Survivors of the Atomic Bomb Attack on Hiroshima Struggle - and Speak (nytimes.com) 231
"Not many Americans have August 6 circled on their calendars," writes the New York Times, "but it's a day that the Japanese can't forget."
79 years after an atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, the Times visits a hospital that "continues to treat, on average, 180 survivors — known as hibakusha — of the blasts each day." The bombs killed an estimated 200,000 men, women and children and maimed countless more. In Hiroshima 50,000 of the city's 76,000 buildings were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki nearly all homes within a mile and a half of the blast were wiped out. In both cities the bombs wrecked hospitals and schools. Urban infrastructure collapsed...
[T]he hibakusha and their offspring have formed the backbone of atomic memory. Many see their life's work as informing the wider world about what it's like to carry the trauma, stigma and survivor's guilt caused by the bombs, so that nuclear weapons may never be used again. Their urgency to do so has only increased in recent years. With an average age of 85, the hibakusha are dying by the hundreds each month — just as the world is entering a new nuclear age. Countries like the United States, China and Russia are spending trillions of dollars to modernize their stockpiles. Many of the safeguards that once lowered nuclear risk are unraveling, and the diplomacy needed to restore them is not happening. The threat of another blast can't be relegated to history...
Kunihiko Sakuma [who was 9 months old the day of the attack]: "People died or got sick not just right after the bombing. The reality is, their symptoms are emerging even today, 79 years later. I thought all this was in the past. But as I started talking to survivors, I realized their suffering was ongoing. The atomic bomb is such an inhumane weapon, and the effects of radiation stay with survivors for a very long time. That's why they need our continued support."
The article includes this quote from Keiko Ogura, who was 8 years old at the time of the attack — and still worries she hasn't done enough to abolish the use of nuclear weapons: "As survivors, we cannot do anything but tell our story. 'For we shall not repeat the evil' — this is the pledge of survivors. Until we die, we want to tell our story, because it's difficult to imagine."
Many of the stories are horrifying. But I'll note this one by Seiichiro Mise — who on the day of the atomic bomb attack was 10 years old: "I got married in 1964. At the time, people would say that if you married an atomic bomb survivor, any kids you had would be deformed.
"Two years later, I got a call from the hospital saying my baby had been born. But on my way, my heart was troubled. I'm an atomic bomb victim. I experienced that black rain. So I felt anguished. Usually new parents simply ask the doctor, 'Is it a boy or girl?' I didn't even ask that. Instead, I asked, 'Does my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes?'
"The doctor looked unsettled. But then he smiled and said it was a healthy boy. I was relieved."
The first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima was Barack Obama in 2016. The article notes he did not issue the official apology many Japanese had hoped for. But he did say "we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again...
"Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness. But the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade."
79 years after an atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, the Times visits a hospital that "continues to treat, on average, 180 survivors — known as hibakusha — of the blasts each day." The bombs killed an estimated 200,000 men, women and children and maimed countless more. In Hiroshima 50,000 of the city's 76,000 buildings were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki nearly all homes within a mile and a half of the blast were wiped out. In both cities the bombs wrecked hospitals and schools. Urban infrastructure collapsed...
[T]he hibakusha and their offspring have formed the backbone of atomic memory. Many see their life's work as informing the wider world about what it's like to carry the trauma, stigma and survivor's guilt caused by the bombs, so that nuclear weapons may never be used again. Their urgency to do so has only increased in recent years. With an average age of 85, the hibakusha are dying by the hundreds each month — just as the world is entering a new nuclear age. Countries like the United States, China and Russia are spending trillions of dollars to modernize their stockpiles. Many of the safeguards that once lowered nuclear risk are unraveling, and the diplomacy needed to restore them is not happening. The threat of another blast can't be relegated to history...
Kunihiko Sakuma [who was 9 months old the day of the attack]: "People died or got sick not just right after the bombing. The reality is, their symptoms are emerging even today, 79 years later. I thought all this was in the past. But as I started talking to survivors, I realized their suffering was ongoing. The atomic bomb is such an inhumane weapon, and the effects of radiation stay with survivors for a very long time. That's why they need our continued support."
The article includes this quote from Keiko Ogura, who was 8 years old at the time of the attack — and still worries she hasn't done enough to abolish the use of nuclear weapons: "As survivors, we cannot do anything but tell our story. 'For we shall not repeat the evil' — this is the pledge of survivors. Until we die, we want to tell our story, because it's difficult to imagine."
Many of the stories are horrifying. But I'll note this one by Seiichiro Mise — who on the day of the atomic bomb attack was 10 years old: "I got married in 1964. At the time, people would say that if you married an atomic bomb survivor, any kids you had would be deformed.
"Two years later, I got a call from the hospital saying my baby had been born. But on my way, my heart was troubled. I'm an atomic bomb victim. I experienced that black rain. So I felt anguished. Usually new parents simply ask the doctor, 'Is it a boy or girl?' I didn't even ask that. Instead, I asked, 'Does my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes?'
"The doctor looked unsettled. But then he smiled and said it was a healthy boy. I was relieved."
The first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima was Barack Obama in 2016. The article notes he did not issue the official apology many Japanese had hoped for. But he did say "we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again...
"Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness. But the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade."
The other side of the coin (Score:2)
Re:The other side of the coin (Score:4, Insightful)
Do they have December 7 circled on their calendars? Maybe they should remember what really caused the suffering.
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Pearl Harbor was an attack on ships and soldiers. The final death toll was 2,403 -- including 68 civilians.
The death toll from Hiroshima was 140,000 -- with another 74,000 in Nagasaki.
Re:The other side of the coin (Score:5, Interesting)
People seem to forget that we didn't exactly have precision munitions in the 1940s, and carpet bombing was what warring nations did in WW2.
More people were killed in one night of firebombing Tokyo [wikipedia.org] than died in either of the atomic attacks. What made the atomic attacks special is that it only took one plane getting through, rather than filling the sky with 300+ B29s to get it done.
Japan saw that, and knew it was over. If any one plane gets through to drop a single bomb that turns a city center into an inferno, you're done.
If anything, the atomic attacks saved lives by opening the Emperor's eyes to just how fucked they were, and showed the rest of the world exactly what to expect if they started conflicts of this scale again - you can't put that toothpaste back in the tube.
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The assumption here is that the firebombing was justified.
By modern rules governing war, it was not. Laws were created specifically to stop that kind if thing happening again.
Arguably it shortened the war, but shortening war cannot be done at any cost.
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https://ethw.org/Japanese_Wome... [ethw.org].
Sucks about the kids, but it is a war. Don't think for a second the Japanese cared about anyone's kids either (just ask the Chinese)
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The death toll from Hiroshima was 140,000 -- with another 74,000 in Nagasaki.
So put the blame where it belongs. On Japan. If they hadn't attacked the U.S. those 200,000 wouldn't have died. Ultimately, the government of Japan is responsible for the deaths of those people.
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I think what makes Hiroshima unique is it was a civilian population.
You mean like Dresden [nationalww2museum.org]?
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I think what makes anyone born after 1995 unique is that none of their history classes would have gone in depth into the realities of total war because the modern curricula deems it unimportant. The only thing unique about the atomic bombs was that it was a singular weapon which caused the damage in each instance instead of the hundreds to thousands of bombs used against Tokyo and Dresden.
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The sad thing is, as horrible as total war is, the alternative of ongoing horrors is even worse.
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I think what makes Hiroshima unique is it was a civilian population.
Sort of like the Nanjing Massacre [wikipedia.org] ?
Or the civilian murders in the Philippines [wikipedia.org]?
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They were not equally terrible, because the victims simply died.
The Japanese have 100 thousands of long term and late victims and miscarriages and deformed children and cancer and what ever: 80 years after the bombs.
No worries, atomicalgebra and other idiots will jump up soon and claim: that is an invention of angel'o'sphere.
But you can google "hibakusha" in the 1970s still every day thousands died to the bombs dropped 35 years before.
Then I see the next post: Do they have December 7 circled on their calend
What Japan's prime minister said Tuesday (Score:3)
He said "It is the mission of Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear war, to pass on the reality of the atomic bombings to future generations."
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Having walked around Hiroshima and visited the atomic bombing memorial, I would say they are doing an incredible job of it. It's a very unique combination of peaceful, horrifying, reverential, and humbling. It's an unfortunate legacy of terrible policy and nationalism gone wacko, and they're making the absolute best of it.
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Yeah, it was so brave of Eisenhower to plan sending US Army veterans into the Bay of Pigs with nil US markings and no US-made equipment. Also, when the terrorists were discovered, to disavow all knowledge.
Do we want to remember the Iranian hostage rescue, where the rescue team fired upon civilian vehicles passing by? Brave days, indeed.
The US is no different to any other imperialist country, except for the lies it tells itself.
You lack the bravery to identify your account name.
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The US warmongers at the time were desperate to enter the war. The ships at Perl Harbor were intentionally placed there by President Roosevelt to "deter Japan" in 1940. Meanwhile the US was increasing economic sanctions against the Japanese. Including an oil and gasoline embargo on August 1, 1941. Which occurred after freezing Japanese assets.
TL;DR: The US wasn't innocent, and the Japanese were not cowards. The attack on Perl Harbor came as a direct
Apology (Score:5, Insightful)
The article notes he did not issue the official apology many Japanese had hoped for.
Why would Obama apologize for Truman? Truman's responsibility was to the American people, and dropping the bombs saved many thousands of American soldiers' lives. It sucked for the Japanese people; but the Japanese military was warned to surrender or face devastation, and they chose to ignore the warnings. Even after the first bomb was dropped, the Japanese military chose to ignore the warnings and continue fighting.
Ignoring the warning before the first bomb was dropped could be excused for assuming it was militaristic hyperbole by the U.S. The destruction from the second bomb was entirely on the Japanese military.
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It also saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives by making an invasion of the home islands not happen. People seem to forget the bloodbath that would have ensued if there was to be an amphibious landing and door-to-door fighting, with continuous bombing every night until acquiescence.
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It also saved hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives by making an invasion of the home islands not happen. People seem to forget the bloodbath that would have ensued if there was to be an amphibious landing and door-to-door fighting, with continuous bombing every night until acquiescence.
Why would that be necessary?
Japan stood alone in the Far East and had already suffered devastating losses.
They couldn't have rebuilt by themselves within 2 generations & China & Korea had no reason to give them any help
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Japan stood alone in the Far East and had already suffered devastating losses.
They couldn't have rebuilt by themselves within 2 generations & China & Korea had no reason to give them any help
So, just to ask the obvious question, how do you suppose that would’ve worked, given that Korea and China were still under active Japanese occupation at the time we’re talking about? It wasn’t until a month after the bombs fell that the Japanese finally surrendered and cleared out of those territories.
Sure, the Russians would’ve eventually pushed from the north. Sure, the fractious Chinese would've eventually pulled together. Sure, the Western Allies were preparing to continue their
Re:Apology (Score:4, Informative)
Do you remember why Von Braun and his men surrendered to the allies instead of Russia? It's because they knew they would get better terms that way.
Japan knew this as well, so when Russia was getting ready to invade, the Japanese knew their time was running out. The USA also did not want to share Japan with Russia as they did Germany, so the USA was also on the clock. This is why, after the bombs didn't make the Japanese surrender unconditionally, the USA finally gave in and granted Japan their one surrender condition by allowing the Emperor to live.
So yes, the bombs might have shortened the war by a week or two, but only by showing the Americans that the Japanese were serious about saving their Emperor.
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Do you remember why Von Braun and his men surrendered to the allies instead of Russia? It's because they knew they would get better terms that way.
Japan knew this as well, so when Russia was getting ready to invade, the Japanese knew their time was running out. The USA also did not want to share Japan with Russia as they did Germany, so the USA was also on the clock. This is why, after the bombs didn't make the Japanese surrender unconditionally, the USA finally gave in and granted Japan their one surrender condition by allowing the Emperor to live.
So yes, the bombs might have shortened the war by a week or two, but only by showing the Americans that the Japanese were serious about saving their Emperor.
Not much of this is really correct. You need better sources.
Von Braun convinced his colleagues to surrender to the US soldiers specifically in part for religious reasons. Von Braun had become a Christian and felt that surrendering to the USA, a nation that respected Christianity, was better than surrendering to the atheist Soviet Union. Also, Fascism is at its very core maybe more anti-Communist than anything else. So willingly surrendering to Soviet troops was a betrayal of the highest order.
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Japan made an offer to surrender on August 10th 1945, after the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. They made an unconditional offer of surrender a few days later.
Today, there are still Japanese people who advocate Japan conquering the world [wikipedia.org], although they are a weak minority. The emperor himself has apologized and refuses to honor the war criminals.
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That's is a funny way to put it, because:
To put it another way, the Japanese only agreed to unconditional sur
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To put it another way, the Japanese only agreed to unconditional surrender after the USA granted their condition of unconditional surrender!
Your quote comes from an interview with Truman years later, in which he was unclear of the situation. To put it another way, your statement is False [google.co.jp].
Learn history. It's well known that true history has been hidden from textbooks in Japan.
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hundreds of thousands
More like tens of millions.
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Re:Apology (Score:4, Informative)
Have the Japanese apologized for Manila, Nanking, Section 731, or any of the other atrocities they committed? Did they care in the slightest about the civilians on Okinawa?
Go to the library and check out this book "Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila" by James Scott. Then see how merciful you are feeling.
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Repeat slowly. NOT A WAR CRIME. Japan was not a signatory to war crime legislation.
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As for whether or not an apology was warranted at all... I'm not sure. In the context of today, we see these acts as war crimes. In the context of that time, it was standard operating procedure, only on a larger scale. And in that context, bombing those cities was (probably) the right decision. Kind of the sa
Re:Apology (Score:5, Informative)
You need to read more reliable & detailed accounts of what happened re the decision to bomb two militarily unimportant cities, mostly populated my children, women, & old men. In Washington, the joint chiefs of staff were hard-against bombing them. There were also peace negotiations underway but apparently Truman wanted total capitulation & to demonstrate their new terrifying weapon to the world. The people in the Pentagon & on the Manhattan project also advocated for the bombings because they wanted to study the effects.
"Military significance
Hiroshima had been a military center since 1868 and was home to many military and munitions facilities."
"Military port: Nagasaki was a major military port and home to two Mitsubishi military factories
Shipbuilding: Nagasaki was one of Japan's largest shipbuilding and repair centers
Naval ordnance: Nagasaki was an important producer of naval ordnance"
Those sound pretty militarily important to me...
Bombing civilians is a war crime. There's also no reliable evidence that bombing Hiroshima & Nagasaki reduced US casualties.
Bombing civilians was SOP as part of WW2. London was frequently bombed, for example.
Japan didn't have anything of significance left (Score:2, Flamebait)
I have a lot of unpopular opinions but I kind of forget about this one (I'm American after all) so while you will find posts where I talk about my most unpopular opinion in actuality recognizing that we didn't need to drop the bombs to stop the war in Japan is probably number one.
200 or 300 years from now if our country is still around I think that we will be able to
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Right, all we needed to do was to needlessly expend more American lives slogging through the islands and deeply dug in position of the fanatical soldiers who held them.
Didn't need to do any of that (Score:2)
Because of course we did we just needed to be able to drop the bombs because we wanted to because that showed Russia what's what.
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All we had to do was agree like we eventually did that we wouldn't kill the emperor and they were going to surrender and did. That was the entire sticking point was we were being assholes and demanding unconditional surrender instead of granting them that one thing. Which again even after dropping the two nuclear bombs we eventually did.
Because of course we did we just needed to be able to drop the bombs because we wanted to because that showed Russia what's what.
And it is highly likely that you and I are alive today because of the choice to bomb those two cities and "show Russia what's what." Once the capability of the weapon systems were proven, the world has enjoyed 80 years of an unprecedented level of stability and prosperity and they have not been used again.
It is also inevitable that the lessons will be forgotten, and they will be used again in the future, but that is more up to human nature than anything else.
I think the survivors keeping the memory alive is
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Yes, I agree. Bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima was a decision in war, mate.
Japan had major military targets in both places. They just have to suck it up, mate.
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If Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so militarily important, why weren't they bombed earlier? The USA certainly had the means to wipe both cities off the map literally overnight.
But they didn't, because those cities were relatively unimportant militarily, and because they were saving those cities to be nuked. The USA had a shiny new weapon and they were itching to use it.
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected for their usefulness as atomic test sites. Kyoto was also considered.
Hiroshima had a port, useful for checking the effect on ships and the ocean. Nagasaki is in a valley, which was expected to contain and concentrate the blast somewhat.
In the aftermath offers of help were really just to give Americans access to the test sites, and US doctors some experience treating the effects of atomic warfare.
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I’m not justifying civilian casualties or targeting ci
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The Japanese military was not going to surrender until the emperor stepped in after Nagasaki. Even then there was a military plot to stop the emperor from announcing the surrender.
https://time.com/5877433/wwii-... [time.com]
https://www.americanthinker.co... [americanthinker.com]
All weapons are inhumane by definition. (Score:5, Informative)
Firebombing German cities into ashes killed more people than the atomic bombs.
That's not what's being discussed (Score:2)
Before you post here... (Score:2)
...you should watch White light, black rain [imdb.com]. This is a documentary about the survivors of the atomic bomb.
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For those who don't have HBO: here's a link to the documentary on youtube. [youtu.be] It's for the common good.
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Voice of Hibakusha (Score:4, Interesting)
Since 1990 I've hosted survivor accounts here: https://www.inicom.com/hibakus... [inicom.com]
Really (Score:2)
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People who are 80 + years old after the atomic bomb have something to complain about, thats rich. Ive studied all the pros and cons to the Abombs use and as horrific as it is, it was the only thing that was going to work. The US firebombed all the major cities, cut off military and economic supply lines, and decimated them as a country yet they were unwilling to surrender vowing to fight to the last man out of pride and honor. What I dont see is anyone marking their calenders for all the horrific crap the Japanese pulled in China, Korea, Philipines, and our pows. Let it be clear, we had no idea if the bomb would actually detonate or what it would do exactly. The Japanese knew exactly what they were doing and all too happy to risk their civilian population in a battle the US and lost. If you think Japan would apologize to the US for its war crimes or if they ever got their hands on an Abomb, think again.
There were a lot of things as well - Japan was hoping that Russia would ally with them, but Russia avoided that by declaring war on Japan and toppling Japanese Puppet governments in Manchuria and Mongolia and some other places.
So with more losses, and perhaps a bit of a preview of what Russia did after toppling Berlin did have some part. There was a reason that German soldiers tried to surrender to the allies. However, Japan ignored several pleas to surrender, chose to ignore them, and as they say, the r
Apologies? (Score:2)
Study History, and there are a whole lot of people Japan might consider apologizing to.
The families that lost members in the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Rape of Nanking - oh, that was a fun excursion, eh? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Howabout their nookie buddies, the Korean Comfort girls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I call that ongoing rape. Seems the Japanese soldires love their non-consensual nooki
Sympathy (Score:2)
Annual display of warped thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let me be clear: Modern America and modern Japan are very strong friends and allies, and for those who do not know it, this is not only a recent thing. There was a long period before WWII when the US and Japan were friends. The evidence of this is right in view (but forgotten/disassociated) in things like the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival [wikipedia.org] in Washington DC and the popularity of baseball in Japan [wikipedia.org]. The reason Japanese Admiral Yamamoto [wikipedia.org] knew Japan would pay a terrible price for its Pearl Harbor attack is that he had attended Harvard University and spoke fluent English (again, a legacy of that pre-WWII friendship). With that said, however, every August there are people who, for various reasons, are all too eager to dredge-up the less than 4 year long window of hostility and demand somebody (usually the USA) apologize.
NOBODY has the right to apologize for what somebody else did. This is a basic principle. The person who did nothing wrong has no duty to apologize (doing so improperly confuses guilt and innocence). Any apology which is not heart-felt is hollow and dishonest. Any such modern "apology" issued by a person not involved in a particular incident is merely a dishonest and a twisted form of virtue signaling. Obama did the proper and principled thing. This modern insistence on what would be an apology-by-proxy is highly dependent upon erasing/re-writing history; not a single person involved in nuking Japan in 1945 would apologize for it - THEY knew and lived the history and had the facts in hand, unlike modern diplomatic/academic morons who know nothing of it.
The Japanese of 1945 were NOT some dainty innocent wallflowers who were suddenly brutally attacked by something so nasty only the Americans could dream it up... THEY were working on an atomic bomb to drop on American cities. Their program was much smaller than the American program, given that they were a much smaller country and their leaders had different priorities for wartime R&D, but failure should never be mistaken for innocence and good intentions. Being allied with Germany, they were assisted with German materials and technology and when German Uboot U-234 surfaced and surrendered to the Americans in May of 1945 its two Japanese naval officer passengers killed themselves, and the boat's URANIUM cargo was grabbed by the Americans. This Uranium apparently ended up being added to the Manhattan project stockpiles where it would have been refined and eventually became parts of the American bombs (though probably not the Hiroshima bomb)
There are also a large number of Americans of the WWII era who would NEVER apologize to Japan, and NOBODY has a right to apologize on their behalf... American POWs were BRUTALIZED by the Japanese. Never heard of the Chichijima incident [wikipedia.org]? Imperial Japan had no qualms at all about Weapons of Mass Destruction (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) and used them whenever and wherever possible, like in China [worldscientific.com] and they used some American POWs as test subjects in their extensive bioweapons experiments. Look up Unit 731 [wikipedia.org] and study just what they were doing... then lets' talk about big public apologies by pastie-faced mealy-mouthed soulless politicians where not there and have no personal knowledge of what was going on. After all, in the grand scheme of things, What's a little vivisection [nytimes.com] when a global war is underway, right? [please tell me you get the sarchasm, this stuff's pretty dark]
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Or undeserved but justified by necessity, perhaps.
But practically none of the individuals who died or suffered had any say in anything.
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Collectively deserved, perhaps.
Collective punishment is now a war crime [icrc.org]. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two of the reasons why.
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Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
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Geneva Conventions came in place in 1949.
Intentional mass killing civilians was not an accepted strategem of warfare.
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Re:Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
You went to school in the US.
Nobody who went to school in the US will understand that's an insult.
Starting point for this discussion (Score:2)
As I've learned, this is a topic close to discussing religion with a person.
No matter how much, how reasoned, or how the discussion is approached, the persons involved approach it as a matter of faith first which precludes changing of opinions in any short time period.
It may be better to discuss this as a historical event, listing views and interpretations on any of the viewpoints and let the reader draw their own conclusion.
There's a saying that the historians which lived through an event are qualified to
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There is little to argue about a war crime done for the purpose of not having to fight according to the rules of combat.
Rape of Nanking (Score:3)
Read "The Rape of Nanking" for an advanced tutorial on "the rules of combat".
I wonder how many have circled March 9th, a far larger massacre.
Re:Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:4, Informative)
I think you can reasonably argue the atomic bombings of Japan actually reduced the deaths an invasion of Japan would have caused. Operation Downfall was expected to result in *two million* Japanese casualties, as opposed to the quarter million in the atomic bombings.
But even if you're completely convinced that the atomic bombings were a necessity, you can still recognize that it was an extremely regrettable one; that the bombings harmed many innocent people. A nine month old baby, for example. There's something wrong with anyone who's perfectly OK with that.
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
Those were just the military casualties, civilian casualties were generally not considered although some contemporary estimates give 4M, more modern estimates especially when considering a Soviet collaboration, likely more as the Soviets were significantly more brutal as could be seen on the Eastern German front.
The entire military and population was set up by religious reasons to support the emperor. The emperor wanted to give up several times before and even after the first bomb but religious fervor basic
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true. From Truman's own diary: [neh.gov]
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
To complicate the story - a lot of people don't realize that, after the two atomic bombs were dropped, the Emperor was trying to arrange a surrender... and the Imperial Guard and War Office attempted a coup to stop him [wikipedia.org].
I don't know whether dropping the bombs was the right decision, or if the targeting at least should have been different. But a continuation of the conventional war would certainly have cost many lives too.
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It doesn't really complicate anything. The coup failed and would have regardless of the bombings. They ultimately had no measurable effect on Japan's attempts to surrender, or the timeline to it. The war was lost long before them and everyone knew it.
USSR entering the war cause the surrender (Score:2, Informative)
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The bombs had nothing to do with ending the war
This is going on the wall of historical facts alongside: The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.
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The bombs had nothing to do with ending the war and America rushed to drop them before the Soviets declared war on Japan knowing that Japan would likely surrender as soon as the Soviet Union declared war.
[citation needed]
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That's true, and the US shafted Britain after the war too. The agreement was that in exchange for British help developing the bomb, the technology would be shared. After the war the US reneged on that agreement, so the UK had to develop its own version.
That nearly resulted in what would have been one of the worst nuclear disasters ever, which was only somewhat mitigated by one man's insistence on installing filters that were deemed unnecessary.
Re:Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
But even if you're completely convinced that the atomic bombings were a necessity, you can still recognize that it was an extremely regrettable one; that the bombings harmed many innocent people. A nine month old baby, for example. There's something wrong with anyone who's perfectly OK with that.
The atomic bomb induces heated emotions in people, and those emotions are easily understood. However, the bomb is not the problem. Anger, hate, and war are the problems. Hiroshima gets the attention, but around just as many people died in the Tokyo napalm bombing just a few months earlier, and many of those people had to slowly burn to death in horrific ways.
Absent the bomb, humanity has and will always find ways to kill many people.
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But even if you're completely convinced that the atomic bombings were a necessity, you can still recognize that it was an extremely regrettable one; that the bombings harmed many innocent people. A nine month old baby, for example. There's something wrong with anyone who's perfectly OK with that.
The atomic bomb induces heated emotions in people, and those emotions are easily understood. However, the bomb is not the problem. Anger, hate, and war are the problems. Hiroshima gets the attention, but around just as many people died in the Tokyo napalm bombing just a few months earlier, and many of those people had to slowly burn to death in horrific ways.
Absent the bomb, humanity has and will always find ways to kill many people.
I find it odd that people are aghast at atomic bombs. I mean, we could have drawn the line at the bow and arrow, or certainly the gun, for causing inhumane amounts of suffering and death.
But no, atomic bomb, now that's "too much".
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Even now I find a lot of what is written and said about Japan distasteful, and of course it was far worse during the war. The 2016 movie Hacksaw Ridge is a good example, where the Japanese are portrayed with the racist old stereotype of the crazed kamikaze killer.
I urge anyone to visit Hiroshima, or look at the material they have put online. Those were human beings with the same feelings and suffering that you experience.
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Even now I find a lot of what is written and said about Japan distasteful, and of course it was far worse during the war. The 2016 movie Hacksaw Ridge is a good example, where the Japanese are portrayed with the racist old stereotype of the crazed kamikaze killer.
I urge anyone to visit Hiroshima, or look at the material they have put online. Those were human beings with the same feelings and suffering that you experience.
There is ample documented evidence available, including actual videos from the time, of the Rape of Nanjing. It is easy to understand how sentiments against the Japanese were able to be harnessed during wartime.
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it's a day that the Japanese can't forget.
Somebody set up us the bomb!
What you say?
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
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The first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima was Barack Obama in 2016. The article notes he did not issue the official apology many Japanese had hoped for.
Apology? For what? I guess you've forgotten that Japan attacked the U.S. first. If anyone needs to apologize, the government of Japan needs to apologize to the Japanese people. If they had not attacked the U.S. there would have been no dropping of bombs.
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
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My grandfather had a purple heart from the Japanese strapping a makeshift bomb vest onto a little girl and making her run into the barrack tents in Iwo Jima.
Japan was not innocent when it came to civilian casualties.
And the aftermath (Score:4, Insightful)
They earned it.
We should also note that after the surrender the US did *not* annex Japan and make it part of the US. There was certainly chaos and suffering, but as I recall we also helped Japan rebuild its infrastructure and become a world leader.
Japan today is a staunch ally. I don't know how they feel about us, but here in the US we really like the Japanese.
Compare with England versus France in all the decades leading up to WWII, and Germany versus France during WWI and WWIIII, and even Russia under communist leadership. What would be the result if any of those countries had defeated Japan?
The Japanese basically govern themselves, get to keep their culture, and outside of some military trials we didn't impost much in the way of war reparations. (Compare with The Treaty of Versailles and everything that came from that.)
For all the hatred people throw against the US, much of which is well deserved, I'm actually proud of some of the things we've accomplished. The rebuilding of Japan being one of them.
It's like when you defeat an opponent and he's on the ground, you offer him a hand to help him get back up.
I really like that about us.
Re:And the aftermath (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait a second, that's not exactly false, but it's not the whole truth either.
Right now Japan has outsourced all its military to the US. They know they can't quickly replace the US military if they leave, and they have China on their doorstep, so they are stuck. Japan is forced to pay a massive amount of money to the US for protection. They are forced to give US military staff immunity from all laws. They can't prevent the US military from carrying out any operations from their country.
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>> Japan is forced to pay a massive amount of money to the US for protection
Maybe they just think its in their best interests.
Re: And the aftermath (Score:2)
Japan didnâ(TM)t outsource its military. Like Germany, Japan was not allowed to build up a major military for obvious reasons.
Over time those restrictions have eased, but they only recently earned the right to have aircraft carriers, since then NATO and the UN has replaced pure US military leadership although when push comes to shove, only the US military is capable of committing sufficient force under the directives of NATO and the UN, which means the massive US military budget is really the only thin
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MacArthur deserves credit for recognizing the reform movement in Japan and helping it instead of enforcing US culture. The movement towards individualism and democracy had already gained a lot of support due to the suffering of the Japanese people during the war.
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Did those 200,000 civilians really deserve death for the actions of a government they could not control?
So you would be OK if you, your family, and all your friends were put to instant death for the actions of a political party you never voted in.
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Did they protest their country during the war?
Did they sabotage their industry or supply lines?
Or did they support their country?
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A mass killing of civilians is not accepted method of war.
Re: Made in America, tested in Japan (Score:2)
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Yes, but remember, all religions are false.
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Which I believe they still haven't done. I just checked and it seems like any wish for an apology from the US is quite hypocritical.
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Japan has issues a few apologies over the years, but particularly the Koreas feel that they were not comprehensive and unreserved enough.
It's hard to say really, I can understand their point that Japan hasn't explicitly acknowledged certain crimes, and continues to do controversial stuff at one particular shrine where war criminals' souls are said to be, but also a lot of it is political and motivated by wanting a reason for Japan to be the baddies.
In China they seem less interested in apologies and more in
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If an apology is warranted, it’s Japan to the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, and the rest of the places they conquered, along with POWs and civilians the horribly mistreated and murdered.
My father served on a US destroyer during the battle of the Philippine Sea. Nothing will cement your understanding of an enemy like them sacrificing their planes and youth in a war they had already lost, just to score attrition points in an insane hope that they can kill so many Americans that the soft Americans would sue for peace. They were just as wrong about that as they were about attacking Pearl Harbor.
Which brings up the facts -Japan willfully started this war. The USA ended it. If that is a prob
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The attack on Pearl Harbour is often cited as the start of that conflict between the US and Japan, but if you read the diaries and minutes of the decision makers you can see that it was viewed as retaliation for the US trying to starve Japan of resources, and as a desperate move to cripple the US Navy long enough for Japan to be able to mount an effective defence.
I'm not saying that the US was 100% to blame for it, clearly Imperial Japan was something that could not be ignored and seeking to limit its abili