Talk:Bombing of Kobe in World War II

Kokura, not Kobe

The primary target for the Fat Man atomic bomb was Kokura, not Kobe.

Kyoto was on the original list of atomic targets, but was deleted because of its cultural significance.

Ahseaton 12:02, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for the raid

The section on reasons for the raid is entirely inadequate. It states only why Kobe was a suitable target - it would burn well, and there were many people there to kill. But it does not say why it was attacked. That is of course that the USA was engaged in a massive terror campaign, the objective being to kill as many civilians as possible, and cause maximum harm to civil society, to persuade the people to give up. There must be some reference to this.122.59.140.215 (talk) 04:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Bombing Kobe was not supposed to make the people give up. It was supposed to reduce Japan's ability to make war

What sources are you drawing from? I understand the vital ports and shipbuilding/repairing/resupply capability of Kobe were targeted, the Kobe–Osaka port complex which held a dozen large steel and munitions factories. Many workers for the Mitsubishi heavy industries lived in Kobe. Killing Kobe residents would greatly diminish war production in a manner that could not be achieved by so-called precision bombing, which was far from precise in Japan, especially with the bombs falling many thousands of feet through strong winds going different directions, as was typical of Japan. The airmen were very much aware their accuracy stank. So the USAAF leadership began studying firebombing methods, and manufacturing shiploads of incendiaries more than a year before the firebombing of Kobe. USAAF leadership had already determined in late 1942 or early 1943 to burn Japanese cities with incendiaries, otherwise the huge quantity of required incendiaries would not have been available.

Your use of the term "civil society" to represent one of the targets of bombing is not supported by any sources that I know. You might want to read Edwin P. Hoyt's Inferno: The Fire Bombing of Japan, March 9 - August 15, 1945, Robert A. Mann's The B-29 Superfortress: A Comprehensive Registry of the Planes and Their Missions, and for a contemporary view, "Air Victory Over Japan" from Flying magazine in 1946. Binksternet (talk) 06:08, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

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Historical photo

Not sure about the copyright status of this photo: [1] 129.97.124.213 (talk) 20:50, 4 January 2017 (UTC)