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BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) |
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Subject: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 07 Aug 20 - 04:22 PM 75 years ago yesterday, the bomber Enola Gay, a B-29 flying from Tinian Island, flew over the city of Hiroshima and dropped a single bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy". It was a Uranium bomb with two sub-critical machined and coated castings of the hard-to-derive isotope U235. The physics behind this were so well developed that it had not been tested as an explosive device. The isotope was too expensive to derive and experiments in the lab in New Mexico had confirmed that it would work. On August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar attempted to bomb Kokura, but was unable to see the target city. It diverted to its alternate target which was also socked in until the clouds parted just long enough for target acquisition. It then dropped the Plutonium bomb "Fat Man" over Nagasaki. That bomb design had been tested the previous July at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The Trinity Test. The Plutonium bomb had a higher yield than the one over Hiroshima. I am posting this as a commemorative and a discussion point. Depending on how it goes, I may have more to say but unlike past posts I am going to withhold personal opinons. I think what’s most important now is to make sure that the world remembers because the individuals with their own memories have taken them to the grave. Remember. That it happened. Remember. That it was horrific. Remember. That the weapons that have been developed since relegate these first atomic weapons to the status of nuclear popguns. Remember. There are thousands of these weapons yet deployable. The books I found most influencing were Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun. He wrote another book Arsenals of Folly covering the world arms race and the beginning of disarmament. I also remember Manhattan Project: The Untold Story of the Making of the Atomic Bomb by Stephane Groueff, a very good book which seems to have fallen off the radar in the profusion of many lesser books populating the digital bookracks since. And Now It Can Be Told by Leslie Groves, a major leader of the Manhattan Project. Hiroshima by John Hersey, originally came out as a series of New Yorker articles and left an indelible impression on the reading public of the 1950s. Quite recently Chris Wallace of FOX news, who is a worthwhile journalist and anchors Fox News Sunday, published his own book Countdown to 1945. I haven’t read it but I’m borrowing the title for this thread. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Bill D Date: 07 Aug 20 - 04:54 PM "I am posting this as a commemorative and a discussion point. Depending on how it goes, I may have more to say but unlike past posts I am going to withhold personal opinons. I think what’s most important now is to make sure that the world remembers because the individuals with their own memories have taken them to the grave." The world will not forget. There are far too many opinions, images, films and stories by and of both participants and survivors. I must have seen a hundred documentaries about it. I was 6 years old and didn't know there WAS a war until I'd been in school several years...but what I really remember was J. Robert Oppenheimer's thought as he watched the first test...words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." When the Korean war began, I was delivering newspapers, and followed it with the vague worry that someone would use it again... No.. whatever happens, that bit of history... even if people attempt to re-analyze it forever... will not be forgotten. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Mrrzy Date: 07 Aug 20 - 05:14 PM Oh, they said that about the Holocaust too, yet there are people who either don't know it happened or are being taught it's a hoax. I think we need the reminders. Thank you, robomatic. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Bill D Date: 08 Aug 20 - 12:37 PM **SOME** people will forget or try to deny... both Hiroshima and the Holocaust.... and various other purges, atrocities, ethnic cleansings, etc. The world will not forget... there are too many passing it on and, like robomatic, will remind and show the images. Data is stored in so many places and formats that only asteroids and total nuclear war could interfere.... and then aliens in 100,000 years might find it. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 08 Aug 20 - 12:58 PM An artist friend specializes in protest art. With stencils of Hiroshima victims he spray paints on walls their nuclear shadow of their last moment on Earth, just as the true victims cast upon standing walls in Japan when their bodies incinerated. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 09 Aug 20 - 04:29 AM The Holocaust showed what we are here to fight against in all the most horrific face to face cruel atrocities permitted in the 30's and 40's. It persists in :SOME EVEN HERE: by vocal or silent means or by accusation or insidious denials. Just when you think a person has evolved beyond their old hatreds I see it stream back like a recurring cancer or a first impression they never entirely lose. I will not shame the individual we all know. I will not steal their second chance with BLM or other good works. We can only encourage their learning experience and mood with a tolerance to set backs with repetition. While sometimes a nation can become hypnotized by conspiracy, most of the time folks may only have intermittant poor brain health. Suspicion and paranoia grow well in quarantine or isolation. Hiroshima ushered in a push button revenge age. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: John MacKenzie Date: 09 Aug 20 - 07:20 AM Sam Hinton said it well enough. Talking Atomic Blues |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 09 Aug 20 - 08:49 AM The technical information has been out of the bottle for some time. And while "the world will not forget" there may be individuals in power and individuals who can vote for those people who may not want to remember. This is peculiarly an age where the information is out there, but there is so much more 'information' of no heritage (lies, tales, disinformatsia) swamping it. This is the actual swamp. We can broadcast ignorance as never before. I recall an astonishing conversation with a young engineer about thirty-five years ago where he spoke with no dread about a nuclear showdown. "Let's do it! We're ready!" In the recent past there have been politicians in Russia publicly beating their chests in this manner. Wouldn't surprise me if their ilk in the USA is similarly out there. Not for nothing the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists has advanced the countdown clock as never before. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 09 Aug 20 - 09:05 AM All humans are creamated equal to the inverse square law from ground zero. Sam Houston forgot to include the atomic war against our own atmosphere and near space. Some of the holes blasted there still exist. I listened to his song in the 50's. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 09 Aug 20 - 09:59 AM As a linguistic quibble, "Holocaust" was not always a term applied to the Nazi extermination project during WWII. That term (see Ngram) came into general use in the 1970s. In 1946 The New Yorker ran John Hersey's long article Hiroshima Hersey began working on “Hiroshima” in 1945, when William Shawn, who was then the managing editor of The New Yorker, pointed out that, although the bombing had been widely written about, the victims’ stories still remained untold. After going to Japan and interviewing survivors, Hersey decided to show the bombing through six pairs of eyes. Originally, “Hiroshima” was planned as a four-part series. In the end, however, it was all published in a single issue, in August of 1946. There was nothing unusual about the cover, which showed ordinary people enjoying summertime. Inside, however, there was only “Hiroshima”—no Talk of the Town, no cartoons, no reviews. The piece’s impact was immediate. Parts of it were excerpted in newspapers around the world, and it was read, in its entirety, on the radio. (In 2010, Jon Michaud wrote for this site about the piece’s history and reception.) That introduction came from here and offers links to more articles. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: John MacKenzie Date: 09 Aug 20 - 10:51 AM The US envisaged a limited nuclear war in Europe, using battlefield nuclear weapons. Must be nice when it's all so far away from your back door. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Mr Red Date: 10 Aug 20 - 03:31 AM Lest we forget. And just to prove a point, the word Holocaust was coined to describe a pogrom in Armenia, before WW2. Wiki - The term holocaust, first used in 1895 by the New York Times to describe the massacre of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Muslims We do forget. Well some of us refuse to forget once we know. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Joe Offer Date: 10 Aug 20 - 03:58 AM I've been singing I Come and Stand a lot this week. It's a very powerful song. -Joe- |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Aug 20 - 04:23 AM The word holocaust has been in use in English since the days of Richard The Lionheart. With a capital H, the word can only mean the mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. In my view it's far better to avoid using the word, capital H or not, for anything else and to find an alternative word, of which there are several. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 10 Aug 20 - 07:02 AM "What's in a name? That which we call a Shoa, by any other name would smell as sweet and sickening from millions of rotting people or the odd smell of human barbacue from German Topf & Sons ovens". What matters is what something is, not what it is called. We have advanced cremation by nuclear means starting with Japan. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Steve Shaw Date: 10 Aug 20 - 07:06 AM I think it's a matter of respect for the millions who died in the Holocaust that we don't bandy the word around casually in other contexts. It's a simple point, simply made, and it would be good if attempts to twist it around were avoided. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Jeri Date: 10 Aug 20 - 09:48 AM There was a piece on NPR: An Atomic Bomb Survivor On Her Journey From Revenge To Peace |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Aug 20 - 12:36 PM I find Shoah the more precise a term, and when I worked at Ellis Island in the late 1970s, that was the word we heard most often. "Holocaust" wasn't in general usage even at a site that was mixed in with the whole tragedy of Jews fleeing Europe. This usage has no doubt changed with the passage of time. To turn on the same topic and look westward to the Far East, Ellis Island was also used to detain a few Japanese-American Citizens who were exchanged to Japan in return for EuroAmerican prisoners of the Japanese. It was a nasty business. Once the atomic bombs happened, I imagine that ground to a halt. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 10 Aug 20 - 04:28 PM I've been looking for my old copy of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz because among several indelible scenes envisaged is a passage of what I'd call neo-biblical language which brings the ideas of holocaust and apocalypse together in a grim recapitulation of Genesis. God is questioning the great Prince NAME who triggers the catastrophic nuclear war and tells him: "You have made a holocaust of my children!" Walter Miller and Canticle have come up in Mudcat before. I'm going by memory here and my words might not be accurate but the concepts I gathered from the book are always with me and I can't get it out of my head at the moment. During WW2 the Allies had landed on the Italian mainland and were advancing against German positions including a thousand year old monastery at Monte Cassino. The Allies were afraid the Germans would use it for snipers and artillery sighting and got dispensation from the Pope to bomb it. The Germans were not originally intending to use it, but after it was bombed to smithereens it was more suitable for just use. The situation is rife with major ironies. Walter Miller was an airman in the bombing run, and as a religious Catholic and a feeling human being was deeply affected. It led to the thoughts which he published first as a short story and then as a novel. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 10 Aug 20 - 07:41 PM Ellis Island in the late 70's. Wow When the FBI asked me (over the bearded bruce accusation) if I was right wing I said "Youv'e got to be carefully taught" in my case I was taught by a Constitutional Law professor. "That should answer your question" You've got to be taught To hate And fear You've got to be taught From year To year Its got to Be drummed in your dear little ear You've got to Be carefully Taught You've got to be taught To be Afraid Of people Who's eyes are oddly made And people who's skin is a different shade You've got to Be carefuly Taught You've got to be taught Before it's too late Before you are six Or seven Or eight To hate all the people Your relatives hate You've got to Be carefully taught You've got to Be carefully taught Emile De Beque - This is just the kind of ugliness I was running away from It has followed my all this way All these years And now it has found me I was cheated before And i'm cheated again By a mean little world Full of mean little men And the one chance for me Is this life I know best To be here on an island And to hell with The rest I'll cling To this island Like a tree or a stone I'll cling to this island and be free And Alone Source: Musixmatch Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein Ii / Richard Rodgers |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 13 Aug 20 - 11:21 AM I inserted that lyric in a conversation online some years ago and was promptly banned from that conversation. Maybe you were there. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 13 Aug 20 - 02:53 PM Ironic song versus or lines from poetry work best when the person listening is literate enough to recognize what you're doing. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Bonzo3legs Date: 15 Aug 20 - 05:22 AM And we will never forget the cruelty from Japanese military against allied soldiers. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 20 Aug 20 - 02:21 AM Today on the NPR program Fresh Air interview of Lesley M.M. Blume who wrote "Fallout", a new book about the John Hersey article "Hiroshima" which was published by The New Yorker almost exactly 74 years ago. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Bonzo3legs Date: 20 Aug 20 - 07:33 AM And we will never forget the cruelty against civilians from Japanese military - 20 million murdered was it? |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Aug 20 - 09:46 AM With a number like that you need a citation, Bonzo. This is a start, or this. |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: Donuel Date: 20 Aug 20 - 03:27 PM Little boy |
Subject: RE: BS: Countdown 1945 (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) From: robomatic Date: 21 Aug 20 - 12:52 PM Back in my California university, I lived in a cooperative house. It had been built early last century as a fraternity house. There was a small library there with some of the fraternity annual books. In the book for the year 1941 or 1942 there was a photo of the Japanese exchange students with the caption "The boys with the eight o'clock lockins won't be with us much longer." I took that to mean a reference to a personnel exchange with the Empire of Japan. It brought to mind the 'civilized' functions that must go on in the midst of war. As hostilities begin each side has persons from the other side and so returns are arranged, which means transportation free of hostile action must take place, hence the involvement requires coordination from diplomatic corps to strategic services, to field personnel. Must be quite interesting. |