BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?

Subject: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 03:42 AM

Or what?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 03:56 AM

Somehow Jim I can't see it making a scrap of difference.


Although you'll be pleased to read in the report that some, many, most, all (delete as applicable) "historians" are now saying that the action wasn't justified as Japan were about to surrender anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 04:37 AM

"Japan were about to surrender anyway."
Picked that up from our papers too.
Interesting letter from a British soldier who was a veteran of the Japanese campaign and was hospitalised from the fighting at the time.
He wrote that it was a deeply immoral act which lost the allies any high ground they might have had.
Makes sense to me
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 08:12 AM

Prisoners, those who survived, think differently.
How could anyone know at the time that surrender was imminent, if indeed it was?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 08:27 AM

Just been reading about the Japanese Army's treatment of prisoners in Nanking, I despair of humanity sometimes.

The guy who authorised the use of the bomb was Harry Truman (Democrat), to save American lives apparently, but the fact that Hiroshima was protected from conventional bombing for years, points to the conclusion that it was in fact a scientific test on real human beings.....the warriors wanted to study the dead and dying.....even depriving them of medical treatment to see how long it took them to die and what the effect of radiation was on live humans.


There was never any high ground on either side, just a stinking cesspit.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 09:05 AM

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan-it-was-not-to-end-the-war-or-save-lives/

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 11:06 AM

Guys, there were 20 million deaths in China alone.

How long was this supposed to go on?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 11:50 AM

The "just about to surrender anyway" notion is over-simplified. There were factors in the Japanese power structure who were determined not to. The population of Japan was ready to fight off a physical invasion tooth and nail. America had already lost tens of thousands of men in a war that was brought to them at Pearl Harbor. So I think Truman's decision was understandable, at the time, especially considering that an atomic weapon had never been used before. It was gruwesome, horrible, unspeakable--but so were the previous four or five years.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 12:15 PM

An atomic weapon had been used, Amos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 12:22 PM

You have it right #.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 12:56 PM

Monday morning quarterbacking by many people who weren't around at the time.

The Japanese (who were not exactly famous for being kindly to their enemies) had said that, even though it was obvious by then that they had lost the war (that they had started--by first invading China, then with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, without declaring a state of war, as international law demanded) had said that they would not surrender.

Truman decided to use the bomb to end the war quickly, to save lives--Japanese lives included!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 01:01 PM

It had been tested -- not quite the same thing, when talking of a weapon, as its having been 'used' in the sense of aggressively deployed as a means of attack on the enemy.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: akenaton
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 01:03 PM

Why did they prohibit conventional bombing over Hiroshima for over a year before detonation?
It was a test pit.
Why did they allow the victims to die under supervision?
It was a test pit.

You demean yourself by your refusal to admit the obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 01:09 PM

And why the second bomb, on Nagasaki?

After Hiroshima, the Japanese high command insisted on continuing the war, claiming that we had only the one bomb and since we had already used it, nothing had changed.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 01:13 PM

"Test pit?"

Okay, Ake. Let's have some documentation on that.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 01:29 PM

This will never be decided. Amos is correct that "There were factors in the Japanese power structure who were determined not to."

"A group of young army officers stormed into the palace in a failed attempt to steal the records and block the surrender speech, but palace officials desperately protected the records, which were safely delivered to NHK for radio transmission the next day. "

It is impossible to do a double-blind experiment as to whether waiting or bombing would 'save more American lives'. Estimates of waiting time range from a few days to a few months... and hostilities in various places would have continued. No doubt Japan could not have held out for many months.. but whether invading the home island would have been necessary if the emperor had not spoken is just conjecture

But the real point of contention is whether those who claim "it was not necessary" are able to read Truman's mind about the 'real' motive...
Was it .." to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union." ?
Certainly no absolute proof of this has been shown. For us, it is impossible to re-create the mind-set of Truman, who had been dropped into this mess just a couple of months earlier, but who knew in great detail what had happened in the last 4 years.

All we can know is that everyone was tired of war and that no matter how we 2nd guess motives, Japan DID surrender after a few days.

As to the assertion by some that the scientists 'wanted to see' what the bomb would do to humans.... They had already seen its power. I really doubt there was much to learn on that score, and I REALLY doubt anyone suggested to Truman that he do it with that in mind.

   What is important is that we learn that humans should NEVER resort to such measures again............

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 02:22 PM

"It had been tested -- not quite the same thing, when talking of a weapon, as its having been 'used' in the sense of aggressively deployed as a means of attack on the enemy."

Regardless, they knew the effect it would have on a largely civilian population. Excuse it whatever way you choose, but they knew what the bomb would do. Was it worth it? Wiser heads than mine will have to decide that.

Let me ask, was Dresden worth it?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 02:39 PM

It did much less than the Tokyo fire storm caused by conventional bombs.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 02:40 PM

It is worth noting that a group of the Manhattan Project scientists signed the Szilárd Petition asking that the bomb not be dropped, or at least that the Japanese be told about the bomb and given the choice to surrender or be blasted to smithereens.

Curiously, Edward Teller, (who later became known for his aggressive advocacy of nuclear weaponry), apparently intended to sign it, and J. Robert Oppenheimer (who later became known for being aggressively anti-nuke) talked him out of it, saying essentially that they'd been hired to develop the bomb, and that its actual use was above their pay-grade.

This, of course, is an iteration of the "Nuremberg Defense"
that was so funny in "The Germans" episode of "Fawlty Towers" and all those Mel Brooks movies.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Aug 15 - 11:32 PM

What.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 03:33 AM

In 2015, the destruction of a city full of people would be the most shocking and terrible event in our lifetime.
In 1945 it was a commonplace.

Over 100 000 people had just been incinerated in a single attack on Tokyo without comment.
The cities of Germany, Britain and much of Europe lay in ruins.

The destruction of two more meant little. Only the weapon was novel.

Every day that Japan fought on, more of our people died.
People just wanted it to end.
We just can not see it now as they saw it then.

(I am off now for a couple of weeks.)

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 04:48 AM

the BBC documentary last night on the "bomb" clearly stated the view that the Hiroshima bomb was dropped to demonstrate the fire power of the Allies because the war had no sight of any conclusion and was not going well for the Allies. Many military and civilian deaths on both sides would inevitably be involved with a continuation of the war, plus casualties.
The programme - involving many of those wot were there - stated that Japan was invited to surrender after Hiroshima and didn't. Some of the Manhattan Project wanted to demonstrate the bomb to frighten Japan into surrender.
After Nagasaki (tertiary target chosen due to the weather) the Emperor intervened and told the government/military to surrender.

Japan may have been suing for a negotiated settlement, diplomats make these noises, it can be a military tactic to weaken the resolve of the opposition. But how genuine or strong were the voices?

History is made by the winners, and those that weren't there at the time are in a better position to win that fight! History is indeed bunk, there are those trying to bunk it up!

The programme is on iPlayer for those wanting more clarity on the subject

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 05:02 AM

Those who opposed the use of the bomb against Japan in 1945 could afford to state whatever they liked because they would not have been involved in Operation Downfall and it's two stages (Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet). Very telling that the one man who would have had to command and direct operations related to the proposed invasion of Japan was not consulted at the time.

Olympic was timed to commence in October/November 1945 and Coronet only if Olympic was successful in April 1946.

By May/June of 1945 the US Pacific Fleet was in a truly shocking state after fighting for years at sea. In approaching the Japanese mainland it found itself operating thousands of miles from any significant naval support facility. Ships needed boiler cleaning, furnaces re-bricking, serious defect maintenance required on many of their ships.

Japanese air strength in May stood at an estimated 2,900 aircraft, by October that number would have been nearer 9,000. And while the Allied forces would have been operating at long range with the launch base at Okinawa the Japanese would have had all the "home advantages" that Great Britain had during the Battle of Britain.

Casualty estimates based on previous operations (Battle of Luzon and the Battle to take Okinawa) would cost "1.7–4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities." – Source: Study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley. Those figures do not of course include those who would have died as a direct consequence of any invasion - Japanese orders were that the second one allied soldier set foot on the Japanese mainland - ALL allied POWs in Japanese hands were to be executed.

Plain fact was that to undertake Operation Olympic the allies only had the capacity to "lift" an invasion force of 650,000 and those men would be faced with an enemy force numbering at least 2 million, not counting the hostility of the civilian population. In planning an attack the general rule-of-thumb is that the attacking force outnumbers the defenders by a ratio of 3:1 in order for the attack to have any chance of success. Operation Olympic would have been a nightmare.

Was it the right thing to do at the time? Most definitely yes, when the alternatives were to be considered. It most definitely in the long run saved lives.

Dresden? I leave that one to "Bomber" Harris's comment (Harris actually did not see the point in attacking it but was ordered to do so by Churchill and Portal at the specific request of the Russians) - "All I can say is that all the German towns put together aren't worth the bones of a British Grenadier!" - In terms of destruction and death many other raids on German cities were far, far worse, most notable being Operation Gomorrah (The bombing of Hamburg). Albert Speer said after the war that if Harris had been able to repeat that raid on Hamburg on three other German cities the war would have ended in 1943 - Harris however didn't have the aircraft to do that.

Wing Commander T.D. Weldon, a tutor in Moral Philosophy at Magdalen College Oxford [lecturing on "The Ethics of Bombing"]:
" ... So therefore, it is not a question of ethics at all! War is not the opposite of peace, nor is it a corollary of it! War is a complete breakdown in civilization, so it shouldn't have "ethics" thrust upon it. Because that way lies danger; that way, war becomes acceptable! The means of death and destruction are immaterial, war was always war, the only difference today is the scale of it! So, when this war is finally over, the world should accept that there is no limit; there are no "Hague Rules of Combat" anymore! The worse war is, the more savage it becomes! When people understand this, and stop trying to limit it, then perhaps, we shall achieve lasting peace!"

Dr. Cyril Garbett, the Archbishop of York, in The Times on 25 June 1943:

"`Often in life there is no clear choice between absolute right and wrong; frequently the choice has to be made of the lesser of two evils'and it is a lesser evil to bomb a war-loving Germany than to sacrifice the lives of thousands of our own fellow-countrymen ... and to delay delivering millions now held in slavery'

The British naval blockade of Germany in the First World War caused more civilian deaths in Germany than the strategic bombing campaign of the Second World War and that excludes the numbers of civilians who died as a result of the Spanish Flu in 1918/1919.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 06:18 AM

So the good old frock-loving Archbishop of York knew that "Germany" was "war-loving", did he? Which "Germany" was he talking about, I wonder? The Germany of devastated cities, bereaved and homeless families? I'm amazed that you bring him to support your argument. His statement could have been lifted straight out of 1984. Nothing quite so effective as demonising your "enemy", is there, even when the vast majority of that "enemy" are your enemy only by accident of birth?   Anything to justify collective punishment...

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 07:44 AM

Well let me see now - "Which "Germany" was he talking about, I wonder?" - He wrote his letter in June 1943 - So could it probably have been these Germans he was talking about:

They all knew what Lebensraum meant and what it would involve

Many other wonderful pictures of rapturous Germans welcoming the news of the take over by armed force of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. They did not give two hoots for the devastated cities that they created Warsaw, Rotterdam, etc, etc. No-one needed to demonise them - they did a damn good job of doing that entirely on their own.

The Archbishop's comments were made at the time with the full approval of Lambeth Palace - so are relevant for the time.

International law did not protect civilians from bombardment from the sea, the ground, or the air:

The 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare was the first authoritative attempt to clarify and formulate a comprehensive code of conduct, but they were never adopted in legally binding terms. Growing awareness of the military potential of aircraft throughout the 1920s and 1930s ultimately proved too serious an obstacle to reaching an agreement.

One of the main stumbling blocks was the inability to establish an acceptable definition of a legitimate military target under the new conditions of total war between industrialised states. Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby summed up this conundrum nicely when he wrote:

"It is generally agreed, for example, that the man who loads or fires a field-gun is a military target. So is the gun itself, and the ammunition dump which supplies it. So is the truck-driver who transports ammunition from the base to the dump. So -- in the last two World Wars -- was the man who transported weapons, ammunition, raw materials, etc., by sea. But are the weapons and war-like stores on their way from the factories to the bases, and the men who transport them, not also military targets? And what about weapons under construction in the factories, and the men who make them? Are they not also military targets? And if they are not, where do you draw the line? If they are military targets, are not the industrial areas and the services -- gas, electricity -- that keep industry going, also military targets? Or is it permissible to starve these civilian workers by blockade, or shell them if you can get at them, but not to bomb them from the air? This is surely a `reductio ad absurdum'."

Factories making armaments and the transport bringing them to the battlefronts naturally were included in the category of legitimate targets once the means of attacking them were available. Consequently those civilians in them or dangerously close to them might just have to be equated with civilians in legitimately attacked places. Moreover, precedent was on the side of the air planners. Naval bombardment of ports and towns was an accepted act of war. It was even codified in Article 2 of the Convention on Naval Bombardment, signed at The Hague in 1907. Article 2 stipulated that a naval commander who used his ships' guns to destroy military objectives in an undefended port or town `incur[red] no responsibility for any unavoidable damage which may be caused by a bombardment under such circumstances'. The advent of air power merely increased the opportunity of reaching and destroying such targets.

Justified - YES
Necessary - YES

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Gda Music
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 07:55 AM

Sorry to drift from this current gloom and doom thread but I`m disappointed that there`s no mention yet to indicate that there is a Happy VJ Day - 70th anniversary celebration taking place this weekend on 15 Aug 2015.

I was 13 at the time and can well remember the day we heard the horror news that an atomic bomb had been dropped and exploded over Hiroshima. Then the second similar bomb which landed a few days later, this time targeted on Nagasaki.

Soon after that came the Japanese surrender and as excited schoolboys we had already experienced the street parties that followed the VE Day celebrations on 8 May 1945. We then certainly looked forward to celebrating the Victory over Japan - VJ Day 15 August 1945.

Many years later I happened to hear a tune from the 50s, it was a calypso from Lord Kitchener with his *Chinese never had a VJ Day*. Those particular clever lyrics of his intrigued me to the extent that I needed to seriously think more about his musical message.
                                  https://youtu.be/nPIqHSLcJJg
   
Lighten up!
GJ

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 08:58 AM

Necessary and justified to immolate thousands of innocent children? I wonder how you might have felt had they been yours....there but for fortune, eh, Teribus?

The justifying argument usually made that the bombs saved lives is entirely mischievous. We simply can't know that. We also can't know that threatening bombs dropped on the slopes of uninhabited Mount Fuji wouldn't equally have brought about surrender. The case for slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians is far from having been made. And the fact that other cities were blitzed just as badly is no more than a facile playground argument. And I'm amazed that you could fall for the Archbishop's blanket demonisation of a whole nation's population. I seem to remember that the Holocaust was justified by the Nazis in that same way.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 09:40 AM

I seem to remember that the Holocaust was justified by the Nazis in that same way.

Logical fallacy of false equivalence but....what the hey!

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 10:06 AM

And aren't you 'demonising' the Nazis then, Steve? Or had they, IYO, resigned their membership of the human race?

That sort of relativism is the argument of a -- er -- not-right-bright-nik.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 10:16 AM

false equivalence

Not entirely.......

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 12:02 PM

Where's the false equivalence? The Archbishop and Teribus justify the bombing of cities because everyone living in them was The Other, German or Japanese. The Nazis (not the German people, note) justified the Holocaust because all the killed were The Other, mainly Jews. Neither Teribus, the Man of Cloth nor the Nazis made allowance for the fact that many, or most, of the victims had nothing to do with disadvantaging their killers. A perfect equivalence, I'd say.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 12:24 PM

How would it have been different to us now if Hiroshima and Nagasaki had, instead, been firebombed ?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 01:02 PM

Sorry, bad English.

To us now how would it be different if Hiroshima and Nagasaki had, instead, been firebombed ?

In terms of the destruction and civilian loss of life it was similar.

In terms of nuclear bombs they were and are primarily symbolic. The were tiny. Off the shelf deployed bombs are 400 times the size. The largest device ever exploded was over 2,000 times more powerful and could have been twice that. Nuclear Weapon yield

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 01:32 PM

"The Archbishop and Teribus justify the bombing of cities because everyone living in them was The Other, German or Japanese."

Have we said something as simple as that Shaw or is that what you would have liked us to say?

The Archbishop writing in the middle of the war quite rightly said that there is no simple right and wrong of it - it cannot be reduced to that black-n-white picture you always seem to want to paint through the prism of today's attitudes. Great Britain and her allies were fighting a war of survival against one of the vilest regimes the world has ever seen - if people are going to die then let them be the enemy.

What I have said is that the specific raids being discussed were justifiable at the time and necessary in order to save lives. Perhaps just to see what might have happened they should not have gone ahead with the prospect of the war dragging on another 9 months (With no ensuing deaths?? - Can't see how myself) Japan bombed to bits, people starving and anything up to 5 to 11 million people killed. Oh and if We simply cannot say then that applies to both cases, someone, Harry Truman had to make a decision - he did and he did it to save American lives - there was a war going on, and he fully intended to win it.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 03:06 PM

It was you who reduced it to black and white. Here's what you said:

Many other wonderful pictures of rapturous Germans welcoming the news of the take over by armed force of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. They did not give two hoots for the devastated cities that they created Warsaw, Rotterdam, etc, etc. No-one needed to demonise them - they did a damn good job of doing that entirely on their own.

Was every German in Germany in those pictures? Remember those pictures of a million people marching in London against attacking Iraq, when people like you loved to remind us that fifty-nine million of us weren't there?   Who are the "they" who didn't give two hoots? Are you including the babies and the toddlers in that? I don't recall the bombs making that discrimination either...

Black and white is what you do with the broad brush. When you forget the inconvenient little details, such as the innocents slaughtered by the most unsmart bombing in history. But that's OK. It's convenient to set all moral considerations aside when you're four miles up, you drop a weapon of mass destruction and you can be out of the way before it can get you. Revel in the beauty of it. I seem to recall someone doing that, actually.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 04:11 PM

On August 15th, 1945, Japan announced that it was surrendering. They signed the official surrender on September 2nd, 1945.

I was in my early 'teens at the time, and my parents, my sisters, and I were taking a trip from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. on August 15th. We heard the news on the car radio, and when we pulled into downtown Vancouver, people were literally dancing in the streets!   

Using the A-bomb undoubtedly shortened the war by several months, with hundreds of thousands of lives saved, both Japanese and American.

AND—actually using the A-bomb made people think pretty cautiously about using it in future conflicts. A nuclear World War III, especially with ICBMs and H-bombs would have been short, would have resulted in the deaths of many millions, and would quite probably have left us with the kind of bleak world that has often been depicted in science fiction movies….

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 05:17 PM

Well, Don, I'm normally with you on most things but not on this. No-one knows that fewer lives would have been saved had the bomb not been dropped. A decision to drop a nuclear bomb with the excuse of saving future lives is akin to playing God. In addition, the atom bomb was instrumental in triggering the Cold War with its insane nuclear arms race and decades-long stand-off between two stupid superpowers who fought proxy wars on a massive scale all over the planet. Millions of lives have been lost as a result of US foreign policy squaring up to Soviet hubris. You can call that a tenuous link if you like, but it's not as tenuous as saying that dropping big bombs saves lives.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Aug 15 - 06:47 PM

I can't agree, Steve. I was a kid, but I remember at the time, there was a great deal of apprehension about the number of lives, both American and Japanese, that would be lost if the United States had to invade the Japanese home islands to end the war. And the Japanese high command was adamant about "fighting to the last man." No surrender!

The kamikaze attacks were an indication of how determined the Japanese were. And the American naval and military forces, having to continue to extend its supply lines across the Pacific Ocean, and having already had to drive the Japanese forces back island by island, was getting pretty weary and worn out by then.

Truman made the right decision to use the bomb and end the war as quickly as possible. It took hundreds of thousands of lives, but it also saved hundreds of thousands of lives and brought a long and tedious war to a quick end.

And as to the subsequent stand-off between the Soviet Union—and not just the United States, remember—I think that the idea of MAD—Mutual Assured Destruction—kept the myriad brushfire wars from extending beyond a certain point.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 04:35 AM

The kamikaze attacks were an indication of how determined the Japanese were

And, now, suicide bombers are just part of the routine of conflict between peoples.

Off topic - sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 04:42 AM

A decision to drop a nuclear bomb with the excuse of saving future lives is akin to playing God.

Does this God need an excuse Steve ?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 05:05 AM

?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 05:24 AM

Don, the invasion of Japan had it happened would have been an Allied invasion, not solely an American one. It is likely that my father, who had been serving in Burma, would have been part of it. And I still don't agree with the decision to use the bomb, especially the second one.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Megan L
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 05:46 AM

If people spend all their time arguing about the horrors of the past yet do not lift a finger to stop the horrors that are happening around them today are they really in the moral position to condemn the people of the past.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 06:05 AM

"?" from Steve

Your (rather surprising) reference to 'playing God'.

I think the need for an excuse is relevant to the metaphor. One could take the view that the permanent members of the UN Securty Council are there because they can threaten to 'play God' with their nuclear arsenals.

@ Megan L - I think the argument is relevant to horrors that are not happening around us today but might be if we don't review and revise the what it is acceptable for 'world leaders' to do. Not just relating to 'weapons of mass destruction'

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 07:01 AM

The God you say doesn't exist Stevie?

Nice to see that you know more about the events than those who actually lived through them at the time, and who actually experienced the elation and relief that the war was finally over, all because the President of the United States had taken the decision to drop those bombs.

" No-one knows that fewer lives would have been saved had the bomb not been dropped."

We most certainly do. What on earth do you think would have happened had the bombs not been dropped? Fighting would have continued in China and in South East Asia, operations would have continued against the Japanese mainland including Curtis LeMay's B-29 bombing campaign. The 9th-10th March raid on Tokyo alone resulted in 100,000 deaths - the high estimate for deaths caused by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki amount to 300,000 so Steve three nights similar to that on Tokyo and the death toll would have been as high. The two atomic bombs were dropped in August, Olympic was not due to commence until around the 1st November so there would have been far more than just three raids which logically leads to a highly probable assumption that the death toll on mainland Japan would have been far higher - and that Mr Shaw does not include the massive number of additional deaths that would have resulted once the invasion started. Please don't say the Japanese would have surrendered before that - you have no way of knowing that - Potsdam made sure of the stiffest resistance and even as it was the surrender articles agreed to had to be physically and forcibly protected from an attempted coup by junior officers who tried to destroy them - the Japanese would have fought and although they would have lost it would have been protracted, hard and bloody.

Every slim advantage the Americans had going for them at Okinawa would have been reversed in Japan's favour on an attack on Kyushu. At Okinawa 1,300 ships were used, 368 were badly damaged and 28 vital large landing ships were sunk. To do that Japanese aircraft had to fly over 400 miles of water. Had Olympic gone ahead the Japåanese would have only had to have flown ~60 miles with land cover degrading allied radar performance while the Americans would have had to have flown the 400 miles (US Carriers by this stage were in poor shape - for a carrier to be fully effective it must be able to travel at full speed for extended periods - you cannot do that if your boilers need cleaning and the furnaces firing them need to be re-bricked). Off Kyushu as US troop transports and radar pickets are sunk the fewer and fewer troops you are able to land and keep supplied. The Japanese would have had somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 aircraft to face the invasion, 40 submarines, 250 midget submarines and around 800 kamikaze fast boats, by July before the bombs were dropped they had 916,828 military personnel on Kyushu - American estimates which MacArthur believed to be greatly exaggerated put enemy strength on the island at 350,000 (A 200% underestimation), by November there would have been more.

Ah but Steve Shaw says there wouldn't have been any casualties - so he must be right then - DON'T THINK SO.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 07:19 AM

Outside of broad speculation on militarily and international political reasoning, I see it as coming down to a lower value being placed on the lives of Japanese civilians versus USA citizens. I suspect if there were a few USA citizens on the ground at both sites at this time, these bombs would not have been used. Is this attitude not similar today in most areas of USA conflict? If so, what has been learned and what exactly has changed, beyond the bomb type?

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 07:27 AM

GUEST,Dave - 12 Aug 15 - 05:24 AM

Can't really see how your father would have been involved, after all Slim's 14th Army already had a job to do fighting the Japanese in Burma - that would have continued to have been the case. Also there would have been the problem of actually getting troops there as every available transport would have been required to support the US forces carrying out the invasion.

The invasion of the mainland of Japan did not rule out the use of the bomb. The Manhattan Project promised General Marshal that once Olympic was ready to be launched they would have 15 "Fat Boy" bombs available for him to use should that prove necessary ("Fat Boy" was the airburst bomb dropped on Hiroshima - airburst produced greater blast damage and less residual ground contamination) - with 650,000 attackers having to fight 4,355,500 defenders my guess is that at some point or other as US fatalities climbed it would have proved necessary to drop those bombs.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 07:31 AM

GUEST -12 Aug 15 - 07:19 AM

Outside of broad speculation on militarily and international political reasoning, I see it as coming down to a lower value being placed on the lives of Japanese civilians versus USA citizens.

I think that it is generally accepted and well established practice that when engaged in an all out war that a lower value is placed on the lives of the enemy vesus the lives of your own troops and population - generally accepteand well established for pretty compelling and very obvious reasons I would have thought.

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 07:53 AM

""I think that it is generally accepted and well established practice that when engaged in an all out war that a lower value is placed on the lives of the enemy vesus the lives of your own troops and population - generally accepteand well established for pretty compelling and very obvious reasons I would have thought.""

So, why pretend it it is not so for all sides, sign agreements limiting war time activties, and talk "the high ground" to other countries about killing civilians, when most countries (including your own) are prepared to use whatever advantage they possess in wartime? Why not just be honest and admit that any target, military or civilian, will be directly or indirectly targeted in any conflict, with whatever tool exists to serve a "wartime interest" (like with the USA in Japan, Vietnam, and Iraq and like others using mustard gas in the Middle East)?

All this talk about, " it will never happen again", rings hollow under that scenario-I find it strange that people repeat it, over and over without thinking, "of course it will happen again, if there is a wartine advantage".

Subject: RE: BS: One Giant Step for Mankind - or what?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Aug 15 - 08:20 AM

I think the main reason you don't bomb their civilians is to make it less likely that they will bomb your civilians.

Another reason is that bombing their civilians probably means you are not bombing their military as much as you could be.

A main tactical reason for attacking civilians is the one William the Conquerer adopted in 1066 - it can draw your enemy to the fight before they are ready.