64 Years ago, Yesterday... (Warning some graphic material)

reply to post by Jezus

The fact is that they were trying to surrender long before the drop of the bombs...

They were not trying to surrender, read above post. They were trying to make a deal with the Russians. When that didn't work, they tried to Negotiate with the Russians to get what they wanted as far as terms to end the war. 1) They wanted to keep conquered territory. 2) They wanted to keep their Military regime in place. 3) They wanted to conduct any war crimes trials themselves. 4) They wished to keep the Emperor in his current token position. Separate negotiations with a fellow ally was stupid, as the Russians attacked them anyway. The USA was decoding all these secret "negotiations" and knew that Japan was going to fight until every man, woman and child in their country was dead. So we drop 2 bombs, the end.

www.mercurynews.com...

en.wikipedia.org...


[edit on 14-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Oatmeal


That is all a lot of assumption and speculation.

They were trying to begin communications that would eventually end the war...

They were ignored because of a stubborn strategy.

There were options besides invasion or dropping nuclear bombs that were not fully explored.

reply to post by Jezus

That is all a lot of assumption and speculation.

It's called History, I provide proof...history happens, you can't change it after the fact. Where is your proof that the Japanese were trying to surrender? They were not. They were trying to negotiate with the Russians. They started it, we finished it, think they'll try it again? I don't think so.

There were options besides invasion or dropping nuclear bombs that were not fully explored.

Options? Like what, a full scale fire bombing of Japan? An invasion? How many lives did we save by dropping two bombs? Millions.

[edit on 15-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Oatmeal

Where is your proof that the Japanese were trying to surrender?

I’ve posted this before, I’ll post it again for you Oatmeal.

July 1945 - Japan's peace messages

Still, the messages from Togo to Sato, read by the U.S. at the time, clearly indicated that Japan was seeking to end the war:

· July 11: "make clear to Russia... We have no intention of annexing or taking possession of the areas which we have been occupying as a result of the war; we hope to terminate the war".

· July 12: "it is His Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war".

· July 13: "I sent Ando, Director of the Bureau of Political Affairs to communicate to the [Soviet] Ambassador that His Majesty desired to dispatch Prince Konoye as special envoy, carrying with him the personal letter of His Majesty stating the Imperial wish to end the war" (for above items, see: U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 1, pg. 873-879).

· July 18: "Negotiations... necessary... for soliciting Russia's good offices in concluding the war and also in improving the basis for negotiations with England and America." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/18/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).

· July 22: "Special Envoy Konoye's mission will be in obedience to the Imperial Will. He will request assistance in bringing about an end to the war through the good offices of the Soviet Government." The July 21st communication from Togo also noted that a conference between the Emperor's emissary, Prince Konoye, and the Soviet Union, was sought, in preparation for contacting the U.S. and Great Britain (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/22/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).

· July 25: "it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1260 - 1261).

· July 26: Japan's Ambassador to Moscow, Sato, to the Soviet Acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Lozovsky: "The aim of the Japanese Government with regard to Prince Konoye's mission is to enlist the good offices of the Soviet Government in order to end the war." (Magic-Diplomatic Summary, 7/26/45, Records of the National Security Agency, Magic Files, RG 457, Box 18, National Archives).

President Truman knew of the messages' content, noting, for instance, in his diary on July 18, "Stalin had told P.M. [Prime Minister Churchill] of telegram from Jap [sic] Emperor asking for peace" (Robert Ferrell, ed., Off the Record - the Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, pg. 53).

source

peace




[edit on 15-8-2009 by silo13]

Originally posted by Jezus

There were options besides invasion or dropping nuclear bombs that were not fully explored.

Why explore other options when the answer was in the two bombs? It seems you take hindsight for foresight. Who is to say that Russia wasn't considering a Japanese alliance, or that Japan might have fought with every man women or child, or that talks would stall for years as to what type of surrender was debated, while rebuilding their might once again or other alliances.

Those two bombs ended the war, ended every other possible scenario, and I can't say that was a bad thing to do for the situation at hand.


[edit on 15-8-2009 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by silo13

July 25: "it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1260 - 1261).

So in other words.. Lets end the war and pretend like it never happened....

Well the war did happen and Japan did really nasty things to everyone and unconditional was the only option, and we saw how two bombs changed the impossible.

I remember the guy who actually dropped the bomb, i think he died now but he was jumped up a few ranks for doing this.
Can anyone clarify this?

reply to post by silo13

Marshall then learned from the Magic Summaries, just before the Potsdam Conference convened on July 17, 1945, about behind-the-scenes negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union. From June 3-14, 1945, Koki Hirota, a Japanese envoy with Emperor Hirohito's blessing, had met with the Russian ambassador to Tokyo to propose a new relationship between the two countries. Japan proposed to carve up Asia with the USSR . According to the Magic Diplomatic Summaries of July 3, 1945, Hirota told the Russian ambassador: "Japan will increase her naval strength in the future, and that, together with the Russian Army, would make a force unequaled in the world...." The Magic Summaries further revealed that throughout June and July 1945, Japan's militarist leaders were adamantly determined that they would never surrender unconditionally to the British and the Americans.

Your Source:

July 25: "it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1260 - 1261).

On July 25, Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki announced to the Japanese press that the Potsdnm declaration was to be Ignored." Meanwhile, the Magic Summaries revealed that Tokyo was demanding that Moscow accept a special envoy from Emperor Hirohito, presumably to cement the deal offering to divide Asia between Japan and Russia while Moscow brokered a Japanese surrender with the U.S. and Britain that would be acceptable to Tokyo.

This is what the Americans President Truman, Secretary of War Stimson and Gen. Marshall knew the day before the first atom bomb fell on Japan. Confronted by an enemy leadership that was self-deluded, neither prepared to surrender nor to negotiate seriously, the Americans decided that the only way to end the war quickly would be to use overwhelming force: nuclear weapons.

Your Source:

There were various factors that might have made offering retention of the Emperor a difficult choice for Truman. It was believed by some that such a concession would embolden Japan to fight on. This argument, however, rings hollow, for it was all too obvious that the Japanese were fighting on anyway. In regard to American public opinion, it was well known to Truman that unconditional surrender was a popular, albeit vague, idea. For many people, this included punishment of the Emperor.

Two bombs were dropped. The Russians invaded Manchuria. On August 10, Emperor Hirohito overruled his militarist advisors and accepted the Potsdam declaration. Japan surrendered.

But the Americans continued to read the Japanese codes. Almost immediately; the Magic Summaries revealed that the new foreign minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, had begun a world-wide propaganda campaign to brand the Americans as war criminals for using nuclear weapons. Tokyo's goals included keeping Emperor Hirohito from being tried for instigating a war of aggression, and diverting Western attention away from the many Japanese atrocities committed since the start of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. "Since the Americans have recently been raising an uproar about the question of our mistreatment of prisoners [of war],'' Shigemitsu instructed his diplomats in the Sept. 15, 1945, Magic Summary, "I think we should make every effort to exploit the atomic bomb question in our propaganda. That propaganda campaign has borne its final fruit in the revisionist account of the bombing of Japan.

Yet the evidence is crystal clear. The use of nuclear weapons to end World War II quickly and decisively averted the death or maiming of hundreds of thousands American soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. It also saved the lives of some 400,000 Allied prisoners of war and civilian detainees in Japanese hands, all of whom were to be executed in the event of an American invasion of Japan. Above all, it saved untold hundreds of thousands more Japanese-perhaps millions-from becoming casualties of pre-invasion bombing and shelling, followed by two invasions and forcible occupation.

The evidence is pretty clear that the Japanese were not going to get a "back door" deal with the Russians, disguised as peace "negotiations". The Japanese Military Regime vowed to never surrender to the Americans and British.

www.centurychina.com...

reply to post by shredder

I remember the guy who actually dropped the bomb, i think he died now but he was jumped up a few ranks for doing this. Can anyone clarify this?

Colonel Tibbets was placed in command of the newly form 509th Composite Group, who mission was to drop the atomic bomb. He chose Wendover Air Base in Utah for the training. He requisitioned 15 new B-29s and had them stripped of turrets and armor plating except for the tail gunner position. He specified that fuel-injected engines and reversible-pitch propellers be installed and re-configured the bomb bay to suspend ten thousand pounds from a single point. These changes assured the planes would fly higher, faster, and beyond the effective range of anti-aircraft fire. In March, 1945, the 509th moved overseas to Tinian Island in the Marianas chain. And on the afternoon of August 5th, 1945, President Truman gave his approval to use the weapons against Japan. At 02:45 A.M. August 6th, the Enola Gay - named after Tibbets's mother - lifted off North Field en route to Hiroshima. At exactly 08:15 plus 15 seconds the world's first atomic bomb exploded. The course of history and the nature of warfare was changed. When the Enola Gay and her crew landed at Tinian at 2:58 P.M. they were greeted by General Carl Spaatz, a large contingent of brass, and a crowd of GIs. Spaatz decorated Tibbets with the Distinguished Service Cross and the other crew members with Air Medals. In 1959, Col. Tibbets was promoted to Brigadier General. He retired from the U.S. Air Force on August 31, 1966. He is enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Tibbets died at his Columbus, Ohio home. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

14 years after dropping the first atomic bomb, Col. Paul Tibbets was promoted one rank to Brigadier General.

www.hiroshima-remembered.com...

[edit on 15-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by silo13

Still, the messages from Togo to Sato, read by the U.S. at the time, clearly indicated that Japan was seeking to end the war:

An inner cabinet in Tokyo authorized Japan's only officially sanctioned diplomatic initiative. The Japanese dubbed this inner cabinet the Big Six because it comprised just six men: Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, Army Minister Korechika Anami, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, and the chiefs of staff of the Imperial Army (General Yoshijiro Umezu) and Imperial Navy (Admiral Soemu Toyoda). In complete secrecy, the Big Six agreed on an approach to the Soviet Union in June 1945. This was not to ask the Soviets to deliver a "We surrender" note; rather, it aimed to enlist the Soviets as mediators to negotiate an end to the war satisfactory to the Big Six--in other words, a peace on terms satisfactory to the dominant militarists. Their minimal goal was not confined to guaranteed retention of the Imperial Institution; they also insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled.

The conduit for this initiative was Japan's ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato. He communicated with Foreign Minister Togo--and, thanks to code breaking, with American policymakers. Ambassador Sato emerges in the intercepts as a devastating cross-examiner ruthlessly unmasking for history the feebleness of the whole enterprise. Sato immediately told Togo that the Soviets would never bestir themselves on behalf of Japan. The foreign minister could only insist that Sato follow his instructions. Sato demanded to know whether the government and the military supported the overture and what its legal basis was--after all, the official Japanese position, adopted in an Imperial Conference in June 1945 with the emperor's sanction, was a fight to the finish. The ambassador also demanded that Japan state concrete terms to end the war, otherwise the effort could not be taken seriously. Togo responded evasively that the "directing powers" and the government had authorized the effort--he did not and could not claim that the military in general supported it or that the fight-to-the-end policy had been replaced. Indeed, Togo added: "Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender."

This last comment triggered a fateful exchange. Critics have pointed out correctly that both Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew (the former U.S. ambassador to Japan and the leading expert on that nation within the government) and Secretary of War Henry Stimson advised Truman that a guarantee that the Imperial Institution would not be eliminated could prove essential to obtaining Japan's surrender. The critics further have argued that if only the United States had made such a guarantee, Japan would have surrendered. But when Foreign Minister Togo informed Ambassador Sato that Japan was not looking for anything like unconditional surrender, Sato promptly wired back a cable that the editors of the "Magic" Diplomatic Summary made clear to American policymakers "advocate[s] unconditional surrender provided the Imperial House is preserved." Togo's reply, quoted in the "Magic" Diplomatic Summary of July 22, 1945, was adamant: American policymakers could read for themselves Togo's rejection of Sato's proposal--with not even a hint that a guarantee of the Imperial House would be a step in the right direction. Any rational person following this exchange would conclude that modifying the demand for unconditional surrender to include a promise to preserve the Imperial House would not secure Japan's surrender.

What the intercept evidence discloses is that Grew reviewed the Japanese effort and concurred with the U.S. Army's chief of intelligence, Major General Clayton Bissell, that the effort most likely represented a ploy to play on American war weariness. They deemed the possibility that it manifested a serious effort by the emperor to end the war "remote." Lest there be any doubt about Grew's mindset, as late as August 7, the day after Hiroshima, Grew drafted a memorandum with an oblique reference to radio intelligence again affirming his view that Tokyo still was not close to peace.

The intercepts of Japanese Imperial Army and Navy messages disclosed without exception that Japan's armed forces were determined to fight a final Armageddon battle in the homeland against an Allied invasion. The Japanese called this strategy Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive). It was founded on the premise that American morale was brittle and could be shattered by heavy losses in the initial invasion. American politicians would then gladly negotiate an end to the war far more generous than unconditional surrender.

www.freerepublic.com...

Still, the messages from Togo to Sato, read by the U.S. at the time, clearly indicated that Japan was seeking to end the war:

No, it was a Ploy...They had No Intention of Surrendering.



[edit on 15-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by silo13

July 25: "it is impossible to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, but we should like to communicate to the other party through appropriate channels that we have no objection to a peace based on the Atlantic Charter." (U.S. Dept. of State, Potsdam 2, pg. 1260 - 1261).

Meeting from August -12, 1941, in great secrecy aboard the U.S. heavy cruiser USS Augusta and the British battle cruiser HMS Prince of Wales, the two leaders and their staffs discussed the general strategy of the war against the Axis Powers. The major public outcome of the Atlantic Conference was the Atlantic Charter, issued by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill on August 14, 1941. The Atlantic Charter formed the basis of the United Nations Charter.

From the Atlantic Charter:

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

The Japanese negotiating with the Russians, state that they would accept a Peace based upon The Atlantic Charter, which was signed four months before they bombed Pearl Harbor. Which was aimed at securing Peace in the European Theater of War. Japan is in the Pacific Ocean! They were clearly playing games at negotiating with the Russians! They want a peaceful surrender based on a document that states:

Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.

Then they bomb us!!!

www.internet-esq.com...

[edit on 15-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Jezus

That is all a lot of assumption and speculation. They were trying to begin communications that would eventually end the war... They were ignored because of a stubborn strategy. There were options besides invasion or dropping nuclear bombs that were not fully explored.

Did you read from the sources supplied?

www.mercurynews.com...

en.wikipedia.org...

Additional sources:

www.centurychina.com...

www.freerepublic.com...


Try this one from the Foriegn Policy Research Institute:

www.fpri.org...

[edit on 15-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

reply to post by Jezus


From your source:

A May 5 cable, intercepted and decoded by the U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador in Tokyo, after he talked to a ranking Japanese naval officer, it read: "Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with disfavor an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard. [7]"

A cable sent to Berlin on May 5, 1945 is an attempt to negotiate peace with the Allies? We were still at war with Germany on that date anyway! And the cable was sent by the German Ambassador to Berlin! The Allies were not approached at all in this "surrender cable".

Also from same source:

Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima. It had been trying for months, if not for years, to surrender; and the U.S. had consistently rebuffed these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted and decoded by the U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador.

As historian Robert Butow pointed out in 1954, the fate of Japan rested in the hands of only eight men. These were the emperor, his principal advisor Marquis Koichi Kido, and an inner cabinet of the government of Admiral Kantaro Suzuki called the “Big Six”: Prime Minister Suzuki, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, Army Minister General Korechika Anami, Navy Minister Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu, and Chief of the Navy General Staff Admiral Soemu Toyoda. There is no record whatsoever that any of these eight men proposed a set of terms or circumstances in which Japan would capitulate prior to Hiroshima. More significantly, none of these men even after the war claimed that there was any set of terms of circumstances that would have prompted Japan to surrender prior to Hiroshima. The evidence available shows that in June, a memorandum from Kido to the emperor proposed that the emperor intervene not to surrender, but to initiate mediation by a third party. The mediation would look to settle the war on terms that echoed the Treaty of Versailles: Japan might have to give up its overseas conquests and experience disarmament for a time, but the old order in Japan would remain in charge. Certainly there would be no occupation and no internal reform.

Following prompting by Kido, at the emperor’s bidding and in super secrecy the Big Six initiated tentative steps to secure the Soviet Union as a mediator to procure a negotiated end to the war—not to surrender. The feeble effort went nowhere. The “Big Six” never agreed on what terms might be offered to the Soviet Union to act as mediator, much less on terms to end the war. Nor did the emperor intervene decisively to lay down terms for mediation or for ending the war.

www.fpri.org...


[edit on 16-8-2009 by Oatmeal]

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst

I dont want to take away from the meaning of the article, ... but whats the significance of the 64 year anniversary ??? next year it will be 65 years, ... should we observe it as a holiday or something ??

I think the sad thing is .... Japan had already surrendered before the bombs were dropped. ... but the US wanted revenge for Pearl Harbour, ... as well as being able to test the new weapon on a population.

[edit on 7-8-2009 by IntastellaBurst]

lets see here.... 06 August 1945 hiroshima bombed... then on 09 August 1945 Nagasaki is bombed

now just prior to the bombings the potsdam request for surrender is issued... since it was not listened to.... japan had not officially surrendered...

then on 15 August 1945.. official surrender is signed.... and that is after the bombings... not before... and there was no prior surrender

also 02 Septemver and August 15 are both known as VJ day...

Sad. My wife is half japanese and had relatives die and where affected by hiroshima at the time of the bomb. Although they attacked us, I personally believe the story that our government knew they were coming and probably could have stopped it. Even if thats not true we still didnt need to kill 250k innocents.

I think the US was just looking for any excuse to test their evil new weapon.

I think we should have done something, but an atomic bomb that was pretty much targetted at all innocents? C'mon. Thats just america sayng this is what happens if you mess with us, its like that rediculous hick song that came out after 9/11 that said something like, "I'll put my boot in your ass, courtesy the red white and blue". Disgusting and rediculous.

This may sound weird, but I'm a marine myself but I hate war.


[edit on by jeasahtheseer]

reply to post by jeasahtheseer

I think the US was just looking for any excuse to test their evil new weapon.

.
Read some of the previous posts. The US dropped the Bomb to save millions of lives, American soldiers, Japanese soldiers, Japanese civilians. If you read the above posts, you will see that Japan was not going to surrender. An invasion was too costly in lives for both sides, we dropped two bombs and ended it. The two previous battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima cost more lives than both bombs together. The Japanese military lived by the code of Bushido, it was more honorable to die in battle than to surrender. The Japanese were training old women and children to defend the home islands with rocks and clubs, if we were to invade a massacre on both sides would have been the result.

In the spring, Japan implemented a series of national laws designed to form a seamless unity of the armed forces, government, and the people. All males ages 15- 60 and all females ages 17-40 were drafted into a huge national militia. With Okinawa as the prototype, these individuals were mustered into units to serve in combat support and then combat roles. In June, an Imperial Conference formally sanctified the Ketsu Go “Fight to the Finish” strategy. The staff papers presented to the policymakers in preparation for this conference also told them something else: Even if Ketsu Go produced a military and diplomatic success, the nation’s desperate food situation by 1946 would kill vast numbers of people. Ketsu Go thus involved the virtual obliteration of meaningful distinctions between combatants and noncombatants and contemplated stupendous numbers of Japanese casualties not just in battle, but also from starvation.

The Japanese leaders might be publicly calling for a struggle of flesh against iron, of spirit against materiel, in the Japanese tradition (which, after all, despised surrender). And the Diet might be passing a "volunteer military service" law for boys of 15 and men of 60, for girls of 17 and women of 40. But even the highest-ranking government were horrified at the Army's primitive notions for militia defense. In July 1945, Premier Suzuki and his associates were invited to visit an amazing display of weapons to be issued the Japanese citizenry: Single-shot, muzzle-loading muskets; longbows and arrows (effective range 30-40 meters, hit probability 50%, said the placards); bamboo spears; pitchforks. The ordinarily phlegmatic old prime minister mumbled to his secretary, "This is awful!" The secretary agreed, in fury and despair. There was a limit to deceiving the people, he felt; this was hardly a sane way of fighting in the 20th Century. Something must be done to achieve peace....

www.fpri.org...

www.fas.org...

www.ibiblio.org...

The U.S. side anticipated losing many soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan, although the actual number of expected fatalities and wounded is subject to some debate. U.S. President Truman stated after the war that he had been advised that U.S. casualties could range from 250,000 to one million men.[3] Other sources put the highest estimates at 30,000 to 50,000.[4] In a study done by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in April 1945, the figures of 7.45 casualties per 1,000 man-days and 1.78 fatalities per 1,000 man-days were developed. This implied that the two planned campaigns to conquer Japan would cost 1.6 million U.S. casualties, including 370,000 dead.[5] In addition, millions of Japanese military and civilian casualties were expected.[6] An Air Force Association history says, "Millions of women, old men, and boys and girls had been trained to resist by such means as attacking with bamboo spears and strapping explosives to their bodies and throwing themselves under advancing tanks,"[7] and also that "[t]he Japanese cabinet had approved a measure extending the draft to include men from ages fifteen to sixty and women from seventeen to forty-five (an additional 28 million people).[8] Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on 1 August 1944, ordering the disposal and execution of all Allied prisoners of war, numbering over 100,000, if an invasion of the Japanese mainland took place.[9]

Supporters of the bombings have emphasized the strategic significance of the targets. Hiroshima was used as headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army, which commanded the defense of southern Japan with 40,000 military personnel in the city. Hiroshima was a communication center, an assembly area for troops, a storage point and had several military factories as well.[17][14][18] Nagasaki was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials.[19]

On 30 June 2007, Japan's defense minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war. Kyuma said "I now have come to accept in my mind that in order to end the war, it could not be helped (Shikata ga nai) that an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and that countless numbers of people suffered great tragedy." Kyuma, who is from Nagasaki, said the bombing caused great suffering in the city, but he does not resent the U.S. because it prevented the Soviet Union from entering the war with Japan.[22] Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue protested against Kyuma, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized over Kyuma's remark to Hiroshima A-bomb survivors.[23] In the wake of the outrage provoked by his statements, Kyuma had to resign on 3 July.[24] However, the comments of Kyuma were almost similar to those made by Emperor Hirohito when, in his first ever press conference given in Tokyo in 1975, he was asked what he thought of the bombing of Hiroshima. Hirohito then answered : "It's very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima but it couldn't be helped (Shikata ga nai) because that happened in wartime."[25]

www.answers.com...

reply to post by Oatmeal


Interesting. I admit I hadn't studied it much. Its just my wife is part japanese and was born there and I love her deeply so sometimes I have a problem justifying what the us did. Shes only 26 though so she obviously wasnt alive when it happened.

Interesting though, I didnt know about all that you said in your posts. If thats all true, I'd say my views have changed slightly. I still think thats a evil weapon though and I hope its never used again.

And I know about bushido and samurais, I've studied it along with many other japanese philosophies for a long time.


[edit on by jeasahtheseer]

reply to post by jeasahtheseer

Interesting though, I didnt know about all that you said in your posts. If thats all true, I'd say my views have changed slightly. I still think thats a evil weapon though and I hope its never used again.

It is a very interesting subject, I also wish I knew a lot more about Japanese culture. It is an evil weapon and I'm glad the USA won the race to develop it. They used it to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending the Second World War. The Bloodiest conflict in the entire history of the planet. And the USA has never used it again. The USA is also against any other countries developing nuclear weapons technology, because we used it and we know how devastating it is. The scientist at the testing grounds in New Mexico were afraid it might ignite the entire atmosphere, or blow up the whole state. But, there are those in the world who choose to accuse the USA of being the World Policeman of nuclear weapons. I am happy that at least we seem to be doing a decent job of it so far. And I do mean, so far. No more nuclear weapons have been used in war since August 9, 1945.

reply to post by Oatmeal


I agree, I'm actually checking out all the links you provided above. Interesting stuff.

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst

I dont want to take away from the meaning of the article, ... but whats the significance of the 64 year anniversary ??? next year it will be 65 years, ... should we observe it as a holiday or something ??

I think the sad thing is .... Japan had already surrendered before the bombs were dropped. ... but the US wanted revenge for Pearl Harbour, ... as well as being able to test the new weapon on a population.

[edit on 7-8-2009 by IntastellaBurst]

I didn't know that! In that case, it was nothing but genocide, and it was a crime up there with the Nazis' genocides, if not as big.