The Nuking of Nagasaki: Even More Immoral and Unnecessary than Hiroshima

[gipper]

yet, here we are, with facts

WW2's Last Dogfight – Meet the Pilots Who Fought a Deadly Air Duel Over Tokyo the Day Japan Surrendered - MilitaryHistoryNow.com

Four Grumman Hellcats from the USS Yorktown were in the air near Tokyo when word of Japan's surrender was announced on Aug. 15, 1945. Moments later, the flight would find itself in a furious dogfight against 20 enemy warplanes.

militaryhistorynow.com

FEW HISTORY BOOKS mention the names Billy Hobbs, Eugene Mandeberg, Howard “Howdy” Harrison and Joseph Sahloff. Yet, these four American naval pilots earned themselves a grim place in the annals of the Second World War: All were shot down in a fierce dogfight that raged over the Japan on Aug. 15, 1945 – mere hours after Emperor Hirohito had announced his country’s unconditional surrender.


My most recent book, Dogfight over Tokyo, tells the story of these four men, the last Americans to die in combat in World War Two.

We need to incinerate 200,000 defenseless Japanese women an children because of one dogfight.

Jesus that’s dumb.

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

Whatever labored, embarrassing arguments one can make for the nuking of Hiroshima cannot be made for the nuking of Nagasaki just three days later. From my article "Did We Really Need to Use the Atomic Bomb Against Japan?":

On August 9, 1945, just three days after we nuked Hiroshima, and before Japan’s leaders had sufficient time to process and respond to our nuclear attack on Hiroshima, we dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, which was home to Japan’s largest Christian population. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki was even more inexcusable than the nuking of Hiroshima. . . .​

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On August 9, we nuked Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, and hours after the Soviets began to maul the Japanese army in Manchuria,, and while Japan’s civilian leaders were understandably absorbed with trying to process what had happened to Hiroshima and with responding to the Soviet attack in Manchuria. Surely Truman and other high officials knew that three days was not enough time for Japan’s government to formulate a formal response to the unprecedented use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and to the Soviet invasion in Manchuria. Even McGeorge Bundy, who helped Henry Stimson write his defense of the atomic bombing of Japan, acknowledged that Truman was too quick to nuke Nagasaki:​

"It is hard to see that much could have been lost if there had been more time between the two bombs. . . . Such a delay would have been relatively easy, and I think right." (https://miketgriffith.com/files/immoraluse.pdf)​

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The Japanese were not even able to get a scientific team to Hiroshima until August 7, the day after the attack. Meanwhile, Japan's leaders were getting conflicting, fragmentary information about what had happened in Hiroshima. Some Army officials were telling the government that the bombing of Hiroshima was merely a very large conventional bombing raid, and they were suppressing information about the kinds of wounds that had been inflicted. There was no Internet back then, no fax machines, no Skype.

Surely it was obscene for us to nuke Nagasaki just three days, 72 hours, after we had nuked Hiroshima.

That was our fault?

We begged them to surrender.Blame the Japs Skippy

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

When I visited West Point decades ago, they had a display case about the atomic bombings and they were uranium and plutonium; the first on the ground, the second in the air. I never forget that BECAUSE it sure looked like we were conducting experiments in lethality.

Maybe the story's changed since then, but what can you trust from a government of lies, Lies and LIES?

In the air would spread the main destruction over a longer area no?

 

[gipper]

That was our fault?

We begged them to surrender.Blame the Japs Skippy

Dumb. Really dumb.

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

Dumb. Really dumb.

What that you slaved to a boss and an alarm clock your whole life???

That is really really dumb. How can you justify being a dumb god damned slave you dumb bastard you?

Be honest with your self once

 

[gipper]

What that you slaved to a boss and an alarm clock your whole life???

That is really really dumb. How can you justify being a dumb god damned slave you dumb bastard you?

Be honest with your self once

Lol. CRAZY!

 

[elektra]

We need to incinerate 200,000 defenseless Japanese women an children because of one dogfight.

Jesus that’s dumb.

It sure is dumb, to call the 3 and half years of war with japan, the tens of thousands dead, the hundreds of thousands of causalities, it is dumb to call that one dogfight.

 

[Dayton3]

I can't believe that the atomic bombings are being discussed SEVENTY FIVE years later!!!.

Japan started the war with the U.S. I'm sure they felt justified (due to U.S. economic pressure) but the bottom line is that they chose war as a resolution to that. So all that follows was their fault.

Tough.

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

Lol. CRAZY!

When you've read Truman's autobio come talk to me and shut your GD pie hole

Crazy???......NO. Slaving to a miserable job???...now that's crazy

Read a GD book from someone there like the president

 

[CrusaderFrank]

In the air would spread the main destruction over a longer area no?

That's why they were experimenting

 

[Hang on Sloopy]

That's why they were experimenting

Thanky for that tid bit. thought both were over the air. Does it really make a difference in whole?...lol

 

[Dayton3]

Thanky for that tid bit. thought both were over the air. Does it really make a difference in whole?...lol

Air bursts ultimately produce far less fallout (though that wasn't an issue in 1945)

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Wrong,
Japan HAD been trying to surrender for over 6 months, but Truman deliberately pretended to not understand them.
They thought they had made it clear they HAD surrendered.
Neither Nagasaki nor Hiroshima were valid military targets.
There was minimal weapons production, and that was in deep tunnels, so unaffected by the nuclear attacks.
Japan did nothing to provoke anything.
Pearl Harbor was provoked by the illegal economic embargoes by the US.
There were no direct diplomatic cables possible, and the desire to surrender was sent through Russia.
Japan never asked for anything except the security of the Emperor.
A build up of Jap troops was impossible, since there was no new sources, and most troops were stuck on various islands.
Japan had zero defense left because they had no oil, planes, or pilots.
The Japanese feared Soviet invasion, not hope of mediation.

Oppenheimer was against using the nukes but Teller was in favor of testing them on the Japanese.

LOL ALL of that is a straight up LIE.

 

[Mushroom]

When I visited West Point decades ago, they had a display case about the atomic bombings and they were uranium and plutonium; the first on the ground, the second in the air. I never forget that BECAUSE it sure looked like we were conducting experiments in lethality.

Maybe you are confused because of the Trinity Test. That was on a 100 foot tower. And the first detonation of a plutonium bomb was from that tower.

But please, try doing research instead of relying on decades old memories.

 

[Mushroom]

In the air would spread the main destruction over a longer area no?

Exactly. That is why artillery is normally fused to detonate in the air and not on the ground.

One of the greatest inventions of WWII that many overlook. The proximity fuse.

 

[gipper]

LOL ALL of that is a straight up LIE.

All facts.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

All facts.

Not one of those is a fact you lying shitstain,

 

[gipper]

When you've read Truman's autobio come talk to me and shut your GD pie hole

Crazy???......NO. Slaving to a miserable job???...now that's crazy

Read a GD book from someone there like the president

Lol. All you’ve ever read is a government text book. Lol.

 

[elektra]

Lol. All you’ve ever read is a government text book. Lol.

Says the small man

 

[Rigby5]

Then there is Iraq, which in 1981 had their breeder reactor destroyed by Israel. That actually caused Saddam to scale back their nuclear weapon program.

Totally false.
Orisaq was NOT a breeder reactor, and it was owned and to be run by the French.
Saddam never had any nuclear weapons program, at all, in any way.
The claims to the contrary were totally proven to be false propaganda.