Intrigued by the story of the traveling salesman from Nagasaki who was on the scene for both bombs. Simultaneously the unluckiest and luckiest mofo of the twentieth century.
Pault Tibbets had some interesting thoughts on the subject:
Quote
On that first mission, Tibbets saw in real-time that his bombs were falling on innocent civilians. At the time, he thought to himself, "People are getting killed down there that don't have any business getting killed. Those are not soldiers." But then he thought back to a lesson he had learned during his time at medical school from his roommate who was a doctor. This doctor explained to him about his former classmates who failed the program and ended up in drug sales. The reason why they had failed the program was because "they had too much sympathy for their patients", which "destroyed their ability to render the medical necessities". It dawned on Tibbets that:
I am just like that if I get to thinking about some innocent person getting hit on the ground. I am supposed to be a bomber pilot and destroy a target. I won't be worth anything if I do that ... I made up my mind then that the morality of dropping that bomb was not my business. I was instructed to perform a military mission to drop the bomb. That was the thing that I was going to do the best of my ability. Morality, there is no such thing in warfare. I don't care whether you are dropping atom bombs, or 100-pound bombs, or shooting a rifle. You have got to leave the moral issue out of it. -- "General Paul Tibbets - Reflections on Hiroshima"
My father was in Austria at the time, but had been reassigned from the 103rd Infantry Division to the 5th, headed to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan.
After talking 50% casualties on the Siegfried Line, the dropping of the One Big One was welcome news.
At the time the Japanese philosophy towards war and those they were at war with precluded any sympathy for civilians or anyone in their way. They considered their citizens warriors and subjects of the Emperor. We were looking at loosing more than One Million in casualties if we had to invade the mainland. Obama was wrong about the whole affair. What we did may have been brutal but it was a necessity and ended the war with less casualties on both sides. In Japan like Germany the war effort was largely housed in civilian neighborhoods for smaller items so those cities were just as viable military targets as anywhere else.
Just as an aside during the battle of Midway the Japanese pilots strafed our pilots that were shot down and the ones they picked up at sea were interrogated and then weighted down and thrown overboard to drown if they weren't beheaded. The Japanese were brutal to all the Asian citizens in countries they overran so there isn't much moral conflict for me in the whole affair.
Another thing to remember is that the firebombing of Tokyo killed more than the bomb did. Lemay pretty much proved the effectiveness of napalm in a war.
My dad was home from Europe waiting orders. Those orders were going to be a liberty ship to the pacific. The bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. Thank you Harry S. Truman.
They dropped the bombs while Dad was on a troopship headed for Okinawa. If the bombs had not been dropped successfully, Dad and the rest of his pack artillery unit was going to stage at Okinawa for the planned invasion of the mainland, due in November. At some point he heard a name, "Landau" referenced for the beach. He would have been a muleskinner trying to get mule-borne 75mm artillery up onto the high ground to shell the Japs.
In 1972, my 8th grade English teacher had us read Hiroshima, and tried to get us to understand how wrong it was to bomb the Japanese. I brought it up at dinner, and Dad got really dark. He reminded me that without those bombs, I probably wouldn't have existed. I brought that up the next day in class. It must have been a common thought, because the class quickly turned, and a good number of kids in the room had about the same story. Our fathers were mostly late-war inductees that had missed the ETO, and gone to the Pacific. That long-haired hippie teacher had a hard time selling his ideas after that.
Grandpa Whitey knew Curtis LeMay. They'd gone through OSU together in Electrical Engineering. They were frat brother. They stayed in touch through the years. I'm here to tell you: Those bombs were the best thing that ever happened to Japan. They saved those islands from General LeMay. Both Grandpa and LeMay were real Old Testament kind of guys-- big on Wrath of God and that sort of thing. LeMay, on a good night, could deliver more TNT equivalent on mainland Japan than those two bombs. We're talking 60% obliteration of the top 60% of Japanese cities. For the US, it would be like every city bigger than Omaha wiped out-- this was before the A-Bombs. LeMay was just getting started, too. If the bombs had been duds, he was still ratcheting up his bombing campaign using conventional munitions. By November, there would have nothing left but rubble. They talk about the A-Bombs being inhumane-- piffle! Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have had much worse, if they'd gotten a conventional firebombing like Tokyo.
I ran across this 15 minute video last week. It explores what might have come about had we invaded Japan as was planned before we dropped the bomb. 7mm
As one Japanese General said after the war. “If had it we would have used it......on you”
Nice thread. No stupid stories about all the airmen dying young.
Just south of where I work a HS teacher was droning on ablout how they all died young.
Kid raises his hand and says he’ll have to tell his father when he gets home that he’s dead.
A Buddy’ Brother was one of the Navigators on Bochscar. Didn’t fly the raid. But they had the reunions at his house. One man saw Trinity and the two Japanese drops. The only guy. One guy at least was on board the bomber with the goods on both runs.
I send Arnold a thank you every year on the 9th.
The Norden Bomb aight cost 1/2 what the Manhattan project cost without near the results.
As a kid back in the '50's I recall hearing my parents generation saying that Truman saved countless American lives with those two bombs. If the war had dragged on until we invaded Japan we would have lost an awful lot of troops. One of my late Uncles was a young Marine in the Pacific Theater. IIRC he got to there in early 1945 and the war was over 6 or 8 months later. If the war had dragged on longer he could very well have been one of many casualties.
As a kid back in the '50's I recall hearing my parents generation saying that Truman saved countless American lives with those two bombs. If the war had dragged on until we invaded Japan we would have lost an awful lot of troops. One of my late Uncles was a young Marine in the Pacific Theater. IIRC he got to there in early 1945 and the war was over 6 or 8 months later. If the war had dragged on longer he could very well have been one of many casualties.
I don't condemn the use of these bombs as they were at the time, but there were other reasons to use them as well as avoiding invading mainland Japan.
Nuclear leverage over the Russians and other governments was one of them. Also, there were two different nuclear type bombs used, so in fact these two cities were "test" sites.
I have no sympathy for the enemy. They attacked us first and we did what we needed to do to end the war. Far too many Americans and Allied boys died in that war.
My sympathies lie with our treatment of our own citizens, putting them in internment camps and ruining their lives for something they had nothing to do with. Many of those young men later in the war got to prove their allegiance in battle and PROVE it they did. That should never have happened under our Constitution.
As a kid back in the '50's I recall hearing my parents generation saying that Truman saved countless American lives with those two bombs. If the war had dragged on until we invaded Japan we would have lost an awful lot of troops. One of my late Uncles was a young Marine in the Pacific Theater. IIRC he got to there in early 1945 and the war was over 6 or 8 months later. If the war had dragged on longer he could very well have been one of many casualties.
The program was Secret. So the planned as if we were going to invade. As of the early 2000s we were still using the Purple Hearts they had made up then.
I don't condemn the use of these bombs as they were at the time, but there were other reasons to use them as well as avoiding invading mainland Japan.
Nuclear leverage over the Russians and other governments was one of them. Also, there were two different nuclear type bombs used, so in fact these two cities were "test" sites.
We had already tested the implosion type......Trinity.
There just wasn’t enough for Gun Assembly type for more than one shot. Hiroshima.....
We had a core for another plutonium Implosion ready. That core killed 2 people thru arrogance and stupidity