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

For all you fair and balanced out there, be sure to also check out Japan's achievements in China during World War II. One of the most famous is called the "Rape of Nanking". Read up on that, and see if you can view the Japanese in the same light of innocence you do now.

If the Soviet's had not declared war at the same time, two nukes would not have been enough

So by your reasoning the complete annihilation of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the killing of 260 thousand people wouldn’t have stopped the war?

Then why did they do it?

Japan had been working with the Soviets to help bring about peace, the Soviets interceding for Japan on their behalf.

If anyone knew they were about out, it was the Russians. (Probably why they finally turned their back on Japan...but that’s cynicism talking)

In the meantime, the Japanese government was attempting to persuade the Soviet Union to mediate a peace for Japan that would not be unconditional.
This was in response to the Emperor's request at a Big Six meeting on June 22, 1945 to seek peace thru the Soviets, who were the only major member of the Allies that had a neutrality pact with Japan at the time (Butow, pg. 118-120).
Unfortunately for all concerned, Japan's leaders were divided over precisely what terms should be sought to end the war, with the Japanese military leaders still wishing to avoid anything that the Allies would have considered a clear "surrender".

Having broken the code Japan used for transmitting messages, the U.S. was able to follow Japan's efforts to end the war as it intercepted the messages between Foreign Minister Togo and Japan's Ambassador to Moscow Sato. The messages were sent as the result of the June 22, 1945 Japanese Cabinet meeting.
The conditions under which Japan was willing to surrender were not clearly spelled out in the messages, aside from a willingness to give up territory occupied during the war and a repeated rejection of "unconditional surrender".

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).

link

[edit on 7-8-2009 by silo13]

Somehow I missed this thread yesterday. Thank you for remembering the bombing. Not for the Japanese who died, but as a reminder of why we should keep these weapons away from anyone that might use them.

I am married to a Japanese woman, and afflicted with a severe case of "yellow fever". Despite that, I have no doubt that the Japanese needed to have not one, but two nuclear bombs dropped on them. No one knows how long that war would have dragged on had that not happened. The Japanese were a very ruthless adversary, and I am sure that surrender was not in their agenda. The mother of my second child is a Chinese direct from the PRC. I have been to China many times and studied some of their history. You should read up on it. Maybe what the Japanese did was on par with what Hitler did. I would say worse than what Hitler did, but I am sure that will have people whining that I am anti-semitic. Dig around a little, Nanking is just the poster child for Japanese atrocity. Everywhere the Japanese went, the raped, butchered, and burned. If they had made it to the west coast of the U.S.,.. well I'll let you think on that.

Just curious. When I first joined ATS, there was a group of "nuclear bombs do not exist" people. I thought they would have been drawn here like moths to a flame.

And here is some food for thought. I have talked to many an old Japanese man since marrying a Japanese, and was told more than once something I did not know. I was told by them that the Japanese did not surrender because of the bombs. The bombs made them realize they were going to lose, but they did not want to surrender to the Russians. They thought the U.S. would treat them better.

>edit due to typing before the morning coffee and making a ton of typos.<




[edit on 7-8-2009 by tamusan]

reply to post by Ferris.Bueller.II

Read up on that, and see if you can view the Japanese in the same light of innocence you do now.

Once again - I don’t see the Japanese military as being innocent.

If your point is to be taken then I guess we’ll just have to start holding all the American’s responsible for the actions - the rapes and tortures and murders the US soldiers are perpetrating in their wars overseas.
Right?
How do you like that?

The Japanese military - fare game in war but their innocent children, women and civilians? No.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki had 5-6 civilians for every soldier in the areas bombed.

That is just wrong.

peace

reply to post by tamusan

The bombs made them realize they were going to lose, but they did not want to surrender to the Russians. They thought the U.S. would treat them better.

Thank you for the insight, I appreciate it.

Yet, in knowing the ferocity of the Japanese unwillingness to ‘give up’ - why were they negotiating through the Russians to do just that very thing?

I guess the answer is what you posted, so the Japanese could surrender to the Americans and not the Soviets.

But it’s still a dog chasing it’s tail.

Interesting though.

By the way, I only put this thread in today.

Honestly I didn't want to have anything to do with it - but - when I saw no one else on ATS posted in memory of Hiroshima yesterday, I couldn’t shut my eyes to it any longer and went ahead and posted.
Does that make me a hypocrite?
No, just someone who knows my time limit is constrained right now and I might not be able to give the thread the proper attention I think it deserves.

Thanks again
peace

The bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was an act of MERCY during a war.
The few hundred thousand killed was just a fraction of what would have died... yes even civilians... if a conventional invasion was required. Multi-millions was the estimate for dead Japanese.

A million American servicemen deaths was the estimated to die during the invasion and occupation; this alone was a moral imperative for the A-bombs. The FIRST MORAL issue in war is to your own soldiers. This of course is foreign to libnuts today who do not serve and do not sent their children to the services sacrifices of war. Libnuts think they do not have a dog in this fight attitude in ALL discussions of war. They are always quick to sacrifice their neighbor's father brother son husband for a little political correctness.... then cliche, "I support the troops but I am against the war".

Libnuts claim a high moral position but actually occupy the moral low ground. In politically correct jargon they are morally handicapped.
Nonpolitically correct language would term them cowardly idiot assholes that are educated beyond their intelligence.

It is always and easy thing to find a few pictures depicting the horror of war. These pictures in NO WAY clarify if the war was moral. It takes a little analysis to determine which side both sides(?) were responsible. The aggressor is always responsible for the death of their civilians.

Bomb in the bay to warn Japan???? Hell, the Japanese did not surrender with the first annialated city, so I say that would be rock solid evidence that A SECOND BOMBING WAS REQUIRED.
Another advantage of two devastating bombs was COMPLETE SURRENDER. Full compliance was required for a more or less peaceful take over to bring most of the soldiers home. Ultimately it createdone of the strongest economies in 30 years.

The MORAL invasion and nation rebuilding of Japan by the U.S. is likely the greatest success story in the history of war. The vaporizing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the wise and moral key to this success.

How can any reasonable person say it was wrong to use the bomb to end the war. Given your freedoms today which you have because of the way the second world war ended. If the US got involved in a long drawn out conventional war they would have been left more vulnerable to attack from other enemies and that would have prolonged the war and who knows how things would have ended. So yes the bombs were necessary to end the war and people died but more were saved than lost on all sides. The point that so many civilians were killed does not make it unfair, unfortunate but not unfair. Civilians were lost by all countries involved in the war. How many lives were lost at Pearl Harbour? There were civilian casualties there but it was a military target. Let's not forget Japan was the aggressor in this war.

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]

Japan had already surrendered? I must have missed that in all of my history classes. I could have sworn that the Japanese surrender wasn't until 15 August.

As for 'revenge for Pearl Harbor', we already had that. See also Midway, Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf / Philippine Sea, round 2...

Originally posted by silo13
reply to post by enigmalone

 

your conciense and your countryman can be free of guilt but many here will not be.

???

Why would you or your countrymen feel guilty, if you believe the massacring 250 or more thousand people and succeeding in cracking the earth crust wasn’t the right thing to do?

Sleep well tonight my friend, you’ve earned it.

peace

Cracking the Earth's crust?
*double take*

Given that neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki was replaced by an active volcano, or even a crater, where is there any evidence that the nuclear attacks on Japan cracked the Earth's crust?

It's true that both blasts registered on seismographs, but that's true for any major explosion, and doesn't indicate cracking of the crust, only jarring it.

Originally posted by silo13Conventional firebombing would have caused as much significant damage without making the U.S. the first nation to use nuclear weapons.

peace

[edit on 7-8-2009 by silo13]

I don't understand everyone's fear, hatred, demonization of nuclear weapons vs. any other kind. A weapon is a weapon. What's the difference between dropping one bomb that packs the punch of 50,000 tons of TNT vs. dropping 100,000 1,000 lb. bombs? I understand the radiation aspect, but ask any of the original bombing survivors, who later developed cancer, if they would have preferred to die immediately after the bomb, or live out most of a lifetime and eventually die of cancer. I know what my choice would be.

Killing is killing.

Where is the outrage over the fire bombing of Dresden? Tokyo? The carpet bombing of Germany and Japan?

I guess it's chic to oppose nuclear weapons, but in my opinion a bomb is a bomb is a bomb. The bigger the bomb, the more people fear it, and are therfore less likely to escalate any confrontation.


[edit on 8/7/2009 by darkbluesky]

Originally posted by IntastellaBurst
I think the sad thing is .... Japan had already surrendered before the bombs were dropped. ...

Japan Surrenders

September 2, 1945 That morning, on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese envoys Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signed their names on the Instrument of Surrender. The time was recorded as 4 minutes past 9 o'clock. Afterward, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Commander in the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, also signed. He accepted the Japanese surrender "for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan."

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d51924936447.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8b42c1b382a6.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c0def8899b2c.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/03cd914289ec.jpg[/atsimg]

Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)

In the early morning hours of August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from the island of Tinian and headed north by northwest toward Japan.

[edit on 7-8-2009 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by Brother Stormhammer

It's true that both blasts registered on seismographs, but that's true for any major explosion, and doesn't indicate cracking of the crust, only jarring it.

I heard it in two seperate films on Hiroshima.
I'll do some hunting to see if I can find them.

Thanks

reply to post by silo13


Personally i didn't forget.

But something's should remain in history not the present.

Not to sound mean or anything or heartless.
I feel the thread was intended to pass blame on America to show what hate monger's we are ect...
So pshhh please
What are father's before us done you are not gonna see me do.

That one country singer sing's a song about it.

We put a boot in ya arse it's the American way.
Has anyone else messed with us beside terrorist group's?NOPE.

Do you not think if america rushed russia or UK..and killed close too 2000 people in a raid .
they wouldn't just bomb us now?
be done with it.

Yes they would.
That's why we picking on iraq and isreal.
that's because they don't got good bomb's lol





[edit on 7-8-2009 by TheAmused]

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]

They already surrendered?....that is news. I lived in Japan for five years and visited the sights and the Japanese do not think they surrendered until after the bombs.

We killed more people in firebombing many of their major cities and they wouldn't surrender, it was estimated that millions on both sides would die in a very long ground invasion. Also, the reason for two bombs is the world thought we only had one, and using two told them different, but it was also a chess match for we only had two, but the world didn’t know that.

I agree that we might have saved lives if we dropped the first one close to them and the second on a city if they didn’t heed our demands, but then the bombers flew a route unnoticed because it was a route used by mail airplanes…if they knew we were coming with a nuke it would be much harder to drop it.

When I first went to the two cities I was somewhat apprehensive because here was a American visiting the very sight we destroyed and I didn’t know how the general population would treat or view me, but I was very surprise. The interesting thing though is the younger Japanese really don’t care, but the older Japanese were very friendly and wanted to talk, feed me or just shake my hand.

We all agree the war was bad in many areas and the two nukes were just one of many terrible events, and not even the worst, but the Japanese were stunned that once they surrendered we didn’t enslave them and their country as they did in China and wanted to do to all countries they could. We played a major role in rebuilding the country and set it up in the democracy and powerhouse it is today, and this is why they thank us today. One side note is that our victory over them gave Japanese women equality from a society that treated them like property too.




[edit on 7-8-2009 by Xtrozero]

its crazy how the US always try and stop other countrys from having nukes when we are the first to have them and use them...i dont blame other countrys for wanting them

Originally posted by whoshotJR
I
Talk about the remembering for the loss of life but don't look to gain much support for your effort with a post like that. War sucks but its reality.

War is unneccessary, it never solved anything, it only made the few Elite richer and WAS the field for testing of the new tech weapons the Military/Inductrial complex had developed at the behest of the Elite.

Read "War is a Racket" by Brigadier General, Smedley C. Butler, the man had balls and exposes the People and the Corporations behind it. He states facts and numbers.

The "A-bomb" was an Illuminist ploy to create something the Elite thought would give them ultimate power and thats all it was........., murder.

reply to post by silo13

FDR provoked the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Whether or not FDR knew about the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor actually misses the larger and more important issue, which is the fact that the Japanese were provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. The majority of Americans, and even service men, were unaware of what was going on behind the scenes, but not all were. FDR had been charged in public with agitating for war since 1939. FDR had to push the Japanese into attacking the United States because the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed getting involved in the war and Japan itself had no intentions of attacking the United States, their interest was Asia. Without FDR's antagonisms towards the Japanese, Congress and the American people never would have allowed FDR to declare war on Japan or Germany; FDR knew this, and he also knew how important it really was that America join in the war against fascism and imperialism.

The most direct evidence of antagonisms toward Japan is the McCollum Memo written October 7th 1940 (declassified in 1994) that was given to FDR as well as the actions that were later taken by the administration.

Source : rationalRevolution.net

Furthermore, unintentionally in support of this, according to Bailey and Ryan, in their book, Hitler vs. Roosevelt, The Undeclared Naval War, state the following

The dropping oil guage and the ticking time-bomb finally drove the Japanese warlords to the madness of Pearl Harbor. The U. S. Pacific Fleet was crippled by a diabolically clever tactical stroke that succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations, although at that critical time the three priceless aircraft carrier happened to be absent on operational missions.

- Hitler vs. Roosevelt, The Undeclared Naval War, p. 234, private copy, emphasis mine

I know if I were the Japanese immediately prior to WWII, I could only conclude one thing if an antagonistic world power like the United States had stationed not one, but three ( !! ) aircraft carriers in the middle of the Pacific, more than half-way to their doorstep : "Destroy them before they destroy us !"

Anyways, with all the evidence nowadays that Japan was strongly provoked into attacking Pearl Harbor, it just makes America's eventual use of atomic weapons on two of their major production centers all that much worse ...

And to think - I used to be proud of my country ...