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We were told also at [the] briefing that if we in Mosquitos had any problems, we should under no circumstances fly eastwards and land, we should do our utmost to get as far away from the Russian front as possible before we landed. One drew one’s own conclusions from that…

On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden -- possibly the world's most beautiful city. But not me.

After that we were put to work carrying corpses from Air-Raid shelters; women, children, old men; dead from concussion, fire or suffocation. Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge funeral pyres in the city.

TABLE A: Estimates of Casualties Hiroshima Nagasaki
Pre-raid population 255,000 195,000
Dead 66,000 39,000
Injured 69,000 25,000
Total Casualties 135,000 64,000

The Kokumin Giyu Sentōtai units were theoretically armed with weapons including:
Type 94 8 mm Pistol
Type 30 rifle
Type 38 rifle
Type 44 Cavalry Rifle
Type 1 Heavy Machine Gun
Type 5 Anti-aircraft gun
Type 4 20 cm Rocket Launcher
Type 10 Grenade Discharger
Type 89 Grenade Discharger
Ceramic hand grenades
"Lunge AT Mine" (anti-tank mine on bamboo pole)


In actuality, mostly only much less sophisticated arms were available:
"Molotov Cocktails"
Simple pointed bamboo or wood sticks
Swords, bayonets, knives and even pole weapons & staff weapons (e.g. Guntō, Type 30 bayonet, Hori hori, Kamayari/Naginata & Hanbō/Jō)
Clubs and truncheons such as the Kanabō or even simpler
Antiquated firearms (e.g. Murata rifle)

OldAirmail wrote:No thanks.

I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.

If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

After I have said all this, I am sure you are still ready to respond, in effect, “Yes, yes–but it still remains our right and our responsibility to decide what books our children are going to be made to read in our community.” This is surely so. But it is also true that if you exercise that right and fulfill that responsibility in an ignorant, harsh, un-American manner, then people are entitled to call you bad citizens and fools. Even your own children are entitled to call you that ...