Hiroshima and Nagasaki, may the hell never be loose again...

Well, i thought that somebody should write something about this disaster, or a preventing disaster as they Americans said... Read this, please..

The Enola Gay


*removed excessive copy-paste*

[edit on 1-8-2005 by dbates]

I never thought I'd get down here to post!! "Crimson Tide" anyone??
I think we owe our lives to many men in the US and soviet militaries who may have diverted nuclear holocaust during the cold war.. I salute them all..
C'mon we need a "salute" smiley for this forum!!

Ok, thanks for your respon, there are never to few...

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
Well, i thought that somebody should write something about this disaster

The only disaster was that they only dropped 2 bombs, and that they were small ones.

On a lighter note, they ended the war and saved the lives of an estimated 300,000 US service personnel. Who cares how many Japs it saved, but it potentially saved over a million.

It's also highly unfair to apply the morals of 2005 to the actions of 1945 - different World, different set of circumstances - same Monday morning Quarterbacking.

If they hadn't dropped it, all the documentaries today would be entitled "The Bomb - Could it Have Ended The War Before 1946"

Originally posted by Winchester Ranger T
The only disaster was that they only dropped 2 bombs, and that they were small ones.

Are you implying that it would have been a good move to kill even more people than what was necessary to force a surrender?

Who cares how many Japs it saved, ...

Hmm, the japanese people for example...

It's also highly unfair to apply the morals of 2005 to the actions of 1945 - different World, different set of circumstances - same Monday morning Quarterbacking.

The morales havent changed, the knowledge has. Many people involved with the program back then are known to have said that the bombs probably wouldnt have been used in the way they were used IF the effects of nuclear fallout had been known back then.

Of course it was a disaster, a disaster to an extend that noone realized before and noone wished to have. If the goal of never letting this happen again requires to damn the use of the bombs back then, so be it.

Perhaps if the effects of nuclear fallout were known, they'd have not used the bombs, but an overwhelming show of force was needed. The U.S. was perfectly justified in using those bombs. People die in a war. That's why you end it as quickly as possible.

More people would probably have died had they not used the bombs and tried to literally invade Okinawa. The U.S. was tired by then, and wanted to end the war.

It is because of that "do not bomb" philosophy that dragged the Vietnam War on for so long. President Johnson literally would not allow the U.S. to bomb Northern Vietnam or to ever attack it directly. The NVA could attack the U.S. troops but the American troops could not pursue them and retaliate. Thus, the Vietnamese had open supply lines and were safe across their borders. The supply lines from China, North Korea, and Russia were left open. The U.S. sacrificed THOUSANDS of soldiers for nothing, and the Vietnamese lost thousands of men as well, and women too. Johnson went insane as a result.

Had they just bombed the living he** out of Northern Vietnam when the war started, they'd have been able to end it far quicker, which is exactly what happened. Johnson left office and Nixon took over. He opened up Northern Vietnam to bombing and the Navy went in and bombed the living he** out of Northern Vietnam. They shut it down completely. Communications, power, transportation, etc....the whole infrastructure of the main cities was knocked out. So were the supply lines from Russia, China, etc....the NVA were finished and they knew it.

Suddenly then, the Vietnamese wanted to talk negotiations. That whole philosophy of not bombing sacrificed thousands. Had they bombed it from the start, as the North was ready to surrender at the start even, they'd have stopped the war instantly. The U.S. won the first battle with the NVA and the NVA leader, Ho Chi Mihn (I think it was him) wanted to talk negotiations. But somehow the American media got the impression that the battle was a massive failure and that is the impression the American people got. Thus, many people protested, saying for us to pull out. The U.S. did not, however. Ho Chi Mihn, seeing this (the protests), figured that America would eventually pull out do to public disapproval, and thus continued fighting. But America did not pull out, however Johnson crippled the military.

That is why I hate that saying, "You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it to peace." Bombing has been one of the most successful ways to achieve "peace." Real peace is usually impossible, but bombing worked to make Japan surrender and it worked to make the NVA stop fighting. It worked on Saddam Hussein, and it worked on the Taliban a good deal in Afghanistan.

In war, you can fight it two ways:

1) Try to be polically correct and fight it half-@$$ed, which in the long run kills a lot more people and ruins people's lives over the length of time.

2) Go in and bomb the heck out of the country, in which you will kill a good deal of people, but far less than you would in the long run, as the country will surrender.

After Vietnam, the Vietnamese had lost so many thousands of men that they were virtually destroyed anyhow. Families had been destroyed, the whole countryside was screwy. If they had just bombed Northern Vietnam from the start and knocked it out of power, the people of southern Vietnam wouldn't have had to experience war on the scale that they did. Nor would the northerners. The northerners lost thousands of men, AND got bombed in the long run anyhow, because Nixon opened up the north to bombing near the end. Had that been done from the start, both North and South Vietnam wouldn't have lost so many people, and the U.S. wouldn't have lost so many. Johnson went insane for this very fact, being that a good deal of it was his fault.

Japan was no different. Had the United States not used the bombs or tried to invade it conventionally, it would have led to the slaughter of a heck of a lot of soldiers. We were already bombing the nuts out of the Japanese cities, but we needed an overwhelming display of force, which the atomic bomb provided. The Japanese PEOPLE were already paralyzed by the fear of fire by then, because the U.S. had bombed their cities which were made of wood, which led to huge fires. The Japanese gov't wouldn't bend though, and many Japanese were prepared to fight to the death to keep America from invading Okinawa.

The Japanese even had that submarine fleet which was going to launch a fighter plane attack off of the Pacific coast of the United States. Those planes were going to fly inland and bomb the continental U.S. But the Japanese ordered that fleet to return to defend Okinawa.

Point being, the Japanese were prepared to fully duek it out to the end for Okinawa. And don't even try to tell me that the Japanese wouldn't have used the bomb on us first if they got ahold of one.

What do you think keeps North Korea from invading South Korea? Because the U.S. has said we'll nuke their butts if we have to to keep them out. And now that the U.S. displayed some bombing capabilities in Afghanistan that the world previously didn't know it had, N.K. especially knows not to get too pushy because the U.S. could bomb them without nukes and still do serious damage.

Bombing is a terrible, horrible thing, but it WORKS to STOP a war, which in the long run saves a lot more lives.

yeah nukes i hate them along with the other wmds with a passion and hope they are never used. I am saddened everytime i think about that they were used and cry when I see the films about the effects with my training thats what hurts the most are the test films of the us troops getting nuked and the after effects on the japanese people.

To anyone that feels its great to use nukes needs to take some advanced training dealing with the effects on land, nature and man it will qucikly change your mind.

So use a nuke is always a bad sign... And you can't accept the use a nuke at any surcomstances... The nukes should be used, and ONLY used to make somebody scared...