Posted on 08/08/2022 9:35:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Seventy-seven years ago Saturday, August 6, 1945, American servicemen in their airplane Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb, Little Boy, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, another group of American servicemen released Fat Man, another atomic bomb, over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. As a result of this relatively peaceful display of American power, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Americans on August 10, 1945.
"Relatively peaceful!" very unpeaceful lefty demonstrators will screech in harsh opposition, as they gather once again — e.g., here — to mourn the final chapter of the brutal war, while denouncing Americans as warmongers.
Our vigil will feature origami cranes in honor of hibakusha ("bomb-affected person") Sadako Sasaki. Sadako was just 2 years old during the bombing, and died from radiation effects 10 years later. Before her death, she took on a project of folding 1,000 paper cranes, which by tradition meant she would be granted a wish.
On August 6th, we'll share concrete actions toward a nuclear-free future[.]
Yes, "relatively peaceful," you unpeaceful so-called peace-lovers who ignore the ultimate sacrifice of so many others so you might live and continue to spout your — at best — deranged nonsense.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
By July 1945, Germany had surrendered, and the war in Europe was over. Japan, however, refused to submit to the terms outlined in the Allies' Potsdam Declaration. It appeared to American leaders that the only way to compel Japan's unconditional surrender was to invade and conquer the Japanese home islands. Although an estimated 300,000 Japanese civilians had already died from starvation and bombing raids, Japan's government showed no sign of capitulation. Instead, American intelligence intercepts revealed that by August 2, Japan had already deployed more than 560,000 soldiers and thousands of suicide planes and boats on the island of Kyushu to meet the expected American invasion of Japan. Additional reports correctly surmised that the Japanese military intended to execute all American prisoners in Japan in the event of an Allied landing. These frightening figures portended a costlier battle for the United States than any previously fought during the war. By comparison, US forces suffered 49,000 casualties, including 12,000 men killed in action, when facing less than 120,000 Japanese soldiers during the battle for the island of Okinawa from April to June of 1945. At least 110,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 100,000 Okinawan civilians, a third of the island's prewar population, also perished in the campaign. American casualties on Okinawa weighed heavily on the minds of American planners who looked ahead to the invasion of Japan. Japan's leaders hoped to prevail, not by defeating American forces, but by inflicting massive casualties and thereby breaking the resolve of the American public.
If we had not used the atomic bombs on Japan, my father would have likely been killed during the invasion and I would not have been born to post this. That’s about the size of it.
In schools it is taught that we committed a brutal act of mass murder as an act of revenge when we dropped the bombs. What is not taught is the fact that it actually saved thousands of lives.
Rick Moran at PJ Media observes:
For those who have moral objections to dropping the bomb, none of these points matter. Even an invasion by the U.S. in 1946 that might have killed half a million GIs and twice that number of Japanese would have been preferable to incinerating 150,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Would that really have been less cruel?
The decision to drop the bomb will always be controversial because the answer to that question is yes, there were other ways we could have ended the war with Japan. Some would almost certainly have cost more lives than were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Army Air Force Commander of Strategic Forces in the Pacific Curtis LeMay believed that, given six months and freedom to target whatever he wished, he could have brought Japan to its knees by completely destroying its ability to feed itself. Victory assured — at the cost of several million starved Japanese.
The navy thought a blockade would do the trick. Starving the Japanese war machine of raw materials and the people of food they were importing from occupied China would have the Japanese government begging for peace in a matter of six months to a year. Again, visions of millions of deaths from starvation came with the plan.
The primary argument today for not using the bomb rests on some newly discovered cables that seem to show Japan ready to capitulate as early as July 1945. It was then clear to the Japanese that the Soviet Union would invade in a matter of weeks. Again, while provocative, the United States could not afford to let Japan up off the mat without guarantees that Japan would be unable to build up its military again. As it was, it took a provision in the new Japanese Constitution, written by General McArthur, that kept the Japanese military small and totally dependent on the U.S. for its defense.
Most sane people wish that the use of the atomic bomb had not been necessary. But no matter where you come down on the question, the undeniable truth is that dropping the bomb ended the war. And if there’s nothing moral about war to begin with — except its quick and decisive ending in victory — that might be the best argument for using it to this day.
Bill Whittle, Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs
It is one of the best out there, IMO.
No need to get intellectual about the this. Those people are crazy. There was no turning them around to see the light. Island countries are like that. They saw the outside world as barbarian-think China and what they did there.
A negotiated end to hostilities might have saved face but it would only be a no-fault lull in the fighting before starting up again.
Crazy. What does a westerner think if told to fly their plane into the side of an enemy’s warship? We’re the barbarians? Just look at how they treated POW’s or even shipwrecked sailors before Commodore Perry arrived.
The Japanese have a real sense of duty and it exists in the mindset today.
Japan deserved more that two atom bombs.
For what they did to the the people of Korea, China, The Philippines . . . for what they did.
They still do NOT repent for what they did. It’s taught in schools to this day.
Talk to people that lived through the Occupation of their homelands. While you still can.
The hell with allowing unconditional surrender, we should have kept dropping bombs until every rat-bastard was fried, boiled, or otherwise incinerated.
The Atom bomb. Built in the USA, tested in Japan.
What would Truman have said at his impeachment trial to the mothers of the hundreds of thousands of servicemen lost if he had not used the weapons at his disposal?
It was either that’s or lose a million soldiers lives
You are right of course, my main point is what the revisionist bastards who run the schools are teaching US Kids.
The bombs saved many hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps even millions, most of them Japanese.
The Japanese were about to start starving to death en mass.
The Japanese view is that if they spilled enough American blood, the American people would demand a negotiated peace. They hoped that would leave their government in place and maybe even part of their empire, like Korea and Manchuria. They were willing to sacrifice unlimited military and civilian personnel to accomplish this.
The key was Okinawa. Anyone who survived Okinawa knew this about the Japanese. Project the American casualties, Japanese casualties and civilian casualties through the lens of the population of the Japanese home islands and you understand the horrific casualties they were willing to take to accomplish this goal.
And they were prepared to lose Tokyo and fight on in the mountains. They were preparing mountain bunkers for the royal family and senior military for this phase.
People need to understand the bombs actually saved Japanese lives, not just American. The Emperor only considered forcing the military to surrender after the bombs, never before.
For a good book about a Catholic doctor whose specialty was radiation and who was two miles from the Nagasaki bomb when it detonated, I recommend “A Song for Nagasaki.” It was largely due to him that the city of Nagasaki prayed and still prays for peace and does not have the foreigners flooding in to scream at the US. Good book, holy man.
The Japanese BELIEVED THEIR EMPEROR WAS GOD. They would have fought to the last man, woman and child; they would have fought with KITCHEN KNIVES. The ONLY solution was to get the Emperor to submit, and the only way was an overwhelming show of force. America had given a GENERATION of sons, fathers, and uncles in WWII; we would have lost 200,000 GI’s in a land invasion. It is SO easy to Monday-morning-quarterback this from three generations and 70+ years away. The answer is, yes. We dropped it. TWICE, before clarity appeared in the brains of Hirohito’s generals and unlimited surrender was given. Go review the Bataan death march, the other Japanese atrocities committed against America and the Allies, THEN go rethink yourself. The Bomb was so unthinkable that here, SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER even INSANE leaders are scare to use it. We did the right thing.
Those bombs made it possible for him to come home, meet my late mother-in-law, get married and have four daughters. One of whom today is my wife.
As far as the Japs and anyone else going on about “The US committing a ‘’war crime''? Tough shit. If the Japanese of the Germans had possessed such a weapon they wouldn't have hesitated a moment to use it. The Japs chose war against The United States of America. They choose poorly.
The nation of Japan NEVER SURRENDERED. Only the Japanese military surrendered.
Verbatim from the Instrument of Surrender itself:
...We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese Armed Forces and all armed forces under Japanese command wherever situated....
The words "Japan" or "Japanese" appear on the document exactly 24 times and exactly NONE of those mentions addresses the surrender of the state, the nation, the government, the country, its homeland, or its populace.
The word "surrender" appears exactly six times and none of them addresses the disposition any specific entity apart the military or armed forces.
The disposition of the nation of Japan is nowhere mentioned as a separate matter or in addition to the surrender of the armed forces.
Furthermore, despite the great hue and cry to have the Emperor charged with War Crimes, the entire matter of the Emperor is conspicuous in its absence from the Instrument of Surrender. That was primarily due to steadfast insistence from the Japanese that they could not accept a surrender agreement that in any way "prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as Sovereign Ruler.”
So the Potsdam Conference "passed the buck" to Douglas MacArthur through the following statement in the Instrument:
"...The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender...."
In effect, in order to fashion terms of a surrender the Japanese would sign now rather than later, the Conference altogether ignored the matter of the continued reign of Emperor Hirohito, which was a tacit concession to the Japanese nationalists, and which passed the "tar baby" of any war crimes charges against him to MacArthur.
And whatever decisions MacArthur took, even if he had had the Emperor put on trial and destroyed the monarchy, those still would have been his decisions and nothing to do with the terms of surrender.
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