Posted on 08/05/2005 5:18:43 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Sixty years ago tomorrow "the Enola Gay," a shiny new B-29 with a bomb named Little Boy in its bay, lifted off the runway on tiny Tinian island and settled on a course for Hiroshima. History wrote finis to its most destructive war with the dawn of the nuclear age six hours later. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors and Marines, along with millions of their wives, parents, sons and daughters back home, celebrated their great, good and unexpected fortune at having cheated death, the appointment in Samarra, lying in wait on the beaches of the Japanese home islands. A second bomb for Nagasaki three days later sealed victory for civilization. But before anyone could beat a sword into a plowshare the euphoria of triumph and the hymns of gratitude gave way to voices of doubt, shame and guilt. The Japanese warlords and the men and women who followed them to a national grave became the innocents, the victims of the war they imposed on the world. The Americans of Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Bataan Death March were rendered evil. This would be the message for the next half century from the faculty lounges, the churches of the empty pews and the preachers with nothing to say, the newsrooms of the elite media and the covens of the degenerate left, ever eager for an occasion to despise themselves."Most writers have looked to the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to find the answers for the use of those atomic weapons," Col. Paul Tibbets, who commanded Enola Gay, recalled 50 years later when the Smithsonian proposed to observe the anniversary with a malignantly goofy exhibit of manufactured history. "The real answers lay in thousands of graves, from Pearl Harbor around the world to Normandy, and back again."
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Wishing y'all a great weekend.
Thanks Harry, you may have saved 2 Uncles.
My dad would have been part of the invasion force as well. A favorite saying of the day was "Golden Gate by '48" because that's how long the war against Japan might have lasted without the atomic bomb.
The high point of Truman's political career.
I thank him for this but I castigate him for his failings in 1949 then again in 1950 - 53.
It can't be repeated enough times. God Bless our WWII generation, for without they, this world would be a completely different place than it is today
I don't know how true this is, but I read or heard not too long ago that had Truman not approved the use of the bomb, the US was prepared to use conventional weaponry to bomb the ever-living sh*t out of Japan. This option would have resulted in even greater death and destruction to Japan than were the result of the two bombs.
Howdy, King. Have a wonderful weekend!
And .. this is why I would support nuking mecca and media. Just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki .. those places breed hatred against anything Western.
Collateral damage .. sure .. but there was lots of collateral damage all over the world which was done by the Nazis and the Japanese.
I don't much like Truman.
Thanks anyway. 'Pod.
Probably a better one. No hippies, no anti-Vietnam movement, no abortion on demand, no gay rights. All of this stems from horrid parenting on the part of the "greatest generation."
Not to mention their insatiable greed for other people's money. That being said...
Truman does not get enough credit. He did not save the lives of just Americans and Japanese by dropping the bomb, Truman saved civilization.
Wesley is great.
I've never lost perspective. Imperial Japan failed because they were up against US, and got what was coming to them. Let's not forget death camps and beheadings and slaughter of our young people by these fanatics. Would have been no Hiroshima without them... You start it, you finish it. Or it will be finished for you. Shades of today - the perpetrators become the victims... well, not in my book......
Truman would be hated by Democrats today, just like tax cutting JFK. My how times have changed. PING
Excellent post. Wesley Pruden has a Tuesday column in the Washington Times. In a recent FR poll I voted W.P. my close second place editorial writer next to Mark Steyn.
You and I and a host of other Freepers would not be here but for the actions of Truman. All these 60 years of revisionism aside, Truman made the right call. He saved the lives of millions, on both sides of the war.
War should be a terrible thing that makes it the last thing a society would wish to be involved. But once you are in a war, win it. And win it fast.
We learned little from WWII, we are still in Korea and we let the left call an end to Vietnam to the loss of millions of East Asians.
Truman first 3 years were good. The rest of his Presidency was dreadful.
His approval upon leaving office was lower than Nixon's, I believe.
Somebody just posted recently that the government just resumed making Purple Hearts for the first time since 1945,because of all the anticipated victims that were saved from the landing in Japan.
That blew me away.
The Japs said we want War. We gave them a War beyond their wildest dreams. I was alive and remember WWII. I went to school with kids whose fathers were in the Bataan death march. I worked with a man who died early because of mistreatment by "The Little Sons of Heaven" during the march and afterward in Japan proper. I am pitiless when it comes to that fight.
Thanks for the ping, JohnHuang2!
Quick, excellent read pinggggggggggggggg
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