Posted on 02/23/2005 6:36:23 AM PST by Borges
Preparing for take-off
Bob Cardin and his crew tow the Glacier Girl out of her home hanger Friday morning. The P-38 plane is due to make a special appearance in Atlanta, Ga., for the 90th birthday of General Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the Enola Gay that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.
Cardin says this is the 'biggest' event that Glacier Girl has done yet and CNN news will be doing an exclusive interview with Roy Shoffner, the plane's owner. The event will also feature a scaled down reenactment of Operation Bolero - the same operation that put her under the ice. The interview was expected to air Saturday on CNN
He helped save a lot of our fathers and sons. May he have a wonderful birthday.
I remember coming across the Enola Gay during a foray into a Smithsonian warehouse in their Silver Hill facility about ten years ago. At first I couldn't see any writing on the nose when I looked in the window from outside. It was just a silhouette of what I could tell was a huge plane under restoration. When I opened the door, the sunlight fell directly on the nose and illuminated that famous name. I got a chill and just stood in awe of encountering real history. I'll never forget that.
A bump, a salute and a 'thank you, Sir!' for General Tibbets on his B-day.
A major understatement.
The Americans were preparing a massive invasion force to land on the island of Kyushu, and the British was in the process of working up Tiger Force as part of that initial landing operation, Operation Olympic. If we had to invade Japan the death toll on both sides would have been nothing short of breathtaking, given how fanatical the Japanese fought on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. As such, the dropping of the atomic bombs actually ended saving over a million American lives and possibly 8-10 times that in Japanese lives.
Happy Birthday General and Semper Fi ...
Happy birthday, General!
He saved my brother-in-law.
God bless him!
I didn't know that he was still with us! Good news!
where's is the media?
Two Words....Michael Jackson
http://news.google.com/news?q=%22Michael+Jackson%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=dn
No. At least not anyone with a functioning brain.
In fact wait till Aug 6h and it'll be spewed again. They do it every year.
Happy Birthday General Tibbets!
<*Ding!*><*Ding!*><*Ding!*>
We have a winner!
Spot-on, sir.
Happy Birthday Gen Tibbets!
Tibbits is not only a real American hero but a gentleman of the first order. God bless him and his crew for their servce during World War II!
Their were those in the US Navy that advocated a blockade, but blockades are not decisive (in the near-term) and are seldom satisfactory. Can you imagine Harry Truman -- an untried President -- selling the idea of a blockade to an American public that still remembered Pearl Harbor & Bataan? I can't.
Also, the blockade option would have had to be a 'Distant' Blockade given the Kamikaze threat to US ships. The better portion of the Imperial Japanese Army was in Manchuria & China -- not Japan. Those troops would be steadily shifted to the Home Islands to defend against the US invasion threat. If the blockade failed to produce the desired results, then Japan would have been in a far stronger position to defend itself in '46 or '47. Think about how the Dunkirk evacuation strengthened Britain's defensive options and apply this to Japan.
Finally, the Manhattan Project was a serious investment for a nation at war. It is almost inconceivable that a wartime weapons project would be cancelled without some battlefield use. That leaves 'Demonstration' vs. 'Employment'. This has been fairly well covered, but I will say this, who knew just how bad the radiation-effect would be before-the-fact? I know that there were some scientists who understood the problem, but their were others that discounted it. Hiroshima & Nagasaki ended that debate.
A Marine Corps Salute to General Tibbets. May you have a wonderful birthday sir.
"...revisionist BS tripe spewed on the History Channel..."
Yeah, and totally ignoring their tripe about the Japanese on the verge of surrendering, the History Channel will then have another show about the banzai attacks and kamikaze runs. The History Channel is schizo as well as revisionist.
You are right. The Japanese were not into surrendering. In fact, it took TWO a-bombs to convince them.
I read something awhile back about Tibbets and the thing that I repect most about him is that he has absolutely no regrets about Hiroshima. He knew that he saved American lives because of it.
Truman also told him that if anyone gave Tibbets any guff about the bomb, to come see him and Truman would have taken care of it personally.
Thanks to all who responded to my question. I know it often fell outside of traditional political lines. Gen. McArthur was opposed to it if I'm not mistaken.
Thanks for the ping!
We take the "atomic-bombs-weren't-necessary" myth apart in "A Patriot's History of the United States." Tibbets is a great American.
There is a fantastic book on all these points by Richard B. Frank, called "Downfall," and he uses LOTS of Japanese documents to confirm your position that the Japanese military would have overthrown the government before surrendering. Worse, our intel was badly flawed, and there were at least two more divisions waiting for us in operation OLYMPIC than we knew about. The casualties would have been massive.
The key to Operation Olympic was in isolating the landing beaches from large-scale Japanese counterattacks. Supposedly, the USAAF was going to accomplish this by closing the mountain passes in the central parts of the island of Kyushu. Giving the way the Japanese tunneled through mountains on Iwo Jima & Okinawa, I am convinced that the USAAF's efforts would have been unsuccessful. The fight at the beaches would have been a slaughter.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm
Okinawa:Look at this battle...look at the loses they were willing to sustain and look at what it cost both in civilian and military lives.
More people died during the Battle of Okinawa than all those killed during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans wounded and 12,000 killed or missing, more than 107,000 Japanese and Okinawan conscripts killed, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians who perished in the battle.
snip
American losses at Okinawa were so heavy as to illicite Congressional calls for an investigation into the conduct of the military commanders. Not surprisingly, the cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time, and material, weighed heavily in the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks later.
VDH's new book, "Ripples of Battle," discusses Okinawa. It appears the Japanese kept back at least 2000 kamikazes for the main OLYMPIC landings, and probably planned to turn thousands more flying crates into kamikazes.
What is the connection between Tibbets and the P-38?
That must be why Japan didnt surrender until we dropped the SECOND bomb ??? Typical 'history' class...
It was like a religion..Perhaps now that we have witnessed suicide bombers, the acts and mindset of the Japanese could be more easily understood by young people who have been brainwashed by politically correct history teachers, intent on blaming the US for dropping the bomb..
We never discuss the Japanese, only Hitler and Nazi Germany. I am old enough to have listened to the nightly news reports while sitting by the radio with my family.
AMERICA ..HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE
Happy Birthday, Paul Tibbets ..Thank you!
Happy Birthday, General Tibbets!
General Paul Tibbets is a true hero ~ where is the MSM ~ they would laud him today if he had refused to fly the Enola Gay and drop the bomb.
My father was a part of the occupation force, and had always told me that he was very thankful for not having to invade Japan. When you dropped the bomb on Hiroshima he was on a troop ship zig-zagging across the Pacific for 80 days on his way to the invasion. All of them believed that their next step on dry land would be the beaches of Japan. When I was a young boy I asked him about it and his exact words were, "They dropped the bomb, the war was over, and that was all right with your father!"
As a part of the occupation force he received the occupation service medal... . .
..as well as this Japanese rifle as a souvenier of war.
For many years I have thought about you and wished I could thank you as the son of a Marine who was, by your action, spared what would have been an experience far beyond what I would like to suppose. As a child I played with that rifle often. It had a place of reverence under my father's bed, and my siblings and myself spent decades wondering over its significance, and your place in history.
God be with you sir, Happy Birthday, Thank You, and Semper Fidelis!
MarineBrat
And the answer is: Not very bad.
In the period from 2 to 120 days post-blast, the death rate was about 10% of the civilian population in Nagasaki, somewhat lower in Hiroshima. Of the deaths, however, most (about 80%)occurred within 1 day of the blast, and only about 20% were caused by radiation. So we are down to about 2% of the population killed by radiation.
See: Comparison of the Acute Effects of the Hiroshima Nagasaki Atomic Bombings and of the Chernobyl Reactor Accident
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Docs/Kondo93/sk1_C1.html
Sure, but I don't need to tell you that human beings recoil at certain forms of death-dealing. For some reason, poison -- whether it be radiation, chemical or gas -- is taboo. Shooting or stabbing is A-OK (by comparison). It's pretty irrational. Dead is dead.
The Trinity test was of the implosion-type gadget ("Fatman") used over Nagasaki. However, the shotgun-type gadget ("Little Boy") was untested when it was used on Hiroshima.
Please don't get me wrong. There was little doubt Little Boy would work because it was such a relatively simple design, and I don't believe for a second it was used so as to test it. Nonetheless, the Hiroshima device was 'untested' when the Enola Gay left Tinian.
A salute and the best of birthday wishes to a man whose name I've known all my life. I normally wear an Air Force MA-1 jacket all the time. The one I wear most often has the patch of the old Army Air Corps on it, out of total respect for the aerial warriors that had the vision and dream to plant the seed for the future United States Air Force.
General Tibbets, sir, generations of Americans still thank you and honor your name.
And my grandfather...May God Bless the good general.
Bump!
He's 91 today!
Happy 92nd Birthday General Tibbets!
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