Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Hiroshima/Dresden
Message-ID: <1990Aug16.030208.14855@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 16 Aug 90 03:02:08 GMT
References: <1990Aug11.015024.19481@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Ohio State University
Lines: 63
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai)

in message
 <1990Aug11.015024.19481@cbnews.att.com>, convex!cash@uunet.UU.NET (Peter Cash)
asks?
?I got into an argument recently over which caused more casualties--the
?bombing of Hiroshima or of Dresden.  (I was arguing that conventional
?weapons can inflict damage of proportions that we associate with nukes.)

	Some statistics and background information from:

	"The Second World War",John Keegan,1989, # 0-670-82359-7

	p. 420	"During 1941...the RAF...brought itself to accept
that the bombers it already deployed must in the future be used
to kill German civilians, since the factories in which they
worked could not be hit with precision.   ...
	In July 1943, firestorms killed 30000 in Hamburg;
Wurzburg,4000; ....  ; Magdenburg, 12000."
	p. 433	"Altogether, 600,000 German civilians died under
bombing attack and 800,000 were seriously wounded."

	p. 576.	"On 9 March 1945, {the author is British}, Bomber
Command attacked Tokyo with 325 aircraft armed exclusively with
incendiaries, flying at low altitude under cover of darkness.  In
a few minutes of bombing, the city center took fire and by
morning 16 square miles had been consumed; 267,000 buildings
burned to the ground, and the temperature in the heart of the
firestrom caused the water to boil in the city's canals.  The
casualty list recorded 89,000 dead, half as large again as the
number of survivors treated in the city's hospitals.  Losses to
the bombers were below 2 per cent and were to decline as the
campaign gathered force.   ....
	By July, 60 per cent of the ground area of the country's
60 larger cities and towns had been burnt out."

	p. 584	"It was the uranium 235 version of the bomb that
the B-29 Enola Gay dropped over Hiroshima on the morning of 6
August 1945; a few hours later; while 78,000 people lay dead or
dying in the ruins, a White House statement called on the
Japanese to surrender or 'They may expect a rain of ruin from the
air'. No word being received, on 9 August, anothe B-29 flew from
Tinian to bomb the city of Nagasaki, Killing 25,000.  The United
States temporarily exhausted its supply of nuclear weapons and
awaited the outcome of the damage done."

[end of quotes]
	Sorry, don't know about Dresden. Good book by the way.

	I think I saw in the local paper that 3 of the original crew of
the Enola Gay would appear at the Rickenbacker Air Show this
weekend near Columbus, O.  The pilot of course is from here. Can
anyone confirm?  Cost is free with a $5.00 parking to go to
charity.

****************************************************************
Jon Papai			*"Every attempt to make war    *
Papai@kcgl.eng.ohio-state.edu	*safe and easy leads to        *
				*humiliation and disaster."    *
				*W.T. Sherman                  *
****************************************************************