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WW2 photos show crew of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber receiving a heroes’ welcome
Daily Mail ^ | 11 September 2019 | Ryan Fahey

Posted on 09/11/2019 5:55:57 AM PDT by mairdie

Never-before-seen photos of the aircraft crew that dropped the world's first atomic bomb receiving a heroes' welcome upon returning from the historic mission have come to light.

The black and white photos show the 12 airmen posing before and after they deployed the B-29 bomber 'Enola Gay' to drop the devastating bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.

One photo is of pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets being given an immediate gallantry decoration by a general after stepping off the aircraft.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; History
KEYWORDS: enolagay; hiroshima; invasionofjapan; wwii
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To: gaijin

I have been getting the Smithsonian Channel for free for the last month or so.

Some interesting programs but it is very PC even to the extent of dishonesty.


21 posted on 09/11/2019 6:26:42 AM PDT by yarddog
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To: gaijin

I’d never heard that story. Thank you for the education.

Best,

L


22 posted on 09/11/2019 6:27:37 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Lurker; gaijin

I once heard an interview with Victor Davis Hanson, whose father was in the Pacific in WWII and summed it up when VDH was a young man and asked him if “the bomb” was really necessary.

He said - The Japanese were killing 15,000 Chinese, Koreans, filipinos (and Americans) every single day. How else could you get them to stop?


23 posted on 09/11/2019 6:31:27 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: gaijin

> The exact history of Nanking is not dwelled upon... <

Now that you mentioned it, here’s the story of John Rabe, a Nazi businessman who was in the city at the time. I came across this story by accident. Rabe saved about 200,000 Chinese from being massacred by the Japanese. Remarkable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe


24 posted on 09/11/2019 6:32:23 AM PDT by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: Leaning Right

See post 17, above.

Did you know that after the war, things got so bad for John Rabe and his family during de-Nazification that they had begun to eat WEEDS..?

And apparently he had made such an impression on Nankingers —then still verrrry poor— that the Nanking authorities sent a delegration, which smuggled food from Switzlerand to Germany, to save his whole family..?

A really amazing bit of history.


25 posted on 09/11/2019 6:38:42 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: gaijin

> Did you know that after the war, things got so bad for John Rabe and his family during de-Nazification that they had begun to eat WEEDS..? <

Both John Rabe and Oscar Schindler died essentially broke. In a fair world, things should have worked out much better for them.


26 posted on 09/11/2019 6:45:03 AM PDT by Leaning Right (I have already previewed or do not wish to preview this composition.)
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To: mairdie

Those two bombs saved the lives of Tens. Of. Millions. of Japanese.

Here’s what an actual invasion of Japan would have looked like:

There was once a website that contained a description of what an invasion of Japan would have involved, URL was http://www.webwizpro.com/1945InvasionofJapan.html

It’s still available at www.archive.org.

Actual content below:

“Deep in the recesses of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., hidden for nearly four decades lie thousands of pages of yellowing and dusty documents stamped “Top Secret”. These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied Invasion of the Japanese home islands. Even fewer today are aware of the defenses the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it been launched. Operation Downfall was finalized during the spring and summer of 1945. It called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire.

In the first invasion - code named “Operation Olympic”- American combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945 - 61 years ago. Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment.

The second invasion on March 1, 1946 - code named “Operation Coronet”- would send at least 22 divisions against 1 million Japanese defenders on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain. It’s goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan. With the exception of a part of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8 Air Force (recently redeployed from Europe), 10th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force. More than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults. Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy. Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be more than 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, estimated American casualties would be one million men by the fall of 1946. Willoughby’s own intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate.

During the summer of 1945, America had little time to prepare for such an endeavor, but top military leaders were in almost unanimous agreement that an invasion was necessary. While naval blockade and strategic bombing of Japan was considered to be useful, General MacArthur, for instance, did not believe a blockade would bring about an unconditional surrender. The advocates for invasion agreed that while a naval blockade chokes, it does not kill; and though strategic bombing might destroy cities, it leaves whole armies intact. So on May 25, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after extensive deliberation, issued to General MacArthur, Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Army Air Force General Henry Arnold, the top secret directive to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu. The target date was after the typhoon season.

President Truman approved the plans for the invasions July 24. Two days later, the United Nations issued the Potsdam Proclamation, which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction. Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender. During this same period it was learned — via monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts — that Japan had closed all schools and mobilized its school children, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground defenses.

Operation Olympic called for a four pronged assault on Kyushu. Its purpose was to seize and control the southern one-third of that island and establish naval and air bases, to tighten the naval blockade of the home islands, to destroy units of the main Japanese army and to support the later invasion of the Tokyo Plain. The preliminary invasion would began October 27 when the 40th Infantry Division would land on a series of small islands west and southwest of Kyushu. At the same time, the 158th Regimental Combat Team would invade and occupy a small island 28 miles south of Kyushu. On these islands, seaplane bases would be established and radar would be set up to provide advance air warning for the invasion fleet, to serve as fighter direction centers for the carrier-based aircraft and to provide an emergency anchorage for the invasion fleet, should things not go well on the day of the invasion.

As the invasion grew imminent, the massive firepower of the Navy - the Third and Fifth Fleets — would approach Japan. The Third Fleet, under Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, with its big guns and naval aircraft, would provide strategic support for the operation against Honshu and Hokkaido. Halsey’s fleet would be composed of battleships, heavy cruisers, destroyers, dozens of support ships and three fast carrier task groups. From these carriers, hundreds of Navy fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes would hit targets all over the island of Honshu. The 3,000 ship Fifth Fleet, under Admiral Raymond Spruance , would carry the invasion troops. Several days before the invasion, the battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers would pour thousands of tons of high explosives into the target areas. They would not cease the bombardment until after the land forces had been launched. During the early morning hours of November 1, the invasion would begin. Thousands of soldiers and Marines would pour ashore on beaches all along the eastern, southeastern, southern and western coasts of Kyushu. Waves of Helldivers, Dauntless dive bombers, Avengers, Corsairs, and Hellcats from 66 aircraft carriers would bomb, rocket and strafe enemy defenses, gun emplacements and troop concentrations along the beaches.

The Eastern Assault Force consisting of the 25th, 33rd, and 41st Infantry Divisions, would land near Miyaski, at beaches called Austin, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford, and move inland to attempt to capture the city and its nearby airfield. The Southern Assault Force, consisting of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 43rd Division and Americal Division would land inside Ariake Bay at beaches labeled DeSoto, Dusenberg, Essex, Ford, and Franklin and attempt to cap ture Shibushi and the city of Kanoya and its airfield. On the western shore of Kyushu, at beaches Pontiac, Reo, Rolls Royce, Saxon, Star, Studebaker, Stutz, Winston and Zephyr, the V Amphibious Corps would land the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Marine Divisions, sending half of its force inland to Sendai and the other half to the port city of Kagoshima

On November 4, the Reserve Force, consisting of the 81st and 98th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division, after feigning an attack on the island of Shikoku, would be landed — if not needed elsewhere — near Kaimondake, near the southernmost tip of Kagoshima Bay, at the beaches designated Locomobile, Lincoln, LaSalle, Hupmobile, Moon, Mercedes, Maxwell, Overland, Oldsmobile, Packard, and Plymouth.

Olympic was not just a plan for invasion, but for conquest and occupation as well. It was expected to take four months to achieve its objective, with the three fresh American divisions per month to be landed in support of that operation if needed. If all went well with Olympic, Coronet would be launched March 1,1946. Coronet would be twice the size of Olympic, with as many as 28 divisions landing on Honshu. All along the coast east of Tokyo, the American 1st Army would land the 5th, 7th, 27th, 44th, 86th, and 96th Infantry Divisions, along with the 4th and 6th Marine Divisions. At Sagami Bay, just south of Tokyo, the entire 8th and 10th Armies would strike north and east to clear the long western shore of Tokyo Bay and attempt to go as far as Yokohama. The assault troops landing south of Tokyo would be the 4th, 6th, 8th, 24th, 31st, 37th, 38th, and 8th Infantry Divisions, along with the 13th and 20th A rmored Divisionsollowing the initial assault, eight more divisions - the 2nd, 28th, 35th, 91st, 95th, 97th, and 104th Infantry Divisions and the 11th Airborne Division — would be landed. If additional troops were needed, as expected, other divisions redeployed from Europe and undergoing training in the United States would be shipped to Japan in what was hoped to be the final push.

Captured Japanese documents and post war interrogations of Japanese military leaders disclose that information concerning the number of Japanese planes available for the defense of the home islands was dangerously in error. During the sea battle at Okinawa alone, Japanese Kamikaze aircraft sank 32 Allied ships and damaged more than 400 others. But during the summer of 1945, American top brass concluded that the Japanese had spent their air force since American bombers and fighters daily flew unmolested over Japan. What the military leaders did not know was that by the end of July the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel, and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battle for their homeland. As part of Ketsu-Go, the name for the plan to defend Japan — the Japanese were building 20 suicide takeoff strips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had 35 camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases. On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers, 100 former carrier aircraft and 50 land based army planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet. The Japanese had 58 more airfields in Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which also were to be used for massive suicide attacks.

Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2,500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks. In August 1945, however, unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese still had 5,651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types. Every village had some type of aircraft manufacturing activity. Hidden in mines, railway tunnels, under viaducts and in basements of department stores, work was being done to construct new planes.

Additionally, the Japanese were building newer and more effective models of the Okka, a rocket-propelled bomb much like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot. When the invasion became imminent, Ketsu-Go called for a fourfold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships. While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an initial force of 2,000 army and navy fighters were to fight to the death to control the skies over Kyushu. A second force of 330 navy combat pilots were to attack the main body of the task force to keep it from using its fire support and air cover to protect the troop carrying transports. While these two forces were engaged, a third force of 825 suicide planes was to hit the American transports.

As the invasion convoys approached their anchorages, another 2,000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300 , to be used in hour by hour attacks. By mid-morning of the first day of the invasion, most of the American land-based aircraft would be forced to return to their bases, leaving the defense against the suicide planes to the carrier pilots and the shipboard gunners. Carrier pilots crippled by fatigue would have to land time and time again to rearm and refuel. Guns would malfunction from the heat of continuous firing and ammunition would become scarce. Gun crews would be exhausted by nightfall, but still the waves of kamikaze would continue. With the fleet hovering off the beaches, all remaining Japanese aircraft would be committed to nonstop suicide attacks, which the Japanese hoped could be sustained for 10 days. The Japanese planned to coordinate their air strikes with attacks from the 40 remaining submarines from the Imperial Navy — some armed with Long Lance torpedoes with a range of 20 miles — when the invasion fleet was 180 miles off Kyus hu.

The Imperial Navy had 23 destroyers and two cruisers which were operational. These ships were to be used to counterattack the American invasion. A number of the destroyers were to be beached at the last minute to be used as anti-invasion gun platforms. Once offshore, the invasion fleet would be forced to defend not only against the attacks from the air, but would also be confronted with suicide attacks from sea. Japan had established a suicide naval attack unit of midget submarines, human torpedoes and exploding motorboats.

The goal of the Japanese was to shatter the invasion before the landing. The Japanese were convinced the Americans would back off or become so demoralized that they would then accept a less-than-unconditi onal surrender and a more honorable and face-saving end for the Japanese. But as horrible as the battle of Japan would be off the beaches, it would be on Japanese soil that the American forces wo uld face the most rugged and fanatical defense encountered during the war.

Throughout the island-hopping Pacific campaign, Allied troops had always out numbered the Japanese by 2 to 1 and sometimes 3 to 1. In Japan it would be different. By virtue of a combination of cunning, guesswork, and brilliant military reasoning, a number of Japan’s top military leaders were able to deduce, not only when, but where, the United States would land its first invasion forces. Facing the 14 American divisions landing at Kyushu would be 14 Japanese divisions, 7 independent mixed brigades, 3 tank brigades and thousands of naval troops. On Kyushu the odds would be 3 to 2 in favor of the Japanese, with 790,000 enemy defenders against 550,000 Americans. This time the bulk of the Japanese defenders would not be the poorly trained and ill-equipped labor battalions that the Americans had faced in the earlier campaigns.

The Japanese defenders would be the hard core of the home army. These troops were well-fed and well equipped. They were familiar with the terrain, had stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and had developed an effective system of transportation and supply almost invisible from the air. Many of these Japanese troops were the elite of the army, and they were swollen with a fanatical fighting spirit. Japan’s network of beach defenses consisted of offshore mines, thousands of suicide scuba divers attacking landing craft, and mines planted on the beaches. Coming ashore, the American Eastern amphibious assault forces at Miyazaki would face three Japanese divisions, and two others poised for counter attack. Awaiting the Southeastern attack force at Ariake Bay was an entire division and at least one mixed infantry brigade.

On the western shores of Kyushu, the Marines would face the most brutal opposition. Along the invasion beaches would be the three Japanese divisions, a tank brigade, a mixed infantry brigade and an artillery command. Components of two divisions would also be poised to launch counterattacks. If not needed to reinforce the primary landing beaches, the American Reserve Force would be landed at the base of Kagoshima Bay November 4, where they would be confronted by two mixed infantry brigades, parts of two infantry divisions and thousands of naval troops.

All along the invasion beaches, American troops would face coastal batteries, anti-landing obstacles and a network of heavily fortified pillboxes, bunkers, and underground fortresses. As Americans waded ashore, they would face intense artillery and mortar fire as they worked their way through concrete rubble and barbed-wire entanglements arranged to funnel them into the muzzles of these Japanese guns.

On the beaches and beyond would be hundreds of Japanese machine gun positions, beach mines, booby traps, trip-wire mines and sniper units. Suicide units concealed in “spider holes” would engage the troops as they passed nearby. In the heat of battle, Japanese infiltration units would be sent to reap havoc in the American lines by cutting phone and communication lines. Some of the Japanese troops would be in American uniform, English-speaking Japanese officers were assigned to break in on American radio traffic to call off artillery fire, to order retreats and to further confuse troops. Other infiltration with demolition charges strapped on their chests or backs would attempt to blow up American tanks, artillery pieces and ammunition stores as they were unloaded ashore.

Beyond the beaches were large artillery pieces situated to bring down a curtain of fire on the beach. Some of these large guns were mounted on railroad tracks running in and out of caves protected by concrete and steel. The battle for Japan would be won by what Simon Bolivar Buckner, a lieutenant general i n the Confederate army during the Civil War, had called “Prairie Dog Warfare.” This type of fighting was almost unknown to the ground troops in Europe and the Mediterranean. It was peculiar only to the soldiers and Marines who fought the Japanese on islands all over the Pacific — at Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Prairie Dog Warfare was a battle for yards, feet and sometimes inches. It was brutal, deadly and dangerous form of combat aimed at an underground, heavily fortified, non-retreating enemy. In the mountains behind the Japanese beaches were underground networks of caves, bunkers, command posts and hospitals connected by miles of tunnels with dozens of entrances and exits. Some of these complexes could hold up to 1,000 troops. In addition to the use of poison gas and bacteriological warfare (which the Japanese had experimented with), Japan mobilized its citizenry.

Had Olympic come about, the Japanese civilian population, inflamed by a national slogan - “One Hundred Million Will Die for the Emperor and Nation” - were prepared to fight to the death. Twenty Eight Million Japanese had become a part of the National Volunteer Combat Force. They were armed with ancient rifles, lunge mines, satchel charges, Molotov cocktails and one-shot black powder mortars. Others were armed with swords, long bows, axes and bamboo spears. The civilian units were to be used in nighttime attacks, hit and run maneuvers, delaying actions and massive suicide charges at the weaker American positions. At the early stage of the invasion, 1,000 Japanese and American soldiers would be dying every hour.

The invasion of Japan never became a reality because on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within days the war with Japan was at a close. Had these bombs not been dropped and had the invasion been launched as scheduled, combat casualties in Japan would have been at a minimum of the tens of thousands. Every foot of Japanese soil would have been paid for by Japanese and American lives.

One can only guess at how many civilians would have committed suicide in their homes or in futile mass military attacks. In retrospect, the 1 million American men who were to be the casualties of the invasion, were instead lucky enough to survive the war. Intelligence studies and military estimates made 50 years ago, and not latter-day speculation, clearly indicate that the battle for Japan might well have resulted in the biggest blood-bath in the history of modern warfare.

Far worse would be what might have happened to Japan as a nation and as a culture. When the invasion came, it would have come after several months of fire bombing all of the remaining Japanese cities. The cost in human life that resulted from the two atomic blasts would be small in comparison to the total number of Japanese lives that would have been lost by this aerial devastation.

With American forces locked in combat in the south of Japan, little could have prevented the Soviet Union from marching into the northern half of the Japanese home islands. Japan today could be divided much like Korea and Germany. The world was spared the cost of Operation Downfall, however, because Japan formally surrendered to the United Nations September 2, 1945, and World War II was over. The aircraft carriers, cruisers and transport ships scheduled to carry the invasion troops to Japan, ferried home American troops in a gigantic operation called Magic Carpet.

In the fall of 1945, in the aftermath of the war, few people concerned themselves with the invasion plans. Following the surrender, the classified documents, maps, diagrams and appendices for Operation Downfall were packed away in boxes and eventually stored at the National Archives. These plans that called for the invasion of Japan paint a vivid description of what might have been one of the most horrible campaigns in the history of man. The fact that the story of the invasion of Japan is locked up in the National Archives, and is not told in our history books is something for which all Americans can be thankful.”


27 posted on 09/11/2019 6:54:37 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Kozak

Agreed! If you look at the atmospheric dispersion and absorption of X Rays, gamma Rays, etc. it makes that assertion highly suspect!


28 posted on 09/11/2019 7:00:29 AM PDT by gr8eman (Only the mediocre are always at their best)
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To: mairdie

As an aside, Colonel Paul Tibbets retained his “rock star status”, well into old age and infirmity. Whenever he would make a scheduled public appearance at Sandia Atomic Museum on the grounds of Kirtland Air Force Base, the crowd was easily SRO in the aircraft hangar.

Many of those who visited were children and grandchildren of veterans who would have been part of the estimated 2 million strong landing in a D-Day style of invasion of Japan, with horrific casualties, had the bombs not been dropped.

The museum has since moved off base and is now called the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. Definitely a good tour in Albuquerque.


29 posted on 09/11/2019 7:01:59 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Liberalism is the belief everyone else should be in treatment for your disorder.)
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To: gr8eman

Gamma and X-rays travel in straight lines. At 2000 miles there’s no way a nuke from a tower a couple of hundred feet high gets there.


30 posted on 09/11/2019 7:13:38 AM PDT by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)
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To: mairdie
The article sounds like an indictment of Tibbets and his crew for committing a war crime and being rewarded for it. This kind of revisionist history is BS. Are the Brits going to condemn Bomber Harris and their own fire bombing of Hamburg, Operation Gomorrah, that killed 35,000 civilians and wounded 125,000 total destroying the city? How many American and allied forces' lives as well as Japanese civilians were saved by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

US airman’s remarkable WW2 photos show crew of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber receiving a heroes’ welcome after dropping a devastating atomic bomb on Hiroshima

The 12 man crew were stationed on Titian, an island close to Guam in the Pacific Ocean, during World War 2

Pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets was awarded an immediate decoration by a general as he stepped off the Enola Gay

The bombing killed over 140,000 people and caused rates of cancer to rocket between 1945 and 2000

80,000 people, 30 per cent of Hiroshima in 1945, were killed by the blast itself and many died from radiation

31 posted on 09/11/2019 7:14:11 AM PDT by kabar
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

I ve got his autograph on the picture in the window of Enola Gay..


32 posted on 09/11/2019 7:15:31 AM PDT by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)
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To: BuffaloJack; bagman; bert; Kozak

Good stuff!!!

A source for this incident:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/


33 posted on 09/11/2019 7:15:40 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT ("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message.)
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To: DuncanWaring

Truman was the most revered President among WW II combat veterans. It was their overwhelming consensus that if he had not dropped the atomic bomb, they would not have survived the war. Also if the US had taken the casualties that were very realistically projected, many people who are on FR would have simply never came to exist.


34 posted on 09/11/2019 7:20:28 AM PDT by allendale (.)
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To: DuncanWaring

After commanding an LCT on Utah Beach, my dad was XO on an LST. They were on their way to the Pacific when the war ended.


35 posted on 09/11/2019 7:24:35 AM PDT by real saxophonist (Yeah, well, y'know that's just like, uh... your opinion, man.)
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To: Kozak

Way.

Going from memory here, from reading about it, it wasn’t actually in Rochester, NY, at least at first. It was first noticed in Iowa or someplace like that. Unexplained fogging of negatives or unexposed film. It was sent to Rochester where they tried to figure out what was going on. Of course due to the secrecy requirements it was a big deal. The Trinity test and subsequent tests did put fissionable material into the atmosphere, and caused problems with retail film in various parts of the country. It also caused elevated levels of radiation in dairy milk, due to cows grazing on pastures in the midwest.


36 posted on 09/11/2019 7:24:35 AM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

I visited the museum in Nagasaki in 1960s that had various artifacts from the bomb including bones infused into rocks. The museum was subsequently replaced by a newer facility in 1996.


37 posted on 09/11/2019 7:25:04 AM PDT by kabar
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Ok. Fallout I can believe.


38 posted on 09/11/2019 7:26:12 AM PDT by Kozak (DIVERSITY+PROXIMITY=CONFLICT)
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To: allendale

I had an uncle who was a combat veteran of WWII in the European theater. Liberal schoolteacher, real bedwetter about most things. Not the Atomic bomb though, strangely enough. He was VERY happy about that. See, he was scheduled to redeploy for the invasion of Japan. This is one of the lesser talked about aspects of the war. They needed lots of personnel for that, and the only place they could have realistically got them was from the European theater. They were NOT happy about this, those guys felt it was someone else’s turn.


39 posted on 09/11/2019 7:30:05 AM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: Waverunner

A now deceased family friend thanked God for the atomic bomb.
He had fought in Europe (army) but was nowhere close to having the points to go home. He was transferred to the Pacific and saw some action there.
He was in the Philippines getting ready for the invasion of Kyushu. His company commander (and old hand in the Pacific) had told them he didn’t expect any of them to survive more than two days, but he did expect them to do their duty.

When told that the Air Corp had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and as a result the Japanese were surrendering his first question was “what the hell is an atomic bomb?” and his second question was “does this mean we might live through this?”.

Due to the invasion forces being so wound up to kill Japanese he didn’t get to Japan for several months. He spent over a year in Japan with the occupation force before coming home.

VJ day every year was his “second birthday”.


40 posted on 09/11/2019 7:41:42 AM PDT by oldvirginian (Winning isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing. TRUMP 2020!!)
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