Posted on 08/06/2007 3:11:20 AM PDT by abb
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War.
Since 1940, the United States had been working on developing an atomic weapon, after having been warned by Albert Einstein that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. By the time the United States conducted the first successful test (an atomic bomb was exploded in the desert in New Mexico in July 1945), Germany had already been defeated. The war against Japan in the Pacific, however, continued to rage. President Harry S. Truman, warned by some of his advisers that any attempt to invade Japan would result in horrific American casualties, ordered that the new weapon be used to bring the war to a speedy end. On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender.
In the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective. First, of course, was to bring the war with Japan to a speedy end and spare American lives. It has been suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the Soviet Union. By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U.S. President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill (before being replaced by Clement Attlee) ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. The meeting was marked by recriminations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U.S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan can be seen as the first shot of the Cold War. If U.S. officials truly believed that they could use their atomic monopoly for diplomatic advantage, they had little time to put their plan into action. By 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race began.
Let the MSM hand wringing begin.
“many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War.”
So the US started the Cold War????? I thought there were two sides in the Cold War? Are they sure they can’t blame George Bush?
What you said...
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-weektv6aug06,1,5486625.story?coll=la-headlines-business
On HBO, the stories of WWII atomic-bomb survivors
August 6, 2007
It’s hard to imagine HBO’s disturbing documentary on survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan appearing on an American TV network 10 or 20 years after the event. Filmmaker Steve Okazaki tried — and failed — to make it for the 50th anniversary.
There is apparently enough emotional scar tissue built up to allow HBO’s premiere of “White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” at 7:30 tonight, exactly 62 years after the United States detonated the first-ever nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. The second, and so far last, atomic bomb was dropped three days later. It ended World War II.
Why is the time finally right?
snip
the msm will most likely keep reporting about the bad bad US dropping the bomb...
they rarely if ever report about the japanese death marches and always report but step over the sneak attack of the japanese...
by the end of the day....some how jorge bush will also be at fault!!!!
Weenies. The dropping of the bombs on Japan was an unalloyed good.
The “first shot in the Cold War” was heard in November, 1944 when Communist junior officers and CPOs in the Greek Fleet (then at Alexandria) mutinied and had to be violently suppressed by Royal Marines. Then the reds tried to take over Athens, requiring Churchill to divert a corps’ worth of troops from the Italian front to quash them. Not all the shooting in Europe in 1944-45 was directed at the Axis, nor did the Cold War wait until VJ-Day to get hot.
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/070806/pilot.shtml
Decatur resident recalls friendship with Enola Gay pilot
By Ronnie Thomas
rthomas@decaturdaily.com · 340-2438
Nancy Jones recalls meeting Paul Tibbets at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash., where she lives and works for Boeing.
He gave a speech and had a book signing, Jones said. I asked him to sign a book for my brother-in-law, E.C. Hall. He looked up and said, Where in hell is Easy?
Jones is visiting Hall and his wife, Joy, at their apartment at Riverside Assisted Living. A visitor steered the conversation to a discussion about Tibbets, who, on this date 62 years ago, piloted his B-29, the Enola Gay, over Hiroshima, Japan, and dropped the first atomic bomb, helping to end World War II.
He would remember me as Easy, Hall said. I got the nickname in junior high school in Wichita Falls, Texas, and I remained a captain so long in the Air Force, they called me Captain Easy.
Hall became a friend with the legendary flier during the mid-1950s at old Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Ga.
Serving under Tibbets
He was my boss, commander of the 308th Bomb Wing, Hall said. I was flying a C-97 at the time. I was a co-pilot for a couple of years then made aircraft commander, the youngest at the time. I was at Hunter five years, and Joy and I married there.
Hall said Tibbets apparently took a liking to me after he and his crew took him on a flight.
From then on, whenever he needed to go someplace, he would call for me, Hall said. I felt good about that because as wing commander, he had a choice. There were many flights, but I remember one trip in particular when we flew him to Omaha, Neb., to meet with Gen. Curtis LeMay.
LeMay was known as the father of Strategic Air Command and was vice presidential running mate of independent candidate and former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace in 1968.
Hall said when the command rotated to North Africa in the late 1950s, Tibbets made a special request.
By that time, he had divorced and married his current wife, Andrea, a French woman, Hall said. Theyve now been together more than 50 years. Anyway, their young son was with his dad near Casablanca, and Paul asked me to fly him home to Hunter. The boy at the time spoke only French, and I didnt recall much from my college class. It was interesting, but we made it. We came home in a military air transport C-54.
Training pilots
Later, Tibbets gave Hall a choice of a T-33 air training command or flying KC-135s with Strategic Air Command.
I was ready to get out of SAC, and I chose to train pilots at the old base in Greenville, Miss., he said. Paul left Hunter for MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., and to stay in touch, Id fly down there for visits. At the time, I was a lowly captain and he was now a brigadier general. Wed sit underneath a grapefruit tree and talk about everything. Hed pick my brain about younger pilots, and Id tell him what I thought.
He said he last saw Tibbets years ago in Atlanta at the annual National Business Aircraft Association show, when Tibbets was president of Columbus, Ohio-based Executive Jet Aviation, a global all jet air taxi company, and Hall worked for Air Research, headquartered in Los Angeles.
Living in Columbus
Tibbets retired from the company in 1987 and lives in Columbus. He is 92.
Hall, who retired from the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel, said he remembers Tibbets for not only being an American aviation hero but for being a gentleman as well.
He was a great man, and it is an honor for me to know him, Hall said.
He recalls that Tibbets did not drink or smoke and was an excellent ham operator until he lost his hearing.
I e-mailed him a few minutes ago, Hall said, and wished him the best from Joy and me.
So I guess those same historians think an invasion of Japan would have led to peaceful coexistence with the Soviets???!!
If we’d had it just a year earlier think of the millions of lives that would have been saved.
It was just what the doctor ordered...
Yeah, right. And the Rosenburgs were just a sweet innocent couple from New York...
I’m sure the Rosenburgs were democrats.
,,,and Japan surrendered.
As I tell all the liberal wusses that cry about Hiroshima, there are penalties for backing guys that shove people into boxcars to be shipped off and burned in ovens.
Screw pc and screw the dims!
LLS
“So the US started the Cold War?????”
General George Patton disagreed... and no leftist POS liberal dim Historian is going to be able to rewrite that bit.
BTW, someone ask the author how he feels about Russia starting up Cold War II. pooty started this one all by his lonesome!
LLS
“So I guess those same historians think an invasion of Japan would have led to peaceful coexistence with the Soviets???!!”
Hah! I hadn’t thought of it that way. If we had invaded and lost a million men, then we would have been good buddies with the Soviets!
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