Posted on 08/06/2022 8:49:15 PM PDT by TChad
Bill Whittle demolishes Jon Stewart's contention that the U.S. should have dropped a demonstration atomic bomb before using real bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This video is one year old today.
We had already demonstrated the fire bombing of Tokyo and other cities (which killed more than our 2 A bombs).
The video is about 17 minutes long.
True, but to leftists, fire bombing is somehow not as racist as American nuclear bombs.
What totally uninformed tripe. After the second bomb was dropped the vote to accept the accept the Potsdam Peace was 4-4. It took the Emperor’s forceful insistence upon peace. Even after the Emperor capitulated, the military debated back and forth to avoid a coup d’etat. A demonstration would have wasted one of three bombs we would have before the invasion. The more compelling argument was to save one or two bombs for theater use during the invasion if the Jap generals and admirals had prevailed.
Me neither.
He’s pretty good.
Correct. And, most importantly, we only had two atomic bombs. It would’ve been foolish to waste one as a warning. Especially, as you point out when the Japanese had already disregarded traditional bombings of Tokyo.
And as we know, those two atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly failed to convince the Japanese to surrender. As we know the military attempted a coup to overthrow the Imperial government so as to continue the war.
Those atomic bombs saved millions of lives
Who care what Leibowitz has to say about a war he would have sat out.
And the USS Indianapolis did not make it to it’s destination.
“Those atomic bombs saved millions of lives”
My father’s among so many other Pacific war veterans.
They absolutely dreaded dealing with the Jap mainland after what they had endured with Okinawa and all leading up to it.
The last thing Japan deserved was a pardon for their actions.
Find comments of a Pacific war combat vet that thought otherwise.
I once heard a talk by one of the physicists who worked on the Manhattan project, and he brought up the point of the demonstration bomb. They did seriously consider that option, but in the end discarded it - one reason being that they weren’t even sure that the bombs they designed for airial delivery (as opposed to the one they tested in New Mexico) would even work. And if it hadn’t, that would result in both a “loss of face” and a loss of credibility in future A-bomb threats; in addition, if they had dropped a demo bomb in Tokyo Harbor (their main option), if it failed to go off, it might have been recovered and reverse engineered.
Other interesting tid-bits form that talk: although we had only two working bombs at that point, the authorities had a list of (I believe) a couple of dozen of Japanese cities that would be sequentially wiped out as more bombs came on line. Also, that Kyoto was an early choice as an original target, but was vetoed by one of the higher ups (General Groves, if memory serves) because of its historical value and importance to national identity.
Quite a story:
They did not surrender until after the first one was dropped, so an exhibition bomb would not have worked.
I already knew these facts because my parents made sure I knew real history, but Bill Whittle really hits it out of the park. Great presentation.
Good points, thanks.
They had already delivered their bomb so I’m missing your point. What about the Indianapolis?
Don’t waste 17 minutes on that. Read this in less time from the acknowledged authority on the ending of the Pacific War. After reading this, you can destroy garbage like Stewart’s with ease. I can not more strongly suggest Richard Frank’s definitive work on this subject, Downfall. Below covers the days leading up to 8/6/45 through the end of the war in the Suzuki Cabinet, military, “Big Six” ruling counsel and Emperor.
https://www.ldsd.org/cms/lib/PA09000083/Centricity/Domain/93/Frank_Ending%20the%20Pacific%20War.pdf
It's a year-old great presentation that currently has 2,157 views. It was just linked on Instapundit, so I presume that number will go up, but why is he not more popular?
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