Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire August 6, 1945

If those 2 bombs hadn't done it, did we have any more in the arsenal?

My father was navy and flew blimps doing convoy escort and u-boat patrol out of NJ and later OR. He was stateside the entire war. My FIL, though, was a fighter pilot. When they dropped the bombs, he was on Okinawa training for the invasion.

My mother was a brilliant mathematician who went to college on a mathematics scholarship when she was 15, When she was 19, she was teaching college physics.

I well remember when she, my father, and my brother and I, were listening to the radio the morning that Pres. Truman made the announcement that a "new" bomb, an "atomic bomb" had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

My mother turned to my father and said, "The war is over." She knew what an "atomic bomb" would do.

Far away on a island out in the south Pacific called "Guam," my uncle, a USMC "China Marine" and combat veteran (Guadalcanal, Glouschester, New Britain, New Guinea, and Guam, two Purple Hearts) was training new Marines for the invasion of Japan.

He later told my father, his brother, that when they heard about the "atomic bomb," he and some very tough, battle hardened Marine sergeants stood around and wept.

"We knew that we were all going to die on the beaches of Japan and had come to accept it. Then, in an instant, we realized we were not going to die."

He likened the feeling to what a condemned man would feel as he was being strapped into the electric chair when suddenly a reprieve from the Governor stopped the execution.

No matter the phony angst from the left wing libs after the war about "dropping the atomic bombs" on poor "innocents," my uncle said he never met a combat vet who was sorry about "the Bomb." Same with two other uncles who were combat vets, U.S. Army.

I say, "Hooray! for Pres. Truman's decision."

L.W.

Truman was the right man at the right time and did the right thing!

I say, "Hooray! for Pres. Truman's decision."

L.W.

While this is speculative, I have always wondered had Japan not surrendered when it did, if the U.S. might have paused and let the Russians put the first "boots on the ground" on the Home Islands. (Russia officially declared war on Japan on Aug. 9, 1945.) Would have certainly changed history's course in that region. Japan would have fought them but can you imagine Stalin cutting the Red Army loose on Japan?

There were only two prototype bombs: Little Boy and Fat Man.

In an August 2002 interview with Studs Terkel published in the British Guardian newspaper, Paul Tibbetts recalled something similar: "Unknown to anybody else--I knew it, but nobody else knew--there was a third one. See, the first bomb went off and they didn't hear anything out of the Japanese for two or three days. The second bomb was dropped and again they were silent for another couple of days. Then I got a phone call from General Curtis LeMay. He said, 'You got another one of those damn things?' I said, 'Yessir.' He said, 'Where is it?' I said, 'Over in Utah.' He said, 'Get it out here. You and your crew are going to fly it.' I said, 'Yessir.' I sent word back and the crew loaded it on an airplane and we headed back to bring it right on out to Trinian and when they got it to California debarkation point, the war was over."

My Dad was a Navy Chief and deciphered this off Yokohama on August 15th, 1945. He too thought he was going to die until that bomb was dropped. I have this proudly displayed.

they started it, we finished it. Simple as that.

My Dad was a Navy Chief and deciphered this off Yokohama on August 15th, 1945. He too thought he was going to die until that bomb was dropped. I have this proudly displayed.

Very cool!

That idiot pawn shop in Vegas will probably give you like $5 bucks for that!