Free Republic

In 1945, Truman’s decision to drop two atomic bombs was grim—but it ended a war that could have cost millions more lives on both sides and unleashed even greater horrors. Disinformation and the Dropping of the Atomic Bombs Legitimate disagreement about the wisdom of dropping two bombs on Japan to end World War II in 1945 persists even 80 years later, as reflected in discussions this past week. But recently, there has often been no real effort even to present the facts, much less to consider the lose-lose choices involved in using such destructive weapons. In an age of revisionist...

With the passing last week of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (on August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (three days later), familiar questions once again arise about our having done so. These include whether it was absolutely necessary in order to bring an end to the war, and whether or not there was any alternative to the two bomb attacks? Addressing the second question first, an alternative option had been discussed. It involved providing the Japanese with a demonstration by dropping an atomic bomb on an uninhabited island. But such a...

There are not many people who have survived a nuclear attack. There is only one person who officially survived two. On this day, 80 years ago, young engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was telling his boss about the horrors he had seen in the Japanese city of Hiroshima when the room went blindingly white. "I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima," he told UK Newspaper, The Independent. Yamaguchi was an engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yamaguchi, then 29, was in Hiroshima for a business trip...

Eighty years ago this week, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, forcing the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” uranium bomb on Hiroshima, killing up to 166,000 people. Three days later, on August 9, the B-29 Bockscar was diverted from its primary target of Kokura due to bad weather and instead dropped the more powerful “Fat Man” plutonium bomb on the secondary target of Nagasaki, killing up to 80,000 and compelling Japan’s surrender.

Eighty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, this analysis explores Operation Downfall, the massive Allied invasion of Japan that was averted by Tokyo’s surrender. The two-stage plan, Operations Olympic and Coronet, would have involved more than twice the forces of the Normandy landings and was expected to be unimaginably costly.

An atomic cloud is captured by a bomber over Nagasaki in 1945; tourists visit the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima on June 28, 2025. August 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan and the end of the Pacific theatre of World War II. Aug. 6 marks the 80th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima – and three days later, on Nagasaki – during World War II. Today, most Americans (83%) say they know a lot or a little about these events, according to a new Pew Research...

Eighty years ago today, in the early morning at a place called Trinity in the desert outside Alamagordo in the New Mexico desert, a new star arose from the landscape. It was not a natural phenomenon. This unprecedented display of light and heat, brighter than two suns as one observer said, was a thing engineered by the minds of men. It was seen for hundreds of miles in every direction. "I am become death, destroyer of worlds," project lead Robert Oppenheimer uttered when he beheld the culmination of years of research. Physicist Kenneth Bainbridge perhaps summed it up better: "Now...

Will we soon witness the world’s first nuclear war? Following nuclear-armed India’s attack on nuclear-armed Pakistan, media outlets all over the globe quickly published stories about the possibility of nuclear war. In fact, this morning the main headline on the Drudge Report was “WORLD HOLDS BREATH” in all capital letters. Yes, it is entirely possible that a nuclear war could erupt between India and Pakistan. But will someone else use nuclear weapons first? In the Middle East, a showdown is looming between Israel and Iran. We know that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, and there are some experts that are convinced...

ROME — Pope Francis prayed Sunday for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a topic he has returned to on numerous occasions. In these days we have commemorated “the anniversary of the atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” the pontiff told visitors gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for his weekly Angelus address.

Today is August 6, 2024. December 7, 1941: August 6, 1945 Lest we forget.

Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, better known as the man who piloted the Enola Gay during the bombing of Hiroshima, became a well-known figure in the United States at the end of the Second World War. Despite his fame, Tibbets asked that upon his death he receive no funeral or gravestone. Paul Tibbets started his career as an abdominal surgeon before enlisting in the US Army Air Corps. He initially served for three years, qualifying as a pilot in 1938, and opted to stay on active duty when the US entered the Second World War. While he is best known for...

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. On Aug. 9, 1945, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The bombings resulted in thousands of causalities in Japan. The decision to drop the bombs on the cities is controversial, even today, due to how many lives were lost. Thousands of people died from the atomic bomb, but the action also ended World War II. Here is everything you need to know about Hiroshima and the atomic bomb.

The choices we face are often not between good and bad but between bad and worseThis year, the recent release of Christopher Nolan’s new movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb has given the controversy over the development and deployment of that awesome weapon a new urgency.Something else that has contributed to the fraught atmosphere is the war in Ukraine. After all, one side in that conflict, Russia, controls the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, more than 6,000 warheads. My friend Roger L. Simon is right: atomic weapons are “as close or closer to...

The anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki present an opportunity to demolish a cornerstone myth of American history — that those twin acts of mass civilian slaughter were necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender, and spare a half-million US soldiers who’d have otherwise died in a military conquest of the empire’s home islands.Those who attack this mythology are often reflexively dismissed as unpatriotic, ill-informed or both. However, the most compelling witnesses against the conventional wisdom were patriots with a unique grasp on the state of affairs in August 1945 — America’s senior military leaders of World War...

I saw this interview of Paul Tibbets who piloted the plane that did it. Interesting (to me at least) what led up to August 6 for him with the B-29's development and his preparation for the bomb drop. These are about 20 minutes each. Part 1 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2n3EmNtqY&t=159s Part 2 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UelE357z58M

President Biden would be blameless in the event that the U.S. defaults on its debt in the coming days, the president declared Sunday. Biden made the claim during a news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, where he had traveled for meetings with G-7 nations. Republicans in Congress forced Biden to the negotiating table after months of the White House insisting there would be no debate over the issue. Biden now argues that certain "MAGA Republicans" are seeking to cause a default in an effort to crash the economy ahead of Biden's re-election effort. "I've done my part," Biden said regarding negotiations,...

Biden in Hiroshima, Japan on 5/19/23.

In a 1945 summary, a U.S. Army Air Forces unit on Okinawa described August as “an eventful month in world history.” That understatement holds up 77 years later. Events had accelerated in the spring and summer of 1945. Germany surrendered on May 8 but Russia already was shipping massive amounts of men and materiel eastward. Moscow and Tokyo had a non-aggression treaty that Soviet premier Joseph Stalin cancelled on August 9. That night a massive Russian assault into Japanese-held Manchuria opened the Far East end game, briefly overlapping impending Japan’s surrender to the Allies. American forces began deploying from Europe...

Seventy-seven years ago Saturday, August 6, 1945, American servicemen in their airplane Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb, Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, another group of American servicemen released Fat Man, another atomic bomb, over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. As a result of this relatively peaceful display of American power, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Americans on August 10, 1945."Relatively peaceful!" very unpeaceful lefty demonstrators will screech in harsh opposition, as they gather once again — e.g., here — to mourn the final chapter of the brutal war, while...

Early in the morning of August 6, 1945, a U.S. Air Force B29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off from the its base in Tinian, near Guam, and headed for the city of Hiroshima in southern Japan. It was carrying a 9,700 top-secret bomb named Little Boy. Its pilot was Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr., who led a crew of 12 men on a mission that would change the history of the world....... Pilot Tibbetts Jr and other crew members believed to the end of their lives that the bomb was necessary — and they say that it ultimately saved...