Nagasaki, the truth

[ozzy72]

I've just finished reading all four parts of this, and all I can say is I hope there is never another nuclear weapon used...
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/specials/0506/0617weller.html

[ATI_7500]

'Disease X'...scary.

[Felix/FFDS]

'Disease X'...scary.

I would suggest not to start up conspiracy theories.  "Disease X" was radiation poisoning, not any sort of biological agent.

[denishc]

 Nagasaki for the longest time was considered "the forgotten bomb" and in recent thinking may have been needless.  Some historians now believe that the Japanese hierarchy feared more the entry of the Russians into the war againt them than the use of "The Bomb".  It was only after the Russians declared war against Japan that the Japanese sought to sue for peace.  

[ozzy72]

But at that time v.little was known about this, hence this Disease X stuff. It was definately radiation poisoning but in those days it could have been anything including ray guns sold to the US by little green men from Mars

[Felix/FFDS]

[quote]

[Ivan]

Page 4 gives the vague hint that the japanese did know something about the physics involved... and probably tried it on prisoners

[Saitek]

Chilling and sad - war always is. I always maintain though that without that millions of soldiers would have been lost and it was a question of either US soldiers or the enemy. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the US chose what the Japs would have done had they had the technology and went ahead. There are three good reasons in the US defence.

1) They never could have imagined that a nuclear bomb was so dangerous. They knew little on radiation. There are pictures of US soldiers experimeting with the test ones fully exposed. This shows how they didn't appreciate what the aftermath of the bombs capabilities were.
2) The Japs did not surrender under Little Boy. They were that determined that it took Fat man to ensure surrender. This shows that when they understood the results they did not give in. Therefore the US were fair to use them.
3) WWII was not soldiers v soldiers. It was all about bombing civilians too (who were just as much part of the war really) and that was the way war was fought. The US did not break the rules and just because the atom bomb obliterated in one big sweep does not mean that it is unjustifed and that a million small incidiary bombs would have been better!

[denishc]

 Had Japan not surrendered and an invasion of the home island taken place the use of the A-bomb would have figured prominently in the invasion plans.  At the time the U.S. had enought fissionable material available for three more bombs.  One would have been used to clear the beach head for the invasion, the second would have been used to halt any Japanese counter attack on the invasion force and I can't remember how the third was to be used.  Either way their use would have ment that allied troops would have to march through "the bombs" fallout and exposed the troops to radiation poisoning.

[WebbPA]

First, the "new" article is nothing new.  If you want to read the definitive work on the atomic bombings read John Hershey's "Hiroshima".

Second, the politics.  I am sick of revisionist historians second guessing the orders of the president of the United States.  All reliable sources estimated American casualties in an invasion of Japan at 1,000,000.  I don't know about you but if I had a choice of a million Americans dead or a half million Japanese dead I would damn sure go with the Japanese dead.

Third, the intentional bombing of civilian targets.  That's touchy and I think all sides were in some degree gulty of it.  I would like to point out, though, that "Bomber Harris" of the RAF made no bones about giving back as good as we got while the Americans, theoretically at least, insisted on bombing only military targets.  It's not our fault if you put a  bomb factory in a residential neighborhood.

Fourth, the Soviet Union.  Between Stalin and Hitler they lost 10 million people.  I appreciate their efforts but I don't agree with giving them half of Europe as a reward.  The Soviet Union declared war on Japan after Japan was reduced to a smoking hulk, hoping to regain some God forsaken islands that they lost 50 years previously.

[Flt.Lt.Andrew]

The good thing about Japan surrendering so quickly after the second atomic bomb explosion is that more weren't used after the invasion of the home islands.
That said, I can understand but not condone the use of such weapons, after the atrocities that the Japanese had committed- dead Australians being eaten, Chinese prisoners used as bayonet practice, Chinese prisoners being used as practice jobs for field surgeons, all of this could lead someone to say "now we're 'even steven'". Its a messy thing, and it would be shallow to say that one could forgive and forget without a hint of retribution when one says it.
Its a bizarre kind of moralistic violence.

A.

[H]

We can condemn things as acts of vengeance (something we can't control in a peacetime setting -- elsewise we'd have had fewer wars)  which, sadly, only too often victimizes those not even involved with its cause. Nevertheless, the longer any war continues the more damage and loss of life. As a number of these posts indicate, if WW2 continued its course, Japan would still have lost at least as many lives (though the ratio of civilian/military would have been quite different) and the U.S. would have lost many, many more.
I don't care much for 1st person "shooter" games (and don't comprehend those who lose the distinction between fantasy/reality) but try Combat Flight Simulator -- with the hope that "as real as it gets" is "as real as it will ever be" -- and keep your wars to yourself.

[Flt.Lt.Andrew]

Thats pretty slack, considering that wars occur all the time and that there are people/were people conscientious enough to take on the 'oppresors' and actually risk their own lives for a very real set of pains and emotions that our own highyl conservative, yet liberalistic hypocritcal society shields us from.

A.

[WebbPA]

I do not see the use of the atomic bomb in WW2 as involving any sense of vengance.

It was a military decision designed to shorten (end) the war.  I doubt that President Wilson leaped with joy about the opportunity to kill a million Japanese.

Would we have used it in Europe if it had been available?  I have no doubt that we would have dropped one on Berlin and I would have no qualms defending President Wilson's decision to do so.

I would, however, have problems with General Ripper's (Dr. Strangelove) advice to bomb Moscow.

(Yeah, um, Truman.)

[H]

I do not see the use of the atomic bomb in WW2 as involving any sense of vengeance.

I doubt that President Wilson leaped with joy about the opportunity to kill a million Japanese... I have no doubt that we would have dropped one on Berlin and I would have no qualms defending President Wilson's decision to do so.

I wouldn't  expect that 'President Wilson' would have leapt for joy, either -- considering that Japan wasn't one of the Central Powers during his WW1 presidency; neither did Truman (FDR's WW2 successor) do so and, in fact, we may have dropped them sooner had he thought it such a thrill.
As to 'vengeance' -- that was my point; I've had others call it that (and war in general, for that matter). One has been able to join the U.S. military as a 'conscientious objector' and, thereby, utilized in a 'non-combat' role. I could not "conscientiously" do so because, although I may refuse to go off on a killing spree just because someone like Himmler orders it (howbeit, that is much, much easier said than applied; almost as bad -- he had my 2 initials... UUUUGGHHHH!), I can counterattack, even for someone else's cause.
Not every German was a Nazi nor every Nazi a murderer or rapist; these things happened to the German citizenry when finally invaded. The major excuse was that "they did it to us" but the ones who became the victims were most often not the perpetrators.