Posted on 08/06/2023 7:01:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Nonsense
Yes the bomb could have not been dropped, but it was.
If it wasn’t, the post-WW2 world would have been much different because the US wouldn’t have ended the war on its terms but accepting the terms that the Russians negotiated because Russia was steaming through Manchuria with a million man army and the US was getting ground up in Okinawa and needed to move troops from Europe to the Pacific to have enough forces to sustain expected casualties from a mainland assault.
FDR had the gall to die in April 1945, before the Trinity test. Truman didn’t even have full understanding of the Manhattan project or its readiness until assuming office and he had to look like a strong war leader around Stalin almost immediately.
If Truman didn’t end the war as quickly as possible, he would be seen as weak against Stalin and Churchill, and if didn’t use the bomb, his other option was to commit a million US troops to be eaten up by the Japanese in a full invasion after the horrors of Okinawa.
Truman was thrust in charge of a government nearly at the end of a world war, which spent all of the war developing this terrible new weapon for exactly the type of mission it eventually was used for.
All of this second guessing and “we didn’t need to drop the bomb” stuff is great monday-morning quarterbacking, but it is also greatly oversimplifying history in a way that, amazingly, is making America look like bad guys and the Soviets look like the good guys.
If the soviets dictated the terms of peace in Japan, all of asia would be communist by the 1960s and the Soviets would still have gotten the bomb.
This is a serious historical error. It should read:
...after upwards of 210,000 people — disproportionately women, children, LGBTQs, persons of color, trans womyn and men, and historically otherwise disadvantaged persons and also elderly — were killed in the two cities.
Ditto. My father was a 19-year-old naval fighter pilot just out of flight school. His carrier was on its way to the Sea of Japan.
If Truman had refused to use the nukes and had instead sent thousands of American soldiers to die invading Japan he would have been impeached and likely imprisoned for treason.
Japan refused to surrender after we nuked Hiroshima, just like they refused to surrender after we had firebombed Tokyo to rubble. They only surrendered after we nuked Nagasaki and convinced them that we would continue to nuke Japanese cities every few days until they did (which we couldn't have actually done, since we had used up all of our nukes).
And it eliminated the chance for a “stabbed in the back” situation.
Can you imagine if the Chicoms got into Japan with revenge on their minds?
You are correct in this. The Left (including the media) has been pushing the "inhumane/racist/unnecessary" line since the end of the war.
I read a book by the incomparable Richard Feynman (a wunderkind 27 year old physicist working on the Manhattan Project, one of the youngest who was in intellectual step with the likes of the old guard geniuses like Bohr) where he said that a lot of the moral handwringing during the project is overwrought and overstated as it is shown in stupid movies and books by Leftists since then. He has maintained that people were there doing a job, and nearly everyone was onboard, working to get the job done.
I believe the truth of calling the use of the weapons "inhumane, racist, and unnecessary" is as responsible for people who have disowned it or distanced themselves from it since 1945, is much the same dynamic as people who say things today who take stances on racism to avoid being labeled as racists.
Many of them didn't want to be held responsible for creating the weapon if we got into a nuclear exchange where hundreds of millions of people would die. (this is my opinion on this, not a stated fact)
More attempts by the left at revisionist histor
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My take also.
I don’t beleive a single quote.
I’ve read a lot of ww2 generals autobiographies
It’s impossible to prove a person never said something.
It is incombent upon the one asserting the quotes that they are factual.
Prove it.
Prove it.
I looked up the Eisenhower quote. It’s genuine:
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I read his autobiography.
I don’t beleive it’s genuine just cuz some link said it was.
Doesn’t sound anything close to his biography.
You stated it was a certain fact they were fake quotes.
But you cannot substantiate that assertion.
I asserted nothing other than you cannot substantiate yours. And that’s easily substantiated.
Admiral Nimitz clearly showed a distaste for this weapon, as did someone like Admiral Lockwood (in his book, “Sink ‘Em All” where he spends most of the last chapter expressing his dislike of the concept of nuclear weapons. He was in charge of sub warfare in the Pacific in WWII)
It isn’t uncommon in things I have read about many of those men to see them distance themselves from the weapons, so some of those quotes may or may not be true. But they don’t surprise me.
But as another poster stated, it doesn’t make any difference what they said. To understand the exigencies of the times, you look at what they did, even though many of them did not know details of the project.
Utterly stupid. Pack of lies. We took 27,000 casualties at Iwo Jima. We took 50,000 more on Okinawa.
Bet none of the guys who were going to land and fight on the home islands, sail around them for another year, or fly above them agreed with this.
Go over these opinions. Ike, spent his time in Europe. What the hell did he know about Japan? Ever hear Joe Stillwell or USMC Vandegriff opining about the ETO?
LeMay? Angry that the bomb was seen as the death blow rather than his fire raids.
Also, all the others made these statements in the 1950s when the order of the day was “make nice with Japan because of Korea and Cold War” so there was some ass kissing going on.
As for Leahy; Truman’s Memoirs: Year of Decisions, Leahy was skeptical about the atomic bomb, saying: “That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Lots of post war agendas happening. But no fighting men thought any such thing. Between Iwo Jima and Okinawa we lost 20,000 dead, and 55,000 wounded. Jap resistance was increasing. Geezer officers born in the late 1800s had the luxury to think that way. Men facing death, or another year in the Pacific for a starvation of Japan blockaid didn’t.
This is childish America hate and comes up every year.
there was a 4 year period, 45-49, when the USA was the ONLY nuclear Nation. Imagine if it was reversed and it was the Soviets that had the bomb. They would have rampaged all thru World. Should thank their lucky stars things turned out the way they did....besides..this was total war. Civilians were legit targets. More died at Dresden etc...the World was numb to mass death by this time.
That was published in 1963.
And reads like revisionist history.
Generals don’t always say the brightest things. Chesty Puller once said, to a reporter, that he’d trade a deuce and a half full of dog tags for a MOH. Ouch!
he got elected by saying you should use nuclear weapons just as you would any other weapon.
The foreign ministry who wanted to surrender and was already quietly drafting a new constitution for the country was effectively neutered in the government control of the war. They were using back channels that they had before the war to try to stop the war before the nuke strikes. The Imperial Army was controlling the war and the emperor. They were not going to give up. I would not want to drop them but Truman did not have the needed info not to deploy the weapon. 20/20 sight after the war had all these folks regretting the action afterwards as this is a difficult actions to choose and they wanted to distance themselves from the action and justify the decision by separating themselves from it.
This book made me think a lot about the war.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-pacific-war-1931-1945—a-critical-perspective-on-japans-role-in-world-war-ii-the-pantheon-asia-library_saburo-ienaga/290593/item/2466340/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=high_vol_midlist_standard_shopping_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=666157863328&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIiZzI9sfJgAMVcYVaBR2u4gwCEAQYBiABEgLPHPD_BwE#idiq=2466340&edition=2384829
Saburo ienaga’s book paints a different picture from these folks. Japan was willing to go down if the GoJ was not shocked. The civilian deaths would be great as the soldiers would have massacred thier own people . I assume the marines would be assaulting the shoreline of Hokkaido after killing thier way through the rest of the country.
Pure BS. Maybe the idiots shouldn’t have “needlessly” bombed Pearl Harbor.
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