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On Hiroshima attack anniversary, survivors share history’s lessons
France24 ^ | August 6, 2022

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 ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crymeariver; hiroshima; pearlharbor; waaaaaaaah
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Like many here, I followed the daily NYT reprints of Homer Simpson around the time of the use of the two bombs.

The Americans bent over backward to warn the Japanese about the coming bomb, and in fact accelerated conventional bombing of Japanese cities with incendiary bombs to exceed the anticipated losses when the nuclear bombs were used.

So, apart from the contamination aspect, the nuclear bombs caused far less loss of life and limb than did the 1-2 month conventional-incendiary-bombing runup to the August 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Accompanying the conventional bombing during the runup were repeated diplomatic appeals to the Japanese leadership, and lots of leaflet drops explaining to the people what was going to happen.

You could tell when reading these NYT articles through the 'retrospectoscope' that the US government was anticipating the chest-beating, hair-pulling and guilt-tripping to occur in the future United States over using the nuclear bombs.

The result was that the bombs were spectacular and could not be hidden or minimized by Japan or the rest of the world.

It induced them to surrender, and anyone's estimate would reveal that it saved lives starting almost immediately, IMHO.

If the nuclear bombs had not been used, even a few more days' conventional incendiary bombing (not to mention any attempt at invasion of the mainland) would have resulted in many more excess deaths.

The nuclear bombs saved many, many lives, and bitch-slapped the Japanese into a state of sanity that led them to surrender and begin living peacefully.

The proof of all this is: Look at Japan today.

141 posted on 08/06/2022 9:04:53 AM PDT by caddie (We must all become Trump, starting now!)
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To: Alberta's Child
Nobody at the time could have known that two would be sufficient. Stop using 20/20 hindsight.

False. That is exactly what everybody in the US high command and in Washington DC though - correctly as it turned out. They knew their enemy and they knew nothing but the most severe of blows was going to cause them to surrender.

It took them being utterly devastated, their fleet sunk, a tight naval blockade imposed, their largest 60 cities being mostly burned to the ground, millions of their people dead, AND STILL it took two nukes AND the Soviets jumping into the war for them to finally surrender and even then the military tried to stage a coup to prevent it. The Allies knew the enemy they were dealing with.

142 posted on 08/06/2022 9:05:19 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: dfwgator

Alan Alda became a star


143 posted on 08/06/2022 9:05:23 AM PDT by al baby (Hi Mom Hi Dad)
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To: Alberta's Child
Secondly … If the estimated casualty count of an invasion is too high, then don’t invade at all. It’s not like Japan was located on the U.S. border and would be a threat to the U.S. indefinitely. Its ability to project military force over long distances had ended long before August of 1945.

Totally blockading Japan and waiting for them to surrender due to starvation would have taken who-knows-how-long, and meanwhile you are still losing people. Additionally, the Japanese still had over one million troops throughput China and great Asia. We had to force their surrender.

144 posted on 08/06/2022 9:07:40 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: tlozo

For all that Japan has accomplished since they surrendered, they have never really fully acknowledged their total destruction and horror they released on Asia and US. Why they still get away with it is beyond me.


145 posted on 08/06/2022 9:08:24 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: quikstrike98
They sank a Japanese combatant ship within sight of the Japanese homeland. The survivors were swimming to shore. The crew broke out the small arms and shot them in the water.

There were instances of Japanese enlisted trying to surrender. In many cases their officers shot them.

146 posted on 08/06/2022 9:09:31 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: shotgun
For all that Japan has accomplished since they surrendered, they have never really fully acknowledged their total destruction and horror they released on Asia and US. Why they still get away with it is beyond me.

Easy. We wanted to win the peace, as well as the war.

147 posted on 08/06/2022 9:10:34 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: A_Former_Democrat
Absolutely love the photos of The Greatest Generation and their parents, et al celebrating the defeat of the JAPS

Paul Tibbetts never carried a grudge. He drove a Toyota later in life.

148 posted on 08/06/2022 9:11:22 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: Gay State Conservative
My girlfriend in a Korean American who went to school in Korea and lived there until she was in her 30s. She absolutely *hates* the Japanese. Her hatred has many facets,one of which is that Japan has never truly apologized for the oppression to which they subjected Korea for 50+ years of occupation.

Korean - Japanese animosity predates the Second World War by centuries.

149 posted on 08/06/2022 9:13:59 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: Alberta's Child
How many Americans weren’t born because Abraham Lincoln couldn’t just leave the Confederacy alone? :-P

That's an excellent question and one I've asked before.

War is a brutal numbers game. Using the bombs was likely going to result in the lowest overall death toll and that's exactly what happened. I won't say it wasn't awful, but so is just about every other act of war. eg, its awful to stick your bayonet into some 18 year old kid's belly and watch him scream in pain and die in agony. The bombs were necessary and they ultimately saved a lot of lives. As such, using them was the moral thing to do.

150 posted on 08/06/2022 9:15:21 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: Rummyfan

The Japanese civilians in such a scenario wouldnt even need to be combatants. See the Battle for Manila - a bloody nightmare for civilians caught between two combatants. Invasion of Japan would’ve made that look like a quick skirmish.


151 posted on 08/06/2022 9:19:28 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: FLT-bird

War is hell, and there will always be civilian casualties.


152 posted on 08/06/2022 9:21:57 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Considering what Japan did to POWs and to civilians throughout China and other nations, they are lucky they were not nuked into oblivion.


153 posted on 08/06/2022 9:23:21 AM PDT by CodeToad (“If you are receiving this transmission, you are the resistance.”)
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To: vikingd00d

Yup,don’t make us angry.
You won’t like us when we’re angry.


154 posted on 08/06/2022 9:24:17 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: Reily
Always easy a generation or two after the fact to climb up on a self-proclaimed high moral perch look back and condemn. The people who do that weren't there, aren't subject to same pressures and have the bias of historic knowledge.

As Paul Tibbetts said, they never had their balls on the anvil.

155 posted on 08/06/2022 9:26:20 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: Phoenix8

The thing is it took two nukes to get them to surrender!
And some of them still didn’t want to surrender.🙄


156 posted on 08/06/2022 9:30:04 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: tlozo

Yup this.


157 posted on 08/06/2022 9:35:51 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: Rummyfan

Yes, the Japanese even massacred Koreans after the 1923 Kanto earthquake that hit Yokohama and Tokyo. Rumors of Korean prisoners escaping reached receptive minds among the citizenry, and in a few days, thousands of Koreans had been murdered.

Japan had occupied Korea in 1895, made it a protectorate, used Koreans for a cheap labor force (resulting in additional resentment from Japanese). The deposed Korean emperor died in 1919, and after that the Koreans were more politicized, and the Japanese were more paranoid. One Korean lobbed a bomb at Korea’s Japanese governor, and the Japanese concluded no Korean anywhere was to be trusted — all were insurrectionists at heart. After the quake, anyone caught mispronouncing Japanese with a Korean accent was likely to meet a horrible death. Talk of looting, arson, well poisoning, etc. was everywhere. Hundreds of Koreans (sometimes hundreds at a time) were shot, drowned, deliberately burned alive, in the aftermath of the quake.

Sanity was never fully restored. Survivors remember long.


158 posted on 08/06/2022 9:44:41 AM PDT by Buttons12 ( )
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To: Feckless

😁


159 posted on 08/06/2022 9:58:08 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: pepsionice

And if they had,Japan would be a radioactive wasteland now.🙄


160 posted on 08/06/2022 10:10:39 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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