68 years ago today

[regent]

Germany and Japan were not the same. Japanese culture had Bushido, and many Japanese followed that code. How many German soldiers would cut their bellies open rather than surrender? .

Commit suicide rather than surrender? You mean like Hitler did?

Hitler was not the average German soldier. The average German soldier surrendered as did American and British soldiers. If a soldier surrendered, the Japanese did not consider the individual to be a soldier any longer and it accounts for some Japanese treatment of the prisoners they held. The banzai suicidal charges were another effect of Bushido as was their reluctance to surrender even after they had lost the war by all European standards.

 

[namvet]

the IJA murdered over 4,200,000 Japanese

 

[Unkotare]

Germany and Japan were not the same. Japanese culture had Bushido, and many Japanese followed that code. How many German soldiers would cut their bellies open rather than surrender? .

Commit suicide rather than surrender? You mean like Hitler did?

Hitler was not the average German soldier. The average German soldier surrendered as did American and British soldiers. If a soldier surrendered, the Japanese did not consider the individual to be a soldier any longer and it accounts for some Japanese treatment of the prisoners they held. The banzai suicidal charges were another effect of Bushido as was their reluctance to surrender even after they had lost the war by all European standards.

WWII officer who said 'nuts' to Germans dies - US news - Military | NBC News

 

[regent]

Commit suicide rather than surrender? You mean like Hitler did?

Hitler was not the average German soldier. The average German soldier surrendered as did American and British soldiers. If a soldier surrendered, the Japanese did not consider the individual to be a soldier any longer and it accounts for some Japanese treatment of the prisoners they held. The banzai suicidal charges were another effect of Bushido as was their reluctance to surrender even after they had lost the war by all European standards.

WWII officer who said 'nuts' to Germans dies - US news - Military | NBC News

There are individual soldiers in most armies that do more than the average soldier and for those we know of, they are on occasion given a a decoration. Not all GI's said nuts, when asked to surrender, many Americans surrendered during the Bulge as did many Germans.
But as some of the awardees discovered the award is sometimes tainted with politics.

 

[M14 Shooter]

National Naval Aviation Museum
Final pages of the log book of Lieutenant (junior grade) Raymond Porter noting that he and his gunner, Aviation Radioman Third Class Normand Brissette, crashed during a strike against Kure Harbor in Japan. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, the Bombing Squadron (VB) 87 personnel were held captive in Hiroshima, where they died as the result of the atomic bomb dropped on the city on August 6, 1945, sixty-eight years ago today.

"There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell"
W.T. Sherman, 4-11-1880

 

[M14 Shooter]

Those were not the only two possible options.

All of which would have resulted in more dead Japanese civilians than the bombs did.

We'll never know that, of course.

Thank you for your non-response.

Fact is that all of the other options meant the extension of the war, with additional incendiary raids on Japanese cities, burning them and their people to the ground, and blockades of their sea lanes, deprving their japanese people of food and fuel.

It doesn't matter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by 1 plane or a thousand - their destriction was certain, and their people were going to die. Dropping the bombs brought the surrender and saved many, many lives.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Agreed, and also may have had an even more important effect. Stating what the power of the nuclear bomb could do, and actually seeing the results are two very differant things. The rules of all out war changed that day. Every nation could fool itself into thinking, as Germany did, that it could defend it's cities, and take x amount of damage from the planes that did get through. But now it was one bomb, one city. No real defense.

I think those two aspects of the nuclear bombing of Japan prevented WW3. No matter how you cut it, no winners in such a war.

48 years ago, they finally allowed anyone to vote no matter what race they are as well.

Fucking 48 years ago, blacks couldn't vote. That is a long way to a black man being the president.

I see you failed your US history classes.

 

[M14 Shooter]

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 31 December 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.
United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report (Pacific War)

At the cost of how many more Japanese and American lives than ending the war when it did?

 

[Unkotare]

Hitler was not the average German soldier. The average German soldier surrendered as did American and British soldiers. If a soldier surrendered, the Japanese did not consider the individual to be a soldier any longer and it accounts for some Japanese treatment of the prisoners they held. The banzai suicidal charges were another effect of Bushido as was their reluctance to surrender even after they had lost the war by all European standards.

WWII officer who said 'nuts' to Germans dies - US news - Military | NBC News

There are individual soldiers in most armies that do more than the average soldier and for those we know of, they are on occasion given a a decoration. Not all GI's said nuts, when asked to surrender, many Americans surrendered during the Bulge as did many Germans.
But as some of the awardees discovered the award is sometimes tainted with politics.

Notice how you have to keep qualifying your responses more and more? Do you see why?

 

[Unkotare]

All of which would have resulted in more dead Japanese civilians than the bombs did.

We'll never know that, of course.

Thank you for your non-response.

Fact is that all of the other options meant the extension of the war
.

Not necessarily.

 

[M14 Shooter]

We'll never know that, of course.

Thank you for your non-response.
Fact is that all of the other options meant the extension of the war

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily.
Disagree?
Tell us why the Japanese would have announced their surrender on 8/15, had the bombs not been dropped?
Oh wait... you can't.

And so, the war would have continued.
With continued bombing raids and a continued blockade.
Dropping the bombs brought the surrender sooner rather than later and saved many, many lives.
No way to soundly argue otherwise.

 

[regent]

WWII officer who said 'nuts' to Germans dies - US news - Military | NBC News

There are individual soldiers in most armies that do more than the average soldier and for those we know of, they are on occasion given a a decoration. Not all GI's said nuts, when asked to surrender, many Americans surrendered during the Bulge as did many Germans.
But as some of the awardees discovered the award is sometimes tainted with politics.

Notice how you have to keep qualifying your responses more and more? Do you see why?

I hope I qualify my responses.
It is difficult to make a lot of hard and fast rules regarding individual behavior. Social Scientists discovered this with the famous Western Electric Experiment years ago.

 

[Unkotare]

Thank you for your non-response.
Fact is that all of the other options meant the extension of the war

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily.
Disagree?
Tell us why the Japanese would have announced their surrender on 8/15, had the bombs not been dropped?
Oh wait... you can't.

Go put words into someone else's mouth. Sure I can. If we had been engaged in negotiations (for which elements within the Japanese government had been sending out feelers for some time) for a less than unconditional surrender, then the shooting war might have ended before then. Was this likely? Would the American public have gone for it? Would it have been the right decision to even try? I don't know. We can't know for sure, because the only thing we do know for sure is what actually happened.

 

[Unkotare]

There are individual soldiers in most armies that do more than the average soldier and for those we know of, they are on occasion given a a decoration. Not all GI's said nuts, when asked to surrender, many Americans surrendered during the Bulge as did many Germans.
But as some of the awardees discovered the award is sometimes tainted with politics.

Notice how you have to keep qualifying your responses more and more? Do you see why?

I hope I qualify my responses.

It seems you misunderstand the word as it was used in the context above.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily.
Disagree?
Tell us why the Japanese would have announced their surrender on 8/15, had the bombs not been dropped?
Oh wait... you can't.

Sure I can. If we had been engaged in negotiations...

We weren't. Fail.
Please try again.
This time, please try to stick with the conditions actually in place at the time instead what might have been if things were different before then.

 

[Unkotare]

Yes, necessarily.
Disagree?
Tell us why the Japanese would have announced their surrender on 8/15, had the bombs not been dropped?
Oh wait... you can't.

Sure I can. If we had been engaged in negotiations...

We weren't. Fail.
Please try again.
This time, please try to stick with the conditions actually in place at the time instead what might have been if things were different before then.

You asked me to speculate, fool.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Sure I can. If we had been engaged in negotiations...

We weren't. Fail.
Please try again.
This time, please try to stick with the conditions actually in place at the time instead what might have been if things were different before then.

You asked me to speculate, fool.

Yes. Given the conditions actually in place at the time.

As I said: you cannot tell us why the Japanese would have announced their surrender on 8/15, had the bombs not been dropped.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Questions to ask yourself:
Do you think that if the USAAF had sent 1000 planes to incinerate Hiroshima/Nagasaki, fewer people would have died?
Do you think that if the USAAF had sent 1000 planes to incinerate Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the Japanese would have sued for peace on August 14?
Please be sure to support your responses with something substantive.

 

[OldUSAFSniper]

My father waded ashore at Omaha beach and slogged his way across Europe. When he was done, he and his division was rounded up and was to be moved onto ships for a trip half-way around the world, where he would have been one of the lucky ones to wade ashore onto the island of Japan. Thankfully, before they had the chance the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.

My father may have made it through an invasion or he may not have. But I can tell you that he talked of that time with a thankfullness to President Truman who made that unnecessary. The dropping of the atomic weapons were horrible and it killed many, many innocent Japanese. Like what happened in Nanking, and the Phillipines, and Hawaii, and Burma and the list goes on and on. But it was necessary and it was appropriate and it may have SAVED up to several hundred thousand GI's.

To judge a character from history using todays sensibilities and logic is fool-hearty and ridiculous. The Japanese were willing to use 5 million civilians and march them onto the beaches where the landings were going to take place. Many, many more innocents would have died...

 

[regent]

Notice how you have to keep qualifying your responses more and more? Do you see why?

I hope I qualify my responses.

It seems you misunderstand the word as it was used in the context above.

Are you now down to this, I misunderstand what you meant. So enlighten me how did you intend the word to be used?