Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Why the U.S. Nuked Japan

Literary items like the Rape of Nanking. Newspaper articles concerning beheading contests. What has to be understood is that Shintoism and the Code of Bushido was taught from birth. The japs saw all other people, especially Chinese, as sub human. They thought no more of killing them than a rat. This belief system was ingrained into the Japanese peoples belief system.

When the words from a man that was there essentially hit you with the "we thought we'd literally opened the door to Hell", that says something.

No, they were not ashamed; there was no reason to be. And, believe it or not, they were not overly proud either. They knew exactly what they were being asked to do, and what the impacts of those actions would be down below on the target sites, and exactly what the target site was.

They did their duty, carried out their orders, and lived with the consequences knowing full well that had they not been able to do that, so many more would have died so much more horribly.

It is good that our generation, on both sides, can look at this now and say "yes, the right call was made".

This post doesn't make much sense - since the real reason why the world did not fight the Japanese until after the war in Europe was over was due to the fact that even Hitler realized that no one could win a war with two fronts.

The Germans in fact did not even want the Japanese in their alliance - nor was the Italians of much help.
But at least the Italians were of some use because they defended the access from the Alps into Germany.

The reason why we dropped the bomb was to show them the mighty force of the Americans and to show them that we could sustain the war at any cost.

The real devastation of the bomb was not it's nuclear powers, but the fact that we claimed that we had an endless supply of bombs. When in fact - we had just enough materials to make maybe a 3rd and possibly a 4th and that was it.

When the Soviet's realized that we were going to take Japan - they wanted in on it and so they attacked Korea and Vietnam - Indochina and they took as much territory as quickly as possibly.

Just think of it like the land rush of '89 and the Sooner's in Oklahoma. http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/landrush.htm

The Japanese emperor was more afraid of the Russians then they were of the Americans.
We let the Russians take Europe and they kept everything they took.

The American government realized that we were going to loose 750k troops just trying to invade the beaches of Japan.
The reason why we took some of those islands in the end so easily was due to the fact that the Japanese sacrificed their planes in an attempt to stop the American carriers and destroyers and battleships - Kamikaze, instead of keeping them in reserve and using them to protect their homeland.

The United States never would have launched either plane had they known that when the plane took off that it possibly could have been shot down along the way.
This required total air domination.

My Uncle Walt was a B-25 pilot during the war and explained a lot of the war to me before he died.
He flew over 50 missions - both over Germany and against the people of Japan and flew several dozen missions over the hump.

Anyone stupid enough to try to simplify the war into something as complex as the conquering of the Japanese people - when they were spread out over 5,000 miles of ocean - would be like me trying to explain Quantum Physic's with a slide rule and a pencil and a piece of paper.

The Germans lost the war because they ran out of Fuel - both gasoline, diesel fuel, motor oil and they lacked the capacity to manufacture war supplies on a large scale.
If Hitler would have waited 4 more years before he attacked Poland - he would have won the war.
If Hitler would have used his Jet Aircraft to attack American bombers and not tried to use it as a bomber itself - they would have been in a better position.
If they never would have attacked Russia - they would not have lost what they did and they would have been able to take Great Britain - had they not stopped the bombing campaign - during the Blitz.

If the United States would not have entered the war - they would all be speaking German or Russian by now.

The Germans attacked a munitions plant in New Jersey during WW II. There is no one that can tell me that no battle in WW II was fought on American soil.
Just look at the holes they had to patch up in the statue of Liberty after the explosives plant blew up.
Just look at the forest fires that were started in the Pacific Northwest - they were started by balloons that were released from either ships or from submarines and were designed to ignite the forests of the Pacific North West.

All these things were covered up during the war to assure the American people that they were safe here and that our government was here to protect them.

We did not deport any German speaking people to detention centers as a matter of fact - we used them in our military as interpreters.

The Japanese were the real threat to the USA because they had open access to the Pacific.
The Germans had no warm water ports at the start of the war.

Someone here needs to get their facts straight.

I see. So what you're saying is you haven't personally spoken to a Japanese of the age that had them recall what went on in those days, is that correct? Makes sense then. I have spoken, at length, with some who have. None of the sinister stuff you talk about through your readings was embraced by ordinary Japanese citizens, in my conversations with many elderly when I asked such questions. None.

My wife's grandma speaks about it from the perspective of a country girl living near the base of Mt. Fuji. She and her family never held any animosity towards westerners, or any other people. They didn't know much about the rest of the world. They were simple farmers, and kept largely in the dark by the powers that be, and were horrified to learn of the deeds of some of the Japanese soldiers when the truth started coming out years later.

She has recalled her memories of the first Americans to visit her part of the world. An American fighter swept out of the clouds and came in on a gun run, and killed three young kids and a couple of elderly as they worked the fields. Well, that's war for you, I guess.

I understand the anger, mistrust and disgust at atrocities committed by the Japanese war machine and war criminals, but your lumping the entire populace of Japan in with what heinous crimes some perpetrated is both false, and claiming to understand the collective mindset and conscience of the Japanese of that time--based on what you've read-- is nothing more than a pipedream.

Have a good one.

L

P.S. Oh, and for the record, I'm damned glad the bombs were dropped. Many millions of lives were saved as a result. As another aside, President Truman wasn't a racist. He was very kind to my aunt Aya. They used to ride the elevator together in Washington, D.C, when she worked as an executive aide to Congressman Hamilton Fish (NY-R). He was quite chatty. This after my family was let out of the internment camps, of course.

This post doesn't make much sense - since the real reason why the world did not fight the Japanese until after the war in Europe was over was due to the fact that even Hitler realized that no one could win a war with two fronts.

The Germans in fact did not even want the Japanese in their alliance - nor was the Italians of much help.
But at least the Italians were of some use because they defended the access from the Alps into Germany.

The reason why we dropped the bomb was to show them the mighty force of the Americans and to show them that we could sustain the war at any cost.

The real devastation of the bomb was not it's nuclear powers, but the fact that we claimed that we had an endless supply of bombs. When in fact - we had just enough materials to make maybe a 3rd and possibly a 4th and that was it.

When the Soviet's realized that we were going to take Japan - they wanted in on it and so they attacked Korea and Vietnam - Indochina and they took as much territory as quickly as possibly.

Just think of it like the land rush of '89 and the Sooner's in Oklahoma. http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/landrush.htm

The Japanese emperor was more afraid of the Russians then they were of the Americans.

We let the Russians take Europe and they kept everything they took.

The American government realized that we were going to loose 750k troops just trying to invade the beaches of Japan.

The reason why we took some of those islands in the end so easily was due to the fact that the Japanese sacrificed their planes in an attempt to stop the American carriers and destroyers and battleships - Kamikaze, instead of keeping them in reserve and using them to protect their homeland.

The United States never would have launched either plane had they known that when the plane took off that it possibly could have been shot down along the way.
This required total air domination.

My Uncle Walt was a B-25 pilot during the war and explained a lot of the war to me before he died.

He flew over 50 missions - both over Germany and against the people of Japan and flew several dozen missions over the hump.

Anyone stupid enough to try to simplify the war into something as complex as the conquering of the Japanese people - when they were spread out over 5,000 miles of ocean - would be like me trying to explain Quantum Physic's with a slide rule and a pencil and a piece of paper.

The Germans lost the war because they ran out of Fuel - both gasoline, diesel fuel, motor oil and they lacked the capacity to manufacture war supplies on a large scale.
If Hitler would have waited 4 more years before he attacked Poland - he would have won the war.

If Hitler would have used his Jet Aircraft to attack American bombers and not tried to use it as a bomber itself - they would have been in a better position.
If they never would have attacked Russia - they would not have lost what they did and they would have been able to take Great Britain - had they not stopped the bombing campaign - during the Blitz.

If the United States would not have entered the war - they would all be speaking German or Russian by now.

The Germans attacked a munitions plant in New Jersey during WW II. There is no one that can tell me that no battle in WW II was fought on American soil.

Just look at the holes they had to patch up in the statue of Liberty after the explosives plant blew up.
Just look at the forest fires that were started in the Pacific Northwest - they were started by balloons that were released from either ships or from submarines and were designed to ignite the forests of the Pacific North West.

All these things were covered up during the war to assure the American people that they were safe here and that our government was here to protect them.

We did not deport any German speaking people to detention centers as a matter of fact - we used them in our military as interpreters.

The Japanese were the real threat to the USA because they had open access to the Pacific.
The Germans had no warm water ports at the start of the war.

Someone here needs to get their facts straight.