the hiroshima pictures

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: Aimster
IMO killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to save the lives of soldiers is wrong.

soldiers have a job so let them do it.
do not play God and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians so the soldier death count is low.

Of course those days are over. Otherwise we would have nuked Vietnam.

piss off, my dad was one of those soldiers who was training to invade japan, im glad Truman had the nuts to do what had to be done to end the war without causing anymore AMERICAN deaths, Japan started it and refused to surrender. they got what they deserved.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: kami333

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus

Originally posted by: Aharami

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
IMO: the single best thing to come out of using those two is the prevention of using other more powerful devices later.

One general proposed using 13 on Korea and was promptly canned. Those two bombs marked a pinnacle of "larger is better" warfare. Since then there has been a much larger emphasis on precision and taking out key targets rather than devestating an entire city. The pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki paint a picture of the worst part of all out warfare and why it should be avoided, and I believe that in the last 60 years there have been no nuclear weapons used in warfare because of them.

exactly how we should be looking at this event. not asking the Japanese to thank us like some of you sick fvuks suggested.

I'm sure they didn't expect the Japanese to actually thank us. I'm sure it was just said to make a point. Kind of like this thread, expecting Americans to feel guilty for dropping the bombs in the first place.

You can still recognize the tragedy of the event without the guilt.

Absolutely. But I think some feel that we (Americans) should feel a sense of guilt for those events and I think that's ridiculous.

My ancestors owned slaves, something I think is quite appalling, but I'm sure as hell not going to feel guilty about it.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: Aimster
IMO killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to save the lives of soldiers is wrong.

soldiers have a job so let them do it.
do not play God and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians so the soldier death count is low.

Of course those days are over. Otherwise we would have nuked Vietnam.

uhmmmmm, they bombed the FSCK out of pearl harbor...a little retaliation is healthy IMHO.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Btw, here's some interesting figures about China's fighting against Japan in WW2:
The Chinese lost approximately 3.22 million soldiers. 9.13 million civilians died in the crossfire, and another 8.4 million as non-military casualties. Some Chinese historians claimed the total military and non-military deaths of the Chinese were at most 35 million. Most Western historians believed that the casualties were at least 20 million.

 

[lyssword]

The tragic thing is, Japan's emperor was ready to give up before nukes went off, but he was held hostage by his own military generals.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: lyssword
The tragic thing is, Japan's emperor was ready to give up before nukes went off, but he was held hostage by his own military generals.

yip, they are the ones who wanted to fight until everybody was dead. truman did the right thing.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
Btw, here's some interesting figures about China's fighting against Japan in WW2:
The Chinese lost approximately 3.22 million soldiers. 9.13 million civilians died in the crossfire, and another 8.4 million as non-military casualties. Some Chinese historians claimed the total military and non-military deaths of the Chinese were at most 35 million. Most Western historians believed that the casualties were at least 20 million.

That's why the Chinese go batsh!t everytime a Japanese PM visits the Yasukuni Shrine.

 

[gsellis]

/now waits for the historically ignorant to say the US and Britain started it by blockading Japan from getting oil while forgetting why the farking blockade was put in place. Hint - Japan was invading other Asian countries and killing civilians, soldiers, etc.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DaWhim
what is with the sad face? thank to these two atom bombs, now they are victims of WW2.

They still resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of civilians.

Look at how upset everyone got over the deaths of 3,000 civilians in the World Trade Center buildings. Terrorists were attacking civilians to get a point across. We attacked civilians to end a war.
More justifiable on our part? Perhaps. It did likely save the lives of many soldiers on both sides, soldiers doing the bidding of power-hungry leaders, and leaders defending against them.
The fact remains, we demolished two cities of civilians. I still find that idea quite distasteful.

I really hope that that's the last time nuclear weapons need to be used in a time of war. The only use I'd like to see for nuclear weapons would be to make a minor course correction for a threatening asteroid.

 

[Excelsior]

I know this'll sound really crass...

but they shouldn't have started sh!t. Karma is a b!tch.


*Note, I do think that it is awful so many civilians died....but Japan apparently didn't care about it when they killed thousands of civilians in China and other countries.

 

[Toastedlightly]

nvm

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: DaWhim
what is with the sad face? thank to these two atom bombs, now they are victims of WW2.

They still resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of civilians.

Look at how upset everyone got over the deaths of 3,000 civilians in the World Trade Center buildings. Terrorists were attacking civilians to get a point across. We attacked civilians to end a war.
More justifiable on our part? Perhaps. It did likely save the lives of many soldiers on both sides, soldiers doing the bidding of power-hungry leaders, and leaders defending against them.
The fact remains, we demolished two cities of civilians. I still find that idea quite distasteful.

How many thousands upon thousands of German civilians were killed in our bombing campaigns in Germany? I don't see anyone here crying about those losses? Why all the carrying on about the Japanese?

Do you want to know how many civilian deaths there were during WWII?

Soviet Union: 11,500,000
China: 7,000,000
Poland: 2,200,000
Germany: 1,840,000
Japan: 600,000

So, please...STFU about Japanese civilian losses during WWII. Quite frankly, their losses pale in comparison.

Besides, those bombs were dropped during wartime. We were not at war when those planes were flown into the WTC and the Pentagon.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

If it were not for the two a-bombs...Russia would have occupied Northern Nippon. Betcha!

Japan is infamous for it's revisionist History


...Galvanized

 

[illusion88]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I wonder what it must felt like to be the ones who physically dropped the bombs. With the push of one button you would be instantly killing thousands and dooming others to the fallout.

I remember seeing something on the history channel. And his first thought was "Thank god it wasn't a dud".

I doubt he was thinking about all the civilians he just killed. I am sure the only thought on his mind was "thank god we are going to win the war".

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: GalvanizedYankee
If it were not for the two a-bombs...Russia would have occupied Northern Nippon. Betcha!

Japan is infamous for it's revisionist History


...Galvanized

No kidding. Half the country would be speaking Russian and driving the latest Soviet cars instead of Hondas and Toyotas. :laugh:

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I wonder what it must felt like to be the ones who physically dropped the bombs. With the push of one button you would be instantly killing thousands and dooming others to the fallout.

My father (who is 77) once told me that he knew the pilot of the first plane and that he didn't take it well. Not sure how accurate it is, but I have no reason to think that he's lying to me.

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I wonder what it must felt like to be the ones who physically dropped the bombs. With the push of one button you would be instantly killing thousands and dooming others to the fallout.

My father (who is 77) once told me that he knew the pilot of the first plane and that he didn't take it well. Not sure how accurate it is, but I have no reason to think that he's lying to me.

My first thought would likely have been: let's get the fark outta here!
I would have had mixed feelings about dropping it later, but that would be my initial reaction.

 

[foghorn67]

Operation Olympic would probably have been the one of the most horrifying battles ever.
Operation Overlord (1944 Allied Invasion of Normandy was 150,000 strong.
Olympic was planned as 1,000,000 due to the fears of every Japanese person being suicidal.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Operation Olympic would probably have been the one of the most horrifying battles ever.
Operation Overlord (1944 Allied Invasion of Normandy was 150,000 strong.
Olympic was planned as 1,000,000 due to the fears of every Japanese person being suicidal.

The US had 500k Purple Hearts ready and three Liberty ships loaded with white crosses, all in preperation for the landing.

 

[gsellis]

Just on the facts list... no one mentions how many Londoners died due to German bombing. I remember it was 10's of thousands, but not the figure. War on that scale sucks.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Just on the facts list... no one mentions how many Londoners died due to German bombing. I remember it was 10's of thousands, but not the figure. War on that scale sucks.

Very few people on the forum can claim to understand what war is like. We can argue over facts and strategy, and that's fine, but we can't pretend to really understand what's going on. It's very easy to say what we would have done if we were there, but you can never really know.

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: K1052

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
Btw, here's some interesting figures about China's fighting against Japan in WW2:
The Chinese lost approximately 3.22 million soldiers. 9.13 million civilians died in the crossfire, and another 8.4 million as non-military casualties. Some Chinese historians claimed the total military and non-military deaths of the Chinese were at most 35 million. Most Western historians believed that the casualties were at least 20 million.

That's why the Chinese go batsh!t everytime a Japanese PM visits the Yasukuni Shrine.

And Vietnamese, Koreans, and other Asian countries. With all the atrocities committed by Japan, their arrogance, and unwillingness to disclose their war crimes (unlike Germany), I don't feel sympathy for the devastation.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Imagine that you're sitting back in grade school, 30 people in your class. Now imagine one person in your class was killed. And then think if that happened to the next class over, and every class in your school. And every school in the country. And every country in the world. Because about 1/30th of the world's population was killed during WW2. That doesn't include people killed in the aftermath from famine and the like either. It's hard to point to certain actions and say "Was that the best thing to do?" without saying "What would you do in that situation?".

I think that dropping those two was the right thing to do at the time, but it's something that I never want to see happen again.

 

[Mayfriday0529]

you said pictures, not video.

 

[acole1]

We talked about this today in Hist class.

Prof said MacArthur estimated (based on Okinawa losses) that US casualties would be 1M+, and death toll would be 200k+.

On the Japanese side it was estimated there would be 2M+ casualties and 500k+ dead.

Compare those #'s to the 75k dead from Hiroshima and the 35k dead from Nagasaki... no more than 200k total deaths in all.

These numbers would have almost doubled the total losses of the entire war if we had not dropped the bombs.