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This day in History: Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki (Happy Nagasaki Day!)
History Channel ^ | August 9, 2008 | Staff

Posted on 08/09/2008 3:50:28 AM PDT by abb

On this day in 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender.

The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called "Bock's Car," after its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the command of Maj. Charles W. Sweeney. Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center, the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).

General Leslie R. Groves, the man responsible for organizing the Manhattan Project, which solved the problem of producing and delivering the nuclear explosion, estimated that another atom bomb would be ready to use against Japan by August 17 or 18-but it was not necessary. Even though the War Council still remained divided ("It is far too early to say that the war is lost," opined the Minister of War), Emperor Hirohito, by request of two War Council members eager to end the war, met with the Council and declared that "continuing the war can only result in the annihilation of the Japanese people...." The Emperor of Japan gave his permission for unconditional surrender.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anniversary; atomicbomb; godsgravesglyphs; nagasaki; wwii
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To: usmcobra

I have stood on the exact spot and in that rebuilt church.


41 posted on 08/09/2008 6:50:14 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Men Who Died in Wars For Our Voting Rights Also Did So For The Right To Vote Indie-Conservative?)
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To: Nathan Zachary
"Of all the secondary targets to pick, Nagasaki was the center of Japan's largest Christian community."

Where did you hear that? It was an industrial area

Probably here at FR; however, Amazon books gets a great many references from Google, and here are two others:

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/WWII/feature0283.asp

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_35_41/ai_n15341010

Another footnote:

"...Survivors from the Catholic community--the bomb had fallen on Nagasaki's Catholic district and cathedral--..."

42 posted on 08/09/2008 6:54:11 AM PDT by Does so (...against all enemies, DOMESTIC and foreign...)
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To: WorkingClassFilth
These anniversaries should be noted in every public school...

Yeah, but what would be taught would be how evil the US was to use such a terrible weapon on civilians, with no mention of the millions of lives that were saved.

43 posted on 08/09/2008 6:54:45 AM PDT by Fresh Wind (Five Year Plans and New Deals, wrapped in golden chains...)
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To: Does so
Nagasaki had and probably does have one of the largest concentrations of CHRISTIANS in all of Japan. That IS a fact.

In fact, Christianity was sealed in Nagasaki in the blood of martyrs. On a hill not far from the epicenter of the blast of Nagasaki, is a hill where about 20 Japanese were crucified on orders of Tokugawa (the Shogun at the time) for not renouncing Christianity. In that group, were little Japanese children, too, each nailed to their own smaller crosses overlooking the city.

44 posted on 08/09/2008 7:03:57 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Men Who Died in Wars For Our Voting Rights Also Did So For The Right To Vote Indie-Conservative?)
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To: dmz

Some people have absolutely no class, even freepers.


45 posted on 08/09/2008 7:03:59 AM PDT by stuartcr (Election year.....Who we gonna hate, in '08?)
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To: AmericanInTokyo
Twenty-six Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries and Japanese converts crucified together by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Following their arrests, they were taken to the public square of Meako to the city's principal temple. They each had a piece of their left ear cut off, and then paraded from city to city for weeks with a man shouting their crimes and encouraging their abuse. The priests and brothers were accused of preaching the outlawed faith of Christianity, the laity of supporting and aiding them. They were each repeatedly offered freedom if they would renounce Christianity. They each declined.

1597. Although I had the shogunate wrong. It was Toyotomi who ordered this.

46 posted on 08/09/2008 7:13:30 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Men Who Died in Wars For Our Voting Rights Also Did So For The Right To Vote Indie-Conservative?)
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To: AmericanInTokyo

I am as always envious of your travels in Japan.

On this day still no one recognizes that the Japanese lives saved by the bomb were in the Millions.

And that their losses could have been on a scale of ten to every one of ours had we invaded.

As cruel as it was the reality of what might have been if Operation Olympus had proceeded is lost on many. The planners at the time were estimating 300,000 to 700,000 allied casualties—and up to 2,000,000 Japanese casualties for the first phase of the operation.

Imagine a world where “Made in Japan” didn’t happen.


47 posted on 08/09/2008 7:15:53 AM PDT by usmcobra (I sing Karaoke the way it was meant to be sung, drunk, badly and in Japanese)
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To: johnny7

My dad would have been a new infantry draftee private in Coronet and/or Olympic. Against fierce Japanese resistance, he might not have made it. The atom bomb probably made me possible.


48 posted on 08/09/2008 7:16:59 AM PDT by GAB-1955 (Kicking and Screaming into the Kingdom of Heaven!)
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To: AmericanInTokyo
My Uncle said the same things about his AMERICAN FRIENDS that were killed and were beyond immediate retrieval by our forces... on Iwo... so HAPPY NAGASAKI DAY TO YOU TOO!

LLS

49 posted on 08/09/2008 7:21:02 AM PDT by LibLieSlayer ( press)
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To: AmericanInTokyo
Ending the war is worth celebration; gloating over massive civilian deaths in the process, however, is barbaric and is not American.

Derserves to be repeated.

Every war has developed newer technologies to kill people. Nuclear weapons are too indescriminate to use in populous nations.

The fact so many here gloat over the deaths of thousands of innocents should be reviled. It makes you look like the jihadists that celebrated when the Twin Towers fell.

Was the dropping necessary? It saved American lives. The bomb had been developed, it would be used. EVERY weapon developed gets used, especially in a time of war.

50 posted on 08/09/2008 7:25:43 AM PDT by Pistolshot (Leadership without experience is dangerous. - Lindsey Graham NO B.O.)
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To: GAB-1955
Many who lived in San Francisco and the West Coast also owe their lives to the bomb. Japan had a dirty bomb attack planned with SF as their target. All of the resources for it were being assembled with September as the kick off date.
51 posted on 08/09/2008 7:25:47 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult (The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)
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To: Does so

Yes, the Christians of Japan were the group most in opposition to the phony “religion” of militarism in Japan. It’s too bad Nagasaki’s number came up.


52 posted on 08/09/2008 7:31:11 AM PDT by ImpeachandRemove
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To: abb; PhilDragoo; devolve; y'all

boooooooooooooooommmmmmp !!


53 posted on 08/09/2008 7:45:24 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP (McRINO needs reach across the aisle to Conservatives for a CHANGE! Dang him!!!)
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To: Cripplehawk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bockscar

Kokura was the primary target, but when Bockscar arrived at its rendezvous point off the coast of Japan the third aircraft of its flight (the photo ship Big Stink) was not present. After fruitlessly waiting 40 minutes, Sweeney and Bock proceeded to Kokura but found it obscured by clouds. Sweeney had orders to drop the atomic bomb visually if possible, and after three unsuccessful passes over Kokura, conferred with weaponeer Commander Frederick Ashworth (USN). They agreed to strike the secondary target, Nagasaki.[7]


54 posted on 08/09/2008 8:00:27 AM PDT by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: abb
Must read.....

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/macarthur%20reports/macarthur%20v1/ch13.htm

The details of Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan.

The two bombs saved a million lives.

55 posted on 08/09/2008 8:06:50 AM PDT by wtc911 ("How you gonna get back down that hill?")
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To: wtc911
The two bombs saved a million lives.

Indeed. And just suppose we had them a year earlier. No Battle of the Bulge or Market Garden. No Iwo Jima or Okinawa. No Communist domination of Eastern Europe for two generations.

56 posted on 08/09/2008 8:15:50 AM PDT by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: TalBlack; abb
Absolutely true, but that “Happy Nagasaki day” jibe in the headline is childish.

Very poor taste IMO.

One of the most horrific days in the history of mankind, necessary but horrific.

57 posted on 08/09/2008 8:27:27 AM PDT by houeto ("Drill Here! Drill Now!")
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To: houeto
One of the most horrific days in the history of mankind...

I simply do no agree. There's no telling how many tinpot dictators were suitably impressed by this display of military power. Do you really believe the Communists would have refrained from aggressive military action against us had we not shown our willingness to use these weapons?

58 posted on 08/09/2008 8:34:28 AM PDT by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: MeekOneGOP; devolve
My father served on USS Saratoga (CV-3).

The two bombs ended the war Japan started, and saved millions of Japanese who would have fought to the death to resist the invasion.

For wanton mass murder, Nanking comes to mind.

59 posted on 08/09/2008 8:35:54 AM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: abb
There's no telling how many tinpot dictators were suitably impressed by this display of military power. Do you really believe the Communists would have refrained from aggressive military action against us had we not shown our willingness to use these weapons?

I am not in any disagreement with any of your points. I am simply saying that such a huge loss of life on a general population center is horrific.

Were there a way for all the deaths to have been Japanese military, I would be calling for the fireworks stands to be open each year for the occasion.

Sadly though, that was just not possible.

Another thing. If we don't take off the kid gloves and show the Islamists just how ruthless a people we can be, the terror attacks will NEVER stop.

60 posted on 08/09/2008 8:47:53 AM PDT by houeto ("Drill Here! Drill Now!")
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