HBO to air documentary on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

CNN ^ | August 6, 2007 | AP

[The Noodle]

Atomic bomb survivors share stories in HBO film

NEW YORK (AP) -- HBO's disturbing documentary on survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan didn't make the 50th anniversary of the event.

There's apparently enough emotional scar tissue built up to allow the television premiere of "White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" on Monday (7:30 p.m. Eastern), exactly 62 years after the United States detonated the first-ever nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. The second, and so far last, atomic bomb was dropped three days later. It ended World War II.

The uncomfortable footage of cities reduced to rubble and grotesquely deformed survivors has received relatively little circulation because -- unlike the well-recorded Holocaust -- this was something done by Americans, Sheila Nevins, head of HBO's documentary unit, said. ...

[tracer]

Jihadis take note.....

[weegee]

The Left says this war in Iraq is taking longer than it took to win WWII. Except they start the clock at 12/7/1941 as if there was no conflict in the world prior to that day.

And it took two nuclear attacks to end it.

Let alone much higher troop commitments.

But they like their bumper sticker slogans.

[reagan_fanatic]

That picture says it all.

[weegee]

The use of those bombs has probably done a lot to see to it that future nuclear attacks/response are not needed.

You can tell them the theory of what would happen to their city all you want, but when they see the results, they reconsider bad intentions.

There is a nuclear deterrent.

[GOP_Party_Animal]

Yeah. War is bad. We should not have war.

[VOA]

Bataan Death March anyone?

HBO should get their "investigative unit" out there and try to find some
archival footage of Japanese soldiers doing bayonet practice
on Chinese civilians that were bound to posts.
(I'm not sure the film ever existed, but this was in news reports
of the time, IIRC)

IIRC, the Japanese commander said that if his soldiers could force
themselves to bayonet helpless civilians, they'd have no trouble with
bayonetting enemy soldiers.

[TheDon]

To each his own. As for me, I will celebrate the end of WWII!

[weegee]

It’s on Time-Lies Warner’s HBO network. You can give them some good grace before it airs if you want but would you offer the same grace to Air America?

[The Noodle]

TheDon, you misunderstood - the end of WWII is absolutely something to celebrate.

[weegee]

I never hear about war crimes committed by the “insurgents” in Iraq. Then we are told that there are “terrorists” in Iraq. But we aren’t supposed to connect the “insurgency” to “terrorism”.

The Left forgives the enemy for attrocities committed against US troops and civilians.

[Patriot Hooligan]

“You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they’d die for the Emperor...Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary...Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan? It would have been terrible. The Japanese people know more about it than the American public will ever know.”

Japanese pilot Mitsuo Fuchida in a conversation with Paul Tibbets.

Taken from Flyboys by James Bradley

[12Gauge687]

Yep, Nanking, Bataan Death March and Unit 731 (the chemical and biological labs that experimented with live prisoners) should be reason enough to end the Japanese Imperial reign of terror. Maybe someone should remind Sheila at HBO of the millions of Chinese, Korean and Southeast Asians who died at the hands of the Japanese Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Movement in addition to Western prisoners of war. Considering what an invasion of the home islands would have cost, the Japanese could have suffered much worse without the two atom bombs.

[Sgt_Schultze]

I wonder if HBO plans on villifying the “idiot” FDR for failing to apprehend the ringleader Hirohito. He was the head honcho during the terrorist attack on Pearl Harbor, after all.

[Diplomat]

Nuking Hirosima and Nagasaki saved more Japanese lives than it cost. I’ll assume this is completely lost on these movie makers.

[Recovering Hermit]

Unless they’re showing “Grave of the Fireflies”...

This is of the only movies I have ever watched that made me weep...and it was a friggin' cartoon.

[colorado tanker]

They also blooded their swords by killing American prisoners. “Flyboys.”

[Snoopers-868th]

Me too!

[vetvetdoug]

Did you ever consider where the radiation clouds went after the Red Chinese and the Russians tested their A, H, and Plutonium bombs? Anyone that lived in Japan from 1958 to about 1962 can tell you. There were days when the Geiger counters stayed off the scale from the Communist Nuclear tests. Don’t ever let the liberals and the liberal whiney Japanese tell you that their ills secondary to radiation from the two that the US dropped. 6091st Recon and the 56th WRS can tell you also (USAF Squadrons that monitored the radiation).

[Diplomat]

I do not believe that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be celebrated.

This event, and this event alone, saved my fathers life. He had spent several months in training to lead a group of men onto the beaches in Japan before the bombs were dropped. I'm sure you'd feel different about it had you been drafted into the Pacific front.

[GingisK]

The uncomfortable footage of cities reduced to rubble...

I'm a lot more uncomfortable with images of Pearl Harbor.