Posted on 07/17/2020 11:10:00 AM PDT by Retain Mike
Without the bombs being used, Okinawa was set to be the invasion staging field.
i read an article recently that pointed out that Okinawa was hit by a Cyclone just at the time we would have been staging there..If the bombs had nt be used, our forces would have been devastated.
I had a french communist uncle and he told me, “it is not two, but TWO DOZEN BOMBS the Americans should have dropped on Japan! These evil worker exploiting monsters!”
THat was communists back then, on the right of some right wingers nowadays, not so much anymore.
No less an authority than Jon Stewart says we should have dropped them in the ocean and they’d have gotten the message. My takeaway: he’s an ecoterrorist who hates ocean life.
One of my references is Japan’s Secret War: Japan’s Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb by Robert K Wilcox, which the commentators on the back cover say is the best book on the subject.
Can’t argue with success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNfe1auSE68
The song “Manhattan Project” by RUSH. Live version. (For some reason the video shows them playing it twice - it isn’t an 11 minute song!”
I love that the lyrics neither condem or glorify the nukes. Just a look at the facts and the results.
Lyrics:
Imagine a time when it all began
In the dying days of a war
A weapon - that would settle the score
Whoever found it first
Would be sure to do their worst -
They always had before...
Imagine a man where it all began
A scientist pacing the floor
In each nation - always eager to explore
To build the best big stick
To turn the winning trick -
But this was something more...
The big bang - took and shook the world
Shot down the rising sun
the end was begun - it would hit everyone
When the chain reaction was done
The big shots - try to hold it back
Fools try to wish it away
The hopeful depend on a world without end
Whatever the hopeless may say
Imagine a place where it all began
They gathered from across the land
To work in the secrecy of the desert sand
All of the brightest boys
To play with the biggest toys -
More than they bargained for...
Imagine a man when it all began
The pilot of “Enola Gay”
Flying out of the shockwave on that August day
All the powers that be, and the course of history,
Would be changed for evermore...
“He asked me “why did you stop at two?” Not my position but an interesting perspective.
“We were prepared to keep building and dropping atomic bombs on Japan until they surrendered.”
That is in fact correct. I once went to a seminar by one of the physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project, and he stated that soon as we got the pipeline for generating fissionable material going, we’d be assembling bombs as a matter of routine, and had essentially a “line-up card” of which Japanese cities would be hit in what order as those bombs came on line.
One other interesting detail I remember: presumably Kyoto was high on the list of A-bomb targets - originally as one of the first two. Some folks involved in the process strongly urged the general they worked for on the project (Groves? Graves?) to change that, arguing that it would be a cultural travesty on the order of nuking Paris when you could take out Marseilles or Lyon instead. And in fact Kyoto was dropped as a prime target.
It would be hard for today's US citizens, to understand in WW2 the Americans couldn't care less about so called MILITARY targets , but wanted to get the message across to the Japanese that we will wipe you and your country off the face of the earth if you don't unconditionally surrender.
The Japanese realized that when the second Atomic Bomb was dropped.-Tom
“No less an authority than Jon Stewart says we should have dropped them in the ocean and they’d have gotten the message.”
That sort of option was in fact considered - presumably one option that was discussed was dropping one of the first bombs in Tokyo harbor as a demonstration of what the Japanese would be in for.
That option was disregarded for a couple of reasons. One: we only had a couple of bombs at that point, and we weren’t even sure they’d work (even given the successful test at Alamagardo), and if we did make a big deal about demonstrating this “super-weapon” and nothing happened, our “loss of face” would only encourage the Japanese. And two: if we had dropped an A-bomb that did not go off, there was serious concern that the Japanese might recover the dud, and then reverse engineer it to ultimately use that knowledge against us. A long shot, but why take the chance?
At the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests three were planned. The first two were air and surface bursts. The radiation experience was so profound that the last underwater test was cancelled.
Yes. They were take over, not allowed to speak their language, butchered in some cases. Not a happy time.
The two A bombs really shook up the Nips, but it was the two weeks of non-stop firebombing of Tokyo that made the Japanese government and the Emperor realize that the war for them was truly over. More than 250 K died in Tokyo in just two weeks and there was nothing left except ashes and debris. The only buildings left standing were the Emperor’s palace and a few modern buildings around it. How do I know this? I was there just after they surrendered and saw the devastating results of the fire bombs. (this makes me rather old, but my memory works fine)
Laugh at my thoughts, but divinejustice was served. Most do not realize Nagasaki and Hiroshima area lords and rulers murdered and tortured ruthlessly Christians In the 1500’s for decades. The massacre and brutal torture was limited to these two areas and is believed to have numbered 350,000-500,000 converted japanese. Yes Johnny, vengeance is the Lord’s.
Even weirder, both Nagasski and Hiroshima were NOT the primary cities picked for targeting, weather and other factors changed the primary targets to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
So glad your here with us on FR.
I am just a kid from the mid 1930s, I figure you're from the early to mid 1920s.
Hang in there. -Tom
Lumi, you make one powerful argument there.
Years ago, probably during a radio interview or discussion, I heard the claim that there had been a translation error. I’ve now googled this and immediately found confirmation: “the Japanese responded [to the Potsdam Declaration] with the word ‘’mokusatsu,’’ which was intended to mean in context that they were reserving comment. The Allied Powers were mistakenly informed by inaccurate translators that ‘’mokusatsu’’ meant that the Japanese were ignoring it”. The result was the two atomic bombs. It has been described as “The worst translation mistake in history”. But I also found a claim that this mistranslation claim has been disputed.
Herbert P. Bix in Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan says, “”Next, on July 28, at the urging of Army Minister Anami Korechika, Chief of the Naval General StaffToyoda Soemu, and others, Prime Minister Suzuki made Japan’s rejection explicit by formally declaring at an afternoon news conference, that the Potsdam Declarationwas no more than a ‘rehash’ (yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration, and that he intended to ‘ignore it’ (mokusatsu).
Edward Behr in Hirohito Behind the Myth says, “For Premier Suzuki, in a rare press conference on July 28, summed up the government’s majority view as a mandate to mokusatsu the declaration, that is, to ‘kill it with silence.’ The word could also be translated as ‘treating it with silent contempt’”
David Bergamini in Japan’s Imperial Japanese Conspiracy says, “Two days after the Potsdam Declaration had been issued (July 6), Prime Minister Suzuki declared that it offered no change in the Roosevelt policy of unconditional surrender laid down in the Cairo Conference in December 1943 and that ‘to us its meaning does not seem of great worth, just something to be ignored’”
These three authors would have had a chance to read the entire news conference and place the word in context as the Americans had at the time, so it does seem they received the correct understanding even though there might have been a possible alternative translation of that word.
Referring to my essay, I said the pattern of Japanese contacts demonstrated an unwillingness to accept any responsibility for understanding Western expectations for negotiation strategies. The fact America had destroyed its navy, massacred its island garrisons, and bombed its cities into cinders should have prompted Japanese proposals embracing a Western style of clarity.
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