Cyprus-Forum.com

[Svetlana]

I suspect many more people died from the Fire Bomb raids over Japan, using conventional incendiary bombs than through the Atom bomb raids; it is estimated that at least 100,000 people were killed in one Fire Bomb raid over Tokyo, alone.

I doubt many other countries would have acted differently, in the the US's position, the Campaign had been a long and bloody one and the Japanese creed of 'No Surrender' means that a land invasion would have been very expensive in terms of lives, lost.

Lana

[Kikapu]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

[Kikapu]

Necessary.
An invasion of Japan would have cost ten times as many lives at least and Japan was not intending on surrendering. They were planning on stretching things out for six months hoping for a stalemate at least.

Japan had a huge capability to repel an invasion on their home island and they were willing to send in masses of civillians (women and children) armed with pointed sticks to reserve the forces for even longer.

People talk about how a demostration would have worked too, but there are a few problems with this. One, what if the first bomb was a dud? Then we would still have to drop the second one on a city to end a war.
Two, they could still either not believe it was just one bomb, and/or they could have erroneously believed we only had one and we wasted it on the demonstration.
And this is of course any such demonstration was even possible to set up in the first place.
Also, even with the demonstration and the emporer wanted to surrender, there could have been a coup like there almost was after the bombs were dropped and the emporer stated his intent to surrender.

UNNECESSARY
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

Not true at all. Some of the military controlled government who had the most power had absolutely no intention of surrendering. There was a small faction of the government that was seeking surrender, but they were the minority and they would have been ignored by the stalwarts.

Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment?

It was not scheduled in advance. I do not know where you got that from. We didn't even know the bomb was going to even work untill a few months prior.

Just ignore "Tom Soyer" Novus, because those are not his words, but rather he copy/pasted them from somewhere on Google.!

[Magnus]

Seeing as we're talking about Hiroshima, have you lot ever heard the story of Sadako Sasaki?

The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it's connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.

The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.
Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako's friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.

In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:


"This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world".


Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako's monument in Hiroshima.

http://www.sadako.org/sadakostory.htm

[Novus]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

The dropping of the bomb in Japan was necessary when looking at all the aspects or the case. It is not something I ever want to be repeated, but if there is ever another war and the dropping of a nuclear bomb killing a hundred thousand people will save a million or two lives, then I would be all for it.

War is inexcusable, but once you are in an all out one, it is either win, surrender or die. Japan was showing they were not going to surrender and were willing to die.
If we invaded and it took more than a month to win, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians would have died from famine? ....and they expected it to go on for six months at best so millions would have likely died from hunger alone. Are you suggesting we should have attempted that path instead?

Now of course saving Japanese lives was not the reason we dropped the bombs. The reason we dropped the bombs was to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, but that alone is justification enough and people who are critical of the US action always seem to ignore that it was not just American lives that were saved by dropping the bomb.

[Novus]

Seeing as we're talking about Hiroshima, have you lot ever heard the story of Sadako Sasaki?

The paper crane has become an international symbol of peace in recent years as a result of it's connection to the story of a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki born in 1943. Sadako was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1955, at age 11, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with Leukemia, "the atom bomb" disease.
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She started to work on the paper cranes and completed over 1000 before dying on October 25, 1955 at the age of twelve.

The point is that she never gave up. She continued to make paper cranes until she died.
Inspired by her courage and strength, Sadako's friends and classmates put together a book of her letters and published it. They began to dream of building a monument to Sadako and all of the children killed by the atom bomb. Young people all over Japan helped collect money for the project.

In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. The children also made a wish which is inscribed at the bottom of the statue and reads:


"This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world".


Today, people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to Sadako's monument in Hiroshima.

http://www.sadako.org/sadakostory.htm

Ever hear the story about the Rape of Nanking?

[Magnus]

Ever hear the story about the Rape of Nanking?

Actually no, what's it about?

[Kikapu]

I think the Americans showed remarkable restraint in only dropping two bombs..They could have done a lot more damage and killed far more civilians.

So, if in the future any nation with nuclear weapons just dropped one or two of their nuclear bombs on another nation and killed thousands of innocent civilians to end a war, or even to prevent a war from starting in the first place sometime in the future, like Iran for instance, then that would be OK by you Conners and Novus. Just where does one end with the justification and excuses. As my old girlfriend use to say,"excuses are like assholes, that everybody has one".!!

The dropping of the bomb in Japan was necessary when looking at all the aspects or the case. It is not something I ever want to be repeated, but if there is ever another war and the dropping of a nuclear bomb killing a hundred thousand people will save a million or two lives, then I would be all for it.

War is inexcusable, but once you are in an all out one, it is either win, surrender or die. Japan was showing they were not going to surrender and were willing to die.
If we invaded and it took more than a month to win, how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civillians would have died from famine? ....and they expected it to go on for six months at best so millions would have likely died from hunger alone. Are you suggesting we should have attempted that path instead?

Now of course saving Japanese lives was not the reason we dropped the bombs. The reason we dropped the bombs was to save hundreds of thousands of American lives, but that alone is justification enough and people who are critical of the US action always seem to ignore that it was not just American lives that were saved by dropping the bomb.

I'm just wondering if the USA would have dropped the "bomb" on Germany had it been ready before the Germans surrendered in 1945, being they were Europeans, but the fact the Japan bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941 unprovoked, it was going to be "payback time" to those "Japs" come what may.!!

[soyer]

Necessary.
An invasion of Japan would have cost ten times as many lives at least and Japan was not intending on surrendering. They were planning on stretching things out for six months hoping for a stalemate at least.

Japan had a huge capability to repel an invasion on their home island and they were willing to send in masses of civillians (women and children) armed with pointed sticks to reserve the forces for even longer.

People talk about how a demostration would have worked too, but there are a few problems with this. One, what if the first bomb was a dud? Then we would still have to drop the second one on a city to end a war.
Two, they could still either not believe it was just one bomb, and/or they could have erroneously believed we only had one and we wasted it on the demonstration.
And this is of course any such demonstration was even possible to set up in the first place.
Also, even with the demonstration and the emporer wanted to surrender, there could have been a coup like there almost was after the bombs were dropped and the emporer stated his intent to surrender.

UNNECESSARY
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to December 31 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

Not true at all. Some of the military controlled government who had the most power had absolutely no intention of surrendering. There was a small faction of the government that was seeking surrender, but they were the minority and they would have been ignored by the stalwarts.

Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped. Was it because this was a plutonium bomb whereas the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb? Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki victims of a scientific experiment?

It was not scheduled in advance. I do not know where you got that from. We didn't even know the bomb was going to even work untill a few months prior.

The principal justification for obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that it "saved lives" because otherwise a planned U.S. invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point used the figure "a half million lives," and Churchill "a million lives," but these were figures pulled out of the air to calm troubled consciences; even official projections for the number of casualties in an invasion did not go beyond 46,000.
In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that. General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use of the bomb, told him that "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."

by Howard Zinn
The Progressive magazine, August 2000

[Oracle]

By the way, did the US have a third bomb ready to go, in case the first two were ignored by the Japanese, and would they have dropped it, and how many times more there after.??

Kinky-pu, since you have a way with words .....

I just wondered what names do you think these extra bombs would have been given?