The U.S. launched 16 jets from the USS Harry S. Truman to drop 125,000 pounds of bombs on a cave complex in Somalia, killing 14.

PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN authorized the first nuclear attack in the history of the world, on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. Around 70,000 people, nearly all of them civilians, were vaporized, crushed, burned, or irradiated to death almost immediately. Another 50,000 probably died soon after. The bomb exploded with the force of more than 15,000 tons of TNT.

But the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its supporting strike group launched the “largest airstrike in the history of the world” from an aircraft carrier on Somalia in February, said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s acting chief of naval operations, while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership on Monday.

The strike involved 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets that launched from the Truman as the carrier strike group operated in the Red Sea, a Navy official told The Intercept on condition of anonymity. When it was over, Somalia had been pummeled by around 125,000 pounds of munitions, according to Kilby. Those 60 tons of bombs killed just 14 people, according to Africa Command, or AFRICOM.

  • OCATMBBL@lemmy.world
    6·
    1 day ago

    Beating their own previous record. It’d be nice if we just converted that money into food and housing and prevented the need for war.

    • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
      261·
      2 days ago

      It’s highly likely that people weren’t the target at all; they likely obliterated the infrastructure.

      • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
        14·
        2 days ago

        The Somolian Air Force is probably feeling it so hard right now.

        Oh wait I’m now being told that Somolia hasn’t had much of a functioning government for the past 30 years so what the fuck are we even attacking them for?

        • Saleh@feddit.org
          5·
          1 day ago

          Imagine if Somalia became a functional state again. It could use its location like the Houthis in Yemen to decide who can pass through the Red Sea and by extension Suez channel.

          Can’t have countries leverage their location like that. Look what became out of Singapore. Just bomb them all for eternity…

  • pageflight@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    2 days ago

    Is “largest” here just “most pounds of munitions”? Seems weird to compare it to “nuclear equivalent pounds of TNT”. Like, 1lb C4 != 1lb TNT anyway, right?

    • keckbug@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 day ago

      No idea what they’re trying to claim. I can’t see any dimension in which this was “larger” than the typical WWII era firebombing. There were more planes, more bombs by weight, more casualties, more of everything.

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 day ago

        I was confused by this too, but I might have figured it out.

        That was carpet bombing with strategic boomers at high altitude.

        This is a tactical air strike, delivered by strike fighters, at lower altitude with more precession for each munition.

        So this wasn’t in any way the largest bombing, just the largest air strike. In short, this is the biggest because pedantics.