This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
A Hiroshima Memorial
A Hiroshima Memorial. Friday was the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, an event that that has touched me in many ways.
I never had any doubt for the need to use the bomb in 1945. My father had orders to join his third marine division in Okinawa for the invasion of Japan when it was dropped. If the plan had gone ahead, I would not be writing this letter today. My biochemistry major and math minor at UCLA landed me a summer job as a research assistant at the Nevada nuclear test site in the late sixties where I got to know the men who worked with Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to build the bomb. There, “yields” meant millions killed, not interest paid.
When I first landed in Japan, I made a beeline straight to the Atomic Bomb Victims Hospital to interview survivors 30 years after the attack. I listened to stories about people vaporized, but whose image was etched into solid granite, and the rivers that were choked with countless bodies. Textile patterns were permanently burned into human skin, the light colors reflecting radiation, while dark ones absorbed it. Some 50 of the city’s 150 doctors were killed instantly, and the rest were seriously injured. They were futilely left to treat gamma rays and beta particles with only mercurochrome, or traditional Japanese folk remedies like moxabustion. Tens of thousands showed up at hospitals with no visible injuries, only to die agonizing deaths within the day.
Two weeks after the bomb, everyone’s hair started falling out and immense welts called keloid tumors appeared, classic symptoms of then unknown radiation poisoning. American scientists descended on the city by the hundreds measuring every imaginable parameter with grim precision, such as the heat at ground zero that reached an unbelievable 6,000 degrees, and the melting of ceramic roof tiles to a radius of 1,300 yards. They told the Japanese that no one could live there for 20,000 years. The residents ignored them and moved back in to rebuild as soon as the fires abated.
I met one spry Japanese American woman who grew up in Fresno, California and spoke perfect 1930’s English, but was sent home to Hiroshima to avoid the war. I’ll never forget the massive scars on her forearms where her summer yukata cut off. A barking dog caused her to briefly look away from the curious descending parachute from a lone B-29 overhead, thus saving her face and her eyesight. Her three young children didn’t make it.
For me the experience converted an interesting physics experiment into the greatest source of human misery of all time. As the years went on I met many more Hiroshima survivors, known as bakusha, who after a third shot of Suntory whiskey would talk about the artificial weather the bomb created, the gale force winds and the black rain. Every type of plant strangely flourished after the bomb, but men and women were left sterile, and birth defects skyrocketed. In later years I attended memorial ceremonies where 140,000 candlelit paper boats were placed in the Motoyasu River at night to symbolize the lost souls.
Ironically, those who survived the bomb now have the greatest lifespan of any group in Japan. I guess that if you can survive an atomic bomb, you can handle anything. I’m sure free health care for life and pensions helped too. There was also that one dose of radiation treatment, courtesy of the US government.
Today Hiroshima is a major focus of international pacifist and disarmament groups. The effort is being led in the US by former secretary of state, George Schultz, who has played a key role in cutting American nuclear stockpiles by 75% to 5,113 today. Some 20% of America’s nuclear power is currently generated by plutonium from recycled warheads from the former Soviet Union.
You can learn more about his efforts by visiting the Plowshares Fund at http://www.ploughshares.org/ .To buy John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize winning Hiroshima, which describes the doomed city immediately after the attack in all its horrific detail, please click here at http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-John-Hersey/dp/092389165X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281130125&sr=1-1 . It is not a light summer beach read, but is enlightening and sobering.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.
- advertisements -
I believe Nazi Germany tried to send "Heavy Water" to Japan via submarine.Can anyone really imagine what the casualty total would have been in an invasion of mainland Japan.Including civillians probably between half and 1 million would not seem unreasonable.It is easy in modern times to sit back and view periods of history through modern thinking.Nobody can or should ever forget the attrocities perpetrated.POW,s had been shipped back to Japan as slave labour some were vapourised during both attacks.Whatever we think today the end justified the means.History is there to be learned from not ridiculed.Any nation who uses them in the future is the ultimate failed state who will sign their own death warrant.If the shoe had been on the other foot how many would Japan have used on America ?
Absolutely no pity for the Japanese who brutally murdered and tortured allied prisoners, men, women and children. Japan never signed the Geneva convention and looked on it with disdain. Should have bombed the entire country back to the stone age.
There is a very dark side to the Japanese culture which they have managed to hide since WWII.
A few years ago I saw a show that described the day that Japan surrendered. The emporor had made a record to be played over the radio. The record was the call to surrender. (It would have been beneath him as a semi deity to go to a radio station and broadcast in person). There was a military coup planned to stop the surrender. Ironically, the only reason the coup failed was because the US had ordered one more B-29 raid to encourage the Japanese to surrender. I think the show was called something like "The Last Raid". The raid wasn't against Tokyo, but the bombers went over just as the plotters were about to grab the emporor and take him into "protective custody". The air raid reaction disrupted the attempt. If they had succeeded, there would have been no surrender. The emporor was the only one who could have done it. So much for "they were all ready to surrender" idea.
At universtiy a lot of my History studies were based on WWII. I studied at great length the weapons and technological advances during the war. In all of my readings and reasearch "little boy" never had a parachute.
It was a free falling weapon, aimed using the Nordon bomb site on-board a B-29.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordon_bombsight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy
I saw an actual model of little boy at the National Atomic Museum at Kirkland Airforce Base Albuquerque, NM. While there, I purchased a circular cloth arm patch with a huge burning atomic mushroom cloud on it commemorating the dropping of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Also, the bomb was not detonated at the correct height for maximum destruction. Around 525 ft would have created a precursor wave creating much more destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upshot-Knothole_Grable
----------
Just as a side note the B-29 program was even more expensive than the Manhatten project.
Mark Beck
Well written - Thanks! It is hard to judge anything fairly retrospectively, remember all of the Senate speeches by certain Democrats right after 9/11/01? With the passion in the midst of crisis, how can these same politicians not be willing to bankrupt this nation trying to get Osama?
The fact that a Japanese soldier could ascend to the highest ranking position in the US Army (and now be Secretary of Vetaran Affairs) one generation after Japan and the US fought a brutal war is a true testament to the best nature of the American people. Of course the fact that he was "retired" by the previous administration for speaking now obvious truths about a prospective invasion of Iraq says something quite different about our government.
The battle for survival, be it genetic or memetic, is dirty business and that will never change. American exceptionalism has had a pretty good run as a meme but it has lost most of it's ability to replicate. Islam and Christianity have real real muscle. Freedom, democracy, capitalism have skinny legs.
Operation Downfall was the overall Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan.
Operation Downfall had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in October 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Ky?sh?, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area.
Operation Olympic, the invasion of Ky?sh?, was to begin on "X-Day", which was scheduled for November 1, 1945. The combined Allied naval armada would have been the largest ever assembled, including forty-two aircraft carriers, twenty-four battleships, and four hundred destroyers and destroyer escorts. Fourteen U.S. divisions were scheduled to take part in the initial landings. Using Okinawa as a staging base, the objective would have been to seize the southern portion of Ky?sh?. This area would then be used as a further staging point to attack Honsh? in Operation Coronet.
Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honsh? at the Kant? Plain south of the capital, was to begin on "Y-Day", which was scheduled for March 1, 1946. Coronet would have been the largest amphibious operation of all time, with 25 divisions, including the floating reserve, earmarked for the initial operations. (The Overlord invasion of Normandy, by comparison, had 12 divisions in the initial landings.) The U.S. First Army would have invaded at Kuj?kuri Beach, on the B?s? Peninsula, while U.S. Eighth Army invaded at Hiratsuka, on Sagami Bay. Both armies would then drive north and inland, meeting at Tokyo.
Estimated casualties
Of these estimates, only Nimitz's included losses of the forces at sea, though kamikazes had inflicted 1.78 fatalities per kamikaze pilot in the Battle of Okinawa,[46] and troop transports off Ky?sh? would have been much more exposed.
Outside the government, well-informed civilians were also making guesses. Kyle Palmer, war correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, said half a million to a million Americans would die by the end of the war. Herbert Hoover, in memorandums submitted to Truman and Stimson, also estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 fatalities, and were believed to be conservative estimates; but it is not known if Hoover discussed these specific figures in his meetings with Truman. The chief of the Army Operations division thought them "entirely too high" under "our present plan of campaign."[47]
The Battle of Okinawa ran up 72,000 U.S casualties in 82 days, of whom 12,510 were killed or missing. (This is conservative, because it excludes several thousand U.S. soldiers who died after the battle indirectly from their wounds.) The entire island of Okinawa is 464 square miles; to take it, therefore, cost the United States 407 soldiers (killed or missing) for every 10 square miles of island. If the U.S. casualty rate during the invasion of Japan had only been 5 percent as high per square mile as it was at Okinawa, the United States would still have lost 297,000 soldiers (killed or missing).
Estimates: coulda woulda shoulda. Oxymoronic conjecture as rationalization. Weak.
At least in an invasion most would have been soldiers killed in the 'glory of battle', not a bunch of women and kids disintegrated, burned alive, blinded and otherwise maimed or slowly poisoned by two cowardly acts of state sponsored terrorism.
Aside from the very obvious military target attacked on Peal Harbour, how many American women and children were decimated by Japanese bombs Stateside? oh.
The left loves to scold the rest of us about "context" anytime one of us complains about something they said that they later consider to be inconvenient. The "context" of the us dropping the bomb started with the development of a racist supremacist religio-political ideology in Japan.
That ideology showed its true human face in 1937 when Japanese military forces seized control of Nanking China and proceeded to rape tens of thousands of women and to torture and execute just about everyone they could get their hands on. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died, or roughly half of the death toll of Hiroshima.
Suicide bombers attacking US troops and, in the form of flying Kamikaze bombs, attacking US ships is part of this "context". We also witnessed countless Japanese soldiers who committed suicide by gruesome means rather than surrender when given the chance.
The "context" of dropping the bomb was such that, by every rational indication, would mean millions of deaths, both of US soldiers and Japanese civilians, when the US invaded the Japanese mainland. My own father before his death, told me that he was destined to be part of that invading force, and were it not for the bomb, he might not have survived.
Before people allow their sympathies for the horrors of the A-bomb to overwhelm their common sense, they should refresh their awareness of the full "context" of Hiroshima. A good place to start is the Wikipedia entry: "Nanking Massacre"
May we never have to use nuclear weapons again. I am afraid that Iran is hell-bent on using them on Israel. May God help us all if they do.
The left loves to scold the rest of us about "context" anytime one of us complains about something they said that they later consider to be inconvenient. The "context" of the us dropping the bomb started with the development of a racist supremacist religio-political ideology in Japan.
That ideology showed its true human face in 1937 when Japanese military forces seized control of Nanking China and proceeded to rape tens of thousands of women and to torture and execute just about everyone they could get their hands on. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died, or roughly half of the death toll of Hiroshima.
Suicide bombers attacking US troops and, in the form of flying Kamikaze bombs, attacking US ships is part of this "context". We also witnessed countless Japanese soldiers who committed suicide by gruesome means rather than surrender when given the chance.
The "context" of dropping the bomb was such that, by every rational indication, would mean millions of deaths, both of US soldiers and Japanese civilians, when the US invaded the Japanese mainland. My own father before his death, told me that he was destined to be part of that invading force, and were it not for the bomb, he might not have survived.
Before people allow their sympathies for the horrors of the A-bomb to overwhelm their common sense, they should refresh their awareness of the full "context" of Hiroshima. A good place to start is the Wikipedia entry: "Nanking Massacre"
May we never have to use nuclear weapons again. I am afraid that Iran is hell-bent on using them on Israel. May God help us all if they do.
During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the sixty-five years following the end of World War II — including the Korean and Vietnam Wars — have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there were still 120,000 of these Purple Heart medals in stock.[2] There are so many in surplus that combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan are able to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to wounded soldiers in the field.[2]
Perhaps we should take the occasion of this anniversary to build a Christian Church at ground zero Hiroshima to celebrate our victory and convert those Buddhists ....oops i mean to "improve relations".
Hiroshima was the only Catholic Christian city in Japan.Note the Nuked Cathedral dome which was left standing.
Most Japanese practice Shinto.
Maddy knows; The dog days of August are the best time to post the controversial topics. Keep 'em coming.
The comments, as always, are almost more enlightening than the original posting.
Thank you members.
I hardly hear anything about the evil that the Japanese commited against the chinese, koreans and others. Why? No one ever mentions nanjing? Some kind of victim exceptionalism?
You fail to mention the US fully backed the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea and Manchuria. It also sold weapons and resources to Japan the entire time. Does this make the US complicit in the slaughter?
There is an important lesson here: in spite of the supposed "rules of war," civilians are regularly held accountable for the actions of their leaders. Look at Iraq for a more modern example. What the US public doesn't seem to get is that this goes both ways.
Do you think soldiers in Japan would have hesitated to attack US civilians if they could have? Just look at what they did in China. What about Iraqi or Afghani soldiers today?
i pledge allegiance to the table of transuranic elements.
one nation, under nukes, radioactive for all.
"I pledge impertinence to the Flag-Waving of the unindicted co-conspirators of America and the (Demublicans) for which I can't stand. One abomination, underhanded fraud; indefensible. With liberty and justice, forget it. Heh heh. Just kidding." - Matt Groening
Had the US instead landed an overwhelming force around the city, then just shot, beat, bayoneted and hacked those 140,000 to death---men, women and children---it would today merely be an event remembered in a single city alone, not an annual worldwide day of remembrance, one of whose purposes is to remake aggressors into innocent victims. The people killed would have been just as dead, after having gone through as much or more fear, pain and suffering. The "perpetrators" of the act could even have left it out of the textbooks, since it would have been just another action in a long war where civilians are most often the largest source of casualties.
In fact it would have been Nanjing, albeit with an asterisk. The asterisk would point to a notation that Hiroshima was aimed at ending a war, which the US did not start, with as few American casualties as possible, while Nanjing was simply an act of heinous barbarism initiated by the Japanese and about which the well-chronicled accounts of the savagery were meticulously reported in Japanese media and cheered by many of the people. The Japanese action was pure maliciousness, and its goal subjugation.
It is no wonder Japan does not stop to honor and remember the dead of Nanjing, and this annual exercise refutes the oft said argument that "victors write the history".
Funny you fail to mention the tens of millions of Asian and South American Indians, Asians and Africans slaughtered by war and famine by the Western powers. You also fail to mention the US fully backed the Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea and Manchuria. Let's throw in the huge amounts of weapons and supplies the West sold to Germany and Japan. Look up the work by Boeing, Grumman and other American military contractors to design and sell sophisticated aircraft to Germany and Japan. Trace the billions funneled to Germany and Japan by the elite in the US financial system.
A little balance seems to be in order.
"A little balance seems to be in order"
I believe that is what my post is, a little balance to International Victim Day (named by a Japanese friend). Is everyone selective in his remembrance? Probably. That being said, sometimes it must be remembered what 8-10 year series of events led up to Hiroshima. Japan rarely notes this, and the black trucks that ride through Tokyo blaring their right wing fantasies (to this day) will physically attack anyone who raises the possibility that any Japanese, and particularly Emperor Hirohito, had culpability in bringing about Hiroshima.
As an aside, I was fortunate enough to have had a conversation with an ace from the American Volunteer Group, or AVG, which you will know as the Flying Tigers. They were established by Gen. Claire Chenault at the request of Chiang Kai Shek to help the Chinese people fight the Japanese invaders prior to 12-7-41. Though records vary, in their short existence they scored something on the order of 400 Japanese planes shot down and lost only a few pilots themselves.
The fellow with whom I spoke (now deceased) related a story about one of the AVG's first missions. Near Kunming in Yunnan Province, the Japanese were training gunners in bombers by overflying civilian areas and "practicing" by gunning down farmers and rural townsfolk who possessed little more in the way of weaponry than pitchforks (hardly effective against 50 cailbre machine guns mounted inside aerial bombers).
This practice had become a daily occurence, the Japanese slaughtering civilians with impunity and "just trying to get better". On this early mission, a group of five or so P-40's of the AVG flew a roundabout route so they could come in with the rising sun (very appropriate) as cover. Obviously they surprised the Japanese, and shot down five of the "trainers". Impunity was gone.
Sad to watch the devolution of ZH. It used to be frequented by independents who challenged the conventional wisdom. Looking at the majority of the comments here, it seems to have been taken over by neocon teabaggers who worship conventional wisdom.
"...taken over by neocon teabaggers who worship conventional wisdom."
Call me crazy, but I tend to hold wisdom in high regard. It beats the hell out of following ne'er-do-well whiners who rate their bitching and complaining as something of value. You want to challenge conventional wisdom? Being a chronic malcontent who does little more than spew utopian drivel doesn't quite cut it. Dropping your cute little MSNBC-sponsored labels doesn't cut it. Proffering your petty observations of what makes you "sad" doesn't cut it. Don't you think you are a bit long in the tooth to be offering up emotion-driven laments that are on the same intellectual plane as those of my 4 year old? Berkeley circa 1967 is over, man...time to grow up.
You're fucking crazy. Oh and WHOOSH! Good luck joining the Gang on Fortune Hill, they've sure got your number, Peasant.
My friend's mom, who was a little girl in the Dutch East Indies during the war, witnessed and lived through unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation. Above her bed to this day hangs a framed photograph of the Enola Gay signed by the pilot and crew, which gives you an idea of her position on the matter. How can you argue really with someone like that?
Obviously the human destruction and misery from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs is just sickening and those peoples' stories deserve to be remembered and honored but in the end it's a bit pointless to try and throw all Pacific Theatre human suffering on a scale to see which end goes up and overcomes the other. It just can't be done. When human conflict reaches that kind of magnitude and scope it's like ethical entropy.
Perhaps those two bombs scared the BeJesus out of enough people to have given the subject of nuclear weapons a moral seriousness they would not otherwise have.
Sadly common citizens get screwed always!!!!
As if Japanese walking on the streets of hiroshima were all wilfully baying for the blood of koreans and chinese
and had ordered their king and his army to do what they did!
US is just like any another stone age tribe - ends justify the means!!!
King kong guards his territory, that's all
I am extremely doubtful that nuking Japan saved any Japanese lives.
However, I do believe that it did saved many lives of humans in the long term.
Why? Because the photographs and stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pretty much told everyone that nukes bring mutually assured destruction.
If there were no stories available on how it felt being nuked,
I don't think the cold war would have been that cold.
Since there aren't enough facts available for anyone to determine whether nuking Japan was good/bad/valid/invalid/etc, this argument is for unproductive debating contests.
Debating the validity of the surging yen is much more productive.
What is more productive is remembering the scale of tragedy nukes bring,
and learning that we shouldn't be repeating it.
BTW, for all of you who thinks nuking brought an end to the war faster,
shouldn't you be telling people that nuking Iraq will end the war quickly?
If it worked last time, shouldn't it work this time too?
Why not nuke it this time?
Why isn't the US government nuking it this time?
Since there aren't enough facts available for anyone to determine whether nuking Japan was good/bad/valid/invalid/etc, ...
Wrong.
Those facts were available to the person who made the decision. It is quite arrogant to assume those same facts would be available to the common man. Rulers of nations operate at a level of knowledge that most men will never have. That is part of what it means to be ruler.
Also, what arrogance to claim that you doubt that Truman's decision saved any/many Japanese lives. You have access to the same information that Truman had access to do you?
If it worked last time, shouldn't it work this time too?
You do realize that dropping the bombs on Japan was intended to stop a certain type of behavior, right? Does that same behavior exist today anywhere?
Those facts were available to the person who made the decision. It is quite arrogant to assume those same facts would be available to the common man. The Federal Reserve operate at a level of knowledge that most men will never have. That is part of what it means to be the chairman.
Also, what arrogance to claim that you doubt that Bernanke's decision saved the American economy. You have access to the same information that Bernanke had access to do you?
You do realize that dropping the Donk Bill on Wallstreet was intended to stop a certain type of behavior, right? Does that same behavior exist today anywhere?
We humans should grow up and 'graduate' now
stop being medieval in thinking about nations, nationalities which keep emphasizing our differences
All of us- regardless of race, citizenship, class want a simple peaceful life for us and our children
Mother earth has enough resources to sustain us all
True education is one that puts this agenda first and not encourage warfare among brethren
Technology should not focus on new ways of killing people but protecting them from any such
Sad to see so many here justifying killing of innocent people as the right thing to do
Much has to do with inherent mistrust among nations
Osho was right; "Erase the borders from the map and lo'- you are fighting with yourself!!!!"
No, there are many who want to dominate and plunder other people. The Koran celebrates this point of view. Your way is the road to slavery. No thanks.
Sorry, but your are sooo wrong.
Nations are just a manifestation of human pyschology. A convenient way of organizing ourselves.
The elimination of nation states is not the elimination of ambition, greed, self delusion, pettiness, fear, over confidence, arrogance, self indulgence, in short, humanity.
Your One World Community will start with good intentions and fine rhetoric. The same spiel used time and again. Eventually there will be those select few whose rise to the top while the hapless majority stays at the bottom. The elites will learn to game the system that feeds off the powerless. The powerless will be, well, powerless to stop them, but without "other" places to go, there will be no escape.
You say your enlightened planners will foresee and plan accordingly. But that only works if everyone agrees to one plan, and many plans with different goals usually conflict. You cannot eat the cake today, but at the same time save it for tomorrow. And when cake gets sliced up, some will get bigger slices, and others will be left with, "maybe next time". Some regions will have an abundance of a resource, others will have a shortage. If the redistibution doesn't happen fast enough to suit those who want it, or if those who produce feel exploited, tensions will arise. They may not be called countries, or armies, but groups of the like minded will form. Street gangs have no maps, but even in prison they are well aware of their borders, even if that border is a colored rag or a rolled up pant leg.
The BIGGER the system you create, the BIGGER the bang when it falls. We would be on the way to a real, but slow recovery now if the TBTF had just been allowed to....fail. But instead here we are building a bigger version of what didn't work before. And if you think your One World is going to end up any different then what any other past "great unifier" has ended up delivering, well, the world is in for tears unlike anything seen in human history.
"But, but, this time will be different." Heard that one too. May I point out that at one time all the civilized world consisted of Rome (well from their perspective). Yet time to time even the Roman legions faced off against each other. And over a thousand year history, not one slave revolt succeded. Think about it.
hahaha
Go through your post again and think
World would still be a better place if it is the class society that you refer to even after being gamed
you think we aren't gamed right now?
Gamed warless world is more acceptable than status quo
Atleast for the sake of intellectual fruition we can aim for war-less world for now
we can aim for a classless world later
haha?
of course its a gamed system. but there are choices, such as I won't play, or only on M-F, 7to4. A all powerful totalitarian government won't allow that. As the commies would say: Those who don't work don't eat!! But what happens when the only employer is the government, and you're on the blacklist?
Who wants war? No sane person, but is slavery an option? And lack of war is not lack of violence. Lack of war is a protection for the elites property, no a guarantee of personal safety against crime, government action/inaction etc. One World is no better than what is happening now. The elites are still going to want their Niobium, planners are going to want your property for the good of the community, NHS is going to tell you what to eat. Most of the people on this site would be arrested under the EU hate speech laws. Right now, in theory you can leave to where ever. If you want to opt out of One World, where do you go?
Tell you what, why not leave this place alone. I don't mean to sound ignorant, I really mean that. Go somewhere else to try your experiments. get back to us in a few decades and let us know how it went. of course they did that already. Germany, Russia, China. not too impressive.
If a financial advisor says he has to have ALL of your money before he can start managing your accounts, would you give it to him, or head straight for the door? Or how about, "We have to vote for the bill before you can know whats in it"?
Congratulations Bob...you finally coaxed the essence out of at least one of them;
"Gamed warless world is more acceptable than status quo
Atleast for the sake of intellectual fruition we can aim for war-less world for now
we can aim for a classless world later"
The essence of a communist. Patient. Calculating. Despotic.
Well done.
The essence of a communist. Patient. Calculating. Despotic.......Well done indeed ... Exellent ... short answer precision. Thanks!
Nukes,bitchez!
By the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, the Japanese Navy had been all but destroyed and Japan itself was under effective blockade.
The remnants of the Japanese Airforce were completely ineffective against the high altitude bombers employed by the USAF. They were pounding Japanese cities at will with conventional high explosive and incendaries. The Japanese were reduced to digging up a certain kind of pine tree in a desperate attempt to produce the high octane fuel required for aircraft.
Even in Europe, the Luftwaffe was never really a match for the RAF or the USAF. The Luftwaffe did have some success with its night fighter operations against the RAF but the end result was never in doubt. As 'Bomber' Harris said; "Germany was wrecked from end to end"
The USAF only conducted daylight raids over Germany. Even then the Luftwaffe was unable to make much impact, particularly after the introduction of the Mustang as fighter escort. German cities were relentlessly pounded day and night, though operating in daylight the USAF was 'mostly' able to bomb strategic targets; ball bearing factories, shipyards, refineries etc.
It was the RAF that refined the 'art' of terror bombing, culminating in the destruction of Hamburg and Dresden.
Not that the Germans didn't have a go themselves.
Woulda coulda shoulda isn't my favorite game, but may I point out that IF the Allies had pushed D-Day until summer 45, with another 6-12 months of production the Me 262 would have shredded that air superiority. Wouldn't have stopped the loss, but could have changed the type of conclusion.
And Japan was about to introduce their version, the KaKajima-Kikka, and a jet powered bomber. And unlike the Nazis and their fantastic Wunder weapon schemes, Unit 731 Biowarfare group had ordinance that would have PAID OFF.
We did what we did. The war ended when it did, the way it did. Any talk about not dropping the bombs that doesn't address what an additional 6 to 12 months of fighting would have cost AND what the potential change of outcome could have looked like, is just ideological fantasies or intellectual fraud to push an unrelated agenda.
You're ignoring the fact that by 1945 neither Japan nor Germany could produce anything much at all. The 262 was being cobbled together in a forest and there was no fuel to fly them anyhow. The people were on the verge of starvation.
The atomic bombs didn't end the war, it was already over.
To win it takes occupation of territory. Period. End of story.
If the enemy combatants on the main islands of Japan had commited or promised to commit hari kari that would have been acceptable as well.
No offer or deed was forthcoming.
Boom. Boom.
Then it was over.
Read "Racing the Enemy," one of the first history books that takes into account Russian, American, and Japanese language sources.
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674016939http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Enemy-Stalin-Truman-Surrender/dp/0674016939
Japan tendered an unconditional surrender as requested by the hawks in the State Department, but Truman et al went ahead with the bombing anyway.
The bombing was more about preventing the Russians from occupying than breaking the will of the Japanese regime.
I'm not one for utilitarian arguments, but Soviet occupation probably wouldn't have been a much better result for the Japanese.
It's my understanding (from reading "Churchill as War Leader" chapter 22 "Potsdam and atom bombs" that Japan never tendered an unconditional surrender.
The English knew Japan would likely agree to such a thing only if the Emperor was left out of the "unconditionals". Churchill had a last chance to try to get Truman to agree to leave the Emporer alone, but decided against discussing it.
Interestingly, use of the bomb on Japan required England's approval, which was obtained.
I have not read the book, but I assume that info was from it. I have not heard of an UNCONDITIONAL surrender offer to the US. There was an unofficial, unsanctioned, offer made by a couple of minority minsters through the Soviets for a CONDITIONAL cessation that would have kept the government intact, minus the approriate scapegoats. Little did Japan know that Stalin had made commitments to the Allies, and had received considerable incentives for joining the PTO. In addition, unconditional surrender had been an agreed outcome for the ETO that the Allies had paid dearly for, and expected the same conclusion for Japan.
As the Japanese ministers waited, Stalin was frantically trying to shift his forces so that he could honor his contract and collect his payoff before the war ended without him. It might have been a bit uncomfortable to have to give a refund on a bribe.
As for the Japanese mindset? After the first bomb, the ruling militarist ministers dismissed the effects. A small group attempted a palace coup to force the Emperor to intervene. They were quickly dealt with. The militarists had NO intentions of surrendering. I might believe there was a more substantial coup being plotted, but I would be very skeptical of any serious unconditional talk of a Japanese origin. Some of the low ranking functionaries were thinking it, but the ruling Militarists knew exactly what was in store for them with an Allied victory.
And all these revisionists are just trying to readjust history to justify their current agendas. They weren't there. It wasn't their decision. Communications aren't instant. The players didn't have the information that they do. Sixty years later and new info is still being uncovered. Everyone wants to attribute all of these double secret agendas to the bombings. And I'm sure they all weighed in on the final decision. But how about Occam's razor? The primary driver of the bombing was just the continuation of General Lemay's strategic bombing campaign that had been underway for a year? Nothing more than a horrifying evolution in efficiency of an established course of action.
Maybe because history changed on that day people want it to be more. Until that day it took vast armies swinging swords or squeezing triggers to end lives. Even the conventional air raids took thousands of men to carry out. But this was the day that the life of all humanity, possibly the planet, was reduced to the push of a button. The day man was no longer master of the tools he creates. Life existing at the whim of a new technology. Maybe they want the event itself to equal its consequences. But the final truth:
It is what it is. Its war.
Not to be left to amateurs. Not to be treated as a recreational activity or light entertainment. Not business by other means.
If US, the benevolent saviour of Jews in germany, were so benevolent and wanted to demonstrate their prowess to Japan couldn't they attack an army barrrack or their armoury?
Why kill 150,000 people to show your might?
And repeat the same after 3 days?
War makes everyone look the same- no good/ no bad- just evil
Did I say benevolent? Did I say an innocent? We have many things to answer for, but this isn't one of them. Know this about America-We are about what works. Ruthless, efficient, heartless when necessary, generous in an emergency, willing to do the hard thing-until we get tired, we don't put up with **** for long
Quick history lesson:
We sent a warning, one week?, no response. I mean really, how often do you warn your enemy that you 're going to attack them?
We dropped bomb one. Three days. No response.
We dropped a second bomb. No response
Couple days later Russia declares on them.
Then it took a week for them to decide what to do? Just how much time do you think would we should have given them to come up with "Holy ****, I think we should quit"
If all we wanted was to show off, why the warning? Why wait a couple days? How about two in a row? What about two at once!! Now that would have been impressive.
Why there and not somewhere else? Why Tokyo? Why Dresden? Why Hamburg? Why London? Why Warsaw? Why anywhere?
An army barrack would not have yielded many casualties, and would easily been dismissed as acceptable war damage (Japan had just lost 96,000 men on Okinawa and didn't get overly concerned), nor would a city too small do. A city too big or of cultural signifigance would have been a rallying cry to fight on. Kokura was the primary target for the fat man bomb, but bad weather sent the plane to the secondary target-Nagasaki- complete with an army barrack, an arms plant and a shipyard. A three for one deal. The ruthless calculus of death.
my point,exactly!
Ruthless,efficient but not justifiable!
That's that!
No winners no losers in war!
How do you do justice for lives lost in pearl harbour or hiroshima!
Or soldiers in all wars so far!
No answers just facts!
Here's your answer, and you're not going to like it:
They're evil and they started it.
actually its a complex psychological issue. At its heart, our system that mostly attacks and controls you with the corruption of money, was physically attacked by competing systems that literally attacks and controls you by the overt force of the state. What they tried to do actually using bombs and guns, our system usually does using the treaties, aid packages, loans, gunboat diplomacy
Add to that the atrocities we committed were limited to the necessity of ending the war. Many of the atrocities they carried out, especialy some of the most egregious, were part of policies that were a fundamental and integral part of the system they were trying to implement.
And so we're back at: they're evil and they started it.
Not only do we have to contend with the enemies of our nation, the terrorists, the Chinese, the Russians, and countless others who just can't wait to kill us, we also have to contend with the traitors from within, who are being bred in our leftist universities, faster than rabbits on Viagra.