Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[Risus]

What is there to believe?

Maybe it was in our culture to nuke them.

Still thumping your chest with your sick yankee mentality I see...

 

[EagleSmack]

Still thumping your chest with your sick yankee mentality I see...

I wasn't but since your here...

Check this out!


YouTube - Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (real footage)

 

[ironsides]

We could have done a lot worse to them, plus Canada and Great Briton were not so innocent either, the bomb was no surprise to Churchill or Stalin for that matter.

Atomic Bomb: Decision - Truman Tells Stalin, July 24, 1945

 

[CDNBear]

On Saipan no matter how much Japanese interpeters called out to civillians that they will be safe and not be harmed, they jumped off the cliffs like lemmings to their deaths.

If you believe that, you don't understand their culture.

Honor, Loyalty and Spectacle: Death and Suicide In the Japanese Warrior Class
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~kpavlou/PersonalEssays/SamuraiDeath.pdf

Am I the only one that noticed eao just provided the reason why ground forces would have met with extreme resistance, thus making the bomb, the best choice at the time?

 

[EagleSmack]

Am I the only one that noticed eao just provided the reason why ground forces would have met with extreme resistance, thus making the bomb, the best choice at the time?

Yes that is pretty much what he said.

 

[Colpy]

Am I the only one that noticed eao just provided the reason why ground forces would have met with extreme resistance, thus making the bomb, the best choice at the time?

You beat me to it....EAO has completely undermined his entire argument.....and in doing so shown irrevokably that nuking Japan was the correct course of action.

Mind you, EAO has not been unreasonable in this debate......

 

[EagleSmack]

You beat me to it....EAO has completely undermined his entire argument.....and in doing so shown irrevokably that nuking Japan was the correct course of action.

Mind you, EAO has not been unreasonable in this debate......

No he hasn't. I grant him that.

 

[CDNBear]

Yes that is pretty much what he said.

I'll give you that one, lol.

Mind you, EAO has not been unreasonable in this debate......

Actually, he's been pretty good in the Iran Nuke thread too. Apart from trying to convince us that Iran loves Israel, and has never had an evil thought about them. In these two threads, eao gets a big old thumbs up.

No he hasn't. I grant him that.

For eao? Oh yes he has!

 

[earth_as_one]

I was referring to your comment about Japanese committing suicide like Lemmings.

 

[lone wolf]

Lemming.... Cliff.... Something wrong with the analogy?

 

[earth_as_one]

You beat me to it....EAO has completely undermined his entire argument.....and in doing so shown irrevokably that nuking Japan was the correct course of action.

Mind you, EAO has not been unreasonable in this debate......

What exactly do you think my argument is? Let me recap:

I don't believe the American leaders of the time or the war planners truly understood the destructive power at their disposal. They did not have access to information like this:
http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/7906.pdf

Truman and other American leaders were unable to be completely honest about why they decided to nuke Japan due to a secrecy and national security requirements.


reference: Why Truman Dropped the Bomb
Why Truman Dropped the Bomb | The Weekly Standard

The article I referenced says nothing of the sort:

Why Truman Dropped the Bomb | The Weekly Standard
The Americans knew Japan was not ready to surrender in July 1945 and that their true policy was still fight to the bitter end, regardless of what Japanese diplomats were saying publicly. The Americans weren't prepared to reveal that they they knew this for certain, because that would raise they question how they knew and expose the scale of their eaves dropping activities. So the Americans gave other reasons for dropping the bomb, including using the bomb to intimidate the Soviets, which was a factor, but not the deciding factor to drop the bomb.

This declassified document indicates that the US expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use in the third week of August, with three more in September and a further three in October.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/72.pdf

See also this book
http://mirror.lib.unair.ac.id/bahan/BFOLDER/Books Dec 2009/Five days in August.pdf

Which indicates to me US military planners did not understand what they possessed and that they had underestimated the atomic bomb's power to intimidate.

The Americans and the rest of the world did not truly understood the true implications of Atomic bombs until after seeing pictures of their destructive power, days to weeks after the bombs were dropped. Until then, the atomic bomb was just considered another bomb. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki American leaders and military planners finally realized this was a completely new class of weapon.

Yes that is what I'm saying. They knew in theory what it might do, but until they actually saw the post bomb pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American leaders and military planners seriously underestimated the destructive effect and psychological impact of an Atomic bomb. Looking back, we have the benefit of hindsight and as a result a more accurate perception of Atomic bombs.

Again, this perception is based on hindsight. At the time the Atomic bomb was dropped, few people were predicting a cold or hot war with the Russians. The Russians were our WW II allies, not our enemies. Allied leaders were aware of Soviet military might, but were also aware the Soviets, like the Allies were war weary, eager for peace and the opportunity to rebuild all that was lost during the war.

The main deciding factor to use the bomb, was the same reason why they used other bombs... To convince Japan to accept an unconditional surrender. The Americans never understood how convincing the Atomic bomb would be in achieving this objective. No city had ever been completely destroyed by a single bomb until August 6, 1945. Distant pictures of a mushroom cloud and a crater in the desert did not have the same impact as the pictures of two cities laid in ruins and survivor testimony.



In 1945, the Americans had only two weapon designs. One based on uranium and had a production rate of 1 bomb every couple of months and one based on plutonium and a production rate of about 1 bomb a week. The uranium bomb was simpler and had a low chance of being a dud. The plutonium bomb design was more complex and had a higher chance of being a dud. Both bombs had an explosive equivalent to @20kT.

Hydrogen bombs have been tested up to explosive yields of 50Mt or 2500 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Many people continue to underestimate the effects of nuclear weapons because their perception is based on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. I have a hard time myself scaling up the destruction by a factor of 2500...

My point is that US military planners did not understand the Atomic bomb was a new class of weapon. They knew Japan would fight to the bitter end, regardless of consequences. The americans could not reveal that they knew the Japanese were playing for time without revealing the existence of their huge secret eavesdropping network.

I think demonstrating the A-bomb first might have saved lives, but if the Japanese didn't surrender, I don't see the US or any other government taking a different course of action in a total war.

 

[lone wolf]

I suppose they went with their own estimated guess.

 

[EagleSmack]

I think demonstrating the A-bomb first might have saved lives, but if the Japanese didn't surrender, I don't see the US or any other government taking a different course of action in a total war.

Well this is where I go back to my argument on the Battle of Midway. Since we surprised the Japanese so badly, perhaps we should have dropped buckets of red paint on their aircraft carriers instead of bombs.

That way we could have saved Japanese lives and let the Japanese know that we could have sunk all four carriers. Once the Japanese Navy realized that they certainly would have surrendered.

No?

 

[earth_as_one]

You seem to have a hard distinguishing between civilians and soldiers. Deliberately reducing a city full of civilians to ashes isn't the same as a battle at sea involving only soldiers.

 

[lone wolf]

Do you think Mister Churchill's Home Guard wouldn't have given it their best too?

 

[EagleSmack]

You seem to have a hard distinguishing between civilians and soldiers. If the Atomic Bomb was dropped on civilian targets. Deliberately reducing a city full of civilians to ashes isn't the same as a battle at sea involving only soldiers.

You seem to have a problem distinguishing 1945 from 2010.

 

[earth_as_one]

It was still a war crime back in 1945 to deliberately attack civilians.

 

[lone wolf]

Yeah ... it was. Where do you start? It's illegal to set bush fires too. Sometines, you have to fight fire with fire.

 

[Cliffy]

Lemming.... Cliff.... Something wrong with the analogy?

Yah! I don't follow anybody, especially over precipices.

 

[EagleSmack]

It was still a war crime back in 1945 to deliberately attack civilians.

Oh brother.

Well lets just charge the planet with war crimes for fighting the Second World War.