6th of August. Day of Hiroshima bombing.

[S.Peelman]

It's vital that newer generations remember events in history like this, because nobody must forget the past. The Second World War is a very interesting topic, and much of it shaped the world as it is today. It's also best to keep as objective as possible and remember that history is written by the victors. I can only guess how the people in those Japanese cities feel. Survivors themselves of course, but also newer generations. Maybe I can relate a little to the latter.

I live in a city that was hit hard by WWII, and even though my grandparents were young children back then, they can tell me (especially my grandfather) a near endless supply of vivid stories of what happened here 75 years ago and it's extremely interesting to listen to them. Luckily though, our city was hit very early on so tactics were still very crude and they only randomly scattered explosive charges accross the city. Material damage was very large, but due to the time of day and the clumsy circumstances civilian casualties were only about 1000 here (around 1500 including the almost a hundred other bombings and strikes during the rest of the war. Though mine is not the first city (one of still though and the biggest bombing operation at that point in time) to be bombed, we do have the questionable distinction of being the one that made the British decide that aerial bombing is fair game, in response to Goering being eager to test out the luftwaffe's new 'terror-bombing' tactic as a part of the early Blitzkrieg. Even today, the scars are still very visable and the city center still isn't really 'done', 70 years after the war ended.

Anyway, the bombings in the later war are of course of another scale altogether. The firebombings caused much greater damage and an exponentially greater amount of casualties so it's still hardly comparable. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are one of the most inhumane thing the human race ever did to itself, though it's hard to pick a most inhumane thing amongst the many in WWII. I'd like to visit Japan someday, and when I'm there I'd like to visit one of these cities to see how they are today.

I think there would have been other ways to end the war, as it was more or less over already. It got the job done that's for sure. At least this event is debatable, I think some other late-war firebombings like you mentioned are downright criminal. Dresden in particular, an unnecessary destruction of a city that harboured many fugitives at the time. Churchill wisely distanced himself from that one. I think any form of large scale aerial bombing is despicable; it destroys not only society, but also culture and history and the world may better hope that it never happens again on the immense scale in WWII.