Hiroshima - 64 years ago... loads of never before seen photos

[navcom]

Originally Posted by vandergus

I think it's a mistake to assume that the people involved in creating the atomic bomb were also the one's determining its strategic useage.

That, on top of putting oneself in the period to better understand the motivation. We have the luxury of sitting back and judging them. They had to live it...both sides. It's also interesting that many of the scientists working on the Bomb in New Mexico were former German scientists. They were involved because they understood first-hand the oppression we were fighting. They understood the consequences if Hitler or the Axis had one first.

There is nobody who despises war more than a combat veteran. But they also have the perspective of understanding what will be sacrificed if their ideals are not fought for when threatened. The U.S. had a hard time early on in the WWII Pacific Theater. They were not prepared to fight an enemy that valued valliant death and the merciless slaughter of their enemies to the extent that the Japanese were. We were horrified by how our POW's were treated in the Phillipines as well as how the locals and civilians were treated as well. We started to pay attention to what had happened in China, Korea, and Asia in general. We saw Wake Island and the succession of losses that followed and how the Japanese fought and how they treated their conquered.

Once this lesson sunk in, there are only a couple choices. Give in and allow the same mentality to rule your free country by surrendering or submission, or fight fire with fire.

The U.S. did not want to be controlled by the Japanese or allow this type of rule or influence over them. They decided to fight a total war. That is what happened.

I know many WWII vets, present and passed on. I do not know a single one who regrets what they did. War should be avoided as much as is humanly possible. But sometimes the oppression that would be the outcome of foregoing the fight is worse than the struggle itself.

Contrary to current popular belief, the Japanese chain of command (those who controlled things) were not ready to surrender before the Bomb. Much of the population was. Even many in government were. But those in power were willing to sacrifice themselves and their country to the death. Don't believe it? It took TWO bombs before they surrended. They were willing to endure the first one. After two, they figured we had more and knew the country would be completely destroyed in two weeks if it kept up.

Nuclear weapons are a horrible scourge on the world. But to me oppression is worse. I guarantee you that if nuclear weapons had not existed, at some point the U.S. and the Soviet Union would have entered into a war that would've made WWII look like a mere hockey match.

[gturner]

Sorry for dragging up an old topic but it is a topic close to my heart.

1. great post of the pictures. The world has a short memory and these awful events should be remembered every year, lest we forget!

2. The suffering caused by these 2 bombs was the price of peace. A full scale invasion of Japan was the other option which would have included conventional carpet bombing of all japanese cities, ground forces fighting to the death on the beaches, japanese sacrificing themselves on mass in defense of their homeland. As navcom says, it took TWO bombs to get the desired result which might help explain the mentality of the Japanese at the time

3. Nuclear missiles and more importantly nuclear submarines have kept global peace for 50 years. Yes there have been small conflicts but nothing on the scale of pre-1945. I am not an american but I know what keeps me safe at night, especially pre-1990.
Proof of their success is that they have never been used again!


With the greatest respect to all that have lost lives in the current effort (and as a combat vet myself I know the feeling) the human cost in the current operations is negligible. The UK has lost 200 men in 9 years in Afghanistan. Compare that to 19,240 dead, 35,493 wounded on THE FIRST DAY of the battle of the SOMME in 1916, JUST ON THE BRITISH SIDE. In total 1,000,000 (yes 1 MILLION) was the final casualty count after a month of fighting across all forces on a patch of land 7 miles across.PERSPECTIVE is everything
Nuclear weapons put a stop to that sort nonsense because leaders now understand that that sort of destruction can arrive at their front door in minutes!


4. WARS are the ultimate designers of technology. Our digital cameras are a direct result of the military funding of technology. The internet, satellites, special alloys, lenses, lasers, carbon fibre applications, the jet engine and NUCLEAR power stations all come from the pursuit of military success.

So the moral of the story -
Give thanks for those wars that have gone before that allow you to tuck in safely at night... and then when you have done that hope like hell you never have to look at the wrong end of unfriendly rifle!
(and next time you are near a naval base, drop some flowers off for the submariners)

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by DogHeadGod

How does somebody who helped create, and use, a nuclear weapon end up with a nobel prize?

Despite it's military use, nuclear fission was still very unexplored at that point. The breakthroughs made by the Manhattan Project team, though military in origin, have revolutionized the way mankind "creates" energy. Submarines, aircraft carriers, powerplants... CHances are pretty good that, at one point in your life, all electricity will be supplied by nuclear power plants or "alternative" sources. You can thank Oppenheimer then.

[AlphaBjerke]

Originally Posted by zona5101

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is mor" -


-- John Stuart Mill

Zona, thanks for this. It is hard to fathom some things given that we live in a day so far from that one. I would have to think that were we alive then, we would have concluded the same things needed to be done. The war was going to end with someone taking heavy losses.

[JFSanders]

How does somebody who helped create, and use, a nuclear weapon end up with a nobel prize?

The same way Yaser Arafat did...

Those with holier than thou attitudes toward the use of the nuclear bomb to end the war with Japan. Are either ignorant of history or they are disingenuous in their belief that Japan was a innocent participant. If you care to know more there are plenty of history sites that will educate. Did you know that we fire bombed the whole country for six solid months prior to setting up for the land invasion? It was estimated that the allies would lose somewhere around 1 to 1 1/2 million men in a protracted land war with Japan. So Truman chose the bomb. We dropped the first one and the Emperor said big deal that didn't hurt and kept on fighting. We dropped the second one and took out Mitsubishi heavy industries. Nagasaki was a company town. The Emperor was willing to fight to the last child. He decided to surrender when he found out that Stalin had invaded Korea and was chewing up his forces on the Korean peninsula. He didn't want to have to negotiate with Stalin. When he surrendered to MacArthur the Japanese govt negotiated and received almost everything they had asked for. It was unconditional in the sense that Japan gave up it's military. But it's bureaucracy remained intact. And Hiroshima was back in industrial production in less than two years. Now I know why I stay out of this section...

[milosh]

Originally Posted by DogHeadGod

He knew, they all knew, it's one and only purpose.

I totaly agree with you, no matter at what level of producing such a horrible thing you are involved in, you always have a choice. Maybe your choice wouldn't change things, but you still have it..


No war should ever be fought again!

[navcom]

Originally Posted by milosh

No war should ever be fought again!

We all wish it were true. So did Prime Minister Chamberlain and see where it got him. After signing the Munich Peace Agreement with Hitler in 1938, he declared "peace in our time" and that war had finally been averted by appeasing Hitler and giving him Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland... and even defended Hitler saying it was "peace with honor".

Was his appeasement worth it? Was the subjugation of those two territories and those people's freedom worth it? Did it bring peace? It had exactly the opposite effect. All it did was encourage Hitler that he could do whatever he wanted in Europe. History has proven this over and over again. You can even make the case that it made the war worse.

If the world would have been prepared to stand up to Hitler and the Axis sooner...before the annexations, before the political takeovers, before the rape of the far east, before the holocausts...that terrible war would have been averted or been much, much smaller....saving millions of lives...and ultimately not requiring the development of nuclear weapons.

But the world was understandably weary of war after experiencing World War I. Unfortunately, that weariness led to ill-preparedness for what could happen...a "taking-for-granted" the freedoms they fought for and how easily an even worse situation could result...and this is what allowed it to get to the magnitude it ultimately became.

War will only end when death ends. Humans are imperfect and every one of us is different. With our diversity also comes the unpleasant fact that some of us don't care about the rest of us. There will always be those whose ambition is to subjugate others. That will never change. You can see it from the world stage all the way down to the local camera club, where that one person always wants to be in control and tell everyone else how wonderful of a photographer they are and how better everything would be if we just did exactly what they did. The only difference is at the national or world level, there is real power and force involved. To the ambitious, the temptation to use this power can be overwhelming.

And because of this human imperfectness, unfortunately, there will always be war.

Accepting this fact and preparing for it is the only way in a human world to begin to keep any peace. This is the lesson we should learn from that terrible war and time. A simple message: Those who prepare to subjugate the masses use power to achieve their goal, and the only way to prevent them is to convince them that they will be met with overwhelming force if they try.

This will produce the only peace possible in an imperfect world. It means we meet the challenges with eyes wide open, not euphoric platitudes.

[milosh]

I wasn't refering to WW II, but the world in general. I agree with you that with the current state of mind of the modern man, wars will be fought and we can't escape them. I just hope that in future human kind will evolve enough to understand that wars are just not worth it.
I don't agree with you that the only way to achieve piece is to build an overwhelming force, as you put it. There will always be ways for one side to become stronger than the other and it just never ends.
That's all from me.

[kalendae]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were more of a consequence of the actions of the Japanese people than that of the American scientists. An instant death from a fiery inferno can only be hoped for by those who died in much more atrocious and undignified ways in WWII.

That said, the images are simply haunting.