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 ...
My beloved Dad was in the Philippines and then part of the Occupation
I have zero sympathy for the JAPS. God bless the Enola Gay et al and the USS Indianapolis
By the time the war ended, the Japanese actually possessed some 12,700 aircraft in the Home Islands, roughly half kamikazes...By the time of surrender, the Japanese had over 735,000 military personnel either in position or in various stages of deployment on Kyushu alone. The total strength of the Japanese military in the Home Islands amounted to 4,335,500, of whom 2,372,700 were in the Army and 1,962,800 in the Navy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Air_threat
The firebombing of Tokyo earlier in the year yielded twice as many casualties, almost all civilian, almost all of whom burned to death. If we wanted to feel guilty about attacking civilians, that would be the bombing to decry, not Hiroshima.
The air base you are talking about must be Tachikawa. If I were Truman in 8/45, my first thought would be that nuking Tachikawa would have two drawbacks: we would need Tachikawa to land our airborne occupying forces, and it would be easier for the Japanese government to cover up the bombing than if we hit a city, and there weren’t any big cities left except for Kyoto.
The same thinking would be the case for nuking Yokosuka, where the Imperial Navy was: we were going to need the base for landing our seaborne occupying forces. In fact, when Japan surrendered ten days later, our first planes landed in Tachikawa and our first ships docked in Yokosuka. (Tachikawa base is now a park, but Yokosuka is still going strong as the home of the Seventh Fleet.)
“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.”
It wasn’t the world’s first atomic bomb.
There is also a faction of historians that claimed Japan surrendered when they did due to the Soviet Union entering the war against Japan.
YOU WEREN’T THERE.
Study your history before commenting. Study the REAL history, not the liberal version.
That is the most idiot thing I’ve heard in a while. Just don’t invade! Wow, they really needed you around in 1945. I guess the hell with the thousands of US POWs in Japan. Just abandon them to save enemy lives.
You have the viewpoint of someone who never spend a day in uniform.
Tell us how you explain to families of POWs that you have abandoned their son to his fate to protect Japanese lives.
Your wrong.
That’s like saying it would be OK for the U.S. military to shoot down TWA Flight 800 because there was an al-Qaeda operative on board.
Read a Truman biography years ago. He was quoted as saying, “I made the best decision I could at the time with the information I had.”
It is good to reflect and critique decisions. We learn from that process. But we have to understand that decisions are made in the heat of the moment, the context of the day and with limited, imperfect information. Chances are that we are not more intelligent or morally superior to those who had to make decisions amidst the chaos of the time. I like reflective evaluation; flat out second guessing I do not like. It is too much akin to revisionist history.
“It’s a simple lesson, really: Don’t anger the Americans.”
That’s a fact.
“Invading Japan would have cost millions of lives.”
For one thing, this can only be justified using 20/20 hindsight.”
Not to a US military that just wrapped up the incomplete battle of Okinawa. We basically sealed off the northern half of the island and called it a win. It was a horrific battle on the first home island. We knew exactly what would happen invading the rest of Japan. Postwar intelligence confirmed they were right.
How many American POWs would have been left in Japan if: (1) the U.S. invaded Japan, or (2) the U.S. had to drop atomic bombs on Japan indefinitely to get them to surrender?
You have the viewpoint of someone who never spend a day in uniform.
It doesn’t take a genius to look at the U.S. military leadership over the last 30+ years and see that this is a point in my favor.
My dad was in the Navy and served on an LST (Landing Ship Tank) in the South Pacific and would have also participated in that invasion. I have the same opinion. I might not exist right now if they hadn’t dropped the big one (twice).
Thank God for The Bomb!
The US was firebombing Tokyo. One raid, Operation Meetinghouse, killed more people than both atomic bombs.
The Bombing of Tokyo was a series of firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Force during the Pacific campaigns of World War II. Operation Meetinghouse, which was conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. 16 square miles (41 km2; 10,000 acres) of central Tokyo were destroyed, leaving an estimated 100,000 civilians dead and over one million homeless. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki by comparison, resulted in the deaths of between 39,000 and 80,000 people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo
By July ‘45 Admirals King and Nimitz had seen the massive build up on Kyushu where the initial landings were planned. By this time the Japs had 800,000 dug in troops on the island, not the 150,000 MacArthur was peddling. Our landing forces totaled 780,000. Truman, properly informed, would have cancelled Downfall in lieu of allowing Operation Starvation, started in the spring, to run its course. There is no doubt many millions would have starved in blockaded 1946 Japan. Many millions would have starved with the damage already inflicted had the US not fed a beaten, at peace, 1946 Japan. People fret about 200,000 nuked Japanese who were sacrificed to save tens of millions.
Production rate of Fat Man and Little Boy type devices was about 4 per year MID 1945, perhaps 12 in 1946. Just keeping the US marines and Navy in the pacfic was costing 20k men per year due to the holdouts, the heat, the microbes and the subs. Screwing around bombing remote airfeilds or navy anchorages was not going to stop a warior class with 1850s honor morals. The Navy officers had already lost face and knew controlling the sea was not going to happen once the shipyards were in conventional bombing range, but the army and home guard officers had not seen much in the way of defeat and were ready to kill or jail the navy command and fight it out for 5 years. The emporor had a small window to issue “its over” after the bombing. Japan had stood up to conventional fire bombing of the homeland and a dreadful defence of unneeded islands with 10 times the casuity rate vs 6 bombs for nearly a year without any public complaints.
The only person who could stop the Japanese war effort did and saved his nation 5 million lives and had his nation back on its feet faster than the European Victors.
It’s called complete unconditional surrender period. No quarter given. Total war.
So you’re using an “incomplete battle” on a small island to reinforce your idea that invading the main island of Japan was ever a viable option? That makes no sense. If atomic bombs were not an option, do you really think the U.S. ever would have invaded Japan?
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