Hiroshima – IOTW Report

Hiroshima

Monday, 6 August 2018, 11:48 BFH Uncategorized 30

AOL-

August 6, 1945: the bomb nicknamed ‘Little Boy’ flattens Hiroshima.

Almost 70% of buildings in Hiroshima were demolished in the blast. The skeleton of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, located only about 175 yards from the bomb’s hypocenter, stood starkly among the rubble and became a symbol of the devastation.

Does it say anything on the memorial plaque like, “we shouldn’t have sneak attacked the United States”?

Or, “maybe we should have surrendered when we saw those test bombs”?

 

30 Comments on Hiroshima

  5. Prior to dropping the first A-bomb Curtis LeMay’s air force dropped incendiary bombs on Tokyo killing around 100,000.
    Invasion plans were for around 600,000 troops and all the supply to support their effort. 250,000 body bags were ordered for the Allied troops, and estimates were that millions of Japanese would die during the invasion. Unlike in Europe, the Japanese treated their emperor as a god and would fight to the death for him. The US troops saw this in the islands they took – not only soldiers but women and children would fight to the end or commit suicide. This was an important factor – and in fact it was very important after Japan surrendered that the emperor announced publicly that Japanese were to lay down their arms.

    https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pacific-theater-operations

    17

  7. The two A-bombs still did not do the trick. On August 15, as I recall, the Emperor had decided to surrender and had made a recording to be broadcast to the people. Such a recording was a revolutionary idea — the Emperor had never spoken directly to the people like that before.

    The militarists in the government had other ideas. They were going to destroy the record and stage a coup. They murdered a member of the emperor’s staff who refused to disclose where the recording was.

    The coup began at 10 or 11 PM. It was thwarted by a conventional bombing mission. While Tokyo was not the target, the mission flew over Tokyo and this caused a blackout. The blackout crippled the coup. By morning, the coup was all but over and more rational heads were able to proceed towards peace.

    16

  8. While stationed in Japan in the 60’s I met a well to do Japanese businessman who told me that if it had not been for the bombs he wouldn’t be here now. He was 12 years old at the time and being trained to fly a plane on a one way mission and you know what that means. There were more Japanese people that felt that way than we were led to believe.

    13

  9. HST saved MILLIONS OF JAPANESE LIVES with those A bombs!

    I have a few relatives who killed Japs from ’43 – ’45. Bushido was a hard core version of the Corps belief “Never give up! Never surrender!” TheJaps fought to the death! I can name dozens of names but here are some where virtually no Jap did not follow “Do or DIE”: Tarawa, Kwajalien, Mt Suribatchi (Iwo Jima for non Jarheads)!

    Had we had to invade Japan millions of Japanese men and women would have “Done or Died” fighting us. We’d a won for sure ; but very much blood would have needlessly been shed!

    the A Bombs SAVED LIVES! Bush is wrong!

    PS
    I was born doing THE WAR; my recollections are second hand family history

    14

  12. “What the fuck was that?”
    (Werdafukawi, Mayor of Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945)

    “Don’t start no shit; won’t be no shit.”
    (Harry Truman)

    (yeah, I made all that up)

    izlamo delenda est …

    12

  15. The Japanese political/military leaders were 100% responsible for what befell the nation of Japan on those two fateful days! No apologies and no second-guessing for what had to be done by the US!

    13

  17. How about how it is taught and remembered in our own country? From the media coverage here one would think that Hiroshima is what started the war. The blame America crowd has taken over academia and the media.

    7

  22. Small price to pay for literally raping their Asian neighbors, pillaging their resources and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans (often with extreme cruelty).

    They engaged in the Devil’s work felt the wrath of Hell’s fire.

    8

  24. The choice was between invading Japan, upwards of 1 million US casualties.
    Drop the bombs, maybe 1 million Japanese killed.
    The war started with one surprise attack, and ended with two surprise attacks.

    3

  26. The Japanese High Command ordered that all of the POWs imprisioned in their prisoner of war camps (including civilians) were to be executed if the Allies invaded the any of the countries where they were being held. If the Home Islands were invaded, all of the POWs in Asia were to be executed immediately. They executed 139 POWs on Palawan Island on December 14,1944, when the commander mistakenly thought that American forces were about to invade the island. They were forced into air raid shelters and burned alive. Those that attempted to escape this carnage were shot and bayoneted fleeing the shelters. Only 11 men escaped this slaughter. Two brothers named Hubbard were murdered in this atrocity. I knew their younger brother, Dean Hubbard, in Nevada. The atomic bombs probably saved more than a hundred thousand prisoners of war. I never met anyone who was a captive of the Japs who didn’t think that Harry S. Truman hadn’t saved their lives.

    6

  27. Any shithead prog, commie, socialist or America-hating scumbag that teaches that Fat Man and Little Boy weren’t acts of mercy for both sides of that damn war needs to be recycled. Correction, just fucking recycle them anyway, they’re commies and that’s enough.

    2

  28. “The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, moves on.
    Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel
    half a Line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

    — Omar Khayyam

    You can argue the purpose and the morality of dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan and condemn it or justify it all you like until the end of Time, and ultimately only two things
    will matter:

    1. The Bomb was dropped.
    2. It cannot be undropped.

    6

  29. In the book, Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand wrote that Louis Zamperini, the subject of the book, wrote that he and other POWs saw children and elderly Japanese outside the prison camps being taught to hide in holes and attack Americans with sharpened bamboo. People were also being trained to set on the bottom of harbors or in deep water off other likely landing beaches, with an oxygen tank and mine, the plan was to float up and destroy landing craft.

    The Rip Van-Winkle of the era was Lt. Hiroo Onoda, one of the last Japanese holdout soldiers who continued to wage war in the Philippines until he was finally convinced to give it up in the mid 1970s. He was reportedly disgusted with the weakness of Japanese leaders after returning to Japan. Oddly, I found when I did an internet search for his name a rather large number of Christian websites showed up using Hiroo’s life as a good example of dedication to duty. Well, imo, that is a coin with a much larger flip side that says; wake up, smell the coffee, join the present time, and do something constructive with your life. Onoda’s book, No Surrender, makes interesting jungle survival reading. But he was a fanatic nutjob imo. Along with the other Japanese holdout soldiers in other islands.

    The bomb, likely spared the lives of my uncles Don, only in the pacific and Carl, who survived D-Day landing in Europe, the rest of the war in Europe and was in Hawaii headed west to invade Japan when the war ended.

  30. Japan did not know we had only two nuclear bombs and thought we would keep bombing until they surrendered or were obliterated.

    They also did not know HST was a poker player.

    “Surrender or be destroyed.”
    BOOM!

    “Surrender or be destroyed.”
    BOOM!

    “Surrender or be destroyed…”

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