0th anniversary of VJ Day: Thank the atomic bomb for saving millions of lives

[Unkotare]

"the President and Congress authorized the removal and incarceration of over 110,000 people based solely on race without evidence of wrongdoing, charges or hearings. More than two-thirds of those incarcerated were U.S. citizens."

 

[M14 Shooter]

"the President and Congress authorized the removal and incarceration of over 110,000 people based solely on race without evidence of wrongdoing, charges or hearings. More than two-thirds of those incarcerated were U.S. citizens."

Damned racist Democrats.

 

[DudleySmith]

so you claim to be a teacher and dont know basic facts.

Google his handle; he's just some sicko fetishist.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Do you know what a straw man is?

I haven't posted any of them either. My posts are factual even if you don't agree with them.

 

[Unkotare]

I haven't posted any of them either. My posts are factual even if you don't agree with them.

So, you don't know what it is.

 

[there4eyeM]

Once again, propaganda is shown to be effective. The will to believe one's country is right overcomes all rationality.
Little egos search for something bigger to associate with in the attempt at self validation. "My country/religion/race, etc., is great and I am part of it, so I am great!"
Well, who would want to take comforting thoughts away from children?

We can understand the conditions in which a gigantically tragic mistake was made and have an adult discussion about it.
There is no excusing what the militarists controlling Japan did. There is no reason to judge the Japanese people for those militarists' actions. They were the victims of propaganda as were the Germans, the Russians, and as we were and are.
If we are unable to examine these actions clearly, we make ourselves ever more victims of those in power who care nothing for us.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

We can understand the conditions in which a gigantically tragic mistake was made and have an adult discussion about it.
There is no excusing what the militarists controlling Japan did. There is no reason to judge the Japanese people for those militarists' actions. They were the victims of propaganda as were the Germans, the Russians, and as we were and are.
If we are unable to examine these actions clearly, we make ourselves ever more victims of those in power who care nothing for us.

after 2 atomic Bombs the Government of Japan REFUSED to surrender, only the intervention of the emperor settled it, and the army staged a Coup to stop that.

 

[DudleySmith]

We can understand the conditions in which a gigantically tragic mistake was made and have an adult discussion about it.
There is no excusing what the militarists controlling Japan did. There is no reason to judge the Japanese people for those militarists' actions. They were the victims of propaganda as were the Germans, the Russians, and as we were and are.
If we are unable to examine these actions clearly, we make ourselves ever more victims of those in power who care nothing for us.

They knew exactly what their troops were doing. They were proud of their Master Race going on to conquer and destroy those inferior peoples for the Glory Of Nippon. Germans might not have seen the Operation Reinhardt camps in Poland, but they saw the prisoners being deliberately starved to death while being worked in the factories and mines. Japs here in the States knew, too, and held parades celebrating their success. Not one of them ever turned in any Japanese intelligence agents trying to recruit local Japs for sabotage and espionage, and over a third of them were not citizens and would never be eligible to get citizenship. After Pearl, only idiots will claim we were supposed to hold endless hearings and debates over interning them. That would take years, and nobody had the time or resources. Sucks to be cheerleaders for scum for years and then get locked up for it when your home town heroes attack the country you're squatting in.

No way it was 'a gigantic mistake', it was a very reasonable national security action.

 

[Unkotare]

...l, only idiots will claim we were supposed to hold endless hearings and debates over interning them. ....

I guess YOU won't ask for a trial before we toss YOUR worthless ass into a concentration camp (just in case you might do something bad in the future), right? No need for a reason to throw you into a camp behind barbed wire and armed guard towers, right? Or maybe, just maybe, you don't "look" the right way, huh?

 

[DudleySmith]

I guess YOU won't ask for a trial before we toss YOUR worthless ass into a concentration camp (just in case you might do something bad in the future), right? No need for a reason to throw you into a camp behind barbed wire and armed guard towers, right? Or maybe, just maybe, you don't "look" the right way, huh?

Keep sniveling like a loon. It's funny when you pretend to care about people, lol.

 

[whitehall]

"Kill 'em all and let God sort them out". Thank God the civilized world today is smarter than the Truman warlords and better informed than the media that was confiscated during the FDR administration. Or are we?

 

[Unkotare]

Keep sniveling like a loon. It's funny when you pretend to care about people, lol.

I don’t have to pretend. If you do, that is your very significant problem.

 

[M14 Shooter]

"Kill 'em all and let God sort them out". Thank God the civilized world today is smarter than the Truman warlords and better informed than the media that was confiscated during the FDR administration. Or are we?

Um...
Ending the war with the nuclear strikes on Japan is the -opposite- of "kill them all".
Why do you people refuse to understand dropping the bombs saves lives on both sides?

 

[Deadstick]

Military planners estimated that the coming invasion of Japan in 1945-1946 would cost a quarter million Allied lives, plus several million Japanese military and civilian lives.

Instead, the atomic bomb destroyed almost no Allied lives and less than half a million Japanese lives from all causes. Horrific, but far less than the invasion would have taken.

Japanese officials were offering only a stand-down that would leave the pro-war Japanese government intact and in charge - a situation the U.S. rejected for obvious reasons.

BTW, though the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only two we had on hand at that moment, the U.S. was in gear to produce half a dozen more within a few months, and more later as needed. These would have been used on Japan during the invasion if Japan didn't surrender. Fortunately for all involved, the Japanese realized that the U.S. could completely destroy Japan as a country with virtually no U.S. casualties, with the remains divided between America and Russia (who was also invading), and so saw the wisdom of surrendering.

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70th anniversary of V-J Day Kiss a nuke Hot Air

70th anniversary of V-J Day: Kiss a nuke

by Allan Bourdius
posted at 6:01 pm on August 14, 2015

Seventy years ago today on August 14, 1945, the Japanese Empire announced their surrender to the Allies and the end of World War II. The day (August 15th in Japan) is generally known as “Victory over Japan Day” or “V-J Day”. The official Japanese surrender was signed 19 days later on September 2, 1945, on board the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay.

During the afternoon of this day seventy years ago, joyous Americans took to the streets to celebrate the end of the war. In New York City’s Times Square, a United States Navy sailor grabbed a woman, a “nurse” (she was actually a dental assistant) he didn’t know, and kissed her right in the middle of the street, the moment captured by two different photographers. It is the iconic image of V-J Day and the end of World War II.

Instead of a nurse, it would have been more fitting if he could have kissed a nuclear weapon. The life he later lived was undoubtedly made possible because of them.

Japan’s surrender was expedited by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). Had Japan not announced their surrender, the United States would have had the next nuclear strike ready for August 19th, and another in September.

Then, still absent Japan’s surrender, Operation Downfall would begin; the invasion of the Japanese home islands in two parts.

November 1, 1945, “X-Day”, was the scheduled date for Operation Olympic, a landing by 14 American Army and Marine divisions in the initial attack on the island of Kyūshū.

Operation Coronet would follow on “Y-Day”, March 1, 1946 – landings directly into the Tokyo plain on the island of Honshū. Twenty-five divisions. Many more would be ready to reinforce them. Many of the Coronet soldiers would have been those retrained and redeployed after defeating Nazi Germany. Victory in Europe wouldn’t have spared them from more fighting to defeat Japan.

All in all, well over two million American servicemen would have taken part in the invasion of Japan. The United States also had plans for the tactical use of nuclear weapons during the attack, anticipating having an additional seven ready bombs on X-Day.

They would have faced a Japanese enemy who correctly predicted where the landings would take place. They would have faced a Japanese enemy who had changed the training for Kamikaze pilots so they would focus on attacking troop transports and landing ships rather than warships.

Estimates of casualties were wide ranging; the Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted in April 1945 that Olympic alone would cost 456,000 casualties, 109,000 of which would be killed or missing in action.

The same study said the entire campaign – Olympic and Coronet – would result in 1,200,000 total casualties, 267,000 killed or missing.

My Dad once told me, at the end of the war in Europe his unit was being kitted out with Tropical gear for deployment to the far East, it never came to that.

 

[Deadstick]

I have mixed feelings about the atom bombs, there is another theory that they were used as a warning to the Soviets.

 

[Ringo]

 

[M14 Shooter]

I have mixed feelings about the atom bombs, there is another theory that they were used as a warning to the Soviets.

A happy consequence.

 

[Deadstick]

A happy consequence.

Well it didn't work if that was the intention.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Well it didn't work if that was the intention.

The Soviets stopped at the Elbe. They didn't have to.

 

[there4eyeM]

If it were to deter the Soviets, why not use the bomb on Moscow and the Soviet leadership instead of helpless Japanese women and children?