A-Bomb Victims Stage Rally in Hiroshima Against U.S. Nuclear Warship

ap.tbo ^ | October 29, 2005 | AP

[ncountylee]

TOKYO (AP) - Victims of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan joined a sit-in rally in Hiroshima on Saturday to protest plans to base a nuclear-powered American warship in the country, an activist said.

The protest came as talks got underway between top Japanese and American security officials on how to realign the U.S. military presence in Japan.

About 80 people - many of them victims of the 1945 U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - rallied against plans announced Friday by the U.S. Navy to deploy a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan, said Kazutoshi Kajikawa, who heads the Hiroshima Peace Movement Center.

"It makes me angry that America can even consider basing a nuclear carrier in Japan, the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack," Kajikawa said.

Basing the ship in Japan will also put the Japanese public at risk of being exposed to a radiation leak, he said.

The U.S. has said the carrier can be operated safely in Japanese waters. American Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told reporters Friday that nuclear ships had made 1,200 visits to Japan in the past 40 years without harming the environment.

The U.S. Navy said it decided to replace the conventional aircraft carrier now based in Yokosuka, just outside Tokyo, with the nuclear-powered ship because it has greater capabilities.

[RedMonqey]

"Virtually all of the folks nuked in Japan are dead. It happened 70 years ago. Almost all of them were women and children."


Women and children were bona fide war targets.
Made so by their government, by Hirohito and the Imperil Empire of Japan's liberal use of women and children labour.


Not pleasant but true.

With men at the front these "helpless" women and children helped prolonged it's imperil war effort. It's war machine could not have functioned without the guns, ammo, etc. manufactured in small cottage sized industries and provided to army and navy until the end of the war.

Short of an full scale invasion such as the planned Olympic campaign and others, the A-Bomb was the only way to stop them from continuing their support of their government's war.

Not pleasant but true.

[burzum]

Submariners call it a boat. I know, I used to be one (a submariner, not a boat). While technically a submarine is a ship, the legend says that early submarines used to be classified as boats. Submariners call them boats out of respect for the past.

[Basilides]

Rhodes just scratches the surface....Operation Alsos and Paperclip...were desparate attempts to stop nuclear technology we knew existed in the Sudetenland from falling into Soviet hands...there are numerous fringe studies about what really took place from 1942-45 in Germany and Japan....as well as the Soviet Union.

We don't know about the actualities of our nuclear capabilities today because of national security...what makes you think we have been told the real story of what happened back then...Rhodes assumes that Heisenberg was the center of Nazi atomic research...he wasn't.

The top nazi echelons who were in charge of the U-235 efforts not only tried to export the technology to the Japanese half-way across the globe -- a rather difficult task given the prevalence of Allied air and sea forces -- but realized that their choice to survive was to bribe the Allies with the promise of turning over the technology if they would go free -- or threatening to turn it over to the Soviets.

There is a London Times article published in August, 1945, right after the dropping of the bombs on Japan, that claims the British gov't had London on a full nuclear alert in October, 1944, anticipating an Nazi atomic bomb hitting London. What did they know ? Or think they knew ?

There is a lot of "loose ends" like this regarding the end of the war....I get the overwhelming feeling we as a people ( and globally as a species) came much closer to atomic warfare on European and American soil than we have been told. A lot of Manhattan Project and related material remains classified...a result of the immediate transition after VE-Day to the Cold War.

Not to mention the Japanese efforts at Hunam in developing and testing a crude small ineffiecient gun-type atomic device at war's end....and area which quickly after the war became Soviet-controlled North Korea (I think for a short period liberated by UN forces during the Korean War.)

Hold on...gotta adjust my tin-foil hat...

[Eagles6]

Huh? Are you replying to me? Dropping the atomic bombs turned a country of racist, cave dwelling suicide bombers who believed in a stone age religion into staunch allies. Gives one pause to think, doesn't it.

[Francis McClobber]

Nice analysis, but you did make a few mistakes:

"While you certainly could put nuclear weapons on an aircraft carrier ready to be dropped by an aircraft, it would add nothing to the already formidable nuclear deterrent that is already built up (consider any conflict that we wouldn't use SLBMs (15 min) first followed by ICBMs (30 min))."

Nuclear strike from carrier based aircraft served a very significant role in deterrence in that it provided a tactical nuclear strike capability that neither ICBM's nor SLBM's had. They were part of the triad and as a forward presence, were much faster than the land based aircraft nuclear strike.

"And the type of nuclear weapons would be very small (you can't launch very heavy aircraft from an aircraft carrier)."

The weapons employed on a carrier were the same as the weapons a land based bomber carry. As far as launching with ordnance goes, the A-6 could carry 26 thousand pounds.

"It would, on the other hand, be a considerable risk for the US to have nukes there. We are not going to station nuclear weapons on a ship that goes to third-world port calls. The security risk is too great."

Both carriers and the ordnance ships routinely visited third world countries while loaded with nuclear ordnance.

I really like your bio page, by the way. Good luck in school.

[Basilides]

Yes it did...at least it gave th "peace" faction in Suzuki's cabinet the ability to use their trump card of the Emporer's edict against War Minister Anami...who was not chastened by the two bombs...and even after we dropped two weopans those little b_____ds still wanted to keep on fighting? I wonder why?

I always wondered what the heck Hirohito was talking about in his Imperial rescript asking the people and Armed Forces in Japan to give up ?

"Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.

Should we continue to fight it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

What could he have been referring to...he was getting his brains beat in...what led him to believe that continued resistance would lead to global extinction ?

[Hoof Hearted]

"Now they attack with their stinking toiletas and honduhs."

I'm not familiar with those makes, but their Toyotas and Hondas , which are now mostly made here in the U.S., have never had any particular problems with foul odors.

[Major_Risktaker]

N and H were "little" bombs. The modern standard is 1000 times more blooey.

Yup, Japan has a new problem with Clinton "modern standard" gifts pointing right at Tokyo and it's called nuclear China.

[solitas]

A-Bomb Victims Stage Rally in Hiroshima Against U.S. Nuclear Warship

Awcrap - there're still some of them left?

[Danae]

That's not what I mean. I am not talking about that aspect of the design. I am talking about the safety aspects of the design, I should have been more specific. How the Navy Nukes set up the heat exchange design, and the separation of "contaminated" and "Non-contaminated" super heated waters ect. The overall design is a TON safer than "commercial" designs and more efficient. Who cares if it ends being more $$$ to build, if it get's us that much further off Oil which has strings attached to it that make Oil a LOT more expensive in any number of ways. It could be easily adapted, from what I understand, to Civvie uses.
Sorry for the confusion.

[Danae]

Do you say "boat" in front of him? These Navy chaps get irritated if it's not called a ship

Not if you were on a Sub. That is THEIR designation, according to my husband who spent 6 years on the USS Grant (SSBN 631). They call them "Boats" from the day of U-Boats WW2, they weren't considered ships. SUBs also don't have rescue boats on board, so it can't be considered a ship, no rescue. So they call them Boats. Splitting hairs unless you were stationed on one!

[ZULU]

The Japanese should NEVER complain about Hieroshima. They brought it on themselves and they have yet to aplogize fo the Rape of Nanking or numerous atrocities committed against Americans and Europeans and uncounted masses of non-Japanese.

The number of Japanese killed in Hieroshima is less than the number of German civilians killed in the fire-bombing of Dreden, a target of far less military significance. Hieroshima and Nagasaki prevented what would have surely been a bloodbath of Apocolytic magnitude which would have resulted n the deaths of far more Japanses and what's more important - more Americans in an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

So Hieroshima "victims" - go #$@!!& yourselves.

[Joe Boucher]

Hey you Japs should s.t.f.u., what are you going to do when China decides it is time to annex your little island chain?
If you've run the U.S. military out who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Basing the ship in Japan will also put the Japanese public at risk of being exposed to a radiation leak, he said. ***

No more risk than the leaky nuclear electric plants in Japan now!

[Mark17]

The mind truly boggles had Operation Barberrosa been delayed and the Nazis been able to develop and marry atomic weapons and superior rocket-based delivery systems before or contemporaneously with our efforts.

If that had happened, I doubt any of us would be here discussing it.

[ExpatGator]

HELLO, hello, hello ??? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anybody home?

[Proud2BeRight]

"I'm not familiar with those makes, but their Toyotas and Hondas , which are now mostly made here in the U.S.,"

A BigMac assembled by a burger-flipper in a Tokyo McDonalds is not Japanese food.

[Proud2BeRight]

And "stinking" references my dislike for those "stinking" riceburners.

[jwh_Denver]

Well I hereby and duly and officially stand corrected. We called the German subs U-boats but I didn't think about that. Thanks for the correction!

[Eagles6]

Probably using poetic license.

The Japanese were counting on their belief in the unwillingness of the American people to take mass casualties of our troops. They believed that once we invaded the home islands and thousands of American troops were dying everyday, public opinion would force Truman to sue for peace with terms more favorable to the Japanese.

The a bombs put an end to that. Now we could annihilate the entire population without losing one troop.

They had great confidence in the American medias' willingness to carry the enemy's' water then. Not much has changed, has it?