guest ar 282 was pretty much completely wrong in everything it said. I feel it has been successfully refuted by bearded bruce and will not address it unless further errors are promulgated by it.

McGrath of Harlow continues to play logical games which are essentially naval gazing as they are not related to the reality of total war waged by the great powers in 1945.

The comments about Germany and Japan working feverishly to develop atomic weapons are not really accurate. Reference the Rhodes Book (and many others). The Germans 'could' have had a head start in the late 30's, but due to the decision of certain scientists to reverse the whole psychology of their craft and NOT distribute information at the critical point of understanding fission, in 1938 or 1939, the German scientists did not have enough information without critical research on their own part, and many key scientists had emigrated. (A notable stayer on under the Nazis was Werner Heisenberg). But German research was directed from the top down, and there was not major push in atomic bomb research. The Allies were not aware of this until after the Normandy invasion and allied progress into occupied Europe and liberated Germany. A special force was sent out to gather intelligence and was titled "Operation Paperclip". It revealed in no uncertain terms that the Germans were nowhere near realistic development, for not only had they not got the idea of a the proper critical mass, they lacked moderators for the reactors they would need. A rather primitive early reactor was discovered, however. Just to be sure, the allies got several notably German scientists together, let them review documents on the allied bomb, and bugged their conversation.

As to Japan, there are records of at least one Japanese scientist with an excellent idea of what it would take to put such a bomb together, but the support he got from the government was almost worse than nothing.

The Soviets, however, WERE working on a bomb, becuase they had twigged on the 'wall of silence' that had been imposed from the allied side, and they were getting incredibly informative information from the Manhattan project itself from many inside sources. Just as the United States had been warned in 1939 but had not acted with alacrity until December 1941, Stalin was concerned that the bomb information might be a disinformation plot, and his scientists were forced to not only copy the design, but prove the experimental research as they went along. Towards the end of the war they kidnapped German scientists and engineers to speed the process.

Once again I'd like to repeat that Eisenhower's view of the situation in the Pacific is not terribly relevant. In 1945 Eisenhower was supreme commander Europe, and not privy to inside information from the tope of the US government (his boss was George Marshall whose boss was Harry Truman). Eisenhower's opinions even if accurately quoted, were third hand. Nevertheless, there were people in th e know who opposed using the bomb. The use of the bomb was determeined after a lot of discussion and debate and naturally not everyone was of one mind. That is the essence of Democratic action.

The United States was mobilizing for a land invasion of Japan, which became totally unnecessary because of the two atomic weapons.

As for the records of the Japnanese survivors, they are uniquely precious documents which deserve to be preserved and studied along with all the blissfully victorious maunderings of the triumphalists.

We must not forget what incredible destructive power lies at our fingertips. We must identify with the victims as well as the victors. We need to make sure that no one need ever write remotely similar survival epics again.

Those people were children of God just as much as we are.