Only if you’re American. It WAS that worst for Jews, Russians, China, etc. The Japanese openly used biological warfare in China and had planned to use it on their balloon bombs that reached as far as Montana.
As rude as this sounds, the atom was nothing next to traditional bombs, which themselves appear in this conflict to be less of an issue for Japanese civilians than fires (unintentional or otherwise). It was only effective because of shock value and the US wisely claimed the new bomb was cheap.
For reference is an oop book titled "Disaster at Bari" which detailed the result of a US frieghter blowing up in the Italian port of Bari after being set on fire by German bombers in WW2. It was carrying tons of mustard gas. The number of casualties was horrendous.
I did see a documentary about that incident and I was surprised at the fact they had the gas in an Italian port. I could understand to some degree wanting to have the gas ready for use but surely not in such an exposed place.
@@pierluigiadreani2159 Both Germany and Britain had large stocks of chemical weapons, but each refused to initiate the use of such weapons due to the fear of reprisal. In the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns, one way to have dealt with the dug-in Japanese defenders in their extensive underground fortifications would have been to pour poison gas down the ventilation shafts. This was apparently suggested by American soldiers, and the request made its way up the command chain, but was ultimately rejected by higher ups. The result was having to take the islands and fortifications by more conventional arms which meant higher casualties.
@@pierluigiadreani2159 What a stupid comment when the enemy were murdering women and children everywhere and especially in gas chambers. Any military option is on the table for people trying to rid the world of such vermin. Talk to your parents if they lived through the trauma. Anything that sped up the end was on the table for consideration
@@bigblue6917 It wasn't being stored on the ship, it simply was on it because that's how it got shipped there, they had a storage depot set up in an isolated area well away from places like that port or any other's that their enemy's maps had a big red X marked on it that next to was written "Bomb at earliest possible convenience", they weren't stupid enough to store the stuff there it just happened to be on the ship that'd brought it there and hadn't been unloaded yet. What happened was when the ship sunk the chemicals formed a layer on top of the water just like oil would and the guy's who'd jumped off that ship and others that were on fire and sinking swam through it getting the chemical all over themselves. The chemicals being on that ship when the port was attacked was merely bad luck not bad planning.
We do know that Japan not only used gas but also worked on biological weapons including bombs which contained fleas which carried the plague. So being ready to retaliate was necessary. Germany did come up with a new poison gas but decided not use it because they believed that as they had discovered the Allies would have done so as well.
Not one but three Soman, Tabun & Sarin. All of which were very much more lethal & effective a weapon than lewsite the iteration of mustard produced by the USA.
I would not be surprised to know that we intentionally leaked the Chemical contingency plan in full to the Japanese as there is no secret tech involved in it. All old tech. And if it was leaked, it was likely as a contingency. The irony is that with the nukes (which killed only about 4% of the estimated number to be killed in a chemical attack) is that a leak doesn't cut it. It has to be demonstrated as blue-sky technology and the US only had one fision bomb they knew for sure would work. That led to Japan being nuked and no invasion ever happening because bombing an atoll as a demo requires that you have a reliable second bomb to go all in with if Japan calls your bluff.
That is one of the reasons the U.S. dropped the nuclear bombs. As it was, the bombing campaign had killed more Japanese and destroyed their cities with regular bombs than the two nuclear bombs .
Outstanding video! Very informative (as are all in this series from this channel). Some of what is detailed is chilling, and this particular video’s topic is one of those that causes one to think about the “unthinkable.” Prior to nuclear weapons, the gas weapons were feared, because so many suffered from them during WW1 and knew the potential they had for horrible deaths. This video is a lesson in how bad a war could get prior to nukes. Shudder.
21 missions of 500 planes could have wiped out over 5 million people with phosgene alone…. My god. Along with the area denial and misery that mustard agent would caused. The fact that wood can be decontaminated either, knowing how much of Japans structures were made of wood. Just amazing how quickly the US could have devastated the Urban population centers with gas, it makes the fire bombings look almost tame.
The document mentioned at 7:24 --- "Tactical Planning -- Characteristics and Performance Chart" --- did you find this online? Or was it a physical copy from an archive? If it's available online, could you please share the website hosting the file as I would be very interested in reading the full document. I've only found bits and pieces of it online in various places, so being able to see the entire thing would be great.
Interesting that the Japanese cited treaties and international law to their own military hierarchy as reasons to not use gas, while ignoring generally accepted international law for handling enemy prisoners. I understand their own attitude towards their own men surrendering, and the contempt they had for enemies who surrendered, but cold hard reality says the easier you make it for the enemy to surrender, the less likely they are to fight to the death, and the fewer casualties you will have. And then to ignore international law on the matter while citing international law for gas warfare! I wonder how serious that citation was, or if it was just a face-saving reason for underlings.
Take a look at the West. The Victorian Brits invented concentration camps for (White) Afrikaner women & children to win the Boer War. Thousands perished. The USA the symbolic freedom fighters of the World suddenly turned Imperial when opportunity presented itself in the Philippines. Many natives died because they did not want to live under Old Glory. At 1st they thought the US had liberated them, but the US was just trading places with their old Spanish overlords. The WW1 Russians were just as cruel & inhumane to their German prisoners as the later Soviets were. So were the Japanese acting outside the norms of the time? I don't know, I guess it depended on whos newspapers you were reading at the time.
@@michaelbizon444 No they didn't. That kind of enslavement and isolation has been going on for millennia. The only change with the Boer War was the advances in technology.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 The actions & behaviors of the Japanese are only a reflection of what was going on in the World at large in that time's recent past. If you are trying to show case that the Japs were especially barbaric or outside the norm in their actions, my examples show they were not. The hypocrisy of the "Great British" inventing death camps I still find amusing. Or that having saved Europe from the evil Huns, they were machine gunning down defenseless women & children in Ireland, China & India in peaceful demonstration. The German WW1 occupation authorities in Belgium were were nearly as hard on their fellow Euros as the Belgians were on their 'slave' subjects in the Congo. The Japs observed all this and acted in a similar fashion when they had the whip hand is all.
Read your history. The British did in fact invent the concentration camp and built many during the second Boer War. If my memory is correct they murdered approximately 28,000 white women and children, and something like 10-15,000 black prisoners. Disease killed many, but most of the victims were deliberately starved to death in a careful, methodically planned manner that was well documented.
First, this shows that there are staff officers that are paid to plan fo the unthinkable. Obviously, to be an effective deterrent a plan had to exist with the means to carry it out. Based on the fact that the US had chemical weapons stored in the theaters in the Mediterranean and probably ETO, there must have been a Liberty ship (or two) loaded with the assembled bombs ready to steam to forward operating bases. For reference; look at the reports of the German air raid on the Italian port of Bari. In that raid, a ship with MTO theater reserve stocks of chemical agents was damaged leading to inadvertent limited release.
It wasn't unthinkable back then. It was recent history for them where gas was used heavily. Lots of people in positions of authority had survived gas attacks themselves in the first world war. Only today is it now unthinkable.
Blister agent is classed as a damaging agent with potential of being lethal if inhaled thus blistering and closing the airway. One of the many useless things I recall from NBC lessons
Yes. We found similar affects on those who mixed HE with smoke fire missions. Now something like post persistent nerve agent attack with HE was good for ripping open NBC suits or overhead protection to cause further casualties. Once your suit was open you were in big trouble. Similar for blister agent in this case if blobbed in puddles.
When researching my Great grandfather’s WW1 and WW2 service, in ww2 he was to implement the use of and deploy chemical weapons via artillery shells if the Germans used chemical weapons to repel the allied invasion of Europe. He was dropped in a combat glider into southern France for operation dragoon. If no retaliatory chemical weapons were needed he would augment regular chemical warfare units deploying CS Gas and smoke screens for troop movements. But his glider crashed upon landing killing the glider pilot & copilot or whatever the crew member stationed next to the pilot in a glider and my great grandfather was seriously wounded
I've read that there were plans to gas Iwo Jima rather than invade & that using gas against troop concentrations was planned during Operation Downfall.
Mum's dad was gassed in France during WW1. It took him years to die. It's nearly as dangerous to the users as to the enemy. Blows all over the place. Like a toxic fart. 😂
Would LOVE to see a similar video on US and British plans to use Anthrax in Germany and Japan. the plans were fairly well advanced and they had all the anthrax bombs they needed.
Pre-war Navy plans for island hopping across the Pacific assumed gas would be used to suppress bypassed islands. As it turned out, conventional bombing was used instead.
Oh worse I’d think as those tens of millions of dead would need burying, towns decontaminated or burying as you couldn’t burn or you’d just produce new chemical clouds and the damage to the environment would last a long time. Japan would have needed decades longer than it took to recover. At least the air burst atom bombs didn’t contaminate as badly as ground burst would have.
all is well having a gas mask, but 99% of the gases used are just as deadly when it comes with in contact with the bare-skin..work that out, top show! 👍👍👍👍
I don’t recall any use in WW2 by the Soviets. I think Japan used Bio and Chem in China. The allies brought various agents to theatres in case it was used against them.
Really cool video! This made me think of the scene in Breaking Bad where Walt makes phosgene gas in the RV. Was that realistic in terms of his process and the impact it had on those two guys?
No just no. It's not realistic at all. Which is why you learned it through fiction. Phosgene is so deadly because of it's long delayed action. As shown in this very video you just got done watching. Now I know you'd rather believe what you saw on TV was real over actual historical documents but just no. Phosgene is easily made. So easily made chemists and welders need to be careful not to do it by mistake. But it still doesn't work like that.
I dunno but I nearly got killed by smoke inhalation once. Ran through the smoke of a controlled burn. You just can't breathe, instantly. Having your lungs on fire like hot chilli?? You would be screwed in seconds.
Scarily a lot of agents are easy-ish to make but horrors to contain and control safely as an amateur. Phosgene drowns your lungs with your own fluids. You pass out quick and drown in your sleep as hypoxia kicks in was how it was described to me in lessons.
Now you see how bad it could have gotten. If jeremy and george penn had long range bombers, It could have very easily turned into a terrible retaliatory weapon
Why don't you ask hamas what their strategy was when they murdered and raped concert goers? You have no standing to decry what a nation in declared war does in response to such evil. But then, I'm sure you approved of the hamas attacks themselves...
The Arabs wanted all-out war and started one. Now they seem less enthusiastic, and I don't see them dancing in the streets any more. You reap what you sow.
As bad as WW2 was it is sobering to know for sure that it could have ben much worse.
It was man, it surpassed Chemical Warfare and went full on Nuclear ☢️
Well... a little bit worse anyway.
Only if you’re American. It WAS that worst for Jews, Russians, China, etc. The Japanese openly used biological warfare in China and had planned to use it on their balloon bombs that reached as far as Montana.
Good grief. People complain about the horrors of the two atomic bombs. Those are small taters compared to what would've happened.
I agree but the Japanese dropping poison gas bombs and fleas infected with plague on Nanjing was as bad as Hitler gassing people.
As rude as this sounds, the atom was nothing next to traditional bombs, which themselves appear in this conflict to be less of an issue for Japanese civilians than fires (unintentional or otherwise). It was only effective because of shock value and the US wisely claimed the new bomb was cheap.
Poison gas was atomic bomb of that time. Neither side used it; Japanize in China in some extent. Thats to this presentation of original documents.
And the impact of the atomic bombs was nothing compared to the prior firebombing of civillian areas
Again a concise and detailed explanation of a subject! No clickbait here!
Never clickbait with WW2 bombers! Amazing content 👍👍
For reference is an oop book titled "Disaster at Bari" which detailed the result of a US frieghter blowing up in the Italian port of Bari after being set on fire by German bombers in WW2. It was carrying tons of mustard gas. The number of casualties was horrendous.
I did see a documentary about that incident and I was surprised at the fact they had the gas in an Italian port. I could understand to some degree wanting to have the gas ready for use but surely not in such an exposed place.
It is an unspoken thing, not only here but internationally, the fact that Americans were ready with weapons of Mass destruction.
@@pierluigiadreani2159 Both Germany and Britain had large stocks of chemical weapons, but each refused to initiate the use of such weapons due to the fear of reprisal.
In the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns, one way to have dealt with the dug-in Japanese defenders in their extensive underground fortifications would have been to pour poison gas down the ventilation shafts. This was apparently suggested by American soldiers, and the request made its way up the command chain, but was ultimately rejected by higher ups. The result was having to take the islands and fortifications by more conventional arms which meant higher casualties.
@@pierluigiadreani2159 What a stupid comment when the enemy were murdering women and children everywhere and especially in gas chambers. Any military option is on the table for people trying to rid the world of such vermin. Talk to your parents if they lived through the trauma. Anything that sped up the end was on the table for consideration
@@bigblue6917
It wasn't being stored on the ship, it simply was on it because that's how it got shipped there, they had a storage depot set up in an isolated area well away from places like that port or any other's that their enemy's maps had a big red X marked on it that next to was written "Bomb at earliest possible convenience", they weren't stupid enough to store the stuff there it just happened to be on the ship that'd brought it there and hadn't been unloaded yet.
What happened was when the ship sunk the chemicals formed a layer on top of the water just like oil would and the guy's who'd jumped off that ship and others that were on fire and sinking swam through it getting the chemical all over themselves.
The chemicals being on that ship when the port was attacked was merely bad luck not bad planning.
This small channel is another hidden gem, with so much potential. Keep going!
It is a miracle that Hitler didn't decide to use his nerve agents at the end of the war when he knew things were over.
We do know that Japan not only used gas but also worked on biological weapons including bombs which contained fleas which carried the plague. So being ready to retaliate was necessary.
Germany did come up with a new poison gas but decided not use it because they believed that as they had discovered the Allies would have done so as well.
The German created sarin nerve gas arguably one the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed and probably the deadliest at that time
Not one but three Soman, Tabun & Sarin. All of which were very much more lethal & effective a weapon than lewsite the iteration of mustard produced by the USA.
M.A.D existed before the atom bomb
Is anyone else surprised by the graphics design and illustration that went into some of these charts/documents?
Makes the use of two atom bombs appear practically humane by comparison.
I would not be surprised to know that we intentionally leaked the Chemical contingency plan in full to the Japanese as there is no secret tech involved in it. All old tech. And if it was leaked, it was likely as a contingency.
The irony is that with the nukes (which killed only about 4% of the estimated number to be killed in a chemical attack) is that a leak doesn't cut it. It has to be demonstrated as blue-sky technology and the US only had one fision bomb they knew for sure would work. That led to Japan being nuked and no invasion ever happening because bombing an atoll as a demo requires that you have a reliable second bomb to go all in with if Japan calls your bluff.
That is one of the reasons the U.S. dropped the nuclear bombs. As it was, the bombing campaign had killed more Japanese and destroyed their cities with regular bombs than the two nuclear bombs .
@@williamromine5715 And Operation Downfall might have killed even more.
That's a whirlwind the axis were not happy to reap apparently.
Hitler, being a WW1 soldier, knew all about it.
The only sensible thing he did. Or didn't.
Outstanding video! Very informative (as are all in this series from this channel). Some of what is detailed is chilling, and this particular video’s topic is one of those that causes one to think about the “unthinkable.”
Prior to nuclear weapons, the gas weapons were feared, because so many suffered from them during WW1 and knew the potential they had for horrible deaths.
This video is a lesson in how bad a war could get prior to nukes. Shudder.
I really don't like math anymore. :(
21 missions of 500 planes could have wiped out over 5 million people with phosgene alone…. My god. Along with the area denial and misery that mustard agent would caused. The fact that wood can be decontaminated either, knowing how much of Japans structures were made of wood. Just amazing how quickly the US could have devastated the Urban population centers with gas, it makes the fire bombings look almost tame.
The document mentioned at 7:24 --- "Tactical Planning -- Characteristics and Performance Chart" --- did you find this online? Or was it a physical copy from an archive? If it's available online, could you please share the website hosting the file as I would be very interested in reading the full document. I've only found bits and pieces of it online in various places, so being able to see the entire thing would be great.
I placed a link in the video description for access to the 1945 Tactical Planning document. Hope this helps!
There was a similar reprisal plan for Europe in case Germany tried chemical weapons, too.
Yes you are correct, the Germans were the first to deploy chlorine gas in WW1. And the allies couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t try it again.
Britain had Anthrax weaponised by 1943 and would have used it in retaliation. The discovery of German Nerve Agents came as a complete surprise
Thank you for another informative and interesting video!
I mean that’s a helluva way to ensure nobody uses chemical weapons.
Interesting that the Japanese cited treaties and international law to their own military hierarchy as reasons to not use gas, while ignoring generally accepted international law for handling enemy prisoners. I understand their own attitude towards their own men surrendering, and the contempt they had for enemies who surrendered, but cold hard reality says the easier you make it for the enemy to surrender, the less likely they are to fight to the death, and the fewer casualties you will have. And then to ignore international law on the matter while citing international law for gas warfare! I wonder how serious that citation was, or if it was just a face-saving reason for underlings.
That's what happens if you only care about vague concepts such as "honor" - your critical thinking goes to hell.
Take a look at the West. The Victorian Brits invented concentration camps for (White) Afrikaner women & children to win the Boer War. Thousands perished. The USA the symbolic freedom fighters of the World suddenly turned Imperial when opportunity presented itself in the Philippines. Many natives died because they did not want to live under Old Glory. At 1st they thought the US had liberated them, but the US was just trading places with their old Spanish overlords.
The WW1 Russians were just as cruel & inhumane to their German prisoners as the later Soviets were. So were the Japanese acting outside the norms of the time? I don't know, I guess it depended on whos newspapers you were reading at the time.
@@michaelbizon444 No they didn't. That kind of enslavement and isolation has been going on for millennia. The only change with the Boer War was the advances in technology.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 The actions & behaviors of the Japanese are only a reflection of what was going on in the World at large in that time's recent past.
If you are trying to show case that the Japs were especially barbaric or outside the norm in their actions, my examples show they were not.
The hypocrisy of the "Great British" inventing death camps I still find amusing. Or that having saved Europe from the evil Huns, they were machine gunning down defenseless women & children in Ireland, China & India in peaceful demonstration.
The German WW1 occupation authorities in Belgium were were nearly as hard on their fellow Euros as the Belgians were on their 'slave' subjects in the Congo.
The Japs observed all this and acted in a similar fashion when they had the whip hand is all.
Read your history. The British did in fact invent the concentration camp and built many during the second Boer War. If my memory is correct they murdered approximately 28,000 white women and children, and something like 10-15,000 black prisoners. Disease killed many, but most of the victims were deliberately starved to death in a careful, methodically planned manner that was well documented.
"My name is Homo Sapiens, Hominid of Hominids; look at my works, ye Mighty, and despair..."
First, this shows that there are staff officers that are paid to plan fo the unthinkable. Obviously, to be an effective deterrent a plan had to exist with the means to carry it out. Based on the fact that the US had chemical weapons stored in the theaters in the Mediterranean and probably ETO, there must have been a Liberty ship (or two) loaded with the assembled bombs ready to steam to forward operating bases. For reference; look at the reports of the German air raid on the Italian port of Bari. In that raid, a ship with MTO theater reserve stocks of chemical agents was damaged leading to inadvertent limited release.
It wasn't unthinkable back then. It was recent history for them where gas was used heavily. Lots of people in positions of authority had survived gas attacks themselves in the first world war.
Only today is it now unthinkable.
But how does this compare to ongoing firebombing?
Blister agent is classed as a damaging agent with potential of being lethal if inhaled thus blistering and closing the airway. One of the many useless things I recall from NBC lessons
Wow thats is nuts , great vid.
US skipped gas plan and went straight to plan A.
Interesting topic. Thanks for bringing those period sources to us.
wouldn't using HE bombs at the same time as gas bombs negate the desired effect?
Yes. We found similar affects on those who mixed HE with smoke fire missions. Now something like post persistent nerve agent attack with HE was good for ripping open NBC suits or overhead protection to cause further casualties. Once your suit was open you were in big trouble. Similar for blister agent in this case if blobbed in puddles.
When researching my Great grandfather’s WW1 and WW2 service, in ww2 he was to implement the use of and deploy chemical weapons via artillery shells if the Germans used chemical weapons to repel the allied invasion of Europe. He was dropped in a combat glider into southern France for operation dragoon. If no retaliatory chemical weapons were needed he would augment regular chemical warfare units deploying CS Gas and smoke screens for troop movements. But his glider crashed upon landing killing the glider pilot & copilot or whatever the crew member stationed next to the pilot in a glider and my great grandfather was seriously wounded
I guess they didnt have enough Tabun or other nerve agents for such massive wide scale use?
The Allies only discovered them in 1945
I've read that there were plans to gas Iwo Jima rather than invade & that using gas against troop concentrations was planned during Operation Downfall.
Mum's dad was gassed in France during WW1.
It took him years to die.
It's nearly as dangerous to the users as to the enemy. Blows all over the place. Like a toxic fart. 😂
Would LOVE to see a similar video on US and British plans to use Anthrax in Germany and Japan. the plans were fairly well advanced and they had all the anthrax bombs they needed.
We had 1000 pound phosgene bombs? Holy hell.
Pre-war Navy plans for island hopping across the Pacific assumed gas would be used to suppress bypassed islands. As it turned out, conventional bombing was used instead.
Then, someone mentioned the natives.
Jesus Christ mate, I've gotta try and sleep tonight. Thanks for the content.
Horrific!
Good lord that's horriffic.. not sure if it's more horrific than nuclear weapons, but it just feels worse.
Oh worse I’d think as those tens of millions of dead would need burying, towns decontaminated or burying as you couldn’t burn or you’d just produce new chemical clouds and the damage to the environment would last a long time. Japan would have needed decades longer than it took to recover.
At least the air burst atom bombs didn’t contaminate as badly as ground burst would have.
Insanity at its finest for the day. Today who really knows the height the insanity has reached.
The more we learn…the greater the levels of insanity that exist …
all is well having a gas mask, but 99% of the gases used are just as deadly when it comes with in contact with the bare-skin..work that out, top show! 👍👍👍👍
Given how desperate their situation was, I wonder if the Soviet Union used gas against the Germans.
I don’t recall any use in WW2 by the Soviets. I think Japan used Bio and Chem in China. The allies brought various agents to theatres in case it was used against them.
Really cool video! This made me think of the scene in Breaking Bad where Walt makes phosgene gas in the RV. Was that realistic in terms of his process and the impact it had on those two guys?
No just no. It's not realistic at all. Which is why you learned it through fiction.
Phosgene is so deadly because of it's long delayed action. As shown in this very video you just got done watching.
Now I know you'd rather believe what you saw on TV was real over actual historical documents but just no.
Phosgene is easily made. So easily made chemists and welders need to be careful not to do it by mistake. But it still doesn't work like that.
I dunno but I nearly got killed by smoke inhalation once.
Ran through the smoke of a controlled burn.
You just can't breathe, instantly.
Having your lungs on fire like hot chilli?? You would be screwed in seconds.
Scarily a lot of agents are easy-ish to make but horrors to contain and control safely as an amateur. Phosgene drowns your lungs with your own fluids. You pass out quick and drown in your sleep as hypoxia kicks in was how it was described to me in lessons.
Had this attack happened, in addition to the use of nuclear weapons, later Godzilla movies would be pretty hardcore.
Now you see how bad it could have gotten. If jeremy and george penn had long range bombers, It could have very easily turned into a terrible retaliatory weapon
and now we have rabbit island
If hiroshima didn't happen, this would happen
Roosevelt talking about the deployment of "inhumane weapons" is ironic
how so?
@@nathan47911 He is one of the lizard people
@@nathan47911 He killed 200,000 people with nuclear weapons
@@JJ-eb4tx Imperial Japan had killed far more than that in China. You reap what you sow.
@@JJ-eb4tx Roosevelt was dead, he did not make the decision to drop the bombs.
Almost as disgusting as what the IDF is doing in Gaza today.
Why don't you ask hamas what their strategy was when they murdered and raped concert goers? You have no standing to decry what a nation in declared war does in response to such evil. But then, I'm sure you approved of the hamas attacks themselves...
Does the Hamas Charter still advocate the global murder of all Jews?
@@indigohammer5732do J's still call us goyim and think us cattle?
The Arabs wanted all-out war and started one. Now they seem less enthusiastic, and I don't see them dancing in the streets any more. You reap what you sow.
If you're disgusted by this, you're low-IQ.