The Atomic bombing of Nagasaki

[Mook]

I always find this one of the most interesting aspects of World War II, Nagasaki was the second city to be bombed on August 9th 1945 following the first bomb over Hiroshima & three days of complete radio silence from Japan, completely different World we live in now but it would be interesting to hear what people make of the decision to drop the second bomb?

 

Along similar lines, the was one bloke who was injured at Hiroshima & then made the journey up to Nagasaki, only for it to be bombed as well, given Nagasaki was a substitute city for Kokura, you'd have to say he was one of the unluckiest bastards around although he did survive both bombs, story in the link...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

 

[Skidfingers McGonical]

I always find this one of the most interesting aspects of World War II, Nagasaki was the second city to be bombed on August 9th 1945 following the first bomb over Hiroshima & three days of complete radio silence from Japan, completely different World we live in now but it would be interesting to hear what people make of the decision to drop the second bomb?

 

Along similar lines, the was one bloke who was injured at Hiroshima & then made the journey up to Nagasaki, only for it to be bombed as well, given Nagasaki was a substitute city for Kokura, you'd have to say he was one of the unluckiest bastards around although he did survive both bombs, story in the link...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

 

For me it was a massive act of genocide by the Americans. Yet they pride themselves on it

 

"If it wasn't for us, you Brits wouldn't have won the war"

 

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[Lee909]

Very difficult question.

 

While it can be looked at as a war crime the Japanese would never have surrendered and millions of lives would have been lost in a invasion of the mainland of Japan. It shortened the war by years. We would have been dragged into a guerilla war in the south east asian jungles. They Japanese lost the war at Midway as they could no longer supply the outlying the islands to stop the US advance.

 

Im reading a really interesting in depth book on the rise and fall of the Japanese Empire at the moment.

 

 

 

[rubble-rouser]

For me it was a massive act of genocide by the Americans. Yet they pride themselves on it

 

"If it wasn't for us, you Brits wouldn't have won the war"

 

.

 

I think that oversimplifies things on a number of levels. The 'if it wasn't for us' mentality surely relates to the land war in Europe, not the Pacific campaign.

[Lee909]

We were fucked in the Pacific

We had lost all British territories and the Navy was in shit street. Nost of the troops had been dragged back to the Indian border and only the Chindits and other behind the lines troops were still operating well.

 

Without the US lend lease and eventual joing we wouldn't have survived

[Razoray]

Unbelievable how the victor writes history. This was one of the most atrocious acts of all time but gets very little press and is only positive when mentioned.

The good ol' US of A.

[setreal]

A museum over here has started an interesting project, where they send out tweets via their Tweeter of the events towards the end of WW2 "as they happened" 70 years ago to the minute. They are worded as is stuff was happening just now.

[Rico1304]

For me it was a massive act of genocide by the Americans. Yet they pride themselves on it

 

"If it wasn't for us, you Brits wouldn't have won the war"

 

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It wasn't genocide. I was always told it sped up the end of the war, that has to be a good thing.

[cochyn]

Well, they shouldn't have fuckin' started it in the first place should they?

[Lee909]

Those that think it was horrendous

 

How else would you have ended the war?

 

The Japanese were never goining to surrender. They didn't believe the first bomb was as bad as the initial reports were in Tokyo. Millions would have died in a land invasion.

 

The Japanese started the war with the U.S too. They attact Pearl Harbour without a official declaration of war,they invaded Manchuria,Singapore and Korea. There war crimes were absolutely disgusting (yet another reason the leaders would never allow a surrender).

 

 

 

Now im not saying the British or Americans have clean records (anything but).

[Skidfingers McGonical]

It wasn't genocide. I was always told it sped up the end of the war, that has to be a good thing.

 

It was. Regardless of whether it sped up the end of the war, nuclear weapons are not a good thing.

 

"the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group"

[cochyn]

I read an article on this years ago. The gist of it was that The Allies had to prove that Hiroshima wasn't a one-off. The bombing of Nagasaki was intended to prove we had the capability to produce multiple atom bombs. Had it been a one-off and the Axis called our bluff to discover we only had the one operational bomb - then the war would have rumbled on for years and Hiroshima would have been for nothing.

 

Though why they didn't drop one off the coast, or on an unpopulated area of mainland Japan is one worth asking.

[Mook]

I've started World War III here haven't I?

 

Interesting that JR Oppenheimer (the man credited with inventing the bomb) celebrated the success of the first one but went to the American Secretary of War to hand deliver a letter expressing his revulsion at the second attack.

[cochyn]

It isn't genocide. It's an act of war, much like the dropping of a conventional bomb or firing of a bullet: Just the ordnance is frightening in its scale.

[Lee909]

Would anyone have believed it was one bomb if it wasn't on a city?

 

It was a nasty thing to do. But its hard to put what we know and how we look at things today on to the the situation of the time.

 

 

[Lee909]

I've started World War III here haven't I?

 

Interesting that JR Oppenheimer (the man credited with inventing the bomb) celebrated the success of the first one but went to the American Secretary of War to hand deliver a letter expressing his revulsion at the second attack.

Most of the creators of the bomb ended up disgusted by it. It must be a hard thing to live with.

[dickie mint]

When did all this trouble happen and if Kay Burley and Sky news weren't there it never happend.

[neko]

History is full of events that look horrible when viewed through modern perspective.

 

No need to repeat some of the obvious logic and decision making behind the decision, but if they had polled all the nations involved in the war against Japan, I absolutely guarantee you it would have gotten 99% approval ratings for the decision to drop one (or two) bombs.

 

You can't judge these things without some proper context of the situation at that time.

 

I'm sure loads of people felt terrible about it afterwards, but imagine the sense of relief it must have brought to the soldiers and the nations involved.

[neko]

Anyone still having doubts might want to ask themselves whether you think the Japanese (or Germans) would be navel-gazing about dropping a bomb if they had one at the time.

[Section_31]

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[Section_31]

While the killing of civilians is always wrong, it has to be pointed out that the Japanese were massive arseholes. They built piles of heads so high in places like Nanking your could have built your own Hadrian's wall with them. 

 

Same ethical questions get raised over Dresden, it's a brutal thing to say but these were two of the most savage belligerents in the history of the human race, all bets were off. 

[Rico1304]

It was. Regardless of whether it sped up the end of the war, nuclear weapons are not a good thing.

 

"the[/size] [/size]policy[/size] [/size]of[/size] [/size]deliberately[/size] [/size]killing[/size] [/size]a[/size] [/size]nationality[/size] [/size]or[/size] [/size]ethnic[/size] [/size]group"[/size]

No, all or a significant portion before its genocide.

[neko]

It was. Regardless of whether it sped up the end of the war, nuclear weapons are not a good thing.

 

 

 

.....said absolutely no one in August 1945.

[Rico1304]

I'm sure I read somewhere that the two bombs were of different designs so there was an argument that the second was was unnecessary as it was a test.

 

A lot of sense spoken on this topic, I thought it would have caused more rows to be honest.

[neko]

I think it was the 50 anniversary of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima that really made me shake my head at people passing judgement on the moral aspects of the decision.

 

I was in England and reading the Manchester Guardian, which had a sanctimonious article about how it was totally wrong, yet they couldn't even get the airplane correct in the article (they called it a B-52).

 

Never read the paper again.

 

Too easy (or ignorant) to say it was wrong.