Posted on 08/06/2006 6:27:04 AM PDT by mainepatsfan
This Day In History | World War II
August 6
1945 Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima
On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by the Japanese response to the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender, made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war in order to prevent what he predicted would be a much greater loss of life were the United States to invade the Japanese mainland. And so on August 5, while a "conventional" bombing of Japan was underway, "Little Boy," (the nickname for one of two atom bombs available for use against Japan), was loaded onto Lt. Col. Paul W. Tibbets' plane on Tinian Island in the Marianas. Tibbets' B-29, named the Enola Gay after his mother, left the island at 2:45 a.m. on August 6. Five and a half hours later, "Little Boy" was dropped, exploding 1,900 feet over a hospital and unleashing the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. The bomb had several inscriptions scribbled on its shell, one of which read "Greetings to the Emperor from the men of the Indianapolis" (the ship that transported the bomb to the Marianas).
There were 90,000 buildings in Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. Of the city's 200 doctors before the explosion; only 20 were left alive or capable of working.
(Excerpt) Read more at historychannel.com ...
Thank God the UN wasn't around back then, we'd have had resolution after resolution without anything ever being done. As well, if the Dems of today were around back then, they'd want us to boycott Japan and Germany, and try to work things out through diplomacy. How about multilateral talks. Unfortunately for Murtha, back then we wouldn't have been able to redeploy our troops to Okinawa.
The Red Army crashing across the Manchurian border also convinced them the game was up.
If you look at the history of how tenatious the Japs were on Iwo and Okinawa you will better understand that our people knew it would take two bombs to convince them to stop it all.
Even after that there was still an attempted coup to prevent the surrender from taking place.
Many of us wouldn't be.
My three years in Guam was a cake walk compared to what the sailors, soldiers, and Marines of WW II had to go though. When ever one of the younger guys was complaining how hot it was there I just simply reminded them that it would be a lot more tough on us if we had to lug around 40 or 50 pounds of weapons and gear and had finatical Japaneese trying to kill us from every hole in the ground.
The devestation we had to inflict on the Pacific Islands had to be so severe for even a few of the Japenesse to surrender and many chose suicide instead, thier brainwashing was very complete. It would have took nothing less than what we did to secure peace.
Thanks for picking those guys out of the water!
I was just watching the History Channel show. It was pretty good until they dropped the bomb, and then it was all "pity the poor Japanese."
Just remember, if there had not been a Pearl Harbor, there wouldn't have had to be a Hiroshima.
Or another way to consider it,,the bombs spared a lot G.I.s lives, who went home to start families and generate a lot of "modern-day-certified-snot-faced-liberals. Sar.
Wow, thanks for the education. So much history here, and I never remember this stuff being in the history books that I grew up with ( I was born in 1946....)
it wasnt,school just hi spotted ww2.my teachers didnt know scat about it.what a bunch of libs.
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