Workshops?

This is coolbert:

From the Kent Budge web site: "Strategic Bombing"

We have this instance of the United States Army Air Corps general officer Curtis LeMay congratulating and justifying himself - - in the aftermath of the saturation bombing of the Japanese city Yokohama - - the Second World War [WW2]!

"'We were going after military targets. No point in slaughtering civilians for the mere sake of slaughter. Of course there is a pretty thin veneer in Japan, but the veneer was there. It was their system of dispersal of industry.... I'll never forget Yokohama. That was what impressed me: drill presses. There they were, like a forest of scorched trees and stumps, growing up throughout the residential area. Flimsy construction all gone ... everything burned down, or up, and drill presses standing like skeletons.'" - - C. LeMay.

That saturation bombing of Japanese cities during WW2 by low-flying American B-29 bomber aircraft, dropping prodigious amounts of incendiary weaponry, the level of destruction and loss of life indeed apocalyptic in nature, horrendous devastation beyond that of a Hamburg or a Dresden! Casualties and property loss exceeding on occasion the ATOMIC ATTACKS ON HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI!!

In particular the rickety, wooden and papier-mâché style construction as was found in Japan at the time most susceptible to fire and fire-storm, entire whole portions of major cities and population burned to a crisp, again, the loss of life and devastation apocalyptic in nature, almost WITHOUT PARALLEL!

Those Japanese residential areas, however, NOT BEING SOLELY THE DWELLING PLACE OF CIVILIANS, BUT ALSO PART AND PARCEL OF THE MANUFACTURING EFFORT GEARED TO WARTIME PRODUCTION, COTTAGE INDUSTRIES PRODUCING NUTS, SCREWS, BOLTS, COILS, ETC.

"LeMay justified this campaign of mass destruction with the observation that Japanese industry, while concentrated in the largest cities, was fairly dispersed within those cities. Most Japanese factories relied on parts manufactured on what was nearly a cottage basis [cottage industry] in small neighborhood workshops."

President Truman too briefed on the cottage industry production system of Japan, in the aftermath of the war, perhaps to his consolation too:

"Standing in the ashes of a substantial portion of the burned homes [in Tokyo] are various types of machine tools like lathes, drill presses, etc. Here family groups were manufacturing repetitive parts like nuts, bolts, or coils which were delivered to the manufacturing centers for use in the assembly of military weapons. In the area we examined, approximately one fifth [1/5]of the homes showed evidence of such activities." - - Dr. Karl T. Compton [making] a similar observation to Truman in October 1945:

In this specific regard, the use of cottage industry to produce "repetitive parts" as used in the armaments and munitions industry was peculiar to the Japanese?

WW2 is also the first instance of where civilians vital to the war effort became deliberate targets subject to bombardment as was done to the German by the English Bomber Command or the American 20th Air Force in the Pacific, MORE CIVILIANS PERISHING DURING WW2 THAN MILITARY PERSONNEL!!

Curtis too would not have known those multitude of drill presses were present and in use - - until after the damage was done? Justification after the fact? You decide!

coolbert.