Pearl Harbor

tangerinegreen555

tangerinegreen555

Well-Known Member
Davmalk said:
If you believe that two atomic bombs leveling two city in an instant didn’t have anything to do with the wars end that's just fucking crazy.
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You know that the average Japanese citizen in other parts of the country knew nothing of those atomic blasts, right? Telecommunications were dead there by 1945.

You know that the napalm and phosphorous fire bombing of other cities actually caused more damage and death, right?

Japan wanted to surrender right after Germany fell. They let that be known quietly. We wanted unconditional surrender, they wanted to keep the emporer, their religious leader.

Ultimately, they kept the emporer anyway as we didn't want to make a martyr out of him.

The war was already over. We dropped those bombs A. for revenge and B. to show the Russians we had a weapon to keep them in line with what we wanted.

We were a different country in the 1940's. You need only to study how we rounded up Asians and put them in interment camps after confiscating their wealth because they were a 'threat'. Or study the Jim Crow laws down south.

Truman ordered those bombs. Truman would never had been president if Henry Wallace hadn't been ambushed by southern racist party bosses during the 1944 convention while Roosevelt was very ill in bed. Wallace was openly for equal rights 20 yrs. before the rest of the country and the south couldn't stand that.

There was ugly politics behind those bombs and Truman was no Roosevelt.
 
Davmalk

Davmalk

Well-Known Member
Yeah but it wasn’t the Japanese people that had any say in it. On August 15 1945 Emperor Hirohito was going to announce the surrender of Japan but 1,000 soldiers occupied the Imperial Palace and prevented him from doing so. Otherwise the war would have been over then and not because Russia’s involvement.
 
Davmalk

Davmalk

Well-Known Member
I went back and brushed up on some ww2 history and I now see that I was in error and the Soviet offensive had a great deal to do with the surrender of Japan. I’m surprised because I was lead to believe that the Atomic bombs were the reason.
 
T

ThaiBaby1

Well-Known Member
Davmalk said:
If you believe that two atomic bombs leveling two city in an instant didn’t have anything to do with the wars end that's just fucking crazy.
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It was a small factor, not the deciding factor, and not only my opinion but that of all the generals and admirals I listed above, they must have been crazy too.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
ThaiBaby1 said:
It was a small factor, not the deciding factor, and not only my opinion but that of all the generals and admirals I listed above, they must have been crazy too.
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The only two nuclear weapons ever used against an enemy were a 'small factor'?

I'm just having a lot of trouble swallowing that idea.
 
T

ThaiBaby1

Well-Known Member
ttystikk said:
The only two nuclear weapons ever used against an enemy were a 'small factor'?

I'm just having a lot of trouble swallowing that idea.
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I know, the common knowledge says otherwise and its a hard idea grasp at first, but the firebombing of Tokyo caused more deaths than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The vast majority of buildings in Japan were wood. Fires would join and create a firestorm that would be devastating. Even underground shelters were not safe because the firestorm would suck all the air out. Also the Japanese had been wanting to surrender for a while, the sticking point was we wanted unconditional surrender and the Japanese wanted to keep the Emperor, which we finally relented on. I think someone mentioned that another reason we dropped the bomb was to intimidate the Russians.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
ThaiBaby1 said:
I know, the common knowledge says otherwise and its a hard idea grasp at first, but the firebombing of Tokyo caused more deaths than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The vast majority of buildings in Japan were wood. Fires would join and create a firestorm that would be devastating. Even underground shelters were not safe because the firestorm would suck all the air out. Also the Japanese had been wanting to surrender for a while, the sticking point was we wanted unconditional surrender and the Japanese wanted to keep the Emperor, which we finally relented on. I think someone mentioned that another reason we dropped the bomb was to intimidate the Russians.
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I'm not disputing the fact that other attacks killed more people or did more damage, but none came near the awesome power of a single bomb.

Also, I've read several accounts of survivors and whoever told you that most people in Japan had no idea of the nuclear attacks was dead wrong; the whole country knew in days.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
tangerinegreen555 said:
Yeah, close calls (1962) don't count so I would say you were very correct. Fortunately.
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We have all been very fortunate.

Now that 75 years have passed, I fear someone will come along who might convince a nuclear nation that an atomic exchange is not only survivable but somehow advantageous.

I'd like to see my grandkids die of old age, as opposed to being casualties of war. I imagine I'm not alone in this desire.
 
T

ThaiBaby1

Well-Known Member
ttystikk said:
I'm not disputing the fact that other attacks killed more people or did more damage, but none came near the awesome power of a single bomb.

Also, I've read several accounts of survivors and whoever told you that most people in Japan had no idea of the nuclear attacks was dead wrong; the whole country knew in days.
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Someone else said that people had no idea, how could you keep something like that unknown?
As far as the "one bomb" thing, I see no difference whether it was one bomb that killed you or thousands.
 
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