Enola Gay, heroism or insanity?

[Thunderbird]

Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur and many others thought the Hiroshima attack unwise.

HIROSHIMA
WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?

Some people seem eager to burn children alive to defeat a nation already defeated.

 

[westwall]

Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur and many others thought the Hiroshima attack unwise.

HIROSHIMA
WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?

Some people seem eager to burn children alive to defeat a nation already defeated.

Ike had no experience of what fighting the Japanese was like and MacArthur wanted to kill as many Japanese as possible because they had made him look like a fool. Mac was an asshole and Ike had no clue what fighting them was like.

 

[namvet]

Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur and many others thought the Hiroshima attack unwise.

HIROSHIMA
WHO DISAGREED WITH THE ATOMIC BOMBING?

Some people seem eager to burn children alive to defeat a nation already defeated.

Ike had no experience of what fighting the Japanese was like and MacArthur wanted to kill as many Japanese as possible because they had made him look like a fool. Mac was an asshole and Ike had no clue what fighting them was like.

and the others were desk jockeys. no combat experience at all

 

[namvet]

documents:

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/bomb/large/


Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese

 

[jasonnfree]

I call it heroism. It was a great risk of life flying over Japan like like that and dropping that bomb. I heard later on the pilot said he could feel the heat from the blast. Was the bombing right or wrong. That debate rages on but doesn't take away the heroism of pilot and crew.

 

[peach174]

Here's Dwight Eisenhower: "...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

The scientists who made the bomb and the politicians who used it share blame.

Except that is not true.
They refused to surrender until the 2nd bomb was dropped and the survivors themselves wrote that the bombing was the only way that their leader would surrender.

 

[namvet]

509th BW Northrop B-2A Block 10 Spirit 82-1071 Whiteman AFB, Knob Noster, MO

 

[Shotgun_Sammy]

And many reported that even with the bombs being dropped, it was the Russian invasion of Manchuria and the fear that they would invade the Japanese mainlands to the north hastened the surrender.

 

[Silent Warrior]

I don't think that many of those today condemning the bombing have the experience to know what they are talking about. When the biggest fear of your life has been losing your cell phone signal or the internet game site locking up, you can't really appreciate the thinking of those who had to decide on landing at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, or the Japanese mainland. While the bombings resulted in horrendous loss of life they probably saved the lives of even more GI's. It's always safer and easier to condemn others from mom's basement.

 

[regent]

Murdering women and children is immoral.

The silly myth promoted by the state, that the US needed to use the a-bombs to prevent American deaths in an invasion and to end the war, is pure silliness. There was no need to drop the bombs and no need to invade, since Japan was already defeated and had been trying to surrender for months.

If you had only been there to tell the Japanese they were already defeated, but would they have believed you? Even after the two bombs were dropped and the emperor asked the military to surrender was it considered.

 

[there4eyeM]

Other than preventing the Soviets from taking too much more terrain, there was no urgency that required either dropping the bombs nor invading Japan.

 

[regent]

Other than preventing the Soviets from taking too much more terrain, there was no urgency that required either dropping the bombs nor invading Japan.

One urgency was the American people wanted the war to be over. Already the army was bringing the GI's home from Europe and some of the guys in the Pacific had been over there three years. This was still a democracy in that people voted, and to continue that war once it was learned that it could have been ended could have been political suicide. I wonder if Ike knew what fighting the Japanese was like and MacArthur was only adding trophies to his belt.

 

[Shotgun_Sammy]

Other than preventing the Soviets from taking too much more terrain, there was no urgency that required either dropping the bombs nor invading Japan.

I would say that the fight from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa proved that the Japanese were not going to surrender. Perhaps, bombs or no bombs, it was not something that was going to happen.

Japan, having fought and won wars vs Russia and knowing that the Russians were just as ruthless.

North Korea is a living reminder of it.


A settled peace was not a option the U.S. would accept. Containing them would lead to a humanitarian disaster. President Truman took a look and pulled the trigger

There most definitely a need for urgency. The soviets would not have stopped.

 

[namvet]

had he lived would FDR have dropped em ???

up to this time America was feed up with it. tired of seeing ship loads of dead coming home. war bonds were running out. we were in danger of no funds to see it finished.

 

[Agit8r]

It was neither. Just an air crew doing their job.

 

[Anathema]

We should have waited a bit longer until additional weapons were ready and done the same to Tokyo..... NEVER start a fight you aren't 100% sure you can and will win or deal with the consequences of losing.

 

[Mr. H.]

I don't personally care if Enola was gay or not, just as long as he doesn't make me bake his cupcakes.

It says "heroism", not "homoism".

 

[Thunderbird]

US Responses to Dropping the Bomb

"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army
Air Forces Under President Truman

"I am absolutely convinced that had we said they could keep the emperor, together with the threat of an atomic bomb, they would have accepted, and we would never have had to drop the bomb."
- John McCloy

"For example, I offer my belief that the existence of the first atomic bombs may have prolonged -- rather than shortened - World War II by influencing Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman to ignore an opportunity to negotiate a surrender that would have ended the killing in the Pacific in May or June of 1945.
"And I have come to view the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings that August as an American tragedy that should be viewed as a moral atrocity."
- Stewart L. Udall
US Congressman

"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."
- U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey's 1946 Study

"Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is the that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.
- J. Samuel Walker
Chief Historian
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

I don't think Truman was motivated by anti-Communism, he just wanted revenge on Japan and to win the next election. I am not anti-Truman. I think aside from the atomic bomb decision, Truman was not a bad president.

 

[candycorn]

One of the crew felt such guilt and horror at what he had participate in, he tried to commit suicide. I saw an interview with one who said his life had been ruined by that one experience. Watch the documentary, Hiroshima - what we did to those civilians is indefensible.

The US was wrong.

I disagree. Here is why. The total number of people killed in the two blasts was actually going to be less than what we would have had to do otherwise which was Dresden-style firebombing of Tokyo.

I do grant that future generations were affected by the fallout.

 

[candycorn]

US Responses to Dropping the Bomb

"It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army
Air Forces Under President Truman

"I am absolutely convinced that had we said they could keep the emperor, together with the threat of an atomic bomb, they would have accepted, and we would never have had to drop the bomb."
- John McCloy

"For example, I offer my belief that the existence of the first atomic bombs may have prolonged -- rather than shortened - World War II by influencing Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and President Harry S. Truman to ignore an opportunity to negotiate a surrender that would have ended the killing in the Pacific in May or June of 1945.
"And I have come to view the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings that August as an American tragedy that should be viewed as a moral atrocity."
- Stewart L. Udall
US Congressman

"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."
- U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey's 1946 Study

"Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is the that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.
- J. Samuel Walker
Chief Historian
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

I don't think Truman was motivated by anti-Communism, he just wanted revenge on Japan and to win the next election. I am not anti-Truman. I think aside from the atomic bomb decision, Truman was not a bad president.

I think the fact that the Japanese didn't surrender in haste after Hiroshima was proof enough that they were in it for the long haul.