Hiroshima, 60 years ago today

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 7:46pm

How could any of us have forgotten this terrible moment in human history?

Please take a moment and remember.

This must never, EVER, happen again!

Updated On: 8/6/05 at 07:46 PM

[GirlforTartaglia]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 8:49pm

I just read the book. It's really touching.

[Broadway_Bound_Star]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 9:36pm

Wow, Id like to visit there....

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 11:13pm

bump

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 11:24pm

below is a letter written by harry truman on January 12, 1953 to prof. james l. cate which seems to clearly present his understanding of the necessity of using the atomic bombs to end world war II.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
January 12, 1953

My Dear Professor Cate;

Your letter of December 6, 1952 has just been delivered to me. When the message came to Potsdam that a successful atomic explosion had taken place in New Mexico, there was much excitement and conversation about the effect on the war then in progress with Japan. The next day I told the Prime Minsiter of Great Britain and Generalissimo Stalin that the explosion had been a success. The British Prime Minister understood and appreciated what I'd told him. Premier Stalin smiled and thanked me for reporting the explosion to him, but I'm sure he did not understand its significance. I called a meeting of the Secretary of State, Mr. Byrnes, the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, Admiral Leahy, General Marshall, General Eisenhower, Admiral King and some others, to discuss what should be done with this awful weapon.

I asked General Marshall what it would cost in lives to land on the Tokyo plain and other places in Japan. It was his opinion that such an invasion would cost at a minimum one quarter of a million casualties, and might cost as much as a million, on the American side alone, with an equal number of the enemy. The other military and naval men present agreed. I asked Secretary Stimson which sites in Japan were devoted to war production. He promptly named Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among others. We sent an ultimatum to Japan. It was rejected.

I ordered atomic bombs dropped on the two cities named on the way back from Potsdam, when we were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. In your letter, you raise the fact that the directive to General Spaatz to prepare for delivering the bomb is dated July twenty-fifth. It was, of course, necessary to set the military wheels in motion, as these orders did, but the final decision was in my hands, and was not made until we were returning from Potsdam. Dropping the bombs ended the war, saved lives, and gave the free nations a chance to face the facts. When it looked as if Japan would quit, Russia hurried into the fray less than a week before the surrender, so as to be in at the settlement. No military contribution was made by the Russians toward victory over Japan. Prisoners were surrendered and Manchuria occupied by the Soviets, as was Korea, North of the 38th parallel.

Sincerely,
(The letter was signed by Harry Truman.)

[morosco]

Posted: 8/6/05 at 11:41pm

Almost impossible to comprehend the losses.
Updated On: 8/7/05 at 11:41 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 12:04am

President Truman understood what taking responsibility for the loss of lives meant, something about which the current president is clueless.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 12:48am

this thread was not started to debate whether it was or was not appropriate to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

Shame on you both.

This thread was started to remember the innocents in two Japanese cities who died in atomic flashes.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 12:54am

You're absolutely right, Elphaba. I apologize.

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 1:10am

Nonsense. The question of whether it was "right" to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki is worth revisiting especially in this continued age of concern about bombings. I watched the History channel's reenactment of the Hiroshima bombing tonight and was so distraught by the thought of all those civilians losing their lives "so that a few thousand Americans can live." I'm still trying to fathom how people reach a point where they can't think of any alternative besides this level of violence.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 2:06am

i don't apologize, elphaba. simply declaring that one side of an issue is all that will be dealt with is childish and counter-productive. one of the reasons i posted truman's letter was his mentioning that the cost of lives that were expected to be lost in an invasion were calculated not only in american but in japanese lives as well. i think the quote "so that a few thousand americans can live" grossly underestimates the lives that were indeed saved on both sides despite the horrific cost.

when thinking about this, let's also remember that hiroshima was not just some farm town with no military significance. it was the headquarters for the japanese fifth division and 2nd army group (which commanded defense for all of southern japan) and was a major supply and logistics base for the japanese army. the city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops.

nagasaki aside from being one of the largest sea ports in southern japan was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment (the mitsubishi steel and arms works among others), and other war materials. also, nagasaki, unlike hiroshima, experienced a bombing raid on aug. 1st 1945 which resulted in large evacuations prior to the atomic explosion.

also bear in mind that aside from the deaths that would result in the immediacy of an invasion there was also the order given by the japanese war ministry on august 1, 1944. the order dealt with the disposal and execution of all allied pow's, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the japanese mainland took place.

these were not simply huge cities of peace loving peoples slaughtered callously. yes, many, many innocents were lost, but these targets were chosen for their military significance.

it's an ugly chapter in human history with no easy answers, but to simply stifle discussion helps no one to understand why such a catastrophe was, in my view, necessary. nor how to avoid another.

...counting down until the inevitable, "duh, don't drop another atomic bomb."

Updated On: 8/7/05 at 02:06 AM

[etoile]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 3:18am

What's the pithy saying that's bantered around? You don't fear the country with 20 nukes, you fear the country with just one.

Even Ben Franklin who believed "there's no bad peace and no good war" saw the need to support a war. Sadly it's part of the human condition.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 9:41pm

and you're a shining example of those who choose to ignore ugly realities in favor of pretty daydreams of utopia.

as orwell said, "those who abjure violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 10:02pm

lol.....papa I give up........I guess you can justify burning thousands of innocent civilians....all those children with guns, right?
LOL.......you really don't get it......and I won't waste anymore of my time. Apparently you can justify anything.......so be it. You have to live with yourself, not I.....and thank God for that.

Play by yourself........

Updated On: 8/7/05 at 10:02 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 10:20pm

i do get it. you don't. freedom isn't free.

"the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it's natural manure."

thmoas jefferson, nov. 13, 1787

[Elphaba]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 11:01pm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050807/ap_on_re_us/us_hiroshima

Never Again!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 11:13pm

Did Thomas Jefferson intend for this boy's blood to be shed and his organs to be melted?

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/7/05 at 11:45pm

that boy specifically? i'm not sure, but his letters are available online so you could peruse them for a reference. to preserve the liberty of the united states? i'm betting yeah, perhaps with great sadness, but yep.

but ask the relatives of the 300,000 killed by the japanese during the three month long rape of nanjing if it was worth it. ask the relatives of the 100,000+ allied prisoners of war who were to have been slaughtered by the japanese as a response to an invasion if it was worth it. ask the relatives of the 10,000 killed on the bataan death march if they thought it was worth it. ask the relatives of the 490,000+ killed by japan's unit 731 chemical and biological warfare weapons research unit if they thought it was worth it.

even after two atomic bombs the japanese were prepared to fight on. it took the soviet attack on manchuria to finally convince them to surrender. that coupled with the possibility that america had more atomic bombs to rain down on them finally convinced them. that was exactly why the atomic bombs were described by admiral mitsumasa yonai, who had been premier in 1940 and the japanese navy minister at the time, as a "gift from heaven". marquis koichi kido, the emperor's privy seal said, "we of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war".

the peace party.

[Taryn]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 12:18am

Papa, that Jefferson quote is in reference to rebellion within the United States. He had the delusional idea that the US couldn't survive as a free republic if the people didn't have a little rebellion every couple of years to keep the government in line.

If they wanted to center their attacks on the few military targets in Hiroshima, they shouldn't have purposefully dropped the bombs in the very center of town.

Also, the United States already had intercepted transmissions from the Japanese expressing their desire to surrender if only the US would allow them to retain their Emperor, EVEN as a simple figurehead--something we did AFTER we bombed them.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/8/05 at 9:35am

sure there were elements within the gov't that wanted to surrender, as the quoites i chose show, but as the attempted coup showed after their decision to surrender they did not represent all of the voices of power. nor would their voices have been loud enough to shout down the military leaders wiithout the atomic bombs and the soviet invasion. nor were they willing to give up shintoism which had by then been transformed into a warlike religion much like the radical islam that is preached in too many madrassas. it was only 8 weeks earlier that 200,000 japanese and 20,000 amerians died at okinawa as a result of the japanese bushido code of death before dishonor. how many would have died in an invasion? what would the result of a successful coup had there not beeen the violent and awful lessons of hiroshima and nagasaki and manchuria?

as far as jefferson, if faced with the same decision as truman, i am confident we'd have seen the same result.

thhere are those who here obviously feel that there is never any justification for using atomic weapons. i disagree.