In July/August 1945, 'Manhattan' had completed two tasks, it had done the R & D for the 2 types of bombs, and also set up a bomb production line. They were near to certain that the 'Little Boy' was a goer with no need to test. They were less certain of 'Fat Man'. A fat man was tested at Alamogordo in NM. Even so, they looked at a demonstration and decided it was not 100% that it would succeed. A 'target list' was drawn up and Hiroshima was on top, Nagasaki was NOT #2. From memory without checking it was Nagoya (Kokura?) , but it was covered by cloud so Nagasaki got the short straw. As stated, nothing happened after Hiroshima, so the 2nd bomb was dropped. It then took another 5 days to get a response, and then only after the Emporer intervened and made the decision. The third bomb was in pieces on Tinian, and they were producing ONE a week from then on. ...and for those that think Russia had something to do with the timing. Stalin agreed at Yalta to enter the Pacific War 90 days after the surrender of Germany. This he did to the very day. Research, Richard B Frank, and 'Why Truman dropped the Bomb' OC
Expressing an opinion that differs from yours is not the same as being on a high horse, regardless of what your grandad or any other members of your family think on the matter. And what has racism got to do with the frequency of dropping bombs on civilians anyway? Anyway, seeing as you have strayed so far from the original topic and so far from the current one I will spend the rest of Valentines day in a way that involves less you and more of my wife.
i beg to differ on being off subject, it is bleeding hearts like yours that seek to demonise the hard decisions politicians had to make that have stopped tyrants such as Toto from ruling the world and opinions like yours that have contributed to people in power now not wanting to get involved when people like Mugabe take over and start killing, raping and destroying the lives of the same people (civilians) that made the world and more importantly his country a better place It is obvious that Mugabe will not stop until his family and close allies have complete power over all of Zimbabwe. Him stating that he is trying to do it for "the black people" is the same way Hitler gained power by appealing to national pride and a sense of ethnic superiority. so yes you are sitting on a high horse thinking that you can question the decisions made by great leaders that have led to us enjoying freedoms such as being able to type our opinions on a web site years later when the best you could offer as an alternative was "I probably would have let our soldiers shoot other soldiers rather than massive indiscriminate slaughter of women and children" "Well there was a war on you know" Because I assure you that had the Japanese won, there would have been "massive indiscriminate slaughter of women and children", it would have been your grandmother, mother , uncle or your father as the term ethnic cleansing is a tool of war when you are an aggressor such as Japan. Bottom line is I really hope that you are never in a position to influence government policy on dealing with Tyrants like Mugabe who only respond to one thing. Death or the fear of being eradicated not hippy like request to behave or we will dob on you to the UN. End rant
Well the fact that he attracted 98% of the black vote should be a warning to anybody who contemplated supporting him, as the black vote in America (well actually everywhere) is decidedly left wing. I don't care if you or anybody regards this as a racist statement. All that matters is that it's a TRUE statement!
First you say that. Then you said this: You cancel yourself out. If the bombs were not dropped on people, or where people would see them, who would even know amongst the population of Japan that this is what they were facing. Have you heard of Operation Overlord? The American plan to invade Japan conventionally. Estimates in the planning phase of US casualties were up to 4 million casualties. That includes 1 million US fatalities. Think about that. 1 million invasion soldiers. The Japanese military government planned to arm the populace with knives and rifles and attack the Americans. The casualty rate of the Japanese was unable to be calculated. Yet that is what it was going to take to end the war. The dropping of 2 atomic bombs was a small price to pay. EDIT This prompted me to do an online search to refresh what I know on Op Overlord. Found this straight away on Wikipedia. It is telling:
AS, Sorry, but it was 'Operation Downfall', and the first part was code-named 'Olympic and the second was 'Coronet'. In my personal opinion, 'Olympic' would have been a disastrous failure. Research 'Operation Ketsu-Go' to find out why. You will be amazed. It was the projected casualties of 'Downfall', together with the costs of Iwo Jima, 6000 dead, and Okinawa, 12,000 dead, that was the REAL reason for the two bombs. OC
Thanks I stand corrected on the operation name. Every time I think of the estimated casualties though, horrendous. I read recently that the last Japanese soldier on Iwo Jima held out in the volcanic caves and constructed tunnels and only surrendered in 1951. That's how fanatical they were. Plausible but I wonder if 1951 is true?
