Japan marks 76th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings

[2aguy]

No it isn't. Hiroshima was a huge military center with tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers and was the headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion of Japan.

The second atomic bomb was intended for Kokura Arsenal, a massive complex of factories that built Japan's light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and 20mm antiaircraft guns, as well as making the ammo for those guns.

Unfortunately there were difficulties and the second atomic bomb had to divert to its alternate target, Nagasaki, where it destroyed the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works (which made steel for Japanese warships and built naval torpedoes) and the Mitsubishi Ordnance Works (which built aerial torpedoes and had made special torpedoes just to defeat Pearl Harbor's defenses).



There are no records of this, but it wouldn't matter much even if it had been true. We had received no surrender offers at the time the bombs were dropped.



No. The US wanted Japan to surrender.



The headquarters in charge of repelling our invasion was a military target, and so were the tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers in Hiroshima.



Did you note the position of Hiroshima Castle in relation to the position of the T shaped bridge?



There was however a test at Trinity where we got lots of information on how a nuclear explosion would affect an urban area.



I am well aware of all the facts.

Thank you...the lies about dropping the bombs on the monsters in Japan get really old....the Japanese murdered close to 3 million civilians during their rampage across Asia.....civilians murdered, not as collateral damage in the war...the Sack of Nanking was just one of the atrocities committed by the Japanese, and the scrubbing of this history is really vile........

Had Germany not surrendered they would have had the bomb dropped on them......

 

[2aguy]

While the Soviet war declaration did scuttle Japan's plan to use the Soviets as mediators and force Japan to surrender to us directly, Japan's desire to escape the war predated this.

Japan started getting serious about trying to escape the war when we overran their defenses on Iwo Jima and Okinawa (which Japan had though would be able to resist our invasion).

I'd say the reason why Japan wanted out of the war was because they finally realized that we would keep on coming no matter what they did, and they would never be able to stop our invasion.



After the war, other officials expressed opposition to using the atomic bombs, but no other officials claim to have expressed that opposition during the war.

I think Ike probably did voice opposition during the war. It is recorded that he had a conversation with Stimson about the atomic bombs right when he claims that he expressed his opposition.

Ike also had all sorts of nutty opinions against nuclear weapons when he was president, so having opposed their use against Japan would fit right in with his usual behavior.



Not much of a democracy with the Japanese Army exercising unlimited dictatorial power in the name of the Emperor.



The US didn't fold. We refused to let Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.



That is hardly a fair characterization of southern civilians.



Japan's treatment had nothing to do with skin color. People were genuinely outraged over their atrocities.



Funny how Japan didn't manage to surrender until after the atomic bombs had already been dropped.

The civilians murdered by the Japanese...

From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture (such as the view that those enemy soldiers who surrender while still able to resist were criminals).
Table 3.1 presents the sources, estimates, and calculations on Japanese democide in World War II. There is one major omission, however. Democide in China during the Sino-Japanese War that begun in 1937, and merged with WWII in December 1941, is excluded. This democide has been separately calculated in Rummel (1994), and only the total derived there is given in the table (line 386) in calculating the overall democide.

The first part of the table (lines 2 to 42) calculates the number of Japanese that died in Japanese wars, 1937 to 1945. This amounted to 1,771,000 to 3,187,000 Japanese, most likely 2,521,000 (line 42). Of this number, 672,000 probably were civilians (line 32), virtually all killed in American air raids (including the two atomic bombs).

The first democide I consider is against prisoners of war and interned civilians (lines 45 to 93). Most of these figures are official, and were presented at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial.1 No figure for French POWs deaths in Indochina were available in the sources. I then estimated this from the total garrison (line 52) and the percent of POWs killed for other nations (line 53).

STATISTICS OF JAPANESE GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER

 

[JoeB131]

It seems like there was something else too, but I can't think of it at the moment. But in general, Ike was an overall menace to American security.

Yeah, you mean other than the whole "leading us to victory in WWII" and "Keeping WWIII from happening".

What, are you like 18? 20?

There were no peace overtures for anyone to reject, other than Japan's request to the Soviets to let Prince Konoye come and talk to them.

We did not reaffirm commitment to unconditional surrender. The Potsdam Proclamation was a list of generous surrender conditions.

NOt really... Again, have to ask if you are like 20 and learned this shit in a Christian College.

 

[JoeB131]

Thank you...the lies about dropping the bombs on the monsters in Japan get really old....the Japanese murdered close to 3 million civilians during their rampage across Asia.....civilians murdered, not as collateral damage in the war...the Sack of Nanking was just one of the atrocities committed by the Japanese, and the scrubbing of this history is really vile........

Uh, guy the only difference between War Heroes and War Criminals is the difference between winners and losers.

We'd be hearing all about the attrocities of Stalin and Churchill today if the Axis had won.

There was no real reason to drop the bombs. Japan was defeated, and everyone knew it.

Had Germany not surrendered they would have had the bomb dropped on them......

No they wouldn't have.

They were white people.

 

[Open Bolt]

NOt really...

Yes really. Japan provided us with no peace overtures to react to.

And the Potsdam Proclamation was a list of generous surrender terms.

There was no real reason to drop the bombs.

Sure there was. Japan was refusing to surrender.

Japan was defeated, and everyone knew it.

Funny how they kept refusing to surrender.

No they wouldn't have.

That is incorrect. The atomic bombs would have been dropped on Germany had they been available.

They were white people.

Irrelevant.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Yes really. Japan provided us with no peace overtures to react to.

And the Potsdam Proclamation was a list of generous surrender terms.



Sure there was. Japan was refusing to surrender.



Funny how they kept refusing to surrender.



That is incorrect. The atomic bombs would have been dropped on Germany had they been available.



Irrelevant.

Yup this tired refrain from idiots we wouldnt have nuked Germany IGNORES the fact that the allies FIREBOMBED German cities with hundreds of bombers.

 

[JoeB131]

Yes really. Japan provided us with no peace overtures to react to.

And the Potsdam Proclamation was a list of generous surrender terms.

You have to give up all your colonies and your form of government and submit to a partition of your country (the original plan was to partition Japan like they did Germany, which means a lot of Japanese women were going to get raped by Russian soldiers, just like the German women.)

 

[Open Bolt]

You have to give up all your colonies and your form of government and submit to a partition of your country (the original plan was to partition Japan like they did Germany, which means a lot of Japanese women were going to get raped by Russian soldiers, just like the German women.)

The Potsdam Proclamation did require Japan to give up their colonies (and rightfully so).

It did not address the other two subjects. If Japan had wanted to clarify the terms regarding the other two subjects, they could have tried communicating with us.

 

[JoeB131]

The Potsdam Proclamation did require Japan to give up their colonies (and rightfully so).

It did not address the other two subjects. If Japan had wanted to clarify the terms regarding the other two subjects, they could have tried communicating with us.

Did it require the Allies to give up THEIR colonies? Then, no, it wasn't rightfully so.

Japan did try communicating with us, through the Russians and Swiss.

We dropped the bombs anyway.

Then when it was clear Russia would get all the goodies if the war dragged on much longer, we caved on most of our demands.

You see, the original plan called for Japan to be partitioned like Germany was.

Besides realizing that the Brits were m ore interested in re-establishing their own Empire and the Chinese were in too much of a mess to do their part, the Americans were VERY Panicked about Soviet North Japan. So they pushed for a solution that would leave America in charge of the occupation. The USSR got Manchuria and North Korea and the Southern half of Sakhalin

In short, the allies couldn't wait for the war to end before they started stabbing each other in the back.

 

[Open Bolt]

Did it require the Allies to give up THEIR colonies? Then, no, it wasn't rightfully so.

Japan was the only one who was surrendering. It is proper that they were the only ones who had limits placed on them in the surrender terms.

Japan did try communicating with us, through the Russians and Swiss.

The communications through the Swiss did not come from the Japanese government.

The communications to the Russians merely asked them to let Prince Konoye come talk to them. This might have led to eventual communication with us, but there were no communications coming to us through Russia when the atomic bombs were dropped.

Then when it was clear Russia would get all the goodies if the war dragged on much longer, we caved on most of our demands.

If you mean giving up on unconditional surrender, it was more our fear of the bloodbath when we invaded that caused us to give that up.

Besides realizing that the Brits were more interested in re-establishing their own Empire and the Chinese were in too much of a mess to do their part, the Americans were VERY Panicked about Soviet North Japan. So they pushed for a solution that would leave America in charge of the occupation.

That was only possible because Japan surrendered before invasion. Had we gone ahead with the invasion we would have wanted Russia to invade Hokkaido in order to distract the Japanese defenses.

In short, the allies couldn't wait for the war to end before they started stabbing each other in the back.

Well it was clear by that point that Russia was evil, so yes.

 

[2aguy]

Uh, guy the only difference between War Heroes and War Criminals is the difference between winners and losers.

We'd be hearing all about the attrocities of Stalin and Churchill today if the Axis had won.

There was no real reason to drop the bombs. Japan was defeated, and everyone knew it.


No they wouldn't have.

They were white people.

Moron, the bombs were originally planned to be dropped on Germany, but they surrendered...you idiot.

 

[JoeB131]

Japan was the only one who was surrendering. It is proper that they were the only ones who had limits placed on them in the surrender terms.

Actually, what was proper was being fairly reasonable. We've been stuck in that part of the world ever since 1945 because Japan is no longer a great power. We've fought two more wars since then.

If you mean giving up on unconditional surrender, it was more our fear of the bloodbath when we invaded that caused us to give that up.

Actually, it was our fear that the Russians would take over the entirety of East Asia, which they almost very well did.

Now, imagine if the war dragged on for another year, with Russia overrunning China, Korea, Northern Japan.

We dropped the bombs to intimate Russia. When we failed to do so, we accepted reduced surrender terms and Hirohito didn't end up at the end of the noose he fully earned as a War Criminal.

 

[elektra]

Actually, what was proper was being fairly reasonable. We've been stuck in that part of the world ever since 1945 because Japan is no longer a great power. We've fought two more wars since then.



Actually, it was our fear that the Russians would take over the entirety of East Asia, which they almost very well did.

Now, imagine if the war dragged on for another year, with Russia overrunning China, Korea, Northern Japan.

We dropped the bombs to intimate Russia. When we failed to do so, we accepted reduced surrender terms and Hirohito didn't end up at the end of the noose he fully earned as a War Criminal.

pure ignorance

 

[Open Bolt]

Actually, what was proper was being fairly reasonable.

We were entirely reasonable.

We've been stuck in that part of the world ever since 1945 because Japan is no longer a great power. We've fought two more wars since then.

Good.

Actually, it was our fear that the Russians would take over the entirety of East Asia, which they almost very well did.

All the records of people advising Truman to back off from unconditional surrender show that their concern was the horrible bloodbath when we invaded.

Now, imagine if the war dragged on for another year, with Russia overrunning China, Korea, Northern Japan.

Yes. Russia was clearly evil.

But as great and as justified as our fears of Russian involvement were, we were offering Russia part of Japan in exchange for their help during the invasion if invasion became necessary. That's how worried we were about the carnage.

We dropped the bombs to intimate Russia.

That is incorrect. We dropped the atomic bombs to intimidate Japan.

We would have dropped the atomic bombs on the same schedule even if Russia didn't exist.

When we failed to do so, we accepted reduced surrender terms

We backed away from unconditional surrender long before the atomic bombs had even been dropped.

and Hirohito didn't end up at the end of the noose he fully earned as a War Criminal.

The carnage of the atomic bombs was a stand-in for justice however.

 

[JoeB131]

We were entirely reasonable.

Well, no, we really weren't in our initial insistence that Hirohito abdicate, as he was an important part of the culture of Japan. People who understood Japanese culture at the time explained that to the brain trust and were largely ignored.

All the records of people advising Truman to back off from unconditional surrender show that their concern was the horrible bloodbath when we invaded.

But as great and as justified as our fears of Russian involvement were, we were offering Russia part of Japan in exchange for their help during the invasion if invasion became necessary. That's how worried we were about the carnage.

Were we though? At that point, the war had dragged on for 6 years (longer if you count when Japan invaded China) and 70 million people had already died. If anything, we became largely numb to it.

To be fair, at the time, I doubt anyone gave the kind of thought to dropping the bomb we give now. It was just another weapon. Nobody really thought it was going to end the war. A lot of the hand-wringing we do now is because we've lived under the existential dread of nuclear annihilation. In world without nukes, the World would be marching on Moscow right now.

You also have to keep in mind that when we made the intitial agreements with Russia on Japan, and when we saw what Russia was doing in Eastern Europe, we had some buyer's remorse about it. We knew Russia would be an adversary before the war was over, and we were willing to make concessions to the Japanese to prevent them

 

[Ringo]

The authorities of Hiroshima did not invite representatives of Russia to the annual ceremony of remembrance of the victims of the atomic bombing, but at the same time, representatives of the United States were invited... Probably to thank them?
It's only logical, without the USA there would not be this bright holiday!