Posted on 08/05/2015 1:34:09 PM PDT by DFG
Here we are, 70 years after the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I’m wondering if we’ve come even one step closer to a moral reckoning with our status as the world’s only country to use atomic weapons to slaughter human beings. Will an American president ever offer a formal apology? Will our country ever regret the dropping of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” those two bombs that burned hotter than the sun? Will it absorb the way they instantly vaporized thousands of victims, incinerated tens of thousands more, and created unimaginably powerful shockwaves and firestorms that ravaged everything for miles beyond ground zero? Will it finally come to grips with the “black rain” that spread radiation and killed even more people — slowly and painfully — leading in the end to a death toll for the two cities conservatively estimated at more than 250,000?
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Consider this and I encourage everyone to read the complete source. It is a well documented look at what the Japanese leadership was thinking for 6 days after we dropped the bomb.
http://www.mconway.net/page1/page15/files/Shock%20of%20Atomic%20Bomb.pdf
The Atomic Bomb as a “Gift from Heaven”
In a postwar interview (in November 1945), Kido explained
the decision to surrender in the following words: “The
feeling that the emperor and I had about the atomic bombing
was that the psychological moment we had long waited for had finally arrived to resolutely carry out the termination of the war.... We felt that if we took the occasion and utilized the psychological shock of the bomb to follow through, we might perhaps succeed in ending the war” (emphasis mine).71 In the same interview Kido went so far as to say that the U.S. government, by using the atomic bomb, actually intended to “assist” Japan’s peace party:I surmise that the atomic bomb was dropped with the intention of
posing a grave threat to Japanese leaders and the people at large,
forcefully compelling them to end the war. And certainly the bomb
had that effect. However, we of the peace party had already been
scheming for a termination of the war, and it is not correct to say that
we were driven by the atomic bomb to end the war. Rather, it might be
said that we of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor
to end the war.72 (emphasis mine)
and this, showing how for some, it didn’t make any difference.
Anami fiercely opposed Togo and Suzuki.
In fact, Anami’s utterances became almost irrational. As recalled
by those who attended the meetings, Anami declared:
“The appearance of the atomic bomb does not spell the end of
war....We are confident about a decisive homeland battle
against American forces.” He admitted that “given the atomic
bomb and the Soviet entry, there is no chance of winning on
the basis of mathematical calculation,” but he nevertheless declared
that “there will be some chance as long as we keep on
fighting for the honor of the Yamato race.... If we go on like
this and surrender, the Yamato race would be as good as dead
spiritually.” Such was the mentality of the Japanese military.
Urged by middle-echelon and young officers who were “half
mad,” Anami would not retreat from making the last sacrificial
homeland battle.64
More information here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3320826/posts
“Why should we express regret for saving tens of thousands of American lives?”
Actually the number of Allied losses to take Japan with boots on the ground, the most optimistic estimate it would have cost 250,000 allied casualties with most estimates at around a half million.
We believed the war had to be brought to a swift conclusion because we had incontrovertible evidence that Hitler sent U-boats to Japan with atomic tech and materials, as well as jet engines and fighter plans for Japan’s last ditch defense. We know it for a fact because one of the Uboats was captured, and because Japan rapidly produced their copy of the Me262 as well as rocket kamikaze planes from the Uboat that made it. So we had reason to believe they were at least capable of making a dirty bomb given time.
The Japanese laboriously hollowed out mountains and placed their military manufacturing underground; completely bombproof. It would have produced jet fighters and suicide planes to hammer the invasion fleet and landing forces. Films and photos show them training civilians for mass charges with bamboo spears and teaching children to run under enemy tanks wearing explosive vests. Remember, these people were so indoctrinated they threw themselves off cliffs in Saipan because they believed we were cannibals.
Dropping the atomic bombs ended up saving millions of people.
Depending on the degree to which Japanese civilians would have resisted the invasion, estimates ran up into the millions for Allied casualties.[2]
Can we ever ban Salon from FR as the leftist, neo-Nazi, America-bashing, Jew-hating trash site that it is? Do we need to start a petition to ban it?
Cripes, this author must not have read how nearly every civilian in the home chain of Japanese island either was killed or committed suicide.
If we had invaded the Japanese people would have ceased to exist. Our own economy would not have taken off because we would had generations that would have never been born.
Don’t forget how after the second bomb, the Supreme Council took a vote. The emperor had to break the tie.
Nice reply! I appreciate your input.
Ain’t that the truth!
The object of war is to win. If the Japs or Nazi had gotten the bomb first they CERTAINLY would have used it on us...
Believe, I know.
I read a book written by someone with the US Occupying Army in Japan about the situation we would have faced if Operation Downfall had to go forward. I also read about what the civilians did at Okinawa.
There was one person on FR that said we should have blockaded Japan and “Just let them get hungry”. Of course there was two major problems with that.
First, the main armies of Japan were in China. Starving Japan would not have stopped them. It might have led to a similar situation the fueled the final stages of the Holocaust, where the Japanese decide to kill all the people they could.
Second, the islands of Japan do have some capacity to support a population. Starving millions to death would have left a smaller core, but the risk is they would be much more fanatical.
The Bomb was the least worst of the options. Not only did it end the war more quickly than the alternative, it also did so before Stalin could step in.
More than 50% of Toyko was destroyed by firebombs. On the WWII+7 thread they had a list of recent cities - one was 98.5% destroyed by firebombs.
I have been following it day by day
Although I have read extensively about the progress up to and including Okinawa, I knew nothing of the air campaign in June and July of ‘45. I was very surprised to learn that the Navy steamed in close enough to shell the home islands completely unopposed
I like to read the ads as well. Summer dresses are on sale this week in ‘45 for $15
Back then, the New York Times was an American news paper. If Obama was faced with the japan of 1941, he would die within a few weeks of fear
I think liberals like these believe there was a third option... they think if we just abandoned the war effort and went home the war would end. Why? Because in their mind, it’s the U.S. that causes all war, so if the U.S. doesn’t fight no one else will.
Yes, libs are that stupid.
If you are ever inclined, a youtube search of our fighters over Japan has some good gun camera stuff attacking the locomotives, airfields, etc.
This is what wiki had to say about Operation Downfall, the proposed invasion of Japan: “That operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population.” Indeed, the Japanese civilian population, or much of it, was organized into a militia, which was about 31,550,000 strong, that’s 31 and a half MILLION. Also, if you take a look at some of the posters on the Hiroshima threads, they’d say that hardliners within the Imperial Japanese Military opposed surrender, and ever tried to overthrow the Emperor.
But it was from his wife that I got a picture of what might have happened in an invasion of Japan. I had mentioned that I wanted to get one of those clay pots that I had heard were made in the thousands to be filled with explosives, perhaps even gunpowder, to be used against the invasion forces. He was in China at the time but she was in Japan, and she said very sweetly, "Ah, no, those pots were nearly all destroyed, and are very difficult to find now. I can show you where they were kept, though. It's in that cave where Tanaka-san now parks his car [on the road between Hayama and Yokosuka] - it's the cave where they kept the spears."
The spears. They were going to arm the civilians with clay pots full of explosives and spears and have them charge seasoned combat troops. And we would have had to kill them. That's how bad it would have been.
Liberals always accuse others of the offense they are about to commit, and our author here has done so by decrying "revisionism" when he himself is the perpetrator. It almost isn't worth arguing with such people, they don't want to know the truth.
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