80 years since Hiroshima
Discussion
I used to live in Japan, and visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a VERY sobering experience. Its a shame people like this, whose stories are so impactful, will be disregarded and forgotten by this time next week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2v58qrjq0o
In another article a survivor talks about how there are 'animals' in charge of nuclear weapons who seem to want and encourage war, rather than end it. Probably a bit of truth in that.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2v58qrjq0o
In another article a survivor talks about how there are 'animals' in charge of nuclear weapons who seem to want and encourage war, rather than end it. Probably a bit of truth in that.
US and Russia are against nuclear disarmament because its a 'deterrent'
I do always think about Blackadder goes Forth sitting in the trenches during WW1 when he is describing how the world used weapons as deterrents to prevent wars...
Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.
George: By Golly, this is interesting; I always loved history...
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was b
ks.
I do always think about Blackadder goes Forth sitting in the trenches during WW1 when he is describing how the world used weapons as deterrents to prevent wars...
Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.
George: By Golly, this is interesting; I always loved history...
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was b
ks.The thing that always astounds me is the guy who was in Hiroshima on business, survived the blast with some pretty bad burns and temporary blindness, and then caught the train home to Nagasaki, and survived that one too! You think of something like that being a situation where everything stops for several days, but the trains were still working and went to back to work a couple of days later.
Apparently there are over 160 people who survived both but he's the only one officially recognised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
Apparently there are over 160 people who survived both but he's the only one officially recognised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi
I visited Hiroshima about 2 years ago. Quite the place. We took a stroll around and found exact ground zero, just a single stone down a side street.
I found the Japanese incredibly welcoming and kind and find it hard to believe that 80 years ago they were so barbaric and determined to do harm as a society. Mind you, same goes for Germany. I guess it comes down to leadership - suppose we could all take something from that and remember that often the people are the real victims all round.
The one thing I personally found at the main visitors centre was the lack of any explanation of how they got into the situation - it was kind of just explained that America turned up and dropped the bomb. It felt a bit off to me. But I guess they let people make their own minds up - which is something to respect.
Interestingly in my small Scottish town there is going to be an event on Saturday to remember the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We were due to go to Nagasaki in the same trip but our ferry was cancelled by fog. We are back in Japan this winter - not sure on our movements yet but might try and get down there as I regret never going.
I found the Japanese incredibly welcoming and kind and find it hard to believe that 80 years ago they were so barbaric and determined to do harm as a society. Mind you, same goes for Germany. I guess it comes down to leadership - suppose we could all take something from that and remember that often the people are the real victims all round.
The one thing I personally found at the main visitors centre was the lack of any explanation of how they got into the situation - it was kind of just explained that America turned up and dropped the bomb. It felt a bit off to me. But I guess they let people make their own minds up - which is something to respect.
Interestingly in my small Scottish town there is going to be an event on Saturday to remember the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We were due to go to Nagasaki in the same trip but our ferry was cancelled by fog. We are back in Japan this winter - not sure on our movements yet but might try and get down there as I regret never going.
I think unfortunately Japanese imperialism was in full flow at the time, the leadership telling people how hateful and evil the west was. How else could people form an opinion. The thing I gathered that they found hard to swallow was that the Allies were closing in on all sides, but the battle to take Japan would have been bloody. So they decided to not risk their own soldiers finishing the job, and instead killed nearly a quarter of a billion civilians instead.
The moral and ethical grounds for that decision, well there is no answer only an endless debate I am sure. What's most notable is that Japan learned the lesson, but the likes of the US hasn't, because they haven't needed to.
And yes, Japan is a great place to visit. The distance means people here in the UK largely never consider going, but its worth it. Its a wonderfully cultural rich society.
The moral and ethical grounds for that decision, well there is no answer only an endless debate I am sure. What's most notable is that Japan learned the lesson, but the likes of the US hasn't, because they haven't needed to.
And yes, Japan is a great place to visit. The distance means people here in the UK largely never consider going, but its worth it. Its a wonderfully cultural rich society.
coldel said:
I think unfortunately Japanese imperialism was in full flow at the time, the leadership telling people how hateful and evil the west was. How else could people form an opinion. The thing I gathered that they found hard to swallow was that the Allies were closing in on all sides, but the battle to take Japan would have been bloody. So they decided to not risk their own soldiers finishing the job, and instead killed nearly a quarter of a billion civilians instead.
Not wishing to be a pedant, but it was a quarter of a million, not billion.After the Battle of Okinawa you can understand the reluctance of the Allies to launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
gotoPzero said:
The one thing I personally found at the main visitors centre was the lack of any explanation of how they got into the situation - it was kind of just explained that America turned up and dropped the bomb. It felt a bit off to me. But I guess they let people make their own minds up - which is something to respect.
From my understanding this part of history is not something Japan likes to look back on, even to this day it is a source of awkward tensions with some of it's neighbours, who debate whether Japan has issued a proper apology.Conventional bombing of Japan probably killed more people than Nuclear the USA had little appetite for a full scale invasion. Nuclear bombing saved lives as no invasion necessary
The Tokyo firebombing killed significantly more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in a single event. The Tokyo firebombing on the night of March 9–10, 1945, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 83,000 to 100,000 people, making it the single deadliest air raid of World War II and a more destructive attack than the atomic bombings of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, according to the University of Exeter.
The Tokyo firebombing was significantly more deadly than the bombing of Dresden as well l, it was the single biggest loss of civilian life of the war.
The Tokyo firebombing killed significantly more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in a single event. The Tokyo firebombing on the night of March 9–10, 1945, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 83,000 to 100,000 people, making it the single deadliest air raid of World War II and a more destructive attack than the atomic bombings of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, according to the University of Exeter.
The Tokyo firebombing was significantly more deadly than the bombing of Dresden as well l, it was the single biggest loss of civilian life of the war.
Zetec-S said:
coldel said:
I think unfortunately Japanese imperialism was in full flow at the time, the leadership telling people how hateful and evil the west was. How else could people form an opinion. The thing I gathered that they found hard to swallow was that the Allies were closing in on all sides, but the battle to take Japan would have been bloody. So they decided to not risk their own soldiers finishing the job, and instead killed nearly a quarter of a billion civilians instead.
Not wishing to be a pedant, but it was a quarter of a million, not billion.After the Battle of Okinawa you can understand the reluctance of the Allies to launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
gotoPzero said:
The one thing I personally found at the main visitors centre was the lack of any explanation of how they got into the situation - it was kind of just explained that America turned up and dropped the bomb. It felt a bit off to me. But I guess they let people make their own minds up - which is something to respect.
From my understanding this part of history is not something Japan likes to look back on, even to this day it is a source of awkward tensions with some of it's neighbours, who debate whether Japan has issued a proper apology.But yes, the decision to deliberately fire bomb, knowing that it would cause widespread uncontrolled fires that would kill tens of thousands was horrendous.
There are no sides here, both sides committed atrocities - the real point, is that we just seemed to have shrugged our shoulders and carried on.
Zetec-S said:
After the Battle of Okinawa you can understand the reluctance of the Allies to launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Indeed. It can be reasonable argued that without dropping the bomb, instead of marking 80 years since the bomb, we'd be marking 70 or 75 years since VJ day. Fighting basically hand to hand combat thru every city, town, village and street in Japan would have taken years and cost millions of Japanese and allied forces' lives. TwigtheWonderkid said:
Zetec-S said:
After the Battle of Okinawa you can understand the reluctance of the Allies to launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Indeed. It can be reasonable argued that without dropping the bomb, instead of marking 80 years since the bomb, we'd be marking 70 or 75 years since VJ day. Fighting basically hand to hand combat thru every city, town, village and street in Japan would have taken years and cost millions of Japanese and allied forces' lives. What would you have done differently? Not the waging of the war, the commemoration of the dates of the atomic bombing. In what way are we shrugging our shoulders and moving on? To be honest the marking of these dates isn’t one I imagine contemporary Britons put very much thought to.
“We” (Britain) didn’t have a particularly significant part to play.
Japan, as I understand from my brother who has lived there thirty years and is married to a Japanese, has a relationship with its past many of us might find peculiar. I’ll message him presently to see what, if anything much at all, they are doing to commemorate this date. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear back any official reflection is very muted indeed.
I can imagine America isn’t making a tremendous deal over the anniversary.
The end of the Pacific campaign is tremendously different to the beginning of the liberation of Europe (from the British/Commonwealth/US perspective) at the Normandy landings, for example where the date is celebrated.
“We” (Britain) didn’t have a particularly significant part to play.
Japan, as I understand from my brother who has lived there thirty years and is married to a Japanese, has a relationship with its past many of us might find peculiar. I’ll message him presently to see what, if anything much at all, they are doing to commemorate this date. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear back any official reflection is very muted indeed.
I can imagine America isn’t making a tremendous deal over the anniversary.
The end of the Pacific campaign is tremendously different to the beginning of the liberation of Europe (from the British/Commonwealth/US perspective) at the Normandy landings, for example where the date is celebrated.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Zetec-S said:
After the Battle of Okinawa you can understand the reluctance of the Allies to launch a full scale invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Indeed. It can be reasonable argued that without dropping the bomb, instead of marking 80 years since the bomb, we'd be marking 70 or 75 years since VJ day. Fighting basically hand to hand combat thru every city, town, village and street in Japan would have taken years and cost millions of Japanese and allied forces' lives. Yes, dropping the bombs probably meant less lives lost overall if invasion was indeed what happened. However, the flip side is instead of soldiers dying shooting each other, women children and babies paid the price instead ... along with many older/non combatants.
Its interesting to know that at the time of the bomb drops Japan was in full retreat, they were negotiating a conditional surrender with Russia, but the US wanted unconditional surrender.
The scary version is that the US did it to show the world, what it had. Russia was marching on into Japan at this point also, and were allies only in terms of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'
We will never know, all we do know is what happened. But as someone said above, shockingly it just about makes the news at a time when nuclear threats are being made.
coldel said:
Like I say, no easy answer to it. And its a lot more complicated than the above.
Yes, dropping the bombs probably meant less lives lost overall if invasion was indeed what happened. However, the flip side is instead of soldiers dying shooting each other, women children and babies paid the price instead ... along with many older/non combatants.
I think you're being a tad naive to be honest. As the Americans fought their way, slowly and at a high cost, thru various Japanese islands, there's plenty of footage of women holding a couple of young kids, throwing themselves off the cliffs onto the rocks and waves below, rather than be captured, as they'd been convinced they were going to be raped and tortured by American barbarians.Yes, dropping the bombs probably meant less lives lost overall if invasion was indeed what happened. However, the flip side is instead of soldiers dying shooting each other, women children and babies paid the price instead ... along with many older/non combatants.
Make no mistake, women, and children, plus old men and women, would have been taking on the Americans with garden tools, kitchen knives, whatever they could lay their hands on. I suspect a mainland invation would have meant the civilian death rate would have been in the millions.
coldel said:
In another article a survivor talks about how there are 'animals' in charge of nuclear weapons who seem to want and encourage war, rather than end it. Probably a bit of truth in that.
To repeat...There's a view that the use of nuclear wea[pons ended the war - and sooner - while those in charge of Japan refused to end the war repeatedly.
The decision to drop both bombs was not one-dimensional. The suggestion that the USA would have to invade the other Japanese islands has been largely discounted.
The Japanese military were in talks with Russia with regards a surrender, which the USA, and the UK, were aware of. Whether this was a factor in the timing of, and whether to drop, the bombs or not is unknown, but it is clear that, had these talks proceeded, there would have been no invasion of Honshu and Hokkaido required. It seems clear Japan had decided to surrender.
I'd recommend reading Shockwave by Walker. It's fairly specific to Hiroshima. But also, for balance with regards Japanese behaviour, try Inferno, by Lowe. His book is on the Hamburg firestorm in 1943. It's a horror story.
If you add the civilian death of Hamburg to Dresden and Berlin, you'd probably get the same total as the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and twice the number in Nagasaki. The big difference for the UK is, perhaps, the fact that we were heavily involved in all of those attacks. About twice as many civilians died (number disputed, but 500,000 is about the middle) in the allied bombing of Germany than died in the nuclear attacks. In essence, there's little difference between the bombing of Germany and that of Japan.
Somebody brought up how the Japanese changed from being a very pleasant people before WWII, and their later transition to how they are now. Read Lowe's Savage Continent. It's on a largely overlooked by the UK, at least until the break-up of Yugoslavia and the terrible actions on all sides after that, immediate post-war (possibly continuation of it?) situation on the continent.
No country is pristine. It's not pleasant to read about Nanking, nor the German concentration camps. But with a little effort, you can find similar behaviour of almost every nationality. Slave trade anyone?
We, in the UK, were fed a sanitised version of the war, with Germans (now bewilderingly called nazis) being painted as evil and us, and our allies, avenging angels. It's a pleasant myth. It's far from the truth. I was lied to as a kid in school but, luckily, I lived near an excellent library, with keen staff and an extensive collection of history books. However, I'm like everyone on here; what I believe about the war is wrong.
The nuclear bombing of Japan was horrific. Why it was dropped, what the motivations were, and whether it resulted in the US not having to invade Japan's main islands is unknown. The only thing certain is that anyone who tells you they know, doesn't.
The Japanese military were in talks with Russia with regards a surrender, which the USA, and the UK, were aware of. Whether this was a factor in the timing of, and whether to drop, the bombs or not is unknown, but it is clear that, had these talks proceeded, there would have been no invasion of Honshu and Hokkaido required. It seems clear Japan had decided to surrender.
I'd recommend reading Shockwave by Walker. It's fairly specific to Hiroshima. But also, for balance with regards Japanese behaviour, try Inferno, by Lowe. His book is on the Hamburg firestorm in 1943. It's a horror story.
If you add the civilian death of Hamburg to Dresden and Berlin, you'd probably get the same total as the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and twice the number in Nagasaki. The big difference for the UK is, perhaps, the fact that we were heavily involved in all of those attacks. About twice as many civilians died (number disputed, but 500,000 is about the middle) in the allied bombing of Germany than died in the nuclear attacks. In essence, there's little difference between the bombing of Germany and that of Japan.
Somebody brought up how the Japanese changed from being a very pleasant people before WWII, and their later transition to how they are now. Read Lowe's Savage Continent. It's on a largely overlooked by the UK, at least until the break-up of Yugoslavia and the terrible actions on all sides after that, immediate post-war (possibly continuation of it?) situation on the continent.
No country is pristine. It's not pleasant to read about Nanking, nor the German concentration camps. But with a little effort, you can find similar behaviour of almost every nationality. Slave trade anyone?
We, in the UK, were fed a sanitised version of the war, with Germans (now bewilderingly called nazis) being painted as evil and us, and our allies, avenging angels. It's a pleasant myth. It's far from the truth. I was lied to as a kid in school but, luckily, I lived near an excellent library, with keen staff and an extensive collection of history books. However, I'm like everyone on here; what I believe about the war is wrong.
The nuclear bombing of Japan was horrific. Why it was dropped, what the motivations were, and whether it resulted in the US not having to invade Japan's main islands is unknown. The only thing certain is that anyone who tells you they know, doesn't.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
I think you're being a tad naive to be honest. As the Americans fought their way, slowly and at a high cost, thru various Japanese islands, there's plenty of footage of women holding a couple of young kids, throwing themselves off the cliffs onto the rocks and waves below, rather than be captured, as they'd been convinced they were going to be raped and tortured by American barbarians.
Make no mistake, women, and children, plus old men and women, would have been taking on the Americans with garden tools, kitchen knives, whatever they could lay their hands on. I suspect a mainland invation would have meant the civilian death rate would have been in the millions.
Yet many of the civilian population didn't die on occupied islands. I think you are using something of a shock visualisation of probably isolated accounts there to generalise what happened. And then making complete supposition on how a population would have reacted to any invasion of the mainland, none of it provable and all conjecture. Make no mistake, women, and children, plus old men and women, would have been taking on the Americans with garden tools, kitchen knives, whatever they could lay their hands on. I suspect a mainland invation would have meant the civilian death rate would have been in the millions.
The actual state of play was the leadership were ready to surrender, that is a known fact. It was on the table with Russia. But the US acted first.
I can see there is a lot of guesswork going on, lots of what ifs, so as I said up top, have little interest in debating whether bombing civilians with nuclear weapons was the right decision or not.
The point is, its the only time nuclear weapons have been used in human history on another country in aggression. People melted to death. Now we have people like Putin and Trump in a willy waving competition, history teaches us lots, whether people want to listen is another thing.
Derek Smith said:
The decision to drop both bombs was not one-dimensional. The suggestion that the USA would have to invade the other Japanese islands has been largely discounted.
The Japanese military were in talks with Russia with regards a surrender, which the USA, and the UK, were aware of. Whether this was a factor in the timing of, and whether to drop, the bombs or not is unknown, but it is clear that, had these talks proceeded, there would have been no invasion of Honshu and Hokkaido required. It seems clear Japan had decided to surrender.
I'd recommend reading Shockwave by Walker. It's fairly specific to Hiroshima. But also, for balance with regards Japanese behaviour, try Inferno, by Lowe. His book is on the Hamburg firestorm in 1943. It's a horror story.
If you add the civilian death of Hamburg to Dresden and Berlin, you'd probably get the same total as the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and twice the number in Nagasaki. The big difference for the UK is, perhaps, the fact that we were heavily involved in all of those attacks. About twice as many civilians died (number disputed, but 500,000 is about the middle) in the allied bombing of Germany than died in the nuclear attacks. In essence, there's little difference between the bombing of Germany and that of Japan.
Somebody brought up how the Japanese changed from being a very pleasant people before WWII, and their later transition to how they are now. Read Lowe's Savage Continent. It's on a largely overlooked by the UK, at least until the break-up of Yugoslavia and the terrible actions on all sides after that, immediate post-war (possibly continuation of it?) situation on the continent.
No country is pristine. It's not pleasant to read about Nanking, nor the German concentration camps. But with a little effort, you can find similar behaviour of almost every nationality. Slave trade anyone?
We, in the UK, were fed a sanitised version of the war, with Germans (now bewilderingly called nazis) being painted as evil and us, and our allies, avenging angels. It's a pleasant myth. It's far from the truth. I was lied to as a kid in school but, luckily, I lived near an excellent library, with keen staff and an extensive collection of history books. However, I'm like everyone on here; what I believe about the war is wrong.
The nuclear bombing of Japan was horrific. Why it was dropped, what the motivations were, and whether it resulted in the US not having to invade Japan's main islands is unknown. The only thing certain is that anyone who tells you they know, doesn't.
Good post.The Japanese military were in talks with Russia with regards a surrender, which the USA, and the UK, were aware of. Whether this was a factor in the timing of, and whether to drop, the bombs or not is unknown, but it is clear that, had these talks proceeded, there would have been no invasion of Honshu and Hokkaido required. It seems clear Japan had decided to surrender.
I'd recommend reading Shockwave by Walker. It's fairly specific to Hiroshima. But also, for balance with regards Japanese behaviour, try Inferno, by Lowe. His book is on the Hamburg firestorm in 1943. It's a horror story.
If you add the civilian death of Hamburg to Dresden and Berlin, you'd probably get the same total as the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and twice the number in Nagasaki. The big difference for the UK is, perhaps, the fact that we were heavily involved in all of those attacks. About twice as many civilians died (number disputed, but 500,000 is about the middle) in the allied bombing of Germany than died in the nuclear attacks. In essence, there's little difference between the bombing of Germany and that of Japan.
Somebody brought up how the Japanese changed from being a very pleasant people before WWII, and their later transition to how they are now. Read Lowe's Savage Continent. It's on a largely overlooked by the UK, at least until the break-up of Yugoslavia and the terrible actions on all sides after that, immediate post-war (possibly continuation of it?) situation on the continent.
No country is pristine. It's not pleasant to read about Nanking, nor the German concentration camps. But with a little effort, you can find similar behaviour of almost every nationality. Slave trade anyone?
We, in the UK, were fed a sanitised version of the war, with Germans (now bewilderingly called nazis) being painted as evil and us, and our allies, avenging angels. It's a pleasant myth. It's far from the truth. I was lied to as a kid in school but, luckily, I lived near an excellent library, with keen staff and an extensive collection of history books. However, I'm like everyone on here; what I believe about the war is wrong.
The nuclear bombing of Japan was horrific. Why it was dropped, what the motivations were, and whether it resulted in the US not having to invade Japan's main islands is unknown. The only thing certain is that anyone who tells you they know, doesn't.
Ive also travelled around Vietnam, visited the photo journalists museum there and its shocking. The pictures are of course themselves jaw dropping, but under each they state how many days later the photographer was killed, that hammers it home.
Well worth reading up on stuff for sure, learn the lessons of war - rather than who were the baddies and who were the goodies.
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff