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Military Buffs I need your help.
I am looking for a copy of the speech Douglas Macarther spoke at the surrender of Japan on board the Battleship Missuri. I can not seem to find it.
Any help is much appreciated. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
I know it's out there on the Web somewhere because I used an excerpt from it as my signiture on the GolemLabs Boards. So I must've found it somehow.
"It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past -- a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance and justice." - General Douglas MacArthur [surrender ceremony on the USS Missouri, Sep. 2, 1945] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
i must point out that the US nuked two japanese cities.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Yes, and the alternative was for millions to die on each side during an invasion of mainland Japan, including many more civilians than died in the atomic bombings.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
And this must be where I found it at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarth...cspeech04.html Incidentally, MacArthur was opposed to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Need I remind you Narf of the Batton death march, or about how the Japanies used chemical weapons against the Chinese and how they used captured US, Australian, and british soldiers as slave labor. Or that the Japiness would behead American service men just to see how sharp their swards were? You can choose to believe in the revisionist rewrite of history Narf, but the bitter God forsaken truth is that people die in war, and those to bombs ended a war that had already taken Ten plus million lives. And if we had it to do over again, I think we would have still dropped the bombs because back then it was the only way to save lives, including those of the Japanies. Was it the right thing to do? Well not if you choose to believe the utter BS that the revisionistic historieans are trying to shovel down our throats. But if you want to believe in the truth, then you know that the US took every step possible to end the war and protect lives. That for nearly a month befoe the US dropped the first bomb, leaflets were dropped telling people to leave the cities. The US chose the two targest specifically to avoid the loss of life and do as much damage to Japans war machine as possible. They specificially rulled out many cities including their capital city. War is not something that can be historically rewritten fifty years after the fact. "We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war." - Douglas Macarthur No truer words were ever spoken my friend. What happened to the japanies should never have to happen to another human ever again. An I pray that humans never again use nukes against each other, but we both know that eventually it will happen again. And that deeply saddens me. But at the time we dropped those two bombs, we were at war and regardless as to how we feel about it now, and I am sure we all feel horrible about it, it was a decision made by men who are mostly dead now. A decision that did end a war and did save lives, on both sides. [ December 11, 2003, 07:07: Message edited by: Atrocities ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
aside from the invasion arguement, i hadn't heard most of that...but only the arguement that less lives, and less civilian lives would be lost, is important to me. i'm not suggesting that military lives are less important than military lives, but there's no children in the military. in addition, i have to wonder if the bombs had to be dropped on a city. weren't there any isolated military bases?
Canada's history education, at least while i was in school, was horribly lacking. i suppose i should find a good history book or two and add it to my mental note to reread up on physics and astronomy one of these days. any suggestions? |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Hind sight is always 20/20 Narf.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
yeah? then where did 'revisionist history' come from? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
and what does your comment have to do with anything anyway? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
That the bomb ended the war is a myth that we Americans like to tell ourselves. The US was already killing 100,000s of civilians every night from fire bombings in the capital cities so please don't give me any altruistic crap about saving innocent civilian lives.
The Japanese were actually ready to surrender - they just wanted a guarantee that Hirohito would not be tried as a war criminal. The US would not agree to this. The US, however, agreed to this condition AFTER the bomb was dropped mainly because we didn't want the Russians to know that we were out of them. We simply dropped the bomb out of revenge as Atrocities inadvertantly and explicitly highlights AND probably more importantly to show the Russians that we were willling to use them. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Isolated military bases?
Nope. No room for them, no need for them. Pre WWII the military dominated Japanese society. Schools ran training classes for the military skills and conscription was in force. The military was a lifestyle with the noble Samuraii as the pinnacle of archetype good guy. It was a different world then and Japan was / is a decidedly different culture. The Emporer was worshipped (still is an an offbeat manner) as an incarnation of god. Think of a Medieval European mindset but with modern technology. Xenophobia was (and still is) part of the culture. Japanese are human, everybody else isn't. How else could the "Beheading contest" have occurred in Nanjing? No, the nukes were the easiest, cheapest way to go in terms of both human life saved and money spent. (And don't think that that had no influence in the matter.) Also remember that, as nobody had ever used these puppies before, there was no stigma to using them. The ingrained social horror we feel at these weapons is based upon the fact that they WERE used and the effects WERE seen. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Wow, never seen anyone post here from Thailand before.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Narratio - Well spoken. Thank you. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
I can't take a stand on this one. I'm a little biased. My father was being trained to place transponders on the beaches of Japan as part of the pre invasion. These transponders would be used to help the battleships targeting.
Survial rate of the pre invasion forses was not expected to be very high. What I mean is I would not be here to post this if .... [ December 11, 2003, 11:25: Message edited by: Gryphin ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Erax you are officially my favorite Brazilian.
Thanks for that full and well-written post on the matter. Narf, you are a walking, breathing red herring. You make things interesting. Thank you. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
The use of A-bomb was totally unjustified.
Here are the thoughts of the people who new much more about the true state of WWII at that moment than anybody else: __________________________________________________ ~~~DWIGHT EISENHOWER "...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. "During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..." - Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380 In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson: "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." - Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63 __________________________________________________ ~~~ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. "The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." - William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Off course this would have all depended on how long the Japanese would have defended their country before they would have surrendered. If they ever would surrender... And being the proud people that they are, i think it could have been a LOOOOONG war. Edit: i just saw that Erax also referred to the German Cities bombardements. People shouldn't really forget those. About the aerial bombings taking more toll than the A-bombs in the long run: Quote from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1138385: "...With the city's population swollen with refugees from the east, the death toll from fire and suffocation is unknown, but probably lies between 40,000 and 100,000. ... " And that's just 1 city: Dresden. Not to mention people will have died later because of sustained wounds that where not properly looked after, hunger, drinking contaminated water of bodies floating in it and so on. [ December 11, 2003, 15:40: Message edited by: minipol ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Yeah, there really is no history, except as written by the victors. Some stories about the founding of America are downright comical, and we are still re-learing what the world was like just a few hundred years ago. odds are, we will never get it right.
alot of what we know is propaganda, not just revisionist propaganda, but propaganda from the times that has been adopted and believed. The firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were brutally destructive, far beyond the nuclear devices we used in the war. Just as much contraversy surrounds those: Dresden was esentially a civilian target, with some railroads that were used by the military. but every city had at least some reason to make it a target. the reason (in my opinion) that Dresden was targeted, was that it had no military importance, it was out of the way - far from our line of advance. we would have gone far far around it, and the city would never have been important in the war. By devoting massive ammounts of resources to destroying it, we were sending a message. that message was "look, we have all these resources to waste on a target that has no importance whatsoever. why dont you give up?" and so we dropped blockbuster bombs on it to crack open all the buildings. then we waited for people to come out and inspect the damage, and bombed it again when everyone was outside. then we firebombed it, once it was cracked open and the flamable materials on the interior of buildings were exposed - and the place got hot enough to melt STONE. the next morning, we sent in dive bombers to shoot anyone walking through the streets, that might have survived. Needless to say, Germany didnt take it well, and fought on until we reached Berlin. Tokyo was much the same, but their buildings were made of wood rather than stone. Now you can hear all sorts of arguements about why the firebombings were performed or why it might have been a crime, and it can get about as impassioned as with the nukes. but the point (which i have strayed far from) is that even though we have this nicely composed history fed to us, there are not necessarily conspiricays and coverups everywhere. most conspiracy theories stem from the fact that you are looking for a rational explination for why people have done something stupid or unexplainable. people, yes governments, are largely big, dumb, and uncoordinated. Some people probably thought we needed to drop the A-bombs - and perhaps we did. maybe it was a calculated show of force to the Russians. maybe it just seemed like a good idea at the time. maybe certain decision makers didnt think the Japanese were really going to surrender. nobody will know - but it probably isnt a plot, and theres about f*ck-all to be done about it now. the only thing you can do, is assemble your own evidence, consider the sources, and form your own oppinion. relying on someone elses Version of history is never going to get you anywhere, becase its become such a subjective thing. on a side note, i must applaud the rationality of this discussion, and how calm everyone has been. kudos to everyone providing historical sources and references and examples, and helping others to form their own opinions with information from multiple sources. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Ike's opinion not withstanding, we have no direct knowledge that Japan ws ready to surender. There are many theories of course. I do believe Emperor Hirohito was probably ready to call it quits. But there was a significant portion of the military establishment who wished to fight on to the Last man, woman and child. There was in fact an aborted military coup that occured after the bombs were dropped that, if it had been sucessful would have made the Emporers wishes on the matter totally irrelevant. It would have extended the war, and if the information about our lack of additional nuclear weapons was correct, would have neccesitated the dreaded blody invasion that people in support of the two bombings always suggest.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
To Oleg,
1. Those statements were written after the fact by politicians in uniform, or uniforms that became politicians - take your pick. 2. At the time, both the US Army and Navy were totally defensive in trying to justify their existence – other politicians wanted to radically scale them down and rely on nuclear weapons for force projection and defense. To all, If you are interested in the debate over the use of the atomic bombs, there are many excellent resources out there. A good place to start would be: Pathfinder: The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb http://www.rhodes.edu/library/pathfi...omic_Bomb.html The guide is not meant to all-inclusive, but should help you to locate books, journals, databases, and Internet resources. Remember your critical thinking skills: How to distinguish fact from opinion and bias from reason How to distinguish between primary and secondary sources How to evaluate information sources How to recognize deceptive arguments How to recognize ethnocentrism and stereotypes -Gecko |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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"Revisionist history," by the way, is usually what historians' whose arguments are being superceded (and/or contradicted) by more recent work tend to call the new arguments. Often it has pejorative connotations. As Erax has so eloquently pointed out, it is misleading to judge the decision to drop the bomb using our current assumptions about nuclear weapons. When exploring historical questions, the context is all important. Historical context is the main reason why I, sadly, cannot agree with you Atrocities about history being 20/20. Historians are human, and like everyone else (including scientists, by the way) we are influenced by the culture in which we live (the historical context). Historians working in the immediate post-war period were living in an extremely nationalistic culture, had very little access to secret documents, and were loath to criticize the government. It is no surprise that they followed the party line on the bomb. It took some time for the documents to become available, and when they did the history of the bomb was "revised." This is natural; historians are constantly working out new interpretations of past events, based on new evidence and more extensive exploration of historical cultures. This is not to say that any one interpretation (traditional or revisionist) is definitively correct. On most large historical questions there are no truly right answers, but different interpretations of the events. This can be frustrating but it's what makes debates about the bomb (and evolution and eugenics, to name a few others) so interesting. We can have alot of fun arguing about them for a long, long time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Wow! That's three Posts in the time it took me to write the Last one. Thanks for the link, Gecko - excellent material there.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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What if the Russians managed to get a foothold in Japan itself before the US could take control? That was a big risk if there was to be a long, bloody conquest. So you can see the incentive to accept this condition. And they actually turned it into an 'advantage' by turning the Emperor into a spokesman for their modernization campaign. [ December 11, 2003, 18:02: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Of course this can be written off as self-justification, but the use of the two bombs may have indeed helped humanity in the long run. The history of man has been a long series of bloody conrfontations with progressivly more efficent technology developed to destroy each other. Once we used the two we had, the temporary lack of additional devices, and the war ending gave us time to consider them and gain perspective about their use. Later conflicts have all had the spectre of nuclear holocaust hanging over us, but we have figured out a way to avoid using them.
One could come up with a very plausible alternate history in which the US did not use the bomb on Japan. The war of course would have still ended, perhaps a little later, perhaps a lot. The cold war would have still likely occured, but perhaps without the perspective given by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there would have been less hesitance to use them. In this case it wouldn't have been a nuclear power using two bombs against a non-nuclear power. Once the first one was used, the other side would have the incentive to retaliate, and means to do so. Instead of two cities nuked at the end of a war, it might have been 20, or 200 before it was all over. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
[quote]Originally posted by Atrocities:
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The Japanese were already shocked and awed and just needed a way to surrender. Here is a quote from President Truman to Samuel McCrea Cavert, August 11, 1945 that talks about the revenge factor. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistle...mall/mb13a.htm Also we didn't tell the Japanese we had an A-bomb until AFTER we dropped it so there was no way they would have known what was coming. Those leaflets you are so proud of were not dropped until AFTER Hiroshima. So the Japanese were not given any warning prior to the dropping in Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened only 3 days later not enough time for them to even think about the first bomb's effects. Just because I don't agree with you that the Japanese deserved getting hit with an A-bomb doesn't make me wrong. On the bright side - it probably stopped a nuclear war with the Russians. [ December 11, 2003, 19:14: Message edited by: rextorres ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
I read that there were only two potential landing sites for an invasion of Japan (main island) and these were well defended. The Japanese also believed the Divine Wind (typhoon) would also protect them from invasion, as it did against the Mongols.
http://danielroy.tripod.com/cgi-bin/...olia/opi2.html The bombs demonstrated that landing defenses could easily be shattered. The bombs could not be stopped by typhoon. I am sure that some military men lost the desire to see it through to the bloody end because of the bomb. It is one thing to sacrifice yourself, another thing to sacrifice yourself in vain, and worse to sacrifice yourself and everything you are fighting for. BTW: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq102-6.htm Okinowa was hit by a typhoon a month after the Japanese surrender. A lot of material was lost, a lot of ships were scrapped, and there was a loss of life. But, it was nothing compared what could have happen if the island was full of troops, planes and ships preparing for an invasion. The survivors would have been defenseless. [ December 11, 2003, 19:20: Message edited by: Wardad ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarth...cspeech04.html |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
What is this I keep hearing about the US only having the two atomic bombs? Even while the US was bombing it was producing more atomic cores for a sustained atomic bombing effort if Japan failed to surrender. The next one was scheduled to be shipped from Los Alamos and arrive for use against Japan on August 17 or 18. There was a whole list of potential targets. The leaflets were deployed after the first atomic bomb was dropped warning other Japanese cities to evacuate. The leaflets scheduled for Nagasaki didn't get their until August 10 which would have been before the original schedule for bombing but the schedule was moved up due to bad weather forcasts, and of course Nagasaki was the backup target. The primary target had been the Kokura Arsenal however weather prevented the bombing of that target and Nagasaki was the only backup target which weather permitted the bombing of.
I won't go into the morality of the use of atomic bombs on Japan. Or the morale justification for the Japanese release of the first modern bio weapons over China etc... etc... A timeline:http://vikingphoenix.com/public/Japa...5/abombchr.htm Japanese Bio Weapons: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/bw/ |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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from one of those sources, it seems like they didn't make any great effort with the leaflets. both that and the short interval's between the bombs lends credence to the theory that the bombs were dropped to kill and terrify. ok, now can anyone point to any official corrospondence that indicates that Japan was ready to surrender? any that indicates that the Japanese emporer was involved in the war crimes? or that the refusal to surrender was hinged on wether or not he'd be charged? and even if so, would that be enough reason to extend the war to get him? i'm not trying to make a point with the questions, just asking. [ December 11, 2003, 21:09: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Geoschmo |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Narf,
Try: Behind Japan's surrender; the secret struggle that ended an empire by Lester Brooks Gecko |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
The two A-bomb attacks... you cannot really understand them unless you get into the mindset of the times. I can provide some related facts which you will weigh and judge to reach your conclusion, as I have reached mine.
First, the two bombs that were dropped on Japan were not the modern megalopolis-busting nukes. I believe they were in the 40-80 kiloton range (too lazy to do a web search right now). This is actually less than the destructive power that was being delivered to German cities (via conventional bombs) on a routine basis just a few months before... and the loss of life from the initial bLasts may also have been less than in some conventional attacks over Germany. Second, no one who lived in those times was acting rationally any more. After six years of continous fighting (eight, in the case of Japan) the level of hatred for 'the enemy' was... hard to describe, except by example. I have a friend whose mother was a child in Japan during the war. One day, she was standing alone in a field, got shot at by a passing American plane, ran for cover and survived. What made this fighter pilot want to kill an six-year-old girl ? Third, no one knew about fallout and the aftereffects of the bLast. Some people may have suspected them, but no one knew exactly what was going to happen. Fourth, and perhaps most important, Japanese behavior was completely alien to Americans and on a certain level it terrified them. During the island hopping campaign - Tarawa, Iwo Jima and so on - the Japanese military on those remote bases had fought to the Last man, and the civilians (yes, the civilians) had committed suicide rather than face capture. Invading mainland Japan was a nightmare for the US military, because they did not know what to expect, and therefore expected the very worst. Which leads to my conclusion... yes, the A-bombs may have been a bad decision judged by today's standards, but at the time they seemed like a reasonable one. We cannot judge the past by today's standards, instead we should be glad that those standards have evolved. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Narf and others can try
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hiatomicbomb/manhattan.html for lots of information and actual documents from the time. Haven't looked through most of it so can't say if it has what you want. But it has alot related to the atomic bombs and the decision to use them. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Ah yes... the Truth with a capitol T. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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"we are watching Fox" - Simpsons family |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Sorry. But my truth never ever comes from a single source. I always review as many different sources and what lots of different people and Groups are saying and claiming and formulate my own opinion based on that. And I would never allow myself to think of it as anything but my opinion. Do I think that some people in power are doing something I don't like for the wrong reasons at times now and in the past? Yes. Due I think I can read their minds and know every motive they may or may not have? No. Do I think I can psychoanalyze dead people and know their motives? No. Do I think everyone is 100% honest in all the written materials they leave behind? No.
I have studied to be a historian and in the specific area of Historic Method you learn to try and be as impartial as possible and view each piece of information on its own merits as primary, secondary, tertiary, etc sources and to get a bead on the biases of each person. Because EVERYONE has biases and they WILL get into what they say, write, and do. Even with the best and most unbiased it isn't totally unbiased. So CNN and Fox aren't good enough. What is the supreme authority that you get the Truth with a capitol T from? Maybe BBC? Some European news network? Independent reporters? Please let us all know so we can get in on the Truth, as well. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
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Rextorres your opinion should always count for something as it is a reflection of your thoughts and learning. If you start throwing around statements/comments that are written hastily than others could be offended. The end result is that people will not want to take you seriously; from here it no longer becomes a matter of sharing your thoughts as it does wasting your breath. You should rephrase or temporarily retract the statement for rephrasing as it appears very inflammatory. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Hmm . . . why would calling someone a "flag waver" be considered inflammatory!!?? I would think that Atrocities et. al. would be proud of being a flag waver.
Atrocities, however, did call me a "revisionist" his tone to me sounded inflammatory he certainly didn't mean it as a complement. |
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sorry, cant resist: "Vae Victis." I now return you to your regularly scheduled pissing contest. I mean, discussion of 'historical' events. |
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Oleg Please read your PM's
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We should not judge events of our past nor pass judgement on those who participated in those events because most of us were not there to witness or participate in them first hand. [ December 12, 2003, 07:34: Message edited by: Atrocities ] |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
Just saw on tv the opening of the new Air & Space museum near D.C. A couple of veterans near the Enola Gay exhibit recounted how the bombs saved their lives and the lives of every man (U.S. and Japanese) who would have died in Operation Olympic.
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Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
The incendiary firestorms from the 300 and 1000 plane raids over Japans cities were far more devastating then the A bombs.
The A bombs could be used on fortifications and prepared defenses in depth. This may have killed some Japanese hopes of stopping a landing long enough for a typhon to come along and destroy our fleets. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
My apologies to Atrocities and others.
I made several Posts here inflamantory in nature. I did not mean it. I have a deep respect to Will and do not want to offend anybody. Sorry. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
A Histoy lesson. Well worth 5 minutes
As always when reading history; "facts" are "events of high probability" and "conclusions" are "interpretations". These are my interpretations of the events. Feel free to interpret differntly: * The bombs did nothing to help the ending of the war * The first bomb was dropped for testing, to justify the budget for the Manhattan project and to intimidate the Soviets. * The second bomb was just plain murder. If it had been dropped on the original target, it may have been justifiable as testing of a new type of target. But as Rex already pointed out. If the (first) bomb hadn't been dropped, its very doubtfull we would have made it through Korea and the cold war without the bomb beeing dropped somewhere else. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
I find it shocking to see how many people believe with perfect hindsight that the U.S. was wrong to deploy atomic weapons against the empire of Japan.
The decision was made in the context of a brutal war of aggression waged by samurai warriors equipped with western arms. They neither gave nor expected quarter during their decade long murder spree throughout the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The military junta went against Yamamoto's advice not to provoke the U.S. and they reaped the whirlwind. Attack the U.S. directly in a war that threatens U.S. survival and you will end up like the Confederate States of America, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan....smokin' friggin' ruins. The righteous might of free men bestirred is a power to behold. That said, there is no more magnanimous victor than the United States and any country rehabilitated by U.S. force of arms is sure to benefit in the long run. |
Re: Military Buffs I need your help.
I don't know if the US was wrong or not in dropping the bomb (frankly the fire bombings sound more horrific based on accounts I've read) - but a lot of people - even a couple on this forum have implied that the bombs were dropped for some altruistic reasons.
In reality the US was fire bombing civilians already and dropped the bomb on a civilian target, probably dropped the bomb out of revenge (as your posting and some others on the board highlights), for strategic leverage after the war, and based on what some Japanese documents suggest could have gotten a surrender without the need to drop the bombs. Some people feel uncomfortable with this "revisionist" history because it doesn't show the US in the best light and in today's Jingoistic climate if your not 100% pro US your unpatriotic . . . I guess if it lets them sleep better at night good for them. [ December 13, 2003, 20:22: Message edited by: rextorres ] |
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