raid in history.

The video discusses the Allied bombing of civilians during World War Two, challenging the black-and-white narrative of good and evil.

Alex Wellerstein, a professor and creator of the Nuke Map, provides insight into the history of nuclear weapons.

The context of the atomic bomb's use is explored, including the end of the war in Europe and the ongoing Pacific conflict.

The US considered using the atomic bomb to avoid a costly invasion of Japan, estimating potential American casualties to be in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

A committee was formed to decide which city to target with the bomb, considering factors such as urban area and strategic value.

Tokyo was initially considered but removed from the list due to extensive damage from previous bombings.

The Dresden bombing in Germany is compared to the Japanese bombings, illustrating the devastating impact of firebombing on civilian populations.

The US Air Force's systematic firebombing of Japanese cities reduced potential targets for the atomic bomb, as cities were left in ruins.

The targeting committee had to request the Air Force to stop bombing cities to preserve intact targets for the atomic bomb's demonstration of power.

The moral implications of bombing civilians are discussed, questioning the effectiveness and ethics of such tactics.

The video suggests that the focus on the atomic bomb has overshadowed the extensive firebombing campaigns, which had a more significant impact.

The aftermath of the bombings and the displacement of millions of people is highlighted, emphasizing the human cost of war.

The video concludes by reflecting on the writing of history, the focus on certain events, and the narratives that shape our understanding of the past.

A sponsorship mention for Brilliant.org, promoting its educational resources in math and computer science, is included.

The peculiar fact that the Enola Gay was named after the pilot's mother is noted, adding a personal touch to the historical account.

Transcripts

On the 6th of August, 1945, six B-29

Stratofortress bombers took off from a tiny base in the Pacific Ocean.

Three planes flew ahead to check weather conditions at the potential targets.

Of the remaining three, one plane was filled with observers.

Another carried instruments.

The last one, a payload that would change history forever.

As they reached the designated target,

the attack plane initiated the bombing run.

The plane, named after the pilot's mother,

had a good view of the industrial city of Hiroshima.

After the weather plane triggered an early morning air warning,

people were now starting their day, waiting for the tram entering school.

And then in one flash, it was over.

The bomb vaporized thousands of people on the spot,

their organs boiling in their bodies.

Many more died of burns from the initial fireball, falling debris and radiation.

The bomb hit 50% of the population

and it blasted humanity into the nuclear age.

Three days later, a second bombing run

obliterated a residential neighborhood of Nagasaki.

Estimates of casualties here ranged from 40- to 70.000 dead.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be forever connected to the atomic bombings.

It's the only time these bombs were actually used in a war.

These bombs had a role in the end of the second World War.

But I've always wondered why did they choose these two cities?

These cities were not big like Tokyo or Osaka.

They also didn't have the most important war industry.

The reasoning behind it is actually really grim.

It has to do with the deadliest air raid in history.

I tell you, the fires were burning so bright you could almost read

a paper in the cockpit.

This video is about allied bombing of civilians during

World War Two.

Before we start, I feel like a disclaimer is in order.

Japan and the Axis powers Germany and Italy.

They slaughtered civilians on a scale never seen before.

This is well documented and it also lives in people's minds, I think.

But I also think that the image of Japan, bad and good is just too black and white.

The Allies were also involved in attacking cities

and attacking civilians without any precision targeted sites.

And today, I won't talk about that.

So this is not just a history story.

It's also a story about history, how we write history,

what parts of the past have remembered and what parts get forgotten.

And to better understand all this, I had a chance to talk to Alex Wellerstein.

He’s a professor at the Stevens INstitute of Technology

and he specialses in the history of nuclear weapons.

And I'm also the guy who made the nuke map.

You know, the two of you can play with

see how much of your city is destroyed by an atomic bomb.

Yeah, that's kind of like Alex's Wonderwall.

We'll get to Alex a bit later.

But first, we have to talk about the context

in which these bombs were dropped.

So it's May 1945.

Germany has just surrendered in Europe.

The war is over. Everyone is happy.

But it's also a bummer for some people in America,

who have been working on a top secret project.

This is a project to build a nuclear weapon that can end the war.

They had done some tests and they kind of want to see if this would actually work

in real life.

But no worries.

They will see it in action very soon,

because on the other side of the world, there is no peace.

America is fighting Japan in a slow and costly war.

They have this tactic where they're hopping from island

to island over two fronts.

And the first big success is at Guadalcanal.

You know, these iconic battles, Midway, Wake Island and Iwo Jima.

It's basically all the battles I played in Battlefield 1942 back in the day.

In the end, the Americans land on Japanese soil.

The battle for Okinawa

will be the last mission before they plan on landing on Japan.

And it's a heavy fight.

I mean, most of the time when people fight

a battle and defeat is obvious, they surrender, right?

But not here.

The Japanese defenders die before they let themselves be captured

because the Japanese high command is thinking.

They have

this idea that, like democracies are wimpy,

and if we make the costs very high,

they will vote out the leaders or whatever, and they will go for anything.

And so almost 99% of the Japanese defenders perish.

This is the bloodiest battle in the whole Pacific theater.

And it kind of works.

Okinawa really freaks Americans out.

If this is the defense they're up against,

how many allied soldiers are going to die invading mainland Japan?

They make some estimates, and really, it just varies wildly.

On the one hand, people say it's tens of thousands of dead

and then maybe it could be a quarter million dead and wounded.

So now this shiny new weapon suddenly becomes an interesting option

and you get it.

They just spent $2 billion in developing its.

So they really want to just see it in action.

And if the bomb does work, maybe there will be no invasion, no American deaths.

That would be perfect.

But if you decide on using it, how do you show the power

of this weapon?

In the end they decide to drop it on a city.

The question then, of course, becomes which city?

They decide to form this little committee.

These guys who get together and just literally start brainstorming.

What criteria do we need to decide this?

Well, we have their notes so we actually know what

they were talking about.

They say it should have a large urban area, be somewhere

between Tokyo and Nagasaki and have a high strategic value.

And when you apply these criteria, you get a list of 17 areas.

On the list you see big places like the capital, Tokyo,

that has an arrow next to it, but also Kyoto,

which maybe for us now is really insane to think about nuking it.

We think of Kyoto as this cultural center of Japan.

It has all these historic shrines.

But then they're like, Who cares about shrines?

We're trying to win a war here.

I mean, the reason that he was famous for all these shrines nowadays

is that all of them were bombed.

But we'll get to that.

If you look at the list, you see Hiroshima and all the way down Nagasaki.

I don't know if you have the

same feeling, but this is just any other group project.

If you've ever been in that kind of cooperation,

you know, there's nothing set in stone here.

You're just spitballing about what criteria are important.

Some get added, some get voted out.

But then again, most of the group project I was in

didn't have life or death impact for thousands of people.

After a few brainstorming session, the committee brings a list of 17 targets

down to four.

They settled on Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki.

From these four, two cities will be targeted in the end.

So why did they knock Tokyo off the list?

Well, the reason that Tokyo's not on list is actually quite dark.

And to show you why.

We have to talk about this city in Germany.

Dresdeb in is an old city in the east of Germany.

It's an important economic and cultural center and city center

has all these buildings with a baroque design.

If you go there and take out your lonely Planet, you can find highlights

such as the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper, and the Hochkirche.

And it's also completely fake.

They rebuilt the city from the rubble.

All these buildings are not old at all.

You see, the allies targeted Dresden together with Hamburg in a terrifying way.

They were firebombed.

This is basically dropping burn bombs and napalm to create firestorms in the city.

The main component of the M69 bomb, when ignited the gel selling

becomes a clinging, fiery mass, spreading more than a yard in diameter.

And these fires can go on for days, creating pure hell on earth.

This bombardment at the end of the war

destroyed the entire city and killed tens of thousands of people.

And Dresden, it wasn't even an important military target.

Dresden was one of the many cities in Germany bombed by the allies.

And if you look at this map of Germany, you can see the impact the bombing has.

This map shows with black percentages how much of the cities are destroyed

at the end of the war.

This is what's left of Germany.

You have cities like Mainz, Frankfurt and Koln.

They're almost completely leveled.

Now you're thinking, of course, we were bombing Germany.

They needed to stop the war.

So they're bombing factories that produce guns, aircraft and tanks, right?

Well, at the start of the war, the British were shit at aiming.

Less than a quarter of the bombs

fell within an eight kilometer radius of the intended targets.

Wait, think about that for a second.

25% landed within

eight kilometers of the intended targets.

You can understand that's not really effective.

At the same

time, they're losing insane amounts of men and planes.

At one point, a pilot has a lower survival rate

than a soldier in the trenches of the First World War.

And they were total meat grinders.

So with this in mind,

the British bomber command thinks well, we kind of have to change tactics.

Instead of searching for specific targets by day.

Now we're just going to go for bombing general areas at night.

Won't that really impact civilians?

How do we feel about that?

Well,

people are going to making up their minds about what it means to bomb civilians.

Remember, airplanes are really, really new.

So people are figuring out how to use them, when to use them,

how it is okay to use them.

It's only a few years before the Second World War

that it's the first time that a city is attacked by bombers.

That was Guernica in Spain.

You know, from that famous Picasso painting.

So with this new thing,

people are still just developing theories about the use of airplanes.

And there's one guy that says the following.

Oh, my gosh, If you could attack a city and they couldn't do anything

to defend themselves, then that would just collapse the population.

They would give up and the bomber would win.

And British commanders that are bombing Germany, they kind of go along with this.

One guy, Arthur Harris, a British commander.

He sees politicians as kind of tiptoeing around to subjects.

And he just wants to be clear.

So he says that the aim of the bombing is

about destruction of cities, about killing of workers,

about destruction of lives, creating an unprecedented refugee problem.

Well, his nickname was Bomber Harris.

So fair enough, I guess.

So civilian deaths at this time are not an unfortunate byproduct of bombing.

It's not collateral damage. It is policy.

And this really hits home when you see how fire bombs are designed.

They were not developed to target factories.

No, they were tested on mock German and Japanese houses.

They're thinking about things like how furniture will impact the bombing

that even discussing moisture levels of the wood of Japanese houses.

So did it achieve the goal of the bombardment,

the surrender of the citizens?

We'll get to that again.

Yes, Germany, that awful things in the war.

They targeted civilians in London, Spain.

In Poland, they indiscriminately slaughtered thousands

and thousands of noncombatants, including women and children.

And then, of course, if you talk about Second World War of the Holocaust

hanging over all this, and I'm not saying that they didn't do these things,

but I do think that when we talk about the Second World War, it always seems like

the allies are just the good guys and Germany and Japan and just pure evil.

But life in history just isn't that black and white.

The question becomes, what are the limits

to achieve your goals in this war?

So you

might be wondering what all this German thing has to do with Tokyo.

Well firebombing has to do with its because the US Air Force

also believed that dropping enough bombs would make Japan surrender.

So they start with firebombing Japan.

2200 horsepower in each of four engines to.

And it was an even better target for firebombing than Germany.

Already in the twenties

you have a pilot saying Japan is the wet dream of the bomber

because the houses there are basically all made of wood and paper.

And so when you throw a bomb, it's full of napalm, each carefully

designed to destroy a single house dropped by the thousands and thousands.

Well, you know what's going to happen.

Americans have been bombing Japanese cities a lot since 1944.

The problem they faced is that the war industry wasn't really centralized.

They didn't have these big industrial cities like in Germany

that they could target the war industry was closer to homes in smaller places,

and so hundreds upon hundreds of B-29 were used to bomb cities all over Japan.

And then in one raid in March, 45, B-29 swarmed over Tokyo,

raining fire from hundreds and hundreds of bombers.

100,000 people died in this attack

and it is actually the biggest number of casualties for an air raid ever.

To put this number in perspective, this is almost twice

the number of American losses in the Vietnam War.

It's bigger than the initial death toll of the individual atomic bombs.

And by the summer of 1945, Tokyo practically didn't exist anymore.

And remember that targeting committee, the guys that were brainstorming

about what cities to bomb well they know about this, Tokyo

goes off the list because it's now practically all bombed and burned out.

It's practically rubble with only the palace grounds left standing.

There goes Tokyo.

But this group has an even bigger problem than that because they're talking about

how the Air Force is systematically bombing out cities

with the prime purpose in mind of not leaving one stone lying on the other.

And this is a problem for the committee because they kind of need a city

that's sort of intact to show Japan and the world how strong these bombs are.

There's this conflict of interest.

The Air Force doesn't care about that.

They would not like reserve targets just for the Manhattan Project.

And so a city like Yokohama that was on the list first gets taken away

because it gets firebombed at the end of May.

So now they're running out of targets.

This leads to this really weird moment that the targeting committee has to beg

the Air Force to stop bombing cities because there will be none left.

And it even goes all the way to the top.

The US War secretary, Henry Stimson.

He tells the president he's worried about these bombardments for two reasons.

First, he's afraid that the allies will be seen as bad as the Germans.

But then again, he's also afraid that Japan has been bombed so much

that a new weapon ‘Would not have a fair background to show its strength’.

The reaction of the president.

He laughs.

It's a funny joke. He probably didn't notice

the contradiction between these two statements.

And if you look at this map of Japan, you can understand Stimsons worry.

You get a scale of the destruction.

The U.S. firebombed a total of 69 cities.

So you have major cities like Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo

that are heavily destroyed.

And then you have some smaller cities like Fukuyama, Takeshima

and Toyama that are basically wiped off the map.

Apart from estimates that this killed about half a million people,

there are survivors are also not really easy of.

At the end of the war, a total of 15 million people didn't have a home.

So there it is.

The reason why Tokyo didn't get Nuke was because it was already firebombed

off the face of the earth.

And some people involved in this, they had some second thoughts about this.

LeMay said If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.

And I think he's right.

We're behaving as war criminals.

But what makes it immoral if you lose but not immoral if you win.

Talking about the morality of bombing civilians is like a can of worms,

because that would lead a video of at least an hour.

Is it justified aim of war or not?

There's endless debate on both sides of this,

so we're not going to finish that discussion.

Let's talk about one of the principal aims that justified this bombing.

That's if you just drop enough bombs on civilians, they'll stop fighting.

They will press the government to end the war.

And it turns out it's totally false.

It doesn't work that way. Right.

It turns out if you bomb people, they don't become more compliant.

They become more rigid in their opposition to you.

So that's not the case. That argument is off the table.

You can still see it bombing as a justified policy or you can disagree.

But there's actually an interesting reason why we don't talk about firebombing

that much.

In some ways, it's not as glamorous, which is also part of it.

You know, a bomb that shoots gasoline is not as exciting as nuclear physics.

Right.

And apart from that, there is also a deeper thing lurking behind this.

Firebombing is harder to deal with because there was more of it

and it became sort of business as usual, which to me

is actually more interesting moral question in some ways.

Like if your business as usual is this horrible thing.

What does that. Say?

After the war, the use of the nuclear bomb became this big talking point.

Was it morally justified or not?

Should it have been one bomb instead of two?

What if they had waited for the Soviet entry into the war?

There really a lot of different ways this could have ended.

And if you like this video, I might cover that in the future.

But for me, it's so weird how because of this new technological

breakthrough, that firebombing becomes just less of a topic.

And I think it really shows you how history works,

how we choose to focus on some events and not on others,

how the narrative of victors is dominant, and that writing about history

is not how things just happened, but also how we relate to it every single day.

Whatever you think of the

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There was really no place for this in the video,

but can we talk about the fact

that this pilot named this plane after his mother for the rest of her life?

Everyone's like Enola Gay.

I've heard that name somewhere.

Oh, yeah. It was about bombing Hiroshima.