'Would I drop the atomic bomb again? Yes, I would'

Theodore Van Kirk, the sole remaining survivor of the crew of the Enola Gay is interviewed by Ed Pilkington.

It's a very interesting interview which I thought the members would like to read.

www.guardian.co.uk

Theodore Van Kirk is sitting at his desk in a detached bungalow in the gated community where he lives outside Atlanta, Georgia. The room is cluttered with boxes, trinkets, shelves full of books on wartime history, and photographs of planes on the walls.

He picks up a large calendar from the floor and begins flicking through it. "Let's have a look at what's coming up on 6 August," he says. Finding that date, he holds up the calendar. The page is empty. "Nope, nothing there."

The absence of any plans is unusual, because Van Kirk is usually heavily in demand on 6 August. This year, he tells me, he has been invited to travel, all expenses paid, to Tinian, the tiny Pacific island where, 65 years ago on that same day, he set out with 11 other men on an aeroplane journey that would change the world. But this year, Van Kirk declined the invitation. He just didn't feel like it, he says.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


I gave you a star and flag for this thread.
I have a japanese aunt who survived the bomb
on Nagasaki.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


Well think of it this way: More people died in the carpet bombings of Tokyo and other cities than both nuclear blasts combined.

It's estimated approx 150k people died in the two nuclear blast. More people died of related illnesses from radiation or wounds in the months and years following, but no specific number is known.

The Firebombing of Tokyo in one night killed over 120k people, 41k wounded, 1million + homeless. (See Operation Meetinghouse) .. The bombing raids on Tokyo lasted from February to August of 1945.. it's unknown how many died in total. Not to mention the rest of the island.

I think the truly horrific difference between the nuke and the bombings was.. the nuke wiped everything out instantly.. families had no time to run, to hide, hell they couldn't hide. In the carpet bombings people hid, fled, or were buried in rubble but lived.. I am sure it was horrifying to live through though.

But it's well believed that had we not nuked them, Japan never would have surrendered, and had they not surrendered many tens of thousands of American marines, air force and military personnel would have died storming the main islands of Japan.

I'm sure that man has had a long time to think and dwell about his own actions.. and it appears he came to a reasonable conclusion. It was war, drastic measures were taken, not something he should feel personally responsible for.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Its completely illegal and makes you a war criminal that should be tried and sentenced if you attack civilians. Unfortunately wars target civilians nows over 80% of the time. This means, no citizen should ever allow any family member to go to war. End of wars end of story.

I would not even push a nuclear button if missiles were heading this way. Know why? I would not murder civilians because someone was murdering them. One mass murderer over there, should not inpsire you, over here, to become such a monster as well.

[edit on 21-5-2010 by Unity_99]

The nuking of Nagasaki / Hiroshima can be argued to have been effective. It sure stopped the war. I do think they could have chosen a non-populated area and made the point that way. Then, if the Japanese hadn't surrendered, hit a populated area.

However, regarding general mass bombing of civilian targets, I am against it. It was done to Germany and Japan, and later analysis and eye-witness accounts have shown it is not effective. I think the same can be said of Iraq. Shock, awe and babies with their legs burned off. I am entirely opposed to this type of bombing. It is unethical and ineffective.

I recently attended a lecture given by a gentleman who was in Japan immediately after the Nagasaki bomb.

He ended up there because he, an Army guy who had been given permanent medical leave, was called up out of the blue along with a host of others on medical to pile into a ship and sail for Japan.

According to him the entire ship was made up of soldiers with life-long medical problems incurred while active in the war. Once out to sea they were told why they had all been called up. To invade Japan.

That's right. Uncle Sam was sending his cripples to be meat shields in a Japan invasion. That's one way to get out of long-term care costs.

On their way there the bombs were dropped and the war had ended but they didnt turn back. They continued on and served in a 'security' capacity once there.

Something else he said that I had never known was that the Nagasaki bomb was clean. In that there wasnt any fallout or radiation after the fact. It just disintegrated everything in the valley then went away. No wallowing survivors with burns or sickness. Just disintegration and silence.

Ι really cant believe what im reading here.

there is no justification whatsoever to use nuclear weapons on any kind of target, thats the last frontier we should never have crossed.

Youre basicly saying "Yeah it was kind of ok to burn 150k people instantly to just stop the war"

Unforgivable and so, so wrong.

Nothing more to add

reply to post by Unity_99


..Illegal? .. Only loosers get arrested for war crimes my friend.. the US can attack, maim and kill as many citizens as it wants. Now if this were truly a crime, surely there would be trials being held? .. But no, there are not.. why? .. Because trials are propaganda tools to demonize the enemy, and to bolster the sense of divine self righteousness in the victors.. treaties (not laws..) to define rules of war are formed for the well-being of citizens, so that the gruesomeness of a war can be downplayed as they can be sure the army will 'follow the rules" ... as so many, such as your self, are deluded into thinking.

War has no Law.

It's best that we don't dwell on things like that, we must never forget but we mustn't dwell on it. That man did what he thought was his duty under military orders in wartime. It was wrong in many ways, first among these being the fact that it was an attack aimed specifically at civilians by regular military forces. The radiation sickness and disease that followed must have been hell for those people but, had that not happened there would have been a protracted struggle for Japan with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides.

reply to post by Dynamitrios


Ya war sucks....

Sorry?

reply to post by mamabeth


In a completely different comparison to your Aunt's amazing story of survival, my mother, who was 3 years old at the time in Okinawa, was hiding in caves with her family, it was the only way to survive when the Japanese came and took over the Ryuku Islands in WWII, according to Mom, the Japanese were scouring the island for all able bodied men to be forced into service and one of the ways for folks to survive was to change family names and hide in the caves.

She remembers how the Americans were portrayed as monsters to the locals, but her fondest memory was when the US Marines took the island and one of them held her like a member of the family and offered her some of his food.

On one hand, you have the utter devastation, which can and will always be argued as to it's necessity, and on the other, a Marine sharing and caring.

reply to post by rizla


The actual intent of carpet bombing isn't to kill really, in Berlin only 4k people actually died for instance.. it's a terror campaign basically.. it also is very effective at destroying infrastructure. However you are right, it is a failure.. because bombed out buildings make awesome hiding spots for soldiers, weapon caches, anti tank/air guns etc.. This is why the policy was abandoned after WWII (except Vietnam, but that was mostly forest)

Japan had higher mortality rates in the carpet/fire bombings because they had no preparation .. they never expected to have to deal with this problem, and they were very crowded. While Germans had stronger buildings and more hiding spots, the Japanese citizens were basically defenseless. The bombing campaign was also much larger, nearly 350 b-29's laid waste to Tokyo in one day.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere



Well I find the idea of civilian casualties completely repugnant.. I am far from being a pacificist and will fight for my rights but leave civilians out of warfare.

How in hell was the Bombs clean.. No Fall out?? It was a small bomb by modern nuclear standards but I am sure that itr was not clean. Only the Neutron bomb is suppose to be clean.

Originally posted by Tiger5
How in hell was the Bombs clean.. No Fall out?? It was a small bomb by modern nuclear standards but I am sure that itr was not clean. Only the Neutron bomb is suppose to be clean.

I dont know. It's just what this guy said in his lecture. He was there on the ground a day or two after. He said occupying forces were all over as well as some farmers who were outside the blast radius at the time. He went on to describe all of the precautions and radiation related stuff he heard was going on with Hiroshima and told us none of that was going on at Nagasaki.

Considering he's 85 years old I dont think he's been living with radiation poisoning or cancers all this time.

Granted, this is what one guy who claims to have been there said during a lecture. For all I know he was shacking up with hookers in Australia during the war. He had his logs and records on view at the lecture but they could have all been fabricated.

He seemed particularly upset about the way history had been gradually re-writing itself over the years.

And where do you get that I'm all for civilians being killed by anything at anytime for any reason?

This is the guy:

After the Bomb:
A Personal Account of Nagasaki
Bob Jones, WWII Marine Corps Veteran

www.wrightmuseum.org...

[edit on 21-5-2010 by thisguyrighthere]

reply to post by JacKatMtn


My aunt was a little girl and the bomb was dropped
days after her 10th birthday.
I wanted you to know that I am not japanese my aunt
is.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Thats all a 32 degree Mason has to say?

My argument was, that by these thoughts and justifications you approve nuke drops in the future, on civilians, and that is completely wrong, and makes you part of the crime

"War sucks" eh? then ask people who live in areas where war is been staged now

" ...in Berlin only 4k people actually died for instance" , thats not some kind of strategy game you play in fornt of your computer. People suffer badly, and even one civilian dying, is one too much.

Assasination of unwanted and evil despots to prevent a war in the first place is a complete different thing

reply to post by Dynamitrios


There is an existing thread very similar to this going!
It may be of interest.

ATS thread

reply to post by OldDragger


Thanks old Dragger

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


No nuclear fall out ? There is speculation about government technology to be 20 to 40 years more advanced then what we all think it is...

Can this get confirmed by any Japanese member ?

Thank you for this.

I'm not surprised he would do it again tho.

just look at the news. Sometimes it's absolutely horrific, yet it seems it doens't bother us very much anymore... And we didn't have any training in advance.