hiroshima facts wrote in message

Even in the worst cases of conventional bombing (like Tokyo), only 10%
of the affected population was killed.

Pre war population of Tokyo around 5,900,000, the firestorm raid
killed 83,783 according to Tokyo police, 1.4%, other estimates have
higher numbers of deaths and a smaller population due to evacuations.
Hamburg and Dresden suffered losses in the 4 to 5% range in the
firestorm raids, as a percentage of total population. Depending on
what population figures for the people present is accepted.

If the homeless figure plus deaths is the "population affected" figure
then the Tokyo death rate was around 7 to 8% of population affected.

In most of the Japanese cities firebombed, the death rate was about
1%.

This is presumably a percentage of total population present.


The A-bombs killed about half of the people in the affected area both
times.

Pre war combined population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was
around 520,000

So presumably the "affected area/population" is being defined as
something less than the total city, only the districts damaged to a
defined extent and affects on people again to a defined extent.
Arthur Harris' acreage destroyed table says 75% of Hamburg and
59% of Dresden were destroyed during the war. The Tokyo fire
storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly 25% of all
buildings in the city, over 1,000,000 left homeless.

The attack on Hiroshima killed around 80,000 and made a further
180,000 homeless, so 80/260 or 31% of the people affected, using
homeless and killed as the definition of affected. As noted above
Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8% using this measure.

One problem with comparing the data is the non atomic attacks
were against alerted cities, with people in shelters, the atomic
strikes were against unalerted cities and it makes a big difference
to the casualty figures. On 5 April 1943 the USAAF hit the Antwerp
industrial area with 172 short tons of bombs, killing 936 civilians,
it would appear the population assumed the bombers were going
somewhere else. There are plenty of such examples from the air
war in Europe, as late as April 1945 with the RAF attack on
Potsdam, the population appears to have assumed an attack on
Berlin, one estimate is perhaps 5,000 dead, the pre war population
was 74,000, 1,962 short tons of bombs dropped.

Given the difficulty in knowing the population numbers at the time
of the attacks on axis cities it would be interesting to know how
the estimates of populations in specific parts of the cities were done.

I would expect a nuclear weapon to be more lethal to those in the
target area, mainly the difference between most damage being
inflicted almost instantaneously and fires breaking out rapidly
versus the time it takes to put hundreds of bombers over the target.

Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.