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Planet Hiroshima 2011
When the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, two-year-old Sadako Sasaki was at home with her family. Unlike tens of thousands of others, she was fortunate enough to survive the immediate blast of the 15-kiloton Uranium-235 bomb.
But the young, athletic girl who liked to run could not escape the grim reality of what it meant to live through an atomic blast. Nine years later Sadako would contract leukemia, dying a year later in a Hiroshima hospital at the age of 12. In death she joined the legions of the hibakusha, the Japanese term for the victims of radiation poisoning.
An estimated 140,000 people died as a result of the Hiroshima blast, tens of thousands of them instantly or within the next few months and almost all of them noncombatants and children. Three days later at Nagasaki, another bomb was dropped, killing thousands more. Eventually over 200,000 people would die as a result of the attacks, either during the bombings or later from illness. By any objective measure the nuclear attacks by the U.S. military constitute the largest acts of mass murder in the history of the world.
They also constitute acts shrouded in lies. At the time President Truman told Americans the targets were military sites. It was necessary to use the bombs to force Japan’s surrender, he declared. The public was also told—falsely—that leaflets were dropped prior to the bombings warning people to leave. Later, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson claimed that the atom bomb saved the United States from an invasion of Japan that might have cost a million American casualties.
But U.S. official McGeorge Brundy came up with the million figure, based on nothing, as he later acknowledged. Consider only the assessment of Admiral William Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1945, who years later wrote: “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.” The admiral compared the use of the bombs to adoption of “an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
The Age of ‘Collateral Damage’…
Truman indeed knew Japan’s surrender was imminent, according to now declassified records. But if nuclear weapons were unnecessary to end the war, they did send a forceful global message about which country would dominate the post-war era. Truman did not intend for it to be the Soviet Union. Thus, the dead and victimized of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not only the last casualties of World War II, but also the first casualties of the Cold War.
Dark ages, indeed. In our world the deliberate slaughter of civilians in war is very much the norm. The atrocities of the Nazis and Japanese militarists are well known, but less so was the intentional targeting by Britain’s air force of the concentrated worker housing of Hamburg, Germany. Ignoring the factories and U-boat construction yards south of the Elbe, British bombers under the command of extreme reactionary Arthur Harris instead spent months dropping incendiaries and high explosives on Hamburg’s civilians. Some British military leaders did not support this policy, but it prevailed and was driven not only by strategic war aims, but also by what science historian David Bodanis in “Electric Universe” (Crown, 2005) describes as Harris’ acute hatred of the working classes.
More evidence. In the Errol Morris documentary, “Fog of War,” former Secretary of State Robert McNamara admits a reasonable case could have been made to have tried as war criminals the group of Americans who organized the mass death firebombing of Tokyo and other Japanese cities. It’s a significant admission since McNamara was part of that group. McNamara also acknowledges that the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed by Congress, giving President Johnson the authority to unleash war in Vietnam, was based on a lie. The alleged torpedo attack by North Vietnam on the U.S.S. Maddox in 1964 never happened.
Fast forward 40 years. Other than the venerated thinkers at Fox News and their ilk, the whole world now knows the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on an equally fabricated justification: Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. They didn’t exist. Nor does the shining “democracy” whose exportation became the fallback rationale to justify Iraq’s ongoing occupation.
As the public policy group Just Foreign Policy reports, what does exist is as many as 1,366,350 Iraqis dead as a result of consequences directly tied to the 2003 U.S. military invasion, “A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi,” said one member of the Third Brigade, First Infantry Division, as reported to The Nation’s investigative reporters Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian in 2007. The GI was describing his impression of the general attitude among U.S. troops who operate the patrols and supply convoys, man checkpoints, and conduct raids and arrests.
…And Also Madness and Irony
What also exists is a Democratic president who declares he will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that support the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Formally, that’s a change from his Republican predecessor. But like his Republican predecessor President Obama also insists on retaining the American threat to use nuclear weapons first. Nor in arms talks with Russia would the administration explicitly adopt language threatening nuclear attack only against nuclear threats.
Meanwhile, the White House employs favorable rhetoric for the idea of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East—as long as Israel (and itself, for that matter) is exempted. Actually, at the moment “nuclear-weapons-free zone” just means no nukes for Iran. The latter remains a country within striking distance of U.S. nuclear-armed submarines.
Tellingly, during the 2008 primary race Obama briefly flirted with the notion of opposing use of nuclear weapons as a foreign policy option. Now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sharply criticized her then primary rival. “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons,” Clinton said.
Actually, yes they can. They can at minimum adopt a no-first strike policy. They can also work vigorously to eliminate nuclear weapons from their own and the world’s arsenals, instead of quietly reconstituting their nuclear stockpiles while talking “disarmament.” They can question why the United States arms itself with a military force whose budget equals almost half of all world military spending. Most important, they can repudiate a foreign policy tradition that takes as a given the American right to send troops and establish military bases anywhere in the world.
Sixty-six years after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world remains perilously trapped in conflict. In 2007 the average yield of a nuclear weapon was about 10 times greater than the 15-kton Hiroshima bomb, noted Raymond G. Wilson, professor emeritus of physics at Illinois Wesleyan University, in an article published that year for the Peace and Conflict Monitor. “Throughout the 50 years following 1945, the average rate of creation of nuclear weapons in world arsenals was the equivalent of about 70 Hiroshima bombs per day,” says Wilson, “every one of those 18,250 days.”
The threat of nuclear annihilation remains real. Yet the irony of our age is that for the first time in human history the science, technology, manufacturing and agriculture exist to eliminate all want. But in the context of a world also driven by the acquisition of corporate profits and entrenched class and nationalist divisions, the world’s people instead face an increasingly uncertain and violent future. Or even the possibility of no future.
Now, in 2011, the devastating Fukushima nuclear plant accident stands as another, different kind of reminder of the dangers of nuclear power. Will we hear the message? We must work not only to ban nuclear weapons, but also eliminate society’s dependence on nuclear energy.
Young Sadako Sasaki did not deserve to die at age 12. Yet her story is one among countless millions of tragic accounts of “man’s inhumanity to man,” of the innocents whose lives over the last century have been cheap fodder for the killing machines of state power, whether of the democratic, fascist, or other variety.
During her months of hospitalization, Sadako undertook a project to fold a thousand paper cranes in the hope that, according to Japanese legend, her prayer for life would be granted. It was perhaps just the wish of a child. But Sadako never gave up and folded the cranes up until the day of her death. In Japan, after her death young people inspired by her story organized to collect money to build a statue of Sadako, which was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park in 1958. There is also a statue of Sadako in Seattle’s Peace Park.
At the bottom of the statue in Japan of Sadako holding a golden crane is the inscription, “This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world.”
Sixty-six years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, they remain words to remember and live by in this mad and tragic age.
This article is an updated version of “We Are All Living on Planet Hiroshima,” originally published on the ZNet news site in 2007.
40 Comments so far
Show AllThe quiet, beautiful dignity of those who suffered is a light for all of us. And instead of trying to cash it in, like some groups, they only want to use themselves to make the world a better place.
Agreed. The only non-sequitor in Mr. Harris' essay was the paragraph:
"Now, in 2011, the devastating Fukushima nuclear plant accident stands as another, different kind of reminder of the dangers of nuclear power. Will we hear the message? We must work not only to ban nuclear weapons, but also eliminate society’s dependence on nuclear energy."
To date no one in Japan has died from Fukushima nor shown signs of acute radiation exposure. The disruption of the country's electric supply and the lives of those evacuated due to the contamination of their environment is not to be minimized.
But the earthquake/tsunami-induced Fukushima meltdown is not in anyway similar to a nuclear weapon in its lethality. While it is desireable to produce electric power in as benign a way as possible, I believe that nuclear electric power is still needed today until new technology can be built in its place. This is not the time to shut down "Nuks" so as to require more fossil fuel burning in their place.
RFinston,
You are, IMO, either ignorant or a kind of subtle shill for the Nuc Industry.
Second that. The $35 billion Obomber has been promising the nuke shills would build a crap load of solar panels.
Fromthe article,,,"Truman indeed knew Japan’s surrender was imminent, according to now declassified records."
That is not true.
Truman did however know the following:... Japan had two "Manhatten Projects" One in Northern Japan and one in Northern Korea... Japan was being suppplied with uranium from Germany... Google German sub U- 235
Japan had the I- 400 class submarines which were aircrafrt carriers with an submerged range of (37,000) miles). The Japanese navy had sucessfully tested bombing the US in 1943 in Oregon using one of the huge eight story tall, 400 feet long submarines and it's bomber aircraft... Google Japanese I-400 submarines.
The Japanese were not going to surrender, even when being bombed daily with massive fire bombing raids on major cities which killed hundreds of thousands.
If we had invaded Japan millions of Japanese would have been killed.
Japan started the war with the US.
That said, splitting atoms for any reason was and is a damn shame.
If the above is true then why all the insiders against bombing as described in the article, especially in the other CD article by Alperowitz? I tend to believe their analyses rather than the above assertions.
Well satyaSarika, you are entitled to believe anything you desire.
The fact that Japan had the I-400 submarines and were receiving shipments of uranium from Germany right up to early 1945 and they had two nuclear facilities desibned ot build atomic weapons is true and well documented.
The fact that we were fire bombing major cities in Japan and killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians is true and well documented.
Had the war continued and we had invaded Japan, the fire bombings would have continued, millions of Japanese would have been killed. A war in that country would havev lasted for at least another year, probably two or more years.
The fact that a I-400 sub launced a bomber aircraft which bombed an area near a town in Oregon is true and well documented. The Japanese pilot bombed a wooded area instead of the town as ordered and after the war became a hero of the townfolks and came there every year for many years to be honored. That is true and well documented
The story that Russia had made an agreement with the Japanese goverment to surrender is nonsense... The Russians did not want Japan to surrender. For several days after the Japanese did surrender, Russia continued the war they declared upon Japan after the atomic bombings... They fought the Japanese army in Manchuria and North Kora as they wanted North Korea as a war prize so they would have the nuclear facility and the Japanese nuclear scientists... Stalin suceeded with that and Russia soon had their atomic bomb. That is true and well documented.
The fact there was a well planned Japanese army coup to arrest their Emperor so that he could not surrender is true and well documented. The coup failed due to an air raid and the Emperor was able to brodcast the surrender... The surrender was uncondiotional but the Emperor was allowed to maintain his status. General MacArthur was placed in charge of Japan and the people of Japan honored him for his fairness and common sense approaches to rebuild. That is all true and well documented.
After Japan surrendered an I-400 submarine headed for the west coast of the US surfaced and surrendered. Naval Commander and submariner Thomas O. Paine wrote a document of what was found on that ship and his document is still classified so highly that it is available to no one... The cover story was the Japanese planned to bomb the Panama Canal,,, that isn't the route they were on when they surrendered...Thomas Paine later was the flight Director for NASAs Moon Missions, he was also a nuclear engineer, a highly qualifed individual. That is also tru and is well documented.
President Truman knew the Japanese were building nuclear weapons, as he'd been advised by Albert Einstein and German naval officers and spies and that the Japanese had the means to deliver atomic bombs... Truman did not know how close the Japanese were to success or how many I- 400 class submarines they had in service... It turned out they only had three in servivce, but it only took two B-29s to drop two atomic bombs...That also is ture and well documented.
And if any believe the Japanese military would not have used atomic bombs on us if they could have are delusional...Truman was not about to allow that to happen.
It was and is all a damn shame... Japan could have had all of the necessary raw materials and fuel they desired through trade as they do now, instead of war... They chose war...
.
Hey what a great "story" Space Cadet. Whoooooo! And I have a bridge to sell you.
A few questions about your hypothesis that the Japanese had the equivalent of a Manhatten project (TWO of them):
1. Have you read Japanese sources concerning the Japanese bomb? If so, do they support your hypothesis? American military sources are, well, just that: written from a narrow perspective and not always backed up with dispassionate observation (they were trained as soldiers after all, not as researchers)
2. It is one thing to have a nuclear program--hire a couple of dozen people and give them a facility to work in--and it is another thing to carry out a Manhatten program. A Japanese Manhatten program would have consumed enormous resources, resources that were hard to obtain after 1943 when Japan was already losing the war.
3. What evidence do you have--or the US military--that Japan had obtained uranium and uranium processing equipment such that Japan was close to building a bomb?
4. Do you have any evidence that Japan had tested a bomb in Japan, Korea, or South Pacific islands ?
If your sources are nothing more than US military records, I would remain skeptical of any sort of Japanese grand plan to bomb the United States. The puny efforts made to send single submarines to the US west coast only demonstrate how weak the Japanese navy really was. You have a long road to follow if you are going to prove that the Japanese had a viable A-bomb program and that it was close to using a bomb it manufactured.
What are your sources for your continuing contention that Japan was attempting to build a nuclear weapon. I've never read this in any other article or articles. I've only read this in your commentary.
WayneWR
"If we had invaded Japan millions of Japanese would have been killed"
Millions of dead Japs would have been fine with the MIC. The 'story' (rationale) at the time was that a million GIs would die fighting (bringing democracy to) the Japanese.
You are in need of a history lesson bro. If you continue to believe what you posted, you may have been successfully dumbed-down.
liveitnow, you wrote,,, "You are in need of a history lesson bro".
I taught military history BRO, particullary WW 2 military history... Read my post above yours which posted after yours did.... Check it out... Gooble I-400 subs,,, Thomas O. Paine,,, Japan's nuclear bomb program,,, German submaries delivering uranium to japan and learn the flip side of your coin.
And indeed, we didn't want an invasion and lose a million American GIs. Most also did not want to see millions of Japanese civilians killed... Most wanted the war to end... Some; like General Curtis E. Le May didn't, thankfuolly LeMay was over ruled. An invasion of Japan did not happen, it wan't necessary, a million GIs were not killed, millions of Japanese civilians were not killed, their cournty was spared that and they came back... The Mitsubishi Zero was history, it's now a high priced, well selling automobile,,, among others.
WayneWR
It would appear that your view point is, thankfully, in the minority as Gar Alperovitz points out in in an article in Common Dreams today that "..increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force."
Erroll,,, you cited the authort,,, "increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945"...Is that a fact, or an opinion,, who are the historians, how many?
I'm likely in the minority because until a few years ago the subject of the Japanese I-400 subs, Japan's atomic bomb project and Thomas O Pain's information was still classified Top Secret,,, most by far are totally unaware of it as obviously you are.
Paine's papers on the contents of the I- 400 sub that surrendered is still classified the highest classifaication possible.... Except for how many may have died, what I have posted here is accurate, not my personal opinioins... Before you criticize check it out.
As for our military leaders being angry about the use of the atomic bombs, it was becaues it wasn't "glorious"... LeMay wanted to continue his obscene fire bombings of cities, MacArthur wanted the invasion... Ironic; when China entered the war in Norht Korea, McArthur wanted to use atomic bombs and Truman forbid it. That disagreement turned into a squabble and Mac was fired.
Now please do tell me this... What have I written on this thread that is not accurate? __ Would you approve if the Japanese had used atomic bombs on our cities? __ Should Truman have gambled on that very real possibility? __ Don't say they didn't have any, as you don't know that.... Check it all out and you may have a different opinioon.
Here is a link for (just one) articel on the subject and some paragraphs from the article. If you open the link click on the arrow with the Japanese and German flags. Most articles published on Japan's atomic bomb program have been published in Japenese news papers.
http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us/abomb/race.htm
August 12, 1945 Japanese scientist Nishina tested an atomic bomb near a small island off the coast of Korea. Witnesses said it produced a mushroom shaped cloud a thousand yards wide. Several vessels in the test area were vaporized while others farther away burnt fiercely.
May, 1945: German submarine U-234 surrendered to US forces found to be carrying 560 kilograms of Uranium oxide destined for Japan's own atomic program. The oxide contained about 3.5 kilograms of the isotope U-235, which would have been about a fifth of the total U-235 needed to make one bomb". There had been several previous shipments which safely arrived in Korea.
At the end of the war, Russia captured the secret Japanese military installations in Konan, Korea. Research shows that a atomic research and development center was run by Japan.
Based upon the intelligence Truman posessed about Japan's atomic bomb program and the I- 400 submarines, he was faced with a very difficult decision... Suppose he had decided to not use the atomic bombs and the invasion had begun in Septyember? Would the Japanese have used atomic bombs on the invansion forces,,, then on US cities? __ Truman did not gamble with those questions, nor would any sensible president....It is very unfortunate it happened,,,, we did not start the war.
Sorry, WayneWR, no matter how much you may attempt to excuse what the United States did, as Gar Alperovitz and others have continually pointed out, the incineration of 140,000 innocent civilians at Hiroshima and 60,000 innocent civilians at Nagasaki was entirely unnecessary and unjustified. The killing of all those civilians was a war crime but of course no American was ever charged and brought to trial because Americans are never considered to be wrong, at least not by the corporate media of the United States. In a just and ideal world the corporate media would be plastering television screens across the land on this day as well as Aug. 9 with those Japanese civilians who were blasted with radiation from those bombs. But of course that is never going to occur because in this country little if any attention is ever given to those people who became victims of United States militarism.
A Vietnam Wall memorial was built and displayed in order to memorialize those Americans who died in Vietnam. But of course no memorial has ever been built and nor will one ever be built which will list the names of those Vietnamese who felt the sting and destruction of America's bombs and bullets and napalm and Agent Orange. The same thing applies to what the United States did to the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States makes sure that no mention will be made of those people because they are The Other and any lives, and especially civilian lives, which have been slaughtered by the United States are never worth mentioning because they are nearly always viewed as being inferior to those who live in the West. And in the rare instance when someone in the media does state that civilians were killed there will certainly be no condemnation of what the United States military had done to those innocent civilians.
Any follow-up research with radiation detectors on that Korean island where an atomic bomb was supposedly set off? Would need more than one questionable account.
If you taught history BRO - WW2 history then you would understand all too well, that by 1945 the Japanese had no, I repeat NO merchant navy, no air force to speak of, the Kwantung army in China was hung out, unable to effectively communicate with Japan, waiting to be blitzkrieged and annihilated, and surrender to the victorious Red Army. (this may help clarify your thoughts http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/history/pac-campaign.html)
The best plan the Japanese Army could come up with, in the case of invasion of the mainland, was to have thousands of civilians charge the American machine guns, in the theory that the attackers would be forced to leave in revulsion. While this may have worked, it shows that Japanese armed forces were in no position to defend the homeland, and feeds into my idea that surrender was only days away.
The people and army in Japan had little food and housing, almost no industry. The USSR had, according to agreements with the US & GB invaded China exactly 90 days after the fall of Berlin. Is it a coincidence the first bomb was dropped a few days before the Soviet intervention? Was the American dropping of the second bomb on the same day as the Soviet invasion of China no more than a lucky accident?? Or was it more likely the Americans were in a race to drop the bomb before the Red Army liberated China and so became a force in the Pacific?
All the USA and Allies had to do was base navy off the coast of Japan and wait for the country to implode. Which was only days away. As to Japanese atom bomb experiments, my understanding is that they never got out of the laboratory phase, and so they had no atomic program worth, as Harry Truman would say, a bucket of warm spit.
Yes some Japanese subs got to Oregon, some even got to Sydney Harbour, but the scale so was small and pathetic as to make it embarrassing to mention in the same discussion as Hiroshima, or the Rape of Nanking. Hell a bunch of larrikan Aussie sailors did more damage to Japanese shipping in one raid on Singapore Harbour. (search Operation Jaywick). The Japanese did make some balloons that floated across the ocean and landed on the West Coast and caused some fires. As for the fabled planned attack on Panama Canal - I mean come on BRO, even if this had been done, would it have even slowed for more than a week, let alone stopped the American war effort?
I think that any historian who was to look at all the facts and do some thinking will agree that the dropping of the bombs on Japan, was at best propaganda to scare off the Soviets, and most likely a war crime. I think very few people who looks dispassionately at the facts will say that the USA had no choice but to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Peace out
tomsk
Very well said.
tomsk, I'll reply below where there is more screen space. Be glad to debate the issue with you and Erroll
Another article on this theme was just added to the top of the CD home page:
"Japan PM marks Hiroshima with Nuclear Pledge"
Naoto Kan says country should aim to end dependence on atomic power, as Fukushima crisis prompts anti-nuclear rallies.
__________________
This conflation of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Fukushima will further distress resolute (i.e., "die-hard", if you'll pardon the expression) advocates of nuclear-energy based power production.
They object to painting these disparate circumstances with a broad tar brush.
Why, they're as different as poison apples and poison oranges!
Perhaps our less than wise leaders should heed the following warning:
"If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows."-Louis Mountbatten [1900-1979], British admiral and statesman
If we don't stop using nuclear power, depleted uranium weaponry and burning coal, there won't be anyone left here to start a WW 3 or shoot an arrow.
The continuing disaster at Fukushima is far, far from over and can be repeated at almost any other nuclear power plant in the world and we have the most of them here in the US of A,,, many sitting near the most dangerous earthquake fault line in the US of A.
Think (On The Beach). It may turn out that way, as those three melted down nuclear reactor cores continue to spew out radioactive poisons which circle the globe and accumulate daily.
"The continuing disaster at Fukushima is far, far from over and can be repeated at almost any other nuclear power plant in the world and we have the most of them here in the US of A,,, "
There are 442 nuke plants on earth used for power generation. 104 of them are in the U.S.
I have a friend whose aunt died of bone cancer at the age of 34. She stepped out of the house to go to school at the time of bomb detonation and she was strongly irradiated. Her house was at the outskirt of the Hiroshima city.
She suffered interminably and died a horrible, horrible death.
Whatever the reasons/justifications it was and still is given, Hiroshima/Nagasaki should never happen again.
All acts of war atrocities without exception were they committed by Japanese or Americans or the Europeans, must never be white-washed or condoned. They are the reflection of the humanity at their most evil and depraved.
reply to ~~tomsk~~... You wrote, ("If you taught history BRO - WW2 history then you would understand all too well, that by 1945 the Japanese had no, I repeat NO merchant navy, no air force to speak of")... That is correct tomsk, the Japanese were beaten and should have given up prior to the battle of Okinawa. They didn't give up, the mind set of the Japanese forbid it... BTW, for the record I am not a BRO and I taught military history, but that's alright.
What you and Erroll are (flat out ignoring) are (facts) of the history of that time period...The Japanese were reduced to defending their homeland the main Islands of Japan... They intended to do just that... Fighting a war in Japan would be like fighting a war in West Virginia, easy to defend, very difficult to attack...Their navy was gone, their air force,, except for a thousand plus new kamakazi aircraft hidden in caves and ready to strike any landing forces was gone... We ruled the seas and the air. We were bombing a large metro area every other day with B-29s, several hundred bombers every other day with incinderaries... More civilians were killed, burned to death in a fire bombing attack on Tokyo the day prior to Hiroshema than died at Hiroshema... That fact did not matter to the Japanese, they were not going to quit, surrender.
Their high brass and leaders were fully aware they may have an opportunity to use atomic weapons, atomic bombs, on any landing force and their kamakazi attacks on our ships at Okinawa had been devistating and they had a thousand or more ready to use at a much closer range... They were not going to surrender.
You and Errroll have totally ignored the facts I presented... Tell me which if any I presented that are incorrect.
Now then, for a moment put yourself in President Truman's place and you are fully aware the Japanese have been working on developing atomic bombs since 1938, long before our Manhatten Project began...You are fully aware Germany has sent several shiploads of enriched uranium to Japan... You are fully aware the Japanese had very long range submersable (aircraft carriers) and had sucessfully (test) bombed an area in Oregon... You are fully aware the Japanese may have succeeded developing atomic bombs and would surely use them on any landing forces.
You as the Presaident want the war to end, the killing to stop, but you are fully aware the Japanese will not surrender, unless perhaps you use a terrible new weapon and threaten to continue it's use,,, or Mr. President, do not use the atomic bombs and continue the horrific fire bombings of cties, and an invasion of the Japanese homeland and have the war continue for another year or more and (*hope*) the Japanese do not develop the atomic bomb... What is your decision Mr. President?
Now what do you suppose was in that I-400 class submarine that surrenderd at their Emperors order? There were several nuclear scientis aboard tha thuge ship... Most subs then were boats, the I-400 class was a ship... Do you ignore the fact that the Japanese sucessfuly tested an atomic bomb six days after Hiroshema?
You wrote,,, ("Yes some Japanese subs got to Oregon, some even got to Sydney Harbour, but the scale so was small and pathetic as to make it embarrassing to mention.)"... You miss the point!!!... That bombing of Oregon was to test the strategic ability of the I-400 submarine to eventually launch bombers carrying atomic bombs. It is not embarrassing to mention..
You wrote,,,("I think that any historian who was to look at all the facts and do some thinking will agree that the dropping of the bombs on Japan, was at best propaganda to scare off the Soviets")... Scare off the Soviets??? __ You think so huh? Ha Ha Haa,,, The Soviets didn't declare war on Japan (until after) we used the atomic bombs.. Sorry; but you are totally unaware of ther facts.
It was a war, a war we did not start, we were neutral. The Japanese declared war on us. They started their war in 1938-39 with Korea and China and would have likely won if they had not attacked the US... They had defeated the Briots in SE Asia and without our assistance would have taken China, Burma, India, all of SE Asia, the Phillipines, and finally Australia. Who's next?
We did not begin the Manhatten Project until after Japan and Germany declared war on us on Dec 7 and 8, 1941.
I do not approve of any war personally and Vietnam, the Bush Jr wars are criminal, but when attacked I do approve of using force to protect myself... Truman could have quit after Okinawa and walked away... Do you honestly believe that would have been militarily and politically possible in 1945? Truman would have been arrested and put in a nut ward.
Had the war not ended when it did, Japan would have used atomic bombs on our troops and likely some of our cities... Would that have been alright with you? Show me why that comment is incorrect... Thank you.
The idea that one of the the three only built I-400 submarines would be able to cruise back to Korea, load up a bomb, and then cruise back to USA and bomb the coast, all while evading the massive air and navy control the Allies had, is ludicrous at best, Even if I was to drink the kool-aid that the Japanese had tested an atom bomb only three days before the war ended (!), I think I have to agree with General LeMay "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all." September 29, 1945.
It seems to me that the purpose of the bombings of the Japanese cities was to firstly have the military test out their cool new toy in a real city, and in the second place; as I said before, to scare off the Soviets. So (to slightly paraphrase Isaac Deutscher ) in the same way that with the death of Rosa Luxemburg "Hohenzollern Germany celebrated its last triumph and Nazi Germany its first" so we can say that with Hiroshima & Nagasaki America celebrated the end of WWII and so the beginning of the Cold War, and by extension the endless war we are now suffering.
I still doubt the efficiency of the Japanese bomb effort, but as you are so keen on it and as I do not really care enough I am willing to let you win the argument, being a military history teacher and all.
Now you are getting a bit silly ~~tomsk~~ and obviously did not bother to check out any of the things I suggested, imporetant things most are totally unaware of
Google Japanese I-400 submarines and then Thomas O Paine... First of all those Destroyer sized subs had a submerged range of 37,000 miles. Secondly the I-400 sub which did surrender was between Hawaii and the US coast, thirdly whatever cargo it held has been kept so secret no one has access to the report... There were Japanese nuclear scientists aboard along with about 200 other crew members, three excellent long range high altitude, 300 mph bombers aircraft.
So the I-400 sub/aircraft carrier did manage to evade our forces as did the one which torpedoed and sank the heavy cruiser USS Annapolis shortly prior to that time. We controlled the seas but Japanese subs were still a very credible threat for our fleet and managed to torpedo several ships at Okinawa... So your silly uneducated assumptions are what is ludicrous.
Your assumption we used atomic bombs to scare off the Russians is also really childish or very simplistic thinking... How on Earth would that have scared off the soviets and scared them off from what??? Only after the bombs were used Russia declared war on Japan, they certainly were not scared off of anything..
None of that is material to the debate however as President Truman did not know how many I-400 subs the Japanese had in service, or if they had or had not as yet managed to develop an atomic bomb, he knew it was possible if not likely and he did not gamble on those questions.
We disagree and that's alright, but I am very thankful somone like you with your rather simplistic mind set wasn't our president in1945
It is easy for anyone to say we should not have used the atomic bombs and I wish they had never been dreamed up in the first place.... But if someone who is going to kill us and had proven they were as cruel and evil in warfare as the Japanese were, and very possibly would have atomic weapons, then I would not suggest fighting back with lesser weaponry.
And the Japoanese whining now is croc tears, (their government, their military) brought their mess upon them and we treated them very fairly for what they started.and for what they had done to Korteans, Chinese, Phillipinoes, Thais, etc, etc, and prisoners of war,,, a g/d sensless war they initiated.
The bottom line is: the war ended, the killing stopped, the fire bombing of Japan's cities stopped... No invasion and a long continued war was not necessary, where without credible question or doubt, millions of Japanese would have died and their entire countly lie in ruins and their culture, history and land destroyed. The hate and fear that prevailed would have continued and Japan may have never recovered. That thankfully is not how it went down...
It's not military concerns that led to the dropping of the bomb but political ones. If the US had included the preservation of the Emperor, Japan would have surrendered readily. The fact is, diplomacy was never pursued with the vigor of military strategizing. You claim that Japan's "Manhatten Project" was one of the primary concerns of Truman, but you did not supply evidence. The story propagated by the US government and the media was that the bomb was dropped to avoid casualties to American forces invading Japan. Don't you think the government would have mentioned Japan's "imminent" attack by nuclear weapons to justify its action?
The dropping of the bomb had to do with many factors: a warning to the Soviets, an expression of American military might, the culmination of a top-secret program that had cost millions, the need for a glorious end to a terrible war, the ignorance (and possible not caring) of the scale of suffering brought about by the bomb, and, yes, the idea that the Japanese would offer resistance if our soldiers had to invade Japan. You would have to prove to me that Truman was worried about a Japanese attack by submarines carrying nuclear weapons. It doesn't seem part of the narrative the way I understand it.
You wrote,,("had included the preservation of the Emperor, Japan would have surrendered readily.")
If you check it out closely, you will find the surrender was first stated to be uncoditional, but changed to allow the Emperor to maintain his status. However General MacArthr was to be the Governor of Japan... He did that very, very well.
MacArthur entered Tokyo in a Jeep with no weapons, only an unarmed driver and went to his quarters... Much later on, the Emperor came to and visited with Macarthur. MacArthur was admired, highly respected and very well liked by the Japanese people.
Japanese army officers were not going to allow their Emporer to surrender. When he was about to brodacast the surrender, a coup was in place to arrest him and prevent him from broadcasting the surrender.... The coup failed at the last minutes due to an air raid and the surrender was broadcast.
And did it ever occur to you tha the atomic bombs were used in hopes of ending the war, with no need of an invasion, with no need of any more fire bombings of cities, with no more killing of civilians and military on both sides? __ Obviously that did work.
Surender for Japanese was unthinkable, it was not their way. Study what had already occured on Iwo, Truk, Okinawa, Guam, etc... Few surrendered. Very, very few. On one island hundreds of Japanese civilians, women carrying chilredn and babies lept to their death from cliffs onto rocky beaches hundreds of feet below rahter than be captured by our Marines... They \were told and believed our troops would cut off their arms one at a time and cook and eat them, eat their babie, rape and then kill the women, ect.
One thing I have always remembered about the using of nuclear weapons on Japan and that was that previously with conventional bombs the USA deliberately didn't bomb those cities that were then nuked so they could see the effects on people and the infrastructure.
Seems like they went to a lot of trouble to have a nice pristine 'test bed' to see how killing humans would pan out with the obvious aftermath and ongoing health issues which they knew for certain would occur.
Another fact that came out and has seen more press recently is that the USA heavily suppressed and controlled media footage of the areas. It wouldn't do to have the public have any sympathy for the victims of a nuclear weapon.
The USA deliberately used these places to test their weapons in a human environment and thereafter went to a lot of trouble to send in researchers and medical personnel who ostensibly were there to 'help' the victims but who were also very studiously taking all manner of records from the target guinea pigs.
The world was very different back then and the general view of the Japanese was very poor, very much shaped by Japan's hostilities and barbarism to military and civilians alike worldwide. Of course Pearl Harbor was always being used as a rallying cry, none more so than by the Americans but other people worldwide had their own reasons for hating Japanese much of it from harsh personal experience or from just plain endemic racism.
Did the war warrant bombing Japanese cities with nuclear weapons?
Did the USA think that bombing an unpopulated area on Japan as an example to the Japanese, (with appropriate forewarnings given to observe), would that just simply be a waste of their precious weapons that apparently they had only a couple of?
No, the USA wanted a test-bed for their nukes AND to show off to the world what a bad-ass they really were, ready to use them on anyone who dared to cross them......and that was no doubt more apparently aimed at the Russians to take heed of.
Would the Russians care about destroyed wildlife and flora, or would they take more notice if huge numbers of people were murdered outright in a single instance, but also dying in abject agony on fire, blinded, limbs blown off, charred, boiled alive in the rivers they dived into to escape the burning of their skin, and also thereafter thousands of survivors who afterwards would suffer painful lingering deaths or would survive but who's lives would never be normal again?
Thousands of victims had an unquenchable thirst that they tried to alleviate by going to the rivers to get water but the surface was covered in floating bodies, and yet they still had to drink.
If that wasn't bad enough for the afflicted Japanese survivors, their fellow countryman shunned them and they became social outcasts in a country where community and interaction was woven into their very lives.
Read some books written by Japanese survivors of the nuclear bombings. Read the first-hand accounts of the outright horrors they encountered, the sea of death they saw, and how their lives were ruined. Then come back and try to tell me how ANYONE who uses nuclear weapons has any justification for such human misery on such a grand scale much less inflicting death in such a wanton manner.
It's no small wonder that at hearing the news of the bombings that a great many people worldwide of all countries were terrified because now a single bomb could obliterate entire cities, would kill not just combatants but murder thousands of innocent civilians, men, women, children, dogs, cats, birds, buildings, food, water, land, it would all be blown away or then poisoned with unseen radiation.
But the terror of 'the bomb' was tempered with the cessation of World War 2, although it was never mollified. A great sigh of relief worldwide was given and a wish to move on with life and forget about the war was embraced but all the while the grubby hands of others were being rubbed in glee at having a weapon so destructive that it would assure outright victory, or so they thought in their shallow and inhumane thinking.
The United States of America......the only country to have waged nuclear war.
Areas of both Nagasaki and Hiroshema had been bombed with conventional weapons. They had not been fire bombed but were targeted for that by General LeMay, he set the bombing priorities, not the President and LeMay or Mac Arthur did not know about the atomic bomb program, only the Chiefs off Staff, the President and Secretary of War ... Your assumptions are wrong.
So please do tell us, what would you have done as President? Surrender to the Japanese, walk away and say the war is over, have the invasion, allow Japan to develop their atromic bombs and use them, what would you have done in 1945? The Japanese sucessfully tested an atomic bomb on August 12, 1945. The invasion was tentavily set for Sept or Oct of 1945.
Can you supply a source for your assertion that Japan successfully tested an atomic bomb on August 12, 1945? I've never heard that. Wikipedia does not support such a test. That article pretty much says that the Japanese nuclear program never got out of the laboratory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program
I've already posted this link in a prior post here and some paragraphs from the article.
Or google Japan's atomic bomb program. There are many articles availabvle which were published in Japanese major newspapers.
http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us/abomb/race.htm
Went to your website and was disappointed. A few references in English--nothing in Japanese?
Probably there was a nuclear program in Japan during the war but I see no evidence that program was on the verge of producing a weapon. None at all. Since that is the case, your argument that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was justified because Japan was about to nuke us is flimsy at best, ridiculous at worst. Furthermore, your insistence that the United States government used the Japanese nuclear threat as a main reason for dropping the bomb is also without historical basis.
Having visited Hiroshima and having studied Japanese for much of my life, I feel the destruction and suffering brought about by that terrible event of August 6, 1945. The United States needs to accept the fact that the bomb was dropped for many reasons--racism being a prominent one--and that patience could have prevented two tragedies, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That is not to say that if the Japanese had the bomb, they would not have used it. I suspect people are very similar in the ways they wish to present themselves to the world.
~~ drosera~~ You wrote, ("Went to your website and was disappointed. A few references in English--nothing in Japanese?")... It's not my website... You want it in Japanese, read it in the Japanese newspapers, you are being obtuse you know.
This was a paragraph in the link I posted... ("August 12, 1945 Japanese scientist Nishina tested an atomic bomb near a small island off the coast of Korea. Witnesses said it produced a mushroom shaped cloud a thousand yards wide. Several vessels in the test area were vaporized while others farther away burnt fiercely.")
So I don't believe you opend the link I posted.
~~drosera~~ I appreciate your not liking the use of the atomic bombs, I don't like it either. I also did not like the fire bombings of Japan's cities where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died, either burned to death or suffocated from lack of oxygen. More humans died in Tokyo the day before Hiroshima that died at Hiroshima. Don't you feel bad for those people? I'm sur you do as I do and I am glad the fire bombings stopped.
I spent two full years in Japan at the beautiful southern village of Ashiya. I loved the Japanese and their wonderful countyry. Had we invaded and then Russia had invaded from the north, the war would very likely have continued for another year or more and Japan would have suffered irrepairable damage and possibly still be half under the control of Russia.
And the Japanese did not have the opportunity to use atomic bombs. A full scale atomic bomb war did not happen... There is always a flip side to a coin, consider what could or would have occurred if we had not used the atomic bombs. Hiroshema was on General Curtis LeMay's fire bomb hit list as was Nagasaki... Those targeted cities were always hit two or more times. It was horrific.
Amazing that anyone still thinks that the USA was justified in dropping the bombs.
In addition there are people in the northeast - Troy NY and Bennington VT who were exposed to the radiation from the testing of the bombs. When the cloud with radiation arrived here, it rained and the radiation was deposited on the ground where the cows ate the grass - the milk became contaminated - people up here talk about the health problems they are still having many decades after the bomb tests way out west.
They have just found contaminated fish in the Connecticut River upstream from the Vermont Yankee Nuke Plant. A while back the State was going to issue Iodine Tablets to protect the thyroid from radiation. The plan was dropped so as not to frighten the citizens near Vermont Yankee.
drosera and rosemary J.
Both of your comments are extremely well stated. What is just as egregious is the attitude of our political leaders. What has received remarkably little notice is what presidential candidate Barack Obama said to CNN correspondent Candy Crowley during the summer of 2008 when Crowley asked Obama if the United States had anything to apologize for. Obama's unequivocal answer was that the United States had nothing to be ashamed of and certainly no reason why it should apologize for anything.
If I am not mistaken, Hillary Clinton placed a wreath at a memorial at Hiroshima last year. Like Obama she, also, saw no need for the United States to apologize for what it had done to those people. Unfortunately this should come as no surprise at all because in the eyes of the U.S. government the United States can never admit that it has done wrong and especially when it comes to what its foreign policy has wrought upon the citizens of other countries.
Hi ~~rosemarie jackowski~~... Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us all what you would have done as the US President in1945 in regards to the atomic bomb use ? __ No one else here wishes to reply to that fair question... I doubt if you will either.
As for my opinion on spltting atoms for any reason, I have previously posted it was one of the stupidest things humans ever did. The result of Fukushima will be far, far worse than most ever imagine... Since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, cancer rates, especially in children and young adults have soared... During the past four years, (every year) more than half a million Americans have died of cancer! That is an epidemic.
Fifty years ago and prior, cancer in children was very rare, not anymore... In addition to 500,000 + deaths every year from cancer, millions are being treated for that horrible disease. Less died last year than the year prior but not by much and so far this year is worse than last year. Cancer is the highest cause of death from disease in childeren.
Gee, wonder why things are going so poorly for the US these days? Hmmm. Slavery of untold numbers of Africans, genocide of hundreds of tribes of native Americans, endless, unjustified wars killing hundreds of thousands, like the poor unfortunates in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the subjugation and exploitation of millions of its own people with a robber baron economic system. Can't imagine why all these bad things are happening now! God Bless Amerika!!!