Atomic weapon used against Nagasaki today 1945

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Atomic weapon used against Nagasaki today 1945: #NARA

Link to tweet

More information on the picture is here:

It has been 70 years since 70,000 people were killed in less than a minute

[Hoyt]

1. Once just wasn't enough.

[Blues Heron]

2. Can't believe we targeted women, babies, and old people like that it's so unethical.

Grotesque really. I thought only monsters went after civilians like that.

[MicaelS]

4. You do not know your history do you?

EVERY major combatant in WWII was bombing civilians with high-explosive and incendiary bombs.

For those who cry moral outrage I see no difference between the fire-bombing of Dresden, and other German cities, Tokyo and other Japanese cities, and the atomic bombings. Being blown apart by conventional weapons, being crushed by a collapsing house.

Dead is dead.

If the bomb has been available 6-12 months sooner, or the war lasted 6-12 months longer, then Berlin would have been the first target. Those on the Left who now condemn the use of the bombs on Japan would probably not have said a thing about their use on Germany. Their attitude would have been that the dirty Fascists got what they deserved.

Those scientists who worked on the bomb (many of the Jewish refugees from Hitler) did not seem to develop scruples until it was clear that Germany would no longer be the target. They knew for a fact that Berlin, and its civilians would certainly be the main target. They certainly didn’t have any concerns about German civilians being killed.

Even if no atomic bombing or invasion of Japan had taken place, and a naval blockade imposed, millions of Japaneses would have starved to death.

People these days find it easy to take some moral high-ground when they are not involved in a war to the knife for the future of civilization. Hindsight is easy.

[Blues Heron]

5. Still highly immoral "they did it too" is no justification

An immense stain on our history.

[MicaelS]

6. That is YOUR opinion.

I do not share it.

So every Western Leader was a War Criminal in your opinion?

[Blues Heron]

15. It was a low point for humanity, no doubt about it

I don't think there's any question.

[sarisataka]

17. In your opinion

Which option would have been better? A direct invasion to force surrender causing millions of casualties or a blockade to starve Japan into surrender?

[BannonsLiver]

8. Well said

The person you responded to is also apparently unaware of the atrocities Japan committed in China which also targeted women and children. I don’t accept the revisionist bullshit that Japan was a “victim” in WW2. And if they didn’t want another one dropped, they should have surrendered after the first.

[MicaelS]

11. Thank you.

The Japanese were just as bad as the Nazis. But too many people weep bitter tears for the “victims" of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as if the Japanese did nothing to start the war in Asia.

The Chinese suffered between 20-35 million casualties during the Japanese invasion of China (1937-1945).

The Japanese forced Korean women into sexual slavery as “comfort women” in field brothels where the women were forced to sexually service, as many as 70 Japanese soldiers a day. In other words these women were raped 70 times a day for years on end.

Everywhere the Japanese conquered, they acted like barbarians toward Allied POWs and civilians. The Japanese beat, starved, tortured and executed men and women.

They used living human beings as living test subjects in their infamous biological warfare Unit 731.

I too do not accept the revisionist bullshit that Japan was a “victim” in WW2.

[Brawndo]

19. Stop clouding the issue with facts!

Don't you know that sullying yourself with violence is never the answer?


If you are not willing to stop those committing evil acts with extreme prejudice then you enable evil to harm far greater numbers.
Thank you for injecting the ugly truth as a reminder to those who refuse to see.

[USALiberal]

22. WTF, we used living human beings as living test subjects! nt

[hunter]

24. My wife's uncle went from being an American prisoner of the Japanese in China...

... to being a prisoner of Mao's Communists.

He was traded back home as a minor footnote for a few spies in the mid 'fifties.

Officially he died an alcoholic.

He actually died early from his near two decades living in hell.

[captain queeg]

28. There is no doubt the atomic bombs saved hundreds of thousands maybe millions of lives

But I’m not sure they’d have been used in Germany. WWII really was a racial war in its roots. I was reading something about the Nuremberg trials and the guy interviewed Goering. Goering claimed the allies wouldn’t have used the a-bomb on Germany. I got to thinking he might be right. We definitely treated the Japanese as racial inferiors.

[CentralMass]

7. Imperial Japan had done far worse.

https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM

"
From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most probably almost 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war. This democide was due to a morally bankrupt political and military strategy, military expediency and custom, and national culture (such as the view that those enemy soldiers who surrender while still able to resist were criminals).

[Kid Berwyn]

26. True.

The thing is, we did the same thing.

And we haven’t stopped the violence since — apart from the Kennedy and Carter and select years from Democratic administrations.

You might enjoy “House of War” by James Carroll. It’s a history of the Pentagon, the Bomb and the powers that be. Helped me see who pulls the strings. Helped me see how to cut mine.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-carroll/house-of-war/

[Revanchist]

10. There was a major military port there

As well as ordnance factories and producers of other military equipment. Nagasaki wasn't just some random civilian target. If Japan had the atomic bomb and dropped it on Pearl Harbor would you say they bombed Honolulu for no reason?

[former9thward]

30. It was pretty random.

Kokura was the primary target. The planes made three passes over the city but there was too much smoke to see possible targets. Fuel was running short so they went to Nagasaki as a secondary target. Clouds cleared at the last minute and they dropped the bomb.

[Ponietz]

3. Also on August 9, 1945, over a million Soviet soldiers poured into Manchuria

The bigger reason for using the bombs was a demonstration and warning to Stalin. Japan was already beaten.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. They weren't beaten badly enough to surrender and an invasion of the Japanese home islands...

would have had many more Japanese and Allied casualties (and the war would probably have dragged on until 1946).

[Kid Berwyn]

29. Gen. Curtis LeMay had reduced Japan to ash.

The US estimated 330,000 civilians died in nine months of bombing cities. Other estimates are much higher. Either way, LeMay said if the US were to have lost the war, he’d be tried and hanged as a war criminal.

On the night of the Tokyo raid, 15 square miles of one of the world’s most densely populated urban centers—equivalent to half the area of Manhattan—burned to the ground. More than a million people were left homeless. As historian John Dower described in his 1986 book War Without Mercy, “The heat from the conflagration was so intense that in some places canals boiled, metal melted, and buildings and human beings burst spontaneously into flames.” Survivor accounts and many documents and photos from the raid can be found at Japan Air Raids.org.

https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/deadliest-air-raid-history-180954512/

IMO, there was no need to drop the Bomb, especially on Nagasaki.

[Revanchist]

12. And what we're they going to do, swim to Japan?

Russia didn't exactly have a Pacific fleet.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. Harry Truman in 1963 defends his decision on Hiroshima:

I presume this extends to the use in Nagasaki as well.

Harry Truman in 1963 defends his decision on Hiroshima:

Link to tweet

[KatyMan]

25. Powerful nt

[canetoad]

14. Spare a thought

For Tsutomu Yamaguchi. He had travelled to Hiroshima for business and survived the blast although injured. He then decided to return to his home city - Nagasaki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi

[sarisataka]

18. I have never been able to decide

If he was the luckiest or unluckiest man in history

[LexVegas]

16. Necessary and effective. Bravo, President Truman! nt

[USALiberal]

20. Not really. It was a nuke test really. nt

[hunter]

21. It was a last second Hail-Mary pass to test a plutonium implosion bomb on a living city.

The plutonium implosion bomb was the weapon of the future and the U.S.A. briefly had a monopoly on it.

By 1950 over 100 "fat man" plutonium bombs had been manufactured and these were being retired in favor of "better" bombs.

Many people don't comprehend the scale of the Manhattan Project.

The success of the Trinity Test changed everything. The plutonium implosion bomb was the future. These bombs went from hand-crafted by physicists using tissue paper shims to mass production almost instantly, in a fraction of a U.S.A. Presidential term.

At the moment of the Trinity Test any plans to risk thousands of U.S. American lives invading Japan were moot.

From then on we were going to drop atomic bombs on Japan until they surrendered or there was nothing left of them.

[Disaffected]

23. And, it was also a stark lesson

on the horrible effects of nuclear weapons.

Would it be too big a stretch to opine that the A bombing of Japan may have helped to prevent further, much more widespread use of nuclear weapons (maybe WW3), from that point onwards?

[Hoyt]

27. Whatever, we are the only country vile enough to use the damn thing.

[Joe941]

31. America being evil...

Not sure the good guys won... not sure there were any good guys in the war.

[MicaelS]

33. Absolutely disgusting post.

The Allies STOPPED the Nazis butchering Jews, and you post shit like that.

People like you give Democrats a bad name.

[Codeine]

35. That poster isn't a Democrat. nt

[MicaelS]

37. Good.

What is he?

[Codeine]

38. The usual.

[MicaelS]

39. Got it. n/t

[Joe941]

42. I'll go with the term progressive if I had to choose...

And yes I'll stand by my claim using the a-bomb was evil. So many innocent people died.

[Codeine]

44. Fooling nobody. nt

[Codeine]

34. Transparent. nt

[jpak]

40. 2016

again

[keithbvadu2]

32. Nagasaki Peace Park Statue

Nagasaki Peace Park Statue

https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/349/

The statue was designed by the sculptor Seibou Kitamura, and each aspect of it holds symbolic importance.

The right hand pointing to the sky reminds us of the danger of nuclear weapons, while the extended left hand symbolizes eternal peace. The statue's face also embodies peace, while its closed eyes represent a prayer for the repose of the victims' souls.

His folded right leg is in meditation while the extended left leg is rooted to the ground, asking us to stand up and help the world. Take note of serene seated Buddha statues in Japan, and you will see where this posture came from.

[Codeine]

36. ProTip;

Surrender the first time you get blasted by an atom bomb and you won’t earn the second one.

[Alea]

41. We used 2 and stopped

If Japan, Germany, or Russia developed the bomb first they would have never stopped using it until the whole world was conquered. I hate that it was ever even possible to build, but I'm glad we got it first.

[greytdemocrat]

43. Anyone

that doesn't understand why it was necessary to drop these TWO bombs and end the war, needs a history lesson.

[Mendocino]

45. My father a Lt.jg

serving on a LST 1943 until 1946. He was in the Seventh Fleet under Admiral Kincaid, sometimes called "MacCarthurs Navy". Dad would have certainly been fighting in the planned invasion of Japan. He and everyone onboard had no regrets about the decision to drop the bomb.