Enola Gay!

[Unkotare]

Feel free to answer my question before asking one of your own.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Feel free to answer my question before asking one of your own.

Try reading, I did.

 

[Unkotare]

Feel free to answer my question before asking one of your own.

Try reading, I did.

No, you did not.

 

[Old Rocks]

An American doctor that was a prisoner of war in 1945 in Japan was told of a 'new' atomic weapon that had been dropped on Hiroshima. He remarked that the war would be over in a week.

And yes in the end it was better that the bombs were dropped. They likely saved a couple million Japanese lives and half a million U.S. lives.

So, would you advocate the deliberate targeting and killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians in a conflict today?

Absolutely, if it would save millions of civilian lives. That is what the dropping of the bomb did. You can say it wasn't neccessary all you want, but the Japanese were not going to surrender under any other circumstances. Their bravery was admirable, their fanaticism despicable.

 

[whitehall]

The FDR administration was strange and grew stranger through his 3rd and (short) 4th term. Apparently the chosen heir apparent, little timid clothing store owner without a college education Harry Truman wasn't trusted enough to be briefed on the Atomic Weapon even after he woke up one morning in April 1945 and found himself president. FDR was a dying man when he authorized the invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945. Everyone knew Iwo had been fortified for forty years and any invasion would be a suicide mission and the Navy refused to bomb the island for the time period requested by Marine commanders. It isn't like they had more pressing missions it's just that the intent was to keep enough Japanese alive to illustrate the determination of the Japanese not to surrender..Iwo Jima was a suicide mission to convince reluctant politicians and members of the military to authorize the incineration of Japanese civilians with the Atomic bomb that the eggheads were dying to try out on (sub) humans. Think about it, the stated mission to take Iwo was to suppress Japanese fighter planes from harassing B-29's but it didn't make any sense. The B-29's could have reduced the Iwo landing strip to volcanic rubble in a single raid. After 6,000 Marines were killed in a couple of weeks taking the God forsaken island the stated intent of the mission was revised and changed and surprise surprise the new mission format stated that Iwo provided a landing site for crippled B-29's. Yeah I know that plane after plane landed on Iwo after it was taken but nobody ever considered whether they could have stayed in the air another two hours and made it to Saipan or Tinian which was the usual landing sites before Iwo was taken at such a cost. Did it make any sense to sacrifice 6,000 Marines to cut 700 miles from the return trip from Japan? Iwo Jima was part of the propaganda mission to convince the holdouts in congress and the military to authorize the use of the horrific weapon on civilians of a defeated country which was already negotiating surrender terms.

 

[regent]

One of the problems of not knowing the future is preparing for different eventualities and unknowns.
Now knowing what occurred we can argue how we should have done it differently, such is the wisdom of Monday morning quarterbacking. Before an invasion there was a lot of soul searching and what-if's, and they decided to go ahead. In addition to the crews saved were the airplanes and they too were valuable at that time.
If you didn't approve of the Iwo invasion you should have spoken up at that time. There were a number of invasions that we probably regret but except for glamorizing some generals most were probably done in good faith.

 

[regent]

One might add this to the question of should we have invaded Iwo: When the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi, why did the Secretary of Defense say, "The raising of the flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."

 

[namvet]

slap the Jap off the map

 

[namvet]

One might add this to the question of should we have invaded Iwo: When the flag was raised on Mount Suribachi, why did the Secretary of Defense say, "The raising of the flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."

yeah we needed that island

 

[Unkotare]

slap the Jap off the map

What the hell is wrong with you? Idiotic crap like that adds nothing to the discussion. It just reveals your personal lack of character.

 

[whitehall]

They dropped a Uranium bomb on Heroshima and a different Plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. Why didn't the Military go with what was a proven weapon on both targets? Answer: the civilian scientist eggheads were in a tizzy with the greatest experiment in the whole freaking history of the world of science, using human civilians as the biggest test tubes in history.

 

[regent]

What would be the arguments of people today and yesterday if they discovered we had two bombs that could have ended the war but didn't use them, and instead invaded Japan?

 

[IsaacNewton]

Many US soldiers in the Pacific who were going to be the ones to invade Japan had accepted that they would likely die as the invasion would be horrific. On hearing Japan had surrendered they all felt their lives had been delivered back to them, which they were. Hundreds of thousands of US soldiers would have died.

 

[Picaro]

Iwo was important as an emergency landing field for damaged bombers, and for search and rescue ops, so yes it was important, and for planes having mechanical difficulties and fuel leaks and the like as well. Maps are useful when studying history, you know ... along with at least attempting to read and understand history as it developed instead of backwards from the present, and in the latter case many still manage to get it wrong anyway.

No matter how much Unkatare snivels and whines, he still needs to keep his day job, because he isn't going to get any more reparations money.

 

[namvet]

Iwo was important as an emergency landing field for damaged bombers, and for search and rescue ops, so yes it was important, and for planes having mechanical difficulties and fuel leaks and the like as well. Maps are useful when studying history, you know ... along with at least attempting to read and understand history as it developed instead of backwards from the present, and in the latter case many still manage to get it wrong anyway.

No matter how much Unkatare snivels and whines, he still needs to keep his day job, because he isn't going to get any more reparations money.

it was also a forward "listening" post to warn the empire of approaching enemy fleets. and an air base for fighters to attack the B-29's.

 

[Picaro]

it was also a forward "listening" post to warn the empire of approaching enemy fleets. and an air base for fighters to attack the B-29's.

Yes, and the lessons learned at Iwo helped save many lives later on. Unlike the Soviets, American leaders, both political and military, did care about casualties and reducing them.

 

[Unkotare]

Iwo was important as an emergency landing field for damaged bombers, and for search and rescue ops, so yes it was important, and for planes having mechanical difficulties and fuel leaks and the like as well. Maps are useful when studying history, you know ... along with at least attempting to read and understand history as it developed instead of backwards from the present, and in the latter case many still manage to get it wrong anyway.

No matter how much Unkatare snivels and whines, he still needs to keep his day job, because he isn't going to get any more reparations money.

What the hell are you talking about?