Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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Kailuaboy
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Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Post by Kailuaboy »

No Choice: Why Harry Truman Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan







Critics of the decision to use the “special bomb” in 1945 are judging men born in the 19th century by the standards of the 21st.


By Tom Nichols
August 5, 2018

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Nuclear arms are hideous, immoral weapons whose existence continues to threaten our civilization. To say, however, that
Harry Truman should have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of American lives because of what happened in the nuclear arms
race decades later is not only ahistorical, it is moral arrogance enabled from the safe distance provided by time and victory.

Every summer, as the anniversaries of the U.S. nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki approach, Americans engage in the
painful moral exercise of wondering whether President Harry Truman should have ordered the use of nuclear weapons (or as
they were called at the time, the “special bombs”) against Japan in August 1945. And every year, as we get farther away in
time from those horrible events, we wonder if we were wrong.


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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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I would say that most people that are familiar with the atomic bombing of Japan during
World War II, can name at least one of the two cities that the atomic bombs were dropped,
(most likely Hiroshima) but I'd bet very few people are aware that Nagasaki was not the
primary target of the second atomic bomb.

From January 2008 to February 2009, The Weather Channel first aired a series called
"When Weather Changed History". There were a total of 24 episodes over two seasons and
the episode on Nagasaki was #19.

The Weather Channel continues to air the series and the Nagasaki episode aired earlier this
week. I've probably seen most of the episodes and I highly recommend watching them.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Post by My3Cats »

Truman made the right call. No doubt that Japan's leaders were willing to sacrifice their entire population rather than to surrender. As a little girl, my mother was training to fight with a naginata. I probably wouldn't be here today if the two A-bombs weren't dropped.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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My3Cats wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:04 am Truman made the right call. No doubt that Japan's leaders were willing to sacrifice their entire population rather than to surrender. As a little girl, my mother was training to fight with a naginata. I probably wouldn't be here today if the two A-bombs weren't dropped.
I'm glad that you're here Cats but I think it was inhumane for the bombers to pick civilian populations. They still claim to this day that the attack on Pearl Harbor will live in infamy. But the US knew about the attack way before it happened which is why the aircraft carriers were migrated out of Pearl and then the Japanese attacked military targets.
http://enjoyingthejourney.blogspot.com/ ... anese.html
People like Kobe Bryant associate 9-11 attack with Pearl Harbor but it more resembles the bombing of civilian targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its what the radical Muslim warring groups are doing when they want to make a statement and that is to attack civilian and military targets.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Post by UnBiasFan »

There is nothing that is good about this. It was before we were all born. I am not going to judge the decision. But It does bother me that humankind was unable to resolve differences without having to nuke a civilian population.

Very sad events.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Post by unpaid »

The US and Japan define my life. I know decent people from both countries.I was born well after WWII ended.

This is my opinion only. The Japanese government weren't going to surrender. Both the US and Japan would have been bled dry if the Allies had to invade Japan on the ground. So, if that piece of history had changed,what else would have changed? Japan partitioned between Russia and China? Could have happened....Russia still has the Sakhalin islands from WWII. No reason to doubt a weakened US would have done nothing to see China take over Japan and make them pay for what Japan did to China and the rest of East Asia in the years leading up and including WWII. What kind of Japan rebellion would have formed to make life more Precarious than it is now. They were still Japanese and would have fought the Chinese and Russians tooth and nail since 1945.

The way things happened...there is still a US,still a Japan,still a China,still a Russia,still a Korea,still a Malaysia...etc. The bad news is that none of these countries have figured out how to live with each other yet.One other thing I know. The US used that bomb in WWII,but they haven't used it since and we have been on the bAttlefield with many other countries since then. Could have used it in Korea.Viet Nam..many ME countries but didn't.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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shrek2 wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 3:41 pm
My3Cats wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:04 am Truman made the right call. No doubt that Japan's leaders were willing to sacrifice their entire population rather than to surrender. As a little girl, my mother was training to fight with a naginata. I probably wouldn't be here today if the two A-bombs weren't dropped.
I'm glad that you're here Cats but I think it was inhumane for the bombers to pick civilian populations. They still claim to this day that the attack on Pearl Harbor will live in infamy. But the US knew about the attack way before it happened which is why the aircraft carriers were migrated out of Pearl and then the Japanese attacked military targets.
http://enjoyingthejourney.blogspot.com/ ... anese.html
People like Kobe Bryant associate 9-11 attack with Pearl Harbor but it more resembles the bombing of civilian targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its what the radical Muslim warring groups are doing when they want to make a statement and that is to attack civilian and military targets.
I have no doubt that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack because the Japanese code had been broken, plus the US had installed crippling sanctions against Japan and that Japan desperately needed resources and raw materials, essentially egging them on to start a war. Hitler was against Japan attacking the US. Churchill had been pleading with Roosevelt to enter the European conflict but the American people were mainly pacifists and Congress would not authorize war. The Pearl Harbor attack gave Roosevelt that opportunity.

Truman authorized the A-bomb deployments in part to show Stalin what would happen if Stalin would step out of line, but Stalin already knew about the A-bomb developments through the USSR's intelligence network.

Nazi Germany and Japan were working on their own A-bomb programs during the war, but because both were being threatened by constant conventional bombings on their home countries their programs were stunted. Germany tried to get some atomic materials and/or plans to Japan by U-boat after Germany surrendered but it never made it.

Japan was never going to surrender to the US if were not for the dropping of the A-bombs and continued conventional bombing, plus the threat of Soviet invasion. Had the Soviets invaded, Japan would have been partitioned and the USSR/Russia would never give back their portion. Lower Sakhalin island and the southern Kuril islands were taken by the USSR and are still held by Russia. The USSR entered into Japanese held Manchuria after Japan surrendered to the allies and kept fighting and pushing forward despite the end of the war, resulting in the partition of Korea into north and south.

Conventional US bombing also targeted civilian populations and especially successful was the fire bombing program, due to Japanese homes primarily being made of wood and paper. Japanese citizens were already dying in droves. The A-bombs were just another tool to bring Japan to it's knees.

My mom was in Manchuria when the Soviets pushed into China and would have died with her family there if they were to have fought.

I have no regrets. It is easy for us post-WW2 born persons to debate what would have been a soul-searching decision by Truman as to what was right or wrong, humane or inhumane. From my opinion, many hundreds of thousands or millions more would have died, military and civilians, Japan would be half communist, and maybe Korea would be fully communist. Let's pull no punches here, Stalin was a butcher and was as bad, if not more bad than Hitler.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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Well, when the Honolulu Advertiser says that Japanese expected to attack on November 30th, 1941, I don't think it was a secret that only the higher ups knew about the impending attack. Its probably interesting to speculate whether or not the higher ups in the military left the armed forces hung to dry when the attack occurred. They moved their aircraft carriers out of the Harbor anticipating the attack protecting their most valuable asset for the Pacific war.

Yes, Stalin killed a lot of people, so did Hitler but do you know they estimate to be the worst mass murderer? Chairman Mao is estimated to have killed 45M people in his efforts to force the people to work in labor camps. People died of starvation, disease, etc in those camps.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 81630.html

Anyway, I am against military attacks on civilian populations. The people at My Lai got off pretty easy for killing civilians and raping women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre
War is horrendous enough and it should serve as a lesson so that history will not repeat itself and that is civilians should not be targets with the exception of unavoidable collateral damage. This includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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The History Channel periodically runs a series called the Evolution of Evil, and the three main cast of characters who stand out are Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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I watched another History Channel program this week about the A bomb, and learned that Germany was developing the technology from the early 1930's. When Hitler started to persecute the Jews, almost all of the A bomb scientists, who were Jewish, fled the country. Albert Einstein was one of those who emigrated to the U.S. While I don't condone the use of nuclear weapons on any population, civilian or otherwise, Hitler was nuts enough to have used it if Nazi Germany succeeded in building them.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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My3Cats wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 2:04 pm
I have no doubt that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack because the Japanese code had been broken,
I heard from the old men on the Chinese side that the Chinese knew about the Pearl Harbor attack. The Chinese told the U.S. But U.S. discounted it because they never think Japan would have the balls to do this. And that intel must be "fake news."

Chinese (Republic of China) was good friends with the U.S. since U.S. help kicked out the Japanese from China. So it was suppose to be a payback, or trying to do a favor for a friend. This friendship later lead to the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. That's why the U.S. still protects Taiwan.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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Re-reading this thread brings to mind the nuclear missile alarm that was posted on 808 cell phones January 13, 2018. After hearing about this, Kim Jong Un must have either been laughing his head off, or crapping in his pants at the possible US retaliation. I've got no place to safely shelter in Mililani, and I did not believe the alarm because there was no further mention of it on TV until the all clear 38 minutes later. Governor Ige really dropped the ball when he didn't contact the local news sources to pass the word. I don't have his Twitter so why would I have looked for it there? Idiot. Unfortunately, his re-election opponent was Hanabusa - the worst possible candidate.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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Let's say if one missile can reach Hawaii from N. Korea, what are the odds of hitting anything? Therefore, is Hawaii really a target?

Let's use this example. If N. Korea was to aim for San Francisco, and was way off. It landed on L.A., they would call the a success. They meant it for LA. If it lands in Seattle, oh yeah, it was meant for Seattle. If N. Korea was to aim for L.A. And it landed in Death Valley, CA, they would say it's a success, and they didn't want to "harm" people so they aimed it to hit to the dessert.

If they aimed it at Hawaii, and it went into the ocean, then that's major failed. And a rather embarrassment to the program.

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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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Exactly. With no proof of North Korea having developed the guidance technology or the ICBM necessary to reach Hawaii, I did not take the alert seriously. Not to mention that the Department of Defense didn't confirm a launch. And they have the Giant Golf Ball somewhere in the Pacific that supposedly can detect a baseball in-flight.
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Re: Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

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How the Tragic Death of 1 Aircraft Carrier Sealed Imperial Japan's Fate







A little history lesson.


By Warfare History Network
July 12, 2019

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But the sorely needed planes were not delivered. When word came of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Lexington, still 400 miles
southeast of Midway, turned and headed southward. She spent several days with other U.S. ships searching unsuccessfully south
of Oahu for the Japanese flattops and returned to Pearl Harbor for refueling and reprovisioning.


Responding to a November 27, 1941, war warning message from Admiral Harold R. “Betty” Stark, chief of naval operations,
America’s prized handful of aircraft carriers were fortuitously absent from Pearl Harbor when Japanese planes savaged the
Pacific Fleet on Sunday, December 7.

The USS Saratoga (CV-3) was refitting in San Diego, the USS Enterprise (CV-6) was returning after ferrying fighters to the Marine
Corps defense force on Wake Island, the USS Wasp (CV-7) was serving with the Royal Navy Home Fleet in the Mediterranean, the
USS Yorktown (CV-5) was at Norfolk, Virginia, and the USS Lexington (CV-2) was carrying a squadron of Vought SB2U Vindicator
dive bombers to the tiny Marine garrison on Midway Island.


But the sorely needed planes were not delivered. When word came of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Lexington, still 400 miles
southeast of Midway, turned and headed southward. She spent several days with other U.S. ships searching unsuccessfully
south of Oahu for the Japanese flattops and returned to Pearl Harbor for refueling and reprovisioning.


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