BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?

Subject: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:00 PM

Ahhh, another demostartion at the new avaition museaum near Dulles Airport against the Enola Gay and Iz asking myself, "Ahhhh, just why was this bomb dropped on Hirohama?"

Really. There are lots of folks who thought that Japan was beaten and trying to broker a surrender when it was dropped, including, from what I've heard, Dwight Eisenhower...

So why drop it? I'm serious.... I'd really liike to know...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:06 PM

Big Surprise. Our government lied to us and thousands died or paid the price.

Bobert, your spelling has gone straight to hell. Are you alright?
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:16 PM

Sorry - the usual answer is that we needed to prove to Russia that we had THE BOMB. Actually we had only two and we used them on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:17 PM

For those of you who are old enough to remember WWII, Truman had a very agonizing decision to make. The cost in lives, both, American and Japanese, would have been much greater, had we undertaken an invasion of Japan by conventional means. All the intelligence we had indicated that the Japanese would have resisted the invasion stubbornly, by any means at their disposal. Having experienced their kamikazee pilots crashing into our battleships, we already knew that they had no fear and would fight to the last man. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the only way to convince tha Japanese that all further resistance was futile, and brought an abrupt end to a very long war. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:22 PM

Harry Truman, the worst American war criminal in history.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:33 PM

Guest: Did you actually live through WWII ? SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:36 PM

Exactly why they dropped The Bomb is one thing. Why they are so proud of it they have to put the plane on display is a better question.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:39 PM

Maybe but the standard is not very high compared to the number of war criminals other places have churned out. Anyway the Americans were a damn sight more humane that the japanese were to any of trhe countries they waged war against. they gave Japan a more liberal society.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:45 PM

The United States of America: the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, used them as soon as they had them, and used all they had.

Nothing like nuking people to get them to come around to your way of thinking...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Once Famous
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:48 PM

I'd like to nuke you, Guest and then puke on you.

Nuke and puke, Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,peedeecee
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:52 PM

Martin Gibson's post reflects the standard, reflexive thinking of the rightwing nut. No thought, no insight, no considered opinion -- just the reflexive invective.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 11:53 PM

You also have to remember that there was no internet or modern communications in those days. If the Japanese were ready to surrender, they certainly did not indicate so at that time. Eisenhower was the commander in Europe not in the Pacific where MacArthur was running the show. Truman had a very tough decision to make. As Vice President, he knew nothing about the secret atomic bomb. When Roosevelt died, and Truman was suddenly thrust into office, he had to be briefed and was forced to make a decision based upon the little information that he had. Until the bomb was actually used, I do not think that anyone actually realized the tremendous destructive power that it had. Based upon what we know today, you may want to consider Harry Truman a war criminal. But based on the limited knowlege we had then, (and I lived through those times), I feel he made the correct decision. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:06 AM

Of the colonisation of weaker people the Anglos were the least brutal so far, however this case shows them on the high road to hell.

At the end of the war and admitting that Japan initiated it -
probably in a badly planned attempt to stop FURTHER Anglo incursions in the Pacific - there is still very weak evidence supporting the case cited by the Rebbe, with due respect OC.

One American friend of mine has privately stated to me that this act was the most criminal in the history of the human race, since even if the war had lasted longer it was NOT civilans who would have died but military - and for that reason I do agree with the criticism.

In fact, history will record the US as a hard task master and along with the other Anglo wannabe empires be remembered for the people they obliterated, the languages and cultures they smothered and the land they simply took by robbery from the unfortunate owners.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:06 AM

--80,000 people were killed instantly

--Out of the city's 55 hospitals, only 3 were usable after the blast.

--90% of all doctors and nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured

--Radiation claimed many more lives after the bomb was dropped.

--48,000 out of 76,000 buildings were destroyed.

--The initial heat blast was 900 times hotter than the sun.

--Bodies were vapourised underneath the bomb blast.

--By 1950, 200,000 people had died as a result of the bomb.

--Between 1950 and 1980, a further 97,000 people died from cancers associated with the radiation caused by "Little Boy".

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:15 AM

20/20 hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking are great tools. If Truman knew in advance what the results would have been, perhaps his decision would have been different. However he was in uncharted territory and had to make a very difficut decision. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:20 AM

The cost in lives, both, American and Japanese, would have been much greater, had we undertaken an invasion of Japan by conventional means.

Rabbi Sol, you may have lived through it, but you also bought the party line, hook line and sinker.

Proof does exist that they wanted to test it out and make an impression, as stated above, on the Russians and others. I've written about it here at Mudcat before, so I won't reproduce my work. I'll track it down and post a link later.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:23 AM

Some of the worst effects of radiation poisoning: the bleeding.

Bleeding from the eyes.

Bleeding through the skin.

Bleeding began usually from the gums and in the more seriously affected was soon evident from every possible source.

The bleeding time and the coagulation time were prolonged.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:29 AM

Guest: We all realize the horrors of nuclear war. No need to elaborate further. We just have to hope and pray that WWII will be the last time time in history that a nuclear weapon is ever used on this planet, and that some madman like Osama never gets his hands on one. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:29 AM

Bard Memorandum, June 27, 1945

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Memorandum by Ralph A. Bard, Undersecretary of the Navy, to Secretary of War Stimson, June 27, 1945
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, Harrison-Bundy File, folder #77, "Interim Committee, International Control".


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECRET -- TOP SECRET -- SECRET
REGRADED UNCLASSIFIED
ORDER SEC ARMY BY TAG PER
721164

CLASSIFICATION CHANGED
UNCLASSIFIED
To...........
By authority of: SEC ARMY
BY TAG per 710554
Date 9/29/71 WHC-NARS

Copy 1 of 2 copies each
of 1 pages series A

MEMORANDUM ON THE USE OF S-1 BOMB:

Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling.

During recent weeks I have also had the feeling very definitely that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender. Following the three-power conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.

I don't see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program. The stakes are so tremendous that it is my opinion very real consideration should be given to some plan of this kind. I do not believe under present circumstances existing that there is anyone in this country whose evaluation of the chances of the success of such a program is worth a great deal. The only way to find out is to try it out.

                                  [signature]
                                  RALPH A. BARD

27 June 1945

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:30 AM

Szilard Petition, First Version, July 3, 1945
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, Harrison-Bundy File, folder #76.
The first version of Leo Szilard's petition, dated July 3, 1945, was more strongly worded than the final version. It was also more specific in identifying the moral issues that he believed were involved.

Rejecting the pretense that the targets would be military, the petition called atomic bombs "a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities."

The bombing of cities, it continued, "had been condemned by American public opinion only a few years ago when applied by the Germans to the cities of England. Our use of atomic bombs in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness."

The petition concluded by requesting the President "to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs."

The July 3 version received 59 signatures at the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, but it was not submitted to the President in this form. Szilard sought to broaden support, and rewrote it into the final version of July 17.


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SECRET

THIS PAGE REGRADED UNCLASSIFIED
Order Sec Army
720564

                                        July 3, 1945

A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan.

We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power for a number of years. Until recently we have had to reckon with the possibility that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today with this danger averted we feel impelled to say what follows:

The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and the destruction of Japanese cities by means of atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such an attack on Japan could not be justified in the present circumstances. We believe that the United States ought not to resort to the use of atomic bombs in the present phase of the war, at least not unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan after the war are publicly announced and subsequently Japan is given an opportunity to surrender.

If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender, our nation would then be faced with a situation which might require a re-examination of her position with respect to the use of atomic bombs in the war.

Atomic bombs are primarily a means for the ruthless annihilation of cities. Once they were introduced as an instrument of war it would be difficult to resist for long the temptation of putting them to such use.

The last few years show a marked tendency toward increasing ruthlessness. At present our Air Forces, striking at the Japanese cities, are using the same methods of warfare which were condemned by American public opinion only a few years ago when applied by the Germans to the cities of England. Our use of atomic bombs in this war would carry the world a long way further on this path of ruthlessness.

Atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of this development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.

In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief to rule that the United States shall not, in the present phase of the war, resort to the use of atomic bombs.

Leo Szilard and 58 co-signers

[Source for number of signers of July 3 petition: Szilard to Frank Oppenheimer, July 23, 1945, Robert Oppenheimer Papers, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.]

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:32 AM

Oak Ridge petition, July 13, 1945
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, Harrison-Bundy File, folder #76.
Leo Szilard sent copies of the July 3 version of the Chicago petition to the Manhattan Project laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. After discussion and debate, the Oak Ridge scientists produced two similar petitions.

The petition reproduced below endorsed the July 3 version, with a modification to the last paragraph. This petition received 18 signatures, which are listed here in alphabetical order.


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                                           July 13, 1945.

We, the undersigned, agree in essence with the attached petition, but feel that our attitude is more clearly expressed if its last paragraph is replaced by the following:

We respectfully petition that the use of atomic bombs, particularly against cities, be sanctioned by you as the Chief Executive only under the following conditions:
1. Opportunity has been given to the Japanese to surrender on terms ensuring them the possibility of peaceful development in their homeland.
2. Convincing warnings have been given that a refusal to surrender will be followed by the use of a new weapon.
3. Responsibility for use of atomic bombs is shared with our allies.
[in alphabetical order:]
1. Garland M. Branch, Jr.
2. Edmond D. Cashwell
3. Frank C. Hoyt
4. Edwin P. Meiners, Jr.
5. Forrest H. Murray
6. Lothar W. Nordheim
7. Lionel D. Norris, Jr.
8. Louis A. Pardue
9. J. H. Rush
10. Raymond B. Sawyer
11. David Saxon
12. Richard Scalettar
13. Frederic Schuler
14. Harold Schweinler
15. Arthur H. Snell
16. Harry Soodak
17. Alvin M. Weinberg
18. E. O. Wollan

Note: These names were transcribed from hand-written signatures. Although efforts have been made to verify correct spelling, errors may remain.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:38 AM

Do you have any proof that Truman ever saw this document prior to making his decision ? There also may have been other documents which gave a contrary point of view that Truman had access to. He had to weigh all the information and make a decision. As he said " The buck stopped with him". SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:39 AM

Internal Royal Air Force memo (January, 1945)

Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester, is also far the largest unbombed built-up the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.

Taken from the following site.

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm


I do not belittle or minimize the terrible events of August 6 and 8, 1945. Estimates of the Dresden bombing and resulting firestorm are that between 35,000 and 100,000 people died. As with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the vast majority of dead were civilian, and the cities had no military value (they did not produce war materiel).

I think the decision to use the bombs was meant to accomplish a few things: end the war with Japan and tell Russia to behave in Europe and Asia. It is one thing to say you have a weapon of mass destruction. It is quite another to demonstrate you have the will to use it.

Canada was a world leader in bio-chem warfare until early in the 1960s. I am happy we got out of the business of mass murder. Firestorms and ABC warfare are horrible, ugly things, and they have NO place on the face of this planet. There are some things that should just be uninvented.

One has to wonder about the type of mind that can conceive of mass murder. It can't be human--but we know it is. Makes a guy wonder.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:42 AM

Official Bombing Order, July 25, 1945

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, TS Manhattan Project File '42 to '46, Folder 5B "(Directives, Memos, Etc. to and from C/S, S/W, etc.)."
The written order for the use of the atomic bomb against Japanese cities was drafted by General Groves. President Truman and Secretary of War Stimson approved the order at Potsdam.

The order made no mention of targetting military objectives or sparing civilians. The cities themselves were the targets. The order was also open-ended. "Additional bombs" could be dropped "as soon as made ready by the project staff."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                         TOP SECRET

                  DECLASSIFIED
         E.O. 11652, Secs 3(E) and 5(D) or (E)
         NND 730039
         By ERC NARS, Date 6-4-74



                                        25 July 1945


TO:   General Carl Spaatz
      Commanding General
      United States Army Strategic Air Forces

    1. The 509 Composite Group, 20th Air Force will
deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will
permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the
targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To
carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the
War Department to observe and record the effects of the
explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany
the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will
stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the
bomb.

    2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above
targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further
instructions will be issued concerning targets other than
those listed above.

    3. Discussion of any and all information concerning
the use of the weapon against Japan is reserved to the
Secretary of War and the President of the United States.
No communiques on the subject or releases of information
will be issued by Commanders in the field without specific
prior authority. Any news stories will be sent to the War
Department for specific clearance.

4. The foregoing directive is issued to you by direc-
tion and with the approval of the Secretary of War and of
the Chief of Staff, USA. It is desired that you personally
deliver one copy of this directive to General MacArthur and
one copy to Admiral Nimitz for their information.

                      (Sgd) THOS. T. HANDY

                           THOS. T. HANDY
                           General, G.S.C.
                           Acting Chief of Staff

copy for General Groves


                         TOP SECRET

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:43 AM

Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Truman told his diary on July 25, 1945, that he had ordered the bomb used.
Emphasis has been added to highlight Truman's apparent belief that he had ordered the bomb dropped on a "purely military" target, so that "military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children."


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We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful...

Truman quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980) pp. 55-56. Truman's writings are in the public domain.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:44 AM

Truman Speech, August 9, 1945 (excerpt)

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In a radio speech to the nation on August 9, 1945, President Truman called Hiroshima "a military base." It seems likely, considering his July 25 diary entry, that he was not aware that Hiroshima was a city. Otherwise, he was being untruthful about the nature of the target.
Truman delivered his speech from the White House at 10 P.M. Washington time on August 9, 1945. By this time, a second atomic bomb already had destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Because of the great length of the speech, most of which dealt with Germany, only the relevant paragraph is quoted here.


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The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. But that attack is only a warning of things to come. If Japan does not surrender, bombs will have to be dropped on her war industries and, unfortunately, thousands of civilian lives will be lost. I urge Japanese civilians to leave industrial cities immediately, and save themselves from destruction.

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, Containing the Public Messages, Speeches and Statements of the President April 12 to December 31, 1945 (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1961) page 212. The full text also was published in the New York Times, August 10, 1945, page 12.

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Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:59 AM

Published on Tuesday, August 6, 2002 in the Toronto Star
Lessons of Hiroshima
Using Nuclear Bombs on Japan Was a Political, Not Military, Decision
by Kevin Black

IT HAS BEEN observed so often that truth is the first casualty of war that it is now a banal remark rather than an insightful critical comment. However, of greater consequence than the death of truth is the surrender of critical thinking.

Golden anniversaries of crucial events are often used to proclaim the lessons learned from the past. But if history was never truly understood because it was purposefully misrepresented, exactly what lessons have we learned?

Deeply entrenched and culturally significant historical misrepresentations are very difficult to dispel within the lifetime of those responsible for the event. Anniversaries of those events are occasions when critical thinking must occur. Received historical stories must be challenged and held up to thorough critical scrutiny.

Today is one such anniversary. Fifty-seven years ago the first of only two atomic bombs ever used in war was unleashed.

At 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, a 22 kiloton A-bomb was dropped in the commercial heart of a then unknown city: Hiroshima. Fifty thousand people died in the first few moments of the surprise attack; within five years another 150,000 of the survivors were dead from injuries resulting from massive irradiation. A similar event happened three days later in Japan's only center of Christianity: Nagasaki.

Aside from some resilient trees, a skeletal building or two, and some charred artifacts, these statistics and others (e.g., the heat of the bomb, the force of the blast) are the only objective historical remains in existence from those two days.

Conversely, the history we almost completely rely on to form our evaluations and understandings of the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the subjective stories from both North America and Japan.

However, we have been consistently hampered in our understanding of these apocalyptic events for two reasons: The first is a result of our basic human inability to describe experiences that are so far beyond our everyday reality as to be inexplicable.

Even the hibakusha, or A-bomb survivors, experienced this difficulty.

The second reason for our near universal misunderstanding of the twin nuclear holocausts stems from an equally human, but more socially harmful motivation. We have been collectively blocked from a critical understanding of the A-bombings because of a lack of public criticism in the face of a powerful and purposeful historical misrepresentation that began with President Harry Truman in the years following 1945 and is only ending now, albeit very slowly.

The ongoing declassification of U.S. government documents and officials' diaries have fairly recently revealed evidence that the history lessons that we were taught after the end of the Pacific War were false. To wit:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff and every other high military official, as well as all Truman's key advisers, save one, were against the use of the A-bombs against the Japanese. Many were particularly concerned about the impact to America's moral stature for using bombs that they considered barbaric, especially upon a nation that they knew was beaten. After all, the U.S. military had already gained complete domination of Japanese airspace and waterways. They were simply waiting for the terms of surrender to be formulated between the U.S. and Japanese governments.

Truman repeatedly delayed acceptance of the Japanese government's conditional surrender attempts until after both types of A-bomb had been used.

Truman's physical target for the A-bombs were the Japanese, but the political target was his ally, but ideological opposite, Joseph Stalin.

Hiroshima's city center was targeted because its high population and building density would maximally display to the Soviets the killing and destructive power of America's new weapon.

The deciding factors for the Japanese government's capitulation were the entry of the Soviet Union into the Pacific War coupled with America's post-bombing acceptance of conditional surrender.

The story of a million American lives (and many more Japanese lives) saved by the A-bombs was a complete fabrication designed to eliminate public criticism of the president's decision.

Thus, the twin destructive forces of "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" were of political, but not military, utility. In other words, the nuclear holocausts were used for the purpose of "atomic diplomacy" with the Soviets rather than to bring a swift end to the war.

This is a completely different — yet more accurate and fully developed — story than the one that we have received for the previous 50 years.

Since we know that truth is a casualty to war, we must understand that our public history lessons are sometimes false.

The lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that we must all be vigilant regarding the official stories promoted by government leaders and officials, especially during and after times of war.
Kevin Black is a clinical psychologist who has lived and worked in Hiroshima.

Copyright 1996-2002. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:06 AM

In addition to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, the March 1945 fire bomb raid on Tokyo killed nearly 100,000 people and injured over 1,000,000, and the May 1945 fire bomb raid killed another 83,000.

The decision to use nuclear weapons and to force an unconditional surrender, rather than negotiate a peace treaty (which is what was done after the bombing), was a political decision, not a military decision dictated by military necessity.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:12 AM

If anyone is truly interested in having more information about the events leading to the use of atomic weapons by the US and of H.S. Truman's role in the decision, I suggest reading the well informed and carefully documented book The Myths of August: A Personal Exploration of Our Tragic Cold War Affair With the Atom by Stewart L. Udall. It's been quite a while since I last read this but as I recall, Truman wasn't told about the bomb or its planned use until just before it was dropped.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:33 AM

Casida of Sobbing

         Federico Garcia Lorca, tr. Robert Bly

   I have shut my balcony door
because I don't want to hear the sobbing,
but from behind the grayish walls
nothing else comes out but sobbing.

   Very few angels are singing,
very few dogs are barking,
a thousand violins fit into the palm of my hand.

   But the sobbing is a gigantic dog,
the sobbing is a gigantic angel,
the sobbing is a gigantic violin,
tears close the wind's jaws,
all there is to hear is sobbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:55 AM

The Grief of Losing One's Own Flesh and Blood

            by Japanese poet Shinoe Shoda (1910-1965), who had been exposed to the bomb in Hiroshima

The woman goes mad-
She had fled, leaving her husband
And seven children in the blazing fire.

A lone survivor,
She is grieved to be alive,
Longing for her husband.

A 50-year-old woman,
Heavily made up with rouge and powder,
Walks, deranged, crying,
"I want to have a baby. I want to marry."

Under the scorching sun
In the field of debris
Stands a charred tree,
Against which leans
The body of a woman who hanged herself.

Having lost five members of his family,
Driven to the utmost grief,
My elder brother-in-law
Wanders about the ruins night after night.

Oh for surgery to remove the memories of bygone days.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 02:18 AM

GUEST,

you have posted some contradictory things above. Several suggest that Truman was not aware that he would be bombing civilians. Then we are told differently by a clinical psychologist (?) writing for a Canadian newspaper. But whom should we believe?

As for the petitions, they are meaningless unless you can prove Truman read them.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 03:14 AM

This is a pointless discussion. Right or wrong (and IMOO it was wrong, wrong, wrong), it's done and it can't be undone. Maybe you should all be putting your energy to better use, like speaking out about the plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent people starving to death in the Sudan RIGHT NOW! Unlike events that took place almost sixty years ago, that's a subject that people's current opinions can have an effect upon.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:01 AM

Was there anyone in America, England, Austraia, Canada, New Zealand, India, and the smaller allied countries who DIDN'T celebrate the abrupt end of WW2 AT THAT TIME? Regardless of what it cost the then enemy?

I know my family did. They had three in uniform and one a prisoner of the Japanese.

Hindsight is a brave thing, but you can do nothing at all in hindsight. Hindsight is for scholars who were not in uniform and carrying a bundook in the 40's.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:17 AM

Have any of you revisionist ever studied the battle of Okinawa? That was a preview to the invasion of Japan.

When I was in the service I had a shipmate who, as a small boy, had his throat cut by a Japanese soldier. He said it was a game with them to toss Filipino babies into the air and spear them on bayonets.That was not an isolated incident; those soldiers were worse than animals.Are the people who were killed in Hiroshima any deader than the ones who were killed in the firestorm in Dresden? Are they any deader than the American soldiers who were slaughtered on the Bataan death march? How about some sympathy for them?

Furthermore, Germany was also working on the bomb. Are we grateful that they never got to drop one on London?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:21 AM

Quoute="boberet your spellingf has gone to hell, you alrright?"

his spelling looks ok to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:26 AM

Furthermore, Truman didn't invade the wrong country like this dildo we have in the White House now.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:33 AM

Good point Gurney - my uncle died in Changi, a prisoner of the Japanese, and I remember my family's attitude, when I was a child in the 50s, was that the Japs got what they deserved. That was pretty much the universal view in the years following the war. It's very easy now, for people who had no involvement in the horrors of that conflict, to try to take a high moral stance and 'tut-tut' at the actions of those who were involved.

With the benefit of hindsight we may say the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong, but the mind-set of people back in '45, after several years of war against an enemy whose savagery and inhumanity to his opponents almost defies belief, was naturally very different to ours today.

There but for the grace of God...............

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: freda underhill
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:27 AM

Tony Benn (alias the Right Honourable Anthony Wedgewood Benn, P.C.), a former British Cabinet Minister of the time, said on the BBC Radio Four service on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima, that the attack on Hiroshima was unnecessary, that the Japanese had already agreed to surrender, and that the use of the atomic bomb was part of an American conspiracy to terrorise the rest of the world with this manifestation of its power.

Scottish poet Tom McGowran wrote the following poem on the 50th anniversary:   

Remembering Hiroshima
lines on the fiftieth anniversary
O, fortunate man:
Wrists bound, knees bent, head bowed,
Staring into the shadowed trench;
The blade is swift, the slice is sure.

Sightless, he sees what might have been.
Crushed into a basket, the wicker constrains
The drowning man's despairing, hopeful struggle,
While the clear salt water scalds his lungs.
. . . Or,
Trailed behind the boat as sharkbait,
Leaking blood to attract the sport
And excite the laughter.
Perhaps, at dusk,
Strung by his thumbs to a branch,
(His toes, even with the rocks attached,
Yet still failing to reach the ground)
He awaits the morning's bayonet drill.
His friends had had it worse. Old Joe,
Trussed with barbèd wire, mouth stopped,
Pumped through his nose with water,
Died beneath the boots that jumped and split
His distended stomach open
To their wearers' laughter.

But the destruction of the body is nothing.
The ritual is spiritual. They do it for the pain;
And, yet, better, for the agony
And for the ecstasy the agony gives them.

O, how they love their cruelty,
These little yellow men.

Thank God: he hadn't been a woman,
A pleasured nurse, gang-raped through the long night hours,
Tortured near to death,
Taken to the beach to wash
Irremediable stains
From broken body,
And machine-gunned standing in the surf.

Or, disembowelled to win a bet:
The soldier won (it was a boy);
The woman lost (the child, her life)
As God's blood dripped into the gutter.

And now, in the last few seconds of a lifetime,
Deep inside that shadowed trench
He sees his children playing in the sand,
Their mother, mourning, watching.
The blessèd blade sings its dirge:
The blood spurts, mushrooms,
Driven by the final heartbeat.

The trench is black. His head
Falls into the abyss.

The author of this poem reported that he wrote it for two reasons. First was the memory of a photograph, seen in a book published by the British Government during the war (a book of which all copies to be found were withdrawn from circulation in 1951), featuring a row of Australian prisoners in the process of decapitation. He reflected at the time that perhaps they were the lucky ones, and in later years, as reports of officially sanctioned sadism entered the public domain, he learned they had indeed suffered a much less painful death than many thousands of others who were tortured by the Japanese cruelly, and who referred to this cruelty as Bushido.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: freda underhill
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:28 AM

..and a poem from the other side..

MY BEAUTIFUL HIROSHIMA TEACHER

Crimson sunset in Lake Michigan.
I think of a beautiful woman
in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.
Was she fortunate not to be killed
with the 200,000 others?
Was she unfortunate to stay alive?

Bright light
crushed her breath
windows burst
she went out
she woke far off
stuck all over
with broken glass
she couldn't scream
in blood and pain
no word would do
or will ever do
she felt the end of the world.

Fujiko is more beautiful because of her scars
Fujiko is more beautiful because many men and women have loved her
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has lived alone
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has taught
many students
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has always
loved Hiroshima
Fujiko is more beautiful because she plans to live
in a tiny farmhouse there
Fujiko is more beautiful because she does not fear
the inevitable cancer
Fujiko is more beautiful because of her peace.

The wormy scar on her neck
tells the folly of history.

KEIKO MATSUI GIBSON

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:35 AM

It seems unlikely that the Japanese were close to surrender. There was a culture that death was preferable. I have seen film of Japanese mothers holding children jumping from cliffs on Okinawa.
The firestorm raids on Tokyo killed far more people than the atomic attacks(likewise Dresden, Hamberg Etc.), but did not break the will to fight on.
The attacks were a monstrous evil, but still a vastly less costly evil than another year of conventional warfare.
Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: mooman
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 06:33 AM

With due respect Rabbi-Sol, the general opinion amongst most navy servicemen and their commanders involved in the sea bombardment and blockade of Japanese ports at the time (my father was amongst them) was that the Japanese were, at most, probably three or four weeks away from surrender. The decision, in the view of many, was a political one rather than arising from military necessity.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:34 AM

Whatever Navy servicemen may have thought, Germany was totally blockaded and bombarded day and night by USAF and RAF, yet fought on until the Red Army battled its way into the very centre of Berlin.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:49 AM

"Nuke & Puke"

Gee, it doesn't seem like a week since Marty went on Holidays...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:15 AM

The Japanese were ready to surrender, conditionally. But the allies were demanding complete surrender and for religious reasons and fear of war crime punishment the Japanese were very reluctant to do so. If you really thing they were ready to surrender, explain why didn't they after to first bomb to spare Nagasaki? Was demanding complete surrender the right thing to do. In hindsight, with the benefits of the Marshall plan and the present relative properity of Japan. I would have to say yes.

Again, the worrying thing is the present glorification of the event. Enoly Gay should be synonomous with "Never again", not "Look how mighty and clever we are."

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:33 AM

Let's return, for a moment, to the matter of radiation poisoning. It killed more people than the blasts did. To see how much we knew about the subject, how well we understood it, read Richard Feynman's auto biography. The short answer is that we didn't know bupkis. He was there. He worked on the project. He knew. Those deaths could not have been predicted.

Subject: Lyr Add: ENOLA GAY (Utah Phillips)
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:43 AM

I'm just glad it was not me who had to make that decision after Pearl Harbor and 4 years of terrible war....you who were not there cannot imagine what the stresses & pressures were to 'finish' the war, choose the action that would save the most lives, and scare all other would-be aggressors.

I sing this--with sadness in my soul at the images and implications it raises, but I still don't know what I'd have done in Truman's place.


ENOLA GAY
(Utah Phillips)
As recorded by Utah Phillips on "I've Got to Know" (1991)

1. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window.
Look up, young children, from your play.
Wave your hand at the shining airplane.
Such a beautiful sight is Enola Gay!

2. It's many a mile from the Utah desert
To Tinian Island far away,
A-standing guard by the barbed-wire fences
That hide the secret of Enola Gay.

3. High above the clouds in the sunlit silence,
So peaceful here, I'd like to stay.
There's many a pilot who would swap his pension
For a chance to fly Enola Gay.

4. What is that sound high above my city?
I rush outside and search the sky.
Now we are running to find the shelters.
The air-raid sirens start to cry.

5. What will I say when my children ask me,
Where was I flying upon that day?
With trembling voice I gave the order
To the bombardier of Enola Gay.

6. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window.
Look up, young children, from your play.
Your bright young eyes will turn to ashes
In the blinding light of Enola Gay.

7. I turn to see the fireball rising.
"My God, my God!" all I can say.
I hear a voice within me crying:
"My mother's name was Enola Gay."

8. Look out, look out from your schoolroom window.
Look up, young children, from your play.
Oh, when you see the warplanes flying,
Each one is named Enola Gay.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:35 PM

The Enola Gay is on display as a historical artifact, not as a boast. Bock's Car, the plane that dropped the Nagasaki bomb, is on display at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, along with other historic aircraft -- US, British, Russian, German and others. I've visited WPAFB, but I haven't been to the Dulles exhibit so I don't know what's there.

I did see the Enola Gay when it was being restored at the Silver Hill facility. Again, other historic airplanes and spacecraft were there -- craft from a number of countries, not just the US.

As for dropping nuclear bombs, I can only say as I've said before, right or wrong (and I mean morally, not militarily or historically or ethically or any other way), it brought my father home from the South Pacific to spend Christmas, 1945 with my mother and me -- the first of the five he'd spend with his wife and children before dying in a construction accident. It brought home my Uncles Jack, Gene, Bob, and Earl. I think at the time that's all they or their families cared about.

As for the situation in Japan, I understand that the Japanese military who were in power had sent out feelers for a conditional surrender which were rejected by Moscow, London, and Washington. An unconditional surrender had been demanded, as was demanded of Germany and Italy. The military assured the Emperor that all was well. The people of Japan were actually being trained to defend the country with broomsticks and similar weapons (there are films of this training), the people had been told that the invaders would rape the children and eat the old people, etc. etc. (again, there are records of this), and that they should die for the Emperor. AFTER the bombings, Hirohito put a stop to the war by telling the military to give it up, to surrender unconditionally and save his people.

The destructive force of the fission bomb was known:

"On the morning of July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m., a group of scientists, army officials, and famous personalities - including British ambassador Lord Halifax and Harvard president Dr. James B. Conant - witnessed the detonation of "Fat Man," a thirteen-pound plutonium bomb, which caused a blaze of light and heat more brilliant than the rising sun. The eighteen-kiloton explosion shattered windows 120 miles from Trinity and rumbled as far as 250 miles away. The intense heat of the blast melted the surrounding sand into a green, glassy, radioactive substance dubbed "Trinitite," which litters the site to this day."

The explosion was conservatively estimated to have been in the 10 KT range. Documents released after Trinity demonstrated that considerable radiation had indeed been released. It was noted, for instance, that the observers were exposed to as much as 8 roentgens, and the area even today shows radiation 10 times that of the surrounding area.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:40 PM

Guest has posted far more citations than I listed in the past. If he/she would be so good as to give us a few locations for some of the documents, it would be appreciated.

I'm sorry to see some of you still parroting the dogma that was the political/military party line 60 years ago. Hindsight should reveal the many cracks in that body of logic that painted the Japanese as sub-human and the American behavior as acceptable. Yes their behavior was awful. But so was ours. War is awful. The German nation bears a huge weight following revelations of the WWII concentration camps. I heard a recent story on The World or another NPR program to do with the current generation of Germans seeing to it that reparations are made to remaining camp survivors. The consensus expressed by the Germans on the program was that the generation in charge of those industries that previously benefitted from slave labor see the need for reparations. They're able to do this because those responsible for the atrocities have finally died and stopped defending their positions. I don't hear any of that responsibility expressed in the U.S. after the mercilous attacks on Japanese civilian populations. The Marshall Plan was a huge rebuilding project (as well as a Western assimilation plan). But there is no sustained feeling of guilt on the national level, no substantial codified expression of responsibility or regret at the horrible bombings in Japan during the war.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 12:57 PM

I lived through those times. I remember the day it was dropped.
There was a lot of pressure to use it as an expedient. Not many at the time questioned its use or the aftermath.

It's unclear just how much the Japanese had the will to persist
in a war they were clearly losing. The Japanese-Americans were still in internment camps. There was a lot of demonizing as there are in any war. I think only after people saw the pictures of the innocent women and children in Hiroshima that a sense of moral guilt came into being. The bombadier on the Enola Gay was never the same afterward. He was not proud of this "accomplishment". It was a dark day in American history and there is no real honest assessment as to how many American lives it saved. It was an expedient.

Some claim it saved their lives. These are the young men at the time who didn't have to go to fight. But the cost of using it has sent a shadow over the future of the human race that has persisted until this day. Now there is talk of using limited nuclear weapons in the "war on terror". Remember that once it was used as an atom bomb it became larger as a hydrogen bomb. There is something perverse on wanting to make a weapon larger and more efficient.

Because of our foreign policy in using these weapons, other countries are likewise arming themselves with the same.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:00 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: freightdawg
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:24 PM

All of these arguments have been posted before, if I remember correctly, in a thread on the mini-series "Band of Brothers." Rapaire said it best: the two planes are historical artifacts, the only difference is that they are related to the direct cause of the end of the war.

And, to correct a post earlier, the two bombs may have been the only readily available bombs, but there were other castings, or shells, that the devices were placed inside so they could be dropped from the planes. Had Japan not surrendered after the second bomb it would not have taken that much longer to produce other bomb cores.

Being born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was given the opportunity almost every year to visit the museum in Los Alamos where the replicas of Fat Man and Little Boy were on display. We were taught the role that Los Alamos had in WWII from a HISTORICAL perspective, not a moral one. It was always deathly quiet as we entered the museum, and even more quiet as we watched the films and listened to the curators. It had a profound impact on my life and still does. By the way, due to the pacifists and their constant moralizing, the museum display that we could see as children no longer exists. The version you see today is so sanitized and diluted that it is basically worthless in comparison to the lessons that I learned as a schoolchild. It is a real shame, too. I would think that if the real goal of pacifism is to prevent all future wars, they would want the whole truth of past wars to be exposed. Not so, according to the anti-nuke zealots. Apparently all they want to say is that the United States was solely responsible for the beginning and the middle and the end of WWII.

Who says that Japan was just a few days, weeks months, etc from surrender? Were you alive back then? Were you on a troop ship, or were you in boot camp or in Europe training for the invasion of the Japanese mainland? Does the example of Iwo Jima mean nothing to you? So, SRS, you may attempt to demean my argument by saying that I am "parroting the dogma...etc." but the use of the atomic weapons ended the war that Japan started with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. It saved thousands of allied soldiers' lives. No one can say with definitive proof (i.e. a signed document) that Japan was ready to surrender. It is all speculation and hearsay and, as Kendall put it, "revisionist history."

Go visit the USS Arizona and explain your revisionist history to the sailors that are entombed there.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:24 PM

Remember - if you ever knew - that even after the *second* bomb was dropped, the Japanese government was evenly divided about surrender.

And when the Emperor announced his decision to end the war, a group of Japanese military officers actually tried the unthinkable - a coup to overthrow the government in order to keep the war going until all Japanese could experience the glory of fighting to the death.

Planned or not, had the war not ended when it did, Stalin's army would have invaded Japan in early September, before our own planned invasion. Picture that! And picture a Stalinist Japan during the height of the Cold War!

Two wrongs don't make a right, but in judging the reality of the situation, remember - if you ever knew about - the "Rape of Nanking,"
when the Japanese military killed 150,000 Chinese civilians, maybe more, just to show them who was boss. The Japanese were also the only army in WWII to use poison gas and germ warfare in battle (again, in China).

By the way, it is *not* true that thefire bombing of Hamburg and/or Dresden killed more people than the attacks on Japan. Even David Irving, the pro-German writer who did more to disseminate the "100,000 killed" at Dresden myth in the 1960s, long ago renounced this figure - which, along with even larger "estimates," appears to have originated as Soviet/East German disinformation.

War is indeed HELL and the HELL should be mitigated whenever possible. But second-guessing decisions made in 1945 by an American President trying to end, immediately, the most destructive war in human history against one of the rottenest militarist regimes in history is a waste of time and effort.

Everyone has a horror story from World War II. Compared to the records of Germany, Japan, and, yes, the USSR, those of Britain and the US are justly commendable.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:49 PM

This discussion has occurred before, and there's little merit in reworking it all over again, but there was a lot more control in the fanatic militant faction in Japan than I had previously understood. In light of that, it is possible that Truman did save thousands of American lives. Yes, it was merciless. It was a time of merciless decisions in many places, under extreme duresses. I would prefer, myself, to forgive those who lived through those times, and made those decisions, with the firm commitment not (if I can possibly help it) to repeat their errors.

I see no value in shreiking about how wrong they were.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 01:52 PM

The reason that the US is marked for eternity as another brutal monster like Rome, is that they very well knew the effects of the bomb before it was used in Japan, since they already had tested it. And, the scientists who created it knew what the yield would be!

Nobody and nothing except G_d could forgive this act!

It was and reamains a deed of such enormous evil that it's perpetrators today labor to disarm any other nation trying to acquire such weapons.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 02:00 PM

But how could Truman have saved thousands of American lives if, as GUEST,Displaced Camelotian says:

Planned or not, had the war not ended when it did, Stalin's army would have invaded Japan in early September, before our own planned invasion.

If this is true, then it would have been Soviet soldiers who would have been killed rather than Americans. So now I'm wondering if maybe the US nuked Japan specifically for the purpose of preventing the Soviets from invading it first.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 02:04 PM

The USA is an evil war-mongering nation, they have no thought for anyone but their murdering uniformed uninformed thugs, their evil deeds throughout the world are well documented.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 02:18 PM

Go piss up a rope, GUEST.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 02:51 PM

Soviet plans to invade Japan in September 1945 were disclosed only within the past few years, after the fall of the Soviet Union. The earliest that a US/British invasion could have taken place was in October. At the very least, Japan would have ended up divided, like Korea, into a Communist north and a non-Communist south.

Nobody knew how long the Japanese nation would have held out, fighting tooth and nail, against any Allied invasion. According to the bushido code, death (including suicide) was *always* preferable to defeat (one reason why the Japanese held Allied POWs in such contempt). This applied to civilians as well as to soldiers.

As cruel as they were, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may well have cost fewer Japanese lives than any invasion of Japan.

Ending the war when he did, against the wishes of many of his generals and advisors, was a courageous personal act for an Emperor who was also willing, under the Surrender terms, to renounce the ancient claim that that he was a god, descended directly from the Rising Sun.

Emperor Hirohito had done nothing to prevent his army, navy, and air force from committing some of the worst atrocities in history against the peoples of China, Indochina, modern Malaysia, modern Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. When he broadcast news of his intention to surrender, it was the first time the Japanese people had ever heard his voice. He was driven to surrender, he said, correctly, "in order to prevent the complete destruction of the nation of Japan."

It is hard to imagine any nation (or leader) on earth that would have refrained from using any available weapon to end World War II to its advantage as quickly as possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 03:11 PM

One of my cousins was in the battle of Okinowa. Lucky for him he was not one of the 10,000 casualties. Remember, that was just a little island 350 miles from Japan. Imagine the bloodbath if the main islands had been invaded! Truman did a horrible yet necessary thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 03:29 PM

Guest, whichever Guest you are, you're a pillock of the first order.

Truman repeatedly delayed acceptance of the Japanese government's conditional surrender attempts until after both types of A-bomb had been used.

The significant words in this are "conditional surrender". Parenthesis. Since May, I now work for Pearson Group, whose imprints include Pearson Education, Penguin, Puffin, & Longmans, amongst others. We have a library at work, so when I can find time to take a break, guess where I spend it, amongst history books a-plenty. Heaven! :)

What I am basing my following points on is a book I have lately been reading called "More What If..." (link here) which includes essays on how nearly Truman didn't become President, & what might have happened if The Bomb hadn't been dropped. I can't quote the essayists sources off the top of my head, & I have no idea what his biases might be, but this, in a nutshell, is what the historian who speculated on The Bomb scenario had to say.

Fact: Japan was ruled by a small military clique. I forget the exact number, but it's something like 6 or 7 people deciding the fate of the entire nation, with unquestioning obedience at their beck & call from the population at large.

Fact: Conditional surrender, which is all that was on offer from the Japanese, meant a surrender in which all the existing power structures remained in place. Does anyone, even Stilly River Sage, think this was an acceptable proposition?

Fact: The ruling clique was perfectly prepared to spend thousands & millions of Japanese lives (never mind Allied casualties) in an effort to force the Allies to accept a conditional surrender on the above terms. They knew they were beaten, but they (very humanly, if very inhumanely) sought surrender on the most advantageous terms. I ask again, does anyone, even Stilly River Sage, think this was an acceptable proposition?

Fact: With the exception of Douglas MacArthur (who was rather Patton-esque in many respects, especially as regards his estimation of his own abilities - sorry, that's somewhat my opinion, rather than quoted fact!), the majority of the the senior US commanders, particularly Navy bods, were unenthusiastic (to say the least) about the prospects of invading Japan.

Fact: Geographical limitations determined & limited the possible beach-heads for any American invasion of Japan. Hindsight has established that the Japanese high command (limited in certain respects, but not stupid) had correctly identified every single possibility & defended appropriately. Any invasion would have resulted in absolute carnage. Okinawa would have been a picnic by comparison & the American command knew it. Conservative casualty estimates run way beyond the million mark (try 2-3 million for size), making Hiroshima & Nagasaki small beer by comparison.

Probability: It is likely that Hirohito had far more power, authority & knowledge than the Allies quite deliberately let everyone believe. There are strong indications that quite late in 1945, Hirohito was still in favour of continuing the war.

Truman's decision was never going to be a good one to have to make. It was a choice between diabolical & far worse. SRS & anonymous guests can bleat all they want about "dogma" & "war criminals". Given the choice he had to make, Truman would have had to have been mad or stupid to have done otherwise. It was a horrible choice, even if he knew (which I doubt he did or could have) the full consequences. Nevertheless, I believe he not only saved thousands of American lives, by condemning H & N, I believe he also saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese (& maybe Russian too) lives. Plus, on the whole, he ultimately created a better society for all of those survivors.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:16 PM

There's a bigger picture here than many of you are willing to step back to examine.

What I think is that those who feel their lives were saved by the U.S. committing mass murder with the bombs over Japan aren't going to change their minds. If the bombs hadn't been dropped the continuation of war much beyond that point (equating to the loss of more American lives) or the conditional surrender of Japan (yeah, like we wouldn't have argued for different conditions?) are conjecture.

Those raised in a Western tradition have a language that encodes our philosophies and our history. The same can be said for other cultures speaking other languages, and this is why we have such difficulties in understanding what other cultures are thinking--the hard wiring is distinctly different. (A recent study in Nature highlighted this, though it has been discussed at length for years). Just as today Bush-lite seems to have no one advising him who really understands the Arab way of thinking or how to behave when we're over there, Truman evidently didn't have anyone to consult on the subject of the Asian mind-set when it comes to warfare or negotiation. And the propaganda folks sure weren't going to accomodate the American public at large as to what might be going on in the heads of the Japanese we were fighting against.

Coming from an All-things-being-equal standpoint of a life lost is a life lost, no matter where it is, the Japanese paid a far higher price than they should have as the war was winding down. U.S. politicians and scientists created their bomb that they just had to try, and if the surrender had happened, then they couldn't try it out. Read between the lines.

War is horrible, no one should lose a life in such a way. But the U.S. upped the ante to such a level that the world will never be the same again. Even if one could justify (which I don't) Hiroshima, to drop the second on Nagasaki should be considered a war crime. Better that traditional warfare had continued and the end had come soon than those abominations of the American industrial military complex were dropped to have it end suddenly. The cost to the world was too great.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 04:56 PM

The history of the American wars shows mainly civilians are victims of the fights with the intention to intimidate the civilian population. In Vietnam, orders have been given to throw bombs on the civilian population as well as Napalm bombs in order to burn the woods and bombs with the intention to take the leaves off the trees with the consequence of spoiled harvests....In this war more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese died and 3,000,000 have been injured.... The use of Napalm and poisons had as a consequence devastating and even irreversible ecological damages. After the end of the second world war in Europe came the air attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the largest terrorist attacks ever, killing up to 300,000 people.... Even today, deformed children are born, still increasing the number of victims

That's my translation of what I have found on a German website. It fits deplorably well into the discussion here, in my eyes. I took it from a German Neonazi website.

What always amazes and worries me deeply is that there are two themes in which the Mudcat lefts are hardly distinguishable from the German Neonazis in their argumentation:

(1) The crimes of the USA and (2) Israel

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:09 PM

Don't lump everyone together, though, Wolfgang. I am a "Mudcat left" who has not contributed much to this thread because I saw it as a bit pointless. People are claiming all sorts of things for which there is little firm evidence, etc.

But for the record I definitely lean toward the camp that says, "the bomb was horrible, but necessary at that time." Nothing the other leftists have said here convinces me that this is a "party line from the past," etc, etc. Truman did what he thought he had to do to save lives and stabilize the world. Looking at Japan's progress since WWII, I think he largely succeeded. I would prefer if he had done it without the bomb, but I am not convinced he could have.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:14 PM

The history of the American wars shows mainly civilians are victims of the fights with the intention to intimidate the civilian population. In Vietnam, orders have been given to throw bombs on the civilian population as well as Napalm bombs in order to burn the woods and bombs with the intention to take the leaves off the trees with the consequence of spoiled harvests....In this war more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese died and 3,000,000 have been injured.... The use of Napalm and poisons had as a consequence devastating and even irreversible ecological damages. After the end of the second world war in Europe came the air attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the largest terrorist attacks ever, killing up to 300,000 people.... Even today, deformed children are born, still increasing the number of victims

That's my translation of what I have found on a German website. It fits deplorably well into the discussion here, in my eyes. I took it from a German Neonazi website.

What always amazes and worries me deeply is that there are two themes in which the Mudcat lefts are hardly distinguishable from the German Neonazis in their argumentation:

(1) The crimes of the USA and (2) Israel

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:20 PM

Yes, Nerd, the 'the' before Mudcat lefts is completely wrong. My mistake.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:26 PM

"The Mudcat Left" That's a good one Wolfgang. From a North American perspective, the Mudcat left, is pretty much everyone but DougR.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:30 PM

My final post on the matter:

For all those romantics who believe that war "before Hiroshima" wasn't so bad, let me remind them that World War I was entirely "conventional," but still cost about ten million lives.

And World War II, also entirely "conventional" before Hiroshima, took another fifty million. Zyklon-B, the gas used by Germany to carry out the Holocaust, was developed in peacetime as an insecticide....

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:33 PM

Yep, nuke & puke.

What a stupid ass thread. First of all, I am not a right wing nut like some asshole above said, but a patriotic moderate
American. The far left idiots here who probably got there history from a Joan Baez song should be glad that America and Truman did what they had to do using the technology they HAD and others DIDN'T. War sucks. People die. You can't change history, you can only learn from it. Has a nuke been used since? Was a precedent set? Did you crawl under your desk to kiss your ass goodbye in elementary school when the air raid test sirens went off?

Mooman, were you there to personally interview the general consensus of Navy seamen to make suck a ridiculous statement as you did?

Freightdawg, your post was so right on.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:35 PM

Yes, Nerd, the 'the' before Mudcat lefts is completely wrong. My mistake.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:49 PM

Besides the veil of secrecy, we have to remember that news did not travel very fast in those days. Many of us today can not imagine a world without sattelite TV, and wihout the internet. It usually took about 24 hours go get news from the front, and even then, it was filtered before it came down to the general public. Truman himself did not even know about the bomb until a very short time before he had to make that fateful decision. The point being, we can not judge the actions of the past by today's standards, but only by what was available to our leaders at that time. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:50 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 05:59 PM

Martin Gibson and "moderate" in the same sentence. This is turning out to be a very amusing thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 06:12 PM

It seems that opinion and propoganda have more of a grip on this thread than anything else. Go read some history, people! And then read some more. By doing so you will get a concensus of what modern historians have discovered about what was happening.

The Soviet Union had agreed a date with the other Allies when they were going to attack the Japanese, not in the home islands, as they did not have the specialised equipment they would have needed, but in Manchuria.

The Japanese (especially the Emperor and those close to him) were starting to sue for peace. They had asked the USSR to intervene, but the Soviets had no wish to because of their agreement to come in against the Japanese in September. So they didn't say that the Japanese had contacted them.

Certainly there were plenty of Allied scientists who wanted to see if their bomb worked. But there was only enough fissionable material for the two bombs, even with some that was possibly captured off a submarine that was taking it from Japan to Germany (not substantiated this last bit, but possible/likely).

Certainly the early surrender of the Japanese did 'save Allied lives'. No one was looking forward to invading the Japanese home islands, although plenty of materiel was making its way there for that job. But, as mentioned above, tht Japanese were sueing for peace, perhaps not as vigourously as the Allies would have hoped. But the story that Truman dropped the bomb to save Allied servicemen's lives is only partly true. But it's the kind of story that you want the folks at home to believe, isn't it?

And Displaced C - WW1 conventional? You have perhaps forgotten about the poison gas used by both sides, and the bombing and shelling of civilian targets (particularly by the Germans).

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 06:27 PM

Certainly there were plenty of Allied scientists who wanted to see if their bomb worked. But there was only enough fissionable material for the two bombs,

You are in error here, there were three bombs in the US arsenal before the end of the war. The first was tested in the US desert. The other two were dropped on Japan. The Allied scientists and the President certainly knew that the bomb worked and what its short term effects would be before it was dropped.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 06:27 PM

Mass murder is mass murder, regardless, but those who commit it will usually seek to justify it after the fact...while those who suffered its consequences (in a collective sense) will protest it and seek revenge, compensation, or at least recognition of their suffering.

The USA committed mass murder numerous times in World War II, as did most of the other combatants (Japan very notably included).

The USA naturally tries to whitewash its own actions in this regard, and was aided and abetted in doing so by being on the winning side...a very useful place to be when justifying war crimes.

It is entirely possible that Truman and his advisors thought they were doing what was best when they dropped those bombs.

It is also possible that they just wanted to test those bombs on a real target and couldn't resist taking advantage of the rapidly dwindling opportunities to do so (Japan was nearing economic collapse and military impotence...in fact had already pretty well reached military impotence in terms of being unable to launch any more offensive operations in the Pacific theatre).

It is also possible that they wanted to send a message to the Russians...or forestall a Russian advance into Japanese-occupied areas in China and Manchuria and Korea by ending the whole thing quickly before the Russians could get very far with that.

They were assuming an amphibious invasion of Japan in 1946 would cost a million or more lives...BUT no such invasion would, in fact, have been necessary in order to secure an end to the fighting. So their assumption was based on somewhat unimaginative thinking, based on the war in Europe.

They were demanding unconditional surrender...but it is never necessary to demand unconditional surrender in order to end a war...and NO surrender is in fact unconditional, truth be told! (Unless everyone on the losing side is dead.) There are always conditions.

It's a very twisted tale.

Those who are emotionally committed solidly to either side of this debate will naturally simply reject out of hand any opinion which opposes their own.

Therefore, I shrug. It's all been said over and over again anyway.

I suspect, sadly, that if the atomic bomb had not been used on Japan in 1945 it would soon have been used somewhere else...against either Russia or China...and that would have been potentially far more catastrophic for the World. So, maybe we all got lucky...with the exception, of course, of the incinerated and irradiated Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were most unlucky, and served as the sacrificial lambs on behalf of the rest of humanity...who stepped back and took a second look at the Frankenstein monster that their clever scientists had brought into the World.

It's the sort of thing you can get away with...until enough people become fully aware of the results. Then it becomes almost unthinkable to do it again. Thank Hiroshima and Nagasaki for saving a lot of other people from burning up in the atomic fire. Maybe they saved you and me.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 06:46 PM

Re WW I, I should probably have used the word "non-nuclear" rather than "conventional." Even so, the admittedly barbaric use of poison gas (not "nerve gas," by the way, a later and more destructive development)along with the bombingj of civilians accounted for only a very few percent of WW I fatalities. About 5% of the 10,000,000 dead in WW I were civilians. In WW II, this percentage was closer to 66% - most of them in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:25 PM

There is not one, single nation, not one, that cannot say that their people haven't committed a war atrocity. Beziers, Malmady, "Killing Fields", Nanking, Kilkenny, Wounded Knee, "Bataan Death March", My Lai, Manchuria, the Gulags, Warsaw Ghetto, Oradour sur Glane -- the list is endless and is not limited to Western countries or any particular time.

If you want to see war crimes, look to the history of any country, not just the US or Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:33 PM

Absolutely! What I find disturbing is the acrobatics people go through, winners and losers both, to sanitize and make excuses for the atrocities their side committed in wartime.

There seems to be an unwillingness out there to bear responsibility.

Of course, if you want to harangue another generation of young kids into going off willingly to war you certainly don't want to dampen their ardour with stories of past war crimes committed by your OWN people, do you now? Ah, no...what you want to do in that case is inflame their ardour by only mentioning the OTHER side's atrocities. Standard Orwellian tactics.

If people in general were more keenly aware of what war entails there would be very few who would ever support launching one in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:37 PM

Let's not forget Canada and the massacre of the Mitis.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:38 PM

mitis?

Massacre?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:40 PM

Unquestionably, Kendall. The Metis got a very raw deal, for the usual reasons...valuable land that someone else wanted jurisdiction over. As usual, the guys with the most money and guns won the fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:41 PM

There's actually a lot of sympathy in Canada now for Louis Riel, Gabriel Dumont and the rest of the Metis.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:43 PM

Sorry, din't mean to start such a fuss... I was curious...

And, yes, Sinsull. My spellin' has gone into it usual late summer slump but... I'll try harder...

Does seem from what I have read here that, given what we know now about Japan's desires to surrender, that someone should be held accountable??? Jus MO, of course...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:48 PM

Sorry Jack - I should have made it clear that I meant after the test and before the decision to drop, there were just the two bombs. It would have taken a long time to produce another (the fourth, if we include the test).

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 07:56 PM

What always amazes and worries me deeply is that there are two themes in which the Mudcat lefts are hardly distinguishable from the German Neonazis in their argumentation

Here's the difference for you, Wolfgang, although I fear it may be too subtle for you. The German Neonazis advocate killing, whereas, the Left Mudcatters advocate not killing.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 08:07 PM

In any case, Wolfgang, if I may be the devil's advocate to your statement...

Even people who are catastrophically wrong (like the Nazis) may and often DO make isolated statements that are in themselves quite accurate...while using those statements within the context of a larger wrongful intention!

That doesn't invalidate the accurate statement itself.

I bet even Joe Stalin and Al Capone made some very cogent and astute remarks in their time. Criminals and scoundrels do not oblige us by uttering ONLY exaggerated lies and obvious misrepresentations...they frequently sprinkle some cold, hard truths among them. It is precisely in that way that they succeed in persuading many people to side with them, don't forget.

Only a fool would tell nothing BUT lies when attempting to persuade people of the rightness of an extreme position.

The Far Right in America also tells the truth about certain specific matters...while generally presenting what I would term a destructive viewpoint on things in the larger context.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 08:19 PM

Turning away from history saying it is done with and cannot be undone, is dangerous, and untrue!

Besides while denying other nations the benefit of nuclear weapons they nonetheless continue to manufacture them, all the while warning any who feel the urge to make war upon the US that they will be incinerated.

What is there to stop a US administration from declaring a President 'Emperor'? as it nearly did in the selection of G W?

Anyway who is watching the watchers?

If anything a World Court of Justice should remove all nukes from the US precisely because of Hirsohima and Nagasaki it cannot be trusted with them.

Let those who say this evil act was justified think about this; Saddam used chemical weapons on civilians to end a war and we now have him in jail awaiting trial for it!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 08:37 PM

Harry Truman was the democraticly elected leader of his country. Sadaam became the leader of his country via an armed coup. He had the guns and the other guys did not. Truman did not gas citizens of his own country who disagreed with him. Sadamm, in order to retain his dictatorial power, gassed his own civilians. That is why he is on trial. Anyone who does not understand this basic difference deserves to flunk History 1.1 and Political Science as well. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 08:39 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:07 PM

Oh, Sol...Mr Truman would have been on trial if he had been on the totally defeated and losing end of a great war...like Goering and Tojo were. Depend on it. :-) Not that I am disagreeing with your basic point that Saddam was a far less law-abiding man than Truman. Not at all. But it's the losers of wars that go on trail, not the winners. The winners always find plenty of good reasons to try the losers and blame them for the whole thing. That's politics. And the majority of people always seem to believe those reasons, whether they are true, half-true or entirely false and self-serving. The courageous Germans who tried to assassinate Hitler were tried, depicted as the most dreadful and contemptible lot of terrorists, and brutally executed. He who controls the power metes out the punishment to whomever he deems to be the "evil ones". In this same way, America executed many brave Native American leaders and warriors who only fought to save their land and their ancestral way of life. (and they too sometimes committed atrocities in the process...the Natives did, I mean...war tends to result in people doing that)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:23 PM

Truman is dead. Roosevelt is dead. Groves is dead. Conant is dead. Oppenheimer is dead. Teller is dead. Einstein is dead. Fermi is dead. Doolittle is dead. Churchill is dead. Stalin is dead. I believe that all of the crew of the Enola Gay and Bock's Car are dead, but I don't know for certain. But I do know that damned near everyone of any consequence has had to face a Judge far more just and knowing than any human one and we who live now have to live with the decisions made then.

Refighting WW2 (or any other war) is an interesting and even fruitful exercise, but you can't change the actual historical outcome. Sure, a naval blockade could have starved Japan into submission -- perhaps, but we'll never know.

Try this: You are Harry S. Truman. Your nation has been at war for four years, there are lots of dead and wounded. Germany has surrendered, and you're turning your attention to the Pacific. The troops in Europe will go fight, but they certainly aren't enthusiastic. You're told that an invasion of Japan will bring millions of casualties, and you're also told that there's a new weapon of immense, unbelievable power. Churchill and Stalin are both aware of this weapon, and they too have troops that will be committed or are committed in the Pacific. What do you do?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:24 PM

Oh, yeah -- you have to keep your decision within the limits of what was known then. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Two_bears
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:26 PM

For those of you who are old enough to remember WWII, Truman had a very agonizing decision to make. The cost in lives, both, American and Japanese, would have been much greater, had we undertaken an invasion of Japan by conventional means. All the intelligence we had indicated that the Japanese would have resisted the invasion stubbornly, by any means at their disposal. Having experienced their kamikazee pilots crashing into our battleships, we already knew that they had no fear and would fight to the last man. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the only way to convince tha Japanese that all further resistance was futile, and brought an abrupt end to a very long war. SOL ZELLER

Sol:

I was born 10 years AFTER WW II ended; but I want to say that you have this issue ABSOLUTELY correct.

The Kamikaze were willing to die for their cause, and if Japan had been invaded; the fighting would have been urban warfare fighting house to house.

Before the bomb (little boy) if memory serves was dropped on Hiroshima; it was believed there was not enough fisionable Uranium to make a bomb.

Hiroshima was bombed, and they had to drop the bomb (fat man) over Nagasaki to demonstrate to the world that the U.S. has more than one bomb.

The two bombs used different sets of technology.

"little Boy" was built in a cylinder with two non critical masses of uranium in each end, then an explosion slamming the two masses together to cause a critical mass and start the fision process. (splitting the atoms)

"Fat Man" has one non critical mass then was surrounded by explosive that compacted the element into a smaller and smaller space until Critical mass eas reached and begin the process of fision (splitting the atoms.)

ANL - 2B

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:48 PM

So, if the USA had had a third bomb, then they would have been required to drop it on Japan so that the World could see that they had more than two bombs, I suppose...?

After all, are 2 measly little A-bombs really enough to sufficiently impress the World (and the Russians in particular)? They only dropped 2 because they only had two to drop. Japanese lives were not considered very valuable at the time. Matter of fact, I believe they were hardly considered to be human at all by a lot of westerners.

Fortunately the Emperor of Japan took it upon himself to make the decision to end the fighting. Good thing. The Army generals were less sensible than he was.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: PeteBoom
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 09:50 PM

Ummmm.... Why did Japan invade China? Why did Japan attack every direction it possibly could?

Consider Saipan.

Then the next time you go off with soft comfy moralistic pontification, remember that if you pick a fight, you'd better be in it to win - because the other guy might be precisely in it to win. When you make war, every resource available must be thrown into it - or you will fail. The object of war is to utterly destroy your opponent's belief in their victory.

When you cite statistics on the number of dead from either, or both, of the atomic bombs, consider the number of dead combatants and civilians where "conventional forces" were used - and consider the percentages of the defending forces and civilian population. Then consider that Japan had begun sending out peace proposals early in 1942. They got more insistant following Midway. They got more frantic with each defeat.

That is what usually happens. The bosses at the top urge the worker bees at the bottom to give everything they have - while they look for an out themselves.

The bomb(s) ended the pretense in the eyes of the average person that the war COULD be won. THAT ended the war far more effectively than anything else.

Yup - I'm a blood thirsty savage - I've been told that before.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 10:09 PM

I seriously doubt that anyone here is trying to justify Japan's aggression in the 30's and 40's. That is not what is at issue.

What is at issue is whether there was any actual need to drop A-bombs on Japan OR to launch an invasion of the Japanese mainland either. My answer to that is "No" in both cases. Truman may have seen it differently, and in fact I'm sure he saw it differently. So Truman and I would disagree on that one. Fine. We would probably disagree on any number of things.

In a war one fights to win. Winning does not necessarily require complete annihilation of, occupation of, or complete humiliation of the opponent. It just requires attaining a winning position, that's all.

Let me give a hypothetical example. The South could conceivably have won the Civil War, had they held out long enough and won certain key battles (like Gettysburg), but winning would not have required them to entirely conquer the North (which would have been beyond their capability anyway), nor would it have required them to force an unconditional surrender on the North, nor would it have required them to burn Washington or force the North to disarm its entire armed forces or any other such overweaning action.

Nope. Winning would simply have required them to convince the North that IT could not win, by inflicting serious enough defeats on the North. It was the North that was seeking unconditional surrender.

It was abundantly clear to even ordinary servicemen in Japan that Japan could not win by 1945. Totally, absolutely obvious! Everybody knew it, but hardly anyone dared to say it openly, because of their peculiar honor system. They had already lost. The government would have fallen in disgrace with or without an American invasion, and not too far down the line. The High Command would have been disgraced and kicked out. Their empire was in a shambles. Their navy was defunct. Their air force was nearly defunct. Their armies were helpless to do anything about the situation.

There is no need to do much further to a nation in such straits, and there is certainly no need to either invade them or drop A-bombs on them. Just blockade them, let their economy starve, and wait for them to ask for terms (which they in fact were already asking for...but through the Russians! Bad choice of intermediary. However, they didn't know who else to do it through, because they didn't have diplomatic contacts with anyone else at that point.)

The reason I disagree with Truman is partially because of hindsight. I fully realize that he may have thought it necessary to invade Japan or use the Bomb. That he did think so was a form of hubris common in great victorious powers.

And...he may have been in a hurry...because of the Russians. They had plans for the Japanese holdings on the Asian mainland.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 10:12 PM

Hey Pete. You didn't strike me as a blood thirsty savage when I met you up in Michigan.

I don't really have an opinion on this issue at this time, but every now and then someone says something that makes me a bit confused, like the bit about the planned Soviet invasion of Japan (and now that it's been explained to me, I understand it a bit better). This part of your post has left me puzzled:

Then consider that Japan had begun sending out peace proposals early in 1942. They got more insistant following Midway. They got more frantic with each defeat.

If they were so insistant with their peace proposals, why didn't we accept them instead of using the nukes?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 10:34 PM

Little Hawk: When Germany was defeated in WWI, we did not impose unconditional surrender on them. We reached an armistice and did not occupy Germany proper. What happened. Along came Hitler to avenge the honor of the fatherland, and we had to fight another even more bloodier war. Had we occupied Germany the first time and imposed unconditional surrender, Hitler would have never come to power. We learned our lesson well after that, and given the Japanese penchant for the Bushido code of honor, we could not allow another dictator to arise. We had to insist on unconditional surrender and occupation in order to change the entire mindset of the country. When you see how anti-war Japan is today and what a valuable role they play in the world economy, you can see that our course of action was correct and successful. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 10:52 PM

I don't believe that is correct, Carol. As far as I know, the Japanese did not begin thinking in terms of "losing" the war until after the huge naval battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. That was really the last hurrah of the Japanese fleet. It was after Leyte Gulf that the naval staff knew for certain the war was lost, and they were really unable to threaten the US fleet again with anything but kamikaze attacks by airplanes and the odd submarine attack here and there. Kamikaze attacks are necessarily a short range and short-lived defensive action borne of total desperation, and they require the near approach of an enemy fleet. They are not a means of gaining any military initiative.

It was in late '44 that the Japanese began thinking about making peace overtures through the Russians. Those efforts intensified in '45, but were fruitless, as Stalin did not pass on any of the messages to the USA or Britain.

Russia was not at war with Japan, so Japan still had diplomats in Moscow. Stalin, however, was planning to declare war on Japan, and gobble up as much spoils in Asia as he could as soon as he could transfer sufficient forces from Europe. He had secretly agreed with the Allies at the Yalta Conference to declare war on Japan within weeks of the end of the European fighting. This had not been announced publicly, so the Japanese knew nothing about it.

The Hiroshima bomb fell on August 6th. On August 8th Russia declared war on Japan. This shocked the Japanese even more than the atomic bomb strike had. The following day Nagasaki was bombed. Following that, the Emperor met with his ministers and chiefs of staff and advised them to accept the Allies' Potsdam Declaration (which demanded unconditional surrender). On August 14th a group of young officers assasinated General Mori, commander of the Imperial Guards Division, after failing to persuade him to use the unit in a rebellion to take the government by force and continue fighting the Allies. War Minister Anami, hearing the shooting, wrote a letter of apology to the Emperor, and killed himself with a short sword. Meanwhile, loyal troops led by General Tanaka put down the short-lived rebellion. The next day, August 15th, the Emperor read a short message to the entire nation over the radio. Most people had never heard his voice before. It was clearly an announcement of Japan's surrender, although the war "surrender" was not used. What he said was that Japan must "endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable". You have to understand the Japanese penchant for understatement. It meant surrender, that was for sure. Everyone in Japan knew that immediately.

The Japanese were not actively seeking a negotiated end until the spring of '45. What they did in '42, after Midway, their first substantial defeat, was to clench their teeth with grim resolve, admit that there was a tough fight ahead rather than a cakewalk, and start desperately trying to build more aircraft carriers. They were in no way thinking of defeat at any time in 1942 or 1943, nor were they seeking any negotiation at that time.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: jets
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:10 PM

I think that I have mentioned before that I was on a Liberty ship enroute from Greece to Italy .We had large timbers in the cargo holds . We were too load tanks and other war material for the invasion of Japan. And we heard of the bomb being dropped.
We anchored outside of Barrie Italy for several days .We then took aboard 20 GIs and headed for the Good Old USA. The bomb changed my course and it certainly had an impact on the lives of the soldiers that we returned to their homes and famils.
It is my belief that the bomb and its effect gave the Emperor of Japan the oportunity to surrender without losing Face.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:18 PM

Well, it was certainly successful, Zol. :-) I'll grant you that.

The reason Germany did not negotiate a rational surrender in World War II was because Germany was in the control of a totally irrational man. (His braver generals certainly advised him to negotiate from time to time, but he WOULD NOT.) That was not a result of any Allied lack of resolve at the end of WWI. In fact, it was a rather unique situation in European history. Germany has been in a number of wars, and no other war in modern times resulted in the devastation of the whole country, nor does a country escape the future clutches of a dictator by being totally devastated by foreign forces.

Nope, I don't follow your line of reasoning regarding Germany in the least. The tradition in European wars was always to fight until one side sees it has lost...then you negotiate. Hitler's regime was different. He was determined to bring the whole country down with him to death and destruction. That was certainly not the case with the Kaiser, or Bismark, or Blucher, or Frederick the Great or any previous German leader in relatively modern times.

A more punitive attitude toward Germany in 1918 would not have benefited the situation in the least, in my opinion, but far greater resolve shown toward the Nazis in the 30's before WWII would have been a very good idea. They should have been nipped in the bud early on before rearming, and they could have been, but France and England lacked the resolve to do it. France and England were NOT lacking in resolve in 1918. Not in the least. They laid the whole blame for the First World War on Germany...and Germany was not wholly to blame for that war. In fact, everyone was pretty much equally to blame for it.

People were just angry at the Germans in 1918 because they had made gains, occupied territory, and fought so damned well. No one could bother being mad at poor, pathetic Austria-Hungary, could they? Nope, it was the Germans who were chosen to be the "fiend incarnate" of the hour. That's what it's like after a war, and it was precisely that punitive attitude that gave Hitler the fuel he needed to power the Nazi Party, burn the Reichstag and have Germany in the palm of his hand.

Revenge on the part of the victors after a war breeds a new war. People should know better. Losing a war is punishment enough in itself. France and England tried in every way they could to gut Germany after WWI, and they inherited the results of that in 1939-40 and beyond.

MacArthur handled the occupation of Japan very wisely, with respect and dignity, and he did not take revenge upon the people or try to destroy the economy...and the Japanese, for their part, were extremely cooperative with the occupying forces, so the whole thing worked out far better than it might have.

Helping a defeated enemy rebuild is obviously the way to go. It worked wonderfully with Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:26 PM

Read the Manhattan Project when ya getta chance. The fact that the US had only three bombs was a closely-held secret.

"At 5:29:45 (Mountain War Time) on July 16, 1945, in a white blaze that stretched from the basin of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico to the still-dark skies, "The Gadget" ushered in the Atomic Age. The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction.

The brilliant light from the detonation pierced the early morning skies with such intensity that residents from a faraway neighboring community would swear that the sun came up twice that day. Even more astonishing is that a blind girl saw the flash 120 miles away.

Upon witnessing the explosion, its creators had mixed reactions. Isidor Rabi felt that the equilibrium in nature had been upset -- as if humankind had become a threat to the world it inhabited. J. Robert Oppenheimer, though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches."

from    inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050300a.htm

The awesome power of that bomb was known to the scientifc and military personnel. The petitions from scientists to stop the use of the bomb was NOT heeded.

Today, we use atomic bombs to set off hydrogen bombs. And so it goes. IMO, if there is a second atomic war, I hope to be at ground zero. There, I have read, the blast is so fast the the human nervous system has no time to react. Basically, dead before you know it. I think it was Einstein who said, "If there is an atomic war, the living will envy the dead." I hope to be one of the latter very early on. And I pray that my children are, also.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:29 PM

Ok so Saddam was not a comparable case - but then the principle stands anyway. It does not matter whether you are a murderer or a nun, when you are caught DWI you will be punished, that is the law.

Nor does it help to beg the question by saying, 'it's the President or this one or that one who is responsible' and/or 'the act is not criminal'. The fact is simply, the entity of the USA is the responsible agent here, and it is that which must sooner or later face the music of justice before some world court! At that time it will be decided whether this act was or was not a crime.

Do not forget that there were many many evil deeds done in Europe by the Allies as they waged war against the Axis. Included in these vile acts was the bombing of Dresden. OC I must add that Germany bombed Coventry mistaking the city for an armaments manufacturing target, which often I read as an excuse.. but.

In the case of Dresden trhe Allies knew in advance that it was cold blooded murder of civilians. If the Nazis wanted revenge upon this city they could not have done a better job of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:34 PM

The British High Command knew that Coventry would be bombed. They allowed it to happen. To have evacuated or defended the city would have alerted Germany that their codes had been broken, and the Allies needed the intelligence more than they needed Coventry. So, they allowed it to happen. Riight or wrong? That act may have saved tens of thousands of lives on June 6, 1944. However, I am not a seer.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:36 PM

Jack the Sailor as usual you don't know Jack-shit. Or have even a clue as to how I vote or what my politics are.. You are such a dork. Others here know that I was demonstrating on the corner of Michigan and Balbo in August 1968 at the Democratic convention. People who know me also know I was a very visable left-wing long hair throughout the 70s. Others who really know me know that I now think the far-left mentality such as yours is as twisted as Rush Limbough's is for the far right. Except that he is smart enough to be making money at it while you punch the keyboard of a computer in a tin can somewhere in rural Alabama, pretty well isolated from the melting pots of America, and good dentists for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Two_bears
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:36 PM

Furthermore, Truman didn't invade the wrong country like this dildo we have in the White House now.

Kendall; that is only your opinion.

There was a warning to regimes that supported terrorsts. Remember?

There was a Hammas terrorist training camp in Iraq.

There was an Al Qaeda training base in Iraq.

Abu Abbas, and Abu Nidal infamous terrorists, there is Zarakawi (SP) that has beheaded several people in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein supported the attacks on Israel by sending $25,000 to the family of terrorists who blow themself up to kill Israeli's and people visiting Israel.

I don't like Bush because he is slowly weakening the bill of rights; but I DO support the war on terrorism (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day).

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bert
Date: 08 Aug 04 - 11:40 PM

Well speaking as one, who as a schoolkid, hid under the desk many times from the threat of German bombs, I'd like to say a word or two.

We were at WAR, they were killing us, and we were killing them. The game is that, if you can kill enough of them then you win.

From the history that I have read, I think that the Japanese were more ferocious and determined than the Germans. The defeat of Germany proved that the Axis powers would fight until the very end.

The Japanese were STILL fighting after the end of the war in Europe. So it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to think that they were ready to surrender. If that were really the case then why did they NOT surrender at the defeat of their Axis partners?

Bert.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:30 AM

It was a joke Martin.

You are not moderate at all you are foul mouthed and abrasive.

Who gives a flying leap what your politics are? I don't read the garbage that you post anyway, so I'll never know.

And as a matter of fact I do know Jack Shit. He's your father.
It was cruel of him giving you the birthname Fulla.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:35 AM

Well, Bert, I think you should read some books by and about the Japanese who were actually there at the time, and you would know very well why they didn't want to surrender.

The reasons were mostly psychological, rather than rooted in any kind of practicality or pragmatism. It goes back to the whole Japanese honor system, and the fact that Japan had never been defeated in a war prior to World War II. They were accustomed to victory. They had even beaten the Russians in 1905, astounding the World. They also thought of themselves as a good and advanced society, as do most people.

Now, Bert, you know perfectly well why the British were not inclined to surrender in 1940 don't you? Just think about it. The Japanese felt pretty much the same way in 44-45.

When a distant foreign society, whose motives and moral capabilities you know little or nothing about is bombing you, sinking your shipping, and menacing you on every side, what do you do????

You hunker down and fight back as best you can! Just like the British did. Just like the Germans did while Hamburg burned. Just like the Russians did in the ruins of Stalingrad. You fight on. That is all the Japanese were doing.

Do you think for a moment that the ordinary Japanese citizen or soldier thought his country was in the wrong? Hell, no. They thought that their country had responded in the only way it could to outside threats. That's what people always think when their country is at war. It may be naive, but it's as common as dandelions.

You are simply failing to realize that the Japanese fought on for exactly the same reason people always fight on in any embattled country, regardless of whether their Allies surrender, specially if that country has a very proud military tradition.

It was the job of their political leaders (who had more information than the ordinary people) to recognize when it was time to quit, and some of them did recognize that (although somewhat later than they really should have) and were trying to make arrangements through the Russians to end the fighting.

As a citizen of the UK, a country with a glorious history (like pre-WWII Japan), a proud and independent island (like Japan), a naval power (like Japan), with an overseas empire (like Japan), never successfully invaded since William the Conqueror (like Japan again)....as a citizen of that country how would YOU react if a consortium of hostile foreign powers, deadly enemies, surrounded the UK and demanded that you unconditionally surrender, disband all your armed forces, and submit to immediate occupation by foreign troops?

You'd dig in and keep fighting like hell, just like the British did in 1940. No matter what.

The reason you can't comprehend why the Japanese would not want to surrender is that you don't realize that when it comes right down to it they are just like you...human in full degree...and proud of their country.

They are not "bad guys", they're ordinary, fallible human beings, and they are easily fooled by an unscrupulous government, as is the case with virtually all human populations in all eras.

The American population was recently fooled into launching an unprovoked war against Iraq, for example, on excuses far more flimsy than Japan's ire over American trade embargos on steel and oil in 1941.

If one's own country is surrounded and bombed, one mans the barricades and shoots back. It's as simple as that. If they demand unconditional surrender, you fight back all the harder. The Russians sure did, didn't they? Everybody did. That's people's nature.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:36 AM

From Martin Gibson....
somewhere in rural Alabama, pretty well isolated from the melting pots of America, and good dentists for that matter.

Yeah you're a "liberal" all right. Who plays the front of the horse you ignorant bigot?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:45 AM

And you know, Bert, Hitler was similarly befuddled in 1940 as to why the British didn't seek a negotiated settlement after the fall of France! He simply couldn't fathom it. They were all alone. They were outnumbered and outgunned. Their only ally had surrendered. Why didn't they throw in the towel and come to terms with Germany?

I think you know the answer to that.

Just imagine that YOU were a Japanese in the 1940's, believing implicitly in your country and cause, and you will know exactly why they found it difficult to throw in the towel too.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bert
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:03 AM

Little Hawk,

I don't think that the 'reason' they didn't want to surrender alters the fact that they didn't surrender, or the fact that it was apparent to the allies that they weren't going to surrender.

I would not have preferred that the war had been prolonged enough for the enemy to have developed and used an equal or greater weapon against us.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:20 AM

I suspect that the one who started this thread does not realize that nobody ever learns EXACTLY why anything happens the way it does. The best we can do is ponder it some and then try to get some of it in focus.

Even then we can't always believe that what we see is the exact truth of it.

From here, though, it seems the bombs were dropped to win the damn war.

Mission accomplished--for better or worse.

And now that we are married to it---we learn to live or die with it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:22 AM

Umm...well, no chance of that, Bert. The Japanese hadn't even begun investigations in the direction of an atomic project by 1945, and they lacked the necessary strategic resources to accomplish it anyway.

The general rule in a war is...a country will fight against foreign invasion and occupation as long as it is still able to...specially if it's being bombed. People get mad when they're being bombed. So if you want such a country to give up sooner, you talk to them about negotiating conditions, you don't demand "unconditional surrender". If their position is very bad, they may well negotiate. If not, you were no worse off for trying.

The Union and Confederacy tried to negotiate an end in 1864, with Lee hunkered down in trenches in front of Petersbury, Virginia. They talked for 2 or 3 days about it, while a ceasefire was held. The negotiations failed, because the South was still thinking of itself as an independent country and the North was thinking of them as rebels who must return to the Union...and it was absolutely unreconcilable. Too bad. A lot of lives could have been saved, and a lot of bitterness avoided. Atlanta and Richmond would not have burned. Too bad.

I have always thought that unconditional surrender was a bloody stupid idea, and I continue to think so. Without that lunatic Hitler leading Germany, the Germans could have negotiated an end to the war soon after Normandy...had the Allies been willing to negotiate in that case...but Stalin would never have agreed to it.

Again, too bad. These were missed opportunities, in every case.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: mooman
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 05:15 AM

Mooman, were you there to personally interview the general consensus of Navy seamen to make suck a ridiculous statement as you did?

No MG I was not there. But, as I said in my post, my father was on active service on a destroyer on escort duty to a battle fleet off Japan for many months and, according to him and I had no reason to have doubted him, that was the opinion of a large proportion of the serving seamen. So it is their view which is "ridiculous", I only posted what had been reported to me by someone who had been involved in the bombardment and blockade of Japanese ports and, more widely, in the Pacific campaign. As others have said, Japan was very close to total economic collapse at the time the bombs were dropped and had already begun to sue for peace. And, as for not knowing what the effects would be, plenty could be postulated following the original testing and knowldege that there was of Japanese building techniques. Certainly it would have been known in advance that 10s of 1000s of ordinary civilians would be killed instantaneously.

mooman

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 05:49 AM

Carol,

once more you are making an assumption about me. You see to assume that when I point to similarities I don't see dissimilarities. That's wrong.

But the similarity is what worries me and therefore I point to it. That similarity is not just in some minor detail, like Little Hawk can be read to imply (though I'm not sure here), but a whole string of argumentation.

I could translate whole passages on Israel and on American politics from European Neonazi sites and that would go down well with some of the lefts here.

I think one should be at least a tiny bit worried about the own position and the arguments for it if someone with which one does not want to be compared shares not only the position but also the string of argumentation.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 06:47 AM

Two_Bears, Iraq did not bomb the towers. There is not one scrid of evidence that they had anything to do with that. I stand ny my "opinion".

If Truman were running for president today he'd get my vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 08:04 AM

Jack the Sailor:

"From a North American perspective, the Mudcat left, is pretty much everyone but DougR. "

Hardly. About 44% of the likely voters still support Bush, about the same that supports getting rid of him. You seem to have a vastly inflated opinion of the support that the Left has in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 08:43 AM

Oh dear, Fartin Gibberass is trying to stir things up again. Perhaps that week off to get his meds adjusted was not long enough...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 09:18 AM

Bert - the Japanese were attempting to surrender. OK they weren't doing it fast enough, and they were doing it the wrong way, and 'unconditional' wasn't being mentioned, but they were addressing surrender. The Allies were intercepting Japanese signals and could read most of the ciphers (after some delay).

The Japanese weren't developing a nuclear device, which is why they sent the uranium by submarine which ended up in the USA when that submarine surrendered (allegedly). Apart from a very small exchange of essential materials, weapon designs and one or two personnel there was very little actual contact between the Germans and Japanese during WW2. So when the Germans were defeated it didn't have such an impact on the Japanese - it was half a world away. Of course it would release men and materials for the war against Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 09:26 AM

From my perspective, I have a letter which was written in Manila by my father and sent to my mother the day after the Nagasaki bomb was dropped. In it he states flatly that he doesn't know about these new, more powerful, bombs but if they end the war and let him and his buddies get back home they're all for them.

The problems with the WWI surrender of Germany has long been discussed by historians and it's pretty much agreed that the Versailles treaty led directly to Germany's re-arming, the rise of Hitler, and WW2. The policies that led to WW1 were formulated back around 1860 by Otto von Bismarck -- Grossdeutschland and all that. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 confirmed Germany's opinion of itself (Austria-Hungary was considered a nice cousin) and its militaristic doctrine. The arms races -- in guns, ships, and armies -- that dominated the end of the 19th Century and first decade of the 20th led directly to WW1, from that to WW2.

Any point in history is the peak of a pyramid. I believe it was Chekov who wrote, "If you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, you must use it in the third." And that's what all too often happens.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 09:59 AM

Sorefingers - "Do not forget that there were many many evil deeds done in Europe by the Allies as they waged war against the Axis. Included in these vile acts was the bombing of Dresden. OC I must add that Germany bombed Coventry mistaking the city for an armaments manufacturing target, which often I read as an excuse.. but......In the case of Dresden trhe Allies knew in advance that it was cold blooded murder of civilians."

So the persistent bombing by the Germans of British towns and cities, night after night after night for several years, resulting in the deaths of over two million British civilians doesn't count, in your strangely out-of-kilter world, as cold-blooded murder, or acts of evil? You mention Coventry as though it was the only city attacked, and then only on one occasion. I don't know where you're from but I can tell you, laddo, that every major city and many smaller towns in the UK were bombed repeatedly by the Luftwaffe during WWII. Not only bombed 'conventionally' by dozens of manned aircraft, but also by V1 and V2 missiles which, unlike today's cruise missiles and ICBMs, were completely unguided and simply fell randomly from the sky when they ran out of fuel, killing whoever had the ill-fortune to be beneath them - whether it be a munitions worker, a village postman or a child asleep in bed. Were these not also 'vile acts'?

And it didn't end with bombing - in my own small home-town (15,000 population) there were, until a few years ago, still buildings with bullet-holes in the brickwork where a German aircraft on its way home from a bombing raid on a nearby city strafed a group of people leaving the local cinema. Oh the Germans knew exactly what they were doing too, they targetted factories, power stations, gas-works, railway marshalling yards, docks. These weren't military targets, they weren't manned by soldiers, they were full of civilian workers who died or were maimed in their hundreds of thousands. And they hit residential areas too - ask any senior citizen of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Coventry, Southampton, and hundreds of other towns in the UK who, I suspect unlike you, lived through the horror of it all.

But I guess you probably think we got what we deserved? And I guess you probably live in a certain country that sustained not so much as one single air-raid during the whole of WWII?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 11:07 AM

in fifty years the question will be "Exactly why did the US invade Iraq?" and those of you who bought the administrations version, or the misinformation and propoganda will be saying: 'Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, etc.' The same is true of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The government's story, that many still propogate, is ' It saved millions of American lives!' there is absolutely NO evidence for that, it is purely speculation, based on what we Americans, who have little or no experience with Japanese culture, think the Japanese may or may not have done. useless to discuss. The question is WHY did the US drop the bombs? and to me there is not now, nor were there ever, any justification for it's use. end of argument. you don't kill innocent civilians, period.

Rabbi Sol talks about the madman, Hitler getting the bomb. you could as easily argue that Truman was a madman, 'only a madman could have done what he did'. and probably not be right in either case, Hitler may or may not have been a madman, just as Sadam Hussein may or may not have been, Personally I don't think either of them were insane, just willing to use the power they had. Just as the neo-cons argument for a new American Century is 'because we have the power we should use it' to remake the world in our image.

As to the original question and it's usual response, "to save American lives, if we had invaded they would have fought to the death, etc." the question that is never asked is: Why did we have to invade? Japan was defeated, no navy, no air force, no longer a threat to anyone, why not stand down, let your forces r & r in the South Pacific for a few months and blockade the Island? would starvation have been less or more cruel than nuclear anhailation? I know an army loosed is hard to restrain, but there was no reason to bomb or invade, just as there was no reason to invade Iraq. It was the choice of our 'leaders', and we have to live with the consequences. We are now a terrorist nation, for the threat behind everything we want other countries to do is 'we have the bomb!' and we are not afraid to use it. It angered and amazed me to hear the Bushes say that Sadam must be stopped because if he ever got a nuclear weapon he was a madman who would use it against defenseless civilian populations. that is US, the U. S. and we did it twice. yes, EVERY country has committed war crimes and attrocities, but this is our own personal shame. I only hope we are the only country to have to live with it, but the future is a nuclear nightmare, it's only a matter of time, our chickens will come home to roost, and boy will we be outraged!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 11:20 AM

Well, IF Truman were back, we'd at least know where the buck stops. And, if it DOES stop on the President's desk, does that mean that Halliburton is . . . ?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:06 PM

Truman was a tough, determined, cold-blooded, and effective man. He was a good guy to have on your side, a very bad guy to have as an enemy. My biggest beef with Harry Truman (aside from dropping the atomic bombs) is his UFO coverup which has remained in effect to this day. The Roswell incident occurred during Truman's time in office, and led to the formation of MJ-12 (Majestic) and the coverup, which has been the most determined in history as far as I know.

As Presidents go, Truman was one of the most effective, I'll grant that. He may well have been preferable to his Republican opponents at the time. Hard to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:07 PM

Americans need feel no shame nor remorse over the events of the Pacific war. The Nip military, government, Emporer et al, by pursuing an aggressive politic against their Eastern neighbours, the U.S. and allied British Commnowealth nations and demonstrating a most vile and inhuman attitude to those they subdued bit off more than they could chew. They sowed a storm and reaped a hurricane. The US had a task to do and they did it in the most efficient manner; it brought to an end a war that had already cost countless lives and could have continued. War, ever since Adam was a boy, has cost lives, innocents especially and nobody has found a formula for a "limited war". When we do and we can decide who and how many must be sacrificed let me know.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:18 PM

I think you have made the point that I wanted to make myself, Wolfgang. When you post two similarities, as you did, and you leave out all of the many dissimilarities, you give a (hopefully) false impression that you only see the two similarities and not the dissimilarities.

In the case of the two (very) different sets of people you are trying to compare, the dissimilarities pretty much render irrelevant any similarities there may be.

On your point of whether or not people who criticize the governments of the US and Israel should worry because of the fact that the Neonazis do the same, I would point out that the criticism are perfectly legitimate. But what the Neonazis are doing with those criticisms is what is illigitimate. They are using them as a protective cover to give their very illigitimate cause an air of legitimacy. It surprises me greatly that you have not figured this out yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,PeteBoom at Work
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:24 PM

Carol C (and LH) -

The early "peace proposals" from Japan consisted essentially of "you don't fight us and we won't kill you and we'll keep everything we captured." Around the Leyte Gulf / Phillipines campaign (second one, not the first...) these changed to "let's call it a draw." After Leyte Gulf, as Little Hawk said, they became far more serious and entered into negotaions through the Russians along the lines of "well, OK - you don't attack us and we'll talk about what we'll give back."

In a war of conquest, negotiating a peace deal without breaking the absolute will and ability of the agressor to do so again will merely set the stage for another round of wars and violence. In that case, a lightning strike victory (eg., the franco-prussian war) will set up another round of war within a generation. Beating and bleeding the agressor into absolute submission teaches a social lesson that becomes deeply embedded into society itself and takes generations to overcome to the point where launching military activity is worth considering. Until then, any thought of military aggression brings back the spectre of the "last time."

That is why the terms had to be "unconditional". And "unconditional" was unacceptable to Japan.

The difference between a civil war/revolution/war of independence and a war of conquest is that usually the group attempting to break away will be content with that alone - which is why the Confederate States did not need to aggressively invade the Northern states to win the war. Essentially like Vietnam or the Anglo-Irish war - Make it impossible for the other side to govern, and you will eventually win if you can hold out long enough.

On a personal note, my father's unit was training for the invasion of Japan at the time the bombs were dropped. The war planners had it slated to land in Japan on D-Day. Based on the plans, within a week, it was expected to be "removed from the order of battle". "Removed from the order of battle" is the fancy way of saying "shot to pieces" based on the experience of previous invasions.

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:25 PM

Exactly my point, Carol.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 12:51 PM

To bring in a musical reference, I'll quote Tom Lehrer:

Who's next?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:08 PM

100,00 Japanese lives, ot a million US servicemen. No brainer!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:26 PM

"Nip"

Japanese, maybe?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:42 PM

One further point for Wolfgang...

In the US, some white supremacist hate groups use the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights as a significant part of their argumentation. Does this mean we in the US should abandon our Constitution and Bill of Rights? Or even call their legitimacy into question? Obviously not.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 01:54 PM

Even to-day some Americans still believe that "agent orange" was a fruit drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: DougR
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 03:08 PM

That's a no brainer, Bobert old buddy: to save lives and end the war in the Pacific.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 03:43 PM

Yup. There were no brains that went into the decision, you have that right, DougR.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

SRS:

I think that is a bit unfair. There was a LOT of selfdoubt and anguish AND brains behind the various arguments on using those weapons. There was good reason to believe that ending the war by less extreme measures would have cost thousands of American lives. There was reason to believe that the final overthrow of Japan would have been as bloody as the Normandy invasion or the earlier battles for Pacific Theater sites. There was a lot of ruthlessness already exchanged between sides and the war was NOT over.

I would not have wanted to have the decision to make.

And I don't really feel qualified to second-guess the people who had it to make.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

A "no-brainer" is the notion that a mainland invasion would ever have been necessary at all, with or without the atomic bomb.

It would not have.

When the Russians attacked the Japanese positions in Asia, the Japanese knew the jig was up. The Americans could have stood by, let the Russians devastate the Japanese armies on the mainland (which they certainly would have, having a crushing advantage in tanks and other heavy weaponry over the Japanese), and not lost a man, and the Japanese would have sued for peace anyway within quite a short time.

This, however, would have entailed the Russians possibly greatly expanding their Asian sphere of influence...and THAT Truman was not willing to contemplate. :-)

It was power politics, as always, people. And they called it "saving lives" in order to disguise their more weighty intentions which have to do with the gaining and wielding of power not the saving of lives. It's never about the saving of lives. It's about winning, and winning big.

Pete - Your general description of the Japanese attitude toward negotiations is pretty accurate. In that respect they acted exactly like any other country in their general position usually acts. They did not face up to the real possibility of defeat until it had become really quite undeniable on any rational basis. That's pretty typical, isn't it?

How long do you think the USA would remain defiant, if its navy and air force were smashed and its borders were being threatened with a fullscale foreign invasion? A long time, I figure. No country gives up its own sovereignty on its own land while it still has any means to resist effectively.

But...you don't have to take away another country's entire sovereignty to win or to end a war. You just have to put them in a clearly losing position, as the Japanese did to the Russians in 1905 or America did to Spain in 1898. Then they will negotiate.

(Nice lively thread, isn't it?)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 04:18 PM

I might add, however, that believing a mainland invasion of Japan was necessary may not have been quite so much of a "no-brainer" in 1945. It may just have been standard conventional thinking. After all, they had just done it in Europe, hadn't they? And in a whole series of island battles. So, they were simply following the usual procedure in planning for the next big event. I'd call that a bit unimaginative, but I wouldn't call it a "no-brainer". Not at that time.

I call it a no-brainer NOW, given the benefit of hindsight.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 05:00 PM

I think a lot of people who are demonizing Truman on this thread have lost sight of an obvious difference between the US and UK on one hand, and the Japanese and Germans on the other, in WW2. The Germans and Japanese started the war by attacking the US, UK, France and other allies. They initiated the war. For LH to say something like "Without that madman Hitler, the Germans could have surrendered after Normandy" misses an obvious point: without that madman Hitler, France would not have been occupied by Germans. There would have been no Normandy, or surrender. Without the Japanese military command, the US would not have been at war with Japan.

People have also made the spurious argument that "the losers always get blamed for war crimes, and the victors always get off." In places like Rwanda, the victors are blamed for war crimes. In most wars, war crimes are an individual question: did so-and-so do thus-and-such? In the case of WW2 it was clearly different: the Nazis committed crimes the likes of which had not been seen before, at least not in Europeans' living memories. Their acts of aggression were so repugnant to practically everybody else that they made war crimes allegations inevitable. And again, they had initiated the war. But it is not usual for a war crimes tribunal to ask "was the whole course of action in fighting the war criminal?" Of course it is!

And then again, of course it isn't!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 05:09 PM

Just a quip to yank Doug's chain, Amos. But you're right, some people thought about that a lot, and what some of them thought was pretty odious. General concensus here says they managed to conceal an agenda from those who had to say yes or no. What goes around comes around.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 06:06 PM

What "general consensus", SRS? Is yours the only opinion that counts now or something?

Hawk - your analysis of the necessity for invasion is flawed, I'm afraid, as is your assertion (if I've remembered the author correctly) that the British & French are to be blamed for the Versailles Treaty, reparations & the humiliation of Germany. Regarding the latter, the British were against reparations. It was the insistence of the French along with the support of the Americans that led to VT.

As to the former, I haven't got time to type any more right now, sorry! I'll try to come back to this in the next day or two, though...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 06:41 PM

No, Raedwulf, I've been reading the thread--where have you been? A substantial number of the people posting here seem to feel that Truman was gulled into dropping the bomb. They would give him the benefit of the doubt. I can't say that I share that opinion, because I haven't read enough about Truman the man (outside of this Mudcat forum) to form that particular opinion. Did you read it differently? Then just say so, no need to get snotty.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 06:51 PM

When the Russians attacked the Japanese positions in Asia, the Japanese knew the jig was up.

A bit presumptuous to know from such a distance through space and time what "the Japanese" knew, LH. For one thing they were sharply divided -- there was a strong central contingent of militarists who believed the jig would never be up until the lights went out. There was no unified point of view in Japan.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Displaced Camelotian
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:03 PM

Re: War Crimes Trials

The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that the post-war republican government in Germany ("The Weimar Republic") should bring to justice those guilty of various war crimes, mostly committed in 1914 during the German invasion of Belgium.

In the interwar years, these atrocities were widely ridiculed in Britain, America, and of course Germany as the fantasies of English propagandists. But research of German army archives by German (and other) historians in the past ten or twenty years show without a doubt that such atrocities took place, for example, the destruction of several Belgian towns along with mass executions of civilians.

The German courts set up to try the accused had little interest in condemning German officers for crimes against "enemy" civilians in wartime. Virtually all the defendants (there were dozens of them) were acquitted.

The Allies in World War II determined that Nazi war criminals would not get off so easily.

Some of the accused Nazis, by the way, were actually acquitted. So much for the idea that the trials were just "for show."

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:20 PM

When the twin towers fell to the ground and with it the deaths of 3000 civilians, the USA rightfully sought out the criminals who did it and running them down shot and killed as many as they could find. It is still going on today, but mostly in Iraq.

Killing innocent civilians is saving up misfotune for the agency doing it! Maybe not in the short term, but in the end it will come back and whack the guilty in the head unless some mechanism is employed to resolve the issue.

I suspect that in the future we shall see a global legal system established to deal with such problems. Todays methods are unjust, costly and ineffective.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bert
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:52 PM

Les, you say the Japanese were attempting to surrender. How do you ATTEMPT to surrender? You either surrender or you don't.

I don't recall reading in any history that The Japanese said "OK we give up"

And being a child during WWII, I have read quite a lot about it since.

Mind you I am VERY BIASED, having been forced out of my home and separated from my family by GERMAN BOMBS. If I had been given the decision whether to drop the bomb or not I would certainly have said yes.


It's all well and good to sit back in the safety of your homes in fairly peaceful times. But to try to apply modern peaceful morals to those times is unrealistic - we were at WAR.

The Allied decision to fight WWII was inevitable. If the war hadn't been fought then we would be speaking German or Japanese right now.

Once you are fighting a war you have to kill them before they kill you. And The Japanese were STILL SHOOTING AT US. That doesn't seem to me like an attempt to surrender and I'm sure it didn't seem like that to the GIs being shot at.

If you are morally opposed to war, as most of us are, then use your indignation for the current political situation, and don't waste your energy on trying to revise history.

It's done, ALL of the people who were killed in WWII - ARE DEAD.
Let's use our energy and efforts to try to prevent WWIII.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 09:13 PM

From: beardedbruce - PM

Jack the Sailor:

"From a North American perspective, the Mudcat left, is pretty much everyone but DougR. "

Hardly. About 44% of the likely voters still support Bush, about the same that supports getting rid of him. You seem to have a vastly inflated opinion of the support that the Left has in this country.

You misunderstand me, I was talking about the "Mudcat" left. I will wager that for every Bush supporter on the Mudcat there are twenty who would vote against him.

The Mudcat "Right" is bout 10 or 15 people, a couple of whom have no name. The Mudcat "Left" is pretty much everyone else, with the exception of DougR.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Once Famous
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 09:28 PM

Jack the Sailor,

The "joke" is in your hand when you take a piss. As for your father, the best part of you was in his used rubber.

You do read my posts, burr-head. And you don't understand much about anything. I'm sick of being a liberal because of being identified with unwashed stained underwear types like yourself.

The Mudcat "left" like yourself are precisely what is wrong with Mudcat.    Your wife, especially. You are the worst possible of far-left liberals. You listen to nothing reasonable and have the common sense of a used tampon.

I claim and will claim to be a moderate, Jack-off the Sailor. Now eat the shit you shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 10:10 PM

Poor ignorant Martin.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 10:11 PM

Then, there are those who hate America, who are jealous of America simply because we have done some bad deeds in the past just like every other country.
It only proves the old saying; "The smallest dog can piss on the biggest building."

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Once Famous
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 10:27 PM

Jack, I am far from poor and have really been around the block as far as formal education and street smarts.

What's your excuse? Just have a boner for most of what goes on in America, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: DougR
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 10:29 PM

The concensus on this thread, SRS? Jeeze, what the hell does that mean? That is one of the most laughable posts I've ever seen on the Mudcat.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:30 AM

Bert, I am going to nitpick here... :-) You said, "If the war hadn't been fought then we would be speaking German or Japanese right now."

No way, man! Are the Japanese speaking English now? Are the Germans speaking English and Russian now? (as their first language, I mean...) Nope! We would most definitely NOT be speaking German now if the Germans had won, we would still be speaking English just like we were before. You entirely overestimate the ability of a victor to totally alter the cultural fabric and tradition of a foreign society that he has scored a temporary victory over in a war.

The Chinese are still speaking Chinese now too, despite having been occupied by several foreign powers for an extended period in history, and the Indians are still speaking Hindi.

All victories, my friend, are temporary...believe me. People who win a war sometimes lose the peace that follows it!

And that is my nitpicking statement on your last post. I am sick of people saying "we would all be speaking German now if Hitler had won". It's a cliche, and it is a foolish one in the extreme.

I understand your feelings on the matter perfectly, however. My father was in England during the Blitz, and he went ashore at Normandy and fought the Germans till VE-Day.

Oh...jeez...gotta nitpick again. "How do you ATTEMPT to surrender?"

You attempt to end a losing war by suggesting to the other side that you would be willing to discuss terms if they would be willing to. The Japanese were making such suggestions through Russia by early 1945. While that does not necessarily equal total "surrender" it does indicate a willingness to seek a mutually agreed upon end to hostilities...an armistace. And that is how most wars in history have been ended, by mutual discussion and an armistace. That is the sensible way to end a war.

"The Japanese were still shooting at us" Well, yeah! We were still shooting at them. And our level of shooting power exceeded theirs at the time by a huge measure. Why would they not shoot at fleets of bombers over their cities? I certainly would have if I was them.

Raedwulf - You are absolutely right about the Treaty of Versailles. It was the French who vigorously sought punitive reparations against Germany after WW I, not the French AND the British, as I had suggested. I typed in haste there and I was in error. It was Clemenceau who insisted on his pound of flesh where Germany was concerned. The French were bitter over the Franco-Prussian War and over the damage which had been done on French soil. This is understandable. Nevertheless, their attempt to permanently punish and cripple Germany after WW I was ill-advised. They suffered the consequences in 1940.

Nerd - I agree that the Germans and Japanese were responsible for starting the war(s) that are collectively known as WWII. I agree absolutely. I do not agree, however, that an invasion of mainland Japan OR the use of atomic bombs in 1945 was necessary to end it. It would have ended sometime in late 1945 regardless. The Russian attacks on the Chinese mainland after 8th August '45 would have been plenty enough to persuade the Japanese to quit. The Allied invasion of Japan was scheduled for the spring of 1946, but the war would have already have ended before that invasion ever needed to take place. Factions were growing ever stronger in Japan around the Emperor arguing for a necessity to end the conflict, and the Russian attack would have been quite sufficient to put those factions in control, despite certain fanatics in the Army who wanted to die fighting.

That's just my opinion, based on what I've read about it. Like other people, I trust my own opinion (naturally).

And I just love discussing history. That's why I keep coming back here.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:46 AM

Doug, you must be hanging out on the wrong threads. There is much funnier stuff than that being posted here and there. Here's a challenge: Avoid all political threads for the next 30 days, and see what occurs in your life. Then PM me and let me know how it went. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:48 AM

I see DougR is still around and kicking. Consensus does not mean "total agreement." It means a larger group than any other group that happens to be out there. A plurality exists as far as the types of opinions, but a larger number seems to give Truman the benefit of the doubt than the preferences of the various others of us who have other opinions. What's so hard to figure about that?

Plurality voting is our current system. Each voter votes for one candidate, and the candidate with the plurality (most votes) wins, regardless of whether that candidate gets a majority or not. In a plurality election with N candidates, a candidate can theoretically win with just over 1/N of the votes. The larger the number of candidates, [or in this case, opinions] the smaller the percentage of the votes needed to win. Plurality voting is perfectly adequate when only two candidates are running, but it cannot effectively and fairly accomodate more than two viable candidates. This fact is known as "Duverger's Law," and it explains why the US political system is a two-party duopoly without effective competition from other parties.

That about sums it up for this discussion also. Though there are many views, it seems always to boil down to just a couple. So recognizing a plurality is necessary to understand my use of concensus. To quote from another site (NIH), a consensus statement provides a "snapshot in time" of the state of knowledge of the conference topic. At this point in time, in this group, this is what appears to be the case. Got it? It has nothing to do with the rest of the world. Or anything, really. As several have said, that war is over.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bert
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:35 AM

Yup Little Hawk, I love discussing history as well. And you're right that we wouldn't all 'really' be speaking German.

It is also fun to study the affect that the Norman conquest had on the English language, but that should be another thread.

I still don't think that you can attempt to surrender. Either you Cry Uncle or you try some other way to wriggle out of the situation without surrendering.

Whilst it is possible to understand WHY the Japanese didn't surrender, it is almost certain that if they had said "WE SURRENDER - WHAT ARE YOUR TERMS?" then the bomb would not have been dropped.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 02:49 AM

LH--I just don't think Truman could have or should have waited for a Russian attack on manchuria that may or may not have materialized, nor am I as convinced as you that the Japanese would then have surrendered, nor am I convinced that Truman could have known whether they would or wouldn't--so I don't think anyone's proved anything.

By the way, the Irish are speaking English, many Kazhaks are speaking Russian, and many Mongolians are speaking Chinese. What "we" would be speaking is not so easy to tell. (I'm American, and I can't imagine the US getting defeated and invaded in the 1940s, so by "we" I mean the European allies...) It's not a question of overestimating the ABILITY of a victor, so much as the WILL and the POLITICAL EFFECTIVENESS. We didn't WANT to force Japan and Germany to speak English, nor is our political system well-adapted to doing so, so of course they aren't. Hitler and Hirohito may have wanted it, and their political systems were much better adapted.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 05:08 AM

All victories, my friend, are temporary...believe me. (LH)

I picture the Turc speaking invadors leaving little Asia, the Angles and Saxons leaving England, the white man leaving Canada, the Germanic tribes going back from Germany to their Baltic and Northern origins, the Romanic speaking invaders leaving the Iberian peninsula to the Basque speaking aborigines and smile: It's Little Hawk using words in a nonconventional sense.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 05:39 AM

Jack the Sailor,

Thank you for the clarification.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kendall
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 09:21 AM

The Rissians already had the Kurile islands, and I'm sure Truman didn't want them in Tokyo.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 10:11 AM

Wolfgang - I think you are mixing up invasion with emigration. When an invasion is accompanied by emigration, there are changes in languages and culture. So if the invading Saxons and Angles hadn't brought their wives and kids over, we'd still have a Celtic language in England (except it wouldn't be called England, of course).

Sometimes language and culture change because they are replaced by something better (or trendier!), and sometimes it becomes advantageous to suck up to the ruling class. Historians these days don't believe in a group of invaders killing most of the inhabitants and forcing their language and culture on the survivors.

But you are right about invasions not being temporary. We still can't get rid of those bloody Normans!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 11:08 AM

England takes its name from the Angles--Angle Land.

Wolfgang: You mentioned Basque aborigines in the Iberian Peninsula. I was under the impression the no cognates are found anywhere for words from the language spoken by the Basque people. What is your source for that? (I don't doubt you; however, it's news to me and I'd like to read up on it.)

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 11:24 AM

If the English hadn't invaded New Amsterdam, New Yorkers would still be speaking Dutch.

;-)

Personally, I don't see why it really matters, except when invaders try to obliterate the ancient languages of indigenous people. I'm definitely against that.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:32 PM

Well, let me put it another way...any victor, no matter how powerful and dominant he is, eventually passes away and is replaced by something else. It's just a matter of time.

I knew you'd catch me on that one, Wolfgang. :-) One can quote various examples where a defeated side simply died out, like the Beothuk Indians in Newfoundland. There are none left now at all.

Hitler had a great deal of respect for England and the English culture in a general sense, and he viewed them as his natural allies, so I doubt that the Germans would even have had any intention of sweeping away the English culture (had they won). Their intention would have been more like: now that we got rid of that scoundrel, Churchill, and are allies like we always should have been, let's go and destroy the Communists together. Happy days are here again! (And a lot of English people would have been happy to do just that...anti-communism was very strong in the West.)

Given the fact that Stalin was probably just as destructive a leader as Hitler, it would not have been hard to unite western Europe into an anti-communist crusade in the 40's.

Hitler stumbled into war with England and France in 1939. He was not looking for a war with them. He expected them to stand aside when he invaded Poland. His next plan after Poland was to attack Russia, NOT attack in the West, but Britain and France declared war over Poland. Hitler did not expect that, and it derailed his entire plan of action and drew him into conflicts in western Europe that he did not anticipate until they erupted. He scored a very quick victory over France, against all expectations. France was considered the strongest land army in western Europe in 1939-40. He then was confronted with an insoluble war with England, the one country he LEAST wanted to be at war with in all of Europe. He then was drawn into conflicts in the Balkans, mostly through the very stupid actions of Mussolini (who decided to attack Greece)...and due to an anti-fascist coup in Yugoslavia, which had been friendly to Germany prior to that coup. He then was drawn into ever-expanding conflicts in North Africa, again through the stupid actions of Mussolini. And so it went...

A long tale of misadventure and miscalculation.

Am I making excuses for Hitler? No. I am saying that he was on a planned path of aggression, but he seriously miscalculated. He did not think the British and French would fight on behalf of Poland. He thought they would just grumble and complain, then accept it as an accomplished fact, then later help him destroy communist Russia.

He was looking for a great war in the East, but got one in the West instead. He committed the final folly by launching his great war in the East ANYWAY, in the spring of '41 when he attacked Russia. And that decision lost him everything in the end...but it took several years of hard fighting to decide it. The attack on Russia has to stand as one of the most stubborn and ill-advised decisions ever made by a wartime leader.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:43 PM

Actually, Les, most indications are that emigration of Angles and Saxons to Britain was relatively small in comparison to the total population; in other words, the majority of people in Britain are still Celtic by heritage, descended from Celtic speakers. (The few DNA studies that have been done on bog bodies and the like support this.) So while you're right that the British situation was not one of political domination from a far-off land, it WAS one of political domination from a small minority population resulting in wholesale adoption of the dominant language throughout most of Britain (remembering that Scots is also derived from Anglo-Saxon). It is not hard to imagine a small minority population of Germans settling in England and enforcing German-only education. This is what the English did in Ireland, and it worked pretty well. I'm not saying it is likely, but it is entirely possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 01:53 PM

I'll agree with that, Nerd.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:04 PM

That's the way that I see it, Nerd. Not so many Normans arrived with Bill the Conker Root, but they brought a whole lot of language and culture with them. It didn't take a whole lot of Romans to turn us from Celtic to Romano-British either.

LH - Hitler's long-term plan was war with Britain in 1948. He needed that amount of time to build sufficient warships. This was the Z-Plan, agreed by Hitler in March 1939. He wasn't intending to engage the Royal Navy in fleet action, so much as to have the right vessels to wage an efficient commerce war. He didn't expect Britain to support the Poles when he invaded (not that we did, we just dropped leaflets on them while the Poles fought both the Germans and the Soviets). Britain didn't declare war on the Soviet Union, although they invaded Poland at the same time as Germany.

Mind you, I wonder about Hitler's declaration of war on the United States. Would Roosevelt have been easily able to declare war on Japan's European allies or would there still have been a feeling in the US that they should only fight Japan?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:14 PM

I think it would have been rather difficult for Roosevelt to declare war on the Germans. They were not active allies of Japan in the full sense of what that means. For instance, the Japanese were not helping the Germans fight Russia, nor were the Germans helping the Japanese fight in China or anything like that. They had a friendly association, not a binding military alliance.

I suspect it would have taken Roosevelt several months at least to persuade Congress to declare war on Germany, had not Hitler solved the problem for him by immediately declaring war on the USA.

Why Hitler did that is inexplicable, except that he acted out of sheer passion, devoid of any rational thought on the matter whatsoever. It was the dumbest thing he could have done under those circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 03:40 PM

Thanks LH, that's what I'd have said but it would have been pure opinion on my part, as I've only read stuff that was slightly related to the subject. It's a good thread this, especially since the 'opinion-only' people seem to have lost interest and left it to us history nuts.

I'll try and turn up the details of the story I alluded to earlier, about the Japanese sending Uranium to Germany by submarine, only for it to be diverted to the USA upon the defeat of Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:00 PM

I can't say anything about the Americans or British speaking German, had Hitler won the war. However one thing I can say as a certainty is that there would be nobody speaking Hebrew or Yiddish had Hitler won. He would have killed all Jews everywhere. I think everyone would agree that he was the most evil person ever to walk the face of this earth in the history of mankind. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

I'm with you on that, Sol.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:13 PM

Well it appears I was wrong - I should have checked the details rather than posting from my increasingly inaccurate memory. Germany was (perhaps) sending uranium or uranium oxide to Japan, although I'm not sure that there was any chance of Japan being able to use it in a nuclear device.

Details here

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Nerd
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 01:24 AM

Amen, Rabbi Sol!

(Some of us might have gone underground as "crypto-Jews," as had happened during the inquisition. It would have been more difficult, though, since the inquisition allowed you to live a normal life if you converted, whereas with Hitler you'd have to disguise the fact that you had ever been Jewish. Still, no Hebrew or Yiddish for sure!)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 02:58 AM

They were butterfingers?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 05:04 AM

Brucie,

I'm away from my books, so you'll have to wait for a response for another two weeks, but I won't forget it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 08:24 AM

Les - There was no chance of Japan getting anywhere with an atomic project in the war years. They hadn't even begun such a project by 1945, and it took a massive effort at that time and several years to complete such a project. Only the USA and Germany really had the potential to do it, as far as I can see. In the case of Germany, Hitler wasn't interested in the concept for some reason, so it got little encouragement from the top. In addition to that it appears that some of the key German nuclear scientists may have quietly and deliberately steered the project off in unproductive directions, due to their desire to avoid producing an atomic bomb. Many of the Allied scientists were also morally opposed to using the Bomb, and argued stronly for not doing so. Edward Teller was a notable exception to that attitude, and he went on to champion the much more terrible H-bomb in the 1950's. I get the impression that if Teller could have come up with a bomb capable of instantly destroying half the World he would have been delighted.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: HuwG
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 10:51 AM

Just a few thoughts, possibly non-sequiturs, but I'll post them anyway.

Firstly: I think that all informed Japanese (though there would have been few of these) must have known that Japan was indeed militarily impotent in mid-1945. Their navy, and air forces, had been almost completely destroyed, along with the bulk of their merchant shipping. The home islands were almost entirely cut off from the sources of raw materials elsewhere in Asia. Even if they could build more aircraft, they were almost out of fuel, and before long they would be unable to mount even kamikaze attacks.

In this respect, the situation was not at all like that of Britain in 1940. Britain could rely on large reserves of manpower and industry in the Dominions, had undisputed naval superiority over Germany, had measures in hand to expand the Air Force to equal and overwhelm the Luftwaffe, and could also rely on support from the USA under Roosevelt. Churchill needed only to overcome the immediate crisis, and could then be certain that Germany had no way of directly defeating Britain. (The U-boat was essentially a one-dimensional threat. Once the technical and numerical odds in the Battle of the Atlantic favoured the Allies, the U-boat's defeat was inevitable.)


Secondly: the casualties inflicted by the atomic weapons were only part of the civilian casualties caused by Allied bombing of Japan. For example, on the night of March 10/11th, Superfortresses dropped 2000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo. In an area consisting mainly of buildings shoddily constructed from softwood, the resulting firestorm was more destructive even than that which engulfed Hamburg and Dresden. There were estimated to be from 80,000 to 200,000 dead, and anything up to 1.8 million injured (mainly suffering severe burns) and homeless.

Superfortresses were eventually making similar raids every other day. They are believed to have inflicted a total of half a million deaths, and made 13 million homeless. The Japanese could do nothing to prevent such attacks. However, other than dislocating civilians and destroying some factories caught in the general conflagration, these attacks did not directly affect Japan's capacity to continue the war. (It should be remembered that these raids were only just beginning after Churchill and others had begun having second thoughts about the morality and effectiveness about the Dresden raid.)


I believe that, with or without the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan would have been forced to come to terms before the end of 1945. The slaughter of civilians must eventually have swayed the Emperor, the Russian declaration of war with their occupation of Manchuria and the destruction of the Japanese Kwantung Army would have convinced all but the most deluded military leaders that resistance was at an end.

(Had the war continued, the second half of 1945 would have seen a British / Indian invasion of Malaya, and perhaps the recapture of Singapore, the surrender of starving units of the Japanese South China Army, and the invasion, in November, of Kyushu and perhaps Hokkaido. Sooner or later, this succession of blows must surely have driven the Japanese to surrender.

Furthermore, while Japanese history, or at least the folklore which accompanied the warrior code, emphasises that death is preferable to disgrace, it was noted during the last stages of the fighting on Okinawa (June, 1945) and Manchuria, Japanese soldiers and civilians were starting to surrender rather than fight to the end. To be fair, these were people numbed by months of privation and ceaseless fighting, but I think it possible that this tendency might have been even more marked had the war continued to the end of the year. Evidence of this failure of will might also have contributed to a decision to surrender.)


I don't think it can be disputed that the atomic bombs did indeed hasten the Japanese surrender. They did so at cost of terrible casualties. However, I think that had they not been used, the Japanese civilian casualties would have been as numerous and tragic, had the Allies (particularly the US) continued to use the same strategy and methods as they were doing. One cannot imagine commanders such as Curtis LeMay or Admiral Halsey deciding to let up attacking Japanese targets for a few months while the Japanese supreme command mulled things over, and the Army slowly gathered itself for an invasion. So, while the use of atomic weapons was cruel, it cannot by itself be called wanton cruelty, not in the context of the time and situation.





As a footnote, I note that the Japanese have not been entirely forgiven for their own cruelties, in China at any rate. As someone posted somewhere, the "Rape of Nanking" and other atrocities are still remembered. The Chinese evidently feel that, although Japanese civilians also suffered during the war, the criminals who authorised, condoned and perpetrated that and similar crimes did not themselves suffer as a result, and Japan still owes some atonement for those crimes.

So far as I am aware, such an attitude is not so marked in other countries the Japanese attacked or occupied. In some cases (e.g. Indonesia), the Japanese inflicted no worse atrocities than the previous colonial power. In others, such as Burma, the nation's own subsequent internal turmoil has involved similar or worse acts.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 11:16 AM

Thank you, Wolfgang. I would appreciate that.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 01:54 PM

Excellent post, HuwG. The Americans were fully capable of incinerating Japanese cities without using atomic bombs, as you point out, and were already doing so with very little difficulty. Atomic bombs were in fact not required at all in order to bomb the Japanese into submission...but there is a peculiar psychological aspect to dropping just one bomb from one airplane and instantly destroying the greater part of a city. I think the Americans just couldn't resist using a new weapon...and seeing how well it would work.

In a similar sense they could not have resisted the temptation to invade Japan as soon as logistically possible, rather than simply blockading them into submission, which was entirely feasible.

These things tend to carry forward on their own momentum once a war is under way. People find the use of maximum force rather intoxicating once they get accustomed to it.

Try telling an air marshall NOT to use his bombers when he still has the chance to! Try telling a general NOT to use his armies. That is pretty well the same as telling him: "We don't really need you anymore." People don't like not being needed anymore. It's a threat to their basic sense of identity. And politicians would usually rather slaughter another few hundred thousand foreigners than be seen as "weak".

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 02:12 PM

true enough, Little Hawk, but in every case it is a choice, and in the case of the A-bomb, Truman could have chosen to say no. the air marshalls are never in control, it is the politicians who make the call, and the public who should keep them honest and demand answers. unfortunately propoganda does work. many people really believe there were NO other options, not just that the momentum of war, the fog of war, precluded them. As you recognize, there certainly were other options, like blockade, etc. We, our government acting for us, decided not to use them but to drop the bomb, twice. shame on Truman and the rest. completely tarnishes any 'glory' this country may have had, (had none really, when you take into account the Indian wars, etc.)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 02:50 PM

Agreed, Bill. But I'm not surprised they used it. Not at all. It was typical. Nuremberg only focused on the Axis war crimes, but there were war crimes committed by the Allies as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: freightdawg
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 10:34 PM

Now that the rocks have stopped flying us little fellers can stick their heads back out....

LH, I think I may have an idea as to why Hitler declared on the U.S. The only way he could defeat Britain was to blockade it - starve it of precious war materials. As long as the US was technically a neutral it could sail needed supplies to the island. By declaring war Hitler allowed his U-Boats full range over the Atlantic. I think, and this is pure conjecture, that it was his belief that Doenitz could sink more American supply ships, and more importantly, more escort vessels, faster than they could be replaced. However, the longer he waited he knew that the US would be ramping up its ship building capacity to fight the war in the Pacific. It was a matter of timing. He felt like he had to engage the US in a two ocean war when it barely had a one ocean fleet.

It almost worked. The defeat of the U-Boats was never a forgone conclusion, and in Churchill's own words they were the threat that concerned him the most. The only problem was that Hitler had not given Doenitz the number of U-Boats that he wanted or needed. Therefore, Doenitz was stretched too thin to effectively shut the Atlantic coastline down. Two developments then overcame the U-Boat menace - the incredible might of the American shipbuilding capacity and the technological refinement of the ASDIC anti-submarine device and maybe more important, Radar.

Granted, this was a move of pure hubris by Hitler, but I am somewhat of a U-Boat history buff and I think Doenitz could have won the war for Hitler had he been given the number of U-Boats that he wanted. One only has to review the tonnage that the wolfpacks sank in 1941, 1942 and the first six months of 1943 to realize just how close Doenitz came. Thankfully for the US and Britain, Hitler was more interested in flashy big battleships (the Bismarck and the Tirpitz) By the time Doenitz got through to Hitler the Allies had turned the tide against him and his boats were the hunted instead of the hunters.

Rabbi Sol, I do appreciate your posts. You have been one voice of reason in this thread. However, a question. Would you rate Hitler's pogrom of greater violence than, say, Antiochus Epiphanes? I am not Jewish, so please I mean no animosity. I just see Hitler as another in a long disgusting line of animals who have tried to eliminate the people of your faith. Your collective will to survive and overcome is of great value to me.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 10:48 PM

Interesting point, freightdawg. You may be right about that. The U-boats could have won the war for Hitler in 1942, I think, if he had the foresight to put sufficient resources at Doenitz' disposal.

Another key point was Hitler's continual favoring of bombers over fighters through most of the war. This nonsense lost him the Battle of Britain. It is fighters that must establish air superiority, and enough Bf 109's set free to do just that in 1940 could have broken the Royal Air Force, but they were tied down defending the vulnerable bombers. Once you have eliminated an enemy fighter force, then your bombers can really do the job...wherever they want to. It's fighters that win a war in the air.

Another bad decision: not replacing the Bf 109 with the Fw 190, and phasing out the 109's after 1941. Messerschmitt had too much influence, so that was not going to happen.

Another bad decision: delaying the development of the Me 262 fighter jets, and then converting them to bombers! Sheer lunacy.

And the worst decision of all: attacking Russia.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 11 Aug 04 - 11:54 PM

Freightdawg: To answer your question; Hitler was the much more evil threat than Antiochus. Antiochus' campaign against the Jews was more of a spiritual than a physical one. His aim was to have the Jews accept the Greek gods and worship and forget their own faith. Had the Jews agreed to his terms, he would not have threatened to kill them. Hitler, on the other hand, was obsessed with the complete physical genocidal annihilation of all Jews, regardless of whether they kept to their faith or not. He would trace your lineage back for 4 generations. Even if you were a practicing Christian, if your great grandparent from either side of your family was Jewish, you were marked for extermination. The barbaric cruelty and sheer enormity of Hitler's final solution was unmatched in the history of mankind. There were approximately 15 million Jews in existence before the Holocaust. Hitler killed 6 million of our people which is almost 40%. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: freightdawg
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 03:10 PM

Rabbi,

So true and I should have thought of that myself. Thanks for the explanation. I certainly agree that Hitler's "final solution" was unbearably cruel.

What makes me so sad is that in Europe as well as in America there is a growing anti-Semitic trend that no one seems to be willing to expose and deal with. Did we learn nothing??

Thank you,

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 05:20 PM

Freightdawg: We do not have to look all over Europe and America to find this growing anti-semitic trend. We see it right here on Mudcat which is a microcosm of the greater world we live in. But at least here, on this forum, both sides can talk to each other without fear of physical violence, and perhaps the voice of reason will prevail.
SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 12:52 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 05:26 PM

Sorry for taking so long to reply!

Those of you wishing to believe that the Japanese might have surrendered in any other circumstances than post-The Bomb(s) are living in cloud cuckoo land. Prime Minister Suzuki stated that, without the atomic bombs, Japan would not have surrendered (& he ought to know).

Russian invasion made no bloody difference. The Japanese didn't know what had happened in Manchuria for several days, & didn't care anyway. They'd already stripped all the first class units out of those armies for home defence. As to the suggestion that Russian intervention was a complete & unpleasant surprise... The Japs made a remarkably good job of fortifying Maritime Province (Far East - Vladivostock way) in anticipation of such an event. Such that the projected 9th August invasion of Hokkaido would have been at least a fortnight behind schedule, due to the tenacious resistance of Japanese forces, especially on Sakhalin (an important staging post for the Soviets).

Economic collapse meant nothing, & blockade would not have affected the "Big Six" that ruled Japan. Millions would have died from starvation in Japan (including all Allied POW's & internees), which would not have affected Japanese determination in the least. They were dying for their God.

The entire Japanese strategy was to win the "decisive battle". Not "decisive" in any military sense, but to make the cost of any Allied victory so high as to make negotation (acceptance of Japanese terms, in other words) preferable. This had been High Command strategy for many months.

The advent of nuclear war, as Suzuki admitted, made an invasion of Japan redundant. At that point, given that they didn't (& couldn't possibly) know that there were only two bombs, the only strategy remaining was national suicide. Even then, it took unprecedented intervention from the Emperor to initiate surrender. God knows what would have happened if Japan had bluffed for a week or two. The longer it went without the USA obliging with a third bomb...

Fact: there is no pre-Hiroshima document from Japan that suggests that any terms that Japan might have considered were at all acceptable to the Allies.

Fact: no Japanese government had surrendered in over 2,000 years.

Fact: no Japanese unit surrendered before 15/8/45. Even after that date, many units refused to believe in the Emperor's surrender, & many (particularly officers) committed suicide rather than shame themselves.

Fact: the first time the Japanese government seriously discussed surrender is the day Fatman fell (I do not know whether this discussion took place before, after, or with knowledge of, the Nagasaki bomb). Even then, the Big Six were split 50-50 as to surrender terms.

History Lesson: The Political Reality of Japan

Japan was ruled by an Imperial Council, colloquially known as the Big Six. In the twenty-odd years preceding 1945 there are no less than 64 assorted purges, including 2 prime ministerial assassinations. No-one is going to say "Boo" to the Big Six in 1945, gentlemen. Not no way, not no how. The only attempt at a coup in war years is post-surrender & an attempt to continue the war!!! As, I think, Hawk has already pointed out.

For the 'Six' to function, they must be unanimous (it is, if you will, a variation on the Shogun governments that plagued a slightly earlier Japan). Of the 6 members, only one (the Foreign Minister) is a civilian. Of the remaining 5, one is a retired Admiral (I think this is Suzuki, the PM, retired 1937), the rest are serving Flag Officers. Japan is firmly in the hand of militarists.

Even on the day of Fatman, the discussion is split equally between two camps. Both are conditional surrenders. Condition one (common to both) is that the Imperial system must continue. Conditions two through four are: Repatriation of all Japanese combatants; all "so-called war crimes trials" Japanese wording! to be conducted under Japanese supervision; no Allied occupation of Japan. Because of the split, the official position will be that of the "all four conditions" party.

Hirohito made an unprecedented intervention at this point. The surrender was offered with only condition one as a rider. The US Sec. of State responded swiftly - only unconditional surrender was acceptable & the Emperor was to be subject to the Supreme Allied Commander. More heated discussion ensued in the Japanese cabinet, but on 14/8/45 the Emperor made a unilateral decision. Radio messages were sent to all Japanese armies, & at noon 15/8/45 many Japanese heard the voice of their god for the very first time as he declared the surrneder...

Now don't drop The Bomb...

The Imperial High Command are already seriously considering declaring martial law. Invasion by any of the Allies will certainly trigger this. At this point, Hirohito no longer has an mechanism by which he can intervene. His power is entirely based on the willingness of the government & military to obey him. Take away the Big Six, & there is zero chance that any such opportunity will occur. Moreover, the infrastructure to communicate a surrender would have disintegrated before Hirohito had a chance to announce it.

Fact: Before Fat Boy, the US General in charge of bombing operations over Japan had already decided to change focus. In light of the German/European experience, he had given orders to target communications & infrastructure, instead of cities. Japanese infrastructure is incredibly vulnerable. Keeping the rail network cut in just half-a-dozen or so places (given that their maritime transport network is, in the current circumstances, at a complete standstill) will result in the the civilian (not military - betcha they'll get fed?) starvation of the south.

Fact: In post-war Japan, even with the nuclear-induced victory of the Allies, the ration was cut as low as 1,040 calories/day. Imagine what Japan would have been in the wake of a protacted conventional campaign...

Congratulations to the morally upright amongst you who would not have dropped The Bomb. Conservative estimates suggest you will kill around 5 million Japanese through military intervention & starvation, & 5-10 million others before the war ends. The war will last another 2-5 years. Japan (without substantial economic help) will remain an agricutural backwater. Of course, the Marshall Plan for Western Europe probably won't happen because resources will be lacking, & so on & so forth...

You've just made the world a better place, haven't you... (I'm glad you think Truman was a cold-hearted, gullible, evil, whatever-adjective-you-like bastard - Me? I prefer to think of him as a pragmatist. He didn't choose a good choice, cos there weren't any. He chose the best one he could find, & I reckon history won't judge him too badly whatever the nay-sayers may claim)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 05:39 PM

Raedwulf:

Thank you for the excellent analysis. It is too bad that it ( and reality) conflicts with the world-view of some of the posters here.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 06:00 PM

Well, you obviously feel strongly about it, Raedwulf. Fine with me. We will evidently never agree on the matter, and it has happened already, so we must live with it. As I've said before, we should probably all thank the Japanese for being the chosen "guinea pigs" for atomic fire, because if it hadn't been done there, it would have been done somewhere else soon enough.

I think these arguments are always fueled by a basic emotional decision that the person has made...for or against a proposition. Once the emotional position is established, the mind is not about to change, and it will seek out whatever facts and opinions it can find which back up its predisposition. That's human nature.

Some people instinctively feel that the USA is the World's number 1 "good guy" and you will generally find them on one side of a political argument, while people who instinctively feel that the USA is an exploiter and an aggressor will line up on the other side of the argument.

That's what we really end up fighting about all the time. We just camouflage it somehow.

This squabble about whether it was right or not to drop the Bomb on Japan is just more of the same old traditional divide on whether or not the USA is the saviour of humanity and the guardian of freedom in the World. It's a matter of faith. Strong faith can always come up with good arguments.

(And NO, I am not saying that the USA was in any way unjustified in fighting Japan in the 40's...or that Japan was not itself a ruthless aggressor that deserved to meet defeat...so don't bother saying that I am. Remember, someone can be on the opposite side of an argument from you, and STILL not be crazy or evil or totally wrong about everything. They just have a different emotional position on something than you, that's all. You see it all the time with Democrats and Republicans. They are infuriated by seeing their own weaknesses and failings reflected so clearly in the actions of the other.)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 06:52 PM

Hawk - Actually, I don't 'believe' that strongly. I have no problem remembering you have a different p-o-v. OTOH, I have never based my facts on my beliefs, as some might say you imply.

It happens to be a lucky coincidence that this particular argument coincided with me reading up in the same area. Not because I was interested, not because I had an axe to grind, just because that was what was in front of me at the time. I'm pretty omnivorous, & have a mind (some would insist 'face') like an elephant. *g*

I've always tried to base my opinions on the available facts. Generally, I have a low opinion of American honesty, because history doesn't tend to prove otherwise. In truth? I'm too well read in history to accept *any* governmental line. They all lie equally to us. We're all one nationality (or another), the politicians who rule us are something different. You know exactly what I mean! *g*

But! In your arguments on this matter, I will follow the facts. There is nothing to suggest that anything other than the atomic bomb persuaded Japan to surrender. Your alternatives are not substantiated by any historical example or precedent whatsover. "What if" history is always contentious. It must be, & that (let's face it! :) ) is half the fun.

But "What if" history must be based on verifiable historical precedent, not fantasy. If it is not, it is merely speculation & fiction.

I am sorry, but your speculation has no verifiable precedence. You can wish that the bomb was never dropped (I'll join you!), but it was. None of the alternatives that you claimed were viable ever really were.

Without the bomb, Japan would not have surrendered. You cannot change that statement, however much you wish. Incontrovertibly, millions would have died were it not for the bomb.

This is not emotion.

I do not support the bomb because I like it. Just like Truman (because I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that say he was dumb enough to be duped), I would rather it had not been dropped, but it was the least worst choice of a number of unpleasant choices.

What else must I say to convince you? I am rational, not emotional. All the gods forbid that such should be the choice again, but the bomb, in that place & at that time... I cannot see another decision that would have spared more lives. And, as Truman did not, I, along with you, have the benefit of hindsight!!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 11:14 PM

Fair enough. I've read a ton of material on it too, being a bit of a nut on the War in the Pacific, and I think the Japanese would have surrended regardless. And when they did, a lot of fanatical army officers would have killed themselves (which many did) or tried to stage a revolt (which also happened). Still, I think that a blockade, coupled with the Russian attacks in Manchuria would have brought a Japanese surrender in 1945...and I do not agree with the concept of demanding unconditional surrender of an opponent. Conditional surrender is always possible, and leaves the door open for some negotiations, which is wise.

I really don't think we are ever going to agree on this. :-) But you're right that it's an interesting subject, that's for sure.

The thing about the Japanese...they follow orders and sublimate their identity to the group more than westerners. This made them very unwilling to surrender, as long as they were ordered to fight and die if necessary. On the other hand, as soon as they were instructed not to fight, the public in general were extremely cooperative with occupying Allied forces. They were following orders and doing their duty, as usual. It must rank as one of the most peaceful and successful postwar occupations of all time.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: DougR
Date: 13 Aug 04 - 11:52 PM

Wow, SRS, thank you! I had NO idea what consesus meant.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 12:07 AM

"Consesus" means sexual congress between 15 or more penguins, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 01:30 AM

Two cows were talking in the field.

One cow says, "Have you heard about the Mad Cow disease that's going around?"

The other cow answers, "Yeah, makes you glad you're a penguin, doesn't it?"

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Bert
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 02:27 AM

How old are you LH?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Amergin
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 04:12 PM

Yawn....debating soemthing that happened 60 years ago...before many of us were even born. It appears to me that many people in this thread are typing to see their own words in print....the virtual equivalent of talking to hear your own voice....Why we're at it...why don't we debate the Revolutionary War? Or the American Civil War...or better yet why don't we debate why Urgh hit Ugh over the head with a rock and killed him? You can't change the bombs being dropped...or why...you can only see that it doesn't happen again....that is if you're not sitting here debating why something happened before you were even born.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 04:19 PM

Amerigin:

"Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it."

An understanding of WHY things have been done in the past can lead to a better understanding of the present.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 06:26 PM

Amergin - did you read the thread, or did you drop in just long enough for an attempt (failed) at being superior? Speaking of "It appears to me that many people in this thread are typing to see their own words in print", if you have no interest in the thread (Hey! Why not leave it to those who have? Now there's a novel thought...), what exactly was the point of your post?

Surely not because "many people in this thread are typing to see their own words in print"?! Unfortunately I can't see any other reason for your worthless intervention...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 14 Aug 04 - 07:01 PM

Hawk - as ever, tis a pleasure to be disputashus wid you, sir! And, as this is (thankfully) a free world (more or less), I must acknowledge your right to be wrong... ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 09:29 AM

I want to express an appreciation to everyone on this thread because we need to be concerned with this issue in the context of our place in history and the potential for terrorists to bring it to the forefront.

The history of the development of the Atomic Bomb is one of the most interesting parts of the Twentieth Century and represents a level of effort and achievement among the greatest in human history. For those of you with an intrinsic interest in the story I recommend the following:

Richard Rhodes: Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes: Dark Sun
Stephane Groueff: The Manhattan Project
Leslie Groves: Now It Can Be Told
Movie: The Day After Trinity

Now for MY GRAND SIMPLIFICATION: I'd say the motivation on the part of the scientists and engineers was twofold:
1) Intrinsic interest in the basic laws of physics being understood and turned to application.
2) Concern that the enemy, particularly Germany, would be working on the weapon concurrently and possibly be ahead of the Allies.

Items I consider facts:
The Allies, primarily Great Britain and the United States spearheaded the effort with the aid of immigrant scientists from Italy, Russia, Germany, Denmark. Only the United States had the money and raw industrial power to actually isolate Uranium 235 using two entirely separate methods of concentration. An entirely different project used the first nuclear reactors to produce plutonium.

An operation by the Allies called Operation Paperclip established as the Allies re-conquered Europe established that the German efforts to produce nuclear weapons were considerably behind the Allies. But by then the Manhattan Project was at high speed and project inertia and the fact that the Japanese were still very much in the picture led to no diminution in the Allied effort.

Despite major and costly emphasis on secrecy and project security, early on the Soviets were the beneficiaries of information from the heart of the project due to Communist penetration at every phase and part of the Manhattan Project. They even got samples of bomb-quality Uranium.

Riding like a monkey on the back of the theoretical researchers was the knowledge that as horrible as the atomic bomb appeared to be, should it be possible, since 1942 the idea of using the energy released from the fusion of hydrogen into helium showed that in theory, an energy source much much greater than that of the atomic bomb might be possible. They called this the 'Super' and tabled it while they developed the atomic device.

There was so little doubt of the success of a Uranium bomb that it was never tested. This was Little Boy, destined for Hiroshima. The device that was tested at Alamogordo (Trinity) was a Plutonium device, and the means of detonation were sophisticated enough to require their own section of Los Alamos and their own test procedures. The Nagasaki weapon was a plutonium device called Fat Man.

At the time the bombs were dropped on Japan, there was material available and staged for a third weapon. The political leaders of the United States at that time ordered the military to return the makings of that weapon to the US Mainland. Until that time, the military had physical control of all nuclear weapons and could have had the third one used, although there is no evidence that it was ever contemplated.

While the atomic bomb was being researched and developed, an aviation program was developing an extremely expensive long range bomber, the B-29, a project comparable in expense to the Manhattan Project. A bomber group of B-29s was created in order to train for atomic weapons delivery. Already at that time, almost every Japanese city that could be called that was being bombed to smithereens. Thousand Plane raids were conducted against Tokyo that killed more people than died at Hiroshima. Aware of the possibility of using a new weapon, several cities in Japan were 'saved' from further conventional attack so the efficacy of the new weapons could be determined.

I don't think there is much to argue with in the above. It's when we start to put value judgements on these and succeeding events that the excitement starts. There is a strong urge to play historical 'what ifs', and I've seen a lot of plain inaccuracies in this thread.

Records indicate that the use of atomic weapons was keenly discussed in Los Alamos and in The White House. The prospect of a 'warning' with or without demonstration was considered. When Kyoto was proposed as a target, Americans well aware of the cultural significance of the city had it spared.

Rather than insist on some kind of moral ineptitude or uprightness, I think it is clear that the US government went into action after thought and reflection. At the time we were engaged in a total war with an enemy who had displayed great persistance, ingenuity, and effectiveness.

I don't think it is necessary to go into whether or not we cared what the Soviet Union thought of our weapon. They were well aware of it and working hard to develop their own at a far greater cost to their own people.

The Japanese people were long suffering slaves of their own government, which was led by a god, the emperor Hirohito. The decision to give up was not one they were capable of making.

So, my answer to the title of this thread:

The US dropped THE BOMB to defeat the Empire of Japan and end World War II. In this it proved to be a success.

To me, the lesson we must learn is:

The weapons that were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ONLY atomic weapons. They destroyed whole cities on a scale already achieved by thousand plane raids. When the first hydrogen device was detonated in November 1952 it was of a magnitude unimaginable just seven years before. The island on which it was placed ceased to exist.

Another lesson is that once a country establishes a nuclear infrastructure in order to produce one bomb, more bombs will follow. You don't spend billions of dollars to concentrate bomb grade Uranium or produce Plutonium and just stop at one bomb. You have a de-facto production line going. So rather than dwell on whether or not certain decisions were moral, or right or wrong, I think we should work together to determine whether we want North Korea, Iran, and terrorists to pick up where Pakistan has left off thanks to the wholesale leakage of nuclear information and materials by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 03:15 PM

Brucie,

maybe that would have been a matter for PM, but perhaps someone else reading was interested as well.

I think I have it from Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's book that I have read in German. The original Italian title was Geni, popoli e lingue which, if it has been translated into English may have been Genes, People, Languages.

He tells a lot about old migrations and how findings from linguistics and genetics (his own field) converge to tell a similar story about our past. Many things are still unclear, but the overall picture is much clearer than it was even ten years ago. I very much liked reading this book, but since I'm far from being an expert either in linguistics or in genetics I can't really tell how good it is.

Some bites about the Basques (my translation):
Let me point out that the region that most reliably represents the descendants of the first Europeans at the time of the arrivals of the Neolithians are the Basques....the Basques very probably descend directly from the Paleolithians who habitated the North of Spain and the Southwest of France....The Basque language has been spoken earlier in a much larger region than today....I deem it probable that the Basque language comes from the languages spoken by modern Cro-Magnon people when they first came to France and Spain.

He later cites linguistic results showing (perhaps better: claiming/interpreting) that the Basque language belongs to the sinodenekaukasian language superfamily that once was spoken nearly universally in Eurasia, but now is restricted to the Basques (only member of that family in Europe), to a language in the South of the Kaukasus and to Tibet and (parts of) China.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 05:11 PM

Likewise, Raedwulf. :-) Nice summation there, robomatic. I find little to disagree with in it. It's interesting that the American Air Force left certain Japanese cities unbombed so that they would have an undamaged test site for the A-bomb. Hmmm.

Give boys expensive toys, and they will play with them.

The USA had the capability in 1945 to destroy any Japanese metropolitan centre, with or without the A-bomb. It must be quite something to have such godlike powers at one's command. Quite a temptation, I would think. It's not surprising that they went ahead with it, whichever way you look at it.

What is surprising is that no one has done it since. I'd practically call that a miracle.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 05:16 PM

Bert - I'm old enough to know a penguin when I see one.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 09:04 PM

Wolfgang:

I remember Dr. Cavalli-Sforza from my student days. He had a very pretty daughter....

I had two reactions to your post. First, it's off topic, and so thoroughly interesting that if you want to talk more on it, and I hope you do, it should have its own thread.

Second, I was going to comment that Dr. Cavalli-Sforza might be a bit behind the times, since my memories of him go back a generation, but in fact the book came out in 2001 and Dr. Sforza himself says that in a few years a new book will need to be written...

More on Cavalli-Sforza

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 05:37 AM

You're right, robomatic, it's completely off topic, just a response to brucie who may even not have seen it.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB in Japan?
From: GUEST,EUSA0740
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 02:09 AM

JMA--History is history. History repeats itself. The dawn of the 20th century. A new superpower has been born. It was time for the United States to prove itself as the world's dominant superpower, and it was after when both France and Great Britain colonized much of the present continental United States (e.g. Louisianna - FRA; New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Richmond, Delaware - GBR, respectively,). The Americans inherited all the English-French battle tactics...Also after the Spanish-American War, the colonies of Spain was sold to the highest bidder: United States. For this reason, all Spanish colonies were bought by the USA: Cuba, Mexico, Philippines, and Chile. The US also bought Guam, and all other islands in the Pacific Rim. The American troops occupied most of all the territories in both Cuba and the Philippines. The latter particularly became a US territory. And then, it came the time when Japanese forces attacked the Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the American bases in the Philippines in Bataan. Thousands of Americans died in the Fall of Bataan in the Philippines. They were forced in the "Death March". A million of Americans died in the Philippines during the "Death March". The Americans were forced to eat human wastes, drink unclean water, sleep in the jungle full of deadly insects, and suffered defeat at the Fall of Bataan in the Philippines. Under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, the United States was forced built their atomic bomb, and it was called the MANHATTAN PROJECT. In retaliation, the USA dropped them later in the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan--the new superpower rising in the Pacific Region. Finally, the Japanese surrendered on September 02, 1945.
As you can see, this was the real reason why the World War II finally ended by the hands of the American troops. And then came along the separation of East(USSR) and West(USA), creation of Berlin Wall(Germany), and the beginning of Cold War...Then, the Russian territory of Alaska was bought by the United States and joined as the 49th largest state in the U.S.A. on January 1959.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:29 AM

Isn't that nice. A GUEST comes along and revives an old argument and tells us an extremely expurgated version of history to justify a heinous act. Fact checkers would be quite busy, were they interested in this old argument. Or GUEST could have provided a few sources.

What's your point? Crusing the web and decided to visit Mudcat? Are you interested in Music, or just a hsitory buff practicing promiscuous browsing?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:46 AM

Like Godzilla, it rises periodically from the depths...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Metchosin
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 11:51 AM

I was very interested to note that after the building of the Berlin Wall, the US bought Alaska. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 12:37 PM

Geez, Guest, what a brain you must have, eh? I am gonna now give my vershun of history. Listen up!

Okay. History began with the first man and woman, eh? Some say it was Adam and Eve. I ain't sure, but I figger it don't matter what their names were, eh? The point is, Adam was FORCED to have sex with Eve when he seen her without the fig leaf, eh? Know what I mean? He couldn't help himself, eh?

Okay. So then God got mad and kicked 'em out of like paradise, eh, because they had done it out of wedlock. or somethin' like that. I'm not sure. Anyway, they had discovered somethin' good so they just kept on begattin' and begattin' like cats in heat and the human race was started off at a good clip. Decent!

After awhile it got to be too many people, so God was FORCED to send a big flood and drown just about everyone. Wow! I would like to of seen that! If I had the powers I would send a flood like that on Quebec and then we wouldn't have so much fRench and English trouble here, eh? There was a smart guy called Noah and he built a real big houseboat and rode outthe flood. Noah was also into sex bigtime so he and his wife got things rolling again after the waters went down, eh?

Okay. Soon there were lots more poeple everywhere. For some reason some of them starting speakin' French! That led to confusion bigtime. RThey had to print all the labels in both English and French. It led to troubles we still have today. They had built a huge tower but couldn't get it done because nobody could understand what the hell the other guys was sayin' eh? Flippin' Frogs! By this time the French had mutated into 25 other flippin' languaages and nobody knew what the flip was goin' on! God couldn't take it no more. He was forced to send some terrorists with a thunderbolt and they knocked down the flippin' tower of Babel and scattered the people acrost the world!

Things got real complicated after that. You got Alexander the Greek, Orange Julius Siezer runnin' around conkering the Barberians and then ya got Jesus gettin' crucified and stuff. It's a lot to cover, so I am just gonna gloss over that part. Look it up on the Net, okay?

Then ya got the Dark Ages when there was no electricity. People were forced to freeze their butts off in the winter for almost like a thousand years!

Then ya got the rise of modern empires, eh? The Spanish had a kick at the can but got beat by Sir Francis Bacon when he sank the Armada. England basically was forced to take over the world. Napoleon came along and he was the smartest flippin' Frenchman that the world ever seen! He conkered most of Eurup, but he couldn't take Russia. They froze him out. Then England kicked him in the family jewels and that was the end of that. The French ain't been worth a fart in a hurricane since then, eh?

The English kinda slipped up when they dumped a whole lot of tea in Boston Harbour, cos it was against the vironmental regulations, eh? Besides, Americans mostly like beer and coffee. So the Americans were forced to have a, like, revolution and the USA came into being! This meant major trouble bigtime for everybody excpet the USA.

The USA was soon forced to kill most of the Indians and take their lands, and was also FORCED to take half of Mexico. They tried to take Canada too, but we kicked their flippin' asses! Decent!

So that takes us up to the modern times. This nutcase called Hitler took over in Germany and the Germans was forced to invade just about everybody they could until finally they got Canada mad! We flippin' got together with England and the USA and kicked their asses! Totally decent!

Russia had a small part in it too, eh? Actually some big battles, I guess. And there was Japan... Sheesh! I am gettin' flippin' bored and sorry I even started this. I hate history.

Anyway, then the USA was forced to have a Cold War with Russian and, like, China because they were, like, Communists, eh? Communists are bad. With the help of Canada the Communists were finally beat and the Cold War ended. Majorly decent!

They the flippin' War on Terrorism started when somebody (God?) was forced to send terrorists and knock down the WTC towers. Just like the Tower of Babel, only two of them.

The way I see it, history just repeats itself, eh? Get ready fer more of the same, have a beer and a smile, and shut the flip up!

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 06:48 PM

The US has dropped the ball in Iraq, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,LouisIXV
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 10:25 PM

The dawn of the 20th century. The creation of a Nobel Peace Prize. The rise of intelligent inventors, scientists, and other prominent prodigees. The so-called era of Imperialism (US called it the Axis-of-Evil), and which the United States do inherited and hated the most: Japan (old Japanese Empire), Germany (Prussian State), and Italy (old Roman Empire). Now, the United States was a neutral country before it entered World War I in 1913. But during the Russo-Japanese War in 1816, the entire Russian Empire was defeated by the new dominant superpower in Asia -- JAPAN. The Japanese took over the Chinese Manchurian territory by destroying the Trans-Siberian Railway. This is why China and Japan still had deep wounds until today. Russia lost several fleets at sea during the Battle of Port-Arthur (now Dalian).   
    Long battles ensued between the dominant European superpowers between the British and the French in continental USA. The Great Lousianna Purchase, the massive territory occupied by French colonists, was bought by the United States for only several thousands of dollars. The French occupation of Canada in the North Americas, and particularly at the city of Quebec had the British got so worried to expand their influence at the original 13 British colonies in the USA. The last battle between British and American troops were held in New York state in 1800s.
    Then, on 1865, the Russian-fur trade in Alaska was on the brink of shutting down its business due to fear of British and French force colonization. Finally, Russia sold the Alaskan territory to United States in 1865. This was after US President Abraham Lincoln at the zenith in abolishing the obsession of African slaves in USA...
    On 1898, the Spanish-American War ensued between the US & Spain. After the Spanish Armada were defeated, Spain sold her colonies to the United States. Most Europeans had their eye on several countries in the Pacific Realm. Netherlands occupied much of Moluccas (now Indonesia), France occupied Vietnam, Britain occupied Laos, Burma, and Cambodia. Finally, the United States occupied Philippines from 1898-1946 (48 years). This in turn was in conflict with the newly superpower in Asia -- JAPAN. The Japanese learned that United States colonized the Philippine Islands (a strong economic power in Asia at the time). In so doing, Japan attacked the Philippines, Guam, Wake Islands, and other US territories. Thus on December 07, 1945, Japan deliberately attacked the US Naval ships in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Thousands of Americans died on that surprise Japanese "kamikaze" attack...Japan was an Imperial government, and headed by Emperor Hirohito who ordered the attack on the United States. In retaliation, US president Franklin Roosevelt declared war immediately to Japan. At the time, the US Army Commander of Pacific company GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR left the Philippines occupied by the Americans. He promised to return there, after he learned only that a million American troops died at the Fall of Bataan and Corregidor US-bases in the Philippines. The death toll of Americans died alone at the famous "Death March" climbed to almost 1 million. Both Filipinos and Americans suffered a humiliating defeat from the occupation of Japanese troops in the Philippines. The secret project for the creation of ATOMIC BOMB was the first idea of the Americans. It was the most expensive cost project to be ever built: $1,000,000,000. This MANHATTAN PROJECT was funded by the J.Oppenheimer. The nuclear catastrophe that awaits the fear, fate, and defeat of Japan in Asia. General Douglas MacArthur finally returned in the Philippines as it was the HQ of American fleet in the Pacific Rim. The USAF, along with two B-2 Stealth Bomber airplane dropped two nuclear atomic bomb in separate cities. First, the U.S. atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. Next, the second U.S. atomic bomb was dropped in Nagasaki, Japan the other day. All innocent Japanese lives were wiped out by a single powerful nuclear blast and fireball coming from the American spy airplanes! Japan cannot shout: "Banzai, banzai!" in state of their painful defeat. Finally, JAPAN surrendered to the Allied Forces (Great Britain, France, USSR, and the USA) on September 02, 1945. The Allied Forces proved themselves in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Thus, this was the end of World War II as we all know it. Now, the US will soon next pass the BLAME to their allied-Communist U.S.S.R. The creation of Berlin Wall was erected in Germany, and separating the Eastern bloc(USSR) and the Western bloc(USA). Now, Americans must always remember that Alaska and Hawaii were both outside of the United States of America continental mainland. Why? Because Alaska was purchased from Russian Empire, and Hawaiian Islands was purchased from the Polynesians during the reign of Kamehameha II in 1940s. Hawaii became a US territory first just like Philippine Islands, and later joined the United States as the 50th state on August 21, 1959. However, Alaska became the 49th state to join the United States on January 3, 1959...This proved that Americans became the successor of all British, French, and Russian Imperialism from the 6th until 18th century.         
    As you can see, "History repeats itself". This is exactly what happened on 12/07/1945(Pearl Harbor Attacks), and 09/11/2001(Terrorist Attacks).
    Look what happened on 09/01/2004! A terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia! What the hell is this! This nasty "Beslan, Russia Incident" would make a huge stain towards DEMOCRACY in Russian Federation, the successor of USSR! As you can see, many American men were encouraged to kill Russian fathers in battle and wars like this one. American men marry a lot of Russian women, and make dozens of Russian-American babies. These children were born from European-descent parents of American father and a Russian mother. A Russian-American baby is born in the USA! The USA we now know consists of former-communist parents like several Russian women marrying American men. That is why we have 'terrorism'. This union between East and West means that USA and Russia will forever be in love and union together...A formal peace treaty between USA and Russia has been proven by American men having sex and marrying a Russian girl, and then take her to USA and make more and more children. That is what happened in this nasty BESLAN, RUSSIA INCIDENT. Moscow is not really happy about this, and Washington is still in-love with Russia. Go, American fathers and spread your seeds towards these stupid, no-more-shy-and-traditional Russian women until all Russia becomes an American colony and American society. The USA enjoys this a lot! The big question is this: Who are the "real" terrorists? The Communists? Terrorists are Communists? Who are then are the "real" enemies? The former-USSR? The European Union? The United States? Or against itself? Who are the Patriots here then?

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Jeep man
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 10:58 PM

We dropped it because we COULD. It ended the war and showed the rest of the world that we had it and would use it.

I was 10 years of age at that time and I can never forget the enormous wave of relief and thankfulness that filled this land. I had lived half my life knowing of war and I didn't know what would happen now. Guess I found out. Jeep

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 12:32 AM

It was the invention of Spam. It made the rations taste good in comparison...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:08 PM

Right...

It's all crystal clear now.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kindaloupehackenweez
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 03:45 PM

Dont know:
Could it be because they couldnt smoke enough weed?
Or they lack patients to go deeper into there imagination:
Kinda like just beating a kid for doing something wrong instead of discussion. Or tapping into his/her phychic.
Or could it be they couldnt find enough daisys
Or just on one of there gorillia mantality power trips.
   Im out of my leage here. Think i'll leave before i get a black eye or worse. Phucking War pigs. World domaniance. It started with one side against the other now they got every mad mother and drunk driver against mad mothers at each others throat..It sucks but as it seems has become very effective. Who needs bombs anymore we all have each other.Kinda out there. Kindaloupehackenweez.. I dont call myself that for nothing....PEACE..I KNOW WHAT A HIPACRIT..just too many variables in the equation to make a well informed enough response

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Lalilulelo
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:33 PM

Simple:
First, the U.S. dropped the two nuclear bomb shells at two separate Japanese cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) to show the entire world that U.S.A. will never be DEFEATED. Not even the Japanese Empire can stop the U.S. from becoming the new world leader! The United States is the champion of DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, JUSTICE, and MAN'S PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
Then, the creation of The Berlin Wall in Germany that splits East and West. The creation of European Union, and the recognition of the state of the Soviet Union.
Most common citizens from Germany, Russia, USSR, Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, the rest of Europe, and other Asian countries like Japan and South Korea DEFECTED to the West by seeking asylum, marrying American wives, and leaving their homeland for the sake of the United States's global domination...

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:59 PM

Read this excellent article, which states exactly why the USA dropped 2 A-bombs on an already defeated Japan:

To intimidate and forestall Russia, that's why...

I have so stated before. This article covers the issue in great depth.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: robomatic
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 01:28 AM

LH, took a gander at the article, it does not cover the issue in depth, it rehashes some items in order to justify the writer's pre-determined conclusion. Check out the Richard Rhodes book "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb".

I already said what I had to say when this thread was active earlier this year. The recent Guest comments are humorous if inaccurate, mediocre 'pot-stirrer' material (but whether they are meant to be so who can tell?). They are not more inaccurate than the article referenced by LH.

My favorite Sci-Fi author, Robert Heinlein, wrote a story during the Second World War in which he predicted nuclear warfare by means of the aerial dumping of radioactive 'dust'. The war ends when the UN dusts Berlin, the story ends with a dictatorial leader of the UN in control of the world with bomber planes circling national capitols loaded with dust, to keep everyone in line. The narrator is dying of radiation poisoning and offers: "When I get where I'm going I'm going to look up the guy who invented the bow and arrow and strangle him with my bare hands."

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: kindaloupehackenweez
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 02:16 PM

I want to take this time to apologize for my earlier postings. They were uncalled for and unwarrented..I was out of line and i'm sorry,
I had a serious "HEAD UP MY ASS MOMENT:" Still thats no excuse.

The only other thing i can say is "Everyone's entitled to a bad day, ONCE IN A WHILE" But that would be an excuse to.

I'm a jerk off..Dont mean to be..I'm not usually..Something about being manhandled or Mental harrassment gets a rise out of me and im all over the map.

Still thats when its time to take a nap. Not type stupid shit that dont pertain to nothing. Writing on the cyberspace wall pollution.

I was wrong just the same and im wrong alot i need learn my place.

My behavior was unbecoming of the humanitarian i hope to become one day.   

But a more realist answer to the question of this thread as it was explained to me by my father and the teachings in world history class in high school would have to be because "It would save more american lives, than if we didnt" And after doing it and seeing what it had done, Well after the 2nd one there wasnt another. Nobody wants to do that to anybody. I could of happened in the cold war, vietnam. No Go joe. Unexceptible at any cost.. I've got diarrea of the fingertips again. Sorry for the earlier postings and i ask for forgiveness of my inexperiance and lack of knowledge and putting my nose where it dont belong.

Having trouble making out the words for the song "The Weight" by the "Band" 4th verse 3rd line

I said wait a minute chester, no ?????????? to feed the man"
I think what is ment to be said is "no money to feed the man"
but sounds like "no i'm a peaceful man" Its my number one priority for the 2 weeks off i just started today from the 5-6 days a week 10-12 hours a day and its been like that for 2 months..Time to regroup and brush up on my passions from the past.

I have put the chip that was on my shoulder in place and hope and believe i have the will now to keep from any furture unrashinal behavior. I'm ashamed and embrasseed and sorry.. I love mudcat
i cant stay away. Heaven forbid i be exiled..I should learn to use spell check also..My first computors birthday will be this May. I still dont know what im doing and it was more than ovious last weekend i dont know how to act on one either. Thank you for your time and space..Peace

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 03:03 PM

Hawk - I'll agree with Robo. Nothing conclusive in that article, except that the author has an axe to grind. If it'd been for the other side of the argument, you'd have disputed every point. You can can do better than that. I'm disappointed.

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 06:15 PM

Ack!!! I've disappointed Raedwulf. Time to get out the seppuku blade and do the only honorable thing left to do...

Just joking. :-)

Actually, I typed a lengthy (and of course, brilliant) response to robomatic, reducing his general position to a pitiful shred of hopeless inconsequentiality...and then...

I HIT SUBMIT AND IT VANISHED FOREVER INTO CYBER-SPACE!!! ARGGHHH!!!

Phooey. You can't depend on anything around here anymore. If the Enola Gay had used this forum's software the bomb probably would have prematurely detonated on the airstrip at Iwo Jima or else would have not detonated at all. (I think the former eventuality would have been poetic justice. It would have made the USA think twice about further use of such a disgusting weapon.)

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST,Patriot
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 01:29 AM

THIS IS BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SAID SO!!!

AMERICA HAS TO DROP THE NUCLEAR BOMBS TO DEFEAT JAPAN AND FINISH WORLD WAR II!

Subject: RE: BS: Exactly why the US dropped THE BOMB?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 04 - 05:43 AM

WOW!! I've just dropped on this thread while looking for music stuff 8-P.   It's difficult to believe it's been going since 7th August. I'm in England and there's enough hot air on this thread to keep my garage warm all winter. I don't know much about the two bombs but the same country that built such a sophisticated machine could perhaps put these scientists to work on their other bomb.

It has been producing a device for about a hundred years that pollutes the planet to this day. It drips oil wherever it goes. The Europeans had similar devices but cured the dripping problem some 30 years ago. A friend of mine had one and although he got several tattoos the dripping continued.    I'm told the "Total Loss" system is not a new idea but superseded by other methods. A chap at Bike Week assured me that it was not in the design brief but was OK as it meant the bike always had fresh oil in the tank and kept his boots waterproof.

On another tack. I'll be over for Bike Week in a few weeks so do any of you well informed folk know how I can get through Immigration (visa waver) in less then four hours.   

        Seasons best to you all. Give freely to the Irish Freedom Fighters so they can make another few bombs to blow up our cities.   Although it's been quiet for a while you never know the minute.   It may be that some citizens in the USA are feeling that way too. Welcome to the club. 8-)

    I never got any tales of the war from my daddy. He was a gunner in a tank. He retired from the army when they stuck what was left of him in a hole in the ground in France    With a few thousand others for company he got out early.