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Hiroshima
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Hiroshima |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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. You’re Harry Truman. Knowing what he knew then what would be your choice? . |
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| © Copyright 2007 John Pawlik - All Rights Reserved | |||
Ringo 
since 2003-02-20
Posts 3684Saluting with misty eyes |
Quite honestly, this is an extremely unfair question, and is one that not a person on this planet can honestly answer anything other than, "I don't know". This, in my opinion, falls into the category of you don't know untill you are there. Anyone can say that once the bullets are flying, they would be a junior Rambo. Anyone can tell you that if someone killed their wife/husband/kids/dog/big screen tv they would return in kind. Anyone can feel that if they were caught in the middle of a hijacking, that they would say, "Let's rool" and subdue the culprits... yet, no one knows what they would do until they are put into that exact situation, and were forced to make a- possible- deadly decision. Right now, this very moment, you are asked to blow up a dam that will flood out a valley and kill in excess of 5,000 enemy soldiers that would normally kill numerous of your fellow contrymen... fairly easy decision. Now, place those same enemy combatants into a valley with 10,000 non-combatants who have done nothing to you, and who want nothing more out of life than to fill their ricebowl for the next day. Do you blow up the dam or not? You can save 100,000 American lives by killing 50,000 people whom you have no animosity for, and who have done nothing to you, and whom you don't even know, and who have not killed a single American warrior (or civilian), and whose only desire is to make it through another day of their meger life and raise their families... What do you do? The only proper answer is, "I have no clue at all." What would you attempt to do...if you knew you could not fail?. |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
I don't think the question is fair without a proper exploration of what a 'conditional' ceasefire ,as proposed by Japan, would have looked like John. Since it's your thread -- why don't you give us a glimpse. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287812,00.html . |
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Drauntz Member Elite
since 2007-03-16
Posts 2905Los Angeles California |
what are the differences among A-bomb, 500lb-low-u bomb, 747 jet and a single bullet? and among Hitler, the old King of Japan and Sadam? Only who's interests? |
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Edward Grim Senior Member
since 2005-12-18
Posts 1154Greenville, South Carolina |
Bullet goes "bang" and leaves a small hole in your body. Bomb goes "boom" and leaves monstrous hole in earth. Big difference... “Well all the apostles, they’re sittin’ on the swings, sayin’ I’d sell off my savior for a set of new rings.” |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. A “ceasefire” of any kind would have been unthinkable, leaving a military regime intact with millions of troops and tens of millions of civilians in Japan itself ready to die in support. A regime which over the years had managed without the bomb to kill some eighteen to twenty-five million men, women and children in China alone, (Japan’s losses by war’s end, mostly military, totaled some two and a half million). And I would suggest anyone interested read up on the battle for Saipan to catch a glimpse as to what would have happened, by their own hands, to the Japanese had the allies invaded Japan itself. By the way, Japan then also had its own nuclear weapons program. PS An interesting book is: “The Nobility of Failure” by Ivan Morris. . |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
I would have dropped the bomb. The Japanese nuke program wasn't really much. A former professor of mine interviewed a number of Japanese war generals and asked, "If you had had the bomb, would you have used it?" They looked at him, so we were told, incredulously and said, "Why would we not?" |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Also, "The Nobility of Failure" is a good book. I read it a long, long time ago. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Thanks Brad, I think between us we’ve pretty much killed talk on this subject. . . John |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Perhaps, but it still leaves open Nagasaki. Should we have dropped the second bomb? |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Brad, All accounts I’ve read generally say yes. Actually the bomb on Nagasaki, which was off target, killed much fewer. And there’s different estimates as to which killed more: the atomic bombs at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or the fire bombing of Tokyo the previous March. Note that is was the use of atom bombs that Hirohito referred to in his explaining the acceptance of surrender, to a country the vast majority of whom had never before heard his voice. Basically he was telling them they had no chance. John . |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288572,00.html This sort of thing has been going on for a long time now. I remember Yukio Mishima. . |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
I forget if it was Keene or Morris who related this anecdote but I wanted to share my memory of it: Sitting in conversation with an older Japanese military man, Keene heard the man state that the kamikaze pilot is the pinnacle of humanity. To overcome one's innate fear of death, to sacrifice for something higher than oneself is the most noble of actions. When the man left, a younger Japanese man came up to him and explained that there was nothing noble about being a kamikaze pilot. You work yourself into an animal frenzy, screaming slogans of empire and emperor (bonzai!) and lose all sense of what it is to be human. And then you die. ------------- Next: the story of Sen Soshitsu, aka the Phoenix. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Actually, John, the bomb at Nagasaki was not off-target. It was the alternate destination which was selected due to heavy cloud cover and a shortage of jet fuel. Of such things, drastic changes of history are made. I'm still wondering why kamikaze pilots wore helmets!  |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Safety first |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
Yet Japanese pilots wore no parachutes. Mike, my references, (Toland), suggest you’re confusing Nagasaki with Hiroshima. Had the Nagasaki bomb gone where it was planned the casualties would have been much greater. |
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