Pearl Harbor
- Thread starter dirtsurfr
- Start date
Shock and awe value.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Exactly, something not to be underestimated with nuclear weapons.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
For the time, maybe. My dad who was in the Pacific theater certainly supported it after 3 and a half long years of fighting and seeing his buddies killed.
In hindsight (that isn't worth shit) maybe not. But they didn't have 70 years of hindsight in 1945.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
If the judgement call was the right one for its time, then time won't change the fact that it was the right call.
I hear the dissenting arguments here and I still think it was the way to save more lives than it cost. Everyone's lives, including millions of civilians caught in the crossfire.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
I think as many would have died either way. If my dad would have died, I wouldn't be here.
Those bombs opened an ugly chapter in history that continues today.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Someone would have opened it soon enough, certainly by now. It still isnt widely known, but the Japanese work on nuclear weapons was much further along than the Nazis, and it was being done in what is now North Korea.
The Russians of course occupied that region at the end of WWII and they scooped the whole works up, took it home and reverse engineered it. The Roseburgs did not contribute nearly as much to the Soviet Bomb as we've been led to believe all these years.
This is a weird thread.
How is it that no one has their panties in a bunch screaming obscenities by now?
Refreshing conversation.
How is it that no one has their panties in a bunch screaming obscenities by now?
Refreshing conversation.
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
I'm reading a just published WW2 book "The Fleet at Flood Tide" by James Hornfischer about the Pacific war 1944-45. Almost the very last paragraph in the book is a statement by Paul Tibbets he had originally made to Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene during an interview in 1998:
BG: But what if the scientists had declared the bomb not ready--or if President Truman had decided not to give the order? What if the war had been allowed to go on, and the battlefield deaths had kept mounting?
"If we hadn't flown our mission, I think mankind would have lost a lot," Tibbets said.
He knows that there are some who, all this time later, disagree with him. He knows that there are some who continue to be highly critical of what he was asked to do on that August day. His response to that is as direct as Tibbets himself: "Those people never had their balls on that cold, hard anvil. They can say anything they want."
@ttystikk some recently published books you might like if you haven't read already:
MacArthur at war : World War II in the Pacific / Walter R. Borneman
The Kamikaze hunters : fighting for the Pacific, 1945 / Will Iredale
The conquering tide : war in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 / Ian W. Toll
The Pacific War and contingent victory : why Japanese defeat was not inevitable / Michael W. Myers
also West Point just published VOL2 on History of WW2
BG: But what if the scientists had declared the bomb not ready--or if President Truman had decided not to give the order? What if the war had been allowed to go on, and the battlefield deaths had kept mounting?
"If we hadn't flown our mission, I think mankind would have lost a lot," Tibbets said.
He knows that there are some who, all this time later, disagree with him. He knows that there are some who continue to be highly critical of what he was asked to do on that August day. His response to that is as direct as Tibbets himself: "Those people never had their balls on that cold, hard anvil. They can say anything they want."
@ttystikk some recently published books you might like if you haven't read already:
MacArthur at war : World War II in the Pacific / Walter R. Borneman
The Kamikaze hunters : fighting for the Pacific, 1945 / Will Iredale
The conquering tide : war in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 / Ian W. Toll
The Pacific War and contingent victory : why Japanese defeat was not inevitable / Michael W. Myers
also West Point just published VOL2 on History of WW2
BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
deno
Well-Known Member
And saved at least a million lives by not invading the mainland, something you conveniently omit.
I've been there at least a half dozen times riding ships for Refresher training.
Battleship row and the Arizona memorial in particular had a heavy, sad feeling for me.
deno
Well-Known Member
Lots of foolish people in this world, some foolish and naive. One million was the projected ALLIED casualties. Axis losses would have been at least as great, probably many more. No matter what you do, the fools are going to cry foul.
greg nr
Well-Known Member
My father was a doctor in the army air corp and was stationed in the phillipines the last year of the war and for a while after.
He told me he saw what had to be over a thousand planes, lined up wingtip to wingtip and nose to tail, fully loaded with everything but bombs and fuel, pushed into piles and burned on the ground. They had been planned for the invasion of japan. They would have reigned pure hell on that country. They probably would have lost millions from the air assault alone. That was just one field of many.
And a lot of those planes never would have made it back.
He told me he saw what had to be over a thousand planes, lined up wingtip to wingtip and nose to tail, fully loaded with everything but bombs and fuel, pushed into piles and burned on the ground. They had been planned for the invasion of japan. They would have reigned pure hell on that country. They probably would have lost millions from the air assault alone. That was just one field of many.
And a lot of those planes never would have made it back.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
How can you get the date wrong?
Even I check posts on a pot site closer than that before I press the button.
(They fixed it after 1/2 hour. Nice work.)
greg nr
Well-Known Member
one of the pres bushies did the same thing. even used the same wrong date.
tangerinegreen555
Well-Known Member
Lol.
Everybody makes mistakes but that's ridiculous. How could you not know that date?