Posted on 05/10/2016 9:34:31 AM PDT by Zakeet
This month, President Obama will become the first incumbent American president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945.
That bomb - and a second atomic blast on Nagasaki on Aug. 9 - effectively ended World War II; Japan surrendered six days after the Hiroshima bombing. However, the human costs were huge. Estimates of those killed go as high as 150,000, and even for those who survived, it was a hellish, life-altering experience.
[Snip]
In the first Gallup poll from 1945 just after the bombings, a huge 85 percent of Americans approved the bombings. However, figures from 2005 show a significant decline to 57 percent. Meanwhile, another poll conducted by the Detroit Free Press in the United States and Japan in 1991 found that 63 percent of Americans thought that the bombings were justified in a bid to end the war, while just 29 percent of Japanese did.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
[ japan was not going to give up, and attacking their mainland would have cost hundreds of thousands of lives (on both sides) ]
Not to mention all the millions of japanese civilians that would be killed in numerous firebombings that would have continued.
As well as young boys and eventually women being pressed into service to protect the main island...
It was a demoralizing blow that ended it quickly and saved many lives on both sides because they had never seen such a weapon before and they put 2 and 2 together, if the Americans can drop thousands of regular bombs, but only one bomb does THIS MUCH DAMAGE, what happens when the Americans start dropping HUNDREDS of the city destroying bombs????
I wonder why one never asks the question why Hirohito did not give up earlier faced with a losing position. In fact, even after two cities were vaporized, he was still reluctant to give up. Fortunately he did. We had no ability to conduct many more A bomb raids and most of the other high value city targets had already been reduced to ashes.
The world already had a good example after what happened at the end of the Europe war. The Ruskies had to annihilate the german army in the east and we had to do likewise in the west. They finally gave up after Hitler croaked himself. Tojo et al knew they would face a similar fate to that of the Nazi leadership so why give up till there is no last man standing. Hirohito threw in the towel and that was it. Had he not done so, we would have lost 1 million men and the Japs would have been reduced to a few farmers. Hirohito should have committed hari kari IMO.
You have captured the sentiment of most or all of the posters here.
From the first day in kindergarten in many or most schools, the child is required to dump the tools their parents carefully selected for them onto a table whereupon the teacher redistributes them "fairly" - to the last day at many higher institutions.
This month, Stanford University students voted on a campus resolution that would have their college require a course on Western civilization, as it did until the 1980s. Stanford students rejected the proposal 1,992 to 347.
A columnist at the Stanford Daily explained why: Teaching Western civilization means "upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations."
(dailycaller.com/2016/04/11/stanford-students-reject-western-civilization-by-a-6-to-1-margin/)
Real Americans (perhaps it is time to recognize that distinction) would sense the trend needs to be arrested.
But how? It will require more than local pressure simply because of the amount of money that comes from the federal branch. Is a Trump enough to initiate such a move?
These THINKIG? persons that would not have been born were it not even been for the A-Bomb!
My own dad was sent back to the States from the Pacific-Theatre 2 days after the Japanese surrender and married Mom one week larer,
Thank you...I was unable to find it off the top of my mouse!
Japan rapes Nanking, China.
The current figure is a result of distance. Most people alive today have no memory of WWII, the war in the Pacific, and barely an inkling of Pearl Harbor. They have no idea of how many lives were saved, only those lost. Lots of people/institutions to thank for that ignorance: MSM/public Schools/Universities primarily.
Todays people have no context.................
What do you compare the decision to? Then you get a different answer.
And the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on 8/8/45. I wonder how that would have turned out!
I lived in Japan for a few years as a military dependent back in the Sixties.
I found a lot to like about the Japanese culture, it was interesting, the people were very friendly (even if it was a culturally forced friendliness)
I have always been amazed that a country that was so capable of appreciating great beauty could be so brutal at war. It is a dichotomy that is hard to reconcile.
I am reminded of the Cruiser USS Astoria that visited Japan right before the war (the LAST US Navy ship to visit prior to Pearl Harbor) to render honor to the Japanese ambassador who died in the USA, and the Astoria brought his ashes back to his homeland. (Apparently, the ambassador was universally respected by all)
There was a big formal dinner, and the Captain of the Astoria sat at a table next to a two star named Yamamoto. After the dinner, one of the officers was heard to remark “How can a country with such beautiful women produce such Son’s of Bitches for men?”
NOT smarter.....just better educated and not propagandized. The US school system nowadays turns out an uneducated and brainwashed product....the basic human raw material hasn't changed.
More and more people were born after WW2
Dropping a nuke on Tokyo might have made things worse.
If the Imperial Palace had been blown into a dust strewn moon scape the Japanese would have assumed that their beloved Leader had merely taken his palace and servants and assumed a place in their version of heaven.
They would have fought like mad men until the island had been cleared of human life.
It would have cost millions of lives, just on our side.
Most Japanese had never even heard the Imperial voice until Hirohito recorded the radio broadcast announcing that Japan would surrender.
The only reason the surrender and occupation went as smoothly as it did was because it was an Imperial Decree that the Japanese would be subject to rule and oversight by the allies.
Easy to say from the comfort of knowing your loved ones were spared from almost certain death if they had to invade Japan.
Probably saved even more Japanese lives than American lives.
Liberals are just upset because the bombs meant that their beloved Soviet Union couldn’t get their piece of Japan.
Which was why Tojo tried to kill Hirohito before he could make that broadcast.
"The Japan War", which would have made the Korean Conflict look like child's play, especially once the ChiComs entered the picture.
It was certainly not wrong to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese had already proved in island fighting that they were not willing to surrender. The death loss on both sides would have been far greater if an invasion of Japan had been necessary to end the war.
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