Happy Hiroshima Day!

[BackAgain]

Yeah because they have no problem committing war crimes and telling their dumb citizens (like you) it was necessary.

Gimp unilaterally declares the use of the atomic weapons in Japan to be war crimes.

No. It wasn’t. It was horrendous. But fighting wars is always a barbarous business. And attacking civilian populations has long been a practice of war.

Sure would be nice if we could find a way to fight wars in a civilized way. Of course, it would probably be even nicer if we could handle international conflicts without war at all.

 

[gipper]

Gimp unilaterally declares the use of the atomic weapons in Japan to be war crimes.

No. It wasn’t. It was horrendous. But fighting wars is always a barbarous business. And attacking civilian populations has long been a practice of war.

Sure would be nice if we could find a way to fight wars in a civilized way. Of course, it would probably be even nicer if we could handle international conflicts without war at all.

Speaking of dumb.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Speaking of dumb.

we all agree YOU are dumb as a post.

 

[BackAgain]

Speaking of dumb.

I was speaking of dumb; and then (as if by magic) you show up right on cue.

 

[mudwhistle]

That is bullshit. Even after two atomic bombs, surrendering damn near got Hirohito assassinated!



Bullshit. B-29s carrying incendiaries had nearly leveled most cities in Japan.

Bullshit. You couldn't fly masses of B-29s to Japan that long distance and not have to worry about them being shot down when they were halfway there.
You need to take into account the distance. A flight from England to Germany is 400 miles...and England had established airfields....whereas the flight from Tinian is 1500 miles and limited landing capabilities.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Iwo Jima to Tokyo is 750 miles. Okinawa is about 400 miles to Tokyo.

Are you totally unfamiliar with the B-29 raids on Japan, then?

 

[mudwhistle]

Iwo Jima to Tokyo is 750 miles. Okinawa is about 400 miles to Tokyo.

Are you totally unfamiliar with the B-29 raids on Japan, then?

The reason we took Iwo Jima was because of the fact that they were shooting down our B-29s with the Japanese fighters based there. Iwo Jima was deemed essential to winning the war.
After we took Iwo Jima...damaged B-29s had to land there because they couldn't make it all the way back to their bases. There was still a battle going on Iwo Jima when the first bombers landed. The flight was still twice as far as the flight from England to Germany. To fly the long distances required they had to fly lower and expose themselves to more anti-aircraft fire on the way to their targets.

The Japanese shot up those B-29s and it got to the point that they were losing too many aircrews.

 

[JoeB131]

The Soviet land grab? Soviets had a tiny force in the East and took an undefended island. Soviets were all in the West, a months journey away.

What are you talking about? IN the week the USSR was in the war, they overran Manchuria (Manchukuo), capturing Puppet Emperor Puyi before he could even flee to Japan.

US spent much of our money rebuilding Japan after the war. How much has Japan spent rebuilding China, Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, etc?

Quite a lot...

 

[Unkotare]

Using it deliberately on unarmed civilians? Is that what you consider an American value?

Never did get an answer on this.

 

[Mushroom]

“It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Ike…ever heard of him?

Oh wow, that really means so damned much.

Especially as the Nuclear Stockpile of the US expanded more during the 8 years he was in office than at any time before or since.

True fact. When Ike entered office, we had less than 400 nukes. When he left office, the US had over 18,000 of them.

Oh yes, anything he has to say is so damned important! I mean, he only increased the stockpile my many hundreds of times, more than any other President ever.

Yes, thank you for that completely worthless quote.

 

[Mushroom]

Never did get an answer on this.

Because Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not civilian targets.

Hiroshima was the main Logistics Base for the invasion, it was the Command Center for the Second General Army as well as massive supply and ordinance dumps.

In fact, during the bombing over 20,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. Including 5 Army Divisions and several major headquarters units that were wiped out in the blast.

Nagasaki was one of the main shipyards of Imperial Japan, and home base to most of their submarine fleet. That is where most of their subs were built, in addition to other major ships like the IJN Mushashi and the aircraft carrier IFN Kaiyo (one of the few Japanese carriers to survive the war).

12 Type D subs in various stages of completion, Nagasaki Shipyard, September 1945.

Completed Type D submarines, Nagasaki Shipyard, October 1945.

Over 60 completed 2 man suicide submarines, Nagasaki Shipyard, August 1945

Now how can those be anything but "military targets"?

 

[Mushroom]

Bullshit. You couldn't fly masses of B-29s to Japan that long distance and not have to worry about them being shot down when they were halfway there.

And not even counting that.

The main reason that Iwo Jima was needed was as an emergency landing strip for bombers going to Japan.

And until the end of the war, over 2,400 B-29s made emergency landing on that island. Not because of combat damage, but simple mechanical failure or adverse winds causing them to run critically low on fuel.

The first bombers were actually making landings before the runway was complete, and Japanese snipers were still shooting the construction workers.

 

[Mushroom]

True fact. When Ike entered office, we had less than 400 nukes. When he left office, the US had over 18,000 of them.

Unk, I see you gave that a thumbs down.

Why? Because you do not like the facts, or was what I said in error?

 

[mudwhistle]

And not even counting that.

The main reason that Iwo Jima was needed was as an emergency landing strip for bombers going to Japan.

And until the end of the war, over 2,400 B-29s made emergency landing on that island. Not because of combat damage, but simple mechanical failure or adverse winds causing them to run critically low on fuel.

The first bombers were actually making landings before the runway was complete, and Japanese snipers were still shooting the construction workers.

I read today that they were having tons of engine problems till after the war was over on the B-29s.
Once they ironed out the kinks and switch over to new engines they were extremely reliable.

"The most common cause of maintenance headaches and catastrophic failures was the engines.[24] Although the Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial engines later became a trustworthy workhorse in large piston-engined aircraft, early models were beset with dangerous reliability problems. This problem was not fully cured until the aircraft was fitted with the more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 "Wasp Major" in the B-29D/B-50 program, which arrived too late for World War II. Interim measures included cuffs placed on propeller blades to divert a greater flow of cooling air into the intakes, which had baffles installed to direct a stream of air onto the exhaust valves. Oil flow to the valves was also increased, asbestos baffles were installed around rubber push rod fittings to prevent oil loss, thorough pre-flight inspections were made to detect unseated valves, and mechanics frequently replaced the uppermost five cylinders (every 25 hours of engine time) and the entire engines (every 75 hours).[N 1][24][27]

Pilots, including the present-day pilots of the Commemorative Air Force's Fifi, one of the last two remaining flying B-29s, describe flight after takeoff as being an urgent struggle for airspeed (generally, flight after takeoff should consist of striving for altitude). Radial engines need airflow to keep them cool, and failure to get up to speed as soon as possible could result in an engine failure and risk of fire. One useful technique was to check the magnetos while already on takeoff roll rather than during a conventional static engine-runup before takeoff.[27]




Interior photo of the rear pressurized cabin of the B-29 Superfortress, June 1944



B-29 Weapons Bay with General-Purpose AN-M64 TNT 500 LB bombs

In wartime, the B-29 was capable of flight at altitudes up to 31,850 feet (9,710 m),[28] at speeds of up to 350 mph (560 km/h; 300 kn) (true airspeed). This was its best defense because Japanese fighters could barely reach that altitude, and few could catch the B-29 even if they did attain that altitude."

Boeing B-29 Superfortress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Open Bolt]

Oh, I didn't know this day was celebrated. Subsequently with the word "happy",

Of course it is. Dropping the atomic bombs was a great triumph of good over evil.

 

[Open Bolt]

A day that shall live in infamy.
Shame.

Nonsense.

Mass murder of defenseless women and children, is nothing short of the most heinous thing a nation can do.

The atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

No. He was terribly wrong. He is a war criminal who should have been hung.

Bombing military targets is not a war crime. Hanging Mr. Truman would have been murder.

Yeah nuking two cities full of defenseless innocent civilians is the same as bombing a military base that killed no civilians and a fraction on military personnel.

Both atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

Wrong. Japan had been trying to surrender for months.

That is incorrect. Japan did not offer to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

LOL. Why did we need to invade, conquer,and occupy?

Because Japan was refusing to surrender.

No need at all, unless you are an imperialist. Iwo was a total waste. Entirely unnecessary, but it’s no use.

That is incorrect. Japan was refusing to surrender.

Japan’s air forces were nonexistent by mid 1944, other than a few kamikaze pilots.

That would be ten thousand kamikaze pilots.

Our bombing crews often bombed the mainland entirely unmolested by Japanese fighters. They even went to daylight bombing, since there was no resistance.

Funny how Japan managed to chase the second atomic bomb away from Kokura Arsenal.

It was also a war crime.

That is incorrect. Attacks on military targets are not war crimes.

Yeah you start a war and we Americans will happily mass murder your women and children. CRAZY.

The atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

That’s right, but that in no way excuses Truman for mass murdering defenseless women and children.

Attacks on military targets are not murder.

It was a war crime then and since.

No it wasn't.

Numerous officials in the government and military said the A bombings were unnecessary, somehow that never got into the public school textbooks.

That's because historians understand that Japan was still refusing to surrender.

 

[Open Bolt]

It’s not.

Oh yes it is. I am quite happy to celebrate these holidays.

You can see the true character of anyone who would celebrate the incineration of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

They shouldn't have been hanging around military targets.

On the contrary, had fdr not ignored overtures for surrender long before, many thousands of American servicemen might not have been killed.

Japan did not offer to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

That's right, but the son of a bitch was alive during the Yalta Conference. Just prior to that meeting, he received a 40-page report from MacArthur informing him of overtures to surrender on behalf of Japan that MacArthur had learned of. The scumbag fdr dismissed the very notion as not serving his political ends (and potentially robbing him of a chance to try out his new toy by killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in a manner opposed by many of the leading US military leaders of the day).

Fake news. Never happened.

Mountains of evidence of said overtures have been provided over and over again on many threads here.

Fake news. Never happened.

Japan's first surrender offer came after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

That was not the only other option.

Had Japan continued to refuse to surrender, we would have invaded.

 

[Open Bolt]

That was Truman’s big lie that he used after he committed his war crime, in an effort to justify it.

Attacks on military targets are not a war crime.

Projected casualty figures from an invasion are not lies.

Thus, the rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication, which has gained surprising currency — that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives. These, supposedly, are the lives that would have been lost in the planned invasion of Kyushu in December, then in the all-out invasion of Honshu the next year, if that had been needed. But the worst-case scenario for a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands was forty-six thousand American lives lost.7

Wrong. The worst case figures were a million Americans dead and millions more maimed and gravely wounded.

The ridiculously inflated figure of a half-million for the potential death toll — nearly twice the total of US dead in all theaters in the Second World War — is now routinely repeated in high-school and college textbooks and bandied about by ignorant commentators.

Not inflated, and not ignorant. The invasion of Japan would have been a bloodbath.

Unsurprisingly the prize for sheer fatuousness on this score goes to President George H.W. Bush, who claimed in 1991 that dropping the bomb "spared millions of American lives."8

He was likely counting the maimed and gravely wounded.

"The rationale for the atomic bombings has come to rest on a single colossal fabrication — that they were necessary in order to save a half-million or more American lives."

Not at all. They were necessary because Japan was still refusing to surrender.

But it is certainly true that an invasion would have been a bloodbath.

Still, Truman's multiple deceptions and self-deceptions are understandable, considering the horror he unleashed. It is equally understandable that the US occupation authorities censored reports from the shattered cities and did not permit films and photographs of the thousands of corpses and the frightfully mutilated survivors to reach the public.9 Otherwise, Americans - and the rest of the world - might have drawn disturbing comparisons to scenes then coming to light from the Nazi concentration camps.

Nonsense.

 

[Open Bolt]

Best not to face the truth of the terrible immorality of mass murdering civilians.

Wartime strikes on military targets are not murder in any way.

America’s deliberate targeting of civilians, and its post-facto justifications, are clearly not unique, either in World War II, or in the wars before or since.

America has never deliberately targeted civilians in the past 100 years. We may have done so in our wars against the Native Americans however.

First, where have I ever stated anything excusing Japan’s war crimes.

I recall you once laughing at a post of mine that described horrendous Japanese atrocities.

Secondly and more importantly, you fail to comprehend the difference between the magnitude of the US government’s mass murdering of hundreds of thousands of civilians, versus what Japan did.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.

Mass murdering civilians of a defenseless nation wanting to surrender, is immoral and unjust.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.

Japan was anything but defenseless.

Japan was refusing to surrender.

Japan was defenseless.

Japan had millions of soldiers and ten thousand kamikazes waiting to pounce on our invading forces.

They had requested surrender terms numerous times prior

Japan refused to surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

to Truman’s war crime.

Bombing military targets is not a war crime.

THEY WERE NO LONGER A THREAT TO THE USA.

Millions of Japanese soldiers and ten thousand kamikazes was a pretty substantial threat to our invasion.

Yeah the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of defenseless civilians, is really nothing to get upset about.

Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.

Terrorists target civilians. The atomic bombs were dropped on military targets.

You are disgusted by the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army (rightly so), but somehow find the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of defenseless Japanese civilians by US bombing, to be entirely acceptable.
Do you fail to see the hypocrisy?

No hypocrisy. Wartime strikes against military targets are not murder.

 

[Open Bolt]

The nuking of Hiroshima is one of the biggest and most shameful stains on our history.

Nonsense. It was a great triumph of good over evil.

We did not need to nuke Hiroshima.

Sure we did. Japan was still refusing to surrender.

Truman knew at least two weeks before he ordered the atomic bomb dropped on the city that the Japanese wanted to surrender and that their only real condition was that the emperor not be deposed.

Wrong. Japan did not contemplate surrender until after both atomic bombs had already been dropped.

And when they did finally contemplate surrender, their condition was that Hirohito retain unlimited dictatorial power.

You might wanna read my article.

I read the first few sentences. Your articles are filled with lies.

* FDR, desperate to save Stalin's Soviet Union from collapse, imposed increasingly harsh sanctions on staunchly anti-communist Japan and rejected every Japanese peace offer. Japan only decided to attack Pearl Harbor when it became clear that FDR was not going to accept any of the enormous concessions that Japan was offering in an effort to get the sanctions lifted. Instead of making Japan an ally, FDR provoked them to war. Japan was prepared to invade the Soviet Union, but FDR made sure that didn't happen.

Gosh. It sure was mean of us to not help Japan commit genocide against their neighbors.

Cherry-picking and exaggeration don't refute facts. FDR definitely pushed the Japanese into war because he was desperate to save Stalin's Russia. He turned down very reasonable, if not extraordinary, Japanese peace offers, and refused to even meet with Prince Konoye (Konoe) to discuss the situation.

Perhaps he didn't think that support for genocide was nearly as reasonable as you find it.