Posted on 08/08/2005 5:04:27 AM PDT by hildy123
sinbad,
I'd like to reiterate what Night Hides Not said in thanking you for your service.
My grandfather was a combat engineer in the ETO. He had his orders to the PTO in hand and was prepping to board ship when the bombs were dropped. So instead of the Okinawa staging areas, the troopship took him to New York.
NEVER stop speaking out about your experiences - the words of those who were there, who lived through it, who were spared because of the bomb will always carry much more weight to the general public than those who weren't.
Bingo!
Anyone who answers the question with anything but an unqualified "Yes!", is showing their ignorance of the history of the battle for Okinawa, plus the effects of the B-29 bombing campaign on Japanese cities.
Waited for what? For them all to starve death or commit suicide at the Emperor's command? Is that supposed to be the merciful solution?
In the meantime, the US Service sit around in the ocean waiting for a plane-bomb to hit their ship.
GOD BLESS THE BOMB!
A lot has been written stating that the Japanese were on the verge of surrender. So thousands may have died of starvation, at least it wouldn't have been Truman's fault, like many are saying now.
Either ignorance or a strong influence of revisionist "historians."
All that "has been written" supposing the Japanese were on the verge of surrender is nothing but a wish. The cold hard facts speak against the probability.
What's this? I thought we were talking about the immorality of killing women and children? Suddenly its okay to put them under seige and watch them starve???? And you think no one today would say it was Truman's fault if he ordered the seige? Is this a morality issue or a hypocritical "clean hands" issue?
We did that (extremely ineffectively) to Saddam and bore reproachment for killing a falsely supposed 1/2 million Iraqis.
No. We did the right thing. We dropped the bomb and saved American lives and a vast number of Japanese lives. Truman would have and should have been impeached if he had not used the bomb.
I never mentioned immorality of anything.
I do not think we will ever know the truth about using the bomb.
The same program that was on this last weekend that said Truman would have impeached if we hadn't used the bomb, had people on that said it wasn't necessary also.
It is foolish to take the position that nuking civilians is morally wrong and that we would never do it again. If we promised the civilian population of China that we would never nuke them, how much would they care if their military confronted us? They wouldn't have a dog in the fight and would be indifferent.
All the nations in the world need to clearly understand that if they threaten America, every man, woman, and child in their country runs the risk of getting nuked.
"Truman was bluffing. He only had 2 atomic bombs and he only had one left. He dropped it and the Japanese surrendered."
"There were only 3 atomic bombs in the world in 1945. There was no capacity to make more for use in 1945. One of the three was set off in Nevada to prove that they worked. The other two were dropped on Japan. Truman had been told in early august 1945, that it would be at least a year before any more Atomic bombs could be produced."
"Truman was bluffing the Japanese, but the Japanese did not call his bluff."
I think you have your history a bit off... Truman wasn't bluffing.
First as to your contention that after the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan that the US would not have another atomic bomb for another year. The TRUTH is that there was a third atomic bomb being readied for a combat drop. Didn't know that, did you?
The United States actually had three Atomic weapons ready for use near the end of WWII, two of which were dropped on Japan, the third was being readied for a mission by Col. Tibbets' unit - the 509th Composite Group, when Japan surrendered. The USA had two "Fat Man" plutonium Atomic weapons in its inventory at the end of calendar year 1945.
In an August 2002 interview with Studs Terkel published in the British Guardian newspaper, Paul Tibbetts recalled something similar: "Unknown to anybody else--I knew it, but nobody else knew--there was a third one. See, the first bomb went off and they didn't hear anything out of the Japanese for two or three days. The second bomb was dropped and again they were silent for another couple of days. Then I got a phone call from General Curtis LeMay. He said, 'You got another one of those damn things?' I said, 'Yessir.' He said, 'Where is it?' I said, 'Over in Utah.' He said, 'Get it out here. You and your crew are going to fly it.' I said, 'Yessir.' I sent word back and the crew loaded it on an airplane and we headed back to bring it right on out to Trinian and when they got it to California debarkation point, the war was over."
Source: Warbird Forum: The third bomb
Now let's get to your contention that the US would not have another bomb for another year...
The reason that your assertion is incorrect was that there WAS a production line set up to generate plutonium cores for the "Fat Man" model of the US nuclear stockpile. The US had not just invested 2 billion (1943) dollars just to make five atomic bombs in 1945, a production line was built... The only reason that the US did not go into wartime production mode on the 'Fat Man' plutonium cores is that the war ENDED. The "Little Boy" uranium gun-type atomic weapon first dropped on Hiroshima was a one-off model, never produced again. All of the other US atomic weapons were of the plutonium-implosion "Fat Man" model. So the first bomb was tested in the US during July 1945. Two more atomic weapons were dropped on Japan in August 1945. One more atomic bomb was being readied for Tokyo for late August 1945; it was never delivered. The fifth bomb was completed in November, 1945. At the end of calendar year 1945 the US had two "Fat Man" type nuclear weapons in its inventory out of the five produced in 1945, however if Japan had not surrendered the nuclear 'production line' was designed to produce 7 plutonium cored nuclear weapons per month. More than enough to take care of the Nazis and/or the Japs if WWII had lasted into 1946.
"A third bomb was being shipped from New Mexico, target Tokyo, when the war ended. Production was geared to seven per month with an expectation that 50 bombs would be required to assure that an invasion would not be required. Release of radiation from the untested Hiroshima bomb, designed as the original gun-type and made of uranium, was a surprise. The radiation range was expected to be within the blast radius, that is, a lethal dose of radiation would only kill those already dead from concussion. The Alamogordo bomb test and later production were of the more complicated plutonium, yet cleaner, implosion device."
Source: WW2 Pacific: Little Known Facts: Atomic Bomb -- Allies
The United States did feel the need to build more nuclear weapons in the immediate aftermath of WWII, since the demobilization of the 12.34 million Armed Forces of WWII had made the post-war US nuclear monopoly the first-line of defense for the United States and its interests. The expense of the $2 Billion Manhattan Project was amortized over the following production of US nuclear weapons from 1945 onwards.
Here are some numbers on the US atomic weapon stockpile from WWII onwards...
Source: Power Point Presentation USC Berkeley - History - 105, Dr. McCray "Early Nuclear Strategy" Slide #9.
Source: Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons The NuclearWeaponsArchive.org
dvwjr
The Japanese had suffered 800,000 dead civilians in just 5 months of fire bombing from March of 1945 until the third week of July 1945.
The atomic weapons killed less than one hundred thousand per drop. According to you 3 were gone and there were 2 more avalable before the end of the year. According to you those two bombs had to last from August 1945 until until the end of the year.
That means in the last half of August 1945 until the first of the year 1946 we would have had a total of two more atomic bombs to drop. In other words we could have killed 200 thousand more Japanese over 4 months with two atomic weapons. We killed 800 thousand Japanese in the previous 5 months with napalm and they did not surrender.
According to your figures we would have had less than one atomic bomb a month for use if the war lasted through 1946.
We could have done more killing the remainder of 1945 with Napalm than with the remaing two atomic bombs.
What the Japansese feared was not an Atomic bomb a month or 10 days of saturation Napalm bombing a month. What the japanese feared was 60 or a 100 atomic bombs in a month. Enough destruction to totally kill all Japanese.
That is why they surrendered. Truman was bluffing. He did not have enough force to bring about the total destuction of the Japanese. The fear of total destruction brought about surrender. And total destruction could not have been achieved with your figures on the number of atomic bombs available.
The prospect of 13 bombs over 16 months was not enought to make the Japanese surrender. That is a total of 1.3 million lives lost.
We know the Japanese were willing to lose 4 million people when we invaded from the sea. We were willing to lose 1 million invading from the Sea. And we had estimates of 1.5 milion American dead before Japan was totally defeated. You are trying to make us believe we were willing to lose 1.5 million, while the Japanese were not willing to lose 1.7 million. Does anyone really think that had the Japanese known the cost for the next 16 months was about 1.7 million people they would have surrendered. When we know they planned on losing 4 million in a single day when we invaded.
The Japanese feared total destruction. Even using your figures it is clear we did not have enough atomic weapons to wipe out the Japanese. We didn't have enough atomic weapons that could do more destruction than we had done in the previous year with conventional weapons.
Try New Mexico.
Where did you cut and paste this from?
Both sides of this arguement have been de-bunked, and reinforced. I do not believe we will ever know if the bombs were necessary...but of course, we all have opinions.
If only they were that benign. They aren't trying to wish away the past. They are trying to rewrite the past to affect the present and future.
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