Pearl Harbour / 23 august '43 ploiesti, Comparison

As we all know about these 2 events... I would like your opinion...
At Ploiesti more poeple died, more materials destroied...
Shell American raids be considered same as the japaneese atack?
(I'm also thinking at the Dambuster project that was made against german poeple)
I hope the discution will not degenerate into a conflict between Pro Americans and Anti Americans... ths is not the purpuse of this discution, all i want is just cold thinking...

Well, maybe the losses were higher but who was US and who was Romania at that time (I an ask the same question now) - it is all a matter of publicity...

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on February 07, 2005 02:58 pm

Indeed, the problem is the publicity...
The USA is talking about the infame day... but if we look over their activity we see more days of infame... Hirashima, Nagasaki, I don't remember the day but I still remember the destroying of a church in Italy were the germans have their posts... the church was the oldest in Italy... a monument... and thier raids over the german, hugarian, italy's, japaneese cities when many innocent died... aren't they days of infame?
I can't say that the germans or the japanees did something different.... as Pearl Harbor, London, Moscow, Paris, and other cities were smashed by bombers, rockets etc.
Can these be called war tactics? by killing innocent poeple?
In my opinion we did not advance from almoast 2000 yeras ago...
I sow last Sunday "Attila, the hun" The huns were nomads that were killing defendless poeple in their rush to conquer land...
modern war is doing the same...

Is it Monte Casino ?

Well, if you win such a war as ww2, you will not start acusing your own generals of atrocities against civilian targets - no, those are strategical targets.The loosers on the other hand.... well, read the history since it begun to be recorded


This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on February 07, 2005 10:54 pm

Yes, it was Monte Cassino that was bombed out of existence because of faulty intelligence that told the Americans that the Germans were stationed there...in fact there were none.
See, I believe that in a Total war such as the Great War and WWII you could still preserve humanity and dignity of life. You just cannot preserve EVERYONE'S humanity. The U.S. approach is highly successful if unpopular and unorthodox. You produce as much stuff to kill people with and then with your highly trained troops you use that stuff to kill as many of your enemy as possible. Thus, you preserve as much of your soldier's lives as possible.
In contrast to this I can point out the Russian, German and Japanese models of warfare. The basic premises were: People are cheap, and cannon fodder so throw away the lives of your and the enemy's soldiers to achieve the objective at all cost...it seems like this philosophy not only caused huge casualties to the soldiers and civilians but also ultimately lost them the war.
In summary, your point of view does depend from where you are looking. If you are a German you cannot get over Dresden, if Romanian you cannot get over Ploesti, if Japanese over Hiroshima, if Polish over Auchwitz. Artur

Artuhr

DOBJE DOBJE DOBJE !!

excellent remarks

Zienkuie

Alex

Monte Cassino wasn't the oldest monastery in Italy. It is however one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

As to the topic's sunject, I don't think such a comparison can be made simply because Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack, for most of the people, without a declaration of war, while Ploesti was bombed after the US declared war to Romania and it was expected and preparations were made. At Peral harbor, the casualties were soldiers, at Ploiesti or Bucharest there were also many civilians.

BTW: did they mean to bomb Ploiesti or did they bomb the town due to bad aiming ? Oil raphineries are very clsoe to the city and considering the bombing altitude and crew training I think it is very easy to miss the target and drop the bombs on the city.

I believe Devil of the Sky is referring to the Tidal Wave Operation (1 August, not 23), as there wasn't any other raid in 1943.

erhhh... my mistake but still the question remains: did they ever intented to hit Ploiesti or other romanian civilian targets ? I know about bomber gunners or figters strafing villages or peasants on their farms, this is not what I need to know - what I want is if there was any official order to attack civilian targets in Romania (also in Bucharest afaik they targeted tactical targets but also hit civilian ones).

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on February 08, 2005 10:41 am

Talking about Bucharest... "gara de Nord" railstation in somewhere in the middle of Bucharest (not the center) and bombing it also means to bomb civilian buildings near it... american tacticians and generels knew that...


Thanks Victor, you are right.... and wrong... right about 1 august 1943 and wrong because I am talking about all american bombings.

I know where Gara de Nord is - I live nearby However what I wanted to know is if US issued any order to their pilots and crewmen to attack civilians or civilian targets.A railway station (and one of the most important in a country) during a world war cannot really be considered a civilian target - although they missed it and destroyed many homes near it.

Officialy the answor is "NO! WE NEVER GIVE ORDERS TO ATTACK CIVILIAN BUILDINGS", unofficialy... depending on how many civilians were killed would be the further decisions of the romanian gornment as more and more poeple wanted to get out of the war...
So unofficialy you may say yes.... but don't espect for officials to say this

I asked this, because US had issued official orders to attack civilian targets inside Germany, I also read somewhere that US position relative to Romania was not to inflict much dammage on local population, so it is interesting to observe the two different ways to deal with the germans and romanian civilian targets.Maybe someone with more knowledge on the matter can make some light on the issue ?

Mabe.... but as a metter of fact we.... romanians had a diferent way to treat the POWs... I remember someone told me that the downed pilots hoped to be catched by romanians not by germans because of the good treatment from our doctors and authorities.
In an other way, Antonescu wanted to case fire and get out the war so... Americans shorely wanted romania to be able to continue the war as an ally...
But I still belive that they bombarded civilians by orders...
(I made my thinking by seeing what happened in Yogoslavia few years ago..., also about what happened in Germany, Italy an Japan in WW2)