doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Day they dropped the Big One

I echo the sentiments about our vets. And also want to add to the comment about Russia. Those first two bombs did as much to stop the Russians as it did to stop the Japanese.

And the principle reason the Japs surrendered was not the civilian deaths, it was fear of the Russians coming in their back door.

One last comment, you gotta love a guy who names his B-29 after his Mom. Long live Enola Gay.

Jeff

My father served in the Army Air Corp during WW2, my mother a young adult in Japan. My mother dodged bombing raids while my father prepped the planes that flew the bombs. I'll let you postulate the possibilities.

I was born on Wright-Patterson AB (USAF HQ)in 1956 and I was a service brat growing up during the cold war on military bases. I recall the Cuban missile crisis while we were living on the SAC base, Glasgow AFB, Montana. Over the years, I took an interest in WW2 history. I read a bit. BTW, I recommend reading "At Dawn We Slept" and "Miracle at Midway", as Prague (sp) is one of the few historians of his day that chose to seek "the other side's view".

So, when discussions of the war with Japan come up, I'm very interested. I'm also a bit torn between compasion for half of my ancestery and knowledge that what Japan did was wrong to the world on many levels, China being the most horific example. I worked for/with people that had been POW's under the Japanese and heard their tales. Recently, a co-worker of Japanese ancestry (but all American), 10 yrs younger than I, asked a Phillipino man for his daughter's hand. This Phillipino man had watched the Japanese kill his brother right in front of him while they kneeled. Yet, he mustered the strength and compasion for his daughter to say 'yes'. There's a man with some thoughts.

Countries ask their good people, and some not so good, to go to war and do horrible things, hopefully for the right reasons.
I haven't had to go to war. I was too young for Vietnam (just barely, I held a 1A draft card and was 19 when the draft ended and we were out of there). But as a youngster on Yokota AFB in Japan, I watched the MATS C-141's bring in the wounded and bus them to Tachikawa AB and awed at the shot up F-4's that came to Yokota for repair. I often thought I wanted to be a military aviator in battle. I even learned to fly at a young age and pursued aerobatics with a passion, often bading others to mock dogfight, my true passion. But, it didn't work out that I would be a military pilot. I ended up in the aerospace biz working many military programs and even a 10 yr nuclear (no not nucular)project. I'm probably better off. From what I can gather, war sucks. My wife, who happens to have Japanese ancestery on both sides, born in SF,CA, has worked in many military projects including personally making and supervising the assembly of the serious nucs and now continues on military programs for satellites.

My hat is off to all who have served this country honorably. Those envolved in the Manhattan Project thru those ordered to partake in 'the bomb's' use, served honorably.

Brian, don't miss the controversial account of Royal Canadian Air Force culpability in civilian deaths in the Allied bombing of Germany when you visit the war museum in
Ottawa. Many air crew survivors and the Legion want it changed but the museum is standing firm on the evidence.

As hard as it is to read, I believe it because my father, a newspaperman and editor turned bomber pilot who was there, told me of the ops briefings. Canada had a big air role and our navy provided 316 of the 444 warships, including minesweepers, for the D-Day landings. The destroyer HMCS Haida sank two of six defending German destroyers in the days before the invasion and another three weeks later.

The other sides view? We saved more Japanese lives with the Bomb than US forces. Had we been forced to subdue Japan with conventional warfare the human toll would have been huge for the civilian population. Japan would have taken much longer to recover. It was a humanitarian thing we did. Let the revisionists rot! David

David,
Re: "the other side's view", I was strickly referring to the attacks at Pearl and Midway and the military tactics employed. The two Prague books are intended as factual accounts, by both sides, of the battles. Prague's work was done not so long after the war and certainly not 'revisionist' in any way.

I'm not sufficiently educated in enough facts surrounding the decision to drop the two atomic bombs to form an opinion as to whether it saved lives or whether it was a moral decision. You may be correct regarding saving lives in the long run. However, I suspect a directed attack resulting in massive civilian population deaths would be ill recieved today (see Brian's quote from LeMay). But, we're not talking about today.

Chuck, I was only responding to the phrase "The Other side's View not to your post generally. That phrase reverberated in my head and I let loose with a generality. Being from our South I heard a lot about how bad them Yankeys were and how noble the Rebs, etc. Defeat is not accepted easily. The French call this complaining "Le esprit de l'escalier."
What you should have said to someone's face but only say it over your sholder as you are going down the stairs. I have only one overriding feeling about WWII which is that I'm glad we won! The price the world paid for that debacle is beyond willful comprehension just as comprehending the world today if we had not won is incomprehensible. Cheers! David

The author you refer to is Gordon PRANGE, not "Prague". He taught history at the U. of MD when I was a student there. His modern European history course was huge; some classes numbered over 350 and were held in huge ampitheatre classrooms in the older buildings. His most popular course segments were both Pearl Harbor and Midway, wherein he used very detailed models of the landscape and topography of the areas, coupled with very detailed small models of both ships and aircraft that he moved around on the "theatre of battle" boards. Second semester freshmen and first semester sophomores who were required to have a minimum number of credit hours in history flocked to his classes, closing most of them out in the first 3 or 4 days of registration. Those who didn't make it in often registered for next-semester options to sign up first-come, first-served. He was an exciting and dynamic lecturer, and the reality checks he presented in his course curricula left many much-better educated young students as to the innate brutality, savagery, and futility of war. KBM

My father, Lt JG US Navy, wounded off Omaha Beach on an LST and father-in-law, 30+ missions over Germany as a B17 Pilot both owe thier lives to the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Japan. As a Nuclear Engineer and 'War Baby' I have had an interest in the 'Bomb', its developement, use and deployment. While never having done Weapons Development, I have talked to many in the Industry, some who were at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Projet and most notibly met Bock's Car Pilot. I asked Fred Bock what he felt when the Bomb went off, meaning what emosions. He replied , " Well the ride was very smooth". Dropping the Bomb for these men and all our citizens was just a means to an end of ridding the world of these cultures that subvert individuals in the name of the state. Unfortuneatly, we are now facing the same type of mentality but except for Iran, don't have very good targets.
BTW, Germany and Japan never even came close to a working 'Bomb' and any 'Dirty' Bomb would have no real effect. The Press would have you believe that a dirty Bomb of Cobalt would devastate a major City. In reality,the cleanup would consist of water flushing the material and at most coatings to fix what's left in place.
I have Japanese friends, both US and Japanese citizens. I was Best Man when a Japanese friend studying in the US married a US citizen. The culture is facinating and the people can be warm and friendly if you are percived as a friend. A non-Japanese can never be assimilated into the culture but it is my feeling that the Japanese hold no grudges.
The Greatest Generation will soon be gone. Both my father and father-in-law have past on. I fear we will never again see thier like, but it is our responsibility to carry on as they would have.-Dick

"--- innate brutality, savagery ---". Yes, war comes with a very high cost, both material and human life.

"--- futility of war." Depends on the leadership of the combatants. Some wars have been quite decisive.

Nature provides us a binary of flee or fight. Humans have added the possibility of negotiate. When negotiations end and neither side is willing to flee, there remains only one alternative.

How does one evaluate the "cost of human life?" The trouble is that some leaders place very little value on human life. That makes negotiation very difficult.

Early in WW II there was perceived to be a very real possibility that the Axis would win. By the time the balance had shifted sufficiently to suggest negotiations, the Allies were past negotiating and had settled on total victory.

I was born on 8/6/45, the day they dropped the first bomb. I've always been interested in the history of that event. There has been a good show about it on the History Channel.

We are fast losing the Vetereans of that era, whenever I can talk to one I find it fascinating.

However, Mom always said that the bomb was what it took to shake me loose. JD