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In reply to the discussion: IKE: "the Japanese were ready to surrender & it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing" [View all]Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)104. No, we had two....
Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 06:46 AM - Edit history (1)
There was no third atomic bomb ready to be dropped on August 12. It would be weeks before the next bomb was available (and possibly longer if weather conditions weren't right over the target). And it might have been weeks after that before a fourth bomb was operational. We were trying to create the illusion that we had an endless supply of bombs ready to drop on Japan, but that was simply not the case. Wasting a bomb over an uninhabited area would have been a strategic error.
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IKE: "the Japanese were ready to surrender & it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing" [View all]
Faryn Balyncd
Aug 2013
OP
Funny how that works, isn't it? Good on you to point this out. Also, Stimson was no
HardTimes99
Aug 2013
#38
There were plenty of people still alive that could have disputed his account.
former9thward
Aug 2013
#83
Really? You think he was both senile and egotistical? How about those "predicted deaths" were the
WinkyDink
Aug 2013
#86
Earmarking for the next time someone objects to a General making all the decisions nt
Dreamer Tatum
Aug 2013
#3
Nuclear artillery of the era were roughly equivalent in power to Fat Man and Little Boy.
Gravitycollapse
Aug 2013
#113
you have to recall, too, that Eisenhower was the allied commander in Europe not the Far East
WI_DEM
Aug 2013
#6
MacAuthur and Truman's Chief of Staff Admiral Leahy also opposed the bomb.
former9thward
Aug 2013
#84
If you think that Eisenhower would say something in 1963 that would antagonize our best cold war...
JVS
Aug 2013
#15
You're the one making it up. I'm just saying that I have good reason to doubt Eisenhower's word.
JVS
Aug 2013
#112
What proof do you have that Japan was ready to surrender, disarm, subject itself
geek tragedy
Aug 2013
#49
The Japanese War Council was split 3-3 after Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war.
geek tragedy
Aug 2013
#59
So many of the Bomb Defenders today used "Armchair Warrior" as a put down....
Junkdrawer
Aug 2013
#18
Yes and perhaps we should not have been so quick to emulate the worst of their cruel leadership
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#24
by nuking civilians rather than attacking the leadership? What a strange tactic -
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#47
I think the nukes effectively eliminated their "cruel leadership" once they surrendered.
DCBob
Aug 2013
#67
Would have been less sociopathic to blow up the Emperor and not hundreds of thousands of civilians
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#70
I think the complete disregard for the deaths of women, children and grannies shown on this board
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#21
An honest evaluation of your empathy free and cowardly defense of the deaths of several thousands of
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#39
I'm a Democratic Socialist and radically anti-war. That said, I am not an absolute pacifist
HardTimes99
Aug 2013
#44
We will never know, many generals felt there were alternatives to using atrocities as a tactic
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#79
Not at all, I do not see their women as less human than our own, I condemn them equally for evil.
Dragonfli
Aug 2013
#63
The cruelty sweepstakes will have no winner. The USSR lost 20 million fighting
HardTimes99
Aug 2013
#45
Well, in hindsight, I think you are right. However, at the time, it was far more
HardTimes99
Aug 2013
#121
It was the 40's form of "Shock and Awe"....in 2003 it was televised over Iraq.
madfloridian
Aug 2013
#33
Of course it wasn't necessary. The US just wanted to see what would happen - we experimented on the
Flaxbee
Aug 2013
#42
There are a number of good reasons to like Ike, including his statement about Nixon when asked
AnotherMcIntosh
Aug 2013
#110
Ike might not have hated Truman, but it's a point of fact that he deeply disliked him
BeyondGeography
Aug 2013
#87