Today in History - August 6 - Hiroshima

[FORD]

Shit.... I'd welcome the Canadian invasion, if only for the health care and the "almost legal" BC Bud. The metric system would take some getting used to, and I doubt I'd ever speak French, but either would be more tolerable than continuing to fund the soulless vampire bastards of corporatism in this country.

[lesfunk]

You mean many revisionist and the anti-nuclear crowd. Japan had no intention of surrender. In fact, if you studied history at all Japan was preparing its citizens for landing invasions by order of the Emperor instead of opting for surrender conditions. As for the Soviets they had no idea what an atomic bomb was at the time apart from what little information their spies had reported back to the Stalin government; Hiroshima itself was a city chosen simply because it had a good share of the pie in airplane manufacturing which had to be crushed before an invasion (which was still on the charts) to begin.

There you go again. Clouding revisionist history with inconvenient facts and truth.

[Igosplut]

You mean many revisionist and the anti-nuclear crowd. Japan had no intention of surrender. In fact, if you studied history at all Japan was preparing its citizens for landing invasions by order of the Emperor instead of opting for surrender conditions. As for the Soviets they had no idea what an atomic bomb was at the time apart from what little information their spies had reported back to the Stalin government; Hiroshima itself was a city chosen simply because it had a good share of the pie in airplane manufacturing which had to be crushed before an invasion (which was still on the charts) to begin.

Good post Kristy, I'd read something written similar in school about that.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

The Navy, in it's infinite wisdom, on Aug. 6th, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the bomb, had our ship dock in Kure, Japan, which is right next to Hiroshima....

Needless to say, we got some extremely dirty looks that day, I'll never forget it....

[Seshmeister]

You mean many revisionist and the anti-nuclear crowd. Japan had no intention of surrender. In fact, if you studied history at all Japan was preparing its citizens for landing invasions by order of the Emperor instead of opting for surrender conditions. As for the Soviets they had no idea what an atomic bomb was at the time apart from what little information their spies had reported back to the Stalin government; Hiroshima itself was a city chosen simply because it had a good share of the pie in airplane manufacturing which had to be crushed before an invasion (which was still on the charts) to begin.

Opinion is divided on whether it was necessary to get a surrender. It was only after dropping the bomb on Nagasaki that Truman started to offer the deal whereby Japan got to keep her emperor. The reason that Hiroshima was chosen was less to do with her airplane manufacturing and more to do with the fact it wasn't cloudy overhead there on the day and it was a relatively fresh place to see what would happen having not been bombed much conventionally.

It will be interesting to hear Nick the WWII geek's take on it. It certainly wasn't as black and white you might think and included motivations about getting the war over asap before the Russians got involved in that theater.

[Kristy]

The reason that Hiroshima was chosen was less to do with her airplane manufacturing and more to do with the fact it wasn't cloudy overhead there on the day and it was a relatively fresh place to see what would happen having not been bombed much conventionally.

No, it was pegged as a military target.

[Seshmeister]

If it was such an important military target then it would have been bombed by conventional weapons for weeks.

The attack on Hiroshima was a terror attack and to maximize that effect they wanted to make sure it killed and destroyed the most people possible.

[lesfunk]

it worked

[Blackflag]

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a terror attack and to maximize that effect they wanted to make sure it killed and destroyed the most people possible.

War is hell, as they say. But save your "terrorism" rhetoric. Just save it.

[Nickdfresh]

August 6, 1945 - World War II: Hiroshima is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

the significance of this very day can be disputed but I know that we dropped a bomb to end a war, in the process killing 10's of thousands, but saved 100's of thousands of lives. what if we didn't "drop the bomb"? how many more lives would be lost? Fortunately, now Japan is our ally.

We can debate what ended the War and what actions had what reactions...

But the Soviet blitz of Manchuria that routed and entire Japanese Army group no doubt had the Japanese high command pissing themselves and reconsidering their strategy of forcing the US to negotiate by inflicting ever higher casualties even with no prospect of victory. Because in the end, they'd rather be occupied by the US allowing them to keep their emperor than the commies who could give a fuck how many men they threw into the meat grinder of battle...

There are those that say the bombs had little real impact on the bloodthirsty cunts in the Japanese Imperial Army command who were very eager to fight to the last Japanese. The US firebombings of Tokyo and other cities were in fact far more hideous and killed far more than even the atomic bombs did...

Congratulations to the US in one of it's last real shows of military might. ever since then, pussies have ruled our military with a strategy to back down and show restraint and weakness.

I've never heard the wanton slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children so callously and idiotically phrased as heroic. In the end, I guess I believe the bombings were somewhat necessary, but I'm certainly not proud and would never gloat over such butchery. I'm not sure what makes one not a pussy by dropping a bomb which kills civilians? By your logic, Osama Bin Ladens and other terrorists are badass motherfuckers filled with courage...

what about the Korean War? If we dropped the bomb on those guys back in the 50's, maybe they would be our friends today, and we wouldn't have some nutcase in command, and a school breeding hatred for the US.

Try reading about it sometime, dumbfuck.

If we had dropped a bomb in Korea, then the Soviets may well have dropped one back, and we'd be fighting a nuclear war.

Secondly, using nukes would be an admission that the US was a bunch of pussies unable to take the Red Chinese with conventional forces, and that we were in fact decadent and weak. MacArthur was a fucking tool, and an old man incompetent. The US rebuilt its conventional Army after he was fired and General Matthew Ridgeway singlehandedly retrained the US Army from a bunch of "pussies" back into a very good and tough fighting force that gained credibility as a fighting force that could beat back the red hordes without needing to resort to doomsday bullshit...

[Nickdfresh]

no, you're taking my words to the extreme. I'm referring to our "cut and run" strategy that our enemies laugh at because we don't show any resolve.

Like from where?

...what's next? run from Afghanistan? I'm not saying we should start wars, Iraq was a big fucking mistake. but I'm saying if we start it, we better finish it. And sometimes to finish it means a show of strength.

Dude, read a fucking newspaper or magazine sometime, you're clearly out of touch...

[Nickdfresh]

That is very very debatable and probably just the propoganda used at the time.

Many historians have shown that the Japs were about to surrender anyway and the bombs were dropped to scare the soviets.




...

Many historians are also full of revisionist shit. When the bombs were dropped, the US had little incentive or motive to "scare the Soviets." The Red Army was also War weary and would have had severe logistical difficulties without US and UK production on their behalf of foodstuffs, transport lorries, and various weapons to fill out their armies...

The bombs were dropped simply because we had them and had spent a lot of money to create them largely in response to the Nazis, who no one would have cried for if we dropped them on. They were also used because US invasion of mainland Japan would have (at least initially) been bloody. But I personally don't think the invasion would have been as bloody as many predicted as the Japanese resistance would have crumbled when the US massed armor on the Tokyo Plain. But the fact remains that an insanely extremist Japanese Imperial Army command was committed to mobilizing the entire population and even using children to attack US invasion forces...

[Nickdfresh]

You mean many revisionist and the anti-nuclear crowd. Japan had no intention of surrender. In fact, if you studied history at all Japan was preparing its citizens for landing invasions by order of the Emperor instead of opting for surrender conditions. As for the Soviets they had no idea what an atomic bomb was at the time apart from what little information their spies had reported back to the Stalin government; Hiroshima itself was a city chosen simply because it had a good share of the pie in airplane manufacturing which had to be crushed before an invasion (which was still on the charts) to begin.

I agree and think you're mostly correct here. Except Stalin knew almost as much about the bomb as FDR did as the Manhattan Project was thoroughly compromised with well intentioned Utopian communist physicists acting as spies...

[standin]

Well, getting back to what WWII was about the systematic destruction of Jehovah Witness and their place as God's chosen people. Someone must stand up and bring attention back to the destruction, as God's chosen people shun worldly government and won't point out the near destruction. And had it not been for the Big Bomb. Michael Jackson's mother might had taken another path.
And if you deny this, you are a denier. The research and forensic data is all there and documented. It is shameful to bring focus any other place other than the destruction of God's chosen people, Jehovah Witnesses.

(parody)

[Nickdfresh]

Opinion is divided on whether it was necessary to get a surrender. It was only after dropping the bomb on Nagasaki that Truman started to offer the deal whereby Japan got to keep her emperor. The reason that Hiroshima was chosen was less to do with her airplane manufacturing and more to do with the fact it wasn't cloudy overhead there on the day and it was a relatively fresh place to see what would happen having not been bombed much conventionally.

The problem was that there was absolutely no communication between Japan and the US at that time. The Japanese did approach the Soviets as intermediaries as they were still sort of "neutral" in the conflict as they had a separate non-aggression pact with the Japanese (which helped save Moscow as this pact released thousands of fresh troops and tanks from Siberia during the dark days of 1942 to fight the Germans). The Soviets decided they wanted a piece of the Far Eastern pie and invaded Manchuria during the "August Storm" operation and crushed an immobile, second-rate but large Jap Imperial Army on the steppes of China with their T-34s...

It will be interesting to hear Nick the WWII geek's take on it. It certainly wasn't as black and white you might think and included motivations about getting the war over asap before the Russians got involved in that theater.

LOL I agree it was anything but black and white. And both the Japanese and the US found common cause for not allowing the Soviets to get any territory Japanese beyond the Kuril Islands. But it's debatable if and how the Soviets could have launched large scale amphibious assaults as they had a small surface fleet and no real experience in what is the most difficult of operations...

Indeed, one of the reasons Stalin was said to have signed off with a quick conclusion of the War was that the USSR mounted one amphibious landing on a Japanese held Island, the kind the US Marines and Army had been doing all along. They suffered heavy casualties and embarrassing set backs to their timetables and the Japanese soldier was capable of fierce resistance when fighting from fortifications and when his enemies' mobility and firepower were hindered by geography. And there was no way the Soviets were going to make large scale landings --on say-- Honshu...