WW2 Project that got rejected...Bat Bombs

[mandy]

I stumbled upon this article. It's kind of intresting what the Government is capable of....
http://mystrangenewmexico.squarespace.com/the-columns/2008/4/4/bat-bombs.html#comments


Mandy

[mikeschn]

I think Adams had suicide bombers on his mind when he came up with that...

Mike...

[Gary and Cheri]

I believe that several of the fire bomb raids on japan killed more people then the atomic bomb raids. Just took a lot more planes. Some have argued that the fire bombs would have ended the war and that we never really needed to drop the A bombs. Who knows, something for historians to argue about. They sure were effective against wood and paper houses.

Gary J.

[mandy]

I think you guys are missing the point.
I think its wacky that government thought it was a good idea to use bats with bombs strap on to them.

Yikes
Mandy

[mwatters]

I've never been much of a subscriber to the "we didn't need to drop the bomb" way of thinking that some people have. Several points to remember:

1) There's a reasonable amount of evidence the Japanese were trying to put a bomb of their own together.

2) Even short of a working bomb, the Japanese had their own physicists and are not fools (contrary to the propaganda of the era). Prior to the first A-bomb being dropped they were warned we had a new type of weapon and given an opportunity to surrender (unconditionally - same as Germany). They declined. Now, given they weren't just plain stupid - there is every reason to believe they knew full well what we were talking about - and still declined.

3) After the first A-Bomb was dropped (removing any doubt as to what we had) they were again given the opportunity to surrender (again - unconditionally). Again, they declined. They appeared to be under the impression we couldn't possibly have more than just that one bomb and figured they were now in the clear.

4) After the second bomb was dropped, we AGAIN gave them the opportunity to surrender (threatening to continue to drop A-Bombs on them). THIS time, they believed us and surrendered. Of course - we were bluffing. The US only made three atomic bombs during WWII. One was tested in the desert - and the other two were dropped over Japan. After that, we'd blown our load and wouldn't have been able to do it again for at LEAST 6 months or longer.

I firmly believe that if the Japanese had really known we couldn't drop another bomb for months that they would not have surrendered. Even after the second bomb, the emperor's military advisors STILL didn't want to surrender! Culturally, they could not accept surrender. Just remember the defense they put up for Iwo Jima (or any of the scores of little nothing islands in the middle of the pacific). What level of resistance could we have reasonably expected to see during an invasion of the home island itself? A D-Day-like invasion of Japan likely would have ended up killing a lot more people (American and Japanese alike) than were killed by the two A-bombs.

Our views of the A-bomb have been strongly colored by the later H-bomb (1000 times more powerful) and decades of cold-war terror.

Mike

[s4son]

How about the Japanese Balloon Bomb.
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=932

Scott F.