quote:

Originally posted by MRMATT:
We shouldn't have stopped at just two.

They were already prepping for a third one when Japan surrendered. They probably woulda dropped a third if it had been put together and was on deck.

quote:

Originally posted by MRMATT:
We shouldn't have stopped at just two.

And why is that? Just to slaughter people when there was no longer any need to do so? Because that's what a third one would have been- just slaughter.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, one day before the Nagasaki bomb. Japan was finished. They announced their surrender on August 15.

My late father in law was 100% Japanese heritage born outside of Kyoto. His family moved to the US when he was around 5. As a young adult he was fully American in citizenship and culture. He served in the army corps of engineers in the European theatre in WWII. While there, his whole family was confined in the Tule Lake internment camp.

He recognized that the nuclear bombs were the least destructive option to break the will of a stubbornly supremacist culture of fanatical obedience to their emperor. If anyone knew the Japanese culture of the time, he did.

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Best to leave the past in the past.

That's my thought as well unless we're trying to learn from history.

I support the dropping of the first bomb. It's indeterminate to me whether the second bomb was necessary.

The net time we do use it, I doubt there's going to be any restraint anyway on any one's side.

But I do think it's important for people to validated the decision process that was made. For example, the war on Iraq spurred by the risks of them having Weapons of Mass Destruction, did that came from the same sources that gave us Russian Collusion? Are our elected leaders being given the best intelligence possible or are they being fed curated information based on someone's agenda?

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
More anathema to me than the use of nukes is the targeting of civilian population centers over military targets.

Except that, in both cities, but especially Nagasaki, the Japanese used their own population as human shields by locating their war factories in residential areas. You can't hit one without damage to the other.

The Japanese invented FAFO, and, in my opinion, got just what they deserved. They could have avoided the whole thing by acting like responsible members of the International community.

Various organizations in the mid-east appear to have not learned from their misjugements.

I firmly believe that the civilian casualties were a deal to placate China for Nanking.

What country other than the USA would bomb the hell out of Japan and Europe and then spend trillions rebuilding them. Like Isreal being attacked by Hamas and then while actively engaged in war is sending relief trucks in.

I have much, much more sympathy for American citizens of Japanese descent put in concentration camps than the folks who were collateral damage of war. Both are tragic but i don’t know anyone from Jason who was nuked. I do know personally many people who I grew up in the Bay Area who’s parents who are very much alive who grew up in concentration camps and had their lawfully owned property basically stolen becuaee they were in prison and couldn’t work their farms or work to pay the mortgage.


The fact is Japan to this day still teaches the history of the war as basically…” and then one day for no reason they nuked us !” And still ignores all the really nasty shit they did, my give a damn meter is not even twitching.

All that being said. I do not want to see another nuke ever set off in anger. And reportedly missing “backpack nukes” scare the hell out of me.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by MRMATT:
We shouldn't have stopped at just two.

And why is that? Just to slaughter people when there was no longer any need to do so? Because that's what a third one would have been- just slaughter.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, one day before the Nagasaki bomb. Japan was finished. They announced their surrender on August 15.

I didn't mean a third bomb on Japan. I was thinking of a target further west that may have helped end the Communist problem that we have today.

"Did the Nagasaki bomber ‘miss’ on purpose to save lives?
Nagasaki was not the original target, and the bomb fell miles from its heavily populated centre. An investigation throws the official explanation into doubt."

Sorry, but that article is straight horseshit. The mission and plane commander, Sweeney, did 7 screw ups on the mission, disobeying original orders. In fact after bomb drop they diverted to another base and spent the night there, getting their story straight. One thing in particular, they were ordered NOT to do a radar drop......and the Nagasaki drop was exactly same distance off as a radar drop. I will let the below video explain everything,.

The Nagasaki mission starts at 1:25:52:

The nukes were a kindness.
Anyone that doesn't understand the situation should keep their feelings out of the discussion.

"A swift cut is the kindest."

Samurai code of respect for their opponents.

Playing about is cruel, no matter the confrontation. Inflicting pain and suffering by prolonging the fight is sadistic.

The bombs gave Japan a reason to
"save face" and end the war.
There was a coup to prevent surrender, palace intrigue in the max.

Between the bombs and Russia invading Manchuria, the decision was made possible to end the war.

Even with that, there was a group of Japanese leaders that would stop at nothing to prolong the war.

The bombs were a kindness.

I have mixed feelings about it. I feel like it is terrible that it had to happen. However, as bad as it was, it sure seems like the least horrible alternative.

I suspect it would be similar to being forced to shoot someone who threatened one’s family. Should that person fail to survive their wounds, I can’t imagine celebrating having killed them, but considering the situation they created, it would appear to be the least worst outcome.

It’s like the old saw, “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
My late father in law was 100% Japanese heritage born outside of Kyoto. His family moved to the US when he was around 5. As a young adult he was fully American in citizenship and culture. He served in the army corps of engineers in the European theatre in WWII.

As an aside, from Wiki re the 442nd Japanese American infantry division in WW2: "The 442nd Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment including the 100th Infantry Battalion is best known as the most decorated unit in U.S. military history and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry (Nisei) who fought in World War II. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in the European Theatre,[5] in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany."

Just as an aside.

quote:

Originally posted by ChuckFinley:
Did the Nagasaki bomber ‘miss’ on purpose to save lives?

That’s an interesting story/theory, but it will remain just a story/theory. I am skeptical about theories like this, that are so significant and involve such a significant event, that I have to wonder why we haven’t heard about this in the past 8 decades. Also, one must wonder what the motivation behind the story is.

The bombardier that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki is somebody who would come under incredible public scrutiny. This kind of event would also be expected to affect him on a very personal level. I read years ago that one of the pilots of a reconnaissance B-29 that scouted the weather for the first atomic strike had severe issues dealing with guilt after the war. He kept saying “I bombed Hiroshima,” even though he was NOT on board the plane that dropped that bomb. I can’t blame him. Atomic weapons were mysterious devices literally out of the pages of science fiction stories. Not even the scientists who built the bombs really understood what they would do to a heavily populated city, or the people on the ground. At the time, there was a LOT of celebration about killing so many Japanese, and of ending the war. Later, as reality set in, many people had second thoughts.

Even today, it is not easy to see pictures of victims of the bombs. The truly innocent (children and the elderly) suffered alongside the able-bodied males and other adults (who, it can be argued, supported the war efforts). It is heartbreaking seeing horribly burned survivors. I can’t think of anybody I know who would rejoice in such death and destruction, and the sheer scale of these attacks shocked many.

During the war, we (as a nation) were accustomed to seeing cities destroyed and innocent civilians wounded/burned/killed. Aerial photos of Hiroshima are VERY similar to aerial photos of Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, etc. The allies made it policy to bomb the crap out of axis cities, after the Germans/Italians/Japanese did so first (here is a historical lesson – don’t complain about your enemy doing something that you did to him first). The Royal Air Force bombed German cities with the express purpose of killing civilians, starting in earnest around 1941. These raids killed hundreds of thousands; mostly civilians. Now, the Army Air Force utilized ‘Precision Daylight Bombing’ over Europe. This was different, you see, from the British method, in that WE did not ‘target’ civilians. Flying by daylight, we would strike discreet targets. The RAF bombed neighborhoods; we bombed factories, refineries, and other ‘military’ targets. World of difference.


Except, there really wasn’t. Guess what surrounded that factory? Houses, churches, schools, hospitals,… Even in broad daylight with clear weather, hitting a single building from 20,000 feet while getting shot at was no sure thing. Out of 200 bombers, we were lucky if a dozen bombs hit the factory we were aiming at. Those other bombs scattered across the city and destroyed whatever they landed on. So, even though we CLAIMED ‘precision,’ we were basically indiscriminately wiping out residential areas, just like the Brits. And wounded/burnt children, women, the elderly were commonplace all across Germany (and occupied territories, as well – we killed a LOT of ‘friendly’ civilians during the war).



So, by August 1945, the country was pretty used to seeing enemy cities in flames. There was not the common outcry that we see today when a single bomb goes astray and hits a civilian target. In many cases, the public rejoiced that the enemy was suffering from the war. It was considered revenge for all the bad things they did to us and our allies. It would be hard to find, in the 1945 United States, a lot of support for somebody advocating against bombing civilians. This is the context against which the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki MUST be viewed.

And both those cities were considered ‘lucky’ cities, because they had not been bombed yet. People flocked there after the major Japanese cities were hit. Nobody seemed to wonder WHY they had not been hit yet. The Air Force specifically put those cities (along with Kokura) on a no-strike list, because we wanted ‘pristine’ targets for the atomic bombs. Tokyo was not seriously considered for an atomic strike, because so much of that city had already been struck. Hitting an untouched city would make the evaluation of the bombs so much more effective. We could see exactly what damage the bombs caused, instead of trying to figure out what damage was caused by the atomic bombs and what was caused by the regular incendiary raids. It would also increase the shock-value – seeing a pristine city leveled by a single weapon would surely shock the Japanese (which it did).



People today act like everybody would have been fine in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had it not been for the atomic bombs. Well, if we didn’t have these weapons, those cities would have been struck by regular fire-bombing raids. Many of the people who died from the atomic bombs would have died from fire-bombs. Being burned alive from a fire caused by an incendiary bomb is pretty much the same as being burned alive from a fire caused by an atomic bomb heat wave. Again, one cannot effectively view history in a vacuum without proper context.



So, back to my point. The bombardier (Beahan) may have suffered guilt for his involvement after the fact. He might have come up with this story to assuage a guilty conscience. Tibbets, the leader of the atomic bomb group and the pilot of Enola Gay, was a staunch advocate for using the bombs to end the war and save lives (on both sides) to the day of his death. Not everybody had his strong convictions, of course. I can see Beahan inventing this story to make himself out as a hero. He didn’t kill 100,000 people, you see – he saved 200,000 people by ‘purposefully missing.’

I don’t buy it.

That Nagasaki mission was a clown show. They discovered, on the way to Japan, a faulty fuel pump that prohibited them from accessing one of their fuel tanks. They had enough gas, but barely. THEN, they missed the rendezvous with the photo/instrument plane that was to accompany them to the target. They circled over Japan for quite a while, until they gave up and went to Kokura. Then, they did 3 bomb runs, citing bad clouds. I have to think that if there was REALLY no cloud cover, SOMEBODY in the past 8 decades would have pointed it out. The crew, for example, could darn well see on their own whether the skies were clear or not. The Japanese would have noticed, once they discovered their city was almost destroyed. “Hey, remember when that B-29 cited bad weather but there wasn’t a could in the sky?” So, they set out for Nagasaki, missed the aim point, and landed short on Iwo Jima and ran out of gas taxiing off the runway. It was such an embarrassing event, especially considering that the Hiroshima mission went off like clockwork.


I also don’t see how somebody would hesitate from dropping an atomic weapon in August, 1945. We had been bombing Japan since the big Tokyo fire raid in March, 1945. We burned down so many cities that there was hardly anything left to bomb by August. Photos of burning cities give a good idea what was going on down there. In the planes, crews could smell the burning flesh of the victims (and these planes were pressurized; not open to the air like a B-17 or B-24). Beahan would have known about this. The atomic bomber crews flew missions over Japan to give themselves experience and see first-hand what the conditions over Japan were like. He would have seen burning cities himself. I can’t see how Hiroshima would change his mind so conclusively, ESPECIALLY when nobody really knew what these bombs did to the people. This is a post-war phenomenon, when the public saw the utter devastation, the photos taken of small children covered in horrible burns, the stories of radiation sickness, and the other details only available to Americans AFTER the war and when we went there to survey the cities ourselves. At the time, they were mostly seen as miracle bombs that did the job of thousands of bombs with only one.

So, the crew of Bock’s Car (the B-29 that bombed Nagasaki) would only really know that their bomb would do to Nagasaki what it took hundreds of B-29s – to level a city and turn the place into a smoking graveyard. “Never again.” That is a very anti-atomic weapons slogan, that came into popular use AFTER the war. Him (allegedly) speaking this as he dropped the weapon does not seem like a credible story to me. It sounds more like he was trying to distance himself from the post-war fears and horror about what the atomic age might mean for America and the world.

The Boomer generation grew up in abject fear of the atomic bomb. They did duck and cover exercises in grade school, dug back yard bomb shelters, and cast a wary eye on the skies worrying if a Soviet bomb was soon to fall on them. The Cold War caused an entire generation to fear atomic weapons. And it caused this generation to retroactively oppose the use of the bombs over Japan. If one could justify their use in WWII, for example, could not somebody justify their use in 1963? In order to oppose nukes, some took the extreme viewpoint that NO nuclear weapons use is, will be, or was justified. Hence, they have demonized the men who made the first atomic raids so successful.



A lot of high ranking people supported the bombs in 1945, but changed their stories later in life. Some did it for political reasons. Some did it after seeing the photos of survivors and hearing the stories of radiation poisoning. Some did so once they realized THEIR city could suffer the same fate at the hands of the Ruskies.



I remain firmly convinced that the atomic raids saved MILLIONS of Japanese lives. Even without an invasion the air raids and blockades would have continued. Civilians by the thousands would have starved. There were also anywhere from 100-300,000 allied POWs in Japan at war’s end (it’s hard to find a good number). Every. Single. One. of those would have been murdered had the war gone on. The Japanese would NOT feed POWs if they were starving themselves. If we invaded, they would have killed every single one of them (as they did (or in some cases, tried to do) in the Philippines). Those deaths MUST be considered if we are to weigh the merits of whether we should have used the bombs or not. Carrier planes from the US Navy and British sand US land-based bombers from Okinawa and Iwo Jima would have dropped millions of bombs all over the country. A single cattle cart moving in daylight would be liable to be attacked from the air. US warships would shell targets along the coast. The bombing of Japan only really started in the Spring of 1945- the winter of 1945-1946 would have been devastating on the population, without access to heat and power, not to mention food.

I am also convinced we would have invaded Japan. MacArthur was STRONGLY advocating this move, since it would put HIM in charge of the largest amphibious operation in human history. I don’t think he even thought about all the allied deaths which would have resulted – he was primarily concerned about himself and his legacy, and his political ambitions. As somebody stated, we are STILL using Purple Heart medals produces in WWII in anticipation of the horrendous casualties that would have resulted in any large-scale invasion of Japan.

I honestly believe that Japan should thank the US for using the atomic weapons. In the end, thousands died, but these bombs convinced the emperor to end the war. In this regard, I consider them agents of mercy. Millions of Americans are alive today BECAUSE we used the bombs. 10s/100s of millions of Japanese are alive today because we used the bombs.

Oh, and the photos of the devastation had one other effect. They provoked thoughts of mercy and compassion in the American public. A month earlier, the public (generally, of course) applauded each new report of another Japanese city in flames. After the photos and stories from Hiroshima/Nagasaki became public, that turned to sympathy, resulting in the US going in and rebuilding the entire country. If we had to invade, and lost 100,000 soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen in the process, I can’t see how the country would have been quite so forgiving. Japan might be like North Korea.

The liberals in the Pew research should go ask the PTO veterans who still remain how they feel about the bomb. The veterans' colorful language might offend those liberals' air conditioned, office chair Googling, easy and peaceful lives.

I was required to write a paper on this at university many years ago. Of course, my professor was against the use of the bomb. I supported it, and still do.

I think a more important question is, "What would've happened if the atomic bomb had not been used?"

The Japanese despised surrender and would've fought until the last person. Unacceptable to both nations. The Okinawa fight sealed the deal on the bomb.

We'd already had enough precious American blood spilled in a war we didn't start. All the efforts that were made to reach a negotiated peace fell on ears unwilling to listen.

The potential for a million plus American casualties was too much, especially when another option was available.

I ended my paper with a quote from former soldier, who was actually alive and fighting at the time and not 80 years later. He said, "We cried with relief and joy. We were going to live." Terrible, yes, but the best thing about using the bomb was that it stopped the war quickly.

My professor wrote me a note. He said that I'd written a thoughtful paper and had almost convinced him.

Almost.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
I firmly believe that the civilian casualties were a deal to placate China for Nanking.

Estimates say 3-4 million Chinese military deaths in WW2.
Total Chinese killed in WW2 estimated 15-20 million.
Clearly the Japanese killed a lot of civilians.
Other Asian countries suffered massive civilian casualties too.

The Japanese were not concerned about civilian casualties. Let’s not forget their incendiary balloon bombs that were launched across America in the attempt to start fires both in forests and cities. The distance record for one of those was off Gill Road in Farmington Michigan, not exactly a military target, it landed in a backyard garden.

Certainly the loss of life in Japan was and is concerning but it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback eighty years later.

I have more concern for “The Downwinders”, people that lived in New Mexico during the Trinity test. The test blast was only about a hundred feet off the ground and between that and the weather conditions tended to heavily deposit fallout on that state.

Others have touched on this, but IMO it bears emphasizing.

If Americans have mixed feelings about use of the nuclear weapons, that’s mostly because like the vast majority of historical events they are totally ignorant of anything other than the most superficial facts. Show a photo of someone with flash burns from one of the bombings, and, “Oh, how horrible! How could we have done anything like that?” From that moment on, all but a miniscule element will be convinced that they know all there is to know about the morality of the weapons’ use.

But even though that sort of mindless development of opinion may be unsettling to those in the miniscule minority, it’s really no different than how most people form opinions about anything. What I consider to be different is how the influencers in Japan have deliberately indoctrinated their people about not only how horrible the nuclear bombings were, but have erased from common historical knowledge what the Japanese leadership did that led to the bombings.

A friend who spent several years in Japan described how she was the only American in a class that was shown a locally-produced movie about the Hiroshima bombing. At the end most of her classmates gave her the stink eye as if she somehow shared responsibility for what was obviously considered to be a horrible unjustified crime against the Japanese people. Where are the films about Nanking, Manila, Singapore, Unit 731, slave laborers, including “comfort women,” and literally countless other atrocities, known and unknown?

As Iris Change pointed out in her book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, unlike Germany that tried to make some amends for the evil acts of the Nazis and others, what Japan did was generally refuse to so much as acknowledge its wartime past, and even honored war criminals in a national shrine. She said it was if the Germans had built a cathedral in Berlin in memory of Hitler.

The Japanese today aren’t responsible for what a limited number of their predecessors did generations ago any more than anyone living today is responsible for the evils done to American aboriginal peoples centuries ago, but their deliberate refusal to acknowledge their past does raise legitimate questions about their national character.

Reasonable, educated people can disagree on the wisdom of using the bomb, but the people I’ve discussed this with have been neither.

Over 110,000 people died in 60 days during the battle for Okinawa. The Japanese killed 250,000 Chinese civilians in retaliation for China allowing us to land planes there after Doolittle’s raid (which was symbolically significant but didn’t do much damage). The fire bombing of Tokyo with conventional weapons killed 100,000, displaced millions, and leveled 16 square miles - close to the same as both atomic weapons combined. With figures like these it’s hard to conclude that ending the war swiftly, even if savagely, didn’t save lives.

We’ll never know what the alternative outcome would have been so, while it’s fine to debate the issue, no one has any business condemning the people who had to make that choice. Japan knew the war was probably lost after Midway, and definitely after Saipan fell, but they decided to keep fighting so either outcome is ultimately on them.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
More anathema to me than the use of nukes is the targeting of civilian population centers over military targets.

Except that, in both cities, but especially Nagasaki, the Japanese used their own population as human shields by locating their war factories in residential areas. You can't hit one without damage to the other.

The Japanese invented FAFO, and, in my opinion, got just what they deserved. They could have avoided the whole thing by acting like responsible members of the International community.

Various organizations in the mid-east appear to have not learned from their misjugements.

I understand that sometimes hitting unarmed combatants is unavoidable, especially when the military either hides among them or places military assets among them. I have no doubt that if the nukes had been dropped on unpopulated areas, the display of raw power would have had the same effect of ending the war. At this point Japan was incapable of stopping a single lone bomber in its airspace twice. That said, the use of nukes was an absolute necessity in avoiding potentially millions of combined dead from both sides.

quote:

Originally posted by Biker_dude:

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
My late father in law was 100% Japanese heritage born outside of Kyoto. His family moved to the US when he was around 5. As a young adult he was fully American in citizenship and culture. He served in the army corps of engineers in the European theatre in WWII.

As an aside, from Wiki re the 442nd Japanese American infantry division in WW2: "The 442nd Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment including the 100th Infantry Battalion is best known as the most decorated unit in U.S. military history and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry (Nisei) who fought in World War II. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in the European Theatre,[5] in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany."

Just as an aside.

Yes, the 442nd was his Battalion. After he passed we found his medals tucked into the pages of a book. Not even my late mother in law knew about them nor what they were for. He never talked about his service with detail. I miss him.