WOAH! I think he has the right idea over secrecy in his burial,
though.
Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I could have done his job or
not. Even though it was probablyt he right thing to do, I don't think
it would be a prideful act.
But I wasn't there either.
mixed emotions
If it means anything, my dad was there and thinks they did the right
thing...
When I watch the way the nips treated our soldiers I think we should nuke them again. It is very clear that the shock value of those two bombs saved more Japanese lives than they took. Without the nukes, LeMay was going to firebomb that island until there was not one structure standing and then we would have had a bloody invasion that might have killed a million or more. I doubt we could have ever really occupied the country peacefully.
"Chuck Gould" <chuckgould.chuck@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1194026353.513661.210290@k35g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
We had reduced Japanese naval power to the point where an effective
blockade of the island nation would probably have inspired its
surrender within a matter of weeks...likely without an invasion.
<rest snipped for brevity>
Monday morning quarterbacking is always easier than playing the game and we'll probably never know for sure, but there where many then and many today that believed Japan was close to using an A-bomb ... on *us*. If Truman hadn't authorized it and the war lasted just long enough for Japan to toss one on San Diego from a submarine, how would Truman be viewed today knowing that he could have ended the war before it happened?
On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:59:13 -0700, Chuck Gould <chuckgould.chuck@gmail.com> wrote:
We had reduced Japanese naval power to the point where an effective
blockade of the island nation would probably have inspired its
surrender within a matter of weeks...likely without an invasio
The GIs who took Okinawa would probably dissagree with this assessment. There were still Japanese soldiers holding out on islands years after the war. I dsoubt there was any kind of attrition war that would have defeated them and we might still have an Iraqi style insurrection around the world. Remember the Japanese invented the suicide bomber.
<gfretwell@aol.com> wrote in message news:v62ni31ni75aa9uq60nimfv73g8rof0nd9@4ax.com...
On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:59:13 -0700, Chuck Gould
<chuckgould.chuck@gmail.com> wrote:
We had reduced Japanese naval power to the point where an effective
blockade of the island nation would probably have inspired its
surrender within a matter of weeks...likely without an invasio
The GIs who took Okinawa would probably dissagree with this
assessment. There were still Japanese soldiers holding out on islands
years after the war. I dsoubt there was any kind of attrition war that
would have defeated them and we might still have an Iraqi style
insurrection around the world.
Remember the Japanese invented the suicide bomber.
You are correct. I don't know if you watched the Ken Burns PBS documentary called the War but they detailed accounts following dropping the 2 a-bombs of the Japanese peoples (including women and children) willingness to fight and hold on to the bitter end, even if it meant death. Surrender to the enemy was not an option to them. They showed pictures of Japanese women jumping off cliffs to the rocks below committing suicide as American troops landed on the island.
A blockade would not only have extended the War but resulted in most Japanese starving to death rather than surrender.
Eisboch was very accurate in his assessment of why we had to drop the bombs.
WOAH! I think he has the right idea over secrecy in his burial,
though.
Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I could have done his job or
not. Even though it was probablyt he right thing to do, I don't think
it would be a prideful act.
But I wasn't there either.
mixed emotions
If it means anything, my dad was there and thinks they did the right
thing...
When I watch the way the nips treated our soldiers I think we should
nuke them again.
How about the way they treated the American missionaries living in the Phillipines and taken captive by the Japanese during the war? Their treatment by the Japanese was only slightly better than the way the Germans dealt with the Jews.
I didn't know that Japan had that type of technology....yet.
Nothing close. That's an "internet speculation piece" to me. A few facts, then like fission, they split into a mushroom cloud of speculation. Might as well believe anything. Like Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Garbage intelligence, and mindless and erroneous speculation. The MacArthur and Ike views mentioned by Chuck are almost irrelevant, if even accurate and contemporaneous with the time the bombs were dropped. Theater generals painting rosy scenarios of easy victory, or greatly underestimating actual costs wasn't new then, and still happens. Truman and Marshall were running the show, and had the best picture. Personally, I would have asked a grunt who survived Tarawa or Iwo Jima or Okinawa, who had seen, heard and smelled the mayhem, his buddies killed and maimed. He fought the Japs on those islands, and the Japs fought to their death. "Well, son, we have a choice. We can drop a couple A-bombs on Japan, war's over, and you can go home. Or if you prefer, gear up and we'll land you in Japan to fight more Japs. What'll it be?" Then go with the answer. Truman already knew the answer. Anyway, having read much on the then Japanese view of combat and honor, it isn't much different in effect than Islamo-facism. They were nuts. The A-bomb was a nutcracker. Nukes generate a lot of fear, which is perfectly understandable, but the firebombing of cities, starvation, disease, and endless combat needed to take Japan would have been much worse. Victory in combat was the primary Jap goal, but dying in combat ran a close second. Being toasted by an unseen enemy tossing a nuke on your head turned their world upside down, and cracked the nut. IMHO. Tibbets belonged to that great generation to whom we owe so much, and I salute him. May he RIP. BTW, I was born in 1947. For all I know, my Dad might have died in the invasion of Japan in '45 or '46 and then I would be writing this as somebody else.
But then again, anyone who can (at that time) successfully calculate
bombs carried by weather ballons, that could make it to the US from
Japan all those thousands of miles across the Pacific, were actually
no dummies.
Fat lot of good that did them. Might as well throw TNT-rigged coconuts in the gulf stream to blow up Ireland. But hey, everything can help in war. Kept some number of West-coasters busy on balloon patrol. Whenever the Jap balloons come up, I'm reminded of the American bat guy whose bats, incendiaries on their legs, were near the point of being dropped in Japan. Those bats might have caused more Jap casualties than the A-bombs. Who knows?
On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:24:10 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:
Fat lot of good that did them. Might as well throw TNT-rigged coconuts
in the gulf stream to blow up Ireland. But hey, everything can help in
war. Kept some number of West-coasters busy on balloon patrol. Whenever
the Jap balloons come up, I'm reminded of the American bat guy whose
bats, incendiaries on their legs, were near the point of being dropped
in Japan. Those bats might have caused more Jap casualties than the
A-bombs. Who knows?
Those Japanese balloon bombs could have been an effective terrorism weapon, except for a few small details. They were mostly incendiary devices, meant to start forest fires, some landing as far east as Michigan, but that was back in the day where the press could keep a secret, and very few people knew about them. Not much terror in an unknown weapon. The other, perhaps more important reason, they were released over the winter of 1944-45. Not the best time to be setting a forest fire in the Pacific Northwet. However, the recent fires in California show their potential.
WOAH! I think he has the right idea over secrecy in his burial,
though.
Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I could have done his job or
not. Even though it was probablyt he right thing to do, I don't think
it would be a prideful act.
But I wasn't there either.
mixed emotions
We had reduced Japanese naval power to the point where an effective
blockade of the island nation would probably have inspired its
surrender within a matter of weeks...likely without an invasion.
The nuke was only one of several options available for ending the war.
We know that it worked, there's probably no way to know whether it was
the best options available, and opinions at that time were most
decidedly mixed.
Truman felt it was neccessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of both
the uranium bomb (Hiroshima) and the plutonium bomb (Nagasaki) to
convince the Russians that we had the will and capability to react to
any threat "with extreme prejudice". I was also strategically critical
to end the Japanese war before our Russian "allies" marched in during
the mop up with possible plans for occupying some of the islands and
thereby establishing effective Naval bases in the Pacfic.
Japanese people continued to die from radiation poisoning for many
years after the explosions, with more than 500,000 civilian deaths by
1951.
Many military leaders of the day disagreed with Truman's decision to
use the atomic bomb.
Dwight Eisenhower said that when he was infromed of Truman's decision
to use nuclear bombs, "I voiced my misgivings, first on the basis of
my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb
was completely unneccesary, and secondly because I thought that our
country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon who
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."
Admiral William Leahy, Chief of Saff to Presidents Roosevelt and
Truman, said in his autobiography "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."
General MacArthur apparently did not voice any official support for or
opposition to the bombing in 1945, but his consultant Norman Cousins
wrote in 1987 that MacArthur's oft-stated private opinion was "The war
might have ended weeks earlier if the United States had agreed, as it
later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
Historic footnote: The "we dropped it to save American Lives"
rationale didn't begin gathering a lot of traction until 1958- the
year that Truman convened a news conference to defend his decision to
drop atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The news conference was
precipitated, in part, by a letter from the Hiroshima City Council
asking Truman if, all those years later, he had any regrets or was
inclined to apologize for the decision. Authors Robert Jay Lifton and
Greg Mitchell,
("Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denmial" published by Grossett/
Putnam in 1995), claim to have documentation that official US
estimates for the number of military deaths that would result from an
invasion of Japan would be between 20,000 and 63,000.
So, yes, RIP Paul Tibbets. He was a brave and dutiful airman, simply
doing his job. Opinions will vary enormously whether there is any
guilt to bear over the manner in which we chose to end WWII, but the
heroes of the hour (or the villians, depending on ones' point of view)
will be found among the decision makers of the day- not down among the
ranks of those who simply upheld their oath to follow orders.
You can say that the Japanese were ready to surrender peacefully after watching the "War" coverage of the pacific campaign? After seeing the tenacity with which the Japanese fought in the Pacific, what leads you to the conclusion that they would surrender?Personally I am thankful that we didn't have to invade because my father was scheduled to go participate, since the war in Europe was over.
And how many civilians would have died of starvation and bombing during this blockade? How long to convince whoever that the Emperor wasn't "divine"?
It is too bad that the Japanese became expansionist. They were already racist.
"Chuck Gould" <chuckgould.chuck@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1194102756.682120.185140@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
As racist as some Americans remain, I think that in general the
mixture of cultures and races in the US has done much to reduce
racism. As a society we are probably more inclusive than most, but we
still have a ways to go and some of the individual exceptions are
almost Neanderthalic.
Most, if not all, nations have remained highly nationalistic by culture. An exception is the United States. We are one of the few successful nations on earth that can withstand the constant negative analysis and bad image promoted by some of her own citizens.
On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:24:10 -0600, Vic Smith <thismailautodeleted@comcast.net> wrote:
, anyone who can (at that time) successfully calculate
bombs carried by weather ballons, that could make it to the US from
Japan all those thousands of miles across the Pacific, were actually
no dummies.
Fat lot of good that did them. Might as well throw TNT-rigged
coconuts in the gulf stream to blow up Ireland
The intent was simply to throw fear iinto the American public. In 1943 it didn't work because the press was responsible and did not feed the hysteria when a few of these balloons actually did perform as expected. These days it would be the only thing on TV
SPECIAL REPORT ... DEATH FROM THE SKIES !!! IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN SURVIVE??? ...film at 11.
