Posted on 08/12/2008 4:41:19 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
TOKYO - Japanese World War II leader Hideki Tojo wanted to keep fighting even after U.S. atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, accusing surrender proponents of being "frightened," a newly released diary reveals.
Excerpts from the approximately 20 pages written by Tojo in the final days of the war and held by the National Archives of Japan were published for the first time in several newspapers Tuesday.
"The notes show Tojo kept his died-in-the-wool militarist mentality until the very end," said Kazufumi Takayama, the archives curator, who confirmed the accuracy of the published excerpts. "They are extremely valuable."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“Tojo shot himself in the head, and missed, little mass-murdering Nip b@stard.”
Oh, don’t worry, the little POS is probably being buggered by Satan as we speak, along with Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao-tse-tung, Marx, Lenin, Arafat, Amin, and a host of other BASTARDS.
The problem with that is that Democracy would be snuffed-out. A guy like Putin could order the elimination of the Georgian president. And keep doing it until he got somebody he could bend to his will.
Yes, you’re right — one of those vinyl thingies from the last century. Sorry for the slip-up.
Still, this was known years ago - before Tojo’s diaries became public. There was a show on the History Channel called “The Last Raid” - I think it was a two-hour show and they talked to B-29 pilots on the last conventional bombing raid of Japan, Japanese people who were in the government at the time (aides, etc) and it was pretty clear from this information alone that the militarists planned to fight until there wasn’t a toddler left to carry a pistol.
FURTHER... one of the people on this show said that there was talk of killing Hirohito - an unheard of act - if he made plans to surrender to the US.
But....but.....I thought the Japs were just about to surrender before we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Speaking of a third bomb... one should have been dropped on Mt. Fuji... to blow’ed up that god (or whatever floated/floats around that mountain).
We had a third bomb. We used it for a test in the New Mexico desert to make sure the plutonium implosion design would work.
The problem for us in August 1945 was a lack of fissile material. We moved mountains (literally) to create the processing facilities to create as much fissile material as we had. Making weapons-grade uranium or plutonium takes either time or huge parallelism in the process.
If you go back and look at the records of the national expenditure on the Manhattan Project in terms of the national budget, you’ll see that we (as a nation) were pretty well spending as much as we could. What we produced was the result of a huge project with absurd amounts of money (considering we were fighting a two-front war) on the processing facilities at Hanford, WA (where the Pu was processed) and Oak Ridge, TN (the U-235 processing site).
There was a huge amount of construction done at both sites. Unless you go back and read a history of these places from an engineering perspective, the popularized accounts of these projects doesn’t give you a sense of the enormous scale of these things - just the physical plant construction alone at Hanford and Oak Ridge were quite the accomplishment for the period of time in which they were done. That they built these sites from raw land, created the first large scale (ie, something bigger than a lab reactor) plutonium reactor at Hanford, researched and tried at least two methods of refining U-238 into U-235 at Oak Ridge *and* created enough fissile material for two bombs in the time they had is nothing short of astounding.
The Hanford reactor was finally finished, loaded and started processing fuel in November, 1944 and shipped the first batch of Pu fuel in February, 1945 to Los Almos.
Oak Ridge had two lines of uranium enrichment going - gaseous diffusion (the more efficient method) and electromagnetic separation method. There was insufficient copper available for the vessels used in the electromagnetic processing line, so Oak Ridge borrows THOUSANDS of tons of silver from the US Treasury to create these units. The silver was returned after the war.
As it was, the test bomb in New Mexico used Plutonium and an imploding sphere design - this was the bomb design used on Nagasaki.
The Hiroshima design was never tested. Hiroshima was the test.
It would have been roughly November/December of 1945 before we had enough fissile material for another weapon.
This is decidedly not the conventional view but I offer it for consideration. Certainly Tojo had a good deal to atone for. A very great deal, actually, including possibly 8 million deaths in China and a connection with the hideous Japanese medical experiments on prisoners. But not for declaring the war.
He was forcibly retired following the fall of Saipan in 1944 and so his opinion concerning the defense of the homeland was little more than that, an opinion. I won't say I'm sorry we hanged him, but I will say there were a lot of equally guilty people who got off scot-free. IMHO, of course.
That's the story as I had understood it for a long time. However, it isn't true.
It turns out there was another one ready to drop on the 19th, two more in September, and probably three in October. They were expecting to crank one out about every ten days. It was felt that the initial shock and awe would either work or not work. And, in the event it didn't work, there was debate as to whether to drop the bombs as they were produced or to save them up for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland. Of course, VJ Day came on the 15th, rendering the deliberations moot. Source.
From what I’ve read and heard the Japanese were in a very deep state of depression and dishonor and they were not thinking about destroying documents. Unlike the Germans who were trying to cover their butts the Japanese never felt they did any thing wrong or dishonorable.
"They should’ve dropped a third bomb on his ass then asked if he wanted to surrender."
Originally posted by drc43:
"BUT we did not have a third bomb ready.. It was a huge gamble that worked."
Originally posted by cynwoody:
"That's the story as I had understood it for a long time. However, it isn't true."
Have to agree with FR poster cynwoody, there was a little known third atomic bomb ready to go in August 1945. First as to the contention that after the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan that the US would not have another atomic bomb ready until the end of the year... The TRUTH is that there was a third atomic bomb being readied for a combat drop. Most people that read the common WWII histories do not believe this is the case, however it is just that it is factually incorrect.
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 about those future bombs to be added to the U.S. nuclear weapon inventory...
There WAS a multi-site 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. looks like this PPT link has disappeared...
Source: Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons The NuclearWeaponsArchive.org
dvwjr
“It turns out there was another one ready to drop on the 19th, two more in September, and probably three in October. They were expecting to crank one out about every ten days.”
Maybe we should have been gearing our European bombers up for trips to Mother Russia?
That aside - Think about what these scientists and engineers accomplished. To weaponize these devices and have both work perfectly using different technologies with only one prior tower test on one design. That was American can do at its finest. We can’t even rebuild a freaking skyscraper now (WTC site) or a Memorial (United 93) or a new refinery.
I am praying that our defense dollars are cooking up some special weapons for when we go to war with a major power like China or Russia. If not we are going to be filling lots of bodybags again.
Yes, I’ve always been somewhat awed by the fact that they dropped the Hiroshima bomb without testing one first. But the scientists were convinced by their calculations that it would work. And they were right.
The gun-assembly design was actually an insurance policy against the risk that they would not be able to make the more difficult, yet more elegant and efficient, implosion design work in time to matter. I’m pretty sure the Hiroshima bomb is the only gun-assembly device ever exploded, at least by the US, its allies, or Russia. Thus, since no example has been tested with proper monitoring equipment in place, there is some uncertainty as to the exact characteristics of its detonation.
|
|
|||
Gods |
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
||
|
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
I noticed that in TV’s “Letters from Iwo Jima” the Japanese commander shoots himself in the chest with the .45 Colt given to him by American colleagues in happier times. I stand corrected about a head shot.
But I recall now a WWII photo of a Jap soldier who committed suicide with his rifle thus: “he removed his boot, stuck his big toe in the trigger guard, and fired the bullet into his chest”.
C’est la guerre......
This ought to fire up their nationalists.
Do I hear calls for a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere?
Oh, I can see how Putin might do this, but I'm pretty sure folks in DC would avoid it like the plague for fear of a "turnabout is fair play" attack on DC. Only bad guys like Osama who don't have ICBMs will be targeted. And even then, folks like Clinton will do their best to miss.
“died-in-the-wool”?
Come on AP, you’re better than that!
Thanks for the new information. All the books I had read say otherwise, but you guys seem to have more complete information.
Sounds a lot like Canada.
Looking thought binoculars, he noticed some movement in some bushes in a far off field. Dad called in three rounds at that spot. The first exploded long and Dad said he saw a German soldier stand up out of the bushes. The guy had been taking a dump and he still had his pants down.
The second round fell short and Dad said the guy turned around. “Son,” he said, “I swear that guy looked right at me. Right at me!”
Then the third round landed, blowing the German to kingdom come. Dad said it was funny at the time, but as time passed he changed his mind.
“You know, Danny,” Dad said, “I killed a lot of people in World War Two, but that guy, he was just trying to take a s**t and I simply murdered him. I'll see his face until the day I die.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.