The A-Bomb as lifesaver

Boston.com ^ | August 7, 2005 | Jeff Jacoby

[Boston Blackie]

THE 60TH anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has arrived with little of the fury that accompanied the 50th. A decade ago, a bruising battle broke out over the Smithsonian Institution's plan for an exhibit suggesting that the American use of atomic weapons had been a racist war crime and served no legitimate military aim.

With a restored Enola Gay -- the B-29 that delivered the first bomb on Aug. 6, 1945 -- as a centerpiece, the Smithsonian's curators had intended to tell a story of American brutality and Japanese victimhood. ''For most Americans," their original script declared, ''this war was fundamentally different from the one waged against Germany and Italy -- it was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism." Such slanted revisionism pervaded the text, which The Washington Post rightly summed up as ''incredibly propagandistic and intellectually shabby."

[mainepatsfan]

I've heard about it. My cousin's grandfather was shot down over Germany and spent the rest of the war as POW. If he'd been shot down over Japan there's a good chance he wouldn't have survived the war.

[Moonman62]

Still when I see pictures of dead or dying children, I wonder if a better target could not have been chosen.

I wonder if anyone asks the same question about the incendiary bombs that were used on Tokyo. Horrible things happen in war to everybody even without atomic weapons. We only had two atomic bombs ready to go. Japan had to be convinced to surrender as quickly as possible. Considering that, the atomic bombs were a success.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

Still when I see pictures of dead or dying children, I wonder if a better target could not have been chosen.

It's not well known among us that are too young to have been alive at the time, but the conventional bombing of Japan that was taking place before "the" bombs were dropped were having a devastating effect on the civilian population.

The onus was on the Japanese. They should have surrendered earlier instead of stubbornly refusing to.

[somemoreequalthanothers]

You beat me by a minute.

[RayChuang88]

Millions more Japanese civilians would have died if the invasion had gone forward. Opponents of the bomb have no idea what a nightmare the fighting on the home islands would have been like.

Given the fact the Japanese government was rousing their population to a fervor to defend their Home Islands literally to the last person, I'm glad that the atomic bombs finally forced Japan to surrender unconditionally. There would have been a lot of ugly street-to-street fighting if we had to invade the Home Islands, especially if even civilians were fighting, too.

People didn't realize that the Japanese hid thousands of airplanes, fast motor boats and midget submarines for use in suicide missions opposing our landings. They even trained a whole bunch of strong swimmers to carry special mines on their backs so they could attack landing vessels. In turn, the Americans would have been forced to use poison gas on a vast scale, which would have killed millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians.

In short, a couple of million Americans and several tens of millions of Japanese are were saved by the atomic bomb attacks and quick subsequent surrender by the Japanese.

[The Great RJ]

The carnage of an invasion of Japan in 1945 would have made the atomic bomb casualties seem almost trivial. Undoubtedly Gen LeMay would have proceeded to fire bomb all major Japanese cities in preparation for an invasion and the US seriously contemplated using gas warfare against entrenched Japanese forces during the invasion. Fanatical Japanese units would have been decimated in initial human wave assaults and the remaining forces would have fought a protracted guerrilla war for years. The death toll in Japanese civilians from the unrelenting bombing, starvation and disease would have been in the millions. The atomic bombs forced the Emperor into reality and saved the Japanese people from even a worse fate.

[ncountylee]

Thanks Harry and Paul!

Reminder: Only 1 1/2 shopping days left before N-Day.

[ANGGAPO]

Right on the mark.

[visitor]

bump for later

[Tennessee_Bob]

Fine with me but I was thinking of the Japanese equivalent of the Pentagon.

In a sense, that's what they did. A quote from The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by The Manhattan Engineer District, June 29, 1946:

Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. To quote a Japanese report, "Probably more than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the troops leaving from the harbor."

[Lokibob]

1: Hiroshima was a military city, with 2 army divisions and a major sea port. It was the primary port for troops debarking for the islands to fight our troops.

2: Hiroshima had not been bombed before by any U.S. planes partly because it was saved for the atomic bomb. We needed to study the effects of the bomb. As harsh as this sounds, it was a new technology.

3: Kyoto was saved because it had a lot of temples.

[HawaiianGecko]

 

 

	"An article in the radical journal CounterPunch, for example, labels the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ''the worst terror attacks in history," and trots out the old canard that their real purpose was to intimidate the Soviet Union." It's humorous to read crap like this.  The results of these two bombings didn't intimidate any major government of the day as they were all working on the same bomb making abilities. Russia's Jewish physicists were just as competent as our Jewish physicists, we just had more money and resources to beat them to the finished product. I've posted this before but it needs repeating, these liberal revisionists should be concerned more about Who started the war, why they started the war and how they started the war instead of who ended the war, why they ended the war and how they ended the war.

!

 

"An article in the radical journal CounterPunch, for example, labels the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ''the worst terror attacks in history," and trots out the old canard that their real purpose was to intimidate the Soviet Union."

It's humorous to read crap like this.  The results of these two bombings didn't intimidate any major government of the day as they were all working on the same bomb making abilities. Russia's Jewish physicists were just as competent as our Jewish physicists, we just had more money and resources to beat them to the finished product.

I've posted this before but it needs repeating, these liberal revisionists should be concerned more about Who started the war, why they started the war and how they started the war instead of who ended the war, why they ended the war and how they ended the war.

 

[barb-tex]

And the dems. have the bodacious audacity to call Abu Garab and Gitmo abuse?
barb-tex

[cpdiii]

The Discovery channel had a piece on the bombing of Hiroshima last night. It was blatant anti US Propaganda. It dwelt on the horrors to the civilians of Hiroshima. It did not even attempt to put in perspective the loses allied forces and even greater loses and horror the Japanese would have endured in a conventional invasion.

With total superiority in the air the United States Army Air Corp would have bombed Japan for several months and we would have finished fire bombing every city of importance in Japan. Their loses due to direct strikes would have been in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. There loses due to disease and starvation as their entire infrastructure of hospitalization and food distribution collapsed would have been in the millions if not tens of millions. The Japanese should get down on their knees and thank Harry S Truman. If not for him the Japanese Culture and Nation would not exist today.

PS Harry Truman was the last Democrat President that was a great President. There have been none since.

[festus]

I agree with you point completely.

There have been no wars won in history that I have ever heard about that were not won targeting the civilian populations that supported and produced the soldiers to some extent.

[mainepatsfan]

Not to mention all the Japanese forces still on the Asian mainland that would have kept fighting.

[mainepatsfan]

A-bomb opponents on the other hand don't talk too much about the fire bomb raids on Tokyo.

[Zenith1138]

Word up, Most of us would never have been born if not for the bomb. It saved millions if not tens of millions of Americans. Hell, It may have saved a massive massacre of Japanese. We only nuked 2 city. We could have razed all 40 something perfecture. Maybe even eliminate the royal family.

[timdel33]

AMAN!!!!

But on the other side of the coin, WHAT IF, the invasion took place and a million Americans died. Maybe the filthy scum of the Sixties would have never have been born,,,,HUMMMMMM

Then again, probably their scummy parents were part of lower gene pool that would not have been in the war....

HOORAY!!!!! for good ole Harry T. Wish we had him today as president instead of the MILK SOPS we have now.....

[George W. Bush]

Great personal account on Nagasaki. My dad went through there on an armored troop train in September 1945. And he was alive, like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, because Truman dropped the Bombs.

Atomic bump.