Muzlim rubbish

[Man of 1951]

yeah i know spill mind......but its tough not to get angry against such supreme ignor......sorry ill stop.

 

[jimnyc]

The World Health Organization has stated in the past that Iraqi documents uncovered since the end of the war suggest that up to 5 million Iraqis were executed or died in prison under Hussein's government.

Do you dispute the WHO's findings?

Of course only certain numbers can be substantiated at this time, but the list is getting larger almost daily. As they find more mass graves and verify missing persons you'll finally see the catastrophic numbers.

And has grown since I first typed that!

'You like the boobies in my picture? Wish you had some huh? Sucks to have nothing but them smelly, hairy beasts around you, doesn't it! Damn, no wonder you cover their faces!

That was a reference to the avatar I was using at the time, better boobs on that avatar than any muslim has ever seen. I still say it sucks royally to be stuck with all those nasty creatures walking around! Yek!

Seriously, just kidding about picking on the women. I hate all you scumbags.

Wasn't kidding, and I do hate them.

Let me change that, don't wanna generalize about all you dirty brown people. I only hate 99.9% of you! Didn't Cassius Clay convert? He was cool. The rest of you still suck!

I might have been off a few percentage points here, probably more like 97.6%

not much to say to this jim, except your same old tired, reaching insults... *yawn*

I won't reach far with this one: I hope you and your entire family dies!

 

[Man of 1951]

You know Jim, in all honesty you aren't thinking straight.
Anwwer this: Do you consider yourself to be racist? (HINT: i think you are, just want to know if you think you are)

Originally posted by jimnyc
Wasn't kidding, and I do hate them. [/B]

Jim think reasonable here. You are blaming people for where they are born (in reference to being brown/arabic). I hope you know that Osama uses this same hatred that you display here to convince people to do the suicide bombing. Come on man...think. You are a father here, image a father there. Over there, people are still fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. They are people, just the same as you. You simply showing blind hatred...and thats exactly the same disease Osama has.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Man of 1951
You know Jim, in all honesty you aren't thinking straight.
Anwwer this: Do you consider yourself to be racist? (HINT: i think you are, just want to know if you think you are)



Jim think reasonable here. You are blaming people for where they are born (in reference to being brown/arabic). I hope you know that Osama uses this same hatred that you display here to convince people to do the suicide bombing. Come on man...think. You are a father here, image a father there. Over there, people are still fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. They are people, just the same as you. You simply showing blind hatred...and thats exactly the same disease Osama has.

Am I racist? Abso-fucking-lutely!

As a father, do I want my son to have similar traits? No, not at all. I've already begun to teach him to respect anyone and everyone. I'm afraid he'll see a lot of society for who they really are someday though, by then he'll be man enough to make his own distinctions.

 

[5stringJeff]

Originally posted by Man of 1951
To tell you the truth, that arguement is useless, General Hap was in the Air force (btw what kind of bias does that give??) and im sure (without offence) that he knew more of the situation then what you just said.

The Air Force has long maintained that they can win wars without the use of ground troops. It's one of the bigger arguments in the military today.
But... in June of 1945, I'm sure that his well-informed opinion was that they could bomb the will out of the Japanese to keep fighting. I disagree, as do many historians I have read, based on the increasing intensity that the Japanese showed while fighting for Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Second, sure an invasion would have resulted in the loss of many lives, but then again it still wouldn't have been necessary because Japan would have surrendered before the invasion was initiated. Also, the atomic bombs broke many international rules of using poisonous weapons during war, which atomic bombs are categorized because of the radiation.
...
My point exactly...a few months......then when a country goes without any food, or any useful supplies to keep them fighting the war they would have surrendered....within a 'few months' thus avoiding the loss of the hundreds of thousands of lives from the atomic bombs.

Again, I disagree that the Japanese would have capitulated without the use of ground troops. If we had started a blockade of Japan in August of 1945, how long would it have taken to break the will of Japan? Six months? A year? We'll never know, of course, but we weren't going to wait it out anyway - we were going to invade, and that would have cost one million American lives, not to mention a million or more Japanese lives.
As far as breaking international rules about poison, etc., see my earlier post regarding the use of a-bombs. I don't think the Geneva conventions came about until after WWII, anyway... I might be wrong on that though. The point is, though, that atomic weapons were designed to be a more efficient way to firebomb, not a way to irradiate a city.

 

[jimnyc]

Love the new avatar, Jeff!

"American infedels will all commit suicide at the gates of Baghdad"

:ali:

 

[5stringJeff]

Thanks... this guy is so hilarious!

"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"

"We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly."

This will link to all his quotes:

http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

Jeff

 

[Spirit_Soul]

To Man Of 1951,

We can learn from our past, however we cannot predict exactly what would have happened if an action was taken or was not, unless we are all knowing, but that is not possible.

Anyway, I agree with you completely if your intention was to make us aware of the point that we need to learn from our past actions to prevent the future disasters


Also, Please Jimcy ,in order to get your point across, I think it would be very civil of you to first disarm the individual you are talking to. Then, try to explain what that truth is.

:cof: I will be watching this I think this would be a wonderful discussion if the rather immature insults like "dirty brown people" or " I wish your entire family dies!" were taken out of the picture. thanks for reading

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Spirit_Soul
Also, Please Jimcy ,in order to get your point across, I think it would be very civil of you to first disarm the individual you are talking to. Then, try to explain what that truth is.

:cof: I will be watching this I think this would be a wonderful discussion if the rather immature insults like "dirty brown people" or " I wish your entire family dies!" were taken out of the picture. thanks for reading

Trying to disarm Spillmind is like trying to remove the stink from shit!

Enough complaints, I'll bow out now as requested and watch from the sidelines.

 

[janeeng]

WHIMP!!!! haha!

 

[Man of 1951]

Originally posted by gop_jeff
As far as breaking international rules about poison, etc., see my earlier post regarding the use of a-bombs. I don't think the Geneva conventions came about until after WWII, anyway... I might be wrong on that though. The point is, though, that atomic weapons were designed to be a more efficient way to firebomb, not a way to irradiate a city.

research for the Hague in 1899 and the 1907 banning the use of "poisoned weapons" in war. League of Nations resolution in 1938 outlawing the intentional bombing of civilians.
It doesn't matter what they were designed to be, they still irradicate cities when used.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/hsp/Hague1899.html

Jim:
Come on, if you admit yourself to being a racist, and don't want your kid to grow up being a racist answer this: Is racism a bad thing?

and if it is bad, why don't you try to better yourself, and see how your racist beliefs cloud your judgement.

 

[janeeng]

Hey Man, just because an adult MIGHT be racist, doesn't mean that they will expose that to their kids. Certain indivuals make me sick, but that's what I would fee, not for my kids to know or think. If I don't like something, doesn't mean I am going to bring my child into hate as well. That's not right to think that! Not EVERY parent teaches their children hate, even IF they were to hate.

 

[eric]

For the man of '51,

Hypocrisy at its finest. I love when people bring up the Geneva Convention and like documents. Talk about making yourself feel better. Let us look at its basic premise:

It is ok to kill people, just not certain ways. How you kill someone is more important than the act of killing itself?

It is ok to kill some people, just not others. It is not ok to kill civilians, but it is ok to kill young, inexperienced men, many of whom truly believing they are defending their families and their homeland. These are evil men who deserve to die, right?

It is ok to kill people, but it is not ok to parade prisoners in public. What the hell is that?

War is an uncilivilized act in and amongst itself. At times necessary, in my humble opinion, but uncivilized nonetheless. So let us not try and make ourselves feel better about it by believing we are doing it the right way.

Now I do not suggest that we should kill civilians, of course we should avoid as much killing as possible, but to start an in depth analysis of the rules of war to me is both futile and hypocritical.

I many times believe god created us to get a good laugh on a daily basis. The bible says, “thou shall not kill”, it does not say “thou shall not kill, unless . . . “. We added the rest.

Do I believe it is ok to kill? No I do not. Do I believe it is necessary to kill? Yes I do, but it is still not right no matter how I try and justify it. Necessary not right. So lets stop fooling ourselves.

Some things are black and white. We created the shades of gray.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by Man of 1951

Jim:
Come on, if you admit yourself to being a racist, and don't want your kid to grow up being a racist answer this: Is racism a bad thing?

and if it is bad, why don't you try to better yourself, and see how your racist beliefs cloud your judgement.

I don't think racism is bad, but I don't believe in pushing your beliefs on others.

My son will be free to make up his own mind about what he wants and expects out of life. I will guide him with my love and support for him in whatever he does.

I haven't the need nor the desire to better myself. I'm quite happy with who I am and where I am in life. My personal accomplishments speak for themselves. With or without racism I can make solid judgements. I may not want to deal with other races on a daily basis, but I can admit when they have been wronged.

My comments about an entire race were inappropriate.

 

[Man of 1951]

eric:

WOW...that was some stuff you put there......I COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY AGREE WITH WHAT YOU SAID.

I do believe that killing a human is tragic and wrong, and war itself is a tragedy. But i was just saying even though america broke international law at the time, nobody said a word about it.
You said that it is necessary to kill people though, that is a contrary to what you said though.....if killing is wrong, does it matter whether its necessary or not. The reason i say this is because it being necessary depends on the person. What you may say about the necessity of killing will differ from person to person. But the fundamental fact is that killing is wrong, whether its a military person or a civilian (the difference is that a military person decides to put their life on the line, therefore knows that they may die, while a civilian did not and therefore does not expect to die in a war). But even so killing a military person or a civilian should be considered the same thing, because mostly, soldiers follow orders, whether they believe in it or not, so they are still victims of war. War is uncivilized and humans have been plagued with it. PPL say as long as there is conflict there will be war....but i believe that its one thing to discuss different opinions, trying to open the minds of other people to your perspective, and its another thing to pull out a gun and shoot to force the opinion. People then say its human nature....but whether its human nature or not, its still utterly tragic and wrong.

Jim:
I truly hope that your son grows up making his own mind, but mind you, your great influence on him can significantly change him. Either way, i appreciate your acknowledgement to what you had said before.
Also, I don't intend to force my opinion to others, I simply haven't been given an arguement valid enough to change my opinion. I'm just here to voice my opinion.
I'm sure that your personal accomplishments have been great, but imagine how much greater they would be if you begin dealing with other races. Imagine how much mroe prosperous you would become, and how much mroe prosperous you would make the world around you.

Again i appreciate your acknowledgement to what you had said before.

 

[NightTrain]

But i was just saying even though america broke international law at the time, nobody said a word about it.

Interesting.. since that was brand new cutting-edge technology, I'd have to confidently say that nukes had yet to be discussed in the League of Nations. BTW - wasn't the League of Nations deemed irrelevant immediately prior to WWII?

Nevertheless; nukes were certainly never discussed and of course were not covered in any international agreements. Chemical weapons were discussed after the chem-fest that happened during WWI, that's about it as far as I know.

 

[NightTrain]

GENERAL GEORGE C. MARSHALL

and the

ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN


General George C. Marshall was the U.S. Army Chief of Staff during WWII, the highest ranking U.S. Army officer. He had known of the atomic bomb project at least as far back as Oct. 1941, when he was appointed to the small group which would oversee the project, the Top Policy Group.

In 1942 the a-bomb project was turned over to the Army and became the Manhattan Project. It now fell under Marshall's chain of command as Army Chief of Staff. But his role in the atomic bomb project and the atomic bombing of Japan was largely indirect. He delegated most of the work to the general in charge of the Manhattan Project, Leslie Groves, and he deferred to civilians on decision-making.

For his part Marshall, along with Sec. of War Henry Stimson, obtained the enormous amounts of money necessary for the secret project. This was no easy task, since Congress could be told little about where the money was going.

Marshall's main task in 1945 was to prepare for a possible invasion of mainland Japan, scheduled to begin that year on Nov. 1st. He felt the decision to use the atomic bomb - to introduce a new and more dangerous level of warfare to the world - was a political rather than military decision. Assistant Sec. of War John McCloy recalled:


"[Marshall's] insistence to me that whether we should drop an atomic bomb on Japan was a matter for the President to decide, not the Chief of Staff since it was not a military question... the question of whether we should drop this new bomb on Japan, in his judgment, involved such imponderable considerations as to remove it from the field of a military decision." (quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 364).
McCloy said Marshall told him, "Don't ask me to make the decision." (Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman 1945-1959, pg. 550, note 30).

But Marshall had been thinking about the atomic bomb. He didn't press his ideas, probably because he felt this was more of a political matter than a military matter. Here are some of Marshall's ideas, documented at the time:


The minutes from a May 29, 1945 meeting of Marshall with Sec. of War Stimson and Assistant Sec. of War McCloy note that "General Marshall said he thought these weapons [atomic bombs] might first be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that, he thought we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which the people would be warned to leave - telling the Japanese that we intended to destroy such centers. There would be no individual designations so that the Japs [sic] would not know exactly where we were to hit - a number should be named and the hit should follow shortly after. Every effort should be made to keep our record of warning clear. We must offset by such warning methods the opprobrium which might follow from an ill considered employment of such force." (RG 107, Formerly Top Secret Correspondence of Sec. of War Stimson ("Safe File") 7/40 - 9/45, S-1 folder, Memorandum of Conversation With General Marshall, May 29, 1945 - 11:45 a.m., National Archives).

At a May 31, 1945 Interim Committee discussion of the atomic bomb, scientist and Manhattan Project administrator Arthur Compton was present. He recalled, "General Marshall stated that from the point of view of the postwar safety of the nation he would have to argue against the use of the bomb in World War II, at least if its existence could be kept secret. Such use, he said, would show our hand. We would be in a stronger position with regard to future military action if we did not show the power we held." (Arthur Holly Compton, Atomic Quest, pg. 237). Scientists at the meeting then explained that the scientific knowledge was already too widely known to keep the a-bomb a secret. (Microfilm 1108, RG 77, Harrison-Bundy Files, file 100, Notes of the Interim Committee Meeting, Thursday, 31 May 1945, National Archives).

Later at the May 31 meeting, Marshall supported J. Robert Oppenheimer's suggestion that we tell Russia we were working on the atomic bomb. The meeting notes show that Marshall also "raised the question whether it might be desirable to invite two prominent Russian scientists to witness the test." Any approach to Russia was quickly vetoed at the meeting by soon-to-be Sec. of State James Byrnes. Byrnes feared Stalin would ask to become a partner in the a-bomb project, causing us to lose our lead over Russia in nuclear weapons. (Ibid.).
Arthur Compton later wrote, "At this meeting... Marshall was careful to avoid any statement that might prejudice the thinking of the civilian committee." (Compton, Atomic Quest, pg. 238). Marshall went along with the Interim Committee's recommendation to use the atomic bomb on Japan.

There is no evidence from this point on that Marshall objected to the use of the atomic bomb on Japan. After WWII, Marshall was a staunch defender of the atomic bombings (Larry I. Bland, editor, George C. Marshall: Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue).

But Marshall probably did not think the atomic bombs would end the war. After a talk with Marshall about the atomic bomb on June 12, 1947, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman David Lilienthal quoted Marshall in his diary as saying:


"There is one point that was missed, and that, frankly, we missed in making our plans. That was the effect the bomb would have in so shocking the Japanese that they could surrender without losing face. ...we didn't realize its value to give the Japanese such a shock that they could surrender without complete loss of face." (David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume Two: The Atomic Energy Years, 1945-1950, pg. 198).
Though the a-bomb might not end the war quickly, Marshall felt the atomic bomb could be useful in his primary area of responsibility, the proposed invasion of the Japanese mainland.

On Aug. 13, after two a-bombings had failed to bring surrender from Japan, one of Marshall's assistants, Lt. Gen. John Hull, telephoned one of Gen. Groves' assistants, Col. L.E. Seeman. Hull said Marshall felt we should consider holding off on further atomic bombings so as to save the a-bombs for tactical use as part of the November invasion. (Marc Gallicchio, After Nagasaki: General Marshall's Plan for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan, Prologue, Winter 1991).

In 1957, Marshall gave some details of his invasion plans for the atomic bomb:


"There were three corps to come in there [to invade Japan], as I recall. ...there were to be three bombs for each corps that was landing. One or two, but probably one, as a preliminary, then this landing, then another one further inland against the immediate supports, and then the third against any troops that might try to come through the mountains from up on the Inland Sea. That was the rough idea in our minds." (Bland, George C. Marshall: Interviews and Reminiscences for Forrest C. Pogue, pg. 424).
It was characteristic of Marshall that while others were celebrating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gen. Groves recalled that "General Marshall expressed his feeling that we should guard against too much gratification over our success, because it undoubtedly involved a large number of Japanese casualties." (Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told, pg. 324).

- Doug Long



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For further information:

Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb

Ed Cray, General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman

Marc Gallicchio, After Nagasaki: General Marshall's Plan for Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Japan, Prologue, Winter 1991

David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, Volume Two: The Atomic Energy Years, 1945-1950

Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman 1945-1959

 

[NightTrain]

*** I humbly suggest that Scowen learn a little before making ignorant accusations. The bomb was definitely the correct thing to do. Liberals would have you believe otherwise. ***

The End of WWII
by Haile H. Jaekel

This article was written by USS SLC WWII Veteran H. H. Jaekel in 1996 to the University on behalf of his granddaughter when he found out what a text book she was using said about the dropping of the atomic bomb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The end of World War II, described by most of our Educational institutions and the Media, especially during 50th anniversary year, centers around the use of the Atomic Bomb. They fail to remember what happened at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, (that started the whole thing in the first place), the Bataan Death March, the Japanese Hell Ship (where 1800 American Prisoners prayed to die and all but 8 got their wish), the Rape of Nanking, plus many other deceitful acts and atrocities not mentioned in this article.

They failed to look at the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland and the enormous cost in human lives on both sides that would have occurred.

They failed to include the planned invasion, that became unnecessary after the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki, August 9, 1945, plus the acceptance of Allied Surrender Terms, August 14, 1945.

All of the above events and many other facts must also be included in the history books and be part of the equation.

This is what happened after the Japanese surrender, 14th of August, 1945 and what could have happened.

Deep in the National Archives hidden for decades, lie thousands of pages of dusty yellowing documents stamped "TOP SECRET". These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese Homeland during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied Invasion of the Japanese Homeland. Even fewer today are aware of the defense the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it occurred.

"Japan, loser of the Pacific War, still had plenty of deadly weapons to defend its homeland against invasion. Any invasion attempt would have been Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and all the other bloody Pacific battles wrapped into one."

The demolition teams started to neutralize Japanese defenses, August 28, 1945, in Tokyo Bay and on mainland Japan, prior to the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri , September 2, 1945. After the initial "demilitarization" of ships in Tokyo Bay was completed, IE: (destroying ammunition, dismantling guns and throwing the breeches overboard), the teams moved inland. There they blew up fleets of suicide boats moored all along the coast, exploded torpedoes, disabled or destroyed two man "suicide" submarines. In caves that honeycomb the coastline, the big coastal defense guns were blown up.

"Weapons guarding the Japanese homeland were insidiously camouflaged." Gun emplacements were buried in craggy hillsides. Their ammunition supplies moved through a series of underground tunnels on tiny railroads they could have never be seen by invaders from the sea or air. Huge caves had been hollowed out in the hills along the coast. These were crammed with heavy armaments, torpedoes, small suicide submarines, mines and all manner of explosive devices.

The Invasion of Japan, OPERATION DOWNFALL, called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire.

In the first invasion, (code named OPERATION OLYMPIC), combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945. Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and air bombardment.

The second invasion on March 1, 1946, (code named OPERATION CORONET), would send 22 combat divisions against one million Japanese defenders of the main island of Honshu. Its goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan.

OPERATION DOWNFALL was to be a strictly American operation, except for a part of the British Pacific Fleet. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the Seventh Army Air Force, the Eighth Air Force (recently re-deployed from Europe), The 20th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force.

More than 1.5 million combat troops, with 3 million more in support, ( more than 40 per cent of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945), would be directly involved in two amphibious assaults.

Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy. Admiral William Leahy estimated more than 250,00 killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, Chief of Intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, estimated American casualties from the entire operation would be one million men by the fall of 1946. This was considered, by many, to be a very conservative estimate.

A naval blockade and strategic bombing of Japan was considered, most everyone agreed that they would choke and destroy cities, but leave whole armies intact.

After extensive deliberation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a top secret directive May 25, 1945, to proceed with the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan. The target date was set for after the typhoon season. Two days later the United States issued a Potsdam Proclamation which called upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face total destruction.

Three days later, the Japanese government news agency broadcast to the world, Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender.

During this same period it was learned from monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts, that they were closing all schools, mobilizing the schoolchildren, arming the civilian population, fortifying caves and constructing underground defenses.

OPERATION OLYMPIC called for a four pronged assault on Kyushu. Its objective was to seize and control the southern one-third of that island and establish naval and air bases, tighten the naval blockade of the home islands, destroy units of the main Japanese army and support the later invasion of the Tokyo plain.

The preliminary invasion would begin October 27, 1945, when the 40th Infantry Division would land on a series of small islands west and southwest of Kyushu. At the same time the 158th Regimental Combat Team would land and occupy a small island 28 miles south of Kyushu. On these islands, seaplane bases would be established, radar stations set up to provide advance warning to the invasion fleet, direct carrier base aircraft and provide an emergency anchorage for the invasion fleet, should things not go well on the day of invasion of Kyushu.

As the invasion grew imminent, the massive power of the Third and Fifth fleets would approach Japan, The Third Fleet, under Admiral William "Bull" Halsey, would provide strategic support for operation against Honshu and Hokkaido.

Halsey's fleet would be composed of battleships, heavy cruisers, destroyers, dozens of support ships and three fast carrier groups. Hundreds of Navy fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes would hit targets all over the island of Honshu.

The 3000 ship Fifth Fleet, under Admiral Spruance, would carry the invasion troops. Several days before the invasion, the battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers would pour thousands of tons of high explosives into the target areas. They would not cease the bombardment until after the landing forces had launched. The invasion would begin in the early morning hours of November 1,1945. Thousands of soldiers and Marines would pour ashore on beaches all along the eastern, southern and western coasts of Kyushu.

Waves of aircraft from 66 carriers would bomb, rocket and strafe enemy defenses, gun and troop concentrations along the beaches. The Eastern Assault Force, consisting of the 25th, 33rd and 41st infantry divisions, would land near Miyaski, at beaches called Austin, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler and Cord, move inland and attempt to capture the city and its nearby airfield.

The Southern Force, consisting of the First Cavalry, 43rd and American divisions, would land at beaches labeled DeSoto, Dusenburg, Essex, Ford and Franklin and attempt to capture Shibushi and the city of Kanoya and its airfield.

On the western shore of Kyushu, at beaches Pontiac, Reo, Rolls Royce, Saxon, Star, Studebaker, Stutz and Zepher the 5th Amphibious Corps would land the Second, Third and Fifth Marine divisions, sending half of its force inland to Sendai and the other half to the port city of Kagoshima.

On November 4,1945 the 81st, 98th, and 11th Airborne Divisions would feign an attack off the island of Shikoku then land near Kaimondake, (if not needed elsewhere), near the southernmost tip of Kagoshima Bay at beaches designated Locomobile, Lincoln, LaSalle, Hupmobile, Moon, Mercedes, Maxwell, Overland, Oldsmobile, Packard and Plymouth.

Operation Olympic was not just a plan for invasion, but for conquest and occupation as well. It was expected to take four months to achieve its objective, with three fresh divisions per month to be landed to support the operation if needed.

If all went well with Operation Olympic, Operation Cornet would be launched March 1, 1946. Operation Cornet would be twice the size of Olympic, with as many as 28 divisions landing on Honshu. All along the coast near Tokyo, the American First Army would land the 5th, 7th, 27th, 44th, 86th, and 96th Infantry Divisions along with the 1st, 4th, and 6th Marine Divisions.

At Sagami Bay, just south of Tokyo, the entire 8th and 10th armies would strike north and east to clear the long western shore of Tokyo Bay, then attempt to go as far as Yokohama. The assault troops landing south of Tokyo would be the 4th, 6th, 8th, 24th, 31st, 32nd and 87th Infantry Divisions along with the 13th and 20th Armored divisions.

Following the assault eight more divisions, the 2nd, 28th, 35th, 91st, 95th, 97th, and 104th Infantry divisions and the 11th Airborne Division, would be landed. If additional troops were needed as expected, other divisions re-deployed from Europe and undergoing training in the United States would be shipped to Japan in what was hoped to be the final push.

The Japanese defense was expected to be even more fierce than any encountered thus far in the war. Schools had been closed and the entire civilian population mobilized. The Shinto cult or religion was the national religion of Japan and the people had been taught to follow the Imperial Cult without question. Self sacrifice was extolled as the highest virtue and any order from the Emperor, the military, the government or at school must be followed without question.

Captured documents and postwar interrogation of Japanese military leaders disclosed that information concerning the number of Japanese planes available for the defense of the home islands were dangerously in error. During the sea battle at Okinawa alone, Japanese Kamikaze aircraft sank 32 Allied ships and damaged more than 400 others.

During the summer of 1945, American top brass concluded that the Japanese had spent their air force since American bombers and fighters daily flew unmolested over Japan. What military leaders did not know was that by the end of July, the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battles defending their homeland.

As part of the Ketsu-go, the name of the plan to defend Japan, the Japanese were building 20 suicide take-off airstrips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases.

On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers and 150 kamikaze planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet. The Japanese also had 58 more airfields in Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which were also to be used for massive suicide attacks.

Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks. In August 1945, however; unknown to Allied Intelligence, the Japanese still had 5,651 army and 7,074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types.

Every village had some kind of aircraft manufacturing activity hidden in mines, railway tunnels, under viaducts and in basements of department stores, working to construct new planes. In addition they were building newer and more effective models of the Okka, a rocket propelled bomb, like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot.

When the invasion became imminent, ketsu-Go called for a four fold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships. While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an initial force of 2,000 army and navy fighters were to fight to the death to control the skies over Kyushu.

A second force of 350 Japanese navy pilots were to attack the main body of the Allied task force to keep it from using its fire support and air cover from protecting the troop carrying transports. While these forces engaged a third force of 825 suicide planes was to hit the American transports. As the invasion convoys approached the beaches, another 2,000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300, to be used in hour by hour attacks.

American troops would be arriving in about 180 lightly armed transports and 70 cargo vessels. By mid-morning of the first day of the invasion, most of the land based aircraft would be forced to return to their bases, leaving the defense to the carrier pilots and shipboard gunners. Carrier pilots, crippled by fatigue, would have to land time and time again to rearm and refuel. Guns would malfunction from the heat of continuous firing and ammunition would become scarce. Gun crews would be exhausted by nightfall, but still waves of kamikaze would continue. With the invasion fleet hovering off the beaches, all remaining aircraft would be committed to non-stop suicide attacks, which the Japanese hoped could be sustained for 10 days.

*** Continued ***

 

[NightTrain]

*** Continued ***

The Japanese planned to coordinate their attacks from 40 remaining submarines. Some would be armed with long lance torpedoes with a range of 20 miles to attack the invasion fleet 180 miles of Kyushu.

The Imperial Navy had 23 destroyers and two cruisers operational. They would be used to counterattack the American invasion fleet. A number of destroyers were to be beached at the last minute to be used as anti invasion gun platforms.

Once offshore, the invasion fleet would be forced to defend not only against the attacks from the air, but would also be confronted with suicide attacks from sea.

Once the troops were on the beaches, they would face suicide attacks from large numbers of armed civilian and army units, all for the Emperor and their homeland. As American troops advanced inland, booby traps, mine fields, and well hidden defenses would make every foot of the way a bloody battle. Casualties on both sides would be extremely heavy but the suicidal attacks and the lightly armed civilians would be cut down in large numbers by the heavily armed and well trained American units.

Harry Truman said in defense of, WHY I DROPPED THE ATOMIC BOMB. "It was a question of saving hundreds of thousands of American lives. You don't feel normal when you have to plan hundreds of thousands of deaths of American boys who are alive and joking and having fun while your doing your planning. You break your heart and your head trying to figure out a way to save one life.

I made the only decision I knew how to make. I did what I thought was right. I still think that".

September 3, 1996
"SO DO I HARRY"
A Pearl Harbor Survivor

 

[Man of 1951]

The UNNECESSARY Bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki



Photo by Yosuke Yamahata
Boy carrying small
burned child
Nagasaki, August 1945

From A People’s History of the United States
by Howard Zinn,
and the Political Literacy Course of the Common Courage Press:

The bombing of Japanese cities continued the strategy of saturation bombing to destroy civilian morale; one nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. (Zinn points out in the book that “nighttime bombing” was by its very nature indiscriminate, not aimed primarily at military targets.)

And then, on August 6, 1945, came the lone American plane in the sky over Hiroshima, dropping the first atomic bomb, leaving perhaps 100,000 Japanese dead, and tens of thousands more slowly dying from radiation poisoning.

Twelve U.S. navy fliers in the Hiroshima city jail were killed in the bombing, a fact that the U.S. government has never officially acknowledged, according to historian Martin Sherwin (“A World Destroyed”).

Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, with perhaps 50,000 killed.

The justification for these atrocities was that this would end the war quickly, making unnecessary an invasion of Japan. Such an invasion would cost a huge number of lives, the government said — a million, according to Secretary of State Byrnes; half a million, Truman claimed was the figure given by General George Marshall. (When the papers of the Manhattan Project — the project to build the atom bomb — were released years later, they showed that Marshall urged a warning to the Japanese about the bomb, so people could be removed and only military targets hit.)

These estimates of invasion losses were not realistic, and seem to have been pulled out of the air to justify bombings which, as their effects became known, horrified more and more people.

Japan, by August 1945, was in desperate shape and ready to surrender. A New York Times military analyst wrote, shortly after the war:

“The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.”

Such then, was the situation when we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, set up by the War Department in 1944 to study the results of aerial attacks in the war, interviewed hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, and reported just after the war:

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

But could American leaders have known this in August 1945?

The answer is, clearly, yes. The Japanese code had been broken, and Japan’s messages were being intercepted.

It was known the Japanese had instructed their ambassador in Moscow to work on peace negotiations with the Allies. Japanese leaders had begun talking of surrender a year before this, and the Emperor himself had begun to suggest, in June 1945, that alternatives to fighting to the end be considered.

On July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired his ambassador in Moscow: “Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace.” Martin Sherwin, after an exhaustive study of the relevant historical documents, concludes: “Having broken the Japanese code before the war, American Intelligence was able to — and did — relay this message to the President, but it had no effect whatever on efforts to bring the war to conclusion.”

If only Americans had not insisted on unconditional surrender — that is, if they were willing to accept one condition to the surrender, that the Emperor, a holy figure to the Japanese, remain in place — the Japanese would have agreed to stop the war.

Why did the United States not take that small step to save both American and Japanese lives? Was it because too much money and effort had been invested in the atomic bomb not to drop it? General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, described Truman as a man on a toboggan, the momentum too great to stop it.

Or was it, as British scientist P.M.S. Blackett suggested (“Fear, War, and the Bomb”), that the United States was anxious to drop the bomb before the Russians entered the war against Japan?

The Russians had secretly agreed (they were officially not at war with Japan) they would come into the war ninety days after the end of the European war. That turned out to be May 8, and so, on August 8, the Russians were due to declare war on Japan.

But by then the big bomb had been dropped, and the next day a second one would be dropped on Nagasaki; the Japanese would surrender to the United States, not the Russians, and the United States would be the occupier of postwar Japan.

In other words, Blackett says, the dropping of the bomb was “the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.”

Blackett is supported by American historian Gar Alperovitz (“Atomic Diplomacy”), who notes a diary entry for July 28, 1945, by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, describing Secretary of State James F. Byrnes as

“most anxious to get the Japanese affair over with before the Russians got in.”

Truman had said, “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar was possible, the killing of civilians.”

It was a preposterous statement. Those 100,000 killed in Hiroshima were almost all civilians. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey said in its official report:

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.”

The dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment?

Martin Sherwin says that among the Nagasaki dead were probably American prisoners of war. He notes a message of July 31 from Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Air Forces, Guam, to the War Department:

“Reports prisoner of war sources, not verified by photos, given location of Allied prisoner of war camp one mile north of center of city of Nagasaki. Does this influence the choice of this target for initial Centerboard operation? Request immediate reply.”

The reply: “Targets previously assigned for Centerboard remain unchanged.”

True, the war ended quickly. Italy had been defeated a year earlier. Germany had recently surrendered, crushed primarily by the armies of the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front, aided by the Allied armies on the West. Now Japan surrendered. The Fascist powers were destroyed.

But what about fascism — as idea, as reality? Were its essential elements — militarism, racism, imperialism — now gone? Or were they absorbed into the already poisoned bones of the victors.

“The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

— General Omar Bradley

Second-Guessing Hiroshima

Photo by Yosuke Yamahata
Mother and child
Nagasaki, August 1945

By Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan

Second-guessing the necessity and morality of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 55 years ago is nothing new. Contrary to widely held opinion, the first critics of America’s use of atomic weapons were not disillusioned 1960s radicals but figures from the conservative establishment and the highest ranks of the military.

Criticism began within days of the obliteration of the two Japanese cities. On August 8, 1945, two days after the destruction of Hiroshima, former President Herbert Hoover wrote,

“The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.”

Two days later, John Foster Dulles and Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam together urged President Truman to forgo additional use of the new weapon, saying they opposed the bomb’s indiscriminate obliteration of human beings.

Within days of the Hiroshima bombing, David Lawrence, the editor of what is now “U.S. News & World Report,” wrote that Japanese surrender had appeared inevitable weeks before the bomb’s use.

The claim of “military necessity,” he argued, rang hollow. Official justifications would “never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations ... did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children.”

Such criticisms were not limited to civilians. The very day after the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, the personal pilot of General Douglas MacArthur, commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, recorded in his diary that MacArthur was “appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster.”

In 1963 President Eisenhower, the Allied commander in Europe during World War II, recalled, as he did on several other occasions, that in July 1945 he had opposed using the atomic bomb on Japan during a meeting with Secretary of War Henry Stimson:

“... I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”

No one should easily discount these views. These six men were all respected public figures. With the exception of Oxnam, all were conservatives. None was a pacifist. None of the five who survived into the 1960s publicly opposed the war in Vietnam.

Their dissenting opinions were not based on hindsight. They voiced their beliefs even before the war ended. These men considered the use of the atomic bomb to have been militarily unnecessary and morally repugnant based on the information available to them in the summer of 1945.

Keep this in mind when, on Hiroshima anniversaries, you hear claims that opposition to the bombing emerged only in the 1960s, or that critics must, necessarily, be liberals or pacifists.

The comments of men such as Hoover and Eisenhower, leading Republicans whose qualities of caution and prudence cannot be questioned, lend support to the view that America’s use of atomic weapons to end World War II cannot easily be defended. The passage of time has done nothing to alter these considered judgments.



The authors, Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan, are graduate history students at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and American University, Washington, D.C., respectively. They research and write about Hiroshima and American culture.
“The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position by the time the Potsdam demand for unconditional surrender was made on July 26.” “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets because of their concentration of activities and population.” “The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.” never erase from our minds the simple truth that we, of all civilized nations ... did not hesitate to employ the most destructive weapon of all times indiscriminately against men, women and children.” “appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster.” “... I told him I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”