@Brain:
The United States Government entered the war intending to use strategic daylight precision bombing, which was used with mixed success in Europe and never officially abandoned as a policy. Over Japan, because of the jetstream, strategic precision bombing proved to be impractical and the United States abandoned the policy in favour of a policy of area bombardment. From March 1945 through the end of the war, many Japanese cities were subjected to area bombing with incendiaries. Tokyo, Osaka, and many other cities were burned out by firestorms that reached over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. American precision bombing, fire bombing and atomic bombing in Japan killed between 330,000 and 500,000 Japanese civilians.
Just a little history lesson.
I saw an amazing comparison in The Fog of War (Robert McNamara’s story on US approach to war) that showed the equivalent US cities in size to the ones bombed in Japan. I know this will fall on deaf ears and/or be negated by “they started it”, but this is something to really think about.
http://www.ditext.com/japan/napalm.html
Just some excerpts:
NYC - 51% destroyed
LA - 40%
Chicago - 35.1%
Chattanooga - 99%
San Diego - 37.6%
Baltimore - 55.7%
Miami - 35.8%
Lexingon (my town) - 50.2%
Boston - 69.3%