Posted on 08/06/2022 6:45:11 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Reiko Yamada was 11 years old on August 6, 1945, when the US dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Now 88, she is among the few survivors of the horrific attack, which killed around 140,000 people, and is determined to pass on the lessons of history. But Yamada and other survivors fear their voices are not being heard. On the 77th anniversary of the bombing, FRANCE 24 reports on the survivors of the attack.
Bells tolled in Hiroshima on Saturday as the city marked the 77th anniversary of the world's first atomic bombing.
Reiko Yamada was 11 years old on August 6, 1945. Her school was just 2.6 kilometres from the epicentre of the attack.
The young girl saw a plane and a flash, then nothing. A tree fell on her, but she survived and found her family. Today, she is determined to keep the painful memories of that fateful day alive.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
“The first lesson is that Hawaii wasn’t even a state on December 7, 1941.”
“The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory (Hawaiian: Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900,”
“How many Americans today would give a sh!t if the Cubans invaded Puerto Rico?”
I think all the relatives of the sailors lost and injured at Pearl Harbor would give a sh!t.
Also, “After the attack, polls showed that only 2% of Americans opposed American involvement in the war”.
Let me do the math FOR you. 98% APPROVED.
Truman did good.
It’s not well publicized and when it is its routinely dismissed. However, Japan did have a bomb research program. That program’s “Oppenheimer” - Bunsaku Arakatsu, was interviewed before his death about the program and somewhat reluctantly verified the program. There was a History Channel TV episode on this. According to a book (I will provide the link to Amazon for it!) written about the program Japan was 18 months from a bomb. The “physical plant” part of the program was in what is now North Korea. This was seized by the Soviets and copied or transported back and made part of their program. Some claim that there was a “Trinity-style” test done on a north Korean island with results varying from successful to “fizzle” - maybe planned and more of a “dirty bomb” then fission bomb. The author of the book in a new edition (see link below) claims the “physical plant” formed something of the basis of the NK program.
Note it’s been in the best interests of the left both in the West (the US particularly!) and Japan to deny all evidence of the existence of the Japanese nuclear bomb program. It allows the constant moral castigation of the US for being the first to sue the bomb and those promoting it opportunities to preen about their moral superiority.
The link
How I wish you could go back and correct typos!
Typo
“use” = “sue”
” never understood this silly rationale for dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations: “Invading Japan would have cost millions of lives.”
For one thing, this can only be justified using 20/20 hindsight. What if the Japan didn’t surrender after the second atomic bomb was dropped? If you keep using them, then you will eventually reach the point where the death toll in the “mass destruction” scenario exceeds your “invasion” scenario estimates anyway.”
Silly rationale??!! Really? Apparently, you’re not aware of the context in which the decision was made. The island (Tarawa, Peleilu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc) fighting throughout the Pacific was brutal with the Japanese fighting to the last man (their militaristic culture forbade surrender). Civilians were jumping off cliffs (some holding children) to their deaths based on Japanese propaganda regarding the Allies. The proposed invasion scenario of millions of deaths was very plausible based upon this history. Also, remember that the Japanese were still in Manchuria working to death thousands of prisoners/day. Their militaristic, fanatical culture simply wouldn’t allow for a surrender as noted above.
The only way you break that is to break their will. Seeing that surrender would not be the case, the two choices Truman had were both horrible; in my view, he made the “less bad” of the two. To underscore the Japanese fanaticism, they only surrendered six days after THE SECOND BOMB was dropped on Nagasaki.
As for 20/20 hindsight, here’s where that comes in. Dropping those bombs, as horrible as it was, probably saved lives in the future as it dissuaded countries from using more powerful weapons.
The better approach (in this case) is to ask the same question 15-20 years later. The public support drops dramatically. And it’s not because of some “revisionist history” nonsense, either. The public just learns a few things about their government and their fellow Americans over time that they didn’t know when they were giving an impulsive answer at a time of national drama.
History’s lesson?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Dad was a marine who fought on Guadalcanal and Bougainville in the Solomons until he was shipped stateside because of mosquito borne illness. By the time of the Hiroshima bombing he was prepared to leave the states for the Japan invasion. Thankfully they dropped those 2 bombs and saved the lives of millions of Americans and millions of Japanese. The honest Japanese have admitted how many Japanese lives were saved by those bombs.
10k's an impressive number to be sure, and I have the highest regard for wikipedia... But there were problems. Maintenance, repairs, material, pilots, technicians, airfields, aviation fuel...
Japan was running out of all these. 10k planes shiny new were not inspected, fueled, manned and good to go. "More by October" was imaginary.
I have a lot of links, we all do, but here's one for a basic idea of the challenges they were facing:
https://www.historynet.com/japans-fatally-flawed-air-forces-in-world-war-ii-2/
If I’m not mistaken the Japanese also had radar by 1945, for all the good it did them.
For those GI’s who’d fought their way in northern Africa, and marched north through Italy...I think most were tired and burned-out by spring of 1945. If you had gone to them and said...this war in Europe is over, and in 30 days...you will board ships for Japan and be in an invasion force by November, it would have been a bitter thing to accept.
I would add this...there were two groups in Japan working on a nuclear weapon (both unaware of what each was doing). If the war had lingered on to the beginning of 1946, both would have had nuke weapons, and used them on the US.
War is hell son
For those armchair historians who decry the use of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, imagine if your father or brother or uncle was one of those soldiers or Marines or sailors or airmen who would have had to wage that battle. Imagine President Truman having such a weapon at his disposal and refusing to use it. And imagine all those slaughtered at Nanking, and during the Bataan Death March, and the abuse and murder our POWs suffered. It was total war. And as Curtis LeMay said, there was a moral obligation to end it as soon as possible.
All that being said, I’m happy that Reiko Yamada has had the opportunity to live a long fruitful life.
Indeed. Don't start anything and there won't be any problem.
Yep. The temptation would have been to offer the Soviets more and more of Japan. Stalin didn’t care how many of his men died.
Back in the day National Review featured Florence King's essays on the end page. King wrote that when the bombing of Hiroshima was reported in the papers, her mother danced a jig.
Isn’t asking someone’s opinion of any historic event, decades after it happened, vs. their opinion of that event right when it happened, a type of revisionist history?
The first I totally dismiss. The second was an ancillary benefit.
At the time we only had the two weapons and when another would be available was in doubt.
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