Seventy-nine years ago, there was a big BOOM! in southern Japan, delivered by a B-29 named Enola Gay.

Useful idiots scream about the morality of the atomic bombings.

Richard Frank (extremely well-known military historian) was interviewed on the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast about the reasons why the bombings were necessary from a humanitarian perspective.

Listen, as it arms you with facts about why killing 200,000ish people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the least abhorrent option available to the Allies, as doing nothing to force the Japanese to capitulate would have killed innumerable (>1,000,000 more?) non-Japanese Asians (e.g., Chinese, Malayans, Vietnamese) just due to the famine the Imperial Japanese Army caused in those nations. And those death totals do not include the Japanese civilian population in the Home Islands who are slowly starving, or the Allied and Japanese military deaths (estimated at several million).

That's an excellent podcast that clearly lays out the facts. They have a whole series and they tell a number of stories that are unknown to all but hardcore WW2 junkies.

The total number killed in the Pacific, especially civilians through various mistreatment from the Japanese, is staggering. The number of people still dying daily if the bombs were not used far outweigh the bomb deaths.

There were roughly the same number of casualties in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters but few people realize that.

I’ve always contended that it’s easy for those not alive or affected by the war then to criticize what was done.

A friend and I were “accosted” and “encouraged” to join in a 1970’s Ann Arbor protest against the use of the bomb while walking on Liberty Street. Don’t think the hippie chick liked my response.

I simply asked her who started it. She went silent and I said “We just finished it” as we walked away.

If anything, the Japanese got off quite easy from the war crimes they committed in Asia. It was a tragedy of they got away with what they did to China and the Philippines but the Chinese were more concerned about fighting themselves than the invaders.

The emperor and all his generals and admirals should've been hung.

From what I understand, Japanese are taught that everyone else was the aggressor in WWII. As far as I know, the Germans don't deny what happened and try to gloss it over like the Japanese.

quote:

The emperor and all his generals and admirals should've been hung

The Emperor got off really light considering what he actually did.
MacArthur faced a lot of unknowns at the end of the war.
The Japanese had been fierce fanatical fighters and the civilian population was set to fight the invasion with everything they had, to the death. That included the military, old men, women and children.
The Emperor was considered to be a living god, not just a descendant of a god.
MacArthur, behind the scenes, traded his cooperation for his life to get them to surrender when they did. And a good trade it was. When Hirohito told the population, who had never heard his voice before, to not just surrender but cooperate they did just that. Turned on a dime.
When the occupying troops arrived (they were training and staging to invade before) they found a pacified and friendly country that has remained that way ever since.

I enjoyed Dan Carlins Logical Insanity and excellent War in the Pacific eps so I'll add this to the list.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

...The emperor and all his generals and admirals should've been hung...

Some of the military and civilian leaders were hung. For an extremely detailed book on the Tokyo War Crimes trials, read:

https://www.amazon.com/Judgmen...101947101/ref=sr_1_1

I recall reading an article several years ago around this this time by a young Japanese man. Growing up in Japan, he made his way through their public education system. He stated that it was only when he became a graduate student of history that he understood the historic connection between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. I wish I had a link to that article. Perhaps someone with better search skills than me can find it.

quote:

He stated that it was only when he became a graduate student of history that he understood the historic connection between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.

The Japanese nation, as far as I can tell, never appeared remorseful for the appalling atrocities visited on millions in china and elsewhere. Unlike Germany, where the Bundesrepublik (West Germany) paid reparations to Israel, outlawed Nazi sympathizers, and in many ways demonstrated contrition for the deeds of the Nazi regime, Japan as a nation did none of these things.

An unfortunate side effect of the necessary use of the atomic bomb was to make the Japanese appear in the eyes of the world as victims rather than as the monstrous perpetrators of crimes against humanity at a colossal scale. The citation above is an example of how generations of Japanese children were not taught the truth about the origins of the war and Japanese responsibility for it.

Just as an aside, I was one day short of a year old when the first bomb was dropped.