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Cities Bombed During WWII

Which cities suffered the most civilian deaths due to bombing in WWII?
Source
Numbers should be considered crude estimates
Immediate casualties only
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: October 8, 2018
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First submittedOctober 8, 2018
Times taken24,292
Average score71.4%
Rating4.03
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Answer
94,000
Tokyo
55,000
Hiroshima
43,000
London
42,600
Hamburg
38,000
Nagasaki
35,000
Berlin
23,000
Dresden
cpgatbyu
+11
Level 85
Oct 8, 2018
The Wikipedia source seems to be comparing apples to oranges. The casualty figure for Berlin is for 5 years, and the casualty figure for London is for 6 months, but just about everything else is a figure for only a handful of days. And follwing the links reveals that it's not because these cities were only attacked for a few days.
ASmartPanda
+4
Level 50
Nov 29, 2018
53% get Tokyo... Wow
sapientiamagna
+6
Level 64
Nov 29, 2018
Most Americans probably learn a lot about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and thus don't realize that the bombing of Tokyo killed more, and perhaps had a greater role in ending the war than the dropping of the atomic bombs
brandybuck96
+24
Level 83
Oct 8, 2018
Well, that was embarrassing... I forgot that the Pacific Theatre was a thing. This is the problem with the British education system.
mrnafe
+10
Level 82
Oct 8, 2018
Yea British education for ww2 is hopeless, they'd have us believe we won it singlehandedly.
ruftytufty
+5
Level 79
Oct 9, 2018
well oddly I was the other way around. I tried any number of Japanese cities and discounted London because I didn't see how it would be so high. Some of the comments on the means of calculation seem to bear this out.
brandybuck96
+4
Level 83
Oct 9, 2018
And that evacuation and rationing were the most important and most exciting parts of the war.
mikeb
+4
Level 66
Nov 29, 2018
The Beatles saw that film in "A Day in the Life".
sillie
+2
Level 77
Oct 9, 2018
I was totally focused on Europe as well before I actually realised it nowhere specified Europe.
martay
+5
Level 70
Nov 29, 2018
But at least they insist that if you don't eat your meat then you can't have any pudding. I mean, how you can have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
MarcellDAvis
+4
Level 75
Jun 29, 2023
I'm German and the first city that came to mind was London, then Coventry (not in the list). Then Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and Cologne (not in the list either). Then I was stumped and tried Russian and Polish cities, although I didn't think those received so many air raids. Only then did I think of the pacific theatre.
KoljiVriVoda
+8
Level 77
Oct 9, 2018
Interesting facts about bombing of Belgrade in WWII. Belgrade was bombed twice. First time in 1941 by Germans and second time in 1944 by British and American air forces. In both cases it was on Easter Day. Germans have killed about 3500 people and our allies have killed about 1200 citizens of Belgrade and 18 German soldiers.
twained
+1
Level 61
Nov 29, 2018
Wow. I did not know that.
Quizmaster
+4
Level ∞
Oct 9, 2018
Agree with the criticisms of the Wikipedia article. I don't think the list of cities changes, but I can see that the numbers are not 100% accurate.
TenThousand
+6
Level 76
Oct 9, 2018
I tried Coventry since that bombing was so famous - an interesting quiz how it puts numbers in perspective. To this day I cannot understand why the allies didn't atom-bomb something symbolic (eg Mt Fuji) to minimise civilian casualties while still making the point dramatically.
IsleAuHaulte
+1
Level 89
Dec 17, 2018
Ha that's always the target I thought they should have gone for. It would've been impressive in terms of power and a real psychological blow.
perpetualdarkness
+2
Level 74
Dec 7, 2019
it's easier logistically speaking to hit a city rather than a mountain, if I had to guess
nerdalert
+1
Level 85
Jun 26, 2020
As of January 2019, the US was still issuing purple hearts to soldiers that were originally created for the million plus anticipated casualties from invading Japan.
JWatson24
+1
Level 71
Dec 1, 2021
Not saying I personally agree with the atom bombings, but my Biochemistry professor recently told us about his father, who flew a bomber in World War 2. He was about to be deployed to the Pacific Theater at the end of 1945, and he may not have survived (and by extension my professor may not have existed) had the bombings not occurred. Full disclosure--my professor is pretty awesome and has done some amazing research (even playing a role in a major paper published on COVID last year).

So I'd say nerdalert and Jerry both have good points. At cruel as it sounds, the atom bombings may have saved many lives in the long run. At the same time though, it was still morally wrong to target a densely packed city. Would it have scared the Japanese equally if America targeted a small village or national monument? No way to really tell, but it's interesting to consider that alternate version of history.

kwind
+4
Level 65
Oct 12, 2018
the fire bombing of Dresden is known to have killed approximately 130,000 people.
Charbor74
+4
Level 52
Nov 29, 2018
I was going to say the same thing. I think these numbers are a bit off.
QRU
+4
Level 74
Nov 29, 2018
"is know" By whom? Official numbers are up to 25,000.
vonRundstedt
+3
Level 35
Nov 29, 2018
It is called the Dresden Holocaust
Manstein
+4
Level 35
Nov 29, 2018
the official numbers are not correct, they dont take into account the missing people or refugees that had been flooding into the city. The records of the men who gathered and burned what was left of the bodies certainly says more than 25,000. Berlin lost way more than the figure here as well. Half a million German civilians at least died due to bombing in the war.
kenpo17
+1
Level 66
Nov 30, 2018
The numbers in this quiz seemed very far off to me as well. With some quick research from a few different sources, casualty estimates range anywhere from 35,000 to 135,000. However, there have been some more recent historians who claim a much lower total, more in line with the number in this quiz, and that's the source Wikipedia evidently believes.
RockmanYoshi
+1
Level 53
Dec 5, 2018
http://www.dresden.de/en/02/07/03/historical_commission.php
RockmanYoshi
+1
Level 53
Dec 5, 2018
No, it didn't. Stop falling for nazi propaganda

http://www.dresden.de/en/02/07/03/historical_commission.php

kalbahamut
+3
Level 82
Nov 29, 2018
Wow. 7/7 with my first 7 guesses.
mariusz789
+4
Level 44
Nov 29, 2018
What about Warsaw? Entire city was ruined in 1945
Qikiq
+1
Level 86
Nov 29, 2018
I tried Warsaw, too, but the quiz isn't looking for most damage, but most civilian casualties.
Tummykong
+1
Level 66
Nov 29, 2018
More deaths in Tokyo than in Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined? Did not realize that.
kalbahamut
+3
Level 82
Nov 29, 2018
Extensive firebombing + huge city + buildings made of paper and wood. I've seen figures that state as many as 100k people were killed in a single day from this.
FlabberBapper
+3
Level 74
Nov 29, 2018
Which is strange why no one complains about the deaths in Tokyo, while they complain about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because the use of atom bombs, even though they had less casualties combined.
Quizley
+2
Level 66
Nov 29, 2018
It is not so strange when you consider the issue from the ethics of warfare. There is a general thread of argument that says that warfare should be costly and difficult. The horrors of war are a significant barrier to the will to enter into war, which gives people (and by extension states) the motivation to avoid war through diplomatic processes whenever possible. Only when the costs of war can be mitigated by lowering one's own loss of life (cf. drone bombing, a single atomic bomb from a single bomber versus thousands of conventional bombs from hundreds of bombers with scores of wings of escort fighters, etc.), mitigated by "getting away with it" internationally (cf. Russia with Crimea and Georgia/South Ossetia, Iraq's severe misjudgment with Kuwait), and/or supremely justified (cf. West vs. Communism) do the horrors of war become "worth it." Atomic warfare makes destroying your enemy too easy and thus too tempting, unless your enemy can destroy you too. Even then, the outcome sucks.
rocamorar
+1
Level 78
Dec 2, 2018
The figures correspond only to immediate deaths. The drama with atomic bombs is not the people who die with the initial blast, but the fact that much more victims will come in the following years (some of them decades after the conflict itself has been resolved, and suffered by children that weren't even born back then).
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Mar 1, 2020
The initial blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also horrific.
BoomDude298019
+1
Level 25
Nov 29, 2018
1:09
GeographyGeek42
+1
Level 66
Nov 29, 2018
Forgot Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
zupermaus
+3
Level 36
Feb 6, 2019
Manila, along with Warsaw was the most bombed city in terms of % destroyed. Over 100,000 died, mostly from Allied bombing to 'free' it.
LincolnIsTheBestOne
+1
Level 63
Apr 14, 2019
Got them all with 0:38 remaining at 7:25:37 PM on April 14, 2019. Hamburg was the last one I guessed. I've reached 1197 points now.
1MoloT1xD
+3
Level 51
Jan 16, 2020
Quite strange for this quiz to miss all the dead on the Eastern front - completely destroyed Warsaw and Minsk, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), of which only a burning husk was left by the end of the battle, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), which was bombed about daily for well over 2 years, Moscow, right there next to the Nazi lines full of bombers, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa... But then again, it would be hard to separate direct bombing victims there from those killed by guns, artillery, disease, starvation and extermination. Still, they all deserve to be mentioned.
spingospungo
+1
Level 57
Dec 17, 2021
Then submit a quiz for total civilian deaths. This one's about bombing.
zupermaus
+1
Level 36
Feb 11, 2020
Tokyo's figure of 90,000 was the worst SINGLE raid on 9th March 1945 (it destroyed central Tokyo, but other raids destroyed 6x more urbanity). In total an estimated 180,000 - >200,000 Tokyoites died in the bombing - the most destroyed piece of human urbanity ever. This was why it was never the site of the A-bombs, as the city had already been destroyed.

Also other cities were wiped out by mass bombing during BATTLES, notably Warsaw and Manila which each saw in over 100,000 deaths and in terms of percentage, were the most wiped out cities ever.

kszok
+1
Level 55
Oct 27, 2020
Stalingrad , Warsaw , Manila ???
dingtrf
+1
Level 50
Nov 26, 2020
where on earth is darwin
JWatson24
+1
Level 71
Dec 1, 2021
Northern Australia!

But if you want a serious answer, I looked up the bombing of Darwin and it killed "only" 236 people. That would be considered a lot in modern times, but barely anything during World War 2. Also, the bombing in Darwin was a single day thing, whereas most of the cities here were bombed repeatedly for months, sometimes years. With all due respect to those who lost their lives in the Darwin raid, I think the fact that I have never heard it nor learned about it in school suggests it wasn't a particularly important event in the history of World War 2.

uoiu
+1
Level 65
Apr 16, 2024
According to statistics from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing), Japan’s bombing of Chongqing during World War II caused more than 30,000 civilian casualties (the table on the data page listed in this quiz only counts One of the most important accidents resulted in 4,000 casualties). I hope the author can investigate and include it.
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