Posted on 03/28/2002 5:54:37 PM PST by 2Trievers
The winning bid for Capt. Robert Lewis's log chronicling the "Little Boy" mission that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was $350,000.
"It is a uniquely important document," dealer Seth Kaller said about the Enola Gay log. "It's one of the greatest moments, but one of the most terrible, of the century. It's a terribly sad record. I think that affects the desire to own it."
You've saved my father's life, and the lives of million of other baby boomer's fathers Captain Lewis.
Thank you.
"Letting the days go by,
Let the water hold me down;
Letting the days go by,
Water flowing underground;
Into the blue again,
After the money's gone;
Once in a lifetime,
Water flowing underground."
We killed a bunch of Japanese maniacs hell bent on world domination. (That's our job)
All this guilt trip stuff is apologist bull$hit. My dad cried when he heard the news. He was set-up to participate in the invasion of Japan. When he heard they dropped the bomb, he cried because he knew he was going to live.
Stay Safe !
I'll bet. Nanjing would probably be happy to see another now.
Truman delivered his speech from the White House at 10 P.M. Washington time on August 9, 1945. By this time, a second atomic bomb already had destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Because of the great length of the speech, most of which dealt with Germany, only the relevant paragraph is quoted here.
The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction.
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961) page 212. The full text also was published in the New York Times, August 10, 1945, page 12.
Thank you.
My father also, a LT.jg gunnery officer on the cruiser Cleveland, and perhaps my grandfather a surgeon with Patton in Europe who was to be shipped to the Pacific.
End the war.
And we thank you.
5.56mm
The church my parents attend was one of the first ones in town, first organized during the war. Several members of their church were deeply involved in the production - but because of the compartmentalization of information, they didn't realize what it was they were building. They knew it was a bomb, they knew that hopes were high that it would end the war quickly - but they had no idea of the magnitude of the device. I've had some in-depth conversations with quite a few of them, and every single one of them says that they have no regrets whatsoever over what they worked on.
I've worked with with Dr. Alvin Weinberg on a few occasions. Dr. Weinberg was head of the X-10 (now ORNL) Physics Division during the war. Dr. Weinberg explained to me one time that at first, he urged that the atomic bomb not be dropped on a populated area, but rather just demonstrated. He says that he thinks differently now. He believes that it did end World War II earlier, and saved lives on both sides of the fighting.
Regrets? Here in Oak Ridge? Only from those that come here to protest that had nothing to do with the war - and they don't count for sh_t.
ANYONE who would suggest that we should have risked hundreds of thousands of U.S. casualties rather than drop the bomb has a tenuous grasp of history at best.
.
Owl _ Eagle
“Guns before butter.”
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